Inyanga's Star and Other Constellations

Part III. Águila's Star

It was Águila who first pushed for the testing to become more aggressive.

Her logic would persuade the researchers; first she used it to win over Sueño: "The sooner they solve the Immortality Problem, the sooner we'll be allowed out of here."

Sueño took the argument to the next level: "There's two of us. Two test subjects. That's a beneficial redundancy. Worst case scenario, you destroy one, and have a spare."

Águila helped her refine that argument to language that would persuade the project manager, Lyric, and not freak her out.

"Every day that passes without resolving the animus crisis, the cap on immortal sous prevents families from being able to have children. Mothers fade to mortality. Potential parens choose sterility. Don't allow the passing centuries to make you forget the urgency." Lyric was over four hundred, though she looked like what used to be called middle age — a nonsensical term now because there's no middle in eternity. The skin on her face sunworn and mature, though her wrinkles were magiced smooth, and she was slim with the movements of a wise old body. "Even if one of us were to tragically give up our lives to the cause, you would retain a second test subject. A backup."

The key to the animus cap had to be found within the impossible twins. Somehow, their parens died to make two babies live forever; aer one animus became two. Somehow their parens died bringing twins into the world without surrogate animuses. An animus split in two to be shared equally between sisters.

None of the Constellation researchers could explain how an animus could be divided. And the girls heard the researchers whisper.

"Why two? Why has this occurred in natural gestation only? Why have twins been allowed conception only once in recorded magical history?"

They couldn't understand it because they had another theory, one that made more sense. "Infinity divided by anything is infinity. We can't determine why an animus divided into only two — because if we could split one animus apart, it should split infinitely."

"Nature and magic split one animus apart into just two. Why two and no more?"

"An infinite life created by fusing a mortal soul with the infinite power of the multiverse should be possible to split into an infinite number of animae — because infinity divided by anything is infinity."

"How do you divide infinity in two?"

Their testing consisted of poking and prodding at Sueño's animus, and then Águila's, and back again, testing for some place to split the soul into two as their madre's had done.

"Why can't we replicate it artificially in vivo?"

"Doesn't seem anywhere to split the animus in half."

So the girls pushed the scientists to attempt to divide one of their animae by infinity.

Their argument was strong, as was their cause. When they presented it to Lyric, they took turns, Águila speaking first. "It takes one life — the life of the parens — to fuel an immortal life, and for the past three millennia we have circumvented the process for most, or those who can afford it anyway, by selling the animae of the dead. Every Soliari in the empire who dies has their animus reclaimed and reused. A fetus can be infused with immortality before the child drains the eternal life force of the parens.

"Wonderful, but with an immortal population, there are only so many deaths a year," said Sueño, picking up the thread. "Only so many animae in the pool. Millions of Soliari want to have children, but the average death rate per annum is in the low hundreds. A thousand deaths a year would allow a thousand births. One to one. But then Sueño and I were born, and the equation changed. Two to one ain't bad. It's an improvement. If one animus could be split in two, we could double the birth rate. But the leading theory — the only compelling theory in my mind — states that theoretically one immortal soul should be capable of dividing infinitely."