Too Like the Lightning

by Ada Palmer

  “Sounds fabulous!”

  Chagatai picked a fridge and started rustling.

  “So, Hiveless Chagatai,” Thisbe began, twitching her hands as if taking tracker notes, “are you a cook? Or is this just a job?”

  Such a refreshing question. In our cast of leaders and vocateurs one would almost think we had regressed to the olden days when people were their jobs. Mr. Smith is a banker, Mrs. Christian is a nurse, as if those twenty or forty or sixty hours made the other hundred of each week nothing. How do you introduce yourself at parties, reader? Are you a cook? A hiker? A reader? A moviegoer?

  “Oh, I’m a cook,” she answered. “I’ve published a couple recipe books, banquet dishes mostly, menus for big parties. Never worked restaurants, though. I used to be a smuggler and general thug.”

  Carlyle says they suddenly felt an ominousness in Chagatai’s shoulders and the thickness of her hands.

  “Yes,” Thisbe bluffed, “the file I got on you was as confusing as it was incomplete. It’s one of the things I’m supposed to check out. How did you transition?”

  “I messed up a job, then messed up worse trying to fix it, and before I knew it I owed my enemies more money than my life was worth. It was my own fault, and I’d burned too many bridges, so I wasn’t going to get any help unless I ran to the Cousins or turned Graylaw, and that was right out.” She set the strudel to heat. “I had my pride.”

  That she did, reader, and does still when she visits Blacklaw country on her days off, the wildernesses urban and natural which we cede to the bold minority who, on passing the Adulthood Competency Exam, would rather invite their fellows to prey on them like lions than accept a law that deprives them of any freedom, even murder. The Universal Laws still make it criminal for them to prey on children, take trackers away, or jeopardize the world with toxic chemicals, or fire, or religion, but they feel in their hearts that humans are a predator, and predators need the right to tear out each other’s throats. You must not think they rape and murder daily. Most rarely more than duel, and it is a strong deterrent knowing you have no armor in this wide world but the goodwill of peers who could kill you where you stand. It is liberty’s pride that puts the swagger in Chagatai’s steps, not bloodthirst, and had our Master not rescued her from vendetta’s execution, Chagatai would have accepted her end with grace—combat, but grace. She has a sister, Cutter Chagatai, who once fell pregnant, and lived with Gibraltar here in Avignon the nine months that the Prenatal Safety Act made her upgrade to Graylaw for the child’s sake. A caged eagle is not more desperate to see the key turned in the lock than she was to cut the cord, and drape the black again around her hips.

  “So, instead of running to the law, you ran to Tribune Mason?” Thisbe prompted.

  “I didn’t run. I was in a bar trying to plan my last stand when this twelve-year-old in a strange costume came out of nowhere and offered to pay off my enemies and give me room and board for life if I’d come be their chef and housekeeper.”

  “You’d already worked as a housekeeper somewhere?”

  “Never.” Chagatai finished with the larding needle, and gazed with pride over their meaty canvas. “I’d been in a couple cooking contests, nothing else. I didn’t recognize the kid, and this was a lot, a lot, of money, plus … You’ve met T.M., yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you know how off-putting they are the first time or twenty you meet them. So there I was, thinking: is this a space alien? Is this kid insane? It wasn’t until they said they’d call their banker to prepare the money and called the Imperial Treasury that I realized who it was.”

  Carlyle smiled. “They saved your life.”

  “Yes. But it was also a business arrangement. The contract specifies that, if I ever quit, I have to pay the money back in full.”

  “That’s exploitation!” the Cousin cried.

  The Blacklaw laughed the word away. “Believe me, this is a better, longer life than I expected. I was both ambitious and stupid in my youth, you realize. Not a good combination.”

  Thisbe smiled. “True. So you’ve known Tribune Mason … nine years?”

  “Yes.”

  “And has this always been the residence?”

  “A residence, yes. They rarely manage to stay here more than once a week, with all the late nights in Tōgenkyō and wherever. Plus they’re enrolled at the Romanovan Campus and Brill’s Institute, and I think they have dorm residences at both. And they often spend nights back at their birth bash’, though that’s an area where you’ll need Dominic or one of the Mycrofts for your background check. I’m not allowed near the birth bash’.”

