Too Like the Lightning (63 page)

Why does Kosala not wear a sari?
It is a fair question, reader, why this daughter of India does not wear the Eighteenth-Century costume of her own people, as Andō and Danaë do of old Japan. The Comte Déguisé's tastes, conditioned by Madame, are part of the lady's reason, but exoticism is more. Bryar Kosala is here to sample the strange, romantic mysteries of this exotic France; India is her everyday.

“Now who's making the Princesse uncomfortable, Déguisé?” Faust teased.

It was true. Danaë had averted her modest eyes from the lovers' kisses, filling her gaze instead with her husband, who sat beside her on their couch, and her brother, who lay sparkling across the couple's laps, naked as God intended. Golden Ganymede was stretched out on his side, his head nestled against the pillow of his sister's breasts, with his lower parts in Andō's lap, so the Director's idle hands could enjoy the Duke's flawless buttocks. Ganymede's back is his more dangerous side, I think, the golden mane trailing down his spine as soft as sunlight, since that back could be either a man's or woman's, so practically no spectator is immune. There is no incongruity, reader, in bashful Danaë averting her eyes from kisses to feast on her brother's nakedness. Ganymede's nude form is not licentiousness but art, a public service, no stranger than an Aphrodite in a fountain, and certainly nothing unfamiliar to his sister or the rest of this company. Besides, excepting myself, all the people present here have enjoyed the Duke to some degree, whether completely as Andō does, or the single night which the King of Spain will doubtless regret to his grave.

“Our apologies, Princesse.” Kosala had to push the Anonymous away, prying his hands from her bodice and holding them in forced and modest friendship.

“It's quite all right,” Danaë answered, adjusting the front of her glittering kimono where the weight of her brother's head threatened to bare too much of her chest. “I know how
le Comte
misses you between meetings.”

Her Excellency Chair Kosala settled on her own sofa, and the Comte Déguisé squeezed as close beside her as the framework of her dress allowed. The lust in his eyes bordered on starvation, but, to spare Danaë, he confined himself to stroking Kosala's fingers, where the wedding ring drowned amid more dazzling period jewels.

Drop this farce, Mycroft. I know who thy Anonymous is, all the world knows. Save the trouble and call him by his name.
Never, reader. The illustrious title of Anonymous has passed from virtuoso to apprentice virtuoso for seven generations, Earth's most influential voice for so long that even Ganymede considers theirs a noble line. Tradition lets each Anonymous reveal the identity of their predecessor's predecessor upon their death, so Earth may decide whether to honor the body in the Pantheon, but to reveal an Anonymous while still alive? Unforgivable. As you know, disaster forced the unmasking of this Anonymous, but I shall not strip the holder of his regal title in my history a moment sooner.

“Well…” Madame's delighted eyes counted the company in their circle, like a collector making inventory of her shelves: the Emperor, then Headmaster Felix Faust alone in his armchair, Andō and Danaë enjoying sparkling Ganymede, Chair Kosala and the hungry-eyed Anonymous, and last the somber King of Spain. It is a living Seven-Ten list, this vista, save that His Royal Highness is a more refined presence than Europe's ‘Second-Choice Prime Minister' Casimir Perry. “Now that our little company is complete,” Madame began, “Headmaster, would you care to begin the meeting? You called it.”

“Thank you, Madame, and to the rest of you, thank you for coming, though I've a feeling Caesar would have called a meeting if I hadn't.”

MASON nodded. “What's your business, Felix?”

“Something I've been meaning to say to the Director and Princesse for some time, though I suspect it's something some of the rest of you have been wanting get off your chests as well.” He paused for a smile, the wrinkles of his almost-eighty years lending him a jovial warmth. “Do you mind, dear Danaë, if I speak frankly?”

“Of course you must speak frankly, Felix. We're all as family here in Madame's salon, we must keep nothing from each other.”

“In that case, my dear,” he cleared his throat, “what I have to say is this: keep your revolting little monstrosities to yourself, bitch.”

“Felix!”

“Ten of the things you've picked up, and now you're sending them out to fix on the rest of us like leeches: Masami at
Black Sakura,
Toshi in the Censor's office, Hiroaki inside the CFB, Sora with the Humanist Praetor at Romanova, Michi with Casimir Perry, another one, Jun, applied to my Institute of all things, and I heard about another—Ran was it?—applying at the Duke's offices. Even your brother had the good sense to send the creature packing.”

