"Give us a sign," urged Forget-me-not. "A sign that you care."
Chrys wondered, what would she do if her own cousins faced capture? "Warn them."
"Exactly!" said Forget-me-not.
Fireweed added, "If it can be done safely." The lava had learned common sense.
What harm could come of warning a slave? The destruction of Endless Light would not stop the plague; if anything, it might turn more into vampires. Either way, the brain plague would not ebb until someone faced its most virulent source—Eris, the Elf tester, the false god. How could the Hunter be so blind? But then, what would Chrys have done if the source were her own brother?
The morning was the safest time in the Underworld. Anyone out for mischief was sleeping it off. The Gold of Asragh, though open around the clock, was nearly empty by dawn. A simian girl in red lay splayed by the door, her skirt torn; Chrys tossed her a credit chip to find when she woke.
Inside, the slave bar was empty. "Jay?" Chrys called, then again louder.
A slave came out, bedraggled hair, back hunched, her face the greenish tint of a hospital wall. No more Jay. "None left," Jay's replacement gasped. "Supply's dried up." Then she caught a flash from Chrys's eye. Straightening, she lunged for her wrist. "Ace," the slave hissed. "You . . . full of ace."
Chrys yanked her wrist free. Out of nowhere, it seemed, there were two more slave workers, more desperate for ace than usual.
Chrys backed into the doorway, making sure it stayed open. "No," she spoke clearly. "No arsenic. I came to warn you."
The three slaves stared with their maggot-ringed eyes.
"The Hunter has discovered Endless Light," Chrys announced. "Your world will die."
The maggot eyes kept staring. From outside a bell chimed, an early street vendor just opening shop.
"We know," hissed one worker. "We know," echoed the other.
The woman with bedraggled hair said, "That's why our supply's dried up. Endless Light find a new home. We need new supply."
Chrys's heart pounded till her ears heard nothing more. "Fireweed, how did they know? Who else could have told them?"
"They say the blue angels told them."
Daeren. The blue angels must have got to him.
Chrys felt more at peace with herself than any time since before she first heard from Saf. She had made things right with her people, and she figured Daeren had too. Meanwhile, with black-market arsenic down, the brain plague dropped slightly; fewer calls from the street. And among the carriers, their people spread the word of the true horror of Endless Light. No longer could any civilized micro be tempted by the masters' claims.
Jasper produced a draft contract for Silicon. The document looked as if it would take her a year just to read. Chrys knew she could no longer put off facing Selenite.
The two women met at the cafe at the top of the Comb. Opal was discreetly absent, and Rose gone forever. Haltingly, Chrys explained the project.
"So," Selenite said at last, twirling a black curl pensively between her fingers, "you couldn't manage the project yourself."
Chrys sighed. "None of this was my idea—yet everyone insists only I can do it. I just want it to get done right."
"Can I help it if you can't rule your own people?"
"Can I help it if yours are just mitochondria?"
Selenite nodded. "That's right, that's what yours call mine. How do you think the minions feel, getting looked down on all the time, and called names, just because they keep out of trouble and don't get sick in nightclubs?"
Chrys thought this over. "I'll teach mine better manners." A dubious prospect. Eleutherians might be good at math, but tact was beyond them.
"It's always the same." Selenite leaned back, her hand catching the back of her seat as she looked out the window. A distant star-ship gleamed far above, coming in from Elysium. "Always some big ego to build the damn thing, then call me in to fix the mess."
Chrys gripped the table. "At least you're not marked for murder."
That got her. Selenite's lashes fluttered, and her irises flashed red. "You're right," she said. "That must be a strain."
"Well, if you'd like to share the strain, here's your chance. I told Jasper we'd split the deal, fifty-fifty." Adding, to Fireweed, "Tell the minions they're welcome—and mean it. hove God, love the minions too."
Selenite's flashing eyes returned Chrys's stare as she considered what must be the biggest job of her career. "For once," she concluded, "I might as well start on the ground floor."
Afterward, as the lightcraft swooped upward, Chrys looked out upon the immensity of the Comb slipping away beneath her feet, the great edifice whose fate she helped shape. A sense of power surged through her; she could do it, she herself could make her mark in the world.
Her people, though, seemed uncharacteristically dark. "Fireweed? Forget-me-not?"
"I am here, One True God."
Chrys took an AZ wafer. "We are ready to sign the contract. Are you not pleased?"
"It's time for the Light of Truth. We are not ready."
"Not ready?" Were they still upset about working with the minions of the Deathlord?
"The Silicon project is too large."
"I'll order another memory upgrade from Plan Ten," Chrys offered.
"There's no room," explained Forget-me-not. "All the computing power needed would not fit inside your skull. Either our processors must shrink to subatomic levels, or we need a breakthrough in mathematical theory."
"We've been working on it for many generations," flickered Fireweed. "We always assumed one breakthrough or another would come through in time. But not yet."
Stunned, Chrys stared without seeing. After all her worries, all the persuading and soul-searching, after meeting the Silicon Board, after shamefully waiting for Rose to die, after finally getting Selenite back—now her own people could not do the job. She buried her head in her hands.
For the next few days Chrys tried to thrust it from her mind, the whole cursed sentient project. Her first trip to Gallery Elysium was coming up, to preview the arrangement of her exhibition. She painted day and night.
"Chrysoberyl." Xenon's voice startled her one morning. "You might check the news."
The deserted world, "Bird Song," had been hit. The Elves had pumped energy from a white hole into the planet to boil and sterilize. Standard stage one of terraforming, just as Valedon and even Bird Song itself had been terraformed, ages before. No more birds left—now there would be nothing, not even a microbe.
The snake-eggs had obtained footage from Chrys's abduction to Endless Light, showing the dying slaves. Leaked from "a highly placed source in Elysian intelligence"—that must be Arion. Even urbane Iridians were shocked to see. The Slave World was no paradise.
Oddly enough, no reports mentioned Chrys herself. Daeren was named the agent who obtained the intelligence. Daeren's image played over and over, implying that he himself had gone to the Slave World and told Arion what to destroy. Chrys shook her head. Until she herself became the frequent subject of news, she never realized how often snake-eggs got things wrong.
"We tried," she assured her people. "We did what we could."
"We did," agreed Fireweed. "Our cousins had time to escape."
"But their lies will fool us no more," said Forget-me-not. "Never again."