Too Like the Lightning

by Ada Palmer

  Is it not miraculous, reader, the power of the mind to believe and not believe at once? We all know the powers of Utopia. We see their living wonders fill the streets, cheer as they conquer syndromes, hire them to make the impossible possible for us job after job. We even trust them with this hunt for the dread Gyges Device. Yet we still think and plan for the world. One world. We never doubt that every individual shipment they send to Mars must be successful, that their science is sound, their effort proceeding, but somehow we do not believe the distant end will ever come. These Nine Directors don’t believe Utopians will really live on Mars in 2660. Utopians do.

  “If land is not the source,” I continued, “then you lose to the Masons. If it is, you lose long-term to the Utopians. Sugiyama’s editorial will say this, and, coming from your most prominent journalist, it will shatter the public’s faith in your timocracy.”

  “Shareholder democracy,” younger Shanghai corrected.

  “Timocracy is what the other Hives are seeing.” Director Bandyopadhyay leaned forward until the polished board table glowed with the reflected coral-fire blossoms of her jacket. “Whatever you say about the benefits of having both personal votes and property votes, you know the other Hives look at us, they look at me, they look at how our second-largest nation-strat can only secure one seat at this table, because the lot of you”—her gesture encompassed all of them, but her eye fell most on Andō and Kimura Kunie, whose hundred million Japanese strat-Members boasted two Directors while India’s near-billion fought for one—“have had your strats eating up property as hard as you can for generations. They think they see us all racing with each other to eat up more, even if we aren’t. Every doubt and bad feeling other Hives have, and every late rent fee they’ve ever resented, it adds up.” She turned back to the camera. “This could be some anti-land-grab group playing extremely dirty. Do we even know this is the real Canner Device? Someone with a vague sense that it could smear us may have created their own tracker hacker to make us look dirty.”

  The suggestion struck me like a ray of light.

  Shanghai killed it with a cloud: “Utopians? Hired Utopians could do it, or the Hive itself.”

  “Do your predictions think they’ll benefit from this? What does the Censor’s office say?”

  I winced. “You can probably guess. The Masons are predicted to gain most from the Members and investments that leave you. Cousins and Humanists will benefit as well. More details are … in flux.”

  “And the Utopians?” Shanghai pressed. “You just said we’re in a long-term, two-planet land race, and here we’re trusting them with the investigation. What if it was them?”

  I could not lie before J.E.D.D. Mason. “There are probably constellations of Utopians out there who could make such a thing, but, to speak frankly, Directors, manipulating politics and public image this way is not the sort of thing Utopia as a Hive cares much about. And if hired Utopians were to plan such a thing for one of the other Hives, they would succeed, and they would make sure we did not suspect them.” I cringe even now repeating this, reader. Do not fear the Utopians. Anyone would call Utopia a fearsome foe, but they do not play these Earthly power games, and, like a nest of hornets, they sting only when provoked.

  “Have you seen this Sugiyama editorial, Jagmohan?” Director Bandyopadhyay uses India’s nickname for J.E.D.D. Mason, practically a pun. “Which angle is it playing up? Maybe Sugiyama was talking to anti-land-grab people.”

  Beijing nodded agreement. “If so, the worst part of all this may be that this fuss with the editor and switching lists makes it looks like Masami Mitsubishi was party to trying to hush Sugiyama up. I’m already getting snippets of the hue and cry anti-land-grab groups are raising about that. Perfect ammunition for them. Too perfect.”

  A few had sympathetic frowns for brooding Andō, but Bandyopadhyay’s expectant gaze directed the others to the camera once again. They have a special patience for J.E.D.D. Mason, as for an oracle struggling to condense her oceanic message into the thimble-vessel of a sentence. “Chichi-ue, do you have personal enemies outside this room? Have any of you, Directors?”

  They reviewed each other over a long silence. “You think this is a personal attack?”

  “A shark has many teeth for one reason. Just so, this theft wounds from many sides at once. That speaks of a meticulous author.”

  Again a careful silence held China, Korea, India, Japan.

  “Any who answers Me this in private might do great good,” J.E.D.D. Mason told them, slowly. “Until then, Directors, I give you more by giving My minutes and My servants’ minutes to My investigation than to you yourselves.”

  The Chief Director nodded. “Thank you for your time today, Tai-kun.”

  “I Will you well, Directors.”「Father. Give My regards to all My step-siblings and the Princess.」

  Chief Director Andō smiled at this dash of Japanese.「I will.」

  “Jagmohan?” Director Bandyopadhyay’s call made all freeze. “One more question.”

  “Yes, Director?”

  “I know you’re using Mycroft Guildbreaker. How much will you two share with MASON in all this? Does Guildbreaker know that the Canner Device can be tied to the Mitsubishi? Will MASON find out?”

  His answer was not slow this time. “A Masonic Emperor does not need blackmail. Pater gains more from stability than from your fall. You too are allies in that sense. If Martin and I choose to inform Patrem, it will be because the Empire cannot help you bury what it does not know. I see doubt on your faces. But you are already struggling to keep this secret; you would do well to accept aid from Patre, one whose secrets have commanded supreme awe and curiosity over the centuries, and yet he keeps them still.”

  Here once again, reader, we manage to both believe and not believe. We say we are not so gullible as to accept the propaganda that the Masons are as ancient as the cults of Mithras and Orpheus. We say that we do not believe they conspired from the shadows, guiding human progress for millennia before the Church War’s chaos brought them into the light. But when you push, our denial weakens. We date the Hive to 2137, the war’s height, six years after Carlyle’s Great Renunciation shattered the nation-states. Those who did not share the uniting ethic of any early Hive—did not love Europe, Asia, sport, stage, kindness, Nature, profit, Brill—found themselves abandoned, their states dissolving, their Churches (first resort when states failed) swept up in the zealot flames. As war matured into chaos and plague, one false hope lay in the Masonic lodges peppering the towns, which fiction claimed were more than what they seemed. We say that Antoninus MASON just harnessed the myth, organized those who came to the lodges into a global force before people realized there was not one already there. “Power I am,” this master storyteller claimed, “the Secret Emperor, more ancient than the Pyramids, more far-reaching than Alexander, more long-lasting than Rome. While Ramses and Ozymandias built monuments that fade, I hid in shadow, and reveal myself only now that the fools I left to sub-govern in my place have failed so much. Come back to me, my people. My Empire has endured ten thousand years, and will not be shaken by this petty war.” That fiction birthed this Hive which swallowed up the remnants, as a gleaner picks fallen grain after the harvest. Much grain remained, more than enough to make the myth of Empire real. But something inside us can’t believe it’s all invention. It feels so ancient: the dread Imperial Guard, the awesome shadow of the Sanctum Sanctorum tower, the Imperial Palace with its clustered ziggurats, the laws unrolled on crackling papyrus, the cold, iron-gray throne. The language of myth slips from our tongues: ancient custom, ancient law, Imperium, millennium, Empire, Caesar. Perhaps it actually is true and false at once. Great institutions—Hive, strat, nation, kingdom, guild—all are built of consensus, willed into reality by we who love, obey, protect, and fear. If Will alone can make these powers real enough to reshape the globe and burn the heavens, perhaps Will can also make them have been real ten thousand years ago.

  “Yes,” Andō answered. “You may
tell MASON if you think it prudent, Tai-kun. We know you’ll only make them see the truth. While we have you with us, we are able to count MASON as a friend. I know the whole Directorate is grateful.” Andō stopped there, but the grim pride in his eyes added “to me.” They did need these reminders sometimes, Beijing, Shanghai, vast and wary India, why they are all best off with Andō in the Chief Director’s seat.

  “Yes, Chichi-ue. I will do My best for you.”

  CHAPTER THE NINETEENTH

  Flies to Honey

  “But this … this is a church!” Thisbe cried.

  Carlyle checked the address a second time. “Probably it just used to be a church. See, the cross has been taken off the steeple.”

  Thisbe found little comfort in that as she faced the stone and arches of [XXX], rue [XXXXX], Avignon, France. It had been a church, a simple one, but ancient enough to have the wet scent of a graveyard. The tangle of plants around it was almost tidy enough to be called a garden, and, as March’s lion turned to lamb, some hope-green sprouts were peeking from old branches, like stubborn stars piercing a foggy night. I did not see this. In fact, at my interview I invited Carlyle Foster to write this chapter himself, but he does not trust his skill with written words.

  That day he trusted himself. “Let’s try the basement door,” he was first to suggest. “It looks more used than the big front portals.”

  Thisbe did not have to be convinced, for her boots had already started down the garden path, threatening to crush the green blades, not yet crocuses, which crowded between the stones. I asked each of them to describe the scent that drifted from the windows. Thisbe called it hypnotic cooking, the kind that makes you crowd around the oven unable to stop watching the timer as it crawls toward done. Carlyle said only that it would have made a statue hungry.

  Thisbe knocked twice. She had donned her best for this, a short jacket of tea-green silk which matched the landscapes of her boots. I still prefer her in her home clothes, loose and lazy like the lax wings of a flying squirrel forever ready to cuddle back in bed. It is not that the suit looks bad on her, but people have different faces for work and play. Thisbe’s home face may be menacing at times, but it is also a bit less false. “Excuse me?” Thisbe called, sweetly as any rose-cheeked princess. “Is anyone home?”

  “Coming!” Rapid feet approached within. “I didn’t expect you so ear—oh…” The voice had a hint of paternal cheer, which faded as soon as the door opened enough to reveal the strangers. “Sorry, I thought you were the grocery kids. Can I help you?”

  With the door open, the smell went from delicious to maddening. “I hope so,” Thisbe answered. “We’re supposed to follow up with Dominic Seneschal about some urgent work, but we can’t seem to find them anywhere. We were hoping you might have seen them around here.”

  That won a chuckle. “You and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men. What do you need them for?”

  Thisbe’s false laugh is beautiful. “It’s rather absurd, but I’m supposed to be running a pro forma background check on, of all people, Tribune Mason.”

  “A background check on T.M.?” The chuckle matured into a hearty belly laugh.

  Thisbe joined it. “Yes, I know, but every new system has its paperwork. I’m supposed to interview associates, bash’mates, family’s going to be exciting. You may well be someone on my list too, Member…?”

  “Hiveless,” the housekeeper corrected, turning so they could see the Blacklaw Hiveless sash behind her fresh-stained apron. “Gibraltar Chagatai.”

  I should describe this figure. Chagatai is not much over fifty, but has let silver grace her ponytail, and her face is creased with lines gained through trials, not age. Those features and her silvered stubble, broad shoulders, and jolly belly laugh grant her a weathered handsomeness which middle-aged widows find irresistible. She has enough Mongolian ancestry to look ambiguously Eastern, but wears no nation-strat insignia, and few insignia at all that mean much to non-Blacklaws. Her hands are too thick and strong, better suited to sport or spears than teacups. That day she was wearing only the comfortable pieces of her uniform of servant’s black and white, for there was no need for more when the Master was not expected. Carlyle says he didn’t see a weapon, but I cannot believe so wise and wild-spawned a Blacklaw would open a door without some blade or pistol hidden in an off hand. Would you, reader, if you lived in days of banditry and honor duels, as she, by choice, still does?

  “And who are you?” Chagatai asked.

  “My name is Thisbe Saneer. I do security for the facility where—”

  “The Saneer-Weeksbooth bash’, of course. I had heard.”

  “This sensayer is Carlyle Foster.”

  “Checking up on Dominic for the Conclave?” Chagatai offered friendly, too-firm handshakes. “Who suggested this address? I didn’t get any notice that you were coming. Usually I should.”

  Thisbe had her lie ready before Carlyle could flinch. “Mycroft.”

  “Mycroft Guildbreaker?”

  “No, Mycroft…”—she glanced at sweet, oblivious Carlyle—“who is a Servicer.”

  “Ah, that Mycroft. You’re being very thorough. Why don’t you come in? You can check me off your list, and, if we’re lucky, Dominic may turn up within an hour or so. Fingers crossed.”

  Pride glowed in Thisbe’s smile. “Thank you.”

  “Hold,” Chagatai commanded as Thisbe’s boot threatened the lintel. “I have to check your credentials first. Could you both send them over?”

  Carlyle hesitated before giving the ‘send’ command, but trusted Thisbe’s promise that she had cleared all during their flight.

  Chagatai’s face softened as the data flickered across their lenses. “Excellent. Come in. You can—oops!”

  It was the chirp of a kitchen timer that cut the Blacklaw off, and she rushed back toward an inner doorway and the scent of meat beyond. “Please come through. You’re welcome to the bathroom if you need it, and to look at the collection. Just be careful touching anything that looks more than a few hundred years old.”

  Her invitation left little they could touch. The hall was practically a museum, its walls lined with low bookcases filled with books whose spines of aged leather long predated printed titles. On the waist-high tops of the bookcases crowded a mass of tiny statues: Buddhas, Madonnas, Anubis jackals, Venus figures, a thousand votive figurines in bronze, jade, clay, porcelain, silver, even dream-bright gold. The walls above the shelves were crowded too, even more dazzlingly. Icons. Hundreds of them, saints, angels, brilliant in paint and gold leaf, crowded edge to edge, an endless stream of flat, stylized faces. It is hard to believe the world produced so many, though these were just the tiniest fraction even of what survives. Most of them were ugly, crude at least, too rough to be objects of aesthetics in our modern age, the kind of icon poured out thousand upon thousand in that desperate Middle Age when images were objects of utility more than art. Objects of hope, and desperation, remedies against despair and plague before we had our great salvation, Science. There is judgment in their painted stares, but also something pitiable, these things, almost beings, that had been worshipped, loved, brought offerings, sweet burnt incense, that had been the most precious things in their first owners’ world, yet today it was hard to believe anyone cared enough to dust them all.

  “This used to be a church, didn’t it?” Carlyle called toward the kitchen.

  “Yes,” Chagatai called back, her deep bass rumble easily drowning the kitchen’s sizzle. “It was a ruin ten years ago, but T.M. was sad seeing the state of the place, so Chief Director Andō gave it to them as a birthday present.”

  “T.M.” Carlyle repeated. “You mean Tribune Mason?”

  “Sorry, yes. I know they have too many nicknames.”

  “This collection is magnificent.”

  “Yes. I think T.M. owns something like sixty former churches now, all fixed up and turned into hospices or Servicers’ dorms or other useful things. Can’t stand to see old churches rot. But th
ey do insist on cramming them all with this collection.”

  Thisbe gaped. “You mean they have sixty times this many?”

  “What, the icons? They’re all President Ganymede’s, things they dredged up from collection basements. The Art Situation program is fine at finding homes for Greek pots and Ming vases, but nobody wants a hundred thousand identical Madonnas anymore. Nobody but T.M., anyway.”

  Tempting as this strange gallery was, the smell was stronger, and lured both to the kitchen like a honey trap. It was a magnificent kitchen, six counters each a different temperature, three fridges, four different ovens from the most modern to real brick with firelight within. The kitchen tree which hugged the greenhouse windows was programmed, not for standard snacking fruits and crepe-edged lettuces, but a chef’s array, branches of savory and bay and allspice berries crowded between fiery peppers, currants, young pumpkins, tomatillos, with shallots and radishes bulbous among the tree’s fat roots. Carlyle says every burner was going, pots of steel and clay smelling of garlic, biting oregano, onion, salt, and infinite butter.

  “I don’t think I’ve smelled anything so tempting in my life.” Thisbe could offer no truer compliment. “Are you having a belated party?”

  Chagatai had taken from the meatmaker a sheet of rosy flesh two centimeters thick, as wide as a dinner plate and long like an unrolled scroll. She had already massaged in the spices, and now, with her larding needle, was injecting slivers of garlic and pancetta. “No, this is just one dish. My own recipe, Carnivore Roll. It’s Dominic Seneschal’s favorite food. T.M.’s idea. You know when your dog’s missing so you get some of their favorite treats and leave them on the doorstep and hope they’ll come back?”

  “With an aroma like this you’re going to attract every stray dog in the neighborhood.”

  Chagatai’s silvered stubble glistened as she smiled. “I know it’s cruel to make you smell this and not offer any, but what you’re smelling is just the preparatory sauces. The real thing takes hours. Would you like something else in the meantime? I have pear strudel.”