Joan Vinge - The Summer Queen

And what she saw, She saw … forced to look back through the eyes of Her timebound avatar at the fragile, fleeting lives of Her servants, Her nerve endings, Her tools, witnessing their pain with inescapably human vision. She saw Reede Kullervo: the expendable vessel who had carried the essence of Vanamoinen’s mind. The vessel meant to shatter, once Vanamoinen had completed the task he had returned to do; because for Vanamoinen’s mind to go on existing, sharing the same continuum with Her enemies, was a danger to Her… . And yet her human eyes bore witness to his human suffering, forcing Her to see that in Her desperate effort to survive and be healed, She had violated the reason for Her own existence. She had betrayed the servants whom She had been created to serve; in Her suffering She had wounded the very parts of Herself that had been called upon to heal Her wounds.

But because they healed Her, She could see clearly at last: could see Reede/Vanamoinen’s desperate hunger to survive, to claim his own brief moment in time, now that his will had been set free. And She could see, in the timeless sea of Her own existence, that the survival or death of Reede/Vanamoinen had been/was would be no more than a ripple-ring of randomness… .

And She could see the fatal error spreading like poison through the body of Her avatar, as clearly as She could see the pitiless chains of Her own making that had driven Moon Dawntreader to an act of defiant self-destruction that was also a prayer. But She was no longer pitiless, or soulless, or blind. A vast compassion filled Her, and She knew that because She had been healed, She must heal their wounds, if She could… .

And Moon saw that with her entrance into the hidden nexus, and her awareness as she had guided Her reprogramming, she had cast a reflection on Her soul, just as Vanamoinen and Ilmannen had done in their original act of creation. She was not even certain now whether she looked back on her existence with her own mind, or the sibyl mind’s mirror image of it. But she knew that it did not matter. For this moment she was all things, she could grant her own wishes, anything that lay within Her power. If there was an answer to be found in the uncharted depths of Her knowledge, she would find it.

She looked in through the open windows of the sibyl virus, which existed already in every cell of her body … knowing that in each of those already-altered cells lay a potential trap for the new invader, if she could only find the trigger. With vision that could simultaneously track every alteration in the activity of all of those cells as precisely as if she were threading a needle, she analyzed the schematic of the water of death, noting its similarities to the programmed structure of the real smartmatter; recording its minute, fatal structural flaws.

With free access to the full spectrum of the Old Empire’s technological knowledge, and the processing power of a computer that spanned worlds, she searched for secrets hidden since the Fall; knowledge judged better forgotten by the individuals who had brought it to its highest form. Manipulating the interactions within her body, she tried key after key in the lock of the water of death. But each time, it defied her.

She searched deeper and deeper into the heart of Her existence, into the workings of the technovirus that was Her very essence, Her own key to open the locked doors of the universe … into the uncharted depths of wisdom and unwisdom of her long-dead ancestors… .

And at last she found it: the transformation process that would render the deadly invader of her body step by step harmlessly inert, to be swept away by the normal processes of her restored body functions. But her elation colored with grief, as in that same moment she saw that even a miracle had its price. And she had no choice but to pay it. … She sent the electrochemical sequence to the waiting interactive network, the flesh and blood computer, the living laboratory that was her body, waiting at the end of the bright strand which bound her to Her… .

And as the sequence was completed, she felt herself called, as inexorably as before, as unwillingly, back into her own existence at the Transfer’s end. But she carried with her the echo of lightmusic, like a mother’s blessing, as her contact faded, rippling, and turned inside out… .

“Moon… .” Voices surrounded her, too solid, too real, like the hands restraining her body, as the colors of an infinite spectrum became the colorless light of day. “Mother …” she whispered, “thank you, Mother… .” She was on her knees; she let herself fall forward, felt the soft, hand-tied fibers of the rug press her cheek.

Something was still happening inside of her, the residue of changes at the molecular level as profound as those that had occurred when she had first been infected with the sibyl virus, and changed so irrevocably… .

She pushed up again, dizzy and faint; found herself face to face with Merovy’s concerned, uncertain eyes.

“Are you all right, Ama?” Merovy murmured, touching her shoulder gently, almost hesitantly.

She nodded, sitting upright, rubbing her face, her eyes. “Ah, Lady …” she whispered, incapable of anything more, as realization followed realization, out of the realm of formless radiance and into the spectrum of coherent thought. Slowly she allowed herself the knowledge that she would live, that she had been spared, that she had answered her own prayers … more slowly she began to see what remained to be done; and to comprehend what the cost had been. She sat, strengthless and motionless, a moment longer, pulling her thoughts together enough for speech. “Merovy … bring your medical kit here.”

Merovy brought the kit to her. Clavally and Danaquil Lu were behind her back, supporting her now. “Do you have a syringe?” Moon asked. “A large one, for drawing blood.” Merovy nodded. “I want you to draw some of my blood. Inject it into Reede’s vein. The water of death is dead.”

Moon got to her feet, feeling giddy, feeling her own veins burn as if her blood were superheated. Clavally and Danaquil Lu rose with her, still supporting her. “Reede,” she said; saw his pain-filled eyes already on her, saw him afraid to hope.

Merovy looked up from her medical supplies, “But—”

“Moon,” Clavally said, “if you do that you’ll infect him with the sibyl virus.”

Moon shook her head, turning to look at them. “It won’t happen,” she said faintly. “I’m not a sibyl anymore.”

“Not a sibyl—” Danaquil Lu broke off.

Clavally’s eyes widened. “But I thought that was impossible,” she murmured.

“No,” Moon said, with tremulous laughter. “There is a place where everything is possible.” She moved to Reede’s bedside. Merovy followed her, and took blood from her arm. Moon watched it flow, deep red, with an odd detachment, almost disappointed that it did not show gleams of a strange light.

Merovy turned to Reede, with the syringe in her hand; Moon saw her hand tremble slightly as she looked at him. Merovy glanced up again, her eyes reminding Moon that no one had been able to bring their son and husband back from the dead.

Moon looked away.

“Lady …” Reede whispered. “It’s true—?” He lifted a hand, reaching out to her.

“Yes.” Her fists tightened at her side, as something grieving inside her balked at taking his hand. But she reached out, folding her fingers gently around the swollen flesh of his own. She held his arm steady as Merovy, taking a deep breath to steady herself, injected the blood serum into the lurid track of a vein dying by poison.

Reede stiffened, making a sound that made her shudder. He murmured something in a language she did not know, as the needle came out of his arm. And then his body went slack; his grip loosened, his fingers slid from her grasp.