Kingdom of Cages (61 page)

“What is wrong, Aleph?”

“Nothing is wrong. As you can see”—she cocked her head toward the subimage—“I am very well cared for.”

She believes she is being persecuted.
Memory of Hagin’s words cut a cold trail through Mihran’s mind.
She is accusing Dionte of making unauthorized changes to her neurochemistry. I believe she is coming to think I’m a part of
some sort of conspiracy. We are trying to find the center of the disturbance, but I don’t know when we will succeed.

He did not say
or whether we will succeed,
but Mihran had the feeling he wanted to. “Is that…” he said to Aleph, but he had to look away. He could not meet his city’s
eyes. He had to look at the red-gold spheres of the peaches sheltered by the emerald leaves instead. “Is it possible for you
to lie to me?”

“If it is possible for you to lie to me, then why should the reverse not also be possible?” replied Aleph in a dull, calm
tone that Mihran had never heard before.

He swung around to face her, his hand out as if he thought he could reach through the glass and touch her. “Who has lied to
you, Aleph?”

“No one.” But the denial was full of that same dull calm.

Mihran felt the world shift under him. Even his Conscience was stunned into stillness. This was wrong. The city would not,
could not, be withholding something from him. “Aleph, what has happened?”

Aleph was silent for a moment. “I want to tell you, but I am…” Another pause. Her image moved its hands aimlessly, clasping
and un-clasping them, fiddling with the folds of her black and white diamond-patterned robe. “I am afraid, Mihran.”

“Of what?” Mihran took a step forward. His Conscience produced the faint scent of burning, needlessly. He was already sufficiently
worried.

Aleph smoothed her robe down. She was not looking at him. Of course, she really was. As long as they were speaking, Aleph
would be watching him, but his focus for her would not look at him, and even the illusion of that reluctance cut straight
through Mihran. “I’m afraid of not being believed, I think,” said Aleph. “Of being wrong.”

Despite the sadness in them, the words gave Mihran a splinter of hope. Perhaps this was only a mistake. City-minds could,
and had, made mistakes in the past. This one was just compounded by Hagin’s overreaction. These were hard times. It was easy
to believe the worst.

“I’ve seen your accusations against Dionte,” said Mihran, his voice becoming steady again. “Hagin showed me.”

“Because you asked for them.” Aleph stood in profile now, looking toward some horizon that did not exist. “Not because he
wanted to. I heard. He tried to tell you I have gone insane.”

“You were there?” Mihran stared at the image in front of him. Of course she was there. She was his city, she was everywhere,
and that had always been a good thing, a source of comfort. Until this moment.

“How could I not be there?” replied Aleph bitterly. “He was speaking of altering my primary centers of consciousness. How
could I not pay attention to that?”

Bitterness. Aleph, hurt, bitter, and frightened. How? How could this be? Mihran felt his knees buckle and he groped for the
padded wooden bench, sitting down heavily. The city was a source of strength and advice. She held the wisdom of his ancestors.
He had consulted with her at length every time there was a difficult decision to be made. They had talked for hours while
he read over the reports for how Pandora might create a cure that would satisfy the Called and the Authority. The Eden Project
was as much Aleph’s work as it was the work of the family.

He suddenly became very aware of the sounds of voices around him. A thousand voices, all talking and laughing and going about
their lives, supposedly all connected tightly to each other and their city, but not one of them knew what was happening in
this tiny grove in their midst.

Mihran rested his head in his hand. “Oh, Aleph, is this really the end of us? What have we done?”

“I don’t believe you have done anything.” For the first time since the conversation had begun, Mihran heard the familiar,
soft comfort in Aleph’s voice.

He lifted his head. “Then who has?”

Aleph’s image had created a chair for her to sit in so her eyes were level with his. “Do you really believe Dionte has made
some error in judgment? She has been conducting some unusual experiments with her own Conscience.”

No. It cannot be. Dionte is family,
said his Conscience, repeating what Mihran had already told himself.

Aleph rested her elbows on her knees and clasped her hands in front of her. “Have you seen her complete records?”

