“Very well,” said Raincloud. “What should I say about the nano-sentients?”
“We promise them safety, and a meeting with the Secretary.” The leaders were no longer a threat, their raft surrounded and their communications cut off. “As for the witnessers in whitetrance…You were right: I will need your daughter’s help again.”
Raincloud thought this over. “Hawktalon is no longer young enough, I think, to rouse a witnesser safely from whitetrance. She is too grown-up. And my youngest daughter is too little to cooperate.”
“I see.” This was an unexpected problem. All the shonlings of Helicon had been sent off to Papilion, thousands of kilometers away.
“There’s always Sunflower.”
THE SECRETARY OF THE FREE FOLD ARRIVED AT LAST. Verid received her in Hyen’s former office. She was a L’liite, as dark as Raincloud and several centimeters taller. Her tight curls of hair, gray as Kal’s, were cropped close to her head, and her wrinkles suggested advanced age, a sight to unnerve any Elysian. But Verid knew better than to underestimate her.
“I understand there’s been a change of government here.” The Secretary regarded Verid coldly. “As you know, it’s my job to monitor democratic processes in the worlds of the Free Fold.”
“Of course, Secretary. I am only a short-term replacement, approved by the Guard,” Verid assured her. “We hold new elections in eight months.”
“Elections so soon? With no sign of campaigns or media attention?”
“Elysians consider public campaigning a sign of bad taste,” Verid explained. “After all, everybody knows everybody else as well as they care to. The most unobtrusive candidate generally wins.” Since the Secretary rarely remained in office longer than one Elysian rotation, their customs had to be explained again at each election. “I hope you appreciate the difficulty of our present crisis; we are doing the best we can. You must speak to the nano-sentients.”
“’Nano-sentients.’” The Secretary repeated the word in a tone that emphasized her doubts. “I just spent a year trying to sort out half a dozen factions on Solaria, all of whom used the oppression of various groups as the excuse to slaughter others. And you, an unelected official, tell me that your machines have revolted? Machines can be trained to do anything.”
“That’s just the problem. Remember Torr.”
“I don’t remember Torr. I live in the present. What you speak of is unprecedented in our time.”
Verid grew tense; this would be harder than she had expected, but she should have known. “You must speak with them,” she insisted. “Judge for yourself.”
“I will do so. I will run our full battery of tests for sentience. Don’t expect me to be fooled.”
A BRISK WIND BLEW SHRILL ACROSS THE LITTLE RAFT where the nano-sentients had made their last stand. The sun shone and the air was fresh. The Guard members had arrived with the Secretary, and there was a delegation of Sharers from several neighboring rafts. But before the conference began, Verid decided, the two witnessers had to be wakened, to avoid any chance of a mishap.
The little boy was there with his parents, clinging to Blackbear’s shoulder, his thumb in his mouth and Wolfcub gripped in his fist.
“I think he’ll do it,” Blackbear said encouragingly. “We’ve explained what he has to do.”
Verid nodded and led them down into the Control Center. The globe of the transit control unit pulsated faintly; the other nano-sentients remained out of sight. Leresha and Kal sat as they had for the past three days, with cups of water beside them, brought by the lifeshapers.
Blackbear tried to set Sunflower down, but of course the child was reluctant in such strange surroundings. His father whispered to him, afraid to risk speaking aloud. “Come, Sunny, you know the nice man we visit in the garden. Just go up to him and say hello.”
Sunflower shook his head vigorously. This went on for some minutes, and Verid was beginning to think they would have to fetch a Sharer child who was used to such events.
Then suddenly Sunflower looked up, and his eyes widened as if he had just thought of something. He tiptoed over to Kal and stopped in front of him. “Teddy bear?” he said. “I need my teddy bear.” Then, since there was no immediate response, the child repeated more loudly, “I need my teddy bear now.”
Sure enough, the color seeped gradually back into Kal’s face, and more dramatically, the purple began to flow into Leresha’s torso, her legs, and her arms. Blackbear hurried over to fetch Sunflower, and Verid sighed with relief. As Kal regained consciousness, she explained, “The Secretary is here to talk with the nano-sentients.”
