Too Like the Lightning

by Ada Palmer

  Man: “A lot of people think it has to do with the difference between what life was like in ancient Greece and what life is like now. Nowadays life is pretty good, don’t you think? You aren’t in pain very often, or sick, or hungry, or alone, and you don’t have to worry about your home getting smashed or your friends all getting killed by raiders.” He frowned in sympathy as the boy hugged his dog tighter. “In ancient Greece life was harder than now: there wasn’t enough food, there was war a lot, there were lots of diseases, and they didn’t have good medicine so doctors couldn’t fix things. A lot of people were in pain and hungry all the time, and afraid of getting conquered or enslaved, and everyone had to see lots of friends die. If you weren’t hungry or thirsty, and weren’t sick, and no one was hurting you, and you weren’t sad from having a friend die, that was very rare and good, so they thought of that as pleasure, a state with no pain. Can you see how that would make sense in their world?”

  Bridger half-buried his face in the blue fur, sad at the thought of lives so hard. “I guess. Yeah. That’s sad to think, though.”

  Man: “Yes, it is. But if death also meant that all that stopped, no hunger, pain, or sadness, then by the negative definition death was also pleasure.”

  Child: “Then why didn’t they all just kill themselves?”

  Man: “Some people did back then, but the Epicureans said that you should still try to be happy as much as you can in life, in simple ways that are hard to destroy, like conversation, or thinking about philosophy. You can do that even if you’re sick, or alone, or lose your home in war.”

  The boy’s jaw set, his serious face, adorable in its effort to imitate his battle-wearied guardians. “The Major and the soldiers and Mycroft told me what war is like. They say it’s the second worst thing in the world.”

  Man: “That’s an interesting definition. What did they say is the worst thing?”

  Child: “Not having anything worth fighting for in the first place.”

  The sensayer looked again to the frowning Major and his men, thinking ahead perhaps to their future sessions, as Bridger gave him this first sample of a veteran’s mind.

  Man: “That’s a very powerful thought.”

  Child: “Yeah. But we don’t have to have war anymore. Life is good, good enough to be worth fighting for, but we don’t have to fight. No more countries, no more armies, no more war.”

  Carlyle nodded. “I bet your little soldiers still have a pretty tough life, being tiny and not being able to go out into the world and meet people, and remembering the war and friends that died in it. I bet Pointer had some bad things about their life, as well as good things.”

  Child: “I guess so.”

  Man: “So before you do anything, you could think about whether those bad things might be enough to make it better not to bring Pointer back.”

  Hints of pain made Bridger’s voice grow weak. “I don’t know.”

  Carlyle took a deep breath. “Bridger, are you sad now?”

  Child: “Yes.”

  Priest: “Why are you sad?”

  “Because Pointer’s dead.” He buried his face fully in Boo’s fur, the dog no longer big enough to shield the growing boy completely as it had the toddler. “It made everybody sad, me and Thisbe and the Major, everybody’s sad when their friends are dead, even Mycroft.”

  To my astonishment Carlyle’s eyes too grew wet with mourning for this plastic soldier he had never met, or perhaps the tears were grander, for the countless lost souls of the past, whom Time had taken from us. Something shifted in his posture, marking some new phase of dialogue, now that he had pushed the child this far.

  Priest: “What does being sad feel like?”

  Child: “It hurts.”

  Carlyle leaned close. “Bridger, Pointer loved you, didn’t they?”

  The boy wiped his nose on his sleeve. “Yes.”

  Priest: “Pointer was a soldier too. They loved the other soldiers, and worked hard for you, and them, did hard things, risked their life. Pointer was willing to endure all kinds of pain to help you and the other soldiers, right?”

  The Major smiled a self-satisfied smile here, as if he smelled meat in the argument at last, and saw its end.

  Child: “Yes.”

  Priest: “Did Pointer sometimes give up doing something nice and fun, like resting, to do something hard and not so fun for you?”

  Child: “Yeah, lots of times. Like being on watch when it was really cold.”

  Priest: “So Pointer would choose to give up pleasure and face pain, for you?”

  Child: “Yeah.”

  Priest: “Then even if death is better than being alive, do you think Pointer would be willing to be alive again to help you and the other soldiers?”

  Child: “Yes,” the child answered. “Yes, Pointer would want to be here to help us. Even if death is nice they’d still want to be here to help us. So … so then it can be okay to bring Pointer back, even if death isn’t bad?”

