by Ada Palmer
Grandpa frowned. “Tribune Natekari, you can’t veto Minister Cook’s Black Law draft until we actually call a vote.”
“My business is not about the Black Law.” The Tribune held up her own blue paper. “I call for the urgent passage of a Senatorial Consult announcing that Ojiro Cardigan Sniper, having committed the highest act of treason known to the law by attacking the secularsanct and inviolable person of a Romanovan Tribune, is declared a traitor and enemy of the Alliance, no longer guarded by any law, and that all those who possess the legal liberty to take a human life may, with the Senate’s endorsement, kill Sniper on sight.”
The Humanists flew fastest to their feet.
“That’s outrageous!”
“Kill on sight?”
“Blacklaw savagery!”
“You can’t condemn someone in absentia!”
“Without a trial!”
“Sniper shot a Romanovan Tribune.” Natekari did not have to shout for her voice to cut through like a siren. “On the Rostra. Any law or body which would protect them so defies reason and justice as to be unworthy of human allegiance.”
Now half the Senate rose.
“Sniper is a monster!”
“Sniper had good cause!”
“I see no reason for us to listen to protests from the representatives of a Hive of sociopaths.”
“That’s right! The Wish List proves all Humanists are guilty of murder a hundred thousand times!”
“Well, I see no reason to recognize as Senators any of the cronies in Spain’s coup!”
“Shouldn’t you be on strike, Mitsubishi?”
“Order!”
“Spain’s kid’s coup, you mean.”
“Better to have Spain’s people here than Senators appointed by a Parliament that supported O.S.!”
“I see no reason to listen to Cousin Senators who are all pawns picked by the Anonymous!”
“I see no reason to listen to a pervert who’s married to a product of the same brothel where all this started!”
“How dare you!”
“Order!”
“Everyone knows Sniper and J.E.D.D. Mason planned all this together!”
“Order!”
“Arrest J.E.D.D. Mason!”
“Arrest Joyce Faust D’Arouet!”
“Order!”
Grandpa could not curb the hubbub, nor could his gavel, but the swish of cloth did, soft but omnipresent like the unfurling of a great tent as sixty-one Masons rose to their feet in unison. The object of their strict respect strode in, almost out of breath, through the Senate entrance, his suit of imperial gray cold against the warmth of marble. “Me creato Senatorem. (I create myself Senator),” Caesar decreed.
The youngest Masonic Senator had already rushed to meet his Emperor, and instantly handed off his Senate sash, whose band of gold and blue settled comfortably across the broad gray shoulder of Cornel MASON’s suit. By Romanova’s Law the Hives may choose their Senators as they see fit: by election, examination, lottery, or, in this case, Dictum Absolutum, changed whenever MASON wills. On calmer days, if Caesar thinks a motion merits his presence rather than his proxy’s, he sits quietly among his fellow Senators, doing his honest best not to abuse the weight which his great office should not carry here. Today Caesar was not subtle. He did not glance at his seat, nor at the Speaker, but marched straight across the Senate floor to Tribune Natekari. To her alone he said something, soft but strong enough to bring a smile to her eyes. She took and shook his right hand, and set in his left the slim blue paper, so it was with his black-sleeved arm that MASON held aloft the call for Sniper’s death.
“Mason MASON, will you take your seat?” Jin Im-Jin ordered.
Caesar turned slowly to the Speaker, passing the draft pages back to the Tribune, who beamed through the coils of her black hair, like a predator thinking already of the feast it will make once the prey is caught. “Will you recognize me, Member Speaker?” MASON asked.
Grandpa frowned at Father, but her Brillist eye could read him well enough to know he was a better choice than chaos. “The Chair recognizes Mason MASON.”
“Thank you, Member Speaker.” Caesar took two paces toward the Speaker’s bench, clean strides, untainted by that psychosomatic limp which sometimes betrays his will’s distrust of his synthetic left foot. “Though it is not yet officially on the table, I would like to say something in response to the renewed introduction of the Set-Set Law, and I believe my comments will prove relevant and productive for all the motions introduced so far, and for the drafting of an emergency agenda. May I speak?”
