Too Like the Lightning

by Ada Palmer

  The witch’s—apologies, master—the woman’s tone grew richer as she basked in the night air. “Mycroft’s an amateur. Ockham and Sniper are experts, trained, they have to be or they wouldn’t be trusted with the system. We’re in no danger from Mycroft Canner.”

  Carlyle winced, as though his stomach turned. “Are you a Cannerite?”

  She gave a little laugh. “It’s so juvenile, Cannerism. A philosophy concocted by a seventeen-year-old.”

  “It’s sick.” He almost spat. “Sensayer training tries to present it like a legitimate belief system, but I’ve had a couple Cannerite parishioners. It wasn’t a philosophy, they were just sick people reciting trivia about Mycroft Canner like some dark messiah. Why do you want that near you?”

  Thisbe gazed at him, a long, indulgent pause. “Follow me up to the bridge.”

  In his distraction Carlyle started up the stairway before thinking to ask, “Why?”

  The speed of her ascent made Thisbe pant. “Someone’s … here from … Romanova.”

  “What?”

  “Eureka just … called me … They’ve … touched down.”

  “At midnight?” This is Chile, reader, and the Americas’ night still young.

  “I told you there are … protocols … when someone recognizes…”

  “Mycroft Canner,” a new voice called down from above them, a woman’s but almost too deep to be a woman’s. “Age thirty-one, born August 2nd, 2423, brownish black hair, many distinctive scars including a round, two-centimeter section missing from right ear.”

  Thisbe accelerated. “That’s no officer I know…”

  The stranger leaned forward over the side of the bridge, the better to call down at the now-rushing pair. “Captured on March 26th, 2440, sentenced to lifetime service March 28th, 2440. Registered personal possessions, five: one non-uniform hat, one pair of nonregulation shoes, one writing and computation tablet, one photograph of the members of their birth-bash’, and one bilingual paper copy of Homer’s Iliad with a bookmark made from a lock of Seine Mardi’s hair and annotation by Apollo Mojave.”

  Thisbe reached the bridgeway first. “Who are you?”

  “Julia Doria-Pamphili.” The stranger stepped into a shaft of streetlight, which revealed an elegantly tailored European suit, double-breasted with champagne cording accenting its blue-black silk. Her hair was dark, thick, bound back in a bun which spiraled like a nautilus, and her grave face tempered by the creases of a perpetual smile. “I’m Mycroft Canner’s court-appointed sensayer.”

  CHAPTER THE TWENTY-THIRD

  Pontifex Maxima

  “Julia!” Carlyle gaped. “Why are you here?”

  Julia Doria-Pamphili paced toward Carlyle and Thisbe, her old-fashioned ankle boots clicking on the walkway. “It’s five in the morning by your sleep schedule and your tracker registered a heartbeat as if you were being chased by rampant wildebeests. And then I got a ping about Mycroft Canner. You think I’m not going to check that you’re all right?”

  Thisbe stared at this European, the Conclave pin on her breast, its little band of gold. “The Conclave Head?”

  Julia surveyed Thisbe down to the mazelike landscapes of her boots. “You must be Human Thisbe Saneer.” Her pronunciation was slow and luxurious, especially on the Humanist Hive title, as if she enjoyed the act of differentiating people. “Do I have you to thank for the timely call?” Julia offered a well-lotioned handshake.

  Thisbe accepted the hand. “Nice to meet you, Jul—… is it July or Julia?”

  “Julia.”

  It was a fair question; even newspapers sometimes substitute the socially correct de-gendered ‘Jules’ or ‘July,’ but Roman nobility as ancient as the Doria-Pamphili line, who can boast princes, popes, and (thanks to forged medieval genealogies) consuls and senators, scoffs at the modern fashion which would strip the sex from ‘Julia.’ In person she exudes antiquity: her tailored suit, her hair as black as baking chocolate, with the perfect ancient wave one sees on busts and caryatids. She wears it always bound back in coils, so one cannot guess how much of it there is. Such a busy vocateur has little time for strats or their insignia, so she wears none but the narrow Italian and Roman strat bracelets. The long sensayer’s scarf which winds three times around her shoulders is vibrant violet silk, lined with equally violet velvet, and she wears only the most precisely tailored European suits, so every curve shows through. The Doria-Pamphili palace, with its stunning galleries of art treasures, was fully reconstructed after the Church War and belongs to the family still, but Julia gave up Rome for Romanova when she accepted her post as Conclave Head, and with it her office in the Regia Pontificis at the heart of the new Forum. Her kin thought her a fool.

