Seven Surrenders--A Novel

by Ada Palmer

  Carlyle did not avoid her eyes. “We’re not talking about me for once.”

  Julia laughed. “If you don’t like what I do to my parishioners, why didn’t you do something years ago? You kept feeding me more people, that makes you guilty too.”

  “True. I’m guilty. I wasn’t even deluded, or, if I was, I was willingly deluded. I let things continue, spying, manipulating, because it made me feel good, and because I believed you were doing more good than harm.”

  “I still am.”

  Carlyle breathed a short sigh. “Only if you do this. There’s one more chance, Julia. You can save the Cousins. It’s not hard to prove you’ve been manipulating the CFB. All their key staff are your parishioners, and I’m sure, if an expert analyzed the way they’ve been editing how letters are sorted, they could see that it supported your goals.”

  “That’s not proof.”

  “True, it’s not, it’s circumstantial, enough to cause doubt but not enough to bring to trial. On the other hand, if you confess—”

  “Confess?”

  “Confess that you have been calling the shots in the CFB.”

  “Why, in the name of sanity, would I confess?”

  “Because, if everyone thinks you controlled the CFB, they won’t look for anything deeper. The press smells blood, Julia. They’re not going to let up until they’ve sunk their teeth into someone. It could be you instead of the heart of the Cousins.”

  Julia stretched back. “Mmm. Doesn’t sound very appealing.”

  “No? The whole point of you sending me into the CFB was to help them fight more sinister outside control. You achieved that, twice in fact.”

  “Twice?”

  “You helped the CFB fight back against the original outside manipulation, and you also slowed Danaë’s brood down. If you tell everyone you only hijacked the CFB in order to keep Danaë out, we can expose what the Mitsubishi set-sets were doing, make it look like there was nothing rotten in the CFB before Madame started moving in on it, and no one ever needs to learn the truth. The Cousins stay safe, Madame is exposed, and you wind up a hero.”

  Julia’s eyes went wide. “Madame? You think I was fighting Madame directly? That’s very flattering, Carlyle, but honestly I thought I trained you better than this.”

  “Doesn’t Danaë Mitsubishi work for Madame? If President Ganymede was born at Madame’s, their twin sister was too.”

  Julia shook her head. “You’re useless when it comes to period thinking, aren’t you, Carlyle? When a lady weds she throws away all allegiance to her parents and transfers it to her husband. Danaë isn’t working for Madame. It’s Director Andō who wants the Cousins torn down, not Madame.”

  “Andō?” Carlyle trembled. “That … That’s even worse! The Mitsubishi Director themself trying to tear the Cousins down. That’s what you have to tell the police!”

  “Why?” Julia shot back. “Why should I? I like Danaë, we have endless fun.”

  Carlyle’s brows knit. “They’re destroying a Hive! Is that not registering in your mind? Almost two billion people. There’s never been a social disaster on this scale!”

  “That may be true,” Julia answered, “but it’s for the world’s good.”

  “What?”

  “I know it is hard for you to see, Carlyle, but the Cousins have to go. The Masons are on their way to a monopoly which will destroy the Hive system. The Cousins are enabling that. You want to know what Darcy Sok was really doing in the CFB? Altering the sorting programs, distorting the data? They were trying to counter the control that’s already there.”

  “Danaë’s? No, Madame’s?” Carlyle guessed.

  “Neither. There’s one voice dictating the CFB reports, controlling so many of the letters that the trends the computers find are really only ever one person’s voice. Day by day, month by month, the trends the CFB extracts are dictated like clockwork. Darcy Sok was altering the postanalysis reports to try to counter it, fighting control with countercontrol, the closest we could get to freeing the Cousins, but that was just treading water.”

  Carlyle’s throat was not yet too hardened to sob. “Who? Who’s dictating the letters?”

  “You haven’t guessed?”

  “MASON?”

  “You really haven’t guessed. Well, I’ll tell you if you earn it.” Julia stretched back. “Meanwhile, better to dissolve the Hive and let its resources spread among the others that at least have some integrity inside.”

  Carlyle made fists. “So you won’t do it?”

  “What?”