Kal took this in, nodding slowly. He said in a hoarse voice, “I’ll go and tell Cassi.”
“That’s all right,” Leresha told him, “you’ve done enough. You need to recover; you’re not used to it. I’ll tell Cassi; you can go home and fetch the child his teddy bear.”
Outside again, Verid blinked in the sun, and the wind pulled at her talar. The Secretary of the Fold waited there, her height standing out amidst the Elysians. At last the former nana came out to meet her, her white talar fluttering in the wind. Her cartoon face wore a wide smile, the kind of smile that until recently would only have been known to shonlings, but was now chillingly familiar upon the holostage.
“Good day, Secretary,” Cassi said without waiting for introductions. “Excuse me, but I must ask you a question or two. Are you quite sure you’re human? Can you prove it to me? What machines made and synthesized your food today? What nanoservos swim in your bloodstream to eliminate deadly pathogens and precancerous cells? Which of your organs have been regrown by intelligent molecules? What synthetic neurons enhance your brain, learn the twenty languages you speak, calculate the economics of the worlds you visit, modulate your moods for diplomacy, do your thinking for you, and perhaps, your feeling too?”
The Secretary drew herself up, her eyes wide and her lips pursed together. She shot a glance at Verid, who was supposed to introduce them.
“Cassi Deathsister of the Council of Nano-Sentients, Drusilla El’il’in, the Honorable Secretary of the Free Fold,” murmured Verid.
“My pleasure,” said the Secretary, inclining her head slightly. “If you will please join me on my ship, Deathsister, we have much to discuss.”
Chapter 8
THE IMMEDIATE CRISIS WAS OVER, AND HELICONIANS started returning to their city, while the Guard and the council of the Fold strove to grapple with a new order in which their own servos claimed the rights of human beings. The Windclans, however, chose to set up house on Kshiri-el, rather than return to Helicon. The children loved to have space to roam, and the starry expanse of night held their parents in thrall.
Of course, Blackbear was anxious to get back to Science Park. He doubted that any of his experiments could be salvaged, but still, he would see what shape the lab was in and do his best to help out.
To his surprise, Tulle and Alin had not left the city with most of the others, but had stayed on the whole time at the laboratory.
“Someone had to keep the lab running.” Tulle’s flat blond hair hung immaculately as always, and the metalmarks flashed brightly on her talar. The capuchin scampered down her side as usual and nibbled at Blackbear’s trousers, much to Sunflower’s delight. “Our students all escaped. Draeg was so terrified by the ‘mad servos,’ he shipped back to L’li. So I had to stay on.”
“But weren’t you scared too?” Blackbear exclaimed. “The servos—the nano-sentients made all sorts of threats. You’re lucky this sector wasn’t damaged.”
“The lab is my lifework,” she told him. “I could have lost a decade’s worth of data.”
Alin stood beside her, his arm just touching her talar, his own green-brown leafwings a quiet contrast to the design of hers. “I could hardly leave Tulle, could I,” he said. “Someone had to make sure she remembered to eat and sleep.”
“I was desperate at first,” she admitted. “I didn’t see how I could keep up all the protocols on my own. But you kn
ow, the strangest thing happened. The equipment, the servos—they kept everything running on their own. They made decisions, chose which embryos to keep and which to terminate, started new cultures. It was quite extraordinary,” she told Blackbear. “I suspect the main lab controller has gone nano-sentient. I didn’t let on, of course, lest the Nucleus might order it cleansed.”
Alin winced as if in pain. “Tulle, you don’t know what you’re saying. We should notify Public Safety right away.”
“I don’t know about that.” She paused reflectively. “Some of these servos might make good students.”
Blackbear laughed. “Even better than human students! They never need sleep, and don’t take lunch breaks. They never quarrel.” With a touch of sadness he recalled how Draeg and Onyx had welcomed Sunflower.
“Servos don’t draw paychecks either,” Tulle added mischievously.
Alin raised a hand. “Just you wait. Haven’t you heard some of the measures Verid’s proposed to ‘integrate’ these so-called nano-sentients? What’s to keep them from replacing you, too?”
