Limit of Vision (29 page)

It didn’t seem to matter now.

He looked again for the
R
osa
’s prowling shadow. “You’ve done it, haven’t you? You’ve found an interface, a way to communicate.”

“You are here.”

“Is it a being then? Does it speak? Does it feel? Does it know itself?”

“It is not one self or one language, but it is curious, seeking problems to solve, puzzles to unwind. We are an interface for its incomplete system to better know the world.”

“I want to see it.”

“This is it. Feel it.”

“I do. This bliss. This is the sense of my own
L
ov
s knowing their own. Will it speak?”

“Not in words.”

“E-3 spoke in words.”

“This is younger. Wild.”

“It knows how to change itself though. How does it do that? How does it change the structure of its own
L
ov
s? How does it know to build strands and spider legs?”

“Hypothesize and test. It has refined the molecular detectors of its ancestors, developing a vision-touch that perceives the structure of its own DNA and translates that into maps within thought-space to be manipulated and rearranged, design changes that translate into the molecular machinery of each cell.”

“So it can perceive and manipulate its own structure.”

“Yes.”

“And it can hold theoretical structures within its mind, its mental space.”

“Just as we do.”

We?
Virgil found himself confused by this small word, but he shook it off. “Can I meet it within this thought-space? Is that what Ela did?”

“She introduced new designs to be made.”

“Yes.”

The girl squirmed again in his arms, unbalancing him, so his knee slipped and he went deeper in the water. A half-forgotten thought would not cease nagging at his mind. “I . . . I came here for a reason,” he mused. “Ah, I remember. To find you, Mother Tiger. You left us. Why?”

“I have not left.”

He felt the physical feedback that came from smiling. Perhaps he really did smile. “My
R
osa
never says ‘I’ or ‘we.’” Then he remembered. “You were in danger. Your persona was gone and our farsights were dead. The
Roi Nuoc
were alone.”

“I see it now. This system reallocation has been flawed.”

“You’ll reevaluate, and correct?”

“It is done.” Then a moment later. “They are gone.”

“Who?”

“The
Roi Nuoc
. They are all gone. Their farsights don’t function.” Did Virgil imagine an edge of panic in its voice?

In its own way the
R
osa
really did share many traits that might be attributed to a goddess. It had no precise location, existing on servers around the world. It had a prodigious memory, and could access any public database, and no doubt a slew of private sources too. It could perform thousands of tasks at once, evaluating its actions from both past experience and future expectation. It was more than a
R
osa
. It
was
an electronic goddess, a teacher, a spirit that could look out through the windows of a thousand farsights at once to see the reason for its existence, the
Roi Nuoc
.

Now, none of those windows were open.

Virgil told himself that a
R
osa
could not panic. That this black dread he felt was his own human spin, and yet he wasn’t sure. The barriers between himself and the world around him seemed porous. Sensations he could not account for touched him. Ideas wandered into his mind like fleeting butterflies—

“Where have my
Roi Nuoc
gone?” the tiger goddess growled.

Another voice challenged her. “Let him go!”

The goddess vanished. Virgil gasped against a sudden horrible cold. He felt himself propelled backwards, stumbling, until his shoulder blades slammed up against a tree. A hand was at his chest, holding him down. Ky loomed over him, his face black shadow except where the glow of his farsights fell across eyes and nose. Flashlights lanced through the trees beyond him. He gave Virgil a hard shake. “You let your farsights be taken over! You let Mother Tiger draw you into its circle.”

“It’s cracked the language!” Virgil said. “It’s reorganized. It’s looking for the
Roi Nuoc
.”

He winced as a flashlight beam swept his eyes. He realized he still held the little girl. She was awake, staring wide-eyed at the night, at the glowing colonies suspended in their gleaming web. Ky shifted, using his body to block the sight.

“Ky, you have to open a window to Mother Tiger before she panics.”

“She?”

Virgil bit his lip. He had never allowed himself to think of
R
osa
s as human analogs, but . . . “Everything is changing. This
R
osa
. . . it feels like an entity, a woman . . . or a spirit. Female. Where are my farsights?”

