by Ada Palmer
Apollo: “Name one.”
I: “Any!”
Apollo: “Name one.”
Reader: The Olympics.
I: “Yes, reader! The Olympics! See, Apollo? Earth’s ambition gathers here to break records, and bear that torch which guided ships to brave the ocean back when Ocean was an infinite and changeable god. Can’t you trust that ancient torch to light the star-sea, too?”
Apollo: “No. Not when the complacent crowds, including most Utopians, will choose to watch these Olympics from their safe couches. Antarctica is scary. Tell me these Olympics don’t have the lowest ticket sales of our era, and I’ll concede that safe and happy people would still leave this comfortable planet to brave the icy vacuum between Earth and our nearest starry stepping stone.”
I: “They might.”
Apollo: “They might, but they might not. We must think of worst potential outcomes, Mycroft, not just the wished-for best. If what I fear is true, and we have no war, then complacency may set in, and make us stagnate in our comfortable world. If that happens, the Great Project, and every hand that helped it from the first caves to the Moon, will end here, on this first and only human world. If I am wrong, the worst that will happen is that we endure a devastating war for nothing, and still someday touch the stars. I will not risk sacrificing the future for the present. I will not give up a thousand future worlds to save this one.”
I: “You lost faith.”
Apollo: “So did you.”
I: “Never, Apollo! Never! I know it burned, the day you heard Mushi was going to go study the ants on Mars because Utopia’s top entomologist said Mars was too dangerous, but one Utopian is just that, one Utopian. Mushi still had the courage to go to Mars, and many others have.”
Apollo: “Liar.”
I: “Apollo…”
Apollo: “You lost faith too, Mycroft. You know it. You lost faith the day you made me choose between dying in my Seine Mardi’s arms, or fleeing to the lonely Moon, and I, who was the firebrand you hoped to follow to infinity, chose death. Why did I do that, Mycroft? How can you trust a world where I did that?”
I: “I can’t! You’re right! You’re always—”
“Shhhh.” A calm hand shook me. “Do you need to step outside?”
It was Papa, worry swirling his wrinkles as a stationer swirls the stripes of paint that will stain marbled endpapers. Worry for me. Who worries for me? Who shows concern, not for the tool I am, the duties I might fail in if illness binds me to a sickbed’s uselessness, but for me? I buried my face in the breakfast-scented darkness of Papa’s uniform and sobbed. “They’ll go to Mars. Promise me they’ll go to Mars? They’ll go to Mars.”
“Shhhh.” He put his arms around me, warm, warm in my mind even if they were too dry and skinny to be literally warming. He let me lie like that, and sob against his breasts, whose soft sacks, once plumped by suckling children, old age has not quite consumed. “They’ll go to Mars.”
Lesley’s words leaked in between my sobs and Papa’s breath. “I could’ve killed you when you walked in here just now. And don’t think I couldn’t have, no matter whatever zillion security gizmos you have going. But I didn’t. And, unlike with Ojiro, it’s not awe of the Olympics that stopped me, it’s the certainty that most of my Hive would be massacred if I attacked you now. I agree with the lot of you that this mess will be less bloody if it’s started in an organized way on a set date. The Olympics are a good choice. But for this Olympic truce to work we need Ojiro, safe and sound, and free. If you find them, you can’t just keep them prisoner, you have to return them to me, free to lead their side. If you don’t, Tully and I will speak up and tell everyone you’ve captured and coerced them.”
“You have My word.”
“… And mine,” Achilles seconded, though not quickly. There was a long, black pause first, and the words that came were bitter. Sniper is Jehovah’s enemy, our enemy, and, more than anybody, cost us Bridger. Achilles, breaker of men, does not forgive.
“And you, Commissioner General?” Lesley asked. “Will you release Ojiro to me if you find them?”
“What?” Papa twitched. “Me? No way. If my people find Sniper, I’m arresting them. They broke the law. They broke it a lot. I’m a cop. I answer to the law. And the Senate. Sniper’s going on trial, unless the Senate orders otherwise, or the Court decides to uphold the Senate’s order to kill them on sight. I’m also arresting Tully Mardi, and Eureka Weeksbooth, and…”—a pause as pleading lightness joined his voice—“… in the name of sheer human courtesy, would you please, please, tell me which of the Typer twins I have in custody and which ran off with you? I don’t even care anymore about the legal awkwardness of charging an unidentified person with a crime, we’ve worked around that, I just really want to know. Do I have Kat or Robin?”