  Thisbe raised an eyebrow. “Not allowed?”

  “I think I’m T.M.’s separate sphere.” She took a bowl of butter, flecked with nuts and spices, and painted it across the meat like plaster. “T.M. works for every Hive, right? So they can’t live in any capital, it would be a declaration of allegiance. I’m neutral. Not even in any political strats. They need that break.”

  “Twelve is a very young age to set up a separate residence. I’ve heard of it with kids who take on the Adult Competency Exam really early, but Tribune Mason hasn’t taken it yet, right?”

  “And this will be the place to duck the firestorm when they do. Savvy kid, T.M., even age twelve. Plus here they can have guests stay without worrying about clearing umpteen security.”

  Thisbe jumped on that one. “What kinds of guests?”

  “Worried about the security dodge? It all gets filed, it’s just not as draconian here as at the Domus Masonicus.”

  “What kinds of guests?” she pressed.

  “Oh, all sorts. At the moment we have two art history students using the collection, and Mycroft dropped off a pretty battered young thing they said they rescued from somewhere. Servicer Mycroft, not the Mason, Servicer business as I understand, somebody’s ba’sib. They’re in the back now, watching a movie. Movie…” She dropped her knife into the butter, spinning on the pair with the enthusiasm of epiphany. “Thisbe Saneer! Oscar winner, 2451, Best Smelltrack for Blue like Thursday! I knew I knew that name. And you won it another year for that one about the three sets of kids in different time periods who all tried to build a boat and sail around the world, what was it called?”

  “The Horizoners,” Thisbe supplied, beaming. “I didn’t think anyone but my ba’sibs sat through that part of the Oscars anymore.”

  “I never miss them.” Chagatai was all smiles now, her warm, narrow-eyed suave. “You’ve won more than twice, haven’t you? How many times?”

  “Four.”

  Carlyle probably gaped. “Thisbe, you do the smelltracks for movies?”

  Thisbe smirked. “I do have a life outside the bash’, you know. I’m not a voker like Ockham and Lesley, I’m only on duty twenty hours a week.”

  Certainly you too, reader, like Carlyle, had formed a portrait of Thisbe who existed only in that bedroom, drinking tea and waiting for the active cast to come to her. But let me ask you this: would you have labeled her a stay-at-home so easily had I not been reminding you with every phrase that she is a woman?

  Then stop, Mycroft. Drop these insidious pronouns which force me to prejudge in ways I would not in the natural world. At times I think thou makest a hypocrite of me simply for the pleasure of calling me one. Had thou not saddled Carlyle and Thisbe with ‘he’ and ‘she’ I would not remember now which sex each was, and my thoughts would be the clearer for it.

  No, reader, I cannot release you from this spell. I am not its source. Until that great witch, greater than Thisbe, the one who cast this hex over the Earth, is overthrown, the truth can be told only in her terms.

  Thou hadst best be prepared to prove that claim in time, Mycroft. Meanwhile, since thou insistest on thy ‘he’s and ‘she’s, be clear at least. I cannot even tell whether this Chagatai is a deep-voiced woman or a man whom thou mislabelest, obeying that ancient prejudice that housekeepers must be female.

  Apologies, reader. And I know it is confusing t
oo that I must call this Cousin Carlyle ‘he.’ With Chagatai, however, your guess is wrong. It is not her job which makes me give her the feminine pronoun, despite her testicles and chromosomes. I saw her once when someone threatened her little nephew, and the primal savagery with which those thick hands shattered the offender was unmistakably that legendary strength which lionesses, she-wolves, she-bats, she-doves, and all other ‘she’s obtain when motherhood berserks them. That strength wins her ‘she.’

  “Of course, Thisbe Saneer,” Chagatai repeated. “I should have placed you at once. Big name in smelltracks. You invented something major, what was it? Using some kind of neutral smell that can make a quick transition from a negative emotion smell to a positive emotion smell to make scene changes crisper?”

