Too Like the Lightning (46 page)

Julia gave a gratified nod. “I can put you on a waiting list for an appropriate Humanist sensayer if you like.”

“Thank you, but Carlyle's excellent. A perfect choice.”

Both sensayers smiled.

Thisbe nodded. “Good night, Carlyle. I hope you get good rest.”

“Thank you. Good night, Thisbe. And I hope you're not on duty too early tomorrow.”

An unhappy groan confessed she was.

The car was ready, and Julia had a thermos of soothing herbal tea. And now, reader, a conversation of a different kind, and a face of things that I myself was unaware of until later days.

Julia:
“How's progress?”

Carlyle:
“Slow. Having this investigation on top of us is a big problem.”

Julia:
“They're accepting you?”

Carlyle:
“Yes, though it was scary just now when Thisbe called you on the no-Humanists-available thing. But Thisbe seems happy with me.”

Julia:
“Any access to Sniper yet?”

Carlyle:
“No, nor Ockham. I did make inroads with Lesley Saneer, we're starting off well. And I had a tough but productive little talk with one of the set-sets.”

Julia:
“Have you seen the twins yet?”

Carlyle:
“Not hide nor hair. I get the feeling they're actually more unstable than Cato Weeksbooth, but nobody wants to talk about it.”

Julia:
“They'll be in good hands with you.”

Carlyle:
“I hope so.”

Julia:
“I'm afraid I have bad news.”

Carlyle:
“What?”

Julia:
“The C.F.B.”

Carlyle:
“What about the C.F.B.?”

Julia:
“What about the C.F.B.!” She tapped his forehead. “Earth to Carlyle Foster. Hiroaki Mitsubishi's application?”

Carlyle:
“That was today?”

Julia:
“Carlyle, you've been following nothing else for weeks.”

Carlyle:
“Sorry. There's been … stuff.”

Julia:
“Stuff? You've never pleaded ‘stuff' before.”

Carlyle:
“Irrelevant stuff, nothing to worry about. What was the outcome?”

Julia:
“Point for the enemy. Hiroaki Mitsubishi is now training with a C.F.B. Assistant Section Chief.”

Carlyle:
“Which section?”

Julia:
“Education.”

Nothing could stab the Cousin deeper. The Cousins Feedback Bureau. All Hives are proud of their unique governments: Europe's nation-strat Parliament, the Masons' nonhereditary absolute monarchy, the Mitsubishi shareholder democracy, the Humanist flexible-constitution democratic aretocracy, the Gordian Brain'bash and corporate Board appointed by Brill's Institute. And if those Hives have an irritant, it is that the Cousins can remain the perennially second-largest, second-strongest Hive with a system the others wish they could deride: suggestion box. The all-embracing Cousins never did update their structure, not since the earliest days of
Mukta
's children, when they were just a volunteer group for women to help each other while traveling abroad. They had a volunteer committee with a Chair, some rules of conduct, a family-friendly atmosphere, and a suggestion box, no more. No one thought they could stick to it, not as their membership expanded: women, minors, sexual minorities, then kids of Members, friends of Members, friends of friends of friends, finally anyone willing to act like a distant “cousin” and offer smiling airport pickup and a sofa for the night to a stranger in return for knowing that the stranger would reciprocate. With just shy of two billion members, the modern Hive has fitted its “suggestion box” with an analytic Feedback Bureau streamlined to process a hundred million friendly notes a week, group the overlap, and send them on, every one of them, to the right volunteer to consider the suggestion: “This town needs a new school,” “This drug needs a sixty-million-dollar research grant,” “This intersection would be a great place for a mural.” They get it done, this vast, cooperative ‘family.' It works. At least if outsiders have not infiltrated, and sunk their fangs into its living heart.

Carlyle:
“Hiroaki Mitsubishi with access to the education processing…”

Julia:
“That's not the limit of it. The Seven-Ten lists are public now, and C.F.B. Chief Darcy Sok is number eight on Masami Mitsubishi's list. Every reporter in the world is racing to do a piece on the C.F.B. now, and guess who's now the highest ranked person in the C.F.B. who sleeps on Tokyo time and is already up and available for interviews.”

Carlyle:
“Hiroaki Mitsubishi?”

Julia sent the image to Carlyle's lenses, the Bureau's friendly, off-pink building studded with balconies, trying its best to hide between its neighbors on one of Casablanca's broad French-style boulevards, but, in what should have been the quiet of the night, the reporters and gnat-dense camera robots gave it away. Stories in the Cousins' capital always draw more press than a scandal in Tōgenkyō or Alexandria, perhaps because we worry more when Mom is threatened than Father or Uncle, or because the austerity of Cousins' Law, which won't permit even a Red Light District, has doomed the capital to a permanent slow news day. The press had cornered Hiroaki Mitsubishi outside the entrance, evidently returning from a coffee run with a tray of cups in hand. Hiroaki is the only one of Andō's adopted ba'kids who looks Japanese by birth, and, this night at least, she had paired Danaë's sleeveless hand-knit sweater with a pair of flowy, silky pants which invoked a Cousin's wrap despite the minor's sash still about her hips.

I'm sure Carlyle's stomach turned. “Masami and Hiroaki Mitsubishi, voice and face of the C.F.B. I haven't read Masami's editorial, what does it say?”

Julia sighed into her tea. “In short that the only real power in the Cousins is the software in the C.F.B. that processes the suggestions, and that all the rest, the board, Kosala, are basically carrying out robot orders. That there's no heart to the Hive that's supposed to be all heart.”

Carlyle pressed his head against the car's side wall. “I don't know how we're going to stop this, Julia. The Mitsubishi brood are in the Censor's office, the European Parliament, the Humanist Praetor's office, now the C.F.B., and
Black Sakura
isn't
The Romanov
but it's still one of the most influential papers in the world. Are you sure it's the Saneer-Weeksbooth bash' I should be concentrating on? I should be helping more directly. Give me someone inside the C.F.B.”

Julia:
“No. You're the right kind of specialist for the Saneer-Weeksbooth bash', you can do a better job with them than anyone in the world. That's where I need you now. And better safe than sorry. A compromised C.F.B. could cripple the Cousins, but a compromised Saneer-Weeksbooth bash' could touch anywhere, anyone. They haven't been a Mitsubishi target yet, but we don't know that won't change. I want you in there keeping them safe.”

Carlyle:
“It is a great case, yes, an important case, I definitely want to keep working with them. But I want to do more, Julia. The enemy actually have someone inside the C.F.B.! If we just knew what their goal was…”

She stroked his hair. “Let me worry about that.”

“If only we could prove this theft was them!”

She shook her head. “I'm sure it wasn't. I think, if anything, it interfered with what they were planning, disrupting what Masami Mitsubishi would have done inside
Black Sakura
. But things aren't all bad. I've finally got Darcy Sok to request a session with me.”

Brightness at once. “You have!”

“We'll guard the C.F.B. yet.” Julia brandished a delicate, enthusiastic fist. “And another piece of good news: Headmaster Faust sent Jun Mitsubishi packing with a flea in their ear. No toehold for the Mitsubishi brood inside Brill's Institute. But Jun has applied for a secretary's post with the Gordian Brain'bash, so they're still trying to worm in.”

“Can this fuss with Masami Mitsubishi help us? If they're fired from
Black Sakura,
that would be a good setback.”

Julia gazed at him a moment, slim lips pursed tight. “Perhaps.”

Carlyle:
“I could—”

Julia:
“No. I want you where your strengths are, and I don't want to ask anything that will be a strain on your conscience. Do what you're best at. We have others who can help protect the C.F.B.”

Carlyle:
“But—”

Julia:
“When the Saneer-Weeksbooth Members know you well enough to trust you, when you can suggest they start coming to me, then I can take on some of the burden, and you can take on something new. But not before. We need them close and we need them safe.”

Carlyle
: “It shouldn't be long with Thisbe.”

Julia:
“Yes, that seemed promising. But don't push too fast. What have you been doing going there over and over?”

Carlyle:
“…”

Julia:
“Stuff?”

He gave a guilty smile.

“Do you want a consult?”

“No, it's fine.”