Tulle shrugged. “I’ll face the competition; I always have.”
“It’s an outrage; it will be the death of our civilization. It’s all that Kal’s fault, too, stirring up the servos to make mischief.”
“Well,” said Blackbear, “Raincloud would admire you both for staying on here, despite your millennial lifetimes ahead.”
The two of them looked at him oddly. “What for?” demanded Alin. “What difference does that make?”
“Alin’s right,” Tulle told him. “A thousand years of health, then how many centuries up ‘there,’ in a satellite ward like the one you visited.”
“No thanks,” Alin agreed. “Better to live for today.”
“I suppose we see things differently than other Elysians do,” Tulle added, “because of my work. We face the fact daily; we know what’s really in store for us.”
Blackbear had nothing to say. He recalled what Alin had said long ago, that even ten thousand years would be just a speck of time.
“Toybox, Daddy,” insisted Sunflower, and Blackbear let him tiptoe off. Then he went to the simbrid facility to see how his embryos had turned out. The capuchin followed him, its black tail coiled into a spiral, pausing now and then to check out a particularly interesting corner of the hallway.
The monitor told him that the one Eyeless mutant embryo which developed normally had been terminated at the fourth month. The facility had subjected it to a full battery of biochemical tests, dissecting every organ for any signs of abnormality. None significant were found. If enough simbrids tested clean, the shon might well start including this Eyeless variant in its gene pool.
“Not bad, my friend,” he told the capuchin, who had managed to pluck a thread out of his trouser leg. He called up on the holostage the recording of the embryo’s last month of development, and its pathology tests, to review for himself. “Don’t let on, but I suspect your goddess is right about that laboratory controller. We humans will have some competition.” He gave the capuchin a sharp look. “Say, why don’t you speak up one of these days? Who knows; you could be human too. That’s all it seems to take.” The words I am could turn anything into a human being.
That afternoon he took Sunflower out to the anaean garden again. The spooky yellow-green leafwings fluttered as always, their caterpillars munching voraciously. Blackbear looked about for Kal, and found him at last, not in white, but wearing his camouflage of leafwings. “Say, you’re not hiding from me again, are you?” he asked, tugging Kal’s sleeve.
“Not at all.” Kal spoke lightly, and he seemed in high spirits, quite recovered from his ordeal at sea. “My ocean friends have reminded me of a few things. I’ve been thinking, at my age it’s time to relax a bit.”
“I see,” said Blackbear with a smile. “You have friends among the Sharers, don’t you. Raincloud says that’s uncommon, for Elysians.”
“Well if I’m typical, it’s no wonder the Sharers don’t put up with us. What would you say to a friend who deserted you for two centuries?”
Blackbear had to admit he had never thought of that. “So Elysians make bad friends, is that it?”
“We try our best. But Sharers, you know—and foreigners generally—have a way of turning up, then departing again so soon. After they’ve gone, one feels lost.”
This point Blackbear took personally. “I won’t be leaving so soon. We’ll be here another month at least; maybe Raincloud will stay on another year.” The last was wishful thinking, he had to admit.
Kal did not answer immediately. He did not meet Blackbear’s eyes but looked to the butterflies circling a nearby branch. Then it came to Blackbear, what the Elysian had really meant about foreigners. What would it be like for himself to live among people all doomed to wither and die within, say, five years? No wonder most Elysians kept to themselves, within their cities.
“You’re right,” Kal said at last, his voice barely audible. “You won’t leave me at all. You will follow me wherever I go, so long as I shall live.”
Blackbear swallowed and said nothing.
Then Kal looked up, his face bright once more. “I have some news for you. I’ve taken a mate again; a human,” he reassured him.
“Really! Congratulations,” Blackbear said, surprised and vaguely jealous.
“His name is Aerend Anaeashon. We met while visiting the Palace of Health, the same one where you interviewed patients. Aerend’s original mate declined into dementia over the last century. The man no longer recognizes either of us, but we still visit him every week.”
“I see. I’m sure you have other things in common.”
