Limit of Vision (35 page)

“Ela?”

Surely it would come to nothing. Idle speculation, that’s all it had been.
L
ov
s did not behave in the way she had imagined.

She forced herself to look at Oanh. She forced herself to smile. “I’m all right,” she said. “Just fine. Let’s eat now . . . while we can.”

All
through the next day Ela loitered about the Palace, anxiously watching for signs that her musings were being made real. She didn’t see any evidence of it. She didn’t really expect to . . . after all, she had been engaged in a cognitive circle with a globe on the parapet. It would have limited communication with globes in the water . . . right? She comforted herself with this thought until near noon when a spider came down the stairs, walked through the great hall of the Sea Palace, and disappeared into the water. Did it carry
her
globe? There was no way to tell.

She schooled herself to be calm.

Two more days passed. Perhaps her scheme had been forgotten. Perhaps it had been mistranslated or misunderstood. Perhaps it would require a hundred years of experimentation to get right, or perhaps it was unworkable on some basic level. Perhaps there weren’t enough fish left for the
L
ov
s to have a fair chance of finding them. By the end of the third day she began to relax, convinced nothing would come of her ill-considered session.

Then on the fourth day, catfish began congregating in the shallow water around the Sea Palace’s foundation.

Ela was sitting on the stairs just outside the arched entrance, working with Oanh to repair a net, when she noticed the dark, barbelled shapes of the fish chasing one another in water only a few inches deep. One of them broke the surface with a frothy ruffle. Oanh looked up from her work, her eyes going wide as she saw the fish. Four or five large catfish at least, stirring up swirls of mud at the foot of the algae-coated stairs. It took only a few seconds to get the net over them and haul them up. Ela eyed their glossy black bodies wrapped up in the net’s white filaments. Then she looked at Oanh, and without saying a word, she removed her farsights, toggled their power switch, and slipped them into her pants pocket.

Oanh considered this. Then she too slipped her farsights off and put them away.

Ela crouched to examine their catch. The catfish lay limp and glossy within the net. She turned one over without unwrapping it, and there it was: a pale filament, trailing from a point on its head just behind the eye. Fear squeezed her by the neck. Oanh sensed it. She leaned over to look, and Ela felt the flood of her sharp concern. “What is that?” Oanh asked. “Do you know? You do.”

Ela nodded. “It’s a chain of
L
ov
s.”

Oanh bent closer to examine it. Then she whispered to Ela, “You expected this.” It was not a question. “Did you design it?”

Ela let her gaze stray to the other dark, shining lumps of hijacked protein wrapped up in the net’s white mesh. “I guess so.”

“It’s . . . clever,” Oanh said tentatively, as if testing Ela’s opinion on whether it was clever or not.

Ela said, “It was a mistake.”

“How? The fish are here. That is what you planned?”

“Yes.”

“The
L
ov
s forced them here?”

“That was the design.”

“It’s clever.”

“Yes. I guess so.”

But would it stop there? Ela knew it would not. The
L
ov
s were never static.

Oanh embraced a thoughtful silence as they removed the fish from the net. Each one trailed a
L
ov
filament. Some had two. Ela pinched them off. She started to toss them into the water, but then she thought better of it and threw them under the archway, where they would dry out and die. She didn’t want to send evidence of their experience back into the wild population.

By the time the net was empty, more catfish were circling in the shallows. A circuit of the second floor revealed them nuzzling all around the base of the Sea Palace. Ela sat down behind the parapet, thinking,
M
aybe this isn’t so bad
. But she couldn’t believe it. What would happen when the UN scientists discovered what was going on?

Delighted cries arose from below as the remaining
Roi Nuoc
discovered their good fortune. The fishing party that followed went on all afternoon, with fish after fish gutted alive and tossed over flash grills to be cooked almost before they had stopped wriggling. Everyone ate their fill and still, hundreds more catfish nosed about the base of the Sea Palace, like black tassels on the hem of a white dress. No one mentioned the
L
ov
filaments.

But they must have noticed.

Perhaps Mother Tiger had counseled everyone to silence.

Oanh was wearing her farsights again as Ela descended the stairs. Smoke from the grills had reddened her eyes, and she looked less happy than the others. “Are you going?” she asked, as she followed Ela outside.

“Yes.” She touched her stomach. “I’m so full I’m going to be sick. I need to lie down where it’s quiet.” Ela untied her little canoe from its mooring. “If Virgil comes back from the research station, tell him where I’ve gone.”

Several seconds passed as Oanh studied Ela’s face . . . reading the telltales? “Why are you still not wearing your farsights?”

Ela’s hand jumped as if to touch the missing frame. “Oh. My eyes are tired. I-I have a headache.”

“The UN decision will be announced tomorrow.”

Ela turned, fear and hope spilling through her mind in equal measure. “You’ve heard this?”

Oanh nodded somberly. “Mother Tiger shares your concerns.”

