Too Like the Lightning (55 page)

“Instead of violence, yes,” Andō confirmed. “Tai-kun sends enemies to sensayers instead of hospitals, and leaves them with insights instead of scars. Imagine how many lives we could save if every police officer in the world were armed so gently.”

Carlyle did imagine, and from his pallor I suspect he had Julia Doria-Pamphili in his mind's eye, the razor words with which she slashes to the heart and, like a surgeon, leaves the patient sounder once the wounds are healed.

“Tai-kun's task in this world is to solve things,” the Chief Director continued, leaning so he could fix the Cousin in his sights without losing his view of sparkling Ganymede. “They keep the rivalry between Mitsubishi and Masons from becoming harmful to the public good. They will catch this
Black Sakura
thief and protect the cars before real damage is done. If among their tools they employ a few nonproselytizing religious comments, that benefits the world, and often benefits the people who are stimulated to new reflection by the contact.” He paused here to let Carlyle disagree, but the sensayer had nothing. “Though Madame D'Arouet does not have any official government office,” Andō continued, “their occupation is similar, to solve things, whether that means tempering relations between myself and MASON, or giving those downstairs an outlet for desires which could be disruptive and dangerous if expressed outside. Here the Duke, and Emperor, and I can talk face to face without the whole world watching. You would be surprised how many crises have been averted beneath this roof.”

Two quick knocks sounded at the door.

“At last!” Madame cried, smiling again at half-calmed Carlyle. “Your escort's here. Let her in, Mycroft. Let her in.”

I opened the door, and watched shock drive all the anger from Carlyle's face.

“Chair Kosala?”

Thisbe released a long, low whistle as she arrived. It was Mom herself, the Cousin Chair Bryar Kosala, her borrowed black cloak hanging open in the front so a sliver of her Cousins' wrap spoiled the scene with its modernity. “Carlyle Foster, right? Are you all right?”

“What are you doing here?” Carlyle rushed to her, glad to have something sane to cling to in this mad new world.

She smiled. “We had an appointment half an hour ago to talk about Mycroft Canner and why you're not allowed to tell the public they've been made a Servicer. Did you not get the message?”

“I … sorry, I haven't checked my messages today. But, how did you find me?”

“I got a call. Are you okay?”

Ganymede's sharp eyes guessed the call was mine.

Carlyle gaped. “You know about this place?”

“I'm the outside inspector.” She flashed her credentials. “You know all brothels have Cousins inspect to make sure no one's being abused.”

“You do that personally?” Carlyle's face was bright already, healed by Bryar's arrival as everything about her promised normalcy: her modern slouch, her guileless smile, even the plain wedding ring on her finger, a silent promise that she had no part in this madness.

“These days this is the only one I still inspect myself,” she answered. “I wouldn't trust anyone else to do it here. Neither do they.” She nodded to her colleagues. “Hello, Director, Your Grace.”

They returned silent nods.

It was Ganymede's duty to introduce his own. “Bryar, may I present Thisbe Saneer, of the Saneer-Weeksbooth bash'.”

Kosala was not close enough to offer a handshake. “Pleased to meet you, Member Saneer.”

Take this moment, reader, to ask yourself whether you would mistake these two for one another on the street, Thisbe Saneer and Bryar Kosala. They are both women of India, Bryar slightly taller, Thisbe slightly paler, their inky hair long and almost always loose, but Bryar's hair always falls behind her like a cape, while Thisbe's surrounds her throat and shoulders like a shadowed hood.

“Bryar, dear,” Madame invited, “kindly explain to poor Doctor Foster why it's perfectly legal for me to raise my girls and boys the way I do?”

Kosala offered Carlyle a sympathetic face. “You know the set-set issue. I personally check on this bash'house regularly, and make sure the kids are given access to standard education and ideas, and allowed to leave and pursue a different lifestyle if they want to.”

“But if you raise them so they're incapable of normal life…”

“Carlyle,” Thisbe interrupted darkly, “when you hear ‘set-set issue,' that's your cue to shut up.”

Kosala turned sympathetic eyes on Thisbe. “That's right, your bash' has set-sets, doesn't it?”

Thisbe did not soften. “Eureka Weeksbooth and Sidney Koons are the two happiest people I've ever met.”

