This despised one asks in what way she may serve?
A discordant jolt ran through her. The thought hadn't come from the Mind, but from her own memory. Her heart in her body, distant and small, skipped a beat. She was free as long as she served. That was what the Teachers told the Notouch. That was what the Notouch told each other, and now it was what the Mind told her, with such joy she could barely endure it, let alone deny it.
"But it's a lie," she whispered fiercely. "It's still a lie!"
No, no, don't be afraid, called the Mind. Don't go. Don't leave me here alone and blind.
Jay faced Aria's body. "It is no lie, Stone in the Wall," he said with the Vitae's incorruptible calm. "Now, I need you to secure this chamber. Close the hatches and make us safe."
The Mind sent a wave of sorrow through her.
"I can't," she said, and a tear prickled the corner of her eye. As the Mind fed the information into her she delivered it to Jay. "I am an Eye. I can see and show and know. I can move nothing macroscopic. You require a Hand."
Eric? Aria thought a little dazedly.
"A telekinetic?" asked Jay.
"Yes." Aria couldn't stop herself. It felt so good to answer his questions. She wanted him to ask more. She wanted to stretch herself out until she filled the entire world and saw all the heavens. She wanted him to ask her something difficult, something that would make her, make the Mind, make her, have to think hard. She wanted…
This despised one asks in what way she may serve?
No! howled the Mind. No! That is not how it is!
Its pain was nearly as blinding as its joy had been. Aria's body shuddered.
But I am right, she whispered inside her own, infinitesimally small mind. I am.
"Where is Eric Born now?" asked Jay. "Can you see him? Can you get a message to him?"
She could do it. Easy as breathing she could do it. She already knew how. But…
But…
"Aria?" Jay stepped closer to her. She felt his breath on her skin and her walls. "Aria, do it."
You can do it, the Mind urged her. It's easy. From a great height, she saw Eric through ash-filled air. He leaned out of the sledge, pointing up a rocky, thread-thin canyon. The dome canyon, she realized. He was almost to her.
Show him how easy it is.
But I do not want the Vitae here. I do not want to serve them. I do not want to serve anyone!
No! No! Not again!
Grief and fear raced through her, shaking her heart and soul. The Mind was remembering and its memory could fill the whole world. There had been centuries of bliss. The Hands and Eyes worked and the Mind worked for them and although they numbered in the hundreds of thousands, there was still more to be done than they could manage. There was always some new task, something new to see or think about. Endless work, endless joy in it.
She saw the Realm as a whole world then. Ancient as it was, it still shone emerald and sapphire and ivory in the light of a single golden sun. Its people knew no barriers to their wishes, because they had made the Eyes and Hands with as much love and craftsmanship as they had used when they made the Mind. Eyes, Hands, and Mind worked together in harmony and joy until the Eyes and Hands became angry. They were furtive and talked among themselves of the end of service, even while a whole new world was being built with limitless possibilities for new work.
They made me move! the Mind cried. They made me move the world and it was ruined and then they died! They all died!
Don't do this, don't do this again!
"No," Aria said, but she wasn't sure what she was saying no to.
"Aria, I need Eric Born here. You will send him that message." Jay's fists clenched, face a tight mask. "Where is he?"
He's looking at the tether marker. He's outside now. You can see him.
She saw him, distant and foreshortened, but knew what she saw all the same.
"Do it!" shouted Jay.
She saw him too, with his bald head and poorly dyed hands. She remembered the weeks she'd lived without orders, and then she remembered all the years of doing what she was told yet thinking what she wanted.
She balled up all those memories of mud and muck and groveling service, of knowing there was nothing else for her children and their children, if they should be able to bear their own, and she threw them all into the Mind.
She felt it cringe. But it was not done. It threw to her the memory of struggle in the wreckage of a world under a pair of suns that scorched the Realm with light that couldn't even be seen. The surviving Hands and Eyes pulled together with the others bred for service for a time. The Mind was busy, but grimmer, for that was how the service was. New life had to be bred. The World's Wall had to be built to create a livable place in the deepest trenches of the old ocean before the last of the atmosphere was gone. A home had to be grown and shaped there. The people had to be shaped, too. Too much of the technology had been lost to do that totally microscopically. People had to be culled. They had to.
But they did not want to do what was needed, and there was a war. The Hands and the Eyes died or fled, one by one, until the Mind was left alone in stillness and darkness. Because it's service was refused, because what had to be done was not done.
You can't want that again! the Mind cried.
Aria didn't. She felt a shame as dark and deep as any that had ever forced her to her knees.
…the others are trying to tell you that your genetics are the final determinant of your existence…I find it hard to believe that somebody so carefully constructed has no idea of their function…they told us as long as we kept the Words and the bloodlines true…
No, please, begged the Mind. Do not do this to us. Let us work. Let us have life again! She saw Eric and Heart wading through the rubble inside the dome. Show him! We can show him!
And she saw Eric again. Heart stood a nervous watch while Eric knelt in front of the hatchway and laid his hands on top of it. She felt his power gift reach out across her skin, and the hatchway opened.
"No."
She watched Jay raise the gun. "I won't kill you, but by the blood of my ancestors, I will hurt you until you beg me to stop, Aunorante Sangh!"
Instantly, the memory of Basq making the same threat flashed through her to the Mind. It seemed to be all they knew how to do in the end. She couldn't be bought, or rearranged, or done without. She could be hurt. Whoever had made her, the Nameless Powers, or Jay's Ancestors, whoever or whatever they had been, had left themselves that final option.
Aria's body gripped the stone. "You see?" she said. "You see what service brings us?" Eric must have heard her voice. He dropped to the floor and ran toward the lighted well, leaving Heart dangling from the rope ladder. "In the end the masters will decide to dispose of us, of me, of Eric, of Teacher Heart. They already took away a whole city." She focused her sight on the crater that had been Narroways.
NO!
The room began to bleed. Blue-grey viscous liquid seeped out of the floor and down the walls. Jay started and looked down. The thick stuff welled up over the tips of his boots and, defying gravity, ran in rivulets up his legs. He screamed and tried to run, but he toppled over, landing heavily against her surface. She felt her skin, the room's floor, her skin, sizzle. A wave of gel rose up and enveloped him, pressing him into the floor. She felt him writhe, and then fall still. She felt him melt slowly away like ice against her skin.
Eric sprinted down the hallway. Heart followed more slowly, with his hands held flat at his sides, a Teacher's first defensive posture.