“The whole bash' is very guarded, from the files. If you push you'll spook them. Relax and take things naturally. You're a brilliant sensayer, Carlyle. I have you where you can do the most good. You'll know if anyone tries to get at them, and you'll stop it.”

“Yes.”

“I'm so glad to have you to depend on at times like this.”

Despite his gloom, he couldn't fight a smile. “Thanks. Oh, Julia?”

“Mm?”

“What do you know about Tribune J.E.D.D. Mason?”

“The Celebrity Youth Act has never had a tougher case. You met?”

“They're doing the investigation, they came to the bash'house.”

“J.E.D.D. Mason is not a problem. Believe me, there's nowhere I'm more vigilant than Hive leadership. Yes, they have ties to Andō, but it's the Mitsubishi brood we have to watch out for. J.E.D.D. Mason has nothing whatever to do with them.”

“It isn't the ties to Andō, it's … you know about ‘Dominic' and ‘Martin'? Is it a cult?”

“No. Nothing like that. There's nothing dangerous at all with J.E.D.D. Mason, I check up with their sensayer all the time.”

“Their sensayer, is that Dominic Seneschal?”

“Yes. Dominic has an odd comportment, I know, but they're immensely skilled, just right for J.E.D.D. Mason's case, a specialist, like you but different. J.E.D.D. Mason is a very strange young person, it was inevitable for someone growing up around so much power, but I watch, and I'm careful, and there's no cult, no danger.”

Relief let Carlyle slump. But not complete relief. “And what is J.E.D.D. Mason's relationship with Mycroft Canner?”

“Confidential.” The Conclave Head gave her prize student another shoulder squeeze. “Don't worry about J.E.D.D. Mason. No one is less threat to the world order. If anything, they're the pillar of stability that keeps the rest from teetering. Now, would you like a session?” Her perfect nails played through the fraying crochet of the old scarf she had given him. “Anything new with you on the theological front? New questions? Discoveries?”

Carlyle summoned his best smile. “No, nothing new with me. Could we talk through the post-bash'-loss psych reports on Mycroft Canner? I'd love to hear your readings in light of thirteen years of further development, that's an amazing resource.”

“Yes. Yes, Mycroft is quite the resource.”

H
ERE AT LONG LAST, IN THE TIRED DARK OF MORNING, ENDS THE
T
HIRD
D
AY OF THIS
H
ISTORY.

 

C
HAPTER THE
TWENTY-FOURTH

Sometimes Even I Am Very Lonely

I slept that night in Alexandria, and breakfasted with Caesar's staff, though Caesar himself will not break bread with Mycroft Canner. I had no time to return to Cielo de Pájaros before reporting to J.E.D.D. Mason's Utopians, but gave myself a half-hour to stop at the nearest Servicers' dorm, where our tainted and all-forgiving brotherhood was still willing to call me ‘friend.' I have been adopted many times since the explosion killed my birth bash'. I was adopted by the Terrafirma Cousin bash' next door. I was adopted by the Mardi bash' next to them, and our four other neighbor bash'es, which all let me grow up half-wild like a cat with several homes, whom no one thinks to check on so long as it visits once a week. I was adopted by Thisbe, Bridger, and the Major. But only with the Servicers has my adoption been completely without lies. I was at first just one more Mycroft who slept and shoveled beside them. They soon noticed that I made good conversation (invaluable in a society which has no other entertainment), and by the time the wiser of them added ‘Canner' to ‘Mycroft' they already felt too much affection to know fear. Apollo Mojave used to frequent a pub in Liverpool, mad as that seems. He was a Utopian, a vocateur, a
Familiaris,
as in demand with the Powers as I am, with his own bash', his lover and her bash', his constellation, his work, his writing, me, all vying for scarce hours, but he still made time for a pub. It was filthy, one of those dives where locals come for talk and dominos. At first none spoke to this alien Utopian, planted at the counter with his vizor and his coat, but beer erases barriers, and he was soon listening to tall tales and filling in at games, as dear as any puppy. Apollo needed that, he told me. Even if he only saw them once a month, it kept him from forgetting what it meant to be a human being—without that how could he claim to be acting for all humanity? Perhaps the Servicers give me the same.