  Bridger smiled at last, and I felt the warmth of the conclusion spread through myself as well. I am no sensayer. In Carlyle’s place I would have just said that death is bad, and that of course he should bring Pointer back. But that would have brought a world of pain upon the child. Do you still not see it, reader? The moral consequences ten steps further along, which Carlyle foresees as clearly as signposts on a road? If Bridger had brought Pointer back on the theory that it’s always better to be alive than dead, then what about the other plastic corpses lost somewhere in the trench dust? He should bring them back. What about Emma Platz? Lesley’s parents? The recently deceased sensayer Carlyle replaced? What about the stranger who died yesterday in a hospital on the far side of the world? Or every stranger, every death, back to the dawn of time? Soon the nightmare guilt that sometimes kept me up at night would kindle in the boy, and make him feel that every soul that ever died was on his conscience for not resurrecting them. But this way, deciding based on what the soldier personally would want, Bridger could bring Pointer back and still reserve the possibility of death being okay, and not take up the burden (yet) of saving all of us. At this point I sent my silent signal to Thisbe and the Major that I thought this sensayer could be trusted.

  “But what if there’s a God?” Only a child could ask so bluntly, reader.

  I will spare you the next part. You may assume that Carlyle stayed with Bridger in the garden for another hour, leading him through the hypotheticals of Nirvana, Gehenna, Guinee, Mictlan, Hell, of nothingness, of reincarnation, of souls returning, souls merging, souls evaporating, no souls at all, presenting many options and leaving many open doors. Their conclusions were neither solely Bridger’s nor solely Carlyle’s, but discoveries made striding hand in hand through theology’s well-trodden ground. When I returned that evening to find Pointer alive and well among his comrades, with no memory of his dead hours but a sleeplike sense of warmth and darkness, I thanked Carlyle in my heart for Bridger’s smiles.

  Carlyle is gentle, reader. I am not. As you follow me to President Ganymede’s party and the truths beyond, remember that, as your historian, I cannot let kindness restrain me when I choose which doors I open for you, and which doors I close.

  CHAPTER THE TENTH

  The Sun Awaits His Rival

  I give you the Renunciation Day party of Ganymede Jean-Louis de la Trémoïlle, Duc de Thouars, Prince de Talmond, President of the Humanists. Versailles was not so gilded, Paris so chic, Hollywood so glamorous, nor Babylon so infamous as the town of La Trimouille since the Duke’s return. The French Nobility was officially disbanded on June the twenty-third 1790, but nostalgia is more powerful than any law. So, when this young stranger bought up a clump of lots unworthy of the name ‘estate’ and declared himself to be the Duke returning to his ancestral lands, the locals rejoiced at this opportunity for fame and tourism. The line of Dukes de la Trémoïlle officially died out some centuries ago, but there are always bastards and lost cousins waiting for a fortuitous conjunction of wealth and DNA testing
to reinstate them. The family home had not survived, so the Duke built a fantasy palace, period in style but too opulent, the gilded woodwork too elaborate, chandeliers too huge, halls too labyrinthine, fields of sculpture and topiary stretching too far beyond what the eye can take. So stunning is the ostentation of the place that Ganymede’s fellow Humanists have forgiven him for spurning the Hive capital of Buenos Aires to remain here in what was—until the Duke’s arrival—European turf. Photographs taken at La Trimouille are blurred by too much light, recordings ruined by too many happy voices, but to stand there blinded by a world of unbroken gold is worth the fortune one must spend to get there. It always costs a fortune, reader, for if time is money, then the hours spent gaining influence enough to receive an invitation means that every guest has paid a fortune.

  Only Ganymede is not drowned out by such a backdrop. No thread of fabric touches the alabaster of his skin that is not silk or finer, and no cut of garment graces his figure that Louis XIV would not have worn. His cuffs drip with lace, his waistcoat swarms with embroidery, a monarch’s costume to make Dominic seem the servant that he is. The Duke wears no colors but gold, ivory, or sometimes blue, but even true spun gold seems somehow pale beside his golden mane, which shimmers like the Sun around his shoulders. The blue of his eyes is beyond sky blue, beyond sea blue, beyond amethyst, a ferocious blue like the blue of diamonds and star sapphires, the Hope Diamond, the Star of Asia, gems who leave behind a history of murder. Clothed so, he embodies the age when a peasant, glimpsing such beauty through the window of a passing coach, might think that all his toil is worthwhile if the sweat of his back allows so noble a creature to grace the Earth. Nude he is a god.

