by Ada Palmer
Romanova
Were you still thirsty, Providence? You could have told me You required more sacrifice. I serve Another, but I can still be Your blade. If Apollo and the Mardi were not blood enough, bid me take whom You will. Take MASON. Smash the dream that Alexander dreamed of grand and lasting empire. Take Spain and his virtue. Take Papa and his justice. Take the Blacklaws, and make all humankind the slaves of law again. Will that not sate You? Take Saladin, then! My beautiful Saladin, just … those who guard the baby step we have taken outside this world, who plan the next step, why must You take aim at them? Have mercy, pray, not on me but on Gagarin, and Galileo, and Odysseus, and Jason and his Argonauts, and on Your Guest, Who will suffer so if He must see them fall! Have mercy, Maker! Erase this past hour from Your Great Scroll! Return the billion arrows of complacent Earth to their quiver, and make a different war.
Jehovah and MASON took me with them, a fast car’s flash from Alexandria to Romanova. The Hive Council Building stands in the Forum where the Temple of Concord did in true Rome, but that upper chamber with its monumental statues of Hive founders is nothing, merely the wound through which you enter lower halls which spread beneath the Forum and Capitoline like the foundation of a pyramid. Sunlight followed us down, through science’s ingenuity, so the Hive Council Chamber was day-bright, and kitchen trees choked the outer walls with every fruit in Nature’s palette. The bench that ringed the center of the hall was built to seat a hundred, a relic of the days after the Church War, when Thomas Carlyle had imagined that the multiplying Hives would multiply still more, a law for every dream that had a million dreamers. Now a little ring of chairs stands in the center, eleven, the seats of the last few dead Hives kept on hand for the convenience of guests, and Guest. I was heartened to see Chair Kosala in her Cousin’s Wrap and President Ancelet in his Olympic Committee jacket sitting side by side as couples should. Faust fidgeted with excitement, and Dominic in Mitsubishi raiment twitched in his chair, uncomfortable sitting in a company he was used to waiting upon as a servant. The King of Spain rose to greet his Son as we arrived, then warmly greeted Caesar, and Achilles, who entered with us, plucking an apricot from a branch but shooting the underground sun a distrustful stare. Oh, the wonders Jehovah’s Utopian guards made of those fruits, reader: eyes, books, egg sacks, ore crusting an asteroid, while their U-beasts played among the branches, a blue-scaled horse grazing on grapes while a dwarf wyrm, a microceratops, and a coyote chased each other among the trunks. Dominic fell from his seat as his Lord God entered, and kind Jehovah walked quickly to him, so he would not have to dishonor his Mitsubishi colors by crawling. Caesar made for his customary seat, Achilles following, but had no chance to sit.
“Cornel Semaphoros MASON!” Faust’s shriek and the long-discarded name of the Emperor’s birth bash’ made us all spin and stare at the Headmaster, who shook his head like a disappointed parent. “I know my sister broke your heart, and a rebound is natural, but Achilles? Really? There is such a thing as asking for it!”
Death in the guise of MASON blushed.
Just as you cannot see a mantis spring, or as an arrow seems less to fly than to vanish from the archer’s bow and reappear quivering in its target, so no eye could trace the speed with which Achilles was—I cannot say ran or leapt—he was across the room, with blood spattered across his knuckles, and Faust flat at his feet. Achilles didn’t speak, just flexed his shoulder and enjoyed a couple practice clenches of his fist as he strode back, smiling, to stand at wide-eyed MASON’s side. Faust tried to hoist himself onto his elbows but slumped with a moan, and rolled onto his side. It was his cheek that bled. The hero had avoided the nose, probably to make sure the old man lived, but I have little doubt he cracked Faust’s cheekbone. Not even Kosala rose to help, and the Headmaster soothed his own bodyguards with gentle Brillist German. The King of Spain ordered some ice.
“If we’re all here, let’s start.” Bryar Kosala had the least qualm about showing her impatience. “Unless Joyce is intending to burst in and surprise us all, but this summons had better not be Joyce’s doing. With the Olympics in four days, none of us can waste time on frills and tea cakes.”
