Garnet caught her hand. "Chrys, it's been so long." His eyes twinkled. "You never check your investments. I could be bribing you again."
She shrugged. "The least of my sins."
He leaned closer to whisper. "Where the devil is Carnelian? Put off by us?"
Chrys sighed.
"He's been a Hyalite client for years. I'll have a word with him."
There was Andra, reclining beside a redwood tree. Chrys had to wait to catch her alone. "How is Daeren?"
Andra thought a moment. "Medically, he's making progress. But his mind—" She hesitated. "He's not trying."
"It's only been two days."
"Too long, for his people. Too many generations of anguish."
"Why isn't he trying, Andra?"
Andra looked as if she had much more to say, but would not. "We'll see."
Suddenly tired, Chrys sank into a seat, refusing the delicacies from the caryatid. Jasper sat next to her and touched her hand. Dismayed, she remembered that Jasper did not yet know that her people couldn't handle Silicon. "Are you sure you won't try the lamb berries?" Jasper asked. "They're new from L'li."
"I'm not hungry." Reluctantly, she passed him the transfer patch.
Jasper puffed on his pipe, his short thumb tapping restlessly at the stem. "We're waiting to hear," he reminded her. "Anything I can do?"
She took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, Jasper. We can't do the job."
He nodded. "I understand. I'll come back with a better offer."
"No, I mean it." She struggled to explain. "The Eleutherians say they can't do it. They'd need a computer too big to fit inside my head."
Jasper's expression did not change. "We knew that."
"You did?"
"We were aware of the theoretical problem. But since it didn't come up in negotiations, I hoped they had it solved."
She grimaced at this optimism. "They haven't."
He set the pipe down. "Well, as I said, we'll come back with a better offer. After all, the job will take longer.
Chrys was astonished. "A better offer—for a job we can't do?"
"Chrys, this project is unprecedented. Elysium hasn't built a new city in over twelve centuries. And now, a dynamic form, to grow of nanoplast. Entirely new technologies will be needed. The sentient engineers, too, have several fundamental problems unsolved."
"But—but it's sheer lunacy."
"Do you suppose the builders of the first Pyramid knew exactly how they'd complete it?"
"But what if we fail?"
"You'll succeed," Jasper assured her. "The math problem, they will solve. They'll fail in other ways. Who knows—maybe Silicon won't be finished in your lifetime, or perhaps never, like the ancient temple of Asragh, forever missing its tallest spire. Even if it does reach completion, someone will want to kill you, for one good reason or another."
"Selenite will," she added ruefully.
"That's why Selenite never gets these jobs herself. But you'll handle it. How long since you've walked on lava?"
She swallowed, thinking, I'm getting too old for lava.
The next day Opal called. "Selenite's at the hospital. Her people got in trouble."
Chrys stared. "Not the minions?"
Opal hesitated. "I think the blue angels emboldened them. They'd never seen people so totally unafraid, even when forced to live at her mercy."
At the hospital Chrys held Selenite's hand. Selenite's face was creased, and she blinked more rapidly than usual. Chrys made herself smile. "Can I help? Send over a few 'libertines' to lecture them?"
"They took their own lives," Selenite whispered. "Twenty of them. Protesting one execution." She struggled to raise herself in bed. "The blue angels inspired them."
"Well, now," said Opal, seated by the bed. "Blue angels never hurt themselves."
"But they encourage disobedience. Chrys, I was wrong," Selenite added. "The blue angels are not safe—they're the most dangerous strain we have."
Opal's eyes met Chrys's for a long while.
"One True God, let the wizards visit," flashed Fireweed. "We've founded a new school of mathematics."
"Could you take half her caseload?" Opal asked at last. "I know it's hard, with your show coming up."
"I'll manage." In fact, Chrys had painted nothing since Endless Light. She wondered if she could ever paint again.
The message light; Andra appeared. "Chrys, Sar and I have to leave town for three days, on personal business. Could you stay over here and look after Daeren? The house has the full medical capacity of the clinic, but in case his people need help, we need a human carrier."
TWENTY-TWO
The defectors from Endless Light had brought with them their unique branch of calculus, from the masters' best minds drawn together in the one intellectual pursuit permitted by the Leader of Endless Light. Now in Eleutheria, they founded a new school of mathematics, a constructive theory of numbers bridging the infinite to the infinitesimal. Their algorithms vastly simplified the creation of the very large from the very small.
"Even the wizards come here to study," flashed Fireweed.
"Working together," predicted Forget-me-not, "we'll soon have what we need to build Silicon."
"Perhaps," said Fireweed. "But I'll never see the building completed. Not within my lifetime."
"Nor mine," agreed Forget-me-not. "But we've shaped the design, the promise of things to come. What could be greater?"
Fireweed extended her filaments, tasting the molecules of excitement from the mathematicians. "As I age, I think over and over again of the God's commandment: Love me, love my people. Something tells me we have more work to be done, beyond Silicon."
"We saved the blue angels," said Forget-me-not. "The deed shines in our history like a golden light."
"But where are the blue angels now?"
"I fear for them, and for us all," the blue one admitted. "There is trouble in the world of the gods, trouble greater than our own."
The snake-eggs picked on Chrys, buzzing so thick she could barely find Andra's address.
"How did you get out alive from the Slave World?"
"Do the slaves pay you to paint their propaganda? Why are you spreading the brain plague?"
"Can you confirm reports that you are secretly a vampire?"
Her best defense, she had found, was silence. But one pesky reporter got tangled in her hair like a fly. She tossed it out, annoyed at losing a few precious strands. "If you won't comment," it warned, "other sources will."
Andra's home was faced in brick, at first glance monotone, but in fact each brick had its own subtle shade. There was no obvious door, but as Chrys watched, two camouflaged octopods slowly shaped themselves out of the brick. The snake-eggs vanished.
"We inform you," said an octopod, "as a matter of courtesy, that this facility is fully secured. No one gains entry or leaves, save by our consent."
"And no one makes trouble within," added the other.
"Over the years we've foiled explosives, poisons, information viruses, even exotic animals," the first added wearily. "Make our day. Try something new."
Chrys frowned. "I'm expected."
"Very well." The disappointed octopods faded back into the brick, which parted to form a doorway.
Inside stood a man she did not know. Not a man; a humanoid sentient, his form too perfect even for Plan Ten. His eyes and nose were of classic proportions; his gray talar flowed majestically from shoulders to feet, his chest bearing a single white stone. "Chrysoberyl."
The voice was Doctor Sartorius. His tone had softened, the voice he had used the night she rescued Daeren. Chrys felt herself flush all the way from her face to her toes.