by Ada Palmer
“Crap! Halley! Stupid cat! Get it off them!”
“Halley! Come here, kitty! Good kitty!”
Halley rooted its many, many claws into my clothes and released a hiss which would have made an anaconda proud.
“You stupid cat!” The attackers froze around me, bats and fists slack like wilted branches. “What are you doing? Mycroft Canner killed your maker! You were there! Don’t you remember?”
Something killed the music now, and memory released me enough to see, if not to run. Hands seized me from behind, not violent but controlling, gloved in an electric tingling which leeched the strength from my muscles, as laughter does. Numbing gloves. I was steered backwards like a puppet and already safely bundled in a blanket before my invisible captors threw back their hoods of Griffincloth to reveal the glares on their vizors.
“This violence is forbidden.” The foremost of them stepped forward between me and Tully’s warriors, and let his coat switch from invisibility mode to his Utopia, a storm-black sky where lightning cities appeared and disappeared fast as the pouring rain. “Disperse.”
“Fucking Utopians! Why are you protecting Mycroft Canner?”
It was one of the audience that shouted it, not the guards, for they instead stood in silent disbelief. I recognized them now, by their betrayed faces, European shirts and English strat bands, I recognized them as those pub regulars who had adopted Apollo back in Liverpool. I’m sorry; you did deserve revenge.
The rest of the mob was not so shocked. “Astroturds!”
“They’ve been hiding Mycroft Canner all this time!”
Flying stones and rubbish joined the words.
“Disperse!” The lead Utopian summoned a dragon now, black but lined with lightning, which spread its wings over the lot of us and glared down at the mob with compound eyes, each formed of a dozen bloodred laser sights which locked on clubs and fists. A second dragon joined it, whiskered, Asian style, long like a ribbon and glowing with rainbow flame. It slid in around us like a wall, purring with the force of fifty lions and dusting the mob with warm mist from the hundreds of tiny jets which helped it float. In truth, the two must have been there the whole time, invisible in their Griffincloth scales, but in the heat of almost-battle no one cared how the dragons functioned: there were dragons. The mob backed off. A moat of dead space opened between them and the U-beasts, and the warmonger himself stepped to the fore.
“Mycroft Canner!” Tully had another Utopian stalking behind him, though whether to protect him or restrain him I could not guess. “Why did you come here?”
Halley left me and ran back to Tully, content, I imagine, now that I was in trusted hands. “It was an accident,” I answered. “I didn’t know you were here.”
Tully let the Pillarcat circle his legs. Its touch pulled his pants taut so I could see the contours of braces around his joints, unused to Earth’s harsh gravity. “Give me Apollo’s Iliad.”
“It isn’t yours,” I answered.
A Utopian car descended over us, and my captor-saviors gave me no chance to resist as they bundled me inside.
“Give it to me!” Tully shouted after us. “I’m the one who’s going to finish it. Finish everything! Everything we started!”
The Utopian behind him, wrapped in a coat of pale slow-motion birds, placed a restraining hand on Tully’s shoulder. “Stop this, Tully. Canner’s right, the book’s not yours. Now calm the mob.”
He who had spent thirteen expensive years in the protection of Luna City could not disobey his benefactors, but he left me a last glare, defiant arrogance which promised to do all in his power to destroy me. “Everyone!” I heard him begin. “The Utopians haven’t been hiding Mycroft Canner. They’ve been hiding me from Mycroft Canner, and what they did here they did to protect you, to keep you from becoming what Mycroft Canner wanted you to become: murderers…”
That was all I was allowed to hear, for the car’s door closed and sealed me in its capsule as it spirited me to whatever haven the Utopians had chosen.
“We’ll hush it up if possible.” One of them was with me in the car, hard to spot since their hooded coat (I could not guess the sex) made nothing of the car seat but a car seat. “There weren’t too many witnesses.”
“You’re helping Tully do this?” I asked. “You can’t help Tully do this!”
“Apollo asked us to take care of Tully.”
My hands shook. “I saw Kohaku Mardi’s numbers in the Censor’s office, perfectly, as if someone engineered this Black Sakura affair to follow the Mardi’s plan. Please tell me that wasn’t you.”
Their answer was sweet as rescue to a drowning man. “We neither help nor hinder, only ward.”