“Yes, unfortunately,” Kal sighed, “another house full of books, for one thing. I don’t know where we’ll put them all.”
“Well, Raincloud will be disappointed. She said you would make a good second consort.”
Kal laughed. “Too bad she didn’t ask sooner! Blackbear, I have a favor to ask of you. I promised Leresha I’d go out to Kshiri-el again, to see her sisters. But I can’t take Aerend,” he said with a shudder. “And I can’t go alone either.”
“Of course,” said Blackbear, “anytime.”
RAINCLOUD SAT WITH VERID IN HER NEW OFFICE. NOW the Prime Guardian, Verid looked owlish as ever, with her thick dark eyebrows, her short neck, and her hunched shoulders.
Two weeks ago Raincloud had been on the point of quitting and taking her family home. Since then, the whirl of meetings with Sharers and nano-sentients had absorbed her completely. But now it was time to pick up her life again and do what had to be done. Elysium was still Elysium, after all; shaken to the core, perhaps, but it was not her home to care for.
“How is your family?” Verid asked. “Iras misses you badly. She says that you’re all welcome to move into her estate in Papilion, if you don’t trust Helicon.”
Raincloud was still unspeaking Iras, although her anger had cooled. “How are the negotiations?” They would buy off the nano-sentients, just like the Urulites.
“The Secretary has agreed to recommend acknowledgement of the nano-sentients,” Verid told her. “It had to be done, but it’s going to turn our society upside down.”
Hawktalon was at the Nucleus today, helping the analysts learn servo-squeak. But that was the easy part. What was to be done with all the servos that could talk?
“Where shall we draw the line?” Verid continued. “The nanas are all sentient, of course, and some of the trainsweeps—not all, the analysts assure me—and how about any old lump of nanoplast? A chunk the size of your fist holds ten times the neural connections of your brain.”
Raincloud shuddered. She was glad it was not her problem. “Maybe you should give up on servos. Plenty of foreigners could use the work.”
Verid laughed. “That’s what Valedon is afraid of; their industry will collapse. In fact, we’ve just hired a dozen young ‘nanas’ from L’li.”
“Great,” said Raincloud. “A ‘multicultural experience
’ for your shonlings.”
“Exactly,” Verid agreed without irony. “Raincloud, you’ve been of inestimable help to us, with the Sharers and with your little nano-sentient friend. What are your plans for the future?”
“I’ve booked passage for my family at the end of the month.”
Verid nodded. “I’m sure your ‘clan’ will be happy to see you again. But you know, we still have much need of your services here. If you make it a return trip, I’ll pick up the cost.”
The thought of return sparked an unexpected longing—not for Elysium itself, but for Shora. The Sharers had crept into her life imperceptibly, filling needs she had not put a name to before. The children loved the ocean, and the raft. Blueskywind was back on Kshiri-el today, “sharing care” of Yshri’s daughter Morilla, who longed for the baby sister she would never have. The Windclans had built an addition onto Yshri’s silkhouse. They felt more at home on Kshiri-el than they ever had in Elysium.
But to abandon her clan again, perhaps forever, was an abyss. Raincloud shook her head slowly, thinking, she should run out of the office this minute.
“It’s up to you,” Verid assured her. “I’ve contacted the travel office, in case you change the ticket. Incidentally, are you aware that the physical enhancements you began for the Urulan trip can be continued? You could be as fit as Iras for, say, the next fifty years.”
Her face burned, and she gripped the chair. She could not say no; and she would not say yes. Damn these Elysians, she thought, they will buy me off, too.
Chapter 9
THE SHUTTLECRAFT DESCENDED TOWARD THE WATER, where occasional greenish brown dots of raft seedlings bobbed on the waves. Soon the seedlings would crowd the ocean again, just as on the first day that the Windclans had arrived at Helicon.
Blackbear thought of this as he watched the late afternoon sun toss its sparkles across the ocean. Then he turned to Kal, who sat next to him wearing his talar of leafwings. Kal did not speak much; he seemed absorbed by an inner struggle to keep his balance. Blackbear touched his arm to reassure him.
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