No smug eight-year-old ever surpassed the scorn in Lesley’s voice. “How in the world should I know?”
Papa’s laughter rocked me like a ship. “Fair enough. Oh, and I’m also arresting you, of course. In fact, I’ll get it over with now. Lesley Juniper Sniper Saneer, I arrest you for murder, and conspiracy to commit murder, and violations of the First Law, and I know you’ll have the goons outside keep me from actually taking you anywhere, but now I’ve done my job, and I can put you down for resisting arrest, and I figure it’s easier if none of us bothers to actually stand up for this. Do you agree?”
Lesley’s voice turned cold. “You answer to the Senate, fine.” Her jacket’s slick sleeves whizzed as she turned. “You’re a Senator.”
“That I am,” Aesop Quarriman confirmed. “And the Senate meets in a few hours.”
“To confirm Jehovah’s truce?” Achilles pressed.
“No,” Lesley and Quarriman snapped as one.
The Senator finished the thought: “Not Epicuro’s truce. If we call it Epicuro’s truce on the Senate floor, we set precedent for them dictating to the Senate, and that reeks of dictatorship. I’ve had some calls, though, and some of the Senate’s legalese-speakers are assembling something they think will … condone the truce without recognizing … something … I don’t know the details, some way of doing this that means that Epicuro isn’t taking over the world. Yet.”
Force sharpened Quarriman’s final syllable, and I remembered suddenly that the bull’s-eye sigil had started on her breast. They were multiplying, these symbols for our many sides and stances. It would be a strange Olympic summer that did not bloom with flags of Hives and nation-strats, but the bull’s-eye bloomed with them, O.S.’s supporters printing bull’s-eye circles in their Hive colors: European blue and gold, Humanists’ Olympic polychrome, Mitsubishi red and white with a dash of green for Greenpeace, Hiveless gray or black with Romanova’s gold and ocean blue, and, here and there, the Cousins’ azure and white, or Gordian’s gold, black, and red. I wish I could say the crosshairs was rare, that grim addition to the bull’s-eye which declares support, not just for O.S.’s past work, but for its current choice of Target. I peeked from Papa’s shelter, just enough to glance at Quarriman, and see. Was there (Murder! Murder in this very room!) a crosshairs on her bull’s-eye? No, her rings were clean. The Olympic Champion supported Sniper’s principle, but not Sniper’s plan. Not yet.
Lesley’s eyes caught Papa’s. “Have you already play-arrested Jehovah Mason? Like you play-arrested me just now?”
I felt Papa’s quick intake of breath. A laugh? Sigh? Curse? They merge sometimes, like rivers into sea.
“Knowledge would facilitate My search for Sniper.”
All sense of playful sparring left the room when He spoke.
Lesley: “What kind of knowledge?”
Jehovah: “Secrets: allies, homes, resources, vehicles, loves, enemies beside Myself and Mine. A human’s path follows these things.”
Acting O.S.: “You must realize why I won’t reveal things like that.”
Target: “I abuse neither Knowledge, nor Trust, nor the fruits of human misfortune.”
Assassin: “Well, I don’t g
ive knowledge or trust to enemies.”
Prince: “Then My search is unlikely to outstrip the police’s.” A nod of praise for the Commissioner General.
Rebel: “Not if you sabotage their investigation. You’re powerful enough.”
Tyrant: “From your lips, this request surprises Me.”
Human: “What else are you good for?”
God: “…”
Human: “Well?”
Her question silenced Him a very long time, all the way through the remaining planning and confused farewells—confusing for Lesley and Quarriman, who did not understand why He stayed silent, how vulnerable He is to words. Even as Quarriman led us up the central turret to exit by the City Gate, the wonders of Esperanza City spreading lively at our feet could not distract Him from the Realities of Idea. What good was He?