Grandpa smiled at the courtesy of MASON’s pause. “Carry on.”
“Thank you.” MASON cleared his throat, and took from the closest desk one of the antiquated paper volumes with the Alliance crest round on their covers, which nest one on each desk, so like a hymnal. “‘Collected Laws of the Universal Free Alliance,’” he read aloud. “‘Section One: the Universal Human Law Code. No Law or Right may be justly called Universal which is in any way relative, debatable, dispensable, or based on any belief or custom whose universality is not proved by those guides of Reason and Necessity which are truly unchanging in all generations of the human race.
“‘Authorities, which have many names, among them Government, State, and Hive, are created by a compact of members desiring to be governed by common law and defended by common force. Each such Authority has just scope to restrict, define, and defend those who have voluntarily submitted themselves to its governance, yet it does not lie within the scope of such an Authority to create Universal Laws, nor to force its governance upon any unwilling person, nor to prevent any person from voluntarily dissolving ties with it, unless the motives for that dissolution be criminal and unjust.
MASON’s fellow Senators sat stunned at first, as in a dream when danger takes a strange shape: a pillar, or a color, or a sea of crawling balls, yet the dreamer somehow knows that they will Get You! This was not happening. This happened in histories, in legends, not the mundane Now. The Minor Senators on the front benches squealed and clapped. Then the grown-ups erupted.
“The Set-Set Filibuster?”
“Member Speaker, Motion for Cloture!”
“Seconded!”
Speaker Jin Im-Jin looked … I cannot say. So many decades give his face a subtler repertoire than my young eye dares read.
“Seconded! Member Speaker, did you not hear me?”
“Motion for Cloture is made and seconded!”
Discovery’s joy, was that what touched Jin Im-Jin? The delight of finding that there is still courage in the younger generations? I think I saw encouragement, too, a kind MASONS rarely receive: Go for it, kid!
“‘Likewise it lies not within the just scope of such an Authority to use its force against any person who is not its subject, unless that person has violated one of its subjects. Further, when the subject of one Authority violates the subject of another, the Necessity of Peace demands that the Authority governing the victim not use its force against the violator without first laboring in good faith to reach a compromise of punishment and action acceptable to both Authorities.
“‘It is therefore concluded that no such Authority may justly be the source of any Universal Law.
“And yet, because it lies within the power of a human being to inflict such damage upon the human race as to compromise its future, and to inflict such damage upon Nature as to endanger all present and future life and to inflict such damage upon the Produce of Civilization as to undo the life’s labors of past and present generations, and to commit intolerable crimes which so outrage the common conscience of humankind that they cannot be suffered—’”
“Call the Cloture vote, Member Speaker!” Charlemagne Guildbreaker Senior broke in. “We have enough to vote it down!”
Grandpa sighed relief. “Pause a moment, will you, Mason MASON? All in favor of the Motion for Cloture?”
“Aye!”
“All opposed?”
A fierce �
�Nay!” rose as in chorus from the Masons, Humanists, Utopians, Hiveless, and not a few others.
The general babble did not approve.
“Member Speaker!”
“Member Speaker, in the name of reasonableness!”
“These things are genuinely urgent!”
“Ordeeeeer!” Who knew the tiny centesexagenarian had such a scream in him? “Senators, you brought this on yourselves. I have not seen the spirit of this House so abused in a century. Mason MASON has the floor, and if they choose to use their time to make you cool your heels and think again on the foundation of our law, that is a wiser use, both of minutes and of oxygen, than any of you is making. Some of you might think about using this time to excuse yourselves and talk to one another about how to settle some of your proposals, rather than all attempting to hijack this floor which should not be used for private bickering. Anyone who wants to leave and come back with saner proposals, go! For the rest, you will listen to Mason MASON politely and quietly, or you will be removed.” Earth’s Grandfather waited to see if any would dare meet his eyes. “Carry on, Mason MASON.”