Ganymede's voice dripped poison. “No one speaks like this to my sister, Felix.”

Faust almost laughed. “I note you didn't deny it was good sense sending the creature packing. Even the Duke agrees. If the pair of you,” he nodded to Andō, “want to surround yourselves with bizarre, inhuman life-forms that's your business, but don't send them after the rest of us.”

Hotaka Andō Mitsubishi's black
haori
and
hakama
already made him grimmer than the rest in their French damasks; now his face did too. “I recommend, Headmaster, that you not speak of the Mitsubishi house's ba'kids in such terms.”

Headmaster Faust's eyes traced the room. “The rest of you don't realize, do you? What those kids are? They're set-sets, every one of them! Tank-reared, psycho-engineered, drug-enhanced living computers.”

Fresh tears brightened the jewels of Danaë's eyes. “No they aren't!”

“Oh, yes they are, you think I can't trace a pedigree? Not that I need to, you went so far as to knit them all little Brillist code-sweaters so they can flaunt it. 1-2-16-17-2-2-20-20, does that sound like a set that would exist in nature?”

“Felix, please…” Cousin Chair Kosala cut in with her most calming voice.

“Don't you start, Bryar, this is entirely your fault!”

“My fault?”

“You and Lorelei Cook, don't think I don't know about that, too. It's admirable, Bryar, trying to sabotage set-set breeders.”

“Felix, I don't—”

“Oh, yes you do. You may not have done it yourself, but you're happy enough to leave Lorelei Cook in office, putting Nurturists in every position they can. We're all here, Bryar. One word from you, ‘I don't think the head of the Nurturist faction should be Romanova's Minister of Education,' and the lot of us together could oust them in a heartbeat. But you won't ask for that, because you smile just as much as Cookie every time a set-set facility goes under. Don't get me wrong, I smile too, but you have to be responsible about it, you can't break up the nursery bash'es when the creatures are already eight years old and assume your fosterage programs will turn them into human beings.”

Kosala had to push aside the Anonymous's attempt at an ill-timed kiss. “Then the ten Mitsubishi ba'kids are…?”

“Unfinished set-sets. Andō and Danaë hunted through your orphanages to reunite the whole batch. You know how Mitsubishi love to snap up set-sets when they see profit in it, but one thing those kids aren't is human beings, and they never will be. No cuddly foster program will fix that, Bryar, not at eight years old. Those are not human brains anymore, they don't grow and develop, and they don't get well. A whale can grow and develop; Mycroft Canner can grow and develop; genetic constructs like His Grace and the Princesse”—Faust nodded to the golden twins—“they can grow and develop, based on the genes Madame picked, but with infinite variety in what they can become; but a set-set can't! I don't know how much more clearly I can say it.”

Bryar Kosala tried to make her frown a gentle one. “Felix, I…” A pause as one of her lover's touches hit home. “I do share some of your opinions about set-set training, but a bonsai tree is still—”

“I wish people would stop using that comparison.” The Headmaster rolled his eyes. “It's nothing like a bonsai tree, bonsai trees grow. It's not even an Artificial Intelligence, those grow too. It's a
set …
set,” he punctuated the phrase with pauses. “They pick the developmental level they want on each scale of the set and they freeze the set in place, 1-2-16-17-2-2-20-20 lifelong, no growth, no dynamism. It's a corpse with glucose pumping through it. You can make a sculpture of a tree out of metal, or glass, or wood, but using wood doesn't make your sculpture a tree, it makes it a tree-shaped artificial object made out of the hacked-up pieces of a dead tree. Brain tissue is a very convenient material to make a computer out of, it has high information density, it's easy to fuel, and if you grow your brain-tissue computer inside a human body it has lots of ready-made input-output interfaces. But it is not a human being, it's farther than dolphins, farther than chimps, farther than U-beasts, and it is not welcome in my Institute!”

“Felix, please,” the Princesse cried weakly, “you're talking about our children!” Tears gilded her alabaster cheeks. Have you seen real alabaster, reader? Translucent and somehow warm and cold at once, like sun through snow. “They lost their bash' because of what Bryar and Cookie did! Bringing them together again was what they wanted!”

Faust's face did not lighten. “And if they happen to be perfect tools to help you against the rest of us, that's just coincidence?”