“This city seems lively to you?” Apollo asked, gazing out with me across the domes, where clouds of black birds schooled like flakes of ash.
“Of course!” I answered. “See the seats and tracks expanding, stadiums rising, the great Games sprouting up before our eyes. Look there”—I pointed—“around the training fields, how the team colors mix like crocuses on snow? And the ice sculptures on the street where we arrived, you can see the whole long tunnel glowing like a … like a…”
“Like the life-force ghost trail of a slain dragon,” Apollo finished for me.
I leaned over the parapet, noticing anew the manacle that made my wrist tug at Papa’s. “If Mushi ever needs an example of what their ants can’t do, it’s this. The people look like ants from here, but ants just make more ants, plus things for ants to live in, but here we make glory. Can ants do that?”
Apollo joined me, the heaviness of his Griffincloth making my thermal skin itch as it brushed my hand. “They look like ants to me, working away. Where are the loafers? Window-shoppers? Grouchy old people? Locals waffling between two restaurants, or waiting for a friend?” He pointed to three Utopians on a nearby landing, unpacking two gryphonloads of sound system. “Everybody here is here on business. It’s all still an experiment. ‘Permanencia, un acto de sacrificio.’ With the rest of Earth so comfortable, no one really wants to make a home somewhere so harsh, so cold, so far. Even Antarctica is too far. Tell me, Mycroft, how many people today would sacrifice their hundred fifty years of life breaking this ice if they couldn’t jaunt home in a heartbeat? How many in three centuries will sacrifice theirs breaking red rocks on our harsh new world?”
«Mycroft?» Papa called from behind me, soft syllables with a sob’s edge hidden in them. «Go rest, alright? Please? For me? Tell MASON I said you need it.»
«Let it be.» Achilles laid his godlike hand gently on Papa’s shoulder. «I know it’s hard seeing him like this, but he can’t stop working, not him, not until Fate decides it’s done.»
CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH
Filial Piety
Written August 15–16, 2454
Event of May 3
Burgos
Nature is strange, reader, so strange that, within her improbable vastness, snow can touch August, sharks intoxicated by fresh water can grow briefly tame, poisons can sometimes cure, mad bees can forget what bees are and betray their queens, frozen frogs can sleep a hundred years and wake again, and, once in the lifespan of our species, Madame can shed sincere tears. « You look so grown up. »
That He did. I had never questioned why He manifested in the body of a youth, since angels and gods are usually youths in art and icon, but now, as His mother’s tailor tested the new seams across His shoulders, He seemed indeed a different kind of Youth, no longer childlike—like Artemis or playful Hermes—but a Youth of strength—like Mars. It was His new coat. I can’t guess how many museums and histories Madame’s tailors studied to devise this web of buttons and cording, not the uniform of any specific historic nation-state but somehow invoking all of them, that whole vague European flavor of the age when being an officer meant blood and breeding. It was not all black. He Who Visits had been so determined all the years I knew Him to wear only what He considers the opposite of His Peer’s color that I had never imagined Him in anything but black. Even now cautious Madame had been prepared to change it all to black in case he balked. But when He saw her first offering, a black coat trimmed with triple-stranded military braid in royal gold, the porphyry purple of Censor and Emperor, and the pure gray of Romanova’s Graylaws—my Master, like me, recognized the right thing. This coat was shorter in the back than his old one, a thumb above the knee. His coats, like all worn at Madame’s, are short in the front, but long on the sides and behind, with those pleated panels at the back which give Enlightenment-era coats a gownlike breadth, to drape across a horse, or swirl as one spins to sting a foe with blade or tongue. This new jacket had the same voluminous pleating, but was more crisply stiffened than usual, which lent vigor to His motions, like the hiss of a bustle. It is good, I think, to lend some extra impact to the rare occasions when He moves.
« What I do now puts you in great danger, Mother. »
She tucked back a wave of His off-black Spanish hair. « I’ve been playing the most dangerous game in the world for decades, my little Prince. No need to fret if You spill a little water in the ocean. »
I could not read ‘fretting’ in His lifeless figure, which stands still as a dress-up doll even when not serving as one, but I have not the lady’s sensitive imagination.
« I may cause your death without Willing your death, » He warned.