  “You’re Mycroft’s sensayer?” Thisbe asked. “Personally? Isn’t that a bit cruel?”

  The European laughed. “Is my reputation really as bad as all that?”

  “Not bad,” Thisbe corrected, “just, from what I’ve heard your specialty is one-time visits where you … um…”

  “Dismember my parishioners?” Laughter sparkled in Julia’s eyes. “How’d they put it in that editorial, Carlyle? I slash my clients to the heart, baring their hidden hypocrisies until they leave … what was it, a shattered wreck?”

  Carlyle had been glaring stubbornly, but this answer at least matched his mood. “A shivering wreck.”

  “Shivering, yes, that’s good. And then they go back to their regular sensayer, who nurses them back to sanity over months of great epiphanies.” Julia stretched her neck to pop her shoulders. “I know it sounds dramatic, but, while my specialty is deep-cutting sessions, I can do normal ones too. I took on Mycroft Canner because I didn’t want to give the most difficult case I’d ever seen to someone … too sensitive.” She gave a little sigh. “And don’t worry, I’m not stalking Cato Weeksbooth.”

  Thisbe snorted. “Good.”

  “Stalking Cato Weeksbooth?” Carlyle repeated.

  Julia smile-winced a small apology. “Mmm. You know Cato’s phobic of sensayers. We ran into one another once, and the poor thing fell down a flight of stairs trying to run away, broke an arm and a leg.”

  “That wasn’t in the file.” Carlyle’s brows narrowed. “Neither was the fact that Mycroft Canner frequents this bash’. Did you know when you sent me?”

  Julia drew close enough to pick grass seed from Carlyle’s fraying scarf. “I did know, and I’m sorry about that. I filed the paperwork to get permission to tell you, but it’s still processing. There’s enough red tape around Mycroft Canner to wrap up Renunciation Column like a stick of peppermint. But what was it that threw you into such a panic an hour ago? Something to do with Mycroft?”

  “They met,” Thisbe answered simply.

  “No!” Carlyle’s voice is too light to thunder, but in this moment he tried. “We didn’t just meet, it turned out I’d met Mycroft Canner days ago but no one saw fit to tell me. You knew they frequented this bash’; how could you send me with no warning?”

  Julia reached up to brush back the strands of blond which sweat glued to Carlyle’s forehead. “I couldn’t leave the bash’ without a sensayer for the month right after their old one died. I had to send someone. This is exactly your specialty, so I knew if anyone could cope it would be you.”

  Thisbe crossed her arms, watching the pair. “So it was you who assigned Carlyle? You know we requested a Humanist.”

  Carlyle winced as if the words were blows. “If you don’t think I’m doing a good job—”

  “You’re doing a great job, Carlyle, I just think it’s important for requests to be honored, especially politically sensitive requests.”

  Julia turned her smile on Thisbe, a deep, self-satisfied smile, as if every person she meets is some new platter at a banquet. “You also requested someone with security precleared, and who could handle Cato Weeksbooth, and the other … particularities of your bash’. I didn’t have a Humanist with the right skills. Carlyle is my own student, one of the very best, as well as one of my mos
t skilled specialists.”

  Carlyle gave a bashful smile.

  Thisbe will not be deflected. “In what? Getting us over losing our sensayer? That’s a pretty short-term issue to trump our actual request.”

  Kindly Carlyle bit his lip.

  Julia is not so gentle. “Bash’ loss. Our Carlyle is a bash’ loss specialist. You all should have had one five years ago. I understand why you worked so hard to keep the accident from the public. ‘World Transit System Left in the Hands of Traumatized Twentysomethings’ is a headline sure to bring world panic. But I looked over your files. Cato Weeksbooth, if nothing else, proves you really should have switched to a specialist when it happened.”

  See a quiver rise in Thisbe’s throat now, on her lips, as she glances back at the glassy bash’house, where generations shared the family duty, loving grandba’pas working side by side with the bright new generation, but where now Ockham, not yet thirty-one, is master of the house. There are many empty rooms upstairs. It was a rafting accident that claimed the Saneer-Weeksbooth elders—Humanists and their heroic risks. Ganymede knew, Romanova knew, the powers that be, they were informed at the time, but there was no obituary, no honors for these brave servants of the world, not one, not when all Hives hover hungry for an excuse to take away this all-powerful family business. I think the hardest kind of mourning is when you have to lie.

