by Ada Palmer
“Fili,” Caesar addressed the Boy as He settled on the couch beside him, “what do you think we should do with Mycroft Canner?”
The Child Jehovah looked again at me, and through the glass my eyes begged Him to read me again, to tell the others how deeply He had struck me, how desperately I wished to see more of this new world which proved the old a lie.
“He is benign, Pater. Make him a Servicer.”
“Benign?” Bryar Kosala knelt before the Child, her skirts and Madame’s cocooning Him with silk. “No, sweetheart, that’s a very dangerous criminal who’s done terrible things.”
Even in those days His shell did not move to look at things, only His eyes. “Benign means something which can do no harm.”
“That’s right, and—”
“This man is benign.” He even raised His hand to point, a child-stubby finger which seemed to touch my soul, which in that moment I started to believe in. He was right. If I had been wrong about everything, the world, Apollo, I could be sure of nothing. If my teachers were wrong about politics, were they wrong about science, too? Metaphysics? Philosophy? Was man incapable of willing evil? Did Evil exist? Did Good? Did God? Was there a divine Maker scripting this universe? A Maker of souls? Did some Divine Force plan Apollo’s death? From that moment I could not be sure enough of my world to tread on an ant which might—who knows—be Apollo’s reincarnation, let alone to kill a man.
“You’re sure Mycroft is harmless, Tai-kun?” Andō asked.
A lesser creature would have answered “Certain,” or “Absolutely,” but nothing is more absolute than Jehovah Mason’s “Yes.”
Ganymede stretched. “If Caesar wants to work Canner to death, the Servicer Program is a fine way. It’ll give us all equal access, so the Censor can use them when they want to, Faust too, and I trust the Utopians would consent, yes?”
Mushi Mojave breathed hard. “It doesn’t matter whether we consent or not if Mycroft won’t. You heard them, they want the trial and they want to die.”
Jehovah answered, “No. That desire was. It is not.”
With my hands bound in the Cannergel I could not wipe the tears which itched down my cheeks like burning wax. It was the truth. Conviction’s end had left me a newborn, vulnerable again to fear, hope, curiosity, hunger for knowledge, and, above all, to life’s fierce desire to see tomorrow. I sobbed. Saladin was out there, still in our old illusory world, waiting to see his proud Mycroft mount the gallows. I’m sorry, Saladin. I’m sorry.
The Anonymous breathed deep. “How do we do it?”
That quickly, reader, they accepted Jehovah’s judgment, a child’s claim that Earth’s most savage killer was benign. Oh, perhaps there were other arguments, doubts, details of how to smuggle me through the bureaucratic shadows, but why repeat what came to nothing?
“It would be different if they were a Familiaris,” the Anonymous growled, “then we could do what we want, but—”
The mountain that is Caesar trembled. “Familiaris.”
“Cornel?”
“Madame, is there a printer in this room?” MASON asked with sudden urgency.
“Behind the third sconce on the left,” she answered. “What did you remember?”
He rose. “To make Mycroft Canner a Familiaris.”
Bryar looked to the others. “You can’t make them a Familiaris after they’ve already committed the crime you want to punish, even your law doesn’t work like that.”
“Not after.” He slid the crystal half-chandelier aside to bare technology beneath. “It’s finished, set and sealed, all it needs is Mycroft Canner’s signature accepting the appointment.” His quaking left hand fumbled as he accessed the panel. “Apollo requested it, nine days ago. They came to me, frantic, insisting I start the process to make Mycroft Canner a Familiaris immediately. I thought it was because Apollo thought Aeneas had wanted it, and was trying to carry out a dead friend’s wishes, but that wasn’t it. Apollo suspected Mycroft even then, and wanted to put Mycroft’s fate in my hands.”
“To make sure the Mardis were avenged,” Bryar Kosala suggested at once. “Apollo knew if Mycroft was a Familiaris we wouldn’t have to change any laws to execute them, you could order it yourself. Perhaps Apollo meant—”
MASON turned on her, all thunder. “What would you know about what Apollo meant!” He caught himself, bottling his rage as a sailor seals the cabin door against a storm. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right.” She smiled it away; Mom can smile anything away.