« Sweetness, no one’s going to cause my death except me. You do what You must to make Your bright new world. »
« A new world is betrayal. Change. If people’s works have value, then once the first progenitors set patterns for life, all efforts at change become filial betrayal. »
« Not when what the parent truly wants is to see her Child do great things. But come, » she coaxed, « what really has my little Sage in such a fuddle? »
« A question, posed to Me by a human: What Good Am I? »
Coral lace fluttered against black silk as Madame planted her hands on the exaggerated platforms of her hips. « Jehovah, Dear, how many times have I warned You not to take it seriously when people use words like ‘good’ and ‘evil.’ Most humans, even those who’ve studied, apply no consistency or rigor to their use of those terms, so unless it was a sensayer—was it a sensayer? »
« Human, athlete, leader, officer, foe who wills My death. »
« You see? I doubt such a person even has a clear notion of whether Good exists as a universal or only in the speaker’s mind. It’s just the hollow specter of the word, Dearest, a shadow, no reality behind it. If You waste Yourself getting distracted by shadows, You may as well crawl into Plato’s cave. Stand tall, now. »
She lifted a new tricorne from a box, trimmed like the coat in gold and gray and purple. Her Son accepted it, explored it with His sight and touch, and tried it on, a complete gentleman for an instant. Then He removed and hung it on a waiting peg beside the black original. Oh, Ἄναξ Jehovah never wears His hats; they exist only so he may remove them out of courtesy, while He stands under the starry roof of Another’s House.
« But now I ask Myself: Am I Good? » He continued. Careful Jehovah always makes it clear, though pause and rhythm, when He means time’s finite ‘am’—I am in Spain, I am twenty-one, I am breathing—and when He means it absolutely in His universe before and beyond time—I Am. « If, as Plato and Aquinas hold, Good Is One with My Peer, then, Being Not-My-Peer, I Am Evil. But if, as Ockham and Mycroft hold, there is no absolute Good, and good is instead a human construct, a kindly and anthropomorphic perfection which resembles, not My Peer, but what His creations think they wish He were, then in such a sense I may be good, for I am kind, and want all thinking beings to be happy. But can I be called good if I merely desire their happiness, but do not attempt to achieve it? Achieving it would require Me to endeavor to twist My Peer’s Plan toward kind and human things, toward compromise, away from war, yet He has laid out
war before Me, and such rich questions to be tested by it, meat for Our Conversation. I am invited here by Him, not them, and am a poor Guest if I shun My Host’s table to aid the garden ants. »
Madame had flinched, and loosed a dainty yelp midway through this, when her fingers, tucking the minor’s sash about His waist, encountered the sudden undulation of a swissnake, prowling through the coat to test the many security systems Utopia had worked into the weft. Such a mother does not let her Son march forth armored by common cloth. Madame clucked at Voltaire, who bowed silent apology, while the tailor and valet who dressed the Great Prince snickered at the Utopian barbarian.
« You’re quite right, my Little One, » Madame answered as she recovered her smile. « You must think of Your Great Conversation, against whose infinity any finite thing weighs as nothing, right? Right? » she coaxed, taking His chin in her soft hand. « Think, as You say, only of the Host. Your logic is almost perfect; I would criticize only by reminding You that ants are far more like humans than humans are like the Author of Sun and snow and soul and cyanide. Or like Yourself. »
Cyanide seemed a strange choice for her, death too quick for thought; Madame I associate with slow contagions, the kind that drip invisibly from host to host, as the dark sensayer arts she bares now dripped from her through Dominic, through Julia, through Julia’s pawns and Conclave to a vulnerable world.
« I hate suffering. » Even with His face inches from hers, the Child did not meet His mother’s eyes. « I do not want to be an Author of it, even as co-Author of the Great Conversation. »
« It’s not Your deeds which make the suffering exist, my Sweet, it is the capacity for suffering which He planted in His creations, against Your good advice. » She flicked the side of His nose with a playful finger. « Now, come, let’s go show Your father and the others Your new clothes. »
He to Whom Distance is an enemy took some seconds to process and recover from the slight but unwilled motion of His head which her nose-flick had caused. « I have a father here? Which? »