“Even so, what Tully’s doing isn’t just warning people, they’re riling them up, making it worse. They could start the avalanche and really make it happen! Millions could die!”
I heard the rustle of a U-beast but could not see where in the car it lurked. “Don’t talk like other people, Mycroft.”
I shook my head. “That’s not what I mean. You can’t let people associate Utopia with Tully’s message. Tully’s a maniac. They’ll make it seem like you’re encouraging a war! The other six Hives will all ally against you, the worst combination. It won’t go like Tully thinks. The Mardis’ predictions were wrong. Kohaku’s numbers have already happened. We’re at the crisis point, past it, but it doesn’t matter anymore. You know about Jehovah. War can’t break out between the Masons and Mitsubishi while Caesar and Andō are both fathers of the same Son. But if you let Tully keep pushing for it like this, if you let yourselves be seen protecting Tully, then everyone will think you’re warmongers too. I don’t know if even Caesar can protect you then.”
“We will not let ourselves be seen.”
Exhaustion took me. I know when not to argue with Utopia. They knew my thoughts, my arguments, better than my shock-shattered breath could make them. We rode in silence, but I used that silence, offering a voiceless prayer to any God who might be listening: please let my Saladin strike in time.
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-NINTH
Julia, I’ve Found God!
«Dominic! Where have you been? You’re wet and stinky!»
«Far less stinky now that I’m wet—I hosed myself off at a hydrant just for you. Julia, I’ve found God!»
«I wasn’t aware they were missing.» Julia Doria-Pamphili’s voice had traces of concern, and almost humor, but all drowned in a pleasurable croon at Dominic’s arrival. «Did their parents know?»
«Not the True God, I mean This Universe’s God, the Idiot Who created disease, and entropy, and decided to imprison sentience within these lumps of dirt.» He thumped his chest. «I’ve found Him.»
I could hear them through the wall, and see a sliver of the room if I pressed my cheek to the crack between door and doorframe, but the makeshift prison of Julia’s office closet offered me no further liberty as I sat locked within, my sensayer’s harsh prescription when the Utopians delivered me into her custody: after such a shock as seeing Tully after thirteen years, I was to take two hours to rest and think, do nothing and serve no one, and if she had to confiscate my tracker and lock me in her closet to enforce that, so be it.
«Did you ask God if there’s an afterlife?» Julia asked at once. Perhaps no one on Earth was as prepared as the Conclave Head for this eventuality.
«We aren’t on speaking terms yet.» Dominic stood close to her by the sound of it, close enough that his rich French resonated with the weight of their two bodies pressed against each other. Of course they spoke French together, gentle reader; she is European, and he civilized. «We haven’t actually spoken face to face, but I’ve found His avatar, His manifestation on this Earth, pathetic little thing.»
Fear made my pacemaker offer a gentle warning bleep.
«Can I see the avatar too?» Julia asked at once.
Dominic laughed, and Julia released a little gasp, the herald of others coming. It was too soon for either to have removed their clothes, but n
ot for Dominic’s expert fingers to have navigated Julia’s slacks and found the entrance to her pleasure.
«Not yet,» he answered, zeal turning his voice into a hiss. «Not until I’m done.»
«You’re so mean, Dominic, teasing me like this.»
«I’ll make it up to you. Here, I smuggled out some leftovers, another of Chagatai’s masterpieces.» I heard the rustle of a package.
«That hardly makes up for it.»
«Oh, that’s not how I’m going to make up for it.» I heard the hiss of fabric shifting over skin.
«Mmm. You’ve a lot to make up for, Dominic, being gone so long, making everybody worry. I’m sure you’ve made Jehovah worry too.»
«I have. I know I have.» The two of them were close outside the door now, and I heard the source of Dominic’s voice move lower, as if he sat, or sank to his knees. «I’ve caused Him pain.»
«Then we’d better get started.»
«Bless me, Mother … for I have sinned … It’s been … eight days … since my last … confession …» A wet slurp came between every phrase, eliciting light gasps from Julia, each sharper than the last as her breath grew fast and shallow. «And in this week … I’ve strayed … farther than ever … from the path … of God.»
«Yes!» Julia’s voice lost nothing of its strength as it grew heated. «What have you done?»
«I’ve abandoned Him … cut Him off from me … sight … sound … word … I left Him blind.… He has so few senses … in this universe … imagine … how it must hurt Him … losing touch … with one of His own.»