  “That’s it exactly. They call it Thisbe’s Rinse.” The witch glowed here, for such compliments are rare as diamonds for this virtuoso whose art aims for the audience not to notice its existence. The smelltrack is as indispensable as the soundtrack, supporting the emotion of the scene with a vocabulary of scents coded to happy, sad, despairing, aroused, but the music you remember, never the smells, which aim to be too subtle to be named, like the scent which makes you feel at home when you return to the neighborhood where you grew up, even if the house is gone. Smell, science tell us, reaches the brain more directly than any other sense, and if you’ve ever watched a film with a stuffy nose you have surely found it as emotionless as if on mute.

  “Thisbe’s Rinse, that’s right.” Chagatai was glowing. “Orland Vives called it the biggest breakthrough in moviemaking since Griffincam.”

  “Orland and about four other people. You must be a real movie buff.”

  “More a movie trivia buff. I can’t watch movies. Modo mundo.”

  There was a conversation stopper. “Oh.”

  “I didn’t kill a Utopian or anything,” she added quickly, waving her hands as if to erase her last words. “This is a different sort of modo mundo.”

  They tried their best but couldn’t leave it there. “I thought the modo mundo sentence only existed for people who kill Utopians. They invented it. That’s the point.”

  “Sorry, this is always hard to explain.” I can envision Chagatai clearly here, reaching to scratch her silver-sleeked hair, remembering the butter on her fingers just in time. “I wasn’t legally sentenced to modo mundo, just, the effect is the same. It’s not that I’m not allowed to read or watch fiction, it’s that I can’t.”

  “You can’t?”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  She tried to hide by returning to her roast, layering a paste of spice and onion on the buttered meat. “Well, five years ago I wanted to impress a date who was into old books, so I took a very valuable old manuscript from T.M.’s library without asking and, through a long series of mishaps, about half of which were my fault, it was ripped apart and eaten by rats.”

  “What? How?”

  “The full story is longer than it is interesting. Anyway, I had no excuse, and I was afraid I’d be thrown out and T.M. would demand their money back. Instead T.M. imposed modo mundo.”

  “They can’t do that!” the Cousin cried again. “For losing a book? That’s gross manipulation of the law, like making someone a Servicer for breaking a tea set.”

  “That could happen with a sufficiently valuable tea set. But no, it’s not a legal sentence, T.M. just did it.” Chagatai tried to snap her fingers, but onion butter made them slick. “Just like that.”

  “Just like that?” Thisbe repeated. “How?”

  The Blacklaw sighed. “Look, I can describe it to you, and it’ll bother you when you read or watch fiction for the next week or two, but then it’ll wear off, since it’s different when I say it from when T.M. said it. Is that okay with you? It will wear off.”

  Carlyle looked to Thisbe. “Um, sure. Go ahead.”

  “Next time T.M. came home I explained what happened. We were in the study and they were reading, and I remember they put down their book and turned around and looked at me while I was talking—that’s unusual, by the way, actually turning toward me or anybody, it’s not their way. They looked at me and said: ‘Observe, Chagatai, the protagonist of every work of fiction is Humanity, and the antagonist is God.’”

  Carlyle and Thisbe waited raptly. “And?”

  “That’s it. Just, the way T.M. said it, from then on when I would try to read a book or watch a film, all I could see was humanity struggling in vain against a cold and arbitrary God. Or being unfairly helped by a saccharinely indulgent God. Or being toyed with by an abusive toddler God. I hated it. I can physically read a work of fiction but it’s agony, even the lightest comedy. Histories and biographies are nearly as bad. That’s why I watch light things like the Oscars. It’s hard to read God into the Oscars much.”

  Even describing this to me Carlyle’s fists clenched. “People aren’t supposed to talk about religion like that.”

  Chagatai took the steaming strudel from the oven. “Well, it’s sure learned me not to step out of line again. That manuscript was irreplaceable. T.M. would’ve been within their rights to chuck me out and leave me to die, but they didn’t. Modo mundo makes sense too, once you think about it a long time.”

  Can you imagine Carlyle scowling here? “Not to me, it doesn’t.”

  “I said once you think about it a long time. The Utopians’ idea with modo mundo is that, if you killed a Utopian, you destroyed their world, their nowhere, their ideas, their fiction, since they all invent stuff even if they don’t all publish. You destroyed a potential other world, so you get banished to this one and don’t get to go to any other worlds anymore. I think what T.M. was trying to communicate was that destroying a manuscript is effectively the same thing, destroying somebody’s creation, the remnant of the world they created, even if they’ve been dead a thousand years.” She took a saucepan from the stove and drizzled a trail of honey-scented glaze over the strudel before pouring the rest across the roast. “I’d never thought so seriously about the manuscripts before, but I sure take good care of them now.”

