|
"And the wind came from the desert, and on it I heard the voice of my heart. But when I turned to my companions and said 'do you hear' they turned from me and said 'there is no voice'. And, having heard them, I could hear it no more." the Illuminated Aja Nemani, AS 2319 |
2780.065 - 071 New Light |
Back at the ship, Sharra, Jim, Katya, Mirris, and Dr. Kye get briefed about the problem, and pile into a rented van and start heading that way. Ruehan gives Donella a dose of Yellow, but notes that she seems to have been sedated twice, once by the party and once before that (probably why she could be carried around unconscious). The news mentions a massive police manhunt, but the reporters haven't been able to clear up who is being sought.
People pester Sharra to call her dad, but she drags her feet - he needs his sleep! In the end, she is prevailed upon ("We want a Cabinet minister who is on our side...") to call her mom, and then briefs both of her parents.
"Sharra... where is the Hegemon?" (stern)Minister Wade badgers Sharra into coming and picking him up, though the nurse quite disapproves, and the van heads for Stately Amon Manor. The van is stopped at a police checkpoint, but Minister Wade's ID is sufficient to get them through without a problem.
"My friends would really like to not be arrested... please...?"
"We can worry about that once we've gotten her back..."
"This isn't a secure phone call, I've probably said more than I should..."
Meanwhile, Ruehan briefs everyone who wasn't in the ritual about how it worked out, and that it was successful. "Mostly," adds Maury.
The van finally arrives at the Amon mansion. There are guards outside, who want to know who they are and what they're doing here. Jim, driving, says he's Jim Powell. The guards are baffled by why the Sparky Cola guy is here, and try to tell him to come back later. Minister Wade introduces himself too, and on the inside, Ruehan tells Blake to let them in.
There is much briefing in which the kidnapping and the unbrainwashing get explained. Donella is given a second dose of Yellow, on the theory that an unbrainwashed Hegemon ("Mostly...") will support them. One of Blake's guys reports to him that the building is being surrounded by the police and military. Well, that does put a deadline on getting her up. Happily, Jim has some Alertness, which in conjunction with the two doses of Yellow, does wake her up.
Another briefing, for Donella. She does remember most of it, though she's definitely confused on what happened when she was on the Well being rescued/kidnapped (wasn't she dead?). Now that she's unbrainwashed ("Mostly...") she is, in fact, not unhappy about having been rescued. She's still in her hospital pajamas, though - happily, Blake has a properly Hegemonic blue gown, in just her size.
She heads for the front door - a couple of people try to talk her into letting them go out first, but she figures she's less likely to be shot by the police than they are. She heads out and tells the police to stand down; they do in fact prove unwilling to shoot the Hegemon. They're here to rescue her! No, she is here visiting her friends; she thanks them for their concern but there's no need for such a fuss. Minister Deroche and Michael show up and get to come in too; they're both explained to about the unbrainwashing ("Mostly..."). It looks like Gabriel is going to be in trouble with Michael, but Michael's in trouble with Donella and Gabriel's in good with her, so it may work out.
Everyone gets the opportunity for a brief chat with Donella. Ruehan explains about the remaining psych lim, though since, he admits, the Blue Hegemony is culturally superior to the Red Hegemony, it's not an unreasonable one. Sharra tells Donella a little bit about Vance's adventure when she was originally kidnapped, and that he was very upset over it. Donella knows that Vance is now out in the Blue fleet, and is proud of him, even if she wishes he were here.
Katya is introduced, though Donella is somewhat puzzled by the introduction, which she expects to lead to a conversation, but then Katya doesn't say anything. Jim asks for the chance to have a chat later about the conditions on the Well, and Kye asks for the chance to have a chat later about her parents and grandparents.
Eventually, Donella heads off to confer with her Cabinet, plus Gabriel plus Bernard. It being very late, Maury asks for a bed for the night, but the rest of the group don't really approve of slumber parties, and drag him back to the ship.