“Thank you, Member Speaker.” Caesar cleared his throat again. “‘Paragraph five: And yet, because it lies within the power of a human being to inflict such damage upon the human race as to compromise its future, and to inflict such damage upon Nature as to endanger all present and future life, and to inflict such damage upon the Produce of Civilization as to undo the life’s labors of past and present generations, and to commit intolerable crimes which so outrage the common conscience of humankind that they cannot be suffered, it is therefore necessary that certain Universal Laws bind all human beings to that necessary minimum of restrictions upon their general license without which civilization and the species itself cannot endure. These Universal Laws being necessary, it is also necessary that there exist an Authority capable of expressing and enforcing them…’”
Many Senators did leave as MASON continued, a disorganized exodus as the hubbub of negotiation started even before they reached the door. With Caesar’s nodded permission, several Masons followed. Grandma stayed, and Grandpa, and many of the oldest Senators, the youngest too, and the Hiveless Tribunes, who rose to their feet to hear the letter of their beloved law pour over them. More than half of those who stayed, like me, shed tears, less at what Caesar was doing than at where he stood to do it, for, as he spoke, his false foot and his true rested with equal firmness on the round brass plaque which broke the Senate’s marble pavement like a moon against the night’s black: “Here, on the Twentieth day of January, 2239, Senator Mycroft MASON filibustered six hours and sixteen minutes against the passage of a new Black Law and was assassinated.”
A long, unsteady whistle wafted from Achilles’s lips. “He really means it, your Cornel MASON. He really thinks he’s ready to kill and die for this.”
I handed Achilles a bowl of fresh-picked wild figs, gathered by we Servicers in whose low company the hero chose to watch this great tumult of state. There were sixteen of us, picnicking on a hillside close enough to Romanova for us to see the Roman roofs in the mid-distance, and for city scents to drown out the salt winds from the coast.
“Of course MASON’s ready,” a brave Servicer voiced. “If anybody in the world is ready to kill or die for something it’s the Masonic Emperor.”
Achilles’s filth-matted curls still had gloss enough to shimmer in the mix of sun and campfire where we roasted hard-earned sausages and yams to supplement our little feast of baker’s discards and found fruit. “Perhaps, but no one knows for certain if you’re ready to kill, not until you have your hand at an enemy’s throat, or an enemy’s hand at yours. Still, for this era, it’s impressive to see how completely he believes he’s ready.”
“Do you not think we’re ready, sir?” asked another Servicer, who sat behind us as we watched the Senate broadcast together, some on our lenses, some on the screen which tech-shy Achilles preferred to forcing man-forged devices into his god-given eyes.
Achilles smiled. You would not expect Achilles to have so many smiles in him, but the old hero loves life, for all his wrath and violence, and with the warmth of friends and loyalty around him he does not conceal it. “I think you’re as ready as people of this era can be, but when you have a blade in one hand and a soft throat in the other, that’s when you discover not everyone’s mettle is battle-strong. We’ll find out whose is and isn’t soon enough. Now”—he reached out his hand—“show me.”
The young Servicer recoiled. “What?”
“What that is inside your jacket that you’ve wanted to show me since we got here.”
The others laughed healthy, patronizing laughs at this, our youngest, thwarted in imagined subtlety. I told you, reader, I would show the backyard whispers as well as the great deeds.
More obedient than shy, the young Servicer pulled out a wad of long-suffering papers, crumpled and flattened, drenched and dried, torn and taped, used and erased and used again, scraps only a prisoner or exile would cling to. But as we waited for our shy companion to sort the papers, I heard Hobbes’s specter calling, and his Great Teacher Nature, and godlike Achilles heard their calls too, lifting his eyes back to the time-cracked screen where the Emperor read aloud the blood-soaked foundation of our liberty.
