The serpent huffs and sniffs hard enough that I am pressed flat to the
path. But at last it sniffs off down
toward the edge of the earth, at least the edge of the earth that has been
transformed. At least Prime .3 has kept
up the terraforming.
If he or she hadn't, I would have been forced to come out
of hiding and tried to face the modern might and strength of Prime. We, as a diminished, illiterate mob, with
ancient, badly written original programs, now breaking down and rewritten
patches by zardukar who believe they are doing magic for the Light... I shudder to think what would happen.
Primus Lux, Secundus Nox, so Primus thinks, Tertius Nox.
With Primus surviving and finding out we are still here, still Lux instead of Nox?
It surely would be a short fight. A tiny fight. Prime would erase us like a housewife scraping toxic crust off her filter curtains.
I suppose Prime does want the whole planet made over in the likeness of
home, someday, anyway. Though how they
intend to keep the water they are so diligently hurling down off the moon
actually ON the planet long term I cannot imagine.
I’m distracting myself, as I lie very still. The serpents are only phase one of the
seeking, cleaning programs. I pull a
flap of my protective, imagined robe up over my imagined head, press down into
what I see as cool earth.
The cleansing flames roar over my shield, close enough to the ground
that it heats in my hands. But I know to hold still and hold my breath, though
I truly don’t need to breathe here.
Through a fold of robe and a hole in my shield I see one of the
serpents breathing flames hex by hex over the area guarded by that laser trip
line.
Sweat runs down my face. I cannot
stay here too much longer. I can feel,
back in my body, I need water. I need
rest. But Lainz needs these programs. I lie still.
The flames die down, leaving only Prime’s landscape uncleansed, me
crouched under my ancient old shield like a tortoise under my shell. Ha.
That's a good image. Perhaps I
shall be able to reprogram my access to make me a tortoise next time.
Things cool. I stir and then
still. Nothing. I imagine I lie in the
shadow of some tree that I don’t know the name of. Some tree from home. Dense leaves.
Dense foliage, thick dark shade.
There. Things cool down very quickly. I rise.
Then I retreat to the edges of the garden, slide out my door and
bolt it behind me.
I was just beginning
to show my little Tyr how to come down here safely. I was teaching him that it wasn’t magic or
mandery, just programming. But he is now
playing in the eternal Light and the unending Dark. Lux and Nox bless you, great grandson.
Diryish opened his eyes, holding
the satchel of new program copies and patches in his mind, daubed the drop of
blood off his finger, still oozing from when he’d gone in. Each scrap of bloody lint, with its new codes, was
seized by the Hive and carried off to be copied and re-copied and spread to all
the zardukar’s work stations.
Then he laid his head down on the
desk, feeling the cool firmness of the stone under his overheated cheek,
looking at his own knobby old hands flat on the surface. “I’m tired,” he said to no one but the bees,
and was asleep before he could draw another breath.
**
He only dozed a moment or
two, from years of diligent training. “Mariush!”
He pushed himself up to sitting, calling, the bees unlocking his door for her.
She came in, holding her tray
before her, already beaming. “You did
it, Radiance! Look, look!”
Her tray was a diagram made of
mordant ants. “I’ve not been able to make them secrete the waterproof ink until
now!” The spreading black stain on the white glass tray was far from
random. Some ants were already building
with the wax from the bees. Stamps were
being formed, with microchannels filled with ink from the specialized ink
makers, their abdomens already distended, the other ants milking the viscous
black fluid out of them. Other ants were beginning to pick up the ink makers
and tend them like larvae.
“We will be able to make
inexpensive writing instruments, and printing blocks and –“
“—yes, my dear. You should have the key to make your ants
produce almost any kind of ink now. You
will be able to etch circuits as well as print paper.” His smile was wide, but his cheeks were
hollow.
“Have you had anything to drink,
Radiance, after your hard work? Any
restorative?”
Diryish waved a dismissive
hand. “In a minute. I need to get word on whether Fahm’s little sublimating
bees have managed to learn from what I found.”
“You really didn’t need to find
that patch, Radiance. We get enough
iodine for our population.”
“Through a slow, labour intensive,
dangerous process. It is expensive in lives and injury as well as money.” Down the hall, a whoop of joy and the sound
of feet running to Diryish’s open door. “It
seems we have another success...”
Fahm fairly leapt into the room,
drew up short to not disturb Mariush’s seething tray, that she quickly set down
out of harm’s way. He was dancing in
place. “IT WORKED, IT WORKED IT FINALLY DID WHAT IT WAS SUPPOSED TO, IT...” he
locked his hands in front of his face in the minor salaam. “Radiance, Luminous One, it worked.”
Diryish smiled. “You youngsters need to stop venerating me
like that. You work just as hard as I do.
Secundus Lux never set out to set up a religious/political system.” He set his hands on his desk and rose, slowly. “I do need to go rest now. Your two projects were the most important
ones. The others, I can hear later if
the patches worked or not. Go on...”
Fahm and Mariush were barely in time, lunging with hands outstretched to catch
him as Diryish went white and collapsed.
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