Too Like the Lightning

by Ada Palmer

  “You fought each other?”

  “Green versus Yellow.” The Major nodded to Stander-Y, who still wore the desert beige of the opposing force. “The world has seen more causeless wars.”

  Carlyle’s brow furrowed in sympathy.

  “We all remember our war,” the Major continued, “the rage of it, the cities, families that never quite existed. My men are eager to talk to you too, but they’ve waited this long and can wait longer. It’s the boy that matters most.” He turned and shouted toward the brush, “Bridger! Come. It’s time.”

  Bridger rose from the bushes and approached, his clothing studded with chaff and seeds. Did I not describe him properly before? His clothes were almost as loose as a Cousin’s: a rough, woven child’s wrap with broad blue stripes, oversized enough for his hands to hide in the frayed sleeves, and baggy canvas play-pants, once khaki but grass-stained to a mottled chaos no printed camouflage can match. His face was perfect as an angel’s. It’s not just a pseudo-parent’s love that makes me say so. Even the sloppy clothes could not conceal his fine limbs, slim and lively, like when Cupid is painted as a youth, fragile in Psyche’s arms, instead of as a pudgy infant. His skin was light but not too light, and luminous, like wheat soap, his hair not pure blond but a pale brown graced with blond, like an antique bronze whose gilding has not completely worn away. If Bridger had had parents, they must have been of European stock, but he seemed more a painter’s fantasy than any mother’s son.

  “They have a tracker,” Carlyle observed as the boy approached, marking the device clipped over his right ear.

  “Yes,” Thisbe answered. “They have to look like a normal kid in case someone spots them. But it’s not on the network, jury-rigged, our own.” Thisbe smiled softly at the child, who dragged his feet as he approached, as if each longed to hide behind the other. “Come here, honey,” the witch coaxed. “I brought you something too.”

  Mycroft, I know thou intendest this descriptor ‘witch’ to make me uncomfortable, but thou succedest too well. Some archaisms are nuanced, others merely gross. Kindly leave out this slur against both Thisbe and those good people in history who really did call themselves witches.

  As you command, good reader, I obey.

  Bridger grinned. “Is it a pretzel?”

  “Way to spoil the surprise.” Thisbe took out the ‘surprise,’ fresh in its packet from the Mennonite Reservation in Pennsylvania.

  “Does it have cinnamon-sugar?”

  “Maybe it does. Better taste it to make sure.”

  He dashed close enough to seize the treat, then hid behind Thisbe, eyeing the sensayer as a cat eyes a new footstool intruding in its living room.

  Carlyle crouched to face the boy more evenly. “Hello, Bridger. Thank you for agreeing to see me again.”

  Bridger opened the pretzel, wrinkling his cherub nose at the steam. “We’re supposed to talk about if I should bring Pointer back.”

  Carlyle sat back on his heels. “All right.”

  “Thisbe said sensayering is supposed to be private, but I wanna have the Major listen, to be safe.”

  “That’s fine, if it’s what you want.”

  “And Thisbe, too, and Mycroft’s going to listen on my tracker.”

  “That’s fine. It’s not strange for you to be nervous the first time.”

  “And Lieutenant Aimer too, and Crawler, and Nogun, and Medic, and Nostand, and Stander-Y, and Stander-G, but not Looker, Looker’s on lookout, and not Croucher, Croucher’s back with Mommadoll.”

  Carlyle made his chuckle warm. “That’s quite an audience.”

  “Is that against the rules?”

  “Not if it’s what makes you feel safe. But you and I, we’ll be the two that talk, the others will just listen make sure you’re okay. All right?”

  You too shall join us, reader. You may feel like a voyeur, invading this intimacy which only the most scandalous movie dares depict. I know your fear, that if you find yourself agreeing, two of a kind in the same faith, you will have taken your first step toward a Church, and the bigotry and violence Churches vomit forth. But you must come. This will be the gentlest of sessions, as Carlyle takes a child down the many paths of skepticism, not to conclusions, but to questions. I will show you worse in time, but you will never understand this history if you do not dare read about another’s God.