Kosala tried a smile. “Exactly. I respect your concern, Carlyle, I really do, but the law's clear. However you raise your kid, you're pushing them in some direction, shaping them with languages if nothing else; so long as the direction you push is going to make them productive and happy, there's no justification for interference. It's legal to raise a set-set, it's legal to raise an Italian, it's legal to raise a Cousin, and it's legal to raise an Eighteenth-Century lady or gentleman. Right, Thisbe?”

Still no smile from the ice-eyed Humanist. “Yes. My Hive fought hard for that right. And specialist sensayer or no, I will not have a Nurturist inside my bash'.”

Here, reader, was the only moment where I longed to raise my voice among my betters. Thisbe's history was plain wrong. Two hundred years ago, when the Eighth Law vote loomed, it was not the Humanists who battled it. Mycroft MASON fought it, certainly, but even more than him it was Utopia, those strangers behind their vizors who see the true Sun less often than Eureka. Utopia knew, when the case went to trial, that if this Eighth Law passed, if it was judged legal for Lindsay Graff to kidnap children from a set-set training bash', that it would be the floodgate. Next, all as one, the mighty, angry Earth would descend upon Utopia, as Catholics used to descend on Protestants and vice versa to ‘save' the others' children. Terra the Moon Baby would be the excuse. The Utopians could protest all they liked that they did not anticipate the astronaut's pregnancy, that early complications made the trip back to Earth too dangerous for mother and fetus, but in most minds Terra is still thought of as intentional, a lab rat, happy, indispensable, who taught us more about space adaptation than a thousand simulations, but still a lab rat, short-lived and crippled from gestating on the light and airless Moon. If Utopia was willing to do that to one child, Earth accused, what might they be doing to others beneath those vizors? How long until cyborg U-beasts, made from iguanas and dogs and horses, had human pieces too? Fear forced Utopia to act. They chose a gentle protest. When the Graff trial began they called in sick, “indefinite stasis,” as they put it, not one, not hundreds, but all four hundred million at once. The laboratories, factories, think tanks, presses closed. For three weeks the world tasted life without four hundred million vocateurs. Hate rose, and fear, all the arrows of complacent Earth against Utopia, and it was that threat which steeled Mycroft MASON to step onto the Senate floor and stop the Nurturists' Eighth Law at any price. Your hero gave his all for them, reader, for Aldrin, for Voltaire, for Apollo Mojave, not for his Masons, not for Eureka Weeksbooth, not for you.

Then clearly thou art well named for him, Mycroft, thou who verse on verse recitest this litany of Utopia with thy namesake's passion.

Namesake? You flatter, reader, but I am not named for Mycroft MASON. Rather, we both were named for Mycroft Holmes, elder brother of the fictional detective. Mycroft was smarter than Sherlock, almost omniscient, and with his greater wisdom mocked his brother's attempts to champion justice. Mycroft Holmes spent his days gazing out through the windows of the Diogenes club, watching the infinite tapestry of urban life, and doing nothing, save when government commanded.

Carlyle breathed deep. “You're right. You are right. I'm sorry I snapped. I'm not a Nurturist, really, I'm not. I don't object to set-sets. It makes me uncomfortable, but I recognize why it's right that it's allowed. I embrace the principle. And maybe what you're doing here is actually beneficial, I just…”

“You've had a hard three days.” Bryar Kosala clapped her fellow Cousin on the shoulder like a drinking buddy. “Come on, Carlyle. I'm going to take you to lunch and answer all your questions about Mycroft Canner, and Jed Mason, and all this. Sound good?”

Carlyle relaxed into a slump at last. “Wonderful. I can't thank you enough.” He turned eagerly to the door, and hope beyond. But paused. “One more question, Madame?”

“As many as you like, my dear,” she invited, that portrait face smiling so perfectly.

Carlyle had to steel himself. “Who named your child? Was it you?”

“Jehovah Epicurus Donatien D'Arouet Mason?” she recited.

Carlyle looked to Thisbe. “Donatien is the given name of the Marquis de Sade.”

Madame nodded confirmation. “All the Prince's ba'pas picked out pieces of His name. As a sensayer, I don't think you would want me to reveal to anyone who chose which.”

Finally Carlyle had a smile for her. “That's true. Thanks for catching me.”

She smiled back. “I still know how to think like a sensayer. I also think Jehovah is a good name for a person who saves lives by wielding theology instead of a gun.”