  Thisbe hid her feelings with a laugh. “Makes sense. Cato does need it. I didn’t think of it.” Another defensive chuckle. “No insult intended, but a fluffy little Cousin doesn’t seem the type for such a grim specialty.”

  “It was because of Mycroft Canner.” Carlyle can sound grim, in his light, icy way.

  Thisbe stared. Thisbe sighed. “You wanted to be the one to make sure it never happens again?” She took a deep breath. “Wow. This … was handled very badly for you, I’m sorry. I had no idea the Canner Murders were such an important thing for you, more than for most people.” Deep breath. “I’m sorry.”

  With an expression something between a wince and a slight smile, Carlyle nodded. “It’s all right. I didn’t tell you my specialty. You couldn’t have known.”

  Julia craned her neck to make Carlyle meet her gaze, warm, earnest, condescending. “I’m sorry too that it worked out this way. Hmm?” She fixed a sweet little pout on Carlyle until he offered up a smile. “But, honestly, I didn’t expect you to run across Mycroft so soon, they aren’t around that much. You may be my most enthusiastic student, but I didn’t think you’d be here every single day; you only had two appointments this week. I got a call from your bash’ that they’ve hardly seen you the past three days, they were wondering where you were, and I hear you stood up Jamussa yesterday.” She held up a scolding finger. “I shouldn’t have better track of your dating life than you do.”

  In better light one might have seen the pale-skinned Cousin blush.

  “Good. Now,” Julia continued, “while it’s very poetic meeting under the moonlight, I’m sure poor Thisbe—may I call you Thisbe?”

  “Whatever.”

  “Then you must call me Julia. I’m sure poor Thisbe would like to get to bed. I will escort Carlyle home, we’ll talk on the way, they’ll get a good night’s sleep, they’ll spend some time at their bash’ tomorrow, rest, and stay out of your hair,” she smiled at Thisbe.

  A smile of relief touched Thisbe’s cheeks, then faded. “No. I can’t let you go like this. Carlyle still thinks Mycroft is a danger, and they voiced explicit intent to tell people; that’s a threat to my bash’ and to the system. I’m a security officer, I cannot let you go until I have confidence that Carlyle is not going to take any destructive action.”

  “Oh?” Julia chirruped, peering up again, her dark eyes into Carlyle’s blue. “You haven’t noticed Mycroft’s nonuniform shoes?”

  Carlyle bit his lip in thought. “No…?”

  “They’re Ahimsa shoes.”

  Brightness flooded Carlyle’s face, as when dark shutters open to the cheer of noon. “Really?”

  “Mm-hm.”

  “Oh, Mycroft’s weird brushy-on-the-bottom shoes?” Thisbe asked. “I thought those were a Servicer thing, to scrub when you walk.”

  Julia chuckled. “Fun guess. No, it’s a philosophical thing, extreme pacifists wear them. It’s named for an old Buddhist practice, but people do it for all reasons. The soles are soft bristles on the bottom, like a toothbrush, so they don’t kill insects if you step on them. Preservation of all life.”

  “That’s…” The last shadows left Carlyle’s face. “Mycroft said death was too light a punishment for them, that they have to pay more.”

  “Exactly.” Julia pushed back a stray chocolate curl. “Mycroft Canner is doing a very deep and dedicated social penance, and if their parole officers and I keep an extra-strict watch on them, it’s mostly because they have a bad habit of skipping meals, and overdoing anti-sleeps, and working themself to exhaustion.”

  “Ahimsa shoes…” Carlyle ran his fingers through his hair, his voice gaining that nervous tenderness that edges upon awe. The earlier arguments had been the wrong ones for him: Bridger’s loyalty, Ockham’s duty, Thisbe’s good sense; what Carlyle needed was a sensayer.

  “Mycroft Canner has had a very difficult path,” Julia continued, “and has very difficult things to live with, more difficult than anyone in the world. I’ve been working with them a long time. I’d love to look over the case together with a bash’ loss specialist.”

  Carlyle took a deep breath, smiling at last. “I owe you an apology, Thisbe. I … reacted very extremely, and it was unfair to you. This was an unfair situation, and it wasn’t your fault.”

  Thisbe pursed her lips. “Thank you.”

  “You don’t need to worry about me going public.”

  Again she pursed her lips. “I believe you. Thank you.”