“I made very certain my fiancée is ignorant of this meeting,” Spain reassured her—reassured us all. “As I was asked to.”
“Asked to?” Ancelet took a fast breath, fearful, which made me fearful. “You didn’t call us, then? Who did?” The Humanist President looked from seat to seat, to Kosala, Dominic, still-crimson MASON, back to Spain.
“No one!” Headmaster Faust pronounced with glee. “You didn’t … you didn’t…”—he pointed to each in turn, peering at telltale faces—“you didn’t … I didn’t…”
Softness brushed me from behind, and warmth, and pressed me gently to the floor. It was the black lion, playful, not like a kitten’s play but like a mature beast’s that knows the force behind its claws and chooses not to use them. It forced me to the ground and sat upon me, pinned me, its legs on either side of me so it could keep just enough of its weight off to spare me pain, while its heavy belly trapped me gently, like an overflowing blanket filled with lead.
“We summoned you.” A Utopian stepped forward.
They all stepped forward, a ring of strange worlds orbiting the ring of chairs. Had there always been so many of them? Five, six, I counted, seven, craning my neck as the lion held me pinned.
“Why?” Faust asked fastest.
MASON’s face as he took his seat showed that he too did not know.
The Utopians reached into their coats and drew out tablets, a strange design, bulky and sharp-cornered. All but the speaker, who stayed still as the others each approached one Hive leader and handed over the tablets with a simultaneity which must have been intentional.
“Each of you is receiving a list of resources officially gifted from our Hive to yours as of…”—a pause, a held breath, something through the vizor—“… now. These are henceforth yours, without condition or any hidden reservation, bond, or geas. Many are patents or copyrights, and for these, as for all treasures whose market value is challenging to assess, you will find three independent esti—”
“Your Space Elevators!” Every leader had gone slack-jawed reading through the lists, but Kosala cried aloud. “Why would you give…?”
“We’re keeping the Maldive Ridge Elevator. You get Ecuador, Gabon, and Borneo.”
“Twenty-one billion … twenty-seven…” Ancelet muttered.
“Why are you doing this?” Spain asked, light. “Why help us all?”
I knew this Utopian, didn’t I? The speaker in a coat of smoky storm. This was the Delian who guarded me in the Sensayers’ Conclave, and carried me from Hobbestown Hall on the gentle lion’s back. The lion’s partner. “You will receive emergency signals from your Hive governments shortly. Please give me your attention, since I am explaining what is happening more efficiently than they can. The second item on each of your tablets is a list of properties owned by your Hive Members or governments which contain facilities or materials which, by our estimates, are harbingers, or capable of producing harbingers within six to twelve months”—digital brows tensed—“harbingers being technologies capable of hatching uncontrollably destructive weapons, nuclear or worse. Weapons whose very existence threatens to break the First and Second Laws. As of when we handed you your tablets, these facilities have been destroyed.”
Gasps rose, and I saw fingers twitch and lenses glimmer with arriving reports.
“There has been no loss of human life,” the Delian continued. “Our peacebonding forces evacuated everyone, including intelligent animals, from the properties.”
“You blew up Geraldton Station!” Kosala cried. “Kolkata University Hospital!”
Ancelet now, “The Olenek Virus Lab! Half of Utarutu Campus!”
“The properties gifted to you are of equivalent value to what has been destroyed, plus an additional sum to cover the criminal fine for one Hive’s Member destroying another Hive’s Member’s property—we
calculated appropriate fines using the average result of comparable property destruction trials, though obviously there has been nothing on this scale before.”
It was Ancelet from whom the names kept flowing: “Lægerneset, the Liland Energy Institute, Iğdır Tissue Archive, the Archdale Array, three buildings in Chislehurst, a bash’house in Bogotá, a Compressions Lab in Riga, complexes in Copenhagen, Manchester, Caxias do Sul, Montreal, Strasbourg, Tongcheng, the Pierce-Long Crater, the Great Wellington Microwave…”
Dominic released a long, soft whistle. “Even museum pieces.”