Carlyle took a slow breath. “Heloïse's fiancé was the Emperor, wasn't it? The ‘great and worthy man' who could approach Jehovah Mason as a father to a son? The Emperor was supposed to marry Heloïse just like the Director married Danaë. That's a pretty uncomfortable age gap.”

“That's two questions,” Chair Kosala chided. “Come on, Carlyle, no more politics for you today, you're politics-ed out. I prescribe a good French restaurant.” She glanced back over her shoulder. “See you later, Director, President Ganymede.”

Carlyle lingered, a stubborn foot in the doorway. “Thisbe, will you be all right here?”

“With my own President?” Thisbe shot back, chuckling. “Mycroft's making you paranoid, Carlyle. I'm thrilled to be here.”

“All right. I'll see you…”

“Around,” she finished for him.

I held the door for the two Cousins as they left. Kosala glanced down at me. “I might call you, Mycroft, if Carlyle has questions later.”

“I'll be ready, Chair,” I promised as I closed the door behind.

“Mycroft Canner.” I heard Carlyle whisper my name like an incantation just before the door closed. Perhaps we smelled alike to him, me and Madame, the same kind of monster, as when a remote village starts finding bodies in the woodland edge mauled by claws and jaws too huge to be common woodland fauna, and it does not matter whether the killer be wolf or bear or dinosaur, the threat is still the same: extinct things rising. Torture, humanity was supposed to be past that. Gender, we were supposed to be past that, too.

With the Cousins gone, Madame stretched back across her sofa, glowing with satisfaction like a cat between two naps. “Well, gentlemen? Did you get a good look?”

“That's the child, no doubt,” Andō answered gravely.

Ganymede nodded agreement. “Thisbe, that young sensayer of yours is a Gag-gene, and must be kept away from here at all costs, for his own sake more than anything. Children can leave this house, and he is proof. Will you watch him for me?”

Thisbe's cheeks stayed still, but I saw her eyes sparkle with delight: another secret for the spellbook. “Of course, Member President.”

“Good, now come with me. We're getting you back home, and then I'm meeting with your bash' about this whole affair. If you have problems they're the whole Hive's problems. Time we settled them.”

I have rarely seen so eager a nod from Thisbe. “Thank you, Member President. We've been hoping for some more direct intervention.” She turned to the hostess now. “And thank you for your hospitality, Madame. It's been most enlightening.” She laughed at her own joke. “I'd love to come again, if I may.”

“Why, I'd be delighted, dear Thisbe. I shall talk to membership about an invitation for you.” Madame kissed her goodbye on both cheeks.

Duke Ganymede can slide like a dancer, strut like a cock, or march like a soldier. Here he chose the last, dragging Thisbe toward the door by force of command.

I opened the door for them, and handed him the sack with Thisbe's boots and weapons. «Thisbe's arts, your Grace.»

The Duke does not thank slaves.

Director Andō rose now. “I'll go too, if we're done here.”

“Yes, we're done. Thank you, Hotaka. I knew if anyone could recognize the child it would be you and Ganymede. See you tonight?”

The Chief Director kissed her hand before departing. “Until tonight, Madame.”
「
I expect your presence tonight too, Mycroft,
」
he ordered, raising his eyes to me for the first time since I had entered.
「
We'll have work for you.
」

「
Yes, Chief Director.
」

I closed the door behind him. Then I faced Madame, alone at last in her salon. «Nicely played, Madame. Very nicely played.»

She appreciates that sort of compliment from me. «Thank thee, Mycroft. Now»—she shooed me like a pigeon—«to thy work.»

 

C
HAPTER THE
TWENTY-SEVENTH

The Interlude in Which Martin Guildbreaker Pursues the Question of Dr. Cato Weeksbooth

Call logged 11:11 UT March 26, 2454

Seneschal:
“Not often
notre Maître
asks a question like that.”

Guildbreaker:
“Dominic! Where are you? Are you hurt?”

Seneschal:
“And He asked it in front of Caesar no less. ‘Do the Utopians ever turn down an application to join the Hive?' He looked straight at Aldrin when He asked it, too, He actually looked! And did you see how pale Mycroft turned when he heard it? I'm surprised the little stray's tracker didn't summon Papadelias.”