“Are they my laws?” Hobbes asks. “Your Black Laws, are they the fourteen Laws of Nature I wrote up, teased out by craft and Reason from the character of Man and his primordial War of all against all?”
A few of these laws Thomas Hobbes would find familiar, that specter whose shadow still darkens our philosophy. Yet, just as the first man to mint a coin could not imagine stocks and banks and usury, so the Beast of Malmesbury could not see far enough past sword and field and banditry to imagine a world where equality and equal rights were no longer in debate, or where a man might push a button and exterminate a city.
“‘… it is therefore necessary that certain Universal Laws bind all human beings to that necessary minimum of restrictions upon their general license without which civilization and the species itself cannot endure. These Universal Laws being necessary it is also necessary that there exist an Authority capable of enforcing them.’”
Let us review again, reader, with our Achilles and with Hobbes, what must seem antiquated as you gaze back at our savage present. Yet to Hobbes, who draws close now to read beside you, these laws are an undreamt-of future, real application of what was for him a thought experiment. And for Achilles they are even stranger, this mad claim that laws are not handed down by kings, fathers, or even Father Zeus, but excavated from Nature herself by the philosopher’s spade. Reread with them.
“‘Therefore the Human Assembly, embodied in the Senate of the Universal Free Alliance, assembled in accordance with the Carlyle Compromise, proclaims this LIST OF UNIVERSAL LAWS, which represents the extreme minimum of restrictions which Reason and Experience prove necessary for the continued welfare of the human race. [Amendment of 11/12/2239: Except for the Eighth Law] all human beings are equally subject to these Universal Laws, and all Authorities established by the human species for its governance and protection are equally empowered to enforce them upon those who have chosen to subject themselves to said Authorities. This same Human Assembly hereby institutes the UNIVERSAL FREE COURT to be a final court of appeal to protect and enforce these Universal Laws when all other civil authorities fail, and grants to the Court those powers necessary to carry out this mandate.
“‘Whosoever, being of sound and mature mind, should, with full understanding or through gross negligence, violate or attempt to violate one of these Universal Laws, if that person is not appropriately punished by some other Authority, may be detained, tried, and, in the absence of mitigating circumstances, appropriately punished by the Universal Free Court.’”
“Such power!” Achilles must marvel inside. “A universal court that anyone can turn to! In my day, if the wronged had no ally or king to muster force, there was no hope of justice. Even Trojan Paris’s grea
t crime saw no trial but war.”
“‘Whosoever should plan to violate one of these Universal Laws but does not attempt to carry out the act may not be prosecuted or punished in any way by the Universal Free Court, but the Court may take appropriate measures to prevent the execution of such a plan.’”
“Such mercy!” Hobbes too marvels, “to say that thought without deed is not a crime! In my day almost as many were executed for opinion as for deed, and even to imagine the king’s death constituted treason.”
“‘Whosoever, not being of sound and mature mind, should violate or attempt to violate one of these Universal Laws may not be punished in any way by the Universal Free Court, yet if said person is expected to commit more such actions, and if no other Authority takes action to prevent the commitment thereof, the Universal Free Court may take the minimum action necessary to prevent said actions, for the sake of all humanity.
“‘As the Object of these Universal Laws is the continuance of human civilization, not any judicial agenda of correction, retribution, or moral enforcement, so the Spirit of these Universal Laws demands that they be enforced minimally and generously, and with Humanity, not abstract Justice, as their final arbiter.’”
Do images of our statue survive to your day, reader? Justice, Temperance, and Reason, sketched by Thomas Carlyle and translated into stone outside his courthouse here in Romanova? In darker ages Justice stood alone before courthouses, but in Carlyle’s vision her sister Temperance stands to one side holding back her sword, while from the other side Reason lifts away her blindfold, so Justice can finally see the contents of her scales. The Minor Senators dress up as these figures for festivals. Perhaps it was hubris for Carlyle to change Justice’s image after so many centuries, but such enlightened hubris even gods might forgive.
“‘The Code of Universal Laws, commonly known as Black Laws: