Too Like the Lightning (31 page)

Cato:
<¿Really?>

Thisbe:
<¿Working for Romanova?>

Sniper:

Cato:
<¿At us?>

Sniper:

Ockham:

Lesley:

Thisbe:

Ockham:

Thisbe:

Ockham:
Mukta
hall. Cato & guards can watch them there.>

Thisbe:

Cato:
<¡I'M FINE!>

Eureka:

Cato:

Thisbe:

Ockham:

Cato:

Thisbe:
<¡These guys can really book it! ¡This is fun!>

Cato:
<¿Was that the doorbell?>

Lesley:

Cato:
<¡Oh! ¿Should I get the door?>

Thisbe:

Cato:

Ockham:

Cato:

Ockham:

Cato:
<¿What's taking you so long?>

Lesley:

Thisbe:

Cato:

Ockham:

With an eagerness which must have baffled the drill troops in the living room, Cato Weeksbooth rushed to the front door and opened it to find a dark figure. Cato froze. He did not run this time. The sensayer's scarf around Dominic's shoulders had given him something concrete to run from, but this Stranger wore nothing so clear. His clothes were all black, as antique as Dominic's: tight britches buttoned just below the knee, stockings, leather shoes, a swallow-tailed coat over a short waistcoat, a fine cravat. It was not the luxurious costume of Ganymede's Eighteenth Century but simpler, a cut from the century's end, when the Revolution's austerity had stripped fashions of their ornament. The embroidery was gone, frills, lace, trim, brocade, gone, leaving the elegance of the style naked, if one can call clothing naked. Only the cloth itself and the long tails of the coat remained luxuriant, falling behind the figure like folded wings. In our age of peace, we easily forget the Revolution's grim equality, whose Terror prescribed the same uniform to peasant, to noble, and to the citizen who handed death to both. When Robespierre—

Enough delay. Thou canst not put it off forever, Mycroft. Thou must describe the wearer, not just the suit.

And so I must, master. And so I try.

His is forgotten flesh, statue-still except for the bare minimum of breath and necessary motions: walking, reaching. His eyes move only to search, His lips only to speak, never to smile. He does not fidget as He sits or stands, but lets His limbs lie abandoned, dead as a vehicle whose driver leaves it by the roadside. His skin is light enough to prove that Europe had some part in His ancestry, but has color to it too, though whether it is Mediterranean color or something from farther around the globe's wide sweep cannot be guessed from His face alone. His long hair is tied back, rich waves whose almost-blackness makes it harder yet to guess which races mixed to birth this body for Him. His clean face is beautiful, as a well-proportioned stag is beautiful. I think His eyes are black, with a little touch of Asia in their shape, but when I try to picture them I remember no color, just their distant deepness as they focus, never on, but past the base matter before them. A room feels cold with Him in it, not because He drains it of heat, but because He seems to make none, so the air is as empty as if you were alone. He is now in His twenty-first year upon this Earth, with a minor's sash still about His hips, but had you seen Him at seven years or younger, you would still have counted Him graver than His Imperial father.

“¿How long until the next Mars launch?” He asked Cato in Spanish, His voice soft to the point of weakness, as when one talks to one's self to relieve too long a silence.

“Two days, fifteen hours,” Cato answered automatically, like a child caught mid-daydream by the teacher.

“¿For how many generations has the Saneer-Weeksbooth bash' been Humanist?”

“I don't know. Ten, maybe.”

“Thank you. I am J.E.D.D. Mason. The safety of your bash' and the incomparable service you provide humanity has been entrusted to Me, by order of all seven Hives and the will of the Alliance. I am looking for My dog. ¿May I come in?”

Cato gaped.

The men and officers murmured, and some saluted. The impulse was natural. No insignia of any kind touched J.E.D.D. Mason's black suit, but patches crowded for space on a cloth band around His right arm: the azure Lady Justice of the Cousins' Chief Council's Office, the gold-trimmed red and green trefoil of the Mitsubishi Executive Directorate, the six Olympic-colored swords of the Humanist Attorney General, the Gordian knot of Brill's Institute, the amphitheater ringed with stars of the European Parliamentary Council, the blue and gold scales of the Polylegal Bench, and Romanova's Earth-blue circle bisected by a belt of gray which marks a Graylaw Hiveless Tribune. All these patches ringed the main symbol on the armband: a Masonic Square & Compass in black against iron Imperial Gray, the mark of a
Familiaris Regni,
an intimate of the Emperor. While Martin Guildbreaker's
Familiaris
armband is plain, this one had borders, stark white bands at the top and bottom, edged with the blood purple piping which marks out the
Porphyrogene,
one ‘born the purple,' a MASON's child.

“I … guess you'd better come in.” Cato backed into the house, leading J.E.D.D. Mason and His two Tribunary bodyguards through the spartan trophy hall to
Mukta
's sanctum. This Guest would not have seemed to glance at the articles and papers framed on the walls He passed, but He would remember every one.

Sniper:

Cato:
<¡But it's Xiao Hei Wang!> The Chinese have their name for J.E.D.D. Mason too.

Sniper:

Cato:
<¿How do I not talk to them? They're a Bailiff. And a Tribune. ¡They're in charge of the case! ¡The President and Chair Kosala were on the news saying Xiao Hei Wang's in charge of the case!>

Cato and our Guest reached the
Mukta
chamber now, where the drill troops crowded in wonder around this most elusive Prince.