The Emperor tore the page from the printer’s jaws. “We’ll tell the public Mycroft was already a Familiaris, and that I have dealt with them as I saw fit. Everyone will assume that means an execution, and that will be the end, no trial, no questions, done. Can you free Mycroft’s hand enough for them to sign the page?”
Mushi Mojave worked the controls, liquefying the Cannergel enough for my right arm to stretch semifree in its rubberband grip. “I’ve spoken with Apollo’s bash’,” the Utopian recited, sullen. “In this case we will suspend modo mundo.” Had it not occurred to you, reader, that—as a Utopian’s killer—I, much more than Chagatai, deserved to be banished from the kingdoms of fiction? Utopia had its own plans for me. “At least until the book is done.” From the depths of the coat’s static, Mushi’s unwilling hand produced Apollo’s Iliad, treasure of treasures, scatterbrained and far from finished, which I had cursed not finding on Apollo’s corpse. It was at that moment, as the book slid through a slot into my waiting hand, that Mushi’s static gave way to ants, and across the world the millions of Utopian coats showed again their nowheres. In every corner of the teeming globe people relaxed, believing I was dead. You were not wrong.
Cornel MASON slid the Familiaris contract in after the book, and a crayon with it, squished from a long stint in his pocket, Laurel Mardi’s perhaps, which the little prince had used to scribble fancies as he played beneath the Emperor’s desk. “You will become my Familiaris, and a Servicer,” MASON pronounced. “You will work without rest to cover every service your victims would have done for us, and when no task is given to you, you will think what Apollo or the others would have done with those spare minutes and still work. If I ever judge that you are slacking in your duties I shall deal with you as I choose, and my Capital Power knows no limits. On these terms and these terms alone you live. Sign it.”
“Will I get to see that child again?” I asked. I knew my words could not escape the cage, but I hoped He did not need to hear to understand.
Jehovah Himself answered, “Yes.”
On those terms then, reader, I live, my long penance, thirteen years and counting. It is my privilege among my many tasks to hear Jehovah’s words and follow His commands, even His order on the twenty-seventh that I obey His mother’s summons return to the Salon de Versailles, whose scent still weakens me like fever. I was half in the past as I mounted the steps, thieves and Seven-Ten lists fading as I saw the Powers still staring at me through my coffin-cage. I hope now you will understand my failure as I stumble across the threshold and there let fly the name which a decade’s interrogations had not forced from me: “Saladin!”
He should not have been there. I would have given anything in the world to have him never see this place. But there he was, curled on the floor of a cage which stood just where mine had, though larger, metal bars this time instead of Utopian genius. He cried out, “Mycroft!” in the same breath that I called, “Saladin!” and we rushed to each other, the world around melting away as we embraced, the bars between us no more impediment than the core of the Earth is to its two hemispheres. He was trembling, naked except for bandages around fresh wounds, and rank with sweat.
“A pair?” Madame fluttered toward us, her skirts a garden of hand-painted Chinese silk. “Dominic, thou didst not tell me Mycroft and thy stray pup were a pair.”
“I did not know, Madame.” Dominic hobbled forward, facing Madame with as proper posture as he could manage on crutches, with his right foot dragging stiff.
Remember, reader, all that time down in the cell with Carlyle, Dominic knelt, or sat, but never stood. “The beast attacked me out of the blue, I knew nothing.”
“Wast it thou, then, Mycroft, who trickedest the tracker system into registering this lovely creature as a dog?” Madame swatted at me gently with her fan, azure painted with a hunting hawk. “Thou shouldst have told me of that trick, I could have used it many times.”