«Yes!» she cried, perhaps more loudly than she intended. «You’ve been cruel.»
«Sometimes … I can’t stand it, thinking how it must hurt Him.» I heard fierce motion now, Dominic leaping to his feet perhaps, or pulling Julia down to him, or turning her around to take her from the other side. «Can you imagine, Julia? To hurt Him so much? To make Him think about me, and wish for me, and need me, and be powerless. Desperate, Julia, I’ve made omnipotent Jehovah desperate.» His voice rejoiced. «Do you think He trembled, Julia? Do you think He cried?»
The Conclave Head had barely breath enough to answer as his rhythms shook her body. «I … I … can’t … imagine … that.»
«I can.» Dominic panted too, the panting of anticipation, like hounds before they’re loosed upon the fleeing fox. «But you’re right, that’s not enough to make Him weep. Not nearly enough. One straying angel won’t make God tremble. But I’ve done more. I’ve kept secrets from Him too, this week. Secrets I know He wants to hear. He’s been searching so long for some hint, some message from another God, and now I’ve found one and I haven’t told Him!» His zeal made her cry out, a little yelp with every thrust, half-breathed, since he gave her no time to fill her lungs. «Now He’s still suffering, still wondering if He’s the only creature of His kind, afraid, except it’s because of me now. I’m doing it to Him; I’m the one keeping Him alone in the dark, and I’m the one with the power to end it!»
«Nnng! Nnng! Will you?»
«Not yet,» Dominic snarled the words. «It’s not enough! Just traces of another God won’t do it, I need more. I need to know the nature of this stupid God, access, answers, something horrible.»
«Yes.»
«I need to find out enough about this God to make Jehovah sick, to make Him hate this God and this God’s universe too much to forgive.»
«Yes, yes!»
«It won’t be hard. There are already so many things about this universe Jehovah can’t forgive. He’s trapped here, and once I prove this universe is ruled by a horrible and callous Being, He’ll lose all hope of ever being able to fix it like His own.»
«Yes! Callous! Yes! Oh, God!»
«Then He’ll break down! Omniscient, omnipotent Jehovah forced to admit He can never bring those powers here.»
«What heat! Ah! Fuck!»
«He’ll break down, and He’ll tremble, and He’ll cry and come to me, and then I’ll take Him in my arms and comfort Him and make Him mine!»
«Ah! Oh, God damn it! God fuck!»
«Scream! Scream, you holy little slut!»
«Ah! Yes! Fuck! Oh, God! Christ! Yes!»
Enough, Mycroft. Some absurdities I can tolerate, but not this. Make up thy mind: dost thou write pornography or not? If this is not pornography, then skip this vacuous and offensive filth; if it is, then at least fulfill thy dirty duty properly: give me some life, some heaving breasts, some color. Describe fully or skip entirely; this obscene transcript satisfies no one.
Ah! Delicate master! Forgive me if I stare in tender wonder for a moment upon discovering that, in your purity, you do not recognize this form, which is to me so chillingly familiar. It is a quotation, this strange sexual script, not my invention but the spawn of that dark author whose phantom can nevermore be exorcised. We have stared together at the Enlightenment’s keen sun, reader, and cannot now escape its tendriled afterglow, which lingers in our vision, black and strange: Donatien Alfonse François Marquis de Sade. Since I cannot perfectly recall the grunts and blasphemies with which the hound and high priestess punctuated their climax, what better substitute than the lines which spawned them? Or, rather, spawned him, then, through him, educated her. Sade’s La Philosophie dans le Boudoir is an educational treatise, intended for young ladies, its author claims, but with models for all genres of libertine, young and old, expert and novitiate. It is not a thrilling read for the unenlightened; indeed, I reproduce it here quite faithfully, pure dialogue, naked of any description beyond the occasional summary of who inserts what where. Sade writes the least erotic sex scenes you might imagine, alternating with long stretches of dialogue on moral philosophy, politics, religion, family life, the origins of the state and patriarchy, much as one might find in Locke or Montesquieu, or spitfire Thomas Paine.
I confess myself stunned, Mycroft, to find Earth’s most infamous pornographer so dull. What is the point of such unerotic erotica? Whom does it satisfy?