  “Croucher says you’re going to blab and damn us all, and the Cousins will take me away, and lock Mycroft up, and Thisbe will get put on trial, and Boo will get dissected, and the army men will be locked in an evil lab forever and ever, and they’ll torture me, and make me make some horrible thing that’ll wipe out the world.”

  I can’t tell with Carlyle whether his easy smiles are trade tricks he learned at the Conclave, or whether he is so sweet by nature. “That won’t happen.”

  “It won’t?”

  “No. Mycroft and Thisbe and everyone are taking every precaution, and I’m not going to tell any bad people about you, no matter what. I promise.”

  Bridger’s light brows furrowed as he weighed the stranger’s promise.

  “Bridger, can we have a quick miracle over here?” It was Nogun who called, his voice cracking like an adolescent who should not yet be allowed in uniform.

  “Yup!” The child reached between the soldiers and touched the nearest of the plastic dishes. Without sound or pomp, a glistening realness spread across the food, as when a dying man’s eyes lose their sparkle, but reversed. Feasting and feast’s happy murmur followed.

  Bridger settled in the grass facing Carlyle and buried his arms in the folds of his sloppy sleeves. “I’ve been thinking,” he began, “about how I’d bring Pointer back if I decide to. I could make a Frankenstein machine and throw the switch, and it would zap them to life, and that way it would be science that did it, not magic, so I wouldn’t break science or anything. But then they might come back as a zombie monster. Or I could make a magic resurrecting thing, like the holy grail, or a unicorn horn, or mermaid blood, or phoenix blood, but things like that might have side effects, not just on Pointer.”

  Carlyle thought for some moments, which I took as a good sign, patience and digestion before he ventured words. “Then, have you decided definitely to bring them back?”

  The child frowned at his pretzel. “I want to, but I feel like I’m not supposed to, like it’s not allowed.”

  “That’s a very natural feeling,” the sensayer assured. “You don’t know what it means to bring them back. You don’t know how life and death work, if there are some invisible rules you would be breaking. Anybody would be nervous. I’m nervous too.”

  Bridger munched on his pretzel. “You’re nervous?”

  “Mm-hmm. I have to do a good job helping you decide, just like you have to do a good job deciding. So we’re both nervous.”

  “That makes sense.” Bridger scratched a small rut in the soil with his shoe. “Are there rules to death?”

  Thisbe retreated to the sidelines now, exchanging glances with the Major, like parents hovering on the first day of kindergarten.

  “Some people think there are rules to death. Other people think there aren’t.”

  The child’s frown disapproved of something, and, by his eager munching, it wasn’t the pretzel. “If there are rules, would it be like karma?”

  The sensayer nodded at the term. “Yes, karma is a good example of a rule some people think death has. And reincarnation, do you know what reincarnation is?”

  “That’s when you live again and again.”

  Carlyle nodded, watching carefully the movements of Bridger’s eyes, the fidgeting of his feet, signposts of the subtle border between discussion and discomfort. “People have a lot of different ideas of different ways that reincarnation and karma might work,” he continued. “If they do exist then they might have rules, and by bringing Pointer back you might affect those rules in some way. Similarly, if there is an afterlife that dead people go to, then there could be rules about that, and you might affect those
rules. And there might also be rules for this world that would be affected. Lots of possibilities.”

  “Rules for this world?”

  “Yes. Some people think there are metaphysical rules for this world, just like people think there could be for an afterlife. For example, do you know what Providence is?”

  “That everything happens for a reason.”

  “Yes, that’s right. And specifically that everything happens for a good reason. There are lots of different philosophies that believe in some kind of Providence.”

  “So Providence is rules for this world, like Heaven and Hades is rules for the afterlife?”

  “Yes, possibly,” Carlyle confirmed gently. “Remember, these are things some people think, you have to decide for yourself what you think, and you don’t have to decide quickly, you can take lots of time to talk and think. If there is Providence, and everything that happens is for a good reason, then that could mean that Pointer died for a good reason, so it’s good that Pointer died, and it would be bad to bring them back. Or it might be that Providence made you have the powers you have partly because Pointer was going to die, and Providence intends you to bring Pointer back, so bringing them back would be good.”

  The boy frowned. “That’s backwards of itself.”

  “Yes, well put. It’s difficult to figure out what to do if you believe in Providence. Even among the people who believe in Providence—which is only some people—there are lots of different ideas about how Providence might work. And Providence is just one of many kinds of rules some people think the world might have. Or it might have none at all, and just be chaos.” He leaned forward, toward the boy. “With so many possibilities it’s important to be patient and give yourself lots of time to think.”

  Bridger: “I was thinking that maybe I shouldn’t bring Pointer back if there’s an afterlife, but if there isn’t an afterlife then I really really should.”

  Carlyle: “Perhaps. But it doesn’t have to be binary like that. For example, some people think there is an afterlife, but that it’s better to be alive than to be in the afterlife.”

  Bridger: “A bad afterlife. Like Hell.”

  Carlyle: “Hell is one famous example, but there are other examples. Some people believe in afterlives that aren’t full of torment, but still aren’t as good as being alive. And some people don’t believe in an afterlife at all, but still believe in karma, or Providence, in rules about life, and think that you shouldn’t interfere with those rules.”

  The boy’s brows knitted. “Then … then I should bring Pointer back if there’s a bad afterlife or no rules, but I shouldn’t bring them back if there’s a good afterlife or rules? Except how do I know if there’s rules?”

  “It may or may not be possible to know for sure, but either way it usually takes a long time and a lot of thinking to figure out if you think there are rules or not. But,” he added, seeing a flare of fidgeting proclaim the boy’s discomfort, “there are some people who don’t believe in rules, and don’t believe in an afterlife, but would still say death isn’t bad.”

  The last nugget of pretzel vanished now, and Bridger welcomed Boo into his lap, a mass of blue fur and affection. “How could death be not bad if there’s no afterlife? I mean, you’re dead, no more you. That’s bad.”

  Carlyle stretched, letting his body signal relaxation to the child, if not his words. “Have you heard of the Epicureans? They’re an interesting example.”

  Bridger sniffled. “Croucher called Crawler an Epicurean ’cause he likes food too much.”

  Carlyle: “That’s one way the word is used, but it also refers to a philosophy from ancient Greece.”

  Bridger: “Didn’t Epicureans invent the bash’?”

  Carlyle: “Yes, sort of. You sure know a lot.” He smiled his praise. “Neo-Epicureans invented the bash’. Neo-Epicureans lived many centuries after the original Epicureans, and they thought some of the things Epicureans thought, but mixed them with other things. When the same philosophy has different versions at different points in history, we put ‘neo-’ on the beginning when we talk about a later revival, to remind us that it’s different from the original.”

  Bridger: “Like neo-Platonism came after Platonism?”

  Carlyle: “You really know a lot. Wow!”

  That won a little smile. “Mycroft likes to talk about philosophy.”

  Carlyle: “Mycroft’s a good friend to you, aren’t they?”

  Bridger: “I like Mycroft.”

  Carlyle: “I know Mycroft likes you too. Did Mycroft tell you about Epicureanism?”

  Bridger: “They said Epicureans think it’s important to be happy.”

  Carlyle: “That’s right. Epicureanism is a philosophy from twenty-eight hundred years ago. Epicurus thought there was no afterlife, so the most important thing was to be happy in this life. But Epicureans didn’t like quick pleasures like food and alcohol and love affairs, because after you’ve been drunk you feel awful, or when the love affair ends you usually feel awful too. Epicureans focused on kinds of happiness that last a long time, like friendship, a beautiful garden, or thinking about philosophy.”

  Bridger: “Not pretzels?”

  Carlyle: “Pretzels are good, but they aren’t going to make your whole life happy, just the few minutes while you eat the pretzel. They’re a temporary good, instead of a permanent good. And if you eat too many pretzels it can make you sick, and then you’ll be less happy.”