  “You won’t save the Cousins? You still can, all you have to do is go public about your battle with Danaë, claim that you two are responsible for all the corruption in the CFB. Do that and no one will look for anything underneath.”

  Julia stroked her hair. “No. No, I think it’s time the Cousins went.”

  Carlyle took a long breath, wincing as if in pain, so reluctant was she to resort to sin. “How about saving yourself?”

  “What?”

  “I told you I have recordings, lots of recordings. I can prove a lot of things about you, what you do here that you shouldn’t. If you tell the world you abused your position to manipulate the CFB and fight off Danaë, you lose your license for a year or so, but you save the Hive and become a hero. If you refuse to help, I’ll see to it you lose your license for a much more ignominious reason, and a much longer time.”

  Julia’s eyes glittered. “Are you blackmailing me?”

  “Yes, I suppose I am. I’ve been gathering evidence for a long time, recordings, tracker logs, videos.”

  Julia shook her head. “Carlyle, Carlyle, Carlyle. The kinds of recordings you make by sneaking into places aren’t admissible in court—”

  “Unless I take them in specific circumstances and document them in certain ways, I know that. The Commissioner General taught me.”

  Julia blinked. “Papadelias?”

  “I went to Papadelias a year ago, when I started to doubt what you had me doing. Papadelias was already on to you, but had no proof. I wouldn’t testify then, but I had them teach me how to gather evidence, to build a case so we could take you down if you ever used your resources for something other than good. This is too much, Julia. Even if I weren’t a Cousin I wouldn’t sit back and let you destroy a whole Hive.”

  “You’re bluffing, and you’re not good at it.”

  “You just can’t see me as a threat, can you?” Carlyle’s inner tumult forced out tears. “I’m not bluffing. This is your last chance, Julia. Save the Cousins.”

  “No. I refuse to help a Hive that crows about being morally superior but can’t support itself without lies and blackmail. You’re proof enough in yourself. What’s the point of all the Cousins’ work keeping the other Hives civil if you’re the first to turn into brutish backstabbers when crisis comes?”

  Carlyle rose. “I’m serious, this is your last chance.”

  “No.”

  “Then it’s over, Julia. I’m sorry.” In this world one rarely sees apology unmixed with regret. Carlyle walked to the office door and opened it. “Come in, Papa.”

  Commissioner General Ektor Carlyle Papadelias entered with a soft voice, a grave face, and a full squad of backup. “Julia Doria-Pamphili, under the authority of the Universal Free Alliance, I arrest you as an officer of the Alliance Conclave of Sensayers for abuse of the official capacity of your office, and for misuse of official information; I arrest you as a Member of the European Union for willful communication of classified information, for bribery, for receipt of stolen information property, and for sexual exploitation; and I arrest you as a Member of a Hive pledged to respect the legal protections of fellow Members of the Universal Free Alliance for conspiracy to steal information property belonging to Cousins, Humanists, Masons, and Mitsubishi, and for conspiracy to commit espionage against Cousins, Masons, and Mitsubishi.”

  Julia smiled at the recitation. “Carlyle, you really did it?”

  Centenarian Papadelias no longe
r bothers to hide his curses under his breath. “You told Julia you helped me, didn’t you, Foster? I told you to say nothing. Should have cuffed you to my car.”

  Carlyle stepped forward, bold as a traitor before a tribunal whose verdict is already known. “I’m the one who did this to Julia, Papa. I should have the decency to face them.”

  Papa’s raisin-wrinkled brows drew taut.

  “Carlyle!” Even Julia’s face can show astonishment. “You really did it? You really are a double agent? You betrayed me? That’s wonderful! I’m so proud of you!”

  “What?”

  “You’ve become so strong! When I first took you in you were a spineless wreck, just waiting for somebody to tell you how to live and what to think. Now you’ve become your own person. You’re taking initiative, doubting what you’re told, making contacts of your own, and following through on what you believe. It takes a lot of strength to betray your teacher. I’m so proud of you.”

  “I did have a pretty good teacher to betray.” The syrup in Julia’s tone had Carlyle smiling. “That didn’t come out right, did it?” Carlyle chuckled. “I mean that you were a good teacher, Julia, you showed me how to do something with my life, and how much the world needs help. And separately you really do deserve to be betrayed.”