The next morning, the Hegemon makes a speech announcing a day of remembrance for those lost on Two Seventy Nine, to be held in three days in the site of the explosion. An official from the government shows up with a formal request to not leave until "things have been sorted out."
Jim arranges for a meeting with the "One Life One Level" political action group (they're a group pushing for political reform on the Well) the next day.
Sharra visits with her parents. Her father finally comes home and starts making phone calls again, much to the nurse's disapproval. The nurse tries to recruit Sharra's help in getting her dad to not work himself to death, but she's had a whole lifetime of not really being able to change his mind.
Maury goes shopping for a Pirate Party Package, with cups, plates, a portable plank, and an animatronic parrot. Katya convinces Mirris that this would irritate Jim, so Mirris tries to talk Maury into it being a Paradise Party. Well, why is Jim's opinion more important than Maury's?
"I'm much more scared of Jim than of you." - Mirris to MauryMaury settles on a paradise island theme, but buys a pirate flag for his room.
Dr. Kye gets a phone call from the guy who's setting up the local IPX office - that guy, George Callahan? He's trapped in their closet. What should they do with him? Kye and Maury and Jim and Mirris and Ruehan head over to investigate.
The office is one small box in a huge office complex - the sign by the elevator has "IPX" listed on a piece of masking tape (Dr. Kye: "So we can flee quickly"). There's just the one guy, Bill Morton, in the office - when the group shows up, he shouts into the closet: "I think the locksmith is here - we'll have you out in a moment."
"Do you need a locksmith?" -MirrisThe office temp who would normally be working here was sent home for the day after Bill "kidnapped" Callahan. Having been warned by Kye about the evils of this Memento Mori agent, he told Callahan that there were personnel files in the closet that he could look at, and then locked the door when he went in.
"No, we locked the door." -the IPX guy, puzzled
"No, no, do you need a "locksmith"?" -Mirris, making air quotes.
Mirris "gets the door opened". Bill apologizes - it seems the personnel files were't really in the closet after all. Callahan looks ready to be mad, but then he sees all the new guests, and perks up. Now his name is Jay Callahan, and he's a reporter for the Light of EnQuiry.
"Meeester Calllllahan..." -KyeRuehan reads his mind, and hears: "Wow. They kidnapped me. That's cool. It could be a five-column series over weeks." So he's not really a Memento Mori agent after all? Apparently not, just a tabloid reporter. Callahan is offered a chair while Bill starts setting up the coffee maker to offer him coffee. Ruehan notes that he has a camera on him somewhere, and hints to Maury that maybe he should get rid of it.
Callahan starts interviewing Kye, and asks about Katya, who's perched on a desk looking flirtatiously at Kye. Who is she? Just a friend, Kye says, while Katya bats her eyes. Kye starts to wax eloquent about traveling the linked worlds, discovering treasure. Callahan asks what sort of treasures he's already found, and receives some further suggestive glances from Katya.
There's some boring description of travel around the Linked Worlds, including the Red Hegemony, but then Kye starts embellishing, with the story of the lost land of the amazon women, where a beautiful virgin is sacrificed once a year on a gold altar, except when she's rescued by Kye. Ahah, so that's who Katya is? No, she just knows about it.
Further tales include the ship's strip scrabble games - Dr. Kye is very good at it. Callahan would love to be able to send a camera crew by for some photos, but everyone claims to be very very busy. Has Callahan talked to Dr. Crighton? No - what position does he have on the ship? They explain that he's the Memento Mori counterpart, and suggest that he go talk to him. Or searching the Memento Mori warehouse on Stannis Law. That's a little outside his travel budget, though. Callahan asks if he can get a crew manifest - well, see, they rotate, they don't have a current roster, can't quite remember who the current crew is. Right.
As he's leaving, Maury tries to summon the most useful random thing, and gets his watch. It's his camera/recorder! Woo!
