"What is it now?" she asked, unwrapping her jewel-covered lizard from her neck and cradling it in her arms.
"I have determined the source of the power that Paul's faction is drawing upon," Ishtar said withoutpreamble. "It is a power draw from core storage."
"But . . ." Sheida paused. "But the only ones who can do a core draw are the elves. That is how the Lady is closing Elfheim."
"That is not the only source for core draws," Ishtar said bitterly. "They are using power from the terraforming projects."
"Oh," Sheida said after a moment's thought. "How . . . truly good."
"What I have been unable to determine is why they can draw upon it," Ishtar went on. "They have to have a quorum of the board of directors of one or more of the projects agreeing to release the power.
And . . . I can't imagine that happening."
"I can," Sheida said after long thought. "But, oh, but that is a deep laid plan . . ." she muttered.
"What plan?" Ishtar asked, her brows furrowing.
"Edmund, he told me to look to the Demon at the center of this," Sheida said with a grimace. "And I think he must be right. I was . . . asked to look into some things before this . . . war erupted. There had been some disturbing things going on with the Wolf 359 terraforming project. One of the people who had risen to prominence was . . . well known to me. Not a good person and not the sort of person to . .
"Care about something that wasn't going to do him any good?" Ishtar asked.
"Something like that. But it didn't come together. Now it does. And we are truly in trouble."
"But the rest of the board members?" Ishtar asked. "They have to be present to vote!"
"In the event of large scale disruption there is probably a protocol for rump voting," Sheida said, dropping into the Net to open up the data. "Yes, there is," she said, distantly. "And while we cannot access the board members' location or status, Mother assuredly could. If they had assassins waiting for the majority of the board . . ."
"Then their hand-picked members would be the only ones left," Ishtar hissed. "Evil."
"Yes, and much too Byzantine for Paul," Sheida added, rising back up out of the data-flow. "This has the Demon's fingerprints all over it."
"What do we do about it?" Ishtar asked.
"Find the members of the board," Sheida said. "And either get them to vote to store the power or at least stop them from giving it to Paul."
"And how do we do that?" Ishtar asked, throwing her hands in the air. "We don't know where anyone is!"
"We'll send out a list to all the communities that report to us," Sheida replied, pulling up the list.
"These are all the members who were alive before the Fall," she added, looking over the list. "Know any of them?"
"No," Ishtar said, then looked at her fellow council member's face. Sheida stopped looking at the list with a frozen and angry expression on her face. "What?"
"I do," Sheida hissed.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
"We must stop this war," Paul said, looking up from the report. "Wemust stop it. Now."
Paul had called a full meeting of the New Destiny Council to "discuss some ramifications of the current conflict." Celine had known it would be contentious when she arrived and Paul was striding up and down the Council Chamber, literally tearing at his hair. She had always thought that was just an expression.
"Why?" Chansa exclaimed, looking across the room at the Demon. The black armor didn't move or twitch in any way at the strange statement.
"The deaths!" Paul yelled, pointing at the projections. "We've finally gotten a census in the portionsof Ropasa that we control and thousands,millions are dying or already dead! This was not supposed to be awar . The point is toprevent the extinction of the human race, notcause it!"
"What about horror?" Celine asked. "We were going towin ! I've got plans!"
"The plan hasfailed, " Paul snapped. "Forcing them to quit was a good plan, but not in the face of the death of the humanrace! "
"Actually, Bowman, it has succeeded beyond your wildest dreams," the Demon rumbled.
"What?" Paul said, cocking his head suspiciously. "Explain yourself."
"I can, Paul," Celine said, waving the projections away and bringing up new ones. "I prepared the reports. Current population of the earth is just above one billion. Control of the Net has fractured, power has failed, different members of the Council have seized, for the most part, certain historical areas. Chansa in Frika, Sheida in Norau, yourself in Ropasa, etc."
"Yourpoint, " the council leader ground out.
"My point is that deaths are going to be high in the first two months. Very high. But in each of these areas, council members are acting, as they see fit, to ensure the survival of as many as possible."
"We're still talking aboutmillions of deaths!" Paul snapped.
"But we're talking about far more population increase," Celine continued as if he hadn't interrupted.
"Indeed, we're talking about a near doubling of the population in two to three generations."
"What?" Paul paused. "How?"
"Frankly, your initial plan probably would not have worked," Celine said. "As long as there were artificial means of replication and reproduction management, birth levels would remain low no matter what you did to encourage it. However, with all of that taken away, birth rates are bound to skyrocket."
"What in the hell are you talking about?" Paul ground out.
"The nannites have turned off," Celine replied with a smirk. "That means other things have turned on."
Rachel was more or less moping around the house when Daneh found her.
"Come on, girl, time to start your education," Daneh said, snatching up a satchel.
"What do you mean?" Her mother was acting different this morning. Rachel couldn't put her finger on it but something of the despair had seemed to leave her. Whatever the reason, she was glad.
"You said you wanted to be a doctor," Daneh replied, heading for the door. "Bethan Raeburn has started to bleed internally. That's all I know. Comeon ."
Tom Raeburn was outside the house with two saddled horses, looking very worried.
"What can you tell me?" Daneh said as she mounted with a wince.