I stroked Saladin through the bars, counting his injuries, and recognized around his throat the pinprick stab wounds of Madame’s mancatcher. The mancatcher may be the most medieval of inventions, a metal collar, spiked on the inside and mounted on a pole which, when thrust just right, locks around the enemy’s neck, as savage as a bear trap. Madame’s of course is not medieval but Enlightenment, gilt silver filigree with mother-of-pearl inlay, a birthday present from the King of Spain. I did not then know that Dominic had set a trap for Bridger, how he had murdered the imaginary friend ‘Redder,’ stolen Bridger’s backpack and captured three of the little soldiers, or how that bait had brought to Paris not the boy, but my beautiful monster. Still, I could envision the battle clearly, Dominic pacing in the shadows of the back stairs when Saladin lunges, all claws and teeth, tackling this rival predator who would dare target his prey. The two would match one another bite for bite, cracked rib for snapped ankle, snarling like lions until, in some opening, Madame snares the stranger with her mancatcher, as delicate as a violin bow in her hands. « Dominic, » she chides, reeling her captive high with a twist of the inlaid handle, « thou art frightening the ladies with thy ruckus. Is this delightful monster thine? »
« No, Madame. This is not the prey I was waiting for. You caught him, you may keep him. »
So it would have gone, the many creatures of the house jeering through cracks and windows as the beast was dragged inside. Saladin does not whimper. Even here, blinded by gold and crystal, he had stayed as silent as a captured stag, but I could feel exhaustion in the arms which gripped me, like a drowning man clinging to life. «What is this, Mycroft?» he asked in rasping Greek. «It’s like another world.»
«I know.» I stroked him. Thirteen years my silence had bought him, thirteen more years free in our old illusion. How I had prayed this day might never come. «Bridger?» I whispered close to his ear.
«Alive. Safe.»
My heart beat easier. «And Tully Mardi? Please tell me you’ve killed Tully Mardi.»
Apology’s shudder half stifled his answer. «No.»
Madame sighed down at us, white wig curls playing across her shoulders. “And here I thought I’d keep the new pup, but if they’re a pair I suppose I must give both to Jehovah.”
“No need, Madame,” Dominic counseled. “Keep the new one if you wish. I’m sure Maître Jehovah would say Mycroft is enough for His needs.”
Her fan concealed her thoughts. “Perhaps.”
Even Dominic looks like a suppliant when he has to petition her for favors. « Madame, may I speak with the pair privately for a moment? »
« Certainly. » She floated back, hovering like a summer butterfly just out of whisper range.
Dominic crouched over me, producing from a pocket a small tablet, on which he summoned a scanned handwritten page in hasty ink, one I knew as well as my own face in the mirror. “Thou shouldst be more careful with thy holy relics,” he warned. “Apollo’s Iliad in the hands of a child?”
My breath caught. “Where’s the original?”
“The boy stole it back, along with my hostages, leaving behind only the pitter-patter of extremely tiny feet. I’m curious, didst thou pick the name Bridger, or did the little soldiers?”
Fear mixed with prayers of thanks within me that the boy and men were safe. “Bridger chose it himself.”
“Thou knowest, Mycroft, when I heard the great Apollo Mojave had left behind an unfinished novel I didn’t expect it to be … how can one put this delicately?”
“Terrible?” I volunteered. “Apollo was one of the busiest vocateurs on the planet, they didn’t have time to master writing, too.”
“Apparently not. Tactics, military history, weapons technology, combat, not writing—that’s strange for a Utopian. Or is it?” He leaned almost close enough to lick my ear. “Thy mate here wore a fascinating pelt when he was taken.”
Saladin’s eyes caught mine, offering silently to strike out at this enemy who stood within claw’s reach, but I shook my head. “What are you going to do with it, Dominic? It’s not to your advantage to break Caesar’s heart right now.”
I hate Dominic’s smile. “Done is done.”
In the pause, I heard voices at the far end of the room, tense and familiar; we weren’t alone:
MASON: “This technology, there’s no denying it was designed for killing?”
Voltaire: “Among other things, Caesar.”
MASON: “Killing people.”
Voltaire: “It has lethal and nonlethal applications, Caesar.”
MASON: “And it’s not just one person’s work, there was industry behind this, science, many planners.”
Voltaire: “Yes, Caesar.”
MASON: “Many people were involved. A large conspiracy.”
Voltaire: “It is a prototype, Caesar. Most likely never intended for field use.”
MASON: “The theft was thirteen years ago—it’s held up well for a prototype.”
Voltaire: “It was made well.”
MASON: “Were others made?”
Voltaire: “If so, they have not been used.”
MASON: “You’re sure?”
Voltaire: “Yes, Caesar.”
MASON: “You know that, if it came out that a Hive had developed technology like this, the public backlash would be incalculable.”