  Strudel could not placate Carlyle. “They can’t just go around exploiting and manipulating people’s views of God like that.”

  “That’s what my sensayer says too, but you know what?”

  “What?”

  “That one line of T.M.’s has made me think a lot more about theology than my sensayer has. A sensayer is, what, a couple hours a month? This is all day.”

  “A sensayer doesn’t do it against your will!” Carlyle shot back. “A sensayer doesn’t do it to hurt you or punish you. A sensayer’s trained, a sensayer’s careful, and a sensayer would never…” He caught himself.

  “What?” Chagatai sprinkled a mixture of cornmeal and fine-ground sausage over the honeyed onion butter on the roast, the last step before rolling the whole concoction like a scroll. “A sensayer would never…?”

  Carlyle summoned his grimmest tone, still light despite himself. “Does J.E.D.D. Mason proselytize?”

  “What?”

  “Has J.E.D.D. Mason ever told you what religion they believe in? Have they tried to get you to convert?”

  Chagatai’s face grew chill.

  “They’ve already crossed a lot of lines,” Carlyle pushed. “Exploiting your theology, these names too, Martin, Dominic. This is serious, a First Law question; on behalf of the Conclave I have to know. Has J.E.D.D. Mason tried to convert you to a secret organized religion? Is that what’s going on?”

  The true medieval iron of a Blacklaw’s gaze turned now on Carlyle. “Do you think I would stay in a house with a boss who broke the First Law?”

  “Then, they haven’t?”

  “Of course not.” The iron faded now behind a smile. “One of the first conversations I had with T.M. seven years ago was them warning me never to bring up theology in this house, or to speculate about T.M.’s, or their valet would kill me.”

  “Valet?”

  “Dominic.”


  Thisbe sat up stiff. “They threatened you?”

  “No, it was a friendly warning. Dominic’s a Blacklaw too, and mad possessive, and already has it in for me for edging in on the privilege of polishing T.M.’s boots and changing their sheets and all that. T.M. says they want Dominic for more important work than housekeeping, but it’s an old fight between the pair that’ll probably never finish. I try not to get involved, but if I muscled in on sensayery-business with T.M. too, then smart money says I’d wake up dead.”

  “J.E.D.D. Mason’s sensayer … is also their valet and … Are they…” Carlyle took a forkful of strudel, hoping to keep himself from asking something rash. The strudel, he remembers, was exquisite, but sweetness on the tongue cannot drive gall from the mind. “Excuse me, where did you say your bathroom was?”

  “Second on the left.”

  From here I have less detail, for Thisbe and Chagatai do a poor job reconstructing scenes. Thisbe asked Chagatai if J.E.D.D. Mason had any hobbies or interests apart from work and messing with people’s theology. Chagatai answered that J.E.D.D. Mason’s most common activities, at least at home, were reading, conducting business over His tracker, sitting perfectly still doing nothing, and, the all-time favorite, lying perfectly still doing nothing.

  “Sleeping?” she suggested.

  “Sometimes,” the Blacklaw answered. “Often not.”

  Meanwhile, in the bland but tasteful bathroom, Carlyle, in a rare moment of lie becoming truth, filed a quick report to the Sensayer’s Conclave of his deep concerns regarding Dominic Seneschal. Then, cleansed by the feeling of good action, he searched the house. He reviewed the hall of icons first, then the sitting room, with its fireplace, sofas, and coffee table, all wood and silk and ornament to thrill an antiquarian, but with a starkness to it, a show room, not a room for living. In the library he caught the two students admiring a spider they had trapped under a cup, and in the back room he heard sweet things about me from the grateful rescued “young thing.” (Sometimes we Servicers retain old business from our dark days, reader, and sometimes we help each other solve it.) Chagatai’s bedroom was easy to spot by its stacks of cookbooks and tomorrow’s suit ready to go, and the guest bedrooms were clear by their suitcases. That left only one door to try.