  Bridger: “I want to test that scientifically!” He grinned. “Can we do that next time at Science Club? Test how many pretzels it takes to make you sick?” It was Thisbe he looked to for permission. “Can we ask Doctor Weeksbooth?”

  Thisbe chuckled darkly. “I don’t think so. Doctor Weeksbooth wouldn’t want to run an experiment that will make everybody sick. But I bet we could ask them to do a lesson on the digestive system, so you can calculate yourself how many pretzels it could hold.”

  “And then I can eat one less than that!”

  Carlyle smiled as the happy tangent eased the boy’s fidgeting. “Science Club sounds fun.”

  “It is! Last week we learned about syphons, and we made a goop syphon that syphoned with no tube!”

  “Impressive.” He caught the boy’s eyes. “It sounds like you learn great things with Doctor Weeksbooth.”

  “Yup!”

  “Now do you want to learn with me? About how neo-Epicureanism and Epicureanism are different?”

  Reframed like science class, this death discussion wasn’t quite so scary. “Sure.”

  “Neo-Epicureanism is an economic philosophy from only three hundred years ago. So how many years newer is that than Epicureanism?”

  The boy hummed tunelessly as he wracked his memory. “I forgot how old first one was.”

  “Twenty-eight hundred years old.”

  “Then the new one is twenty-five hundred years newer!”

  “That’s right!”

  “That’s easy.” He looked to Thisbe for an approving nod, and got one.

  “Neo-Epicureanism says that, whether there is an afterlife or not, people are healthier, more productive, and live longer if they’re happy, so the government—for us the Hive—should try to make sure people live in ways that make them happy. Living in a bash’ with a group of friends that you have fun with every day is one of the institutions the neo-Epicureans promoted to help people be happy. The original Epicureans probably would have liked the bash’, and their ideas helped it spread, but they didn’t come up with it, Regan Makoto Cullen came up with it, based on Brillism, which is another fairly recent philosophy.”

  I smiled as I watched over Thisbe’s tracker feed. Some people talk down to children, as if they assume a small body houses a small intellect. Some people talk past them, bludgeoning them with unfamiliar words until the kids accept what they can’t understand. Chance or Providence, whichever you prefer, had sent Bridger a sensayer who treated the child as an equal intelligence, just blessed with newness, ready for difficult thin
gs, so long as they were presented honestly.

  “And Epicureans think it’s good to die?” The child hugged his dog.

  Man: “No, but ancient Epicureans thought that it wasn’t bad to die.”

  Child: “Why not?”

  Man: “Because they thought death was nothing, and there’s no reason to be afraid of nothing, since it won’t hurt you, it’s just nothing.”

  Child: “But there’s no more you!”

  Man: “That’s true. Do you think that’s bad?”

  Child: “Of course it’s bad! You can’t be happy anymore if there’s no you. You can’t eat, or have parties, or a dog, or play, or have a pretzel ever again! I don’t like that. I don’t want Pointer to not get to do that anymore.”

  Man: “But if you’re dead you also can’t be sad, or in pain, or hurt, or lonely.”

  Child: “That doesn’t make up for it. I like me, and I like gardens, and my friends. I think everybody likes themselves and their friends. How could they think it’s not bad to lose all that? I think they’re stupid Epicureans.”

  Man: “I don’t think they’re stupid, but I do think you have a very reasonable objection. There are many answers to your question when you ask why they thought death without an afterlife could be good. One possible answer has to do with how different life was back then.”

  Child: “What do you mean?”

  Man: “Epicureans thought of pleasure as the absence of pain. That is, when you aren’t hurting or hungry or sad or lonely or anything else bad, that’s pleasure. It’s what we call a negative definition, defining something by what it isn’t, rather than what it is, like ‘clean’ means something isn’t dirty, and ‘dark’ means there isn’t light.”

  Child: “But pleasure is when you feel happy or good.”

  Man: “That’s a positive definition, saying what it is, not what it isn’t. They used a negative definition instead.”

  Child: “Why?”