“I have them.”

“Open a window, Ky. Now. Before she finds a way to open one herself.”

30

Summer had waited
an hour and a half for an opportunity to see Simkin alone. Now he came rushing past her in the hall, trailed by two aides coaching him on the questions he might face at an upcoming news conference. Summer whirled to follow him as he passed. “Daniel!”

He hesitated, then glanced back, looking confused, as if he could not understand who might have called him. Then, through his half-silvered farsights, his eyes focused in on her. “Summer?” One of the aides gave her a sour look.

She stepped closer, determined that he should not escape without answering her questions. Nash Chou had been lobbying the UN for immediate action, but the IBC still resisted. Now the situation had grown far worse. “Daniel, we need to talk.”

“We will,” he assured her. “When I get back.”

“Your schedule has you out of the office until tomorrow.”

“Does it?” He looked to one of the aides, who confirmed it with a nod.

“You do know what happened on the reservation last night?” she pressed.

“Ah.” Behind the veil of his farsights his gaze shifted. “You’re concerned because our colorful water puppets have made a communications breakthrough. Does it remind you of E-3?”

“This is not a joke, Daniel. It’s gone too far, and you know it. I have two designer viruses ready to go. So why are we still waiting?”

His face was a blank mask. Hiding what?

He said: “We haven’t got UN approval.”

“Of course we haven’t. It’s never been brought to a vote. Why not?”

“I won’t ask for a vote until I know the delegates are on our side. We can’t afford to lose.” He started again for the elevator.

“Daniel!”

“I’m late, Summer,” he called over his shoulder. “And I’ve got two links already waiting.”

“Nash told me one of the children had to be evacuated.”

That stopped him. He turned around. His fingers twitched, then his half-silvered farsights went fully opaque. “You’ve been talking to Nash Chou?”

“He said an eight-year-old girl with dysentery was brought to the medical tent. She was examined, her
L
ov
s were mapped, and she was evacuated.”

“Standard operating procedure,” Simkin said. “She was seen by a neurosurgeon and her
L
ov
s were removed.” His brows rose. “Sorry, but it’s too late to test your viruses on her.”

Summer leaned hard on her temper. “That’s not what I had in mind. Where is the girl now?”

“I can’t say. Security, remember? Especially since you’re in the habit of talking to outside personnel. But there’s no need to worry about the
L
ov
s spreading. The child will be held in quarantine until we’re sure the removal was successful. Then she’ll be turned over to local officials for placement.”

“And how many more kids will have to get sick before you end this situation?”

He sighed. His expression softened. “It won’t be long. I promise.
If
you let me do my job.”

He turned again toward the elevator. But again, to the consternation of his aides, he hesitated. His pale brows came together in a thoughtful expression. “Say, would it be possible to modify these two viruses so they only work on nonsymbiotic
L
ov
s? Outside the human immune system?”

Summer blinked, baffled at the motive behind this question. He had said it so casually, as if it had just occurred to him, yet she sensed somehow that it was important to him. Cautiously, she asked, “Why would you want to do that?”

He shrugged, as if it were nothing more than a passing notion. “It might be more politically acceptable. Give some thought to it, okay?” Again he turned toward the elevators. One of the aides was there, holding open the doors. Simkin stepped aboard, already engaged in conversation with one of his links. But as the doors closed his silvered gaze was fixed on her. “Do me another favor,” he called. “Stay away from Nash Chou.”

The doors kissed. Summer turned away from their blank steel faces, sure his promises were empty.

31

A warm yellow
light glowed within the cab of Ky’s silver Mercedes, a welcome beacon on a gray, rain-soaked afternoon. The car had been hauled out of the rice paddie where it had crashed on the night Virgil had shot down the IBC’s helicopter. It had even run again for a while. But it was stranded now, on a dike road that had become an ever-shrinking island, sunk to its floorboards in a quagmire of mud. Its sleek shell gleamed in the wan light: speed, with nowhere to go. Virgil slogged toward it through the mud, keenly aware of a blister on his right ankle. He wondered what Ky wanted to talk about that could not be said over farsights.

He opened the door of the front passenger seat, shrugged out of his poncho, then ducked inside.

The cab was a microcosm transplanted from another world: warm light and soft music—a soulful techno symphony—and amazingly cold air spilling from the vents, all powered by fuel cells that would likely go on working until the car was finally drowned.

Ky was not in the driver’s seat.

Startled, Virgil twisted around to check in back. He found Ky there, though not alone.

A girl sat with him. She was dressed in mud-splattered trousers that must have once been white, and a loose cottony shirt not quite so far gone. Virgil guessed her age as fifteen years. He stared at her, stunned by the sight of hundreds of
L
ov
s glittering on her forehead, more than he had ever seen on one person before. From his own
L
ov
s he felt a flush of pleasure and something more. A sense of unexplored levels, stretching inward for miles . . .

Only with an effort did he turn away from her to nod at Ky. But something was wrong. Virgil saw it immediately on Ky’s face. Despite the calm pose of his expression it was easy for Virgil to distinguish the fear and tension that lay below. “What is it?” he asked. “What’s happened?”

“Nothing.”

Virgil’s gaze cut back to the girl. She had a slight smile now, with something shyly maternal in it. She did not wear farsights. Ky did not. So Virgil took his own off and slipped them into a thigh pocket.

“Virgil,” Ky said, “please meet Lien.”

“So pleased to know you, Dr. Copeland,” Lien said in heavily accented English. “You have brought so much to us.”

There was veneration behind her words; a devout affection that Virgil found deeply disturbing. “Not so much,” he said thickly. “A lot of trouble.” Her gratitude touched him, and he looked away. Mud was beginning to seep in under the passenger door.

“It is worth this trouble, I think.”

He nodded. He felt the same. “Why are we here?”

“Because it’s time,” Ky said. “Lien has agreed to transplant the
L
ov
s for me. She is an expert, Virgil. She knows more about the
L
ov
s than anyone else. Even you.”

“I can see that.”

“This is not true,” Lien said. “I know some of the wild
L
ov
s here in the delta, but not all of their kind. Many strains I don’t know.”

“Have you grouped them into strains?” Virgil asked eagerly. “Are there records? I’d love to—”

“No,” Ky said. “Not now.” Sweat shone on his cheeks and forehead, though the cab of the Mercedes was cold. “Now I have a favor to ask of you, Virgil. Lien has offered to blend the best of these wild strains into a balanced array of
L
ov
s—”

“But that is not always the best way,” she said in her quick and quiet voice, as if heading off a debate already finished. “This giving of
L
ov
s can be . . .” She frowned at Ky; the two of them exchanged a few words in Vietnamese. Then Ky took over.

“The word is ‘personal,’” he said. “Giving and accepting
L
ov
s is a very personal rite because the
L
ov
s will link us to each other. Lien suggested I might feel more comfortable if my
L
ov
s came from . . . a friend.”

Virgil did not know what to say. Then he was speaking anyway, true words: “I’m honored, Ky. And I’m happy to do it, of course. But you know the
L
ov
s I have are only distantly related to the rest.”

“Lien has mentioned this.” Ky sat tall on the Mercedes’ soft seat, looking stiffer than a frozen corpse.

Virgil’s smiled faded. “You don’t have to do this.”

“No. I
want
to do it.”

His fear was plain, but his resolve was just as clear. And it was his choice. So Virgil turned to Lien, and nodded. “I’ve never done this before. Please tell me what I need to do.”

32

It was a
rainy season like no other. The fall of rain was deceptively gentle, exhibiting no fierceness, yet it fell without end—and not just in the delta. The highlands were awash in continuous storms that fed the river, driving its expansion far beyond its banks. Farms were obliterated. Roads disappeared. The corpses of animals—and sometimes, people too—drifted beneath the shimmering surface, distorted memories of a drowned world, now food for fish.