Smoke rose in my lenses, news networks’ images of thread-fine black smoke columns rising over city after city, like so many signal fires.
“We are coordinating proclamations, so the public won’t think this is another Brussels.”
A twitch from Spain.
“And how exactly is this not another Brussels?” Dominic tested, leaning forward, smiling. “How is this not a hundred Brusselses?”
The Delian remained recital-cold. “There are several more items on your tablets.”
MASON rose, and took a limping half step forward. “Why did you do this?” His voice trembled. “Why didn’t you talk to me first?”
“This is an act of war.” Dominic said it first. No, that can’t have been the first time. It must have been said a hundred times by then, by angry voices in Kolkata, Utarutu campus, Bogotá, Copenhagen, and Tongcheng. So many fires.
I saw no doubt in the Utopians’ digital eyes as they watched us, but there were glances, one nowhere to another, and those who had delivered the tablets backed away toward one side of the chamber, farther from the leaders, farther from the leaders’ bodyguards.
As the other Utopians retreated, the lion’s dark partner joined the leaders’ circle, standing between two empty seats opposite where MASON stood, with Achilles by his side. “This will be seen as an act of war by many. But I think not by you?” Lightning crackled through the coat’s storm-world as the Delian turned to Jehovah. “Not in the sense that would fail your Great Test?”
The Addressee too held a tablet in His Hand, Hiveless properties to be handled by the Tribune as their representative. “Your motive?” He asked.
“We held a vote.” My Delian hesitated before answering this time. Your Delian, Mycroft? Yes, reader, I began to realize then how many times—in Romanova, Hobbestown, Crete—I had been touched and guarded by this same stormy nowhere. A dozen Delians to guard Micromegas, and one for me. “Utopia is unwilling to let this war begin with harbingers in play. We struck before the Games, since it seemed likely someone would try to use a harbinger before or at the Opening or Closing Ceremony.”
A vote. Did I recall Utopia ever voting before? Not some vague consult of constellations, intricate as neural networks, but a plain vote?
“You do not trust humans to preserve themselves,” the God pronounced.
Utopia faced Him. “Not enough to gamble with the Earth. We decided, as a Hive, not to let the feuding parties start this war with arms capable of ending life on this world.”
“But you have another!” Caesar limped another pace forward. “You have two!” Wait. This was not Caesar’s limp. This was different, a stagger, bodily, and he clutched his side with his gray-sleeved right hand. I feared a heart attack, but realized it was the spot where Apollo had stabbed young Cornel with his pocketknife, the day after a Utopian first turned down Mars. Honest Apollo. He knew Caesar could never see him as an enemy unless he shed first blood with his own hand. Cornel MASON didn’t understand then. Does he now? “You were—”
“Hsht.” I cannot call the sound Achilles made a word, but from his glance, and his hand on Caesar’s one gray shoulder, I understood as clearly as if he had spoken: Whether they’re breaking our secret alliance or not, don’t make it worse by revealing that secret alliance in front of everyone.
Utopia turned to the Alien. “Have we failed Your Great Test?”
“You emptied the arsenal,” Jehovah pronounced, “but no thinking thing has been unmade. This is still peace.”
You might think Dominic would curse seeing his hope for God tears crushed, but all Jehovah’s words are miracles to him, new Truth revealed, precious as Scripture. As the beast’s body sits silent, the mind within is redefining war and peace to reflect this Revelation.
“We are glad You agree,” the Delian answered. “We do not expect the world to.” Not a glance, not even for Caesar. “Third item on the tablets, each of you will find twenty-three different scrying techniques for seeking evidence that others are brewing harbingers. This way you can watch each other, and know when the threat returns. Each of your lists contains several techniques we have shared with all of you, and several which are unique to your own list, so the others can’t craft counterspells.”
“But you know all of them.” The frown settled most darkly on President Ancelet, although Kosala too fixed narrowed eyes upon the Delian.