"Not much. Mom just started bleeding all of a sudden. From her . . . well from her bottom."
"From her anus?" Daneh asked. "There's various reasons that that might occur, none of them life threatening." They were already starting to canter down the hill, not following the main road but cutting across the open area around the side of the town.
"Not from her . . . anus," Tom said. "The . . . theother part. I'm sorry if I'm being unclear, but this is mymother, okay?"
"Okay," Daneh answered. She wracked her brain for what might be wrong and there was something nagging at her. But for the life of her, the only thing that came to mind was some sort of internal injury. "Did she fall? Was she hit?"
"Not that I'm aware of," Tom said.
Daneh held her peace until they reached the sprawling farmyard, then hurried inside with Rachel at her heels.
They went upstairs to where Myron was standing outside the bedroom door, wringing his hands.
"Thank God you're here, Daneh," Myron said. "I . . . she's . . . I just can't take it. Please help her!"
"I'll see what I can do, Myron," Daneh answered, secretly fearful that there wouldn't be much shecould do. Without nannites she was virtually helpless. She might know the inner workings of the human body, butfixing that body took tools she no longer possessed.
Inside the room she found Bethan in bed, apparently naked, curled up in a miserable ball on her side, the sheet on the bed pulled up on her hips.
"How are you, Beth?" she asked, pulling the sheet down. There was a wad of rags stuffed into the woman's crotch and it was spotted with red. There was more that had trickled down the woman's leg onto the bed. All in all it looked as if she had bled about a deciliter.
"Daneh," Bethan said helplessly. "I don't know what'swrong ."
"Be calm," Daneh answered, taking her hand and wrist. She remembered the simple method of taking a pulse but she didn't have a way to time it. The woman's pulse felt fine, though, strong and a bit fast, but that could be put down to understandable fear. "Other than the bleeding, what are the symptoms?" she asked, feeling the woman's neck and face. No signs of fever and while she was a bit pale she didn't seem to be in shock.
"Nothing," Bethan answered. "I've been a little . . . grouchy lately and then I started to hurt in the stomach yesterday. Then today I just started bleeding!"
"No impacts?" Daneh asked. "I'm sorry to ask this, but nobodyhit you, did they?"
"No!" Bethan practically snarled. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Like I said, I've been grouchy.I would have hitthem, not the other way around!"
"There doesn't seem to be areason, " Daneh said in exasperation. "I can'tsew it up . And I can't get into the interior to see what's bleeding!" She knew better than to show her discomfort in front of a patient, but this was the first time she'd had to deal with something like this. "No tools, no diagnostics.
Aggh! I need to think." She looked at the woman and took her pulse again. Still strong. "Bethan, whatever is happening, you're not showing any other signs. You don't appear to be . . . damaged from the bleeding. Just let me think."
She stood back and paced as she ran through the anatomy of the female reproductive system.
Something had clearly gone badly wrong. Cervix, uterus, fallopian tubes, ovaries . . . Something was haywire. She hadn't paid much attention to the system since medical school, it was just there, as useless as the vermiform appendix that most people no longer had. With uterine replicators reproduction had all been movedout of the female body thank God and . . .Oh, My, God!
She stopped with her face in her hand, blinded by her own stupidity. But she wasn't the only one who had missed the obvious.
"Bethan, do your cows reproduce naturally or do you have them raised in a replicator?" she asked.
"They reproduce naturally. We try to . . . Oh!"
"And do they ever bleed? The females?"
"Yes, after they've ovulated," Bethan said with horror in her voice.
"And that's once every?"
"Six months or so. But humans . . ."
"Humans ovulate everymonth !" Daneh wailed. "Thecurse! Damnit, Iknew this was familiar!"
"This isnatural ?" Bethan asked. "This issupposed to happen?"
"Once a month," Daneh said, the memory finally dropping into place. "Every twenty-eight days."
"For how long?'
"I don't know . . . a week?"
"Oh, My, God!"
"Mom, what about me?" Rachel asked, frantically.
"You, me, all of us," Daneh responded.
"When is it going to start?"
"Soon. Bethan was the first. Probably there will be more by the end of the day. The nannite fields had ovulation turned off and the natural hormones that were generated by the cycle were replaced andreleased in a steady stream. Now we're going to beslaves to that damned curse again!"
"Thatsucks, " Rachel said. "I'm not going to!"
"You don't have a choice," Daneh replied, thinking furiously. "They used to have ways to . . . catch the flow. Terms, old terms. On the rag. Riding the cotton pony."
"Where have I heard that before?" Bethan asked.
"You find it in the literature of the day," Rachel replied with a frown. "King, Moore, Hiaasen . . ."
"Ah, the masters," Bethan smiled wanly.
"I don't know what they used, but we'd better think of something," Daneh said with a frown. "And soon. Or this whole town is going to be one hell of a mess."
"So I'm not dying," Bethan said.
"No, you're going through a perfectly normal monthly cycle that has been survived by countless women throughout the ages," Daneh replied astringently. "And there's so much good news attached to it, too."
"Oh?" Bethan asked warily.
"Yes, it means you're now as fertile as one of your cows. How many more children do you plan on having?"