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carved screen that holds a small plasm accumulator. The screen is of some
kind of dark wood and features intricate carvings similar to those on the
building's exterior, a profusion of faces and bodies and floral displays,
humans and plants and creatures all laced together, caught in a complex moment
of transformation.
There are arched gaps in the screen that allow access to the accumulator, and
Aiah steps through one. The accumulator comes only to Aiah's waist, but Aiah
can see her reflection in its polished bands of black ceramic and copper.
"You're not the first to wonder about us," says the dreaming sister as Aiah
walks a circuit around the accumulator. "Every so often someone from the
ministry will come by. She will examine the meter, perhaps subject our
building to inspection, and then go away. Nothing is ever found.
"There's a war going on. Plasm is precious.
"Plasm is always precious," correcting, "but we have become aware of the war,
yes. The movement of plasm . . . the patterns of use ... the resonance of
violence within our hearts as we dream . . . yes," she nods, "we are aware
of the war. The last time we felt such disturbance was eighty-nine years ago,
but that war did not last long. We would have to remember two hundred
fourteen years for a conflict of similar duration and intensity, and then the
fighting was terrible. This building was converted to a hospital, and we
sisters were confined to a small part of it.
"What was the war about?" Aiah asks. Her knowledge of Caraqui history doesn't
go back that far.
The dreaming sister pauses and gazes at Aiah through the lacework screen. A
shaft of light dropping from the dome gleams on her cropped hair.
"Ignorance," she says.
Aiah leaves the screen area and walks to the control panel. It is silver
metal and very old, its edges scalloped in a fluid pattern that is dimly
familiar to Aiah, perhaps from old college classes on architectural history.
She looks at the dials and switches. The accumulator is topped up with plasm.
A heavy black plastic knob sets a rheostat to provide the building with a
smallish hourly amount that, divided between two hundred and fifty-six
Dreaming Sisters, makes a tiny, truly insignificant dose of plasm for each, an
absurdly small amount.
There are other devices on the control panel, clocks and timers, the function
of which does not seem immediately apparent. "What are these?" Aiah asks.
"We tend to lose track of time during our meditations. The timer cuts off our
plasm so that we will know to take meals, clean the building, have meetings,
and so on." She tilts her head like a bird. "All is in order?
Dials, Aiah thinks, can be rigged to show far less plasm than really exists.
To prove it would involve taking apart the mechanism and metering the plasm
lines, but Aiah thinks she can demonstrate the sisters are cheating without
going to that much effort.
"I see nothing unusual," she says.
Order of Eternity turns and walks through the arch on her silent bare feet.
"There is a political philosophy about plasm," Aiah says, following, "called
New City. Do you know of it?
"No," over her shoulder, "and I do not in any case believe that it is new. I
have lived over four hundred years," she says in her young girl's voice, "and
I have yet to see a new thing. And of course the world is far older than I,
and has spun upon its axis many millions of times since last a new thing stood
upon it." The dreaming sister pauses before one of the carved allegories, The
Architect, a noble-looking man with a protractor and a pair of dividers.
"The Ascended Ones isolated us here," the sister says. "We do not know why,
or where they are now, or whether the Shield shall ever fall. We are a
limited people, on a limited world, and we are condemned to wait. True
freedom is denied us the most unlimited thing in the world is plasm, and even
that cannot penetrate the Shield.
Wrong, Aiah thinks, remembering dancing figures in velvet blackness, but she
holds her tongue.
"We are condemned endlessly to repeat ourselves," says Order of Eternity, "in
a world of limited choice. Over years, over thousands of years, all things
return. That is why we meditate upon these figures," touching The Architect,
"which we call imagoes. All human possibility, all activity and type and
form, are symbolized in these images.
"How many imagoes are there?" Aiah asks, recalling that she has seen
duplicates.
"Eighty-one.
Another Grand Square. The Dreaming Sisters are consistent in their
numerology.
"This one," the sister says, "The Architect ... a lofty-looking fellow, isn't
he? But in our meditations, this imago represents failure. Because though an
architect will build his dream, and his heart will thrill to the sight of the
image that he held in his mind rising floor by floor in the world of the real,
nevertheless the world will work its will upon dream. The brilliant new
creation will grow old, and crumble, and one day join the architect himself in
the dust. And so ... failure.
"Are all your imagoes failures?" Aiah asks.
"By no means. Some are wise, and have learned to accept the constraints of
the world.
Aiah looks at The Architect and folds her arms. "No change," she says, "no
improvement, nothing new.
"No permanent change. No lasting improvement.
"Your philosophy sounds very much like despair.
In the dim light the sister's blue eyes are chips of dreaming ice. "Not
despair," she says. "Acceptance. You will concede a difference?
"And if the Shield is penetrated?" Aiah asks. "If someone gets outside your
world of limitations, into the world of the Ascended what happens to your
philosophy then?
As Aiah speaks she feels the throbbing acceleration of her heart, feels her
feet grow distant, sees her vision contract, narrow to the merest point of
photon contact with the dreaming sister. The universe seems to wait for the
answer.
"Perhaps nothing will change at all," says Order of Eternity. "Humanity may
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