Why, its dark author, of course, and his libertine contemporaries, whose lust-blushes fired, not at heaving bosoms, but at the silken rustle of ink-wet page proofs, the rhythmic, stallion groan of the printing press, and the spear-thrust climax of a well-proved thesis. Sade’s public was unique in history, new radicals who lapped up forbidden pamphlets professing such scandalous suggestions as that, if he wished, a man might choose to examine his religion rationally, refuse taxation without representation, or stick his dick up a cow’s arse. Philosophy and pornography were both forbidden fruits, sold by one circuit of underground vendors. Even Diderot, le Philosophe, was jailed in younger days for writing porn—how better for our young arch-atheist to earn his daily baguette? But to guard the Encyclopedia, Diderot hid his atheism, and begged his colleagues too to feign tameness until their Great Project was safely launched. Sade wore no masks. He earned France’s fear for what he did to lovers, and he earned history’s for articulating why one should. Did you laugh, master, when Madame recited Sade’s proof from the roundness of the anus that, if there is a God, then He endorses sodomy? Deeper in that dialogue, as you watch Sade’s monsters prove with the same wit (and mid-orgasm) that, if all men are created equal, then nothing is more natural than parricide, you will not laugh. Sade warns that he who would use Reason as a key to open one door opens many, and he who would make Reason a scythe to fell injustices must beware what else the blade might cut. We did not know that the threads sustaining the moral warp of our society were so interconnected until we pulled one. Since before man learned to count his summers, we had sown each generation’s seeds in tradition’s soil. Suddenly the Enlightenment would sow our seeds instead among the furrowed pages of the Encyclopedia, and water them with Reason. If the fruit grows black and strange, it will not matter that we have a philosophe willing to taste first and test for us whether we have raised manna or poison; as liberté and égalité grow universal, we have no other crop left on which to feed. Forge your new world carefully, Patriarch, warns our Marquis, lest i
t be filled with me. Gentle master, you have watched Nietzsche and Kafka crawl from that primordium; you cannot call Sade wrong.
«Aren’t you afraid that Jehovah will cast you down into the fiery pit and all that?» Julia asked it with the wilting but delighted breath of denouement. «They’ll know what you’ve done, and why. You deserve it, now more than ever. This isn’t just breaking commandments, this is torturing your own God.»
«Oh, I’ll deserve it, a thousand times over, but He can’t cast me out. In this despicable universe He needs every angel He can get. Countless millions He has at home but here, what, four?»
«Does Jehovah really hate this universe that much?»
«Oh, yes, He just doesn’t realize yet that what He feels is named hate.» Dominic was already sniffing, moving again around Julia as if scouting the next assault. «He tried to explain in our last session how suffering works in His universe. There sentience can elect to participate in straining experiences to increase its own complexity, like a pattern growing more complicated while the object the pattern decorates remains unchanged. Except, time and space don’t exist in His universe, so the pattern also exists without the object, in a sense. I don’t understand fully what He was trying to say, He broke down halfway through, as always, no vocabulary in my measly languages, but the basics were clear: if He met the callous Bastard who designed this universe of suffering, He’d … criticize, protest, scream—do you think He’s capable of screaming? Perhaps not. Either way, it’s time to prove that, if He did scream, if He wore His sacred throat to blisters screaming, this universe’s Maker wouldn’t care.»
Again, a pleasure moan from Julia. Did you feel something like this coming, reader? That something was off about our Conclave Chief, that night with Thisbe and Carlyle? Her luxuriant hair, her suit a little too form-fitting, her touch, picking at Carlyle’s scarf or brushing back his hair with those perfect filed nails. Gender, reader, a hint of it like spice. It all flows from one spring. Imagine young Julia, just a few years into her teaching, as drunk on the idea of God as Carlyle, when into her classroom stalks this devil Dominic, asking to join her priesthood. Imagine the force of him, how utterly training failed her in the face of this this malicious, masculine, sensual, tyrannically honest beast. All her life she studied modern humans, but this is a mastodon, a phoenix, a lost thing come to life. What arts she learned from him, and how they changed her. You say he corrupted her, reader? Perhaps he did, or perhaps this daughter of popes and emperors was waiting for something to breathe new power into the clichés she learned in training. If Julia has transformed hundreds of one-time clients by slicing those healing wounds that leave them better people, she learned her surgeon skills from Dominic, and Dominic from his God.