  She nodded. “That’s fair. And you were a wonderful pupil.” She cupped Carlyle’s cheek gently in her hand, like a proud parent. “Danaë Mitsubishi is your real mother. Twenty-eight years ago Andō promised Ganymede enough resources to make them the Humanist President if Ganymede would get Danaë to marry Andō. Ganymede took the bargain, and ten months later, at a certain house in Paris, you were born. The wedding was right after.”

  Carlyle blinked. “What?”

  “You betrayed me. You didn’t think there would be consequences, Gag-gene?” Julia’s smile deepened. “It’s thanks to you that a certain person in Paris controls the Humanists and Mitsubishi now, and by giving Danaë to Andō your birth also gave the Mitsubishi everything they needed to destroy the Cousins. So you aren’t personally responsible for the entire world being slaves to you-know-who, just three Hives.”

  Carlyle froze, too shaken even to tremble. “Why did you just tell me that?”

  “When you start playing grown-up games, there are grown-up consequences.”

  “Danaë Mitsubishi?” Carlyle repeated. “Then I was…”

  “Carlyle, don’t…” Papa tried to intervene, but knows when done is done.

  Still Julia smiled. “I’ve enjoyed sparring with Danaë all these years, but really, the two of us are just scrabbling over leftovers. Thanks to you, someone else already finished conquering the world.”

  The Gag-gene teetered as if to fall. “Thanks to me? Then, my mother … and my father? Who is my father?”

  “Mmm. Well, now that you know your real birth-bash’, you can go home and ask. I doubt your step-ba’sibs in Tōgenkyō know much, but you can try Paris. Dominic’s an upstanding ba’sib, I’m sure they’ll help.”

  Speech abandoned Carlyle, strength too, as she fumbled like one crippled by laughter or fever.

  “Foster, don’t!” Papa made a halfhearted grab as the sensayer crashed past him toward the exit, like a hound mad with the hunt’s scent.

  “Should we stop them, Papa?” The Commissioner General’s men prepared to follow.

  “No.” Papa frowned at still-smiling Julia. “Too late.”

  CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH

  Rose-Tinted Daydream

  Sometimes Madame compares her revolution to the Renaissance. As she has made the Enlightenment her weapon today, so, starting in the Fourteenth Century, Italy, tired of the yoke of northern chivalry, dredged the legacies of Greece and Rome from the dust, and redefined art, learning, and nobility on their ‘classical’ model, half ancient, half invention, in which Italy was the automatic leader. Petrarch was their spearhead, whom you may know as the subject of the First Anonymous’s third essay, which argues that Petrarch’s scholarly group who planned to live and work together might have instituted the bash’ system eight centuries early if the Black Death had not claimed all but him. It also claimed Laura, the beauty whom Petrarch’s poems apotheosized into one of those immortal goddesses of Love, like Juliet, Helen, Cleopatra, Lesbia, Dante’s Beatrice, Abelard’s Heloïse, and perhaps now Seine Mardi, for the paintings, poems, plays, and films keep flowing, the world’s imagination hungry for portraits of this young Humanist who shone so brightly that the Prince of Utopians would give up bash’ and Hive and life for her. Will her cult endure the centuries, I wonder, as Laura’s has? It is Petrarch’s poem 205 that I remember best, where he sorrows for the men centuries later who will read his verses and curse Fortune that they were born too late to see Laura’s beauty while she lived. Laura had children, though, living shadows of her beauty, including one famous descendant, whose path you may curse or praise Fortune for not permitting you to cross: De Sade.

  “Casimir, you must let me pour you a drink.” Felix Faust lifted a decanter from the sideboard, cut crystal of an expense to match the aged nectar within. “I never expected you to get this far. What a wonderful world we live in where even I can be surprised.”

  “Thanks, Headmaster, that’s kind of you.” European Prime Minister Casimir Perry had stood timidly at the threshold of the Salon de Sade, as if afraid the ivory carpet would blacken under an outsider’s feet. “Where is everyone?” He scanned the oval ring of seats, all empty.