“Tribune Mason!” The highest ranked officer hailed the Visitor in English, and by His most neutral name. “What an unexpected honor having you here in person! You could have just called.”

Only the subtlest motion of His eyes proved that He turned His attention to the speaker. “These bodies have so few senses. How can you be content with less than all?”

Those around the Guest froze in confusion, since His lack of tone made it impossible to guess whether the question was rhetorical.

Eureka trumpeted over the public line.

Without moving, the Visitor lowered His eyes to the set-set. “Oklahoma Turner has a new essay on whether computer interfaces are artificial senses or prostheses to the standard five. You will enjoy disagreeing with it.”

Perhaps Eureka smiled here, puckering the film of sensors across their lips like half-shed skin.

“Do you draw strong meaning from the recurrent patterns of your habitat, as Brillists do from minds and geologists from stone?”

Only Eureka remembered His next question precisely. “Are both this home's set-sets Pythagorean?”

“You mean Cartesian,” Cato corrected.

He did not, but would not contradict.

Sniper:
<¡Ockham! ¡Get Cato and Eureka out of there! ¡Now! ¡Now! ¡Now!>

Ockham Saneer leapt down the stairwell, as quick as a god appearing at the invocation of his name. He had pajama bottoms and one sock, and had seized his sidearm from the bedside table, but the rest of him was naked, Lesley's doodles fresh on his chest and lithe bronze back.

Fear and obedience warred with curiosity in Cato, but fear won, and he helped Eureka to the lab's locked door.

Now Ockham faced the Visitor, his sock and pajamas against the high insignia of every government, but if Ockham hesitated it was the Visitor's strange gaze that chilled him, not His offices. “I am Ockham Saneer. Whatever your charge from Romanova or any other power, Council Mason, I am in command in my house unless my President orders otherwise.”

“Your devotion sows respect,” J.E.D.D. Mason answered. “I know something of your present small crisis. Would action or inaction on My part be more helpful?”

Ockham took a breath to consider. Meanwhile:

Thisbe:
<¡Victory! Our stray Mitsubishi twelve have surrendered to me and Herrera. They're acting natural, saying they came up here following signs of an intruder. Could be true.>

Sniper:

Cato:

(I abridge further texts, as we move our focus to the Guest above. You may trust Sniper with their loyal Humanist Special Guard, and Thisbe with Romanova's honest reinforcements, to secure the safety of all things.)

Ockham breathed deep as he faced the new Arrival. “My small crisis seems to be contained, though you would help me if you shed light on the reason for it.”

“I can attempt.” J.E.D.D. Mason's eyes rolled slowly across the rapt, excited faces in the room. “I love openness, but trust your judgment whether I should shed My light in front of all these gathered. Secrecy is one of your bash's armors, is it not?”

Ockham paused, then smiled at the courtesy, and turned to the nearby captain. “Zhu Weichun, isn't it? Clear the room. And pause the drill. Keep everyone in place, exactly where they are, just hold position. Nobody moves without my order, except the Humanist Special Guard, and Herrera's people.”

Captain Zhu's face grew bright with questions. “Oh, is Officer Herrera here?”

Ockham raised one dark eyebrow, but the Guest spoke first, His gaze now on the Captain. “You need not wound yourself so.”

The Captain shook. “Wha … what?”

“Some people find that half-lies and omissions do not wound their consciences as direct lies do, but clearly you are no such person. You wound yourself with this deception. Rest in silence, you will suffer less.”

“Uh … I…”

Ockham's voice grew black as storm. “What do you mean?”

Remember, reader, there is no intonation in J.E.D.D. Mason's words, so these men have no way to guess what side He takes, or why He exposes what He does. “The name Herrera that you spoke, Member Saneer, was no strange news to this person. It must be some very deep love to compel such painful self-injury.”

With these words, a transformation seized the Captain. A sob rose in her throat, grief on her lips, while tear glints kindled in her eyes, her whole face flushing with that bloodred passion blush which flares so intensely in some Asian faces.

The Tribunary Guards jumped closer to their Ward as Ockham raised his sidearm, though he aimed away from J.E.D.D. Mason, at the Captain, who gave a second sob.

“Why anger?” J.E.D.D. Mason asked Ockham flatly, as if He genuinely struggled to understand. “Only a great good would move such an exacting conscience to this action.” He turned His eyes on the trembling Captain. “Was it Charity? Gain for many? Protection for many? Lessen the sum total of human pain at the cost of increasing yours?”

Ockham cut Him off. “My interrogation, Tribune, not yours. Explain yourself.” He took one grim pace toward Zhu Weichun, his bare arm and weapon steady, with the rare phrase ‘deadly force' behind both. The other forces here bear no such privilege, not even the Tribunary Guards, expert with the stun guns that Law judges sufficient to guard the highest officers of the Alliance, but not enough to guard the precious cars.

Captain Zhu choked down a sob. “I'm sorry, Member Saneer. It's nothing hostile, I swear! It was the least disruptive way to remove the threat. Or, it should have been.” She winced, looking around to her baffled fellows. “Can we … clear the room?”

“Use text.”

Zhu Weichun hesitated. “You will not want this to leave a record.”

Ockham Saneer took a deep breath, then announced his orders over his tracker and aloud: “Cardigan, bring our Humanist Special Guard up here. I want people I can trust. Weichun, surrender your weapons. You two,” to the Tribunary Guards, “I appreciate your backup.” His eyes did a quick count-sweep and settled on the one warm body unaccounted for. Not the Visitor's. “Cousin Foster…”