Maggie asked, “What does it do?”
“It is a teaching device, to make you wise,” Karthenor said. “It is not only beautiful when worn in your hair, but very valuable. If you wear it, you will learn all of the secrets of how to become an aberlain. You will learn how to create life, shape the human genome into new complexities so that future generations will be wiser, stronger, and better servants of society than they are now. If you choose to wear such a Guide, you would become rich beyond imagination, and in time your wealth and power will rival that of the Lords. Here, let me show you how to put it on.”
A hundred questions flooded through Maggie’s mind: If it was so valuable, why would Karthenor simply give it to her? She realized now that many of the people here in the cafeteria wore similar Guides. They were the ones who ate silently, seemed to have no need to communicate with words. She wondered how long Karthenor would let her wear the thing.
Karthenor lifted the crown. It was bow-shaped and would not fit completely around Maggie’s head. Instead, Karthenor began to put it on from behind, so that the ends of the bow touched the top of Maggie’s neck. Just as it touched her, another question flooded into Maggie’s mind, one that had nothing to do with the Guide: If Karthenor’s mask kept him from lying, then how could he have lied to the dronon?
The cool metal Guide wrapped around Maggie’s forehead. A faint itching pierced her skin where the prongs touch.
“There now,” Karthenor said. “This will be your Guide. It shall teach you all things that you shall do. It will be your comforter and your constant companion. With it, you shall learn many great things.”
Maggie looked up. Karthenor’s black robes silhouetted his golden face, and Maggie looked into his malicious grin. She clawed at the Guide, trying to pull it free, and a raging fire seemed to sweep through her head. Tears rolled down her face, burning like molten lead. Maggie cried out and fell to the floor, gasping.
“Get that off her!” Orick roared. Karthenor glanced back at the bear, waved his hand. A web of thin gray wires, so small that they could hardly be seen, shot out from a device at Karthenor’s wrist. The webs struck Orick and the wall, gluing the bear in place. Orick roared in terror and tried to claw his way free, but the tiny net held.
“Help!” Maggie shouted, rolling on the floor, looking to the others in the room.
Karthenor’s image swirled, and Maggie watched him through a fog of pain and dismay. He bent low and hissed, “No one can help you. I am a Lord here. Don’t try to remove the Guide-it will only punish you for your efforts! Now: tell me how you got through the gate at Tihrglas! Where did you find the key?
Maggie’s muscles went limp, and though she fought to move, she could not control her arms, could not budge a muscle. Yet as Karthenor had promised, the Guide began to teach her.
In an overwhelming instant, knowledge coursed into her like a pure foaming river, filling her with more facts than she’d ever thought she could know. The tide of human learning cascaded over her, drowning her, and she despaired.
In one marvelous moment, Maggie understood the work of an aberlain. With the Guide to help her, she would spend the rest of her life altering the genetic makeup of the unborn children, making them into better servants for the dronon empire. In return, each child and their offspring in perpetuity would become indebted to Maggie and her Lord Karthenor. Though they sweated for a thousand generations, a portion of all their earnings would be deducted for payment. The work of aberlains had been illegal until six years ago, had been considered immoral.
But now the dronon ruled, and in the dronon society, each creature was born into a caste he could never escape. Images flashed before Maggie’s eyes of her dronon leaders: the Golden Queen, Tlitkani, who had so recently seized control of six thousand worlds; the black Lord Vanquishers, her soldiers; the small, sand-colored artisans of dronon society; and the vast oceans of white-skinned workers. Each was born to its place, and the dronons now sought to remake mankind in their own image.
Karthenor, Lord of Aberlains, was one of mankind’s greatest enemies on this world. Through genetic manipulation, he hoped to engineer a race of slaves and reap endless profit.
And through the Guide, Maggie would become a slave. The Guide stored information on an atomic level. The silver band housed billions of volumes of data along with transmitters and receivers. Already, the Guide’s nanotech components were creating artificial neurons to thread through her cerebrum and brain stem, binding her to the machine. Within hours, she and the machine would be one.
Maggie looked up at Karthenor with undisguised hatred. “I know you!” she growled. The effort caused her great pain.
Karthenor laughed, “Now, see, your eyes are beginning to open already. In your own small way, you are becoming like one of the gods. I want you to think about gods for a moment, and tell me where you got their key.”
Karthenor waved his hand. Two silver android servants came to the table, lifted Maggie by each arm, and began dragging her into the recesses of the building. Orick roared and growled in rage, but he could not save her.
When Karthenor said the word “gods,” the world went gray as information flooded her senses. Just as Maggie had this small Guide enmeshed in her brain, others across the galaxy were joined to larger intelligences. Karthenor’s silver mantle stored far more information than Maggie’s Guide, yet some immortals were connected to intelligences the size of an entire planet. They were gods.
In her mind’s eye, Maggie saw Semarritte, the great judge who had ruled this sector of the galaxy for ten thousand years. She was a woman of proud bearing and dark hair, very much like Everynne, but older. Semarritte had built the gates at the beginning of her reign as a means of traveling between worlds quickly. Yet to protect herself, she had kept the method for constructing the gate keys a secret.
In one bitter moment, Maggie understood that Everynne was the daughter of Semarritte, and that Everynne had stolen the gate key in a desperate bid to win back her mother’s worlds.
Karthenor and his servants dragged Maggie down a long hall. With each jarring step it felt as if the androids would pull her arms from her sockets. They passed shops and hallways and came to a blank wall which turned to mist when Karthenor touched it.
They entered a living room with comfortable sofas and luxurious white rugs. The androids laid Maggie on the floor, and Maggie’s lips began to move against her will.
She lay helplessly and listened to herself tell Karthenor of the Lady Everynne, of the dronon that dogged her trail in Tihrglas, and of Gallen’s own naive efforts to aid Everynne. With each word, Maggie betrayed Gallen, herself, the Lady Everynne-every human on every world.
Sometimes Karthenor would stop her, ask a question, such as, “And where is your friend Gallen now?” No matter how hard Maggie sought to lie, the whole truth came out. She could not will her mouth to shut.
When Maggie finished, tears rolled down her face. Karthenor said, “Go to your quarters.”
Maggie suddenly knew where her sleeping quarters lay in an upstairs loft. She willed herself to run away but could not move her feet. She moved to the rhythm of the machines.
This is your home now, the Guide whispered. You will serve Karthenor. I will teach you what you must do. Stiffly, the Guide moved Maggie’s legs and arms, taking her down a sterile white corridor, up a long staircase. Maggie watched, knowing that she was no longer human. She climbed into bed, then lay down, thinking. The Guide was always thinking.
Maggie had one hope: Gallen O’Day.
Chapter 7
Gallen wandered the pale green hallways of the city. The air was warm, moist, like the air inside a house-tree. The very city was alive, growing.