"Log, PF plus six Tellurian days. Lieutenant Seward reporting in.

"Our field-expedient condensation methods can barely keep three of us watered. We're breaking down the pod into raincatchers. I've got some of the kids scouting the jungle.

"I hope they find something, and soon."

--Recording recovered from Site Resh, reconstructed 1887 CE (restricted access)

----

14 Tumbling Blooming, 1886 CE

The Libraratory, Acerbia

"Please provide keywords for searching," said the Takahashi Generosus. Only his mouth was visible; the rest of him was encased in a semitransparent blue cocoon that hung from a single thick vine connected to the ceiling of the libraratory room.

Rosabella glanced about, but the other Takahashi data analyzers hurried about, paying her no mind. One of them sat at a table next to the golden wall, a pile of Last Era datavials on the table next to him; one vial was in a datalyzer sitting on the table, and one of his eyes was plugged into the datalyzer's stalk as he read from the vial. His opposite hand stroked characters onto a flexing graphene screen connected to the libraratory-wide crystalline data storage, search, and replication system that Gens Nethress had set up.

Like the rest of the Takahashi Generosi whom Gens Nethress had retained, he was a translator with dozens of years of training and experience in High Post-Exarchian technojargon. The services of their Gens had surely come at a great price to Nethress, but once the work was complete, ancient knowledge would be available in Modern West Valley within the unprecedented data-storage system.

A system that required minimal human interfaces. A system that didn't require a dedicated Tool, like Tvorh's mother Meghan, to behave as its brain. A system that was, to use a High Post-Exarchian term, "automated." Almost thinking, yet mechanical rather than biological, with memory that was perfect yet stupid. So unlike the human mind, which was capable of astounding leaps of logic but suffered from imperfect recall that changed every time it was used.

They lived in a new era, indeed.

Minimal human interfaces didn't mean no human interfaces. The Takahashi purple-blooded hanging in the cocoon knew how to interact with the system, unlike Rosabella.

"Please provide the keywords, Ambassatrix," he repeated.

"Synapsis," she said. "Spontaneous Synapsis."

The cocoon shifted for a few moments. "Apologies, Ambassatrix," he said. "I don't find those words in proximity to one another within any of the data we've digitized so far."

Several results scrolled down the graphene screen in Rosabella's hands, but her search facilitator was right: none of them appeared useful.

"Please try 'Synapsis' and 'source.' Or 'Synapsis' and 'reasons.'"

More useless results appeared.

Rosabella frowned. There was one more possible link. "Try 'Synapsis,' 'silver,' and 'sands.'"

The man ran the search, then nodded. Her heart leaping, Rosabella looked at the title of the very first result on the screen. Dual-Sun Interference Within Amber Master-Mind, the title read.

It was an ancient research paper. Rosabella checked the abstract.

Reports of visions during Synaptic connections have increased 243% over the past decade. Typically these visions include hallucinations of deserts of silver sands.

By analyzing routing within the Umutukk Master-Mind, we demonstrate that these hallucinations have no external source, instead arising from internal mental states. We find with a high degree of certainty that the consistency of these hallucinations is due to suggestibility, and that therefore their occurrence will increase the more they are discussed and treated as normative...

Rosabella stared at the abstract. She didn't need to read the document itself. It didn't tell her precisely what she needed, but it was enough. The "Master-Mind" was a mythical founder of the Sodality, the one who called out and gathered in new Sodalitatis in the midst of the Pandemic.

Those ancient Sodalitatis had sealed themselves away from the world as the genophage raged outside. When they had emerged, bearing anew the gift of the Symbiont into a ravaged continent, they had brought with them the stories of that first call.

Always the "Master-Mind" figured at the center of these tales.

"Thank you," Rosabella said, turning away distractedly toward the door. "That will be all."

A slurping noise came from behind her. The man slid from the cocoon into his chair beneath it. Covered in slime, he looked exhausted and ashen.

Poor man. He deserved a reward. Rosabella placed a hand on his naked shoulder, ignoring the sticky slime. "Thank you, Akiyoshi," she repeated, willing herself to mean it this time, and she waited until the man had blinked the thick fluid away from his eyes and had met her own. "You are invited to take daily relaxation in the Sodality Chapterhouse. I will send word to my acolytes to see to your recreation." Between the balneotherapy tubs and the wide lawns for active pursuits, surely the man would be able to find something to interest him.

Its Uxori, of course, were always available, assuming a good genetic match. If Akiyoshi desired a more personal connection, Rosabella would need to check his genetic profile. Surely she had some girls who would make good brides for a purple-blooded servant of a major Gens...

But that would have to wait until she got back from the Nameless City.

She needed to pay a visit to her superiors.

#

The ocular camera in the corner of the room was little comfort to Tvorh. At best, it would allow Dorsin and the rest to watch as this Last Era madwoman had her way with him. Tvorh didn't want to be had in any particular way in the first place.

Not that he had a choice. Apparently, being adopted into a Gens just meant trading one sort of bully for another. For a moment, Tvorh envied Aoife's father Ferghall. Not his final fate, but the freedom that he'd cherished and lived for.

Maybe the Amricians were onto something.

The shapes of the room were cut in stark relief. Tvorh was whistling, wasn't he? In order to buy a moment to calm his pounding heart, he very deliberately knelt and put his parcels on the ground. Food and clothes. Hopefully she could eat the same stuff that modern people ate.

They hadn't fed her yet, apparently.

They said her skin color was blue as the sky and that her locks were a royal purple, like mountain wildflowers. Those were details that he couldn't sense, but he didn't need to. He could hear her exotic beauty. It seemed she could feel his attention, because her lusty floral scent began to tickle his nostrils, and she wriggled ever so slightly in her bonds.

Nope. He wasn't going to let her seduce him. No way. "I brought you some food. And some clothes."

"They are too far away, and I am bound. Will you untie me?" Her words' tone and accent were honey; even if they hadn't been dripping with sex, they still would have drawn him with their unusual trills, ancient High Post-Exarchian peaks flowing seamlessly into Modern West Valley troughs of sound, driving him into epiphanies of language that he'd never had before.

Her body called to him. He resisted it and changed the subject. "You've gotten pretty good with Modern West Valley."

She laughed, a bell chiming in clear cold wind. "A barbaric tongue, but Wisdom speaks to Wisdom. The words I do not understand, I see in the eyes of others."

This woman had torn into Senrii's mind, ripped knowledge of language from her. "Can you understand everything I say now?"

"Well enough. I would see your eyes, but you have none."

"I lost them in that same contraption that's holding you."

"Barbaric."

"I didn't ask for it. I'd rather have them back, honestly."

"I can give them back to you, boy-man. If you release me."

He wanted to do more than release her. And that was exactly why he couldn't. Tvorh sat down on the floor. "That's not going to happen. You know what happens if you try to escape."

"A genophage." The disdain toward the word was clear. "Could it be possible that this was the disaster my mother intended to save me from?"

Interesting. "A genophage we saved you from," Tvorh observed.

"No puny virus will lay me low. The Wisdom is strong in me."

"That's the problem. Look, you don't understand this because you slept through it. All of your people are dead. Long dead, and their bloodlines, too."

Thiyyatt made a dismissive sound. "The scarlet woman claimed that centuries have passed.Impossible."

"The genophage wiped out more than ninety-nine percent of all human life on Tellus. Most of the people just died, if they'd been directly gengineered, or their recent ancestors had been. And the Magi like us turned into Chimeras, just like those monsters we were fighting. I guess they didn't get put into the sleep chambers fast enough."

"You would have me believe that allele-level alteration destroyed mankind."

She caught on quickly. "More or less. The genophage targeted the genes that had to be turned off before allele-level alteration could take effect in people without a SOPHIOS."

"And thus, direct alteration is forbidden to your people." Thiyyatt's words were pregnant with disbelief. "What woman accepts only the benefits that nature bestows on her?"

"Nowadays? Everyone. The genophage is still endemic. Our red-bloods don't have to worry about it because there's no direct gengineering to make them susceptible. And our Magi--well, I guess we have resistance. But you started Chimerizing quicker than I've ever seen, and I've seen Magi hit with the genophage before. So don't think about turning on us. You need us to survive."

She harrumphed.

"Your name is Thiyyatt, right?"

"Regia Puella Thiyyatt, Daughter and Heiress of Regina Ittu of the Western Hives."

"I'm Tvorh."

"Tvorh." Thiyyatt rolled the name over in her mouth and smacked her tongue as if the feel of it had left her mouth dry.

"I guess technically I'm Erus Tvorh Generosus Nethress Ortus Meghan et Ysur, but I don't really think of myself like that. I'm adopted."

Another harrumph.

"I like you better when you're not trying to control my brain, Thiyyatt. Thanks."

She cocked her head. "Odd."

"What?"

"You speak to me as if you were an equal."

"Like I said, I'm adopted into Gens Nethress. I'm still not used to bowing and scraping before better bred people."

Thiyyatt snorted. "Have them send me one less unequal."

She was as bad as any blue-blood, Tvorh realized. "I'm what you get, princess."

"I demand it."

"You asked for me. Plus, you don't get to make demands. We're not stupid. If we send you anyone else, you'll just try to take over their minds."

"Hmph," Thiyyatt repeated, making a show of turning up her nose.

"You weren't so standoffish when we first met."

Thiyyatt started and gave him a surprised stare. Then, against all Tvorh's expectations, she laughed again, and the sound of it fluttered in Tvorh's heart. "No, Tvorh. And if you barbarians insist on this, then I shall focus on that moment, rather than on the circumstances of your birth. Come. Release me."

Tvorh stood. "If I release you, you have to promise not to try to control me again."

Thiyyatt sniffed the air, then gave her sharklike smile. "Your birth is lowly, Tvorh, but your scent is ripe. You would father good children."

"I thought you were betrothed."

"You say Imperator Puer Amaluke died two thousand years ago. How could I bear the children of a long-decayed corpse?"

"We don't do that here."

"Do what?"

"We don't just breed when we feel like it."

"No Queen ever has. This is no mere feeling. You are ripe, low-born, high-blooded Tvorh."

"You still have to promise me."

Thiyyatt sighed, as if the demand was an imposition on her very being. "Very well, low-born, high-blooded Tvorh. You have my word."

"Hold still until I've released you. Then you can dress yourself and eat something."

Thiyyatt smiled predatorially as Tvorh approached. He half expected to smell lavender and feel reason drifting away as he came within arm's reach of her, and was half disappointed not to.