Back at the ship, Katya tries out her Gathering talent, and implants a reminder-thought for Maury and Ruehan, to warn them whenever they're being affected by their new psych lims. It doesn't actually counter anything, but it reminds them more quickly. After several tries, she gets one light reminder-thought in on Eva for the "loyal to Stone" psych lim, but Eva is hard to affect.
Jim meets with the One Light One Level people. He gives them the web site he's been working on, with a donation to pay for the server, and they agree to do the support for it. He talks to them about his flyer campaign, and they make some suggestions about leveraging his celebrity status. They film an additional video interview with him about how the legal system on the well allowed Jim Powell's scooter to be legally stolen! Jim is made up to look a little more big-eyed and unhappy than in the flyers where he's pulling someone out of a well. They arrange the propaganda campaigns to time with the memorial, and Jim makes a bunch of flyers to give out.
Maury has a lunch interview with Callahan, which has some further interesting quotes:
"Tell me about that girl who doesn't talk. What's her name?" -CallahanThe next morning, it's time for the Memorial. Picking up food on the way in, Sharra notices the headline on the Light of EnQuiry: Virgins and Vice: Voriig Kye, Archaeologist Adventurer She buys a copy and worries that her parents will see it.
"I don't know--she can't talk. We have stuff we call her..." -Maury"The captain has never ordered Dr. Kye not to play strip scrabble..." -Maury
"You know, my mother keeps telling me that I should find a nice young man and settle down." -SharraSome of the things going on at the memorial are a choir singing Juridicist hymns, a Starwayist pavilion with a story teller, a strange white and clear spire with a stair, and a long and meandering walk with names, where people have left photos and remembrances.
"And I'm a dirty old man." -Kye
And you'll notice that I'm not settling down with you! -Sharra
Tanner Hausman recognizes some of the crew, and says hello. He's written Elmer's memoirs, and says Elmer is doing really well with his GoldRunners. The Tarn fleet at Bastion is still causing trouble - it's moving in towards the planet very very slowly, and has very good long-range weapons so that they blow up nearly anything that comes close.
Jim talks to him some about the Well, giving him a flyer - he manages to rope another passerby into the conversation. The passerby, having been a Sentarist, is not so anti-Well as Jim is, and defends it rather vociferously. Both parties resist punching each other in the nose, much to Hauser's disappointment, and Katya implants a thought in Hauser's mind that Jim is a very well-spoken young man, so the conversation breaks up amicably.
At the Starwayist pavilion, the Illuminated Davon Cirnan is delivering a Story. (This is a mixture of Starwayist doctrine and the lives of some of the people who died, making them sound all meaningful and accomplished, but also complete). Katya notices many of the thoughts seem very similar to each other, though she doesn't find the thoughts themselves particularly odd.
Maury talks to some of the Starwayists - they know he's made of the same starstuff as everyone else. They chat with him about what it's like being a Jellical; he's a little more bitter than normal. He buys a meditation crystal, but doesn't try meditating on it yet. The pavilion also has a fragment of a meteorite, a large glass vial with dust from the Omphalos Dust Nebula, and what seems to be a crystal ball full of flame, as "starstuff".
The Starwayists in turn talk to Sharra, Mirris, and Katya. They seem to not be able to figure out how to approach Dr. Kye. Katya tries out one of their meditation crystals in the back. Nothing shocking happens, and most people leave the pavilion with warm fuzzies. Except Mirris who finds proselytizing creepy.
Later, Sharra, Katya, Mirris climb the spire, and find it quite tiring as they approach the top - though Katya cheats and hovers. First Sharra helps Mirris up, but this exhausts her. Eventually Kye follows the three women, and they all get to the top of the spire. It's a very impressive view, which they admire for some time.
On the way down, coming out of the elevator, a guy takes a couple of pictures of them - Mirris trails after him and finds him giving the camera to Callahan. She notifies Maury in case he wants to take the camera.
"Cameras are cheap, he can always buy more. How many of his cameras do we want to steal?" -MauryAt the evening Starwayist meditation, there are far more people than will fit in the tent. Lots of meditation crystals are being passed around. Everyone examines them suspiciously, but they just seem to be quartz crystals. The meditation is quite pleasant - Sharra figures she might as well stay longer, and Jim realizes there's pamphlet passing out opportunities galore. Maury is also not leaving. Ruehan doesn't see any active psi effects, but there's a subtle sort of mind effect going on. Kye examines the meteor fragment. It was once part of some kind of case of some sort, but he doesn't get a lot of details.
"Well, why not abandon you to the cult? Give us a call in the morning." -Dr. KyeRuehan and Dr. Kye head back to the Hippocrates. As night falls, the memorial services are all being packed up. The police come around to ask the Starwayists to disperse, and keep being told "yes, of course, in just a minute." Quite a lot of minutes pass, and the police begin to grow impatient, and start hassling people to leave. Several people start explaining that the tent is an Official Structure, so that anyone who is inside the tent can't be evicted from the area. Hmm. Legally, that's true, Sharra's pretty sure. The police say well, okay, but the people outside the tent have to leave, or they'll be arrested.
Jim is appalled - this is just like on the Well, with police breaking up a peaceful demonstration! Down with the Man! Liberation for the Drudges! Into the tent! Sharra finally manages to decide that it's probably time to go home, as the police start arresting the outside-the-tent people, and she, Katya, and Mirris try really hard to convince Jim to come too. Jay Callahan also seems to have been recruited.
Jim doesn't think that's quite fair - after all, Maury is still staying in the tent. How come Maury gets to stay? Various arguments that Jim shouldn't let himself be weirdly controlled make some headway, though he tries to convince them they should stay to help keep Maury from getting controlled. The whole thing is deemed Kinda Creepy, and the party ("Mostly...") leaves
Jim, grumpily: Fine. Maury's staying, we're going...The night passes. Maury has a number of fascinating conversations about plasma engineering, starship engineering, and teleportation - several of them seem to be picking up the knack of it.
In the morning, there's a news report about the Memorial, including the Starwayists, who are still there (except the ones that got arrested; a few are still in jail). Mirris pokes around on the Light of EnQuiry web site, and finds a photo of "Dr. Kye and his virginal assistants", from the memorial, and a link to yesterday's story. Yesterday's story has an artist's rendition of Katya, in sacrificial-virgin garb, draped over Dr. Kye brandishing blaster and whip.
Mirris heads off to hack the Light of EnQuiry office (she blurs the photo of people coming out of the elevator; they don't have any other photos, due to the previous camera being stolen), and Jim goes to the university to do some more leafletting - everyone else goes to the Starwayist temple. Having convinced Maury that meeting them at the temple is a good idea, he and all the other Starwayists are there by the time the group gets there.
The pavilion tent has been taken down, and the people are tidying up in the temple. The piece of the meteorite is being carefully put back in the larger whole of the meteorite; it fits in, but doesn't magically attach. It looks like this piece was a corner of a container that's inside the meteorite material. Kye takes another shot at figuring out about the meteorite. "Hmm, it used to be an experimental nanite containment crate. But now it's broken open. Oh dear."
Meanwhile, Ruehan and Maury debate the merits of leaving.
[The group mind asks Ruehan if he'd like some breakfast.]Mirris and Jim join the rest of the people at the temple, and there's some discussion with Maury about coming back to the ship, but it doesn't get very far - he's pretty happy here. Mirris tries to read Jay Callahan's backstory, he seems stuck in the temple mob too, and gets a terrible jumble of many many careers and lives. Ruehan mind controls Maury (and himself) to head back; this ends up with the entire mob vaguely willing to go back, and Ruehan himself pretty convinced. Ruehan heads off to flag down a cab.
"I've eaten." -Ruehan
"Hey! You've eaten?" -Maury
"Figure of speech." -Ruehan
Kye sits down near the back of the church, and lures Maury and some other plasma engineers to talk to him. Katya TK grabs Maury, leading to all the Starwayists realizing that it's Katya, get her! Sharra, Jim and Kye start dragging Maury towards the door, but Sharra gets confused and stops dragging.
Ruehan hits Maury with another mind control that it's okay to go back to the Hippocrates. Then he mass-hallucinates a fake cab stand with cabs for other people to charge to, which stalls them for a bit.
"No, it's all right, guys, we're going back to the Hippocrates, come on!" -Maury to the StarwayistsJim and Kye stuff Maury into the cab, and it zips off with him and Ruehan. Back in the church, the Starwayists shout to each other: "Joe! Like we used to do in the circus!" and a human pyramid starts forming under Katya. She escapes out the door, though, and the party proceeds back to the Hippocrates at flank speed.
Ruehan explains to Maury that there's nanotech in the asteroid, which is probably what's affecting him; Katya reassures Sharra about being confused; it's apparently one of the side effects of Black withdrawal.
About an hour later, everyone gets back to the Hippocrates. Jim starts helping Maury with an analysis of the communications that the nanotech is putting out. Meanwhile, the rest of the Starwayists have arrived at the starport and are starting to sneak onto the Hippocrates.
Maury and Jim finish building a jamming device to counter whatever the nano in Maury's head is broadcasting. They turn it on, and Maury gets very dizzy. He no longer has any strange influences on his personality (and doesn't know all the circus performing and law and cooking that he did moments before), but he's taking damage at a hit point a minute.
The people sneaking onto the ship have, similarly, now lost their "KS: Hippocrates" and starship engineering and stealth, and are similarly dizzy. Mirris and Katya and Ruehan start escorting them off the ship, where the security people outside have begun to call ambulances. Jim tells the guards that they're having a security problem that will require taking off - the guards are pretty dubious, and haven't been given any orders about letting the Hippocrates go into orbit. Not to mention they seem to be causing some sort of medical emergency.
Kye, still in tabloid reporter mode, tries to claim it's a radiation leak, but is shushed. Jim tells the guards "We think there's nanotechnology that makes all these people think alike, and we've set up a jammer." This is even farther outside the guards' expertise, but the part where the crowd was breaking into the ship was clearly unacceptable, so they keep calling ambulances and a HAZMAT team.
Jay Callahan starts interviewing people.
"When did you start feeling dizzy? When you got to the Hippocrates? Yeah, me too!"After about forty-five minutes, the crowd outside is gone, and the jammer is turned off. Maury's out of range of the rest of the group, so he's in his right mind again. He calls the hospitals and instructs them to try and separate everyone for as long as possible; the nano will eventually be cleared out of people's systems if it's not reinforced.
Maury and Katya stay at the Hippocrates, while the crew heads to the temple. The hazmat team is already there, putting everything in big plastic nano-containment bags to be taken back to the lab. Chipping the meteorite material away from the container embedded in it indicate that there's two compartments in the meteorite, one of which has been emptied and one of which still has nano. There aren't any Starwayists here any more - they all went to the Hippocrates.
Everything gets taken to a government biolab, where Maury and their scientists determine that the second nano is a nano-killer.
"Well, I think it's a 50% shot that it'll kill me, and 50% not." -MauryMaury is talked into testing the killer nano on a blood sample, rather than himself - his blood coagulates. Ouch. A sample of Mirris's blood has no reaction. A blood sample from someone from the hospital reveals that it kills the groupmind nanites, but there's no coagulation.
The hospitals are starting to complain about the patients waking up:
"The people in the hospital are getting antsy, and they're tricky!"The Hippocrates crew grabs a sample of the killer nano (and keeps a Maury blood sample), but the rest gets sent to the hospitals. The other patients get cured; it takes about twenty minutes for the killer nanos to get rid of the original. The doctors argue for a long time as to whether Maury has to take the cure or not; in the end, he's allowed to just stay in isolation with frequent blood tests, for several days. The doctors find the Kaufman nanites and determine that they don't clear from his system, but also determine that they're not contagious.
People head back to the ship to plan their final interviews with security and wait for them to be given clearance to leave the planet.