  «Mycroft, good. Walk with me, I want to talk with you.» The Duke spoke French with me, the leisurely, satisfied French of one tired of pretending he is not bitter at his Hive for preferring Spanish.

  «Yes, Your Grace.»

  The Duke President led me along one of his long galleries, where masterpieces jostled for space on the damask-paneled walls. The party was young yet, a mere few hundred notables chatting in corners, or listening to echoes from the great hall, where Ting Ting Foster teased the Royal Belgian String Quartet by constantly segueing from one aria into another, forcing the strings to shift course like children behind a fickle kite.

  «I spoke with Ockham Saneer today,» the Duke President began, pretending to scratch his cheek so the lace of his cuff veiled his mouth from lip readers. «Apparently you were at the house during Martin’s intrusion.»

  «Yes, Your Grace.»

  «Was Martin cooperative?»

  «Very cooperative, Your Grace. Martin is offering every courtesy, and taking every opportunity to avoid establishing any bad precedents.»

  «But not so with Seneschal.»

  I struggled to keep my voice soft. «Dominic came to the house?»

  The Duke paused to smile at a trio of Humanists who had strayed close enough to eavesdrop, but dispersed like startled pigeons at his glance. How magnanimous of the President, they must have thought, to grant a glimpse of heaven to this lowly Servicer.

  «Mercifully,» he continued, «the only person the bloodhound saw was Lesley Saneer, but I’m not happy having any of my people exposed to him, especially not the Saneer-Weeksbooth bash’. That’s why we’re going to settle this ourselves.»

  «We, Your Grace?»

  «I’m lending you my eyes and ears tonight. You will channel my tracker through yours, see and hear what I see and hear. I need you to tell me whether Sniper is behind this.»

  «Sniper?» The thought, obvious now, had never crossed my mind. «It’s not impossible.»

  The Duke President nodded. «I wouldn’t put any stunt past Sniper. If this is just the prank of some enterprising Mafioso, then Ockham and Martin can take care of things, but if Sniper did this I have to know. I’ll give you a nice, close look, show you the expressions Sniper won’t show the cameras, then you’ll know.»

  «You place too much stock in my abilities, Your Grace.»

  He turned his back, the bright tails of his pleated coat almost brushing my knees. «You know no one listens when you say that, Mycroft. You may rest in the kitchens as you watch. I’ll summon you to report when the party’s done. You don’t have to be absolutely certain, your best guess will be sufficient. Give me a direction to set my own hounds; I shall do the rest myself.»

  «Yes, Your Grace.»

  «And Mycroft,» he called, «if anyone asks, I called you here to look for cheaters in the betting pool. Tell no one you spied for me tonight, not Ancelet, not Spain, not Andō, not Caesar, no one.»

  «Your Grace, if a Certain Person asks … »

  «Make sure that doesn’t happen. We have to bury this, Mycroft.» His eyes flashed their diamond-deadly sparkle. «I don’t need to point out that, if the public eye turns on that bash’, it will mean the end of your comfortable little arrangement with Thisbe Saneer.»

  I squeezed my hat, comforting in my hands like a child’s doll. «I know, Your Grace. I’ll do my very, very best.»

  «Good. Now, off to the kitchens with you. Sniper won’t show until I’ve gathered enough notables in one place to set up a worthy entrance.»

  I was well installed on my stool beside the ovens by the time the Duke President reached his first targets, whom he had spotted in the Salon des Conquêtes. There was already a crowd within, but as he entered President Ganymede pressed a finger to his lips to silence all who spotted him. The lesser guests knew what he must want, and left the Duke a clear path toward Cousin Chair Bryar Kosala. She had shed her costume from the Pantheon, and was back in a Cousin’s wrap, this one less a robe than a chaos of marbled scarves, a dozen shades of green, whose silk-soft chaos made her, if not the most elegant of the present elite, certainly the most comfortable. Censor Vivien Ancelet stood behind her, back to back, still in his purple uniform, the couple trying not to feel awkward among the evocative masterpieces in the aptly named gallery. In stone, in oil, in chalk, the room was crammed with First Nights: Antony and Cleopatra, Romeo and Juliet, Achilles and Patroclus, Don Juan with a variety of beauties. Jupiter appeared in his many amorous transformations, the bull carrying off Europa, the swan coiled suggestively between Queen Leda’s thighs, and the shower of gold descending to impregnate the ancient princess Danaë locked in her father’s tower. These were not innocent nudes, nor even half-innocent like a classical Aphrodite pretending to cover herself with an ineffective drape. These were all fully sensual, not yet in the actual act of sex, but so intent upon it one could think of little else.

  Silent as a lion (which is as much a cat as any other), Ganymede prowled in between the pair. Reaching gently, he massaged Kosala’s shoulder with his right hand, while with his left he stroked the underside of Vivien’s palm, as lovers do inviting one another to hold hands. Neither victim glanced back, but both smiled at the touch of gentle fingers, Chair Kosala arching her back, while the Censor grasped the President’s fingers, soft as a woman’s, and held them warmly. Ganymede pressed his luck, moving closer to Bryar until their flesh shared heat, then craned his neck to let his breath reach between the dreadlocks and tickle Vivien’s bare ear. Only then did Chair Kosala turn to see why one of her bodyguards was trying so hard not to laugh. She almost screamed. “Ganymede!”

  She and Vivien gaped at the Duke between them, who smiled, looking as smug as the sculpture behind him of naked Hephaestion basking in the hungry gaze of Alexander. In fact, since Duke Ganymede himself had been the model for that particular Hephaestion, the likeness was exact.

  “You see,” he lectured, “this is why couples should stand together in this room, not apart.”

  As the pair stood frozen, Ganymede gave each kisses on both cheeks, then pressed them into one another’s arms as if arranging dolls. “Like that, see? Better.”

  They held the pose only a moment before balking back. “Ganymede,” Chair Kosala began, “I … we were looking for you.”

  “Then it was mutual. Come, ther
e’s something waiting for you on the Ruby Walk.” He seized Chair Kosala by the hand, the lace of his cuff mingling with her hanging silks like the leaves and blossoms of wisteria. “Something for your bedroom wall.”

  Pure Indian ancestry has made Bryar Kosala’s hair as rich and dense a black as any on the planet, almost dense enough to hide behind. “I thought you’d forgotten about that.”

  “Dearest Bryar, I never forget anything. Come along, Vivien.” He dragged the Censor by his Graylaw sash. “Bryar’s not going use this piece alone.”

  Ganymede swept out of the salon with the speechless couple helplessly in tow.

  The long main gallery they entered now had a sleek, reflective red carpet, which preserved the tracks of Humanist boots, no two alike, whose custom soles stamped the receiving fibers with the sigils of the many athletes, actors, thinkers, and tricksters who played the celebrity game well enough to walk Ganymede’s halls. Humanist boots are a custom nearly two hundred years old, created when the Olympian Hive, which lived for sport, merged with World Stage, which lived for concert and spotlight, to form the ‘Humanists,’ united by the passion to excel, achieve, improve, and constantly surpass the past limits of human perfection. I believe there has never been, nor shall be again, a government as stable as the Humanists. Rome grew mighty under Kings, then stifled as they became tyrants, forcing the bloody revolution which birthed the Republic. When that Republic’s conquests outgrew the Senate’s power to govern, it took a second bloodbath to return to monarchy. How many bloodbaths has France endured? India? China? Florence and Athens, trapped in their constitutions, unable to switch to monarchy when crisis demanded one voice? The Humanists alone have escaped this cycle, trusting voters to choose not only governors, but governments. Humanist elections have no short list of candidates. All may vote for anyone they please, and everyone who receives even a thousandth part of the voting pool receives in turn that portion of the power. Today universally beloved Ganymede commands sixty-three percent of the vote, and so wields sixty-three percent of the powers of government, and adds ‘President’ to his list of titles. The other thirty-seven percent of the power is distributed among his rivals: twenty-two and the title of Vice President to the runner-up, six to one Minister of Justice, the final nine to a council of minor celebrities currently dubbed Congress. Fifty years ago, when charisma was less concentrated in one star, the frontrunner had boasted a mere seven percent and the title Speaker, while three percent went to a Vice Speaker, and the remaining ninety to a Senate of more than five hundred names. It was a revolution, reader, a transition from republic to dictatorship in fifty years without a single drop of blood. Detractors call it a cult of charisma, but the Humanists themselves use aretocracy, rule by excellence.