Voltaire: “Likely so, Caesar.”
MASON: “Deadly technology.”
Voltaire: “Yes, Caesar.”
MASON: “Just like the Canner Device.”
Voltaire: “… The public might react similarly to the two, yes.”
MASON: “The two have the same purpose.”
Voltaire: “Likely not, Caesar. I only recovered the Traceshifter Artifact an hour ago, but it is already clear its powers are not intended for combat. It may be an assassin’s tool, or forged for some larger cursecraft: espionage, mass-scrying, surveillance.”
MASON: “This is worse than the Canner Device, then. This is for killing.”
Voltaire: “For war, Caesar. Offense and defense. If the Canner Device is an assassin’s tool, a saboteur’s, this is a soldier’s.”
“Give it back!” I screamed across the chamber. “Give it back! You don’t need it! The Utopians have already surrendered! They’ve given you two of their best as hostages! They won’t resist you, they can’t! Whatever you’ve asked of them they’ve given. You don’t need blackmail!”
Madame’s smile was enough to make Saladin shudder, but MASON was worse, storming toward us from the far side of the room with the coat in his arms, so the program in its Griffincloth transformed the Emperor’s gray Eighteenth-Century uniform to a different uniform, sleek modern panels of black and gray, with the Masonic sigil on the breast in porphyry purple, like old blood. “This was Apollo’s coat!” He thrust it forward, the computers making his hard hands bloodstained. “I’d know it anywhere.”
“Yes, Caesar, it’s Apollo’s.”
“You said you didn’t have it!” His limp was back, that limp that stays only in Caesar’s mind, and worse than I had ever seen.
“I didn’t have it, Caesar. Saladin di—”
His fist slammed my cheek against the bars hard enough to splash blood on Saladin’s cheek. “What was Apollo doing? There are more than twenty weapons inside this, a third of them lethal!” He let the coat fall open, so all could see the pockets and slots within, the glint of handles. “Do you have any idea how devastating this could be if it fell into the wrong hands? Did Apollo?”
I licked my blood from Saladin’s cheek without thinking. “Of course we did.”<
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Caesar was shaking. “I couldn’t protect the Utopians if this came out. No one could! Why? Why did Apollo make it?”
“I’m sure Apollo’s reasons were the best.”
MASON’s black-sleeved left hand locked around my throat, and Saladin’s hands about his wrist, a stalemate which left me pinned against the bars.
“You think I’m deaf?” Caesar spat. “That you’re the only one watching dark corners?” He tapped his tracker with his free hand, and the speakers played back Tully Mardi’s voice: “How would you defend yourself if it did come to war? Do you know? Armed Masons and Mitsubishi flying through every street, exchanging bombs? Can your waste converter be turned into a weapon? Can your child’s toy? You can’t just flee the combat zones like they did in the Church War, there will be no centers, no neutral ground, not with all Hives spread across every city in the world. If you want to defend your bash’ you need to become a soldier, but how can you learn when there aren’t any left to teach you? Weapons change as—” MASON silenced the recording there, his own words worse. “What were the Mardis doing?”
“They were … economists,” I choked out, “historians.”
He squeezed me harder, ignoring Saladin’s claws as they tore at his wrist. “What were Apollo and the Mardis doing?”
Death, reader, Death was in Caesar’s grip around my throat, the only terror that could have ripped from me the word: “War!” The force of my cry left me wheezing. “They were war historians. They were all war historians, whatever else they pretended to be, it was always war. Why else would they shorten Mardigras to Mardi, Mars-day, War-day? You dined with us dozens of times, did we ever once not talk about war?”
His hand stopped tightening. “Kohaku Mardi’s numbers, 33–67; 67–33; 29–71. You told the Censor they were when Kohaku predicted a recession, but that wasn’t it, was it? They predicted war.”
I wondered for a moment whether MASON had had a spy in the Censor’s office, or whether the Censor had leaked the facts himself. “War between the Masons and Mitsubishi,” I confirmed. “Apollo went so far as to start experimenting with weapons, preparations to defend Utopia if war broke out. They were all preparing, Aeneas running for the Senate, Kohaku working for the Censor, they were all trying to influence you and the other leaders, get ready for the war.”