Ela nodded, and slid into the canoe. The late-afternoon rains began as she paddled back to Virgil’s platform. A heavy downpour, that set the water boiling. She stopped once to bail her canoe. She stopped again just a few feet from the platform when she spied a small object floating in the water. It was hard to make out amid the pounding, splashing drops of rain, but it was dark in color, and it moved against the current like an animal, swimming. A rat. She stiffened. Her lip curled in distaste, and she gripped the paddle harder, but the rat didn’t seem aware of her. All its energy was focused on reaching the platform. After a minute, it bumped up against one of the pilings. Its tiny paws scrabbled at the shiny reef of
L
ov
s and somehow it found purchase there. It climbed up, and out of the water.

“Scat,” Ela said softly. “Go away.”

The rat turned to look at her. It was a large rat, its wet fur black and bedraggled except at the head where lighter hair reflected a greenish cast from the water. A blue-green cast. Almost luminous.

Ela’s eyes widened. Slowly, slowly, she let her paddle slide into the water, nudging her canoe closer. The rat watched her, its dead black eyes following her every movement. Now she could see it easily: the rat’s head was covered in a helmet of
L
ov
s that encircled its eyes and cranium, and descended halfway down its snout. Ela felt the skin on her neck tighten.

Did I do this?

The prow of the canoe nudged the piling, bringing her eye to eye with the rat. A dank sweat covered her skin. Her heart pounded harder than the rain, while the rat’s
L
ov
s glittered. Ela could see the flash and glitter of her own
L
ov
s bright in the corner of her vision.

Abruptly, a sensation of hunger flooded her. The rat was hungry. She knew this. She could feel its hunger.

Kin.

She felt its weak call on her support.

Kin.

As if having
L
ov
s made it more than a rat.

Her revulsion must have been coded into the millisecond flash of her own
L
ov
s because the rat suddenly turned, scrambling frantically up the piling. Ela reacted with equal speed. She raised the paddle and swung hard, clipping the rat across the spine. It fell into the water. She hit it again, driving it under the surface. Out of sight.

37

For many days
, Virgil had spent most of his waking hours working with Ky to evacuate sick and injured children. The most common afflictions were dysentery and small wounds gone septic in the filthy conditions. There was no predicting where the next case would strike—only the certainty that it would. Virgil felt like a seer with myopia, able to see disaster looming in the future, but never knowing where it would fall.

When disease did erupt, it hit hard and fast. Malnutrition had eaten away at the
Roi Nuoc
’s physical reserves, so that twelve hours of fever could reduce a child to a shell of fragile skin and delicate bone, life escaping bit by bit with every fiery exhalation.

And still none ever volunteered to leave the reservation. They knew it meant losing their
L
ov
s, and most preferred to take their chances, even when their fever left them no chance at all. Some would go so far as to shed their farsights and disappear into half-drowned orchards infested with snakes that had gathered in the trees to escape the floodwater. Virgil and Ky were forced to become hunters. Their presence was feared. When they arrived to fetch the ill and the injured to the research station, stricken children looked upon them as if they were angels of death.

So when Virgil returned to the Sea Palace and Oanh told him of how Ela had refused to wear her farsights all afternoon and then had left, complaining of headache and nausea, Virgil suspected the worst. He stood on the steps of the palace, eyes closed, breathing deeply to stave off panic.
Why now?
he thought.
Why now?

The UN had promised a decision on relief supplies within twenty-four hours, but if Ela had contracted dysentery, she might not last that long. He would have to bring her in for treatment now, tonight . . .

And she would be arrested, or she would join the disappeared. In either case he would not see her again.

Not now
, he thought.
Not this soon
.

They were supposed to have one more day.

He waved off Oanh’s offer of help and bounded onto the back of the flying saucer, cursing its maddening, slow pace as it glided through the rain-pummeled darkness. He looked ahead to the platform, searching with his farsights for warm candlelight, but the only light came from the eerie glow of
L
ov
s in the shower walls.

After what seemed an hour, the flying saucer bumped up against the deck. Only the rain moved, in wild, dancing splashes. He forced himself to patience, tying up the saucer and settling it against the water before he went into the hut.

Ela was there, wrapped up in their thin blanket, watching him—though he could not have been more than a glimmer of
L
ov
s to her eyes, for she still was not wearing her farsights. He looked at her with nightvision, but even so her image was dim, blurred. This night was very dark, lit only by their
L
ov
s. He could see well enough to know she did not smile.

He peeled off his wet shirt and left it by the door, then he dropped to his knees beside her. With his wet hands he felt her cheeks, her forehead.

Her skin was cool.

“Ela? Oanh thought you might be sick.”

“I’m not sick.” Her voice was flat, emotionless. Not like Ela’s voice at all. “What time is it in New York?” she asked. “Has the UN made its decision yet?”

“Not yet. Ela, what’s wrong?”

“Lie down with me, Virgil. Please. This one more time.”

He was
awakened in the morning by an emergency call from Nash. In the gray predawn light, Ela watched him as he picked up his farsights and slipped them on, her face with the same flat, hopeless expression she’d had last night. He wondered if she had slept at all.

Nash’s tonsure of thinning hair was rumpled and his eyes were shadowed with fatigue, but his face looked curiously animated. “Virgil. Come to the station now. I don’t want to say more.”