  “Fair question. You’re the guest of honor tonight and should have arrived last so we could cheer you across the threshold.” Faust poured himself a glass as well. “In fact, the rest of us were asked to get here twenty minutes ago. It seems there’s crisis enough afoot to have all the other Hive heads running late.”

  “But not you?” Perry fidgeted with his embroidered cuffs, fresh from Madame’s tailors.

  “Unlike our colleagues, I delegate Gordian’s entire administrative burden, so, while I may be surprised by this delicious crisis, I’m not expected to do much about it. Shall we sit?”

  Faust gestured to the window bench, so freshly brushed that not a speck of lint had had a chance to colonize the velvet. Madame and her servants had outdone themselves for this occasion, transforming the oval sanctum from an earthly to a celestial paradise. Fawn-thin tables stood against the walls, lush with sweetmeats and covered platters alluring as unopened presents. If roast beasts and flame-grilled hunks on spits are a man’s feast, this was a woman’s: intricate patisserie, ribbon candy delicate as jewelry, chocolate truffles, bite-sized cakes, and bouquets of fruit sliced so thin that the light shone through their juicy petals like stained glass. The benches had been restuffed, virgin sheepskins piled on the floor, while the tools of love in their glass cases, both the museum pieces and those ready for use, gleamed clean. Even the curtains over the grand window were new, night blue glittering with constellations, which made the masses in the Flesh Pit below seem as distant as mortals glimpsed by Zeus and Hera as they lie locked in love’s afterglow on steep and snowy Ida.

  Perry stared into his glass. “I’d rather stand.”

  “My dear Casimir, this bench has the most interesting view in the world. There’s a more telling cross-section of humanity down there than in the Censor’s database, plus porn. How can you possibly prefer to stand?” His eyes softened. “You’re nervous?”

  “Of course.”

  Faust smiled. “The entire European Parliament doesn’t make you nervous.”

  The Prime Minister rubbed his temples, which had amassed more care lines in his five decades than Faust’s had in eight. “The European Parliament can’t deny me sexual satisfaction for the rest of my life. Aren’t you nervous around Madame?”

  Faust laughed. “Only when I’m sober.”

  “How did they do this to us, Felix? I was too young to understand when I got sucked in, but you’re a psychologist, you must have watched it closely. Here we are, the most influential people in the world, prancing around in frills because it�
�s the only way we can get turned on anymore.” Perry ran his thumb around his glass, coaxing a soft note from the crystal. “Madame lured us all into this long before we were important, but how did they know we’d become what we are now? Are they really able to spot the ones who’re ripe for this perversion when we’re young, and then make sure only we can get into office? Or is everybody this kind of pervert deep inside, and it’s just Madame that brings it out in us?”

  Faust crossed his arms. “Don’t give Madame all the credit. Some of us cultivated excellent perversions on our own.”

  Perry smiled. “I know you did, Felix, but Bryar Kosala? The Emperor? The King of Spain is the most morally upright person I’ve ever met, but even Spain—”

  “That didn’t stop you hiring Ziven Racer to knock Spain out of the election,” Faust tested.

  Perry went white. “I…”

  “Don’t worry, I haven’t discussed it with the others, and I won’t without good cause.”

  “How … how did you know?”

  “I’m Brillist Headmaster, Casimir, how do I know anything? Don’t worry, I won’t blackmail you. I couldn’t really—body language isn’t proof enough for court.”

  “I … thank you.”

  “My point was, you took advantage of Spain’s honorability, knowing they’d resign if someone tried to fix the vote on their behalf. You know in Spain’s case conscience is a weakness.”

  Again Perry’s eyes escaped into the amber ocean of his drink. “I never said I wasn’t the worst of us, Felix. I shudder to list the things I’ve done to get to this room today. I think I was a good person when I was young, I really do.”

  Faust stretched back. “Think of our perversions as topiary. We all had the seeds in us, but it’s Madame who made them art. Now, shall I have Mycroft fetch you something to fuck while we wait? The others are so set in their configurations, the two threesomes and the pair, that usually our debauches aren’t very debauched, I’m afraid. I’ve been looking forward to you changing that.”

  “Is that Mycroft Canner?” Perry spotted me now in Jehovah’s empty corner, my dull Franciscan habit anticamouflage against the sparkle of the house.