  Julia made a little victory gesture with her small fists, as when one successfully plays matchmaker, or scores a goal. “And now, since you’re satisfied, Thisbe, I prescribe, in the name of sanity, bed.”

  Their eyes met here, Thisbe and Julia, the Humanist and European, a long, contemplative gaze exchanged between the pair who had both, until now, thought themselves unrivaled as the most important (living) woman in Mycroft Canner’s life. Each must have known in the abstract that the other existed, but neither had, I think, expected their first encounter to be quite so symmetrical. “Agreed,” Thisbe concluded. “This was very helpful, and I’m glad to see Mycroft and Carlyle both in good hands.” She offered a smile. “Europeans really are so sensible.” The addendum ‘compared to Cousins’ passed unsaid.

  Julia gave a gratified nod. “I can put you on a waiting list for an appropriate Humanist sensayer if you like.”

  “Thank you, but Carlyle’s excellent. A perfect choice.”

  Both sensayers smiled.

  Thisbe nodded. “Good night, Carlyle. I hope you get good rest.”

  “Thank you. Good night, Thisbe. And I hope you’re not on duty too early tomorrow.”

  An unhappy groan confessed she was.

  The car was ready, and Julia had a thermos of soothing herbal tea. And now, reader, a conversation of a different kind, and a face of things that I myself was unaware of until later days.

  Julia: “How’s progress?”

  Carlyle: “Slow. Having this investigation on top of us is a big problem.”

  Julia: “They’re accepting you?”

  Carlyle: “Yes, though it was scary just now when Thisbe called you on the no-Humanists-available thing. But Thisbe seems happy with me.”

  Julia: “Any access to Sniper yet?”

  Carlyle: “No, nor Ockham. I did make inroads with Lesley Saneer, we’re starting off well. And I had a tough but productive little talk with one of the set-sets.”

  Julia: “Have you seen the twins yet?”

  Carlyle: “Not hide nor hair. I get the feeling they’re actually more unstable than Cato Weeksbooth, but nobody wants to talk about it.”

  Juli
a: “They’ll be in good hands with you.”

  Carlyle: “I hope so.”

  Julia: “I’m afraid I have bad news.”

  Carlyle: “What?”

  Julia: “The C.F.B.”

  Carlyle: “What about the C.F.B.?”

  Julia: “What about the C.F.B.!” She tapped his forehead. “Earth to Carlyle Foster. Hiroaki Mitsubishi’s application?”

  Carlyle: “That was today?”

  Julia: “Carlyle, you’ve been following nothing else for weeks.”

  Carlyle: “Sorry. There’s been … stuff.”

  Julia: “Stuff? You’ve never pleaded ‘stuff’ before.”

  Carlyle: “Irrelevant stuff, nothing to worry about. What was the outcome?”

  Julia: “Point for the enemy. Hiroaki Mitsubishi is now training with a C.F.B. Assistant Section Chief.”

  Carlyle: “Which section?”

  Julia: “Education.”

  Nothing could stab the Cousin deeper. The Cousins Feedback Bureau. All Hives are proud of their unique governments: Europe’s nation-strat Parliament, the Masons’ nonhereditary absolute monarchy, the Mitsubishi shareholder democracy, the Humanist flexible-constitution democratic aretocracy, the Gordian Brain’bash and corporate Board appointed by Brill’s Institute. And if those Hives have an irritant, it is that the Cousins can remain the perennially second-largest, second-strongest Hive with a system the others wish they could deride: suggestion box. The all-embracing Cousins never did update their structure, not since the earliest days of Mukta’s children, when they were just a volunteer group for women to help each other while traveling abroad. They had a volunteer committee with a Chair, some rules of conduct, a family-friendly atmosphere, and a suggestion box, no more. No one thought they could stick to it, not as their membership expanded: women, minors, sexual minorities, then kids of Members, friends of Members, friends of friends of friends, finally anyone willing to act like a distant “cousin” and offer smiling airport pickup and a sofa for the night to a stranger in return for knowing that the stranger would reciprocate. With just shy of two billion members, the modern Hive has fitted its “suggestion box” with an analytic Feedback Bureau streamlined to process a hundred million friendly notes a week, group the overlap, and send them on, every one of them, to the right volunteer to consider the suggestion: “This town needs a new school,” “This drug needs a sixty-million-dollar research grant,” “This intersection would be a great place for a mural.” They get it done, this vast, cooperative ‘family.’ It works. At least if outsiders have not infiltrated, and sunk their fangs into its living heart.