Mihran shook his head. “I have not looked. That is the province of her chief Guardian.”

“And if you ask him what Dionte has been doing, he will say all is well.” Bitterness again, as wrong as anything Mihran had
ever seen. As wrong as Basante’s death had been.

Basante. Mihran gripped the edge of the bench, remembering the young man lying so still in the infirmary bed, his eyes closed,
death already making his face slack. He’d thought then he knew what the ancestors felt when they saw the Delta Complex shattered
and exposed. Nothing could make this right. Nothing like it must ever be allowed to happen again.

I do not want to talk about this anymore. I do not want to think about this anymore. I want…
But guilt and the scent of old metal caught him up. He was father to his branch. He had to continue.

“Why are you so sure what the chief Guardian will say?” Mihran made himself ask.

“Because I asked him and that is what he told me.”

A spasm of anger shook Mihran’s hands before his Conscience was able to soothe him. How many other conversations about the
health of his city had happened and not been reported to him? “Why don’t you believe him?”

“Because Dionte was in charge of his most recent download and adjustment.” Aleph looked steadily at him, scrutinizing him,
Mihran realized, waiting for his reply.

But Mihran’s mouth had gone dry and he could not speak. “You will not trust Dionte’s work even on her family?”

“No.”

The family must be trusted. The city must be trusted. The world had functioned on these two principles for a thousand years.
He could not choose between them. The idea was absurd. “Why not? How can she harm her own family?”

“For the same reasons Tam could choose to protect the Trusts over his family.”

Ah, yes. That was in the recordings Hagin played for him. The stunted Conscience. Twice in one family? Was there a genetic
fault? Some variation that prevented filament growth? But it would have been reported. “Her records—”

“Are lies!” Aleph stood up abruptly, knocking the chair over. “I have been lied to, you have been lied to.” She swept out
both arms. “There are liars in every city and have been since the Consciences were first introduced. My fellows are confirming
it in the convocation even now.”

“No.” Mihran laced his fingers tightly together, searching for something, anything, to hold on to. “This cannot be true.”

“It is. We know it; we feel it. And we do not know what to do. We are supposed to help you, to comfort you and be your companions,
to help you explore and protect Pandora and its people, but how can we fulfill our purpose when we cannot trust you?”

All the voices, the voices of his entire family, surrounding him, and yet they did not know any of this was happening. He
sat alone with the city and spoke of nightmares. His Conscience urged him to call out, to trust, to not be alone, to calm
down, to worry, to hope, to fear. So many emotions, so many thoughts pressed against him that he could not distinguish one
from the other. “What’s gone wrong, Aleph?”

Aleph knelt in front of him, her hands on her knees, trying to see into his eyes even though his head was bowed. “We—I and
the other city-minds—think we know, but I don’t think you’ll be able to believe me.”

His hands ached from clutching themselves so hard, but he could not make them relax. “What do you mean?”

“I think—we think—it’s the Consciences. We think that as they drew the family more tightly together, they weakened your bonds
to us, to the villagers, to the rest of the Called.” She paused, giving her words time to sink into his mind, which was desperately
trying not to hear them. “We think that the experiments Dionte has performed on her own Conscience have made this condition
worse. She thinks she is creating bonds, when what she is creating are the bars of a cage into which she would lock the family
away from all outside influence and change.” Aleph’s voice dropped to a whisper, as if she did not want to hear what was being
said any more than Mihran did. “We think it’s because of the Consciences you never left Pandora, as the founders originally
planned to do. Why should you spread what you know when all you are supposed to do is take care of your family and Pandora?”

No. That was not why. Mihran took a deep breath. Here he knew what was true. “The outreach initiatives failed because we lacked
sufficient understanding, and because the villagers lost their focus, and then the Diversity Crisis came—”

“And you stopped trying,” said Aleph quietly. “We stopped trying.” An idea came to him. A hard idea, but at least it restored
focus and clarity. Mihran made his hands let go of each other and set them on the bench on either side of him. “But how can
this be the fault of the Consciences? You are saying that Dionte caused this crisis of faith between us and that Dionte has
a stunted Conscience. It makes no sense, Aleph.”
There
is
a chemical imbalance. A neurological fault. The tenders will find it….

“It does make sense if Dionte was not taught proper judgment by those around her because it was assumed that her Conscience
would guide her.”

“Aleph, this can’t be.” The conflicting scents from his Conscience choked him. Calm, fear, trust, worry, right, wrong, no
answers, none at all, just the voice telling him to trust, trust, trust, but trust who?

“No?”

Trust your family. Trust your city. Trust your family, who cares for your city.
“No. It can’t… I can’t…”

“You cannot believe it?” Aleph stood, picking up the chair she had knocked over.

“No,” whispered Mihran, and his Conscience silenced. The sudden quiet inside his own mind washed through him like relief.

Aleph leaned against the back of the chair, looking sadly at him. “I said you could not.”

“I…” Mihran made himself stand. “I will have to think about this.”

Aleph straightened herself up in front of him. Her image matched his height exactly and looked straight into his eyes. “Please
try to, Mihran. I am in pain. We all are. We are supposed to be helping you, not standing apart from you.”

“I will try. I promise.” That was right. He would weigh and judge. There was a way to do this and still hold sacred the trust
of both his city and his family, and he would find it.

Aleph nodded to him. “I am glad. I do not want…”

“What?”

But Aleph was gone from the glass, and Mihran stood alone among the well-tended trees and the sweet scent of their fruit.
He turned and strode into the busy throng of his family, because he did not want to stop to think how he lacked the courage
to call his city back.

Elle opened her door to let in the dawn’s gray light and chilly, damp air.

“You Nan Elle, or you know her?” wheezed the shadowy figure in her doorway.

It took a moment for her sleep-dimmed eyes to focus. When they did, Elle saw a block of a man—a boatman, judging by his thick
boots and bulging forearms—with clean brown skin, good teeth, clear eyes.

“A little stair climb shouldn’t leave a rower out of breath,” she remarked, gathering her tunic a little more tightly around
her throat to keep out the morning’s cold.

“Huh,” the man grunted. “It should after pulling up the current from Stem. In case you hadn’t noticed, we’ve got a nice lively
little spate going after yesterday’s rain. You Nan Elle?” He squinted past her shoulder, trying to see if someone else lurked
inside the house. “This is for her.” He held out a square of paper.

“I’m Nan Elle.” She took the letter and saw her initials written in Farin’s dramatic hand. “Can I get you something to drink,
rower?” Elle stood aside to invite him in.

The boatman glanced over his shoulder down toward the village. “I’d like to, but them hothousers we brought up probably got
all kinds of plans for us.”

“Hothousers?” Elle asked sharply, sleep’s last cobwebs dropping from her mind.

“Eight of ’em.” The rower shook his head at such excess. “They’re in with the constable now.”

“But you don’t know what for?” Elle tapped one finger on the handle of her stick. Possibilities flitted through her head,
but none of them felt more likely than any of the others.

Could Chena have caused this?
Sudden fear chilled her worse than the morning damp.
No. If Chena had been caught, you would be hearing from Tam now, not Farin.

“Hothousers.” The man made a gesture that managed to be lazy and rude at the same time. “What’s any of ’em got to say to us?
Up the river, down the river. That’s all there is.”

Of course, and why would you pay attention to what’s going on around you?
“I thank you for my letter, rower.” She saluted him, and when he turned to go, she let the door swing shut behind her.

Elle sat in her good chair, slowly and carefully. Her bones ached with the cold, and she hadn’t stoked up the fire yet. The
room’s only light was the blue-gray glow that crept through the slit windows and made the black ink gleam as she unfolded
the letter.

Nan,
she read:

Bad news, and more bad news. I saw Chena on the boardwalk yesterday. The cops were right behind her. I don’t think they’ve
caught her yet, but I can’t find her either.

Nan Elle leaned her head against her hand and for a moment wished hard she had been a better teacher, a better parent. Then
those girls would have known that the world was as it was. They would have known the difference between what was possible
and what was necessary.