“Friends, please,” Madame intervened at last, hiding her expression behind today's silver fan. “Kindly stay civil in the presence of ladies.”

“Of course, Madame.” Andō did not show anger in his face or tone, but his hands on Ganymede's buttocks grew firm enough to make the Duke wince. “You are talking about my children, Faust. Are they to be denied careers in the highest levels because of their background?”

Faust crossed his arms. “In my Hive, absolutely. If the rest of you have any sense you'll keep them out of yours, too.”

“What type of set-sets are they?” the Emperor asked flatly.

“They aren't!” the Princesse cried, all tears. “Felix himself admitted they're unfinished set-sets, only eight years of training, not enough. They're not any kind of set-set, all their poor powers incomplete, and they were scattered all across the Earth. It's cruel!”

“But what kind would they have been?” Caesar pressed. “Cartesian? Pneumonic? Flash? Don't mistake, Princesse, I support protecting the right of bash'es to raise children as they choose, but I am curious.” Through this Caesar was still enjoying the contours of Madame's neck.

“I believe the term would have been ‘Accelerated' set-sets,” Faust spat as if it were profanity. “It's a new kind. This bash', if you can call it that, was a first attempt. I skimmed the case notes, they would've been something between Pneumonic and Flash. You know how adrenaline and fight-or-flight reactions enhance processing and memory? Grossly oversimplified, this was trying to make that hyperfocus permanent. When finished the children would've experienced the world in slow motion. Imagine how impossible, to watch a movie or enjoy a conversation when it all seems like slow motion. Talk about ‘crippling a child's ability to participate in and interface naturally and productively with the world at large.'” These last words, quoted from the Nurturist Eighth Law, made even touch-distracted Ganymede look up.

The Anonymous took a long breath, enjoying Kosala's scent, before he broke his silence. “Minister Lorelei Cook was on Sugiyama's Seven-Ten list. Is this why?”

Mama and Papa Mitsubishi exchanged fast glances. “Quite possibly. Masami knows that Bryar and Minister Cook conspired to break up their birth bash'. I wouldn't be surprised if they mentioned it to Sugiyama-sensei. But Cook wasn't on Masami's own list.”

The Anonymous nodded. “No, if Masami themself had published about it I'm sure their background would have come out, but I do imagine an unfinished set-set might hold a grudge. Was Masami trying to manipulate Sugiyama into aiding some kind of revenge?”

Duke Ganymede laughed now, the motion jiggling his sister's chest. “So, it's not just Spain, Andō, and me! Even our Bryar had something to gain from silencing Sugiyama's Seven-Ten list.”

The Cousin Chair seemed to wish she too had a fan to hide behind. “What are you suggesting?”

“Just that it's amazing a single Seven-Ten list could have had things on it to embarrass so many of us. If I were a conspiracy theorist, I'd have great difficulty figuring out which of us to accuse.”

“Yes, that's something I have wanted to address.” Now the Emperor withdrew his eyes and hands from his Lady. “This
Black Sakura
affair has escalated into more than mere distraction. The cars are in danger. That is not tolerable.”

Hotaka Andō Mitsubishi frowned across at MASON. “I thought we'd decided to leave this to Tai-kun.”

“The solving of the case, yes,” Caesar answered, “but the protection of the cars is separate.”

“You don't think Tai-kun can settle it in time?”

“Of course Jed will solve it,” Kosala interrupted, “but I agree with Cornel, we can't afford the risk of something happening to the cars before they're done.” Kosala pushed at a tickling curl at one side of her hair, tempting her lover to nuzzle before tucking it back in place. “Your Grace”—she looked to Ganymede—“what added security have you ordered for the Saneer-Weeksbooth bash'?”

“The bash' is safe, I've seen to it.”

That was not enough for the Emperor. “What about preparations in case the system does go down? Is the backup facility ready to go online? Have you trained a backup crew?”

“I presume you intend no insult, Caesar.” The Duke President shot MASON a brief, cutting smile. “I have always had a backup crew, I have always had a backup facility, I have even always had backup set-sets.” A quick glare at Faust. “The transition won't be seamless—no one is as good as Lesley Saneer or Cato Weeksbooth—but a transition might cost a few minutes' system downtime, risk of an extra crash or two over the first months the new team is in charge, no worse.” His murder-blue eyes narrowed. “You've trusted me with the cars for years, I don't appreciate being accused of being irresponsible with my own.”