Virgil sensed a trap. “What’s up?” he asked lightly. “What do you have in mind?”

“Something you need to see. I won’t say more. Come in now. This may change your mind about everything.”

Ela had slipped out the back of the hut to relieve herself. When she returned he told her what Nash had said. She nodded. “I’ll go with you.”

“It’s possible they’ve gotten permission to arrest me.”

“I don’t think that’s it.”

“What then?”

“Let’s just go and see.”

So they washed, and pulled damp clothes onto pale skin. Virgil thought of leisurely mornings in Honolulu with a full pot of coffee and sausage and pastries. Then he put on his rain gear and climbed on the back of the flying saucer. Ela was already waiting for him. She stepped on the touch pad, sending them gliding into the air.

Nash
waited for them just inside the shelter of the research-station door. He led them through a short hallway to one of the labs. It looked like a fish store, with four rows of aquaria stacked to the ceiling, casting their cool light across the muddy floor. But on closer inspection Virgil decided it was not like any store he had ever seen. The tanks were too large and the water too cloudy as the soothing
brrr
of the pumps kept the silt stirred up. Besides, there were no small, colorful fish. Most of the tanks held globes, dull blue under the lights. Some had glinting carpets or crusts of structural
L
ov
s. Only a few had fish: dull-colored carp, striped tilapia, or black catfish. Earth colors.

Nash stopped in front of the only tank in the room with clear water. Its sole resident was a small black catfish huddled in one corner. Nash bent to examine it, his hands on his knees. “This specimen was caught this morning at the Sea Palace. Look closely at its head.”

Virgil glanced at Ela. She stood back a few paces, watching Nash, not the fish. Her expression was tense, frozen. A mask hiding some terrible knowledge.

He leaned forward to examine the catfish. The motion startled the creature. It wriggled, turned in a tight circle, then settled down again. Following Nash’s instructions, Virgil looked at the head.

A thin white filament trailed from a point just behind its eye.

Virgil went cold. He tapped his fingers, summoning the magnification option on his farsights. Then he leaned closer. The white filament proved to be a chain of
L
ov
s. He turned to Ela. She met his gaze with a look of wary expectation. “You’re not surprised, are you?” he asked.

“No.”

“Oanh told me about the fishing party yesterday. You saw these filaments?”

“All the
Roi Nuoc
saw them.”

“No one said a thing.”

Her shoulders rose in a defiant little shrug.

He reacted in exasperation. “Everybody knew, but you didn’t tell me? Is this what’s been worrying you?”

“Of course I’m worried. It may be a predator. We haven’t had predators before.”

But as she talked, a typed message appeared in his farsights:

→
I designed it to affect the behavior of fish so they would swim to the Sea Palace.

His brows rose. He mouthed the word
You?

She nodded. Then her gaze slid to the catfish while her fingers tapped:

→
I requested this design.
It’s my fault.

Nash was watching her hand. She noticed his interest and turned to him. “Nash, you haven’t changed your mind about the
L
ov
s, have you?” she asked. She touched her forehead. “You still think this is wrong?”

He nodded, looking confused at this sudden shift in the conversation. “Yes. I do.”

Ela bit her lip. “Nothing the
L
ov
s do is ever static,” she said softly. “We never want to remember that.”

Virgil sensed she was still sending him private messages. He followed the direction of her gaze to Nash’s round forehead. There, just on the edge of his receding hairline, two tiny
L
ov
s gleamed.

Virgil dropped his gaze to the floor, using all his
L
ov
-enhanced control to stay calm, but it was wasted effort: Nash had already seen his moment of alarm.

“What’s going on here?” he demanded. “You two know more than you’re saying. If you’ve got an explanation, put it forward now, because I guarantee you this
will
affect the UN decision.”

Virgil edged toward the door. “I need to think about this, Nash. I’ll—I’ll get back to you, in an hour. Or so. Ela—” He touched her arm. “Let’s go.”

She moved toward the door without another glance at Nash but Virgil did not have the same control. His gaze slid again to the pair of
L
ov
s gleaming on Nash’s brow.

Nash saw the look. A puzzled frown crossed his face, and then he raised his hand to touch his forehead . . .

Virgil bolted for the door, shoving Ela ahead of him. They dashed down the tiny hallway, past the startled guards, then out through the swinging doors. Behind them, Nash let out a roar of rage. Ela jumped onto the flying saucer. Virgil followed, stomping hard on a touch pad. The flying saucer slipped forward, carrying them away from the jurisdiction of the guards.

Ela sat down hard, her face an emotionless mask. “It’s the beginning of the end,” she said.

Virgil nodded. Neither the UN nor the IBC would tolerate
L
ov
s that preyed on other life-forms, especially human life-forms.

“I’m sorry,” she said, staring ahead at nothing. “I went too far.”

Virgil crouched beside her. “It’s not your fault. It would have happened sooner or later anyway. It was inevitable.” He put an arm around her, and felt grateful when her weight eased against him. “But we should have seen it coming.”

Ela said, “Mostly you don’t.”