“Yes,” Utopia answered. “Even if we vowed to purge our knowledge of these arts, we have no means to make you believe that we have purged it.”
“And you still have harbingers yourselves.”
“We cannot prove we don’t.”
Ancelet crossed his arms. “And you expect us to see you as what? Neutral referees?”
The Delian remained recital-cold. “The next three items you will find are lists of names.”
“You haven’t answered my question.”
“You still haven’t heard our most objectionable act.” Utopia waited.
No one would break this silence.
“Thank you for letting me continue. These next three lists contain the names of all known harbinger adepts, that is, people with mastery of technical knowledge which we believe could hatch new harbingers within the next year. The first file lists those adepts who yielded themselves to us freely, whom we now hold cloistered in an occult, where we are certain none of you can touch them. The second lists adepts who did not yield; these we abducted, and now hold by force in an equally shrouded occult. The third lists adepts we were not able to access, who remain dangers to the Earth and life upon it. Our criers have proclaimed these lists in all alpha fora, so the public knows what we have done, and what safety it has bought.”
A hush. “You are…” It was the King of Spain who framed it first. “You are holding people against their will?”
The former Censor did fast math. “More than a thousand people?”
“I am empowered to offer wergild for the Members we have taken from you, but we expect few of you will accept.”
“Money?” I have rarely seen Bryar Kosala make fists. “You would bribe us to condone kidnapping?”
Delian: “It is not a bribe. Most of you have forms of wergild in your laws. We offer only what precedent dictates we should.”
Cousin: “You’re holding more than a thousand people against their will!”
Delian: “None of those taken has been injured,” to Jehovah, “no thinking thing unmade. They have been peacebonded.” The grim crispness of those syllables ‘peacebonded’ made us all shudder, Achilles most of all, our battle-starved Achilles. He loves war, reader, needs it, every bit as much as he hates it.
Cousin: “Just to stop them from—”
Delian: “Endangering all life on Earth.”
Cousin: “There’s a difference between having an ability and being willing to use it. No Cousin would—”
Delian: “Succumb to torture? Or to receiving a ba’kid’s fingers in the mail?”
Cousin: “You know we’re neutral, just working for peace.”
Delian: “We hope you remain so. If you use the Space Elevators to transport aid and never arms, they may not become a military target, and may survive this. Their loss would be a great setback to all human achievement.”
A sound from MASON’s throat. Was that a sob?
Kosala herself was not unmoved as the image rose in her mind of the destruction of those great ladders to the heavens, from which al
l children first see proof that Earth is round and blue. Her mind’s eye saw those cables snap, the anchor-stations moan and split like fruit clawed open by some selfish monster, but she is stronger before such fears than Caesar is, and did not sob. “And you just expect us all to trust you? Leaving all this in your hands? A superweapons monopoly? And a thousand innocent people held against their will?”
“No,” the Delian answered. “We expect you to turn on us, and distrust us, throughout this war and ever after. But you will have an ever after, now.”
Hush edged out rage, leaders silenced by the imagined futures that flowed one to another down the logic chains in all their minds. Achilles was silent too. Calm. Was he too calm? What had they talked about, he and Utopia, when I was forbidden to hear? Had he known? Had he chosen not to stop this? Peacebonding the harbingers like this had not been in Apollo’s Iliad, but the Delians shared more with Achilles than they shared with me. Had Achilles known about this? Known they planned to bring down all Earth’s wrath upon them, and consented? No. I know Achilles, reader. I’ve known him longer than anyone. His was not the face of one facing something he expected. His was the face of one who had warned his friend, again and again, against some reckless course, and thought the friend had yielded, but now comes the unwelcome messenger to say the friend has done it after all. He knew they were going to hold a vote. He did not expect them to choose Earth.
“Did Madame approve this? Or have you broken the terms of your surrender?” Dominic asked it, his dark creatrix ever on his mind.
“We have betrayed Madame.”
“Don’t worry, MASON.” A different voice now from Utopia, gentle, a gentle hand on Caesar’s shoulder. “We got out safe.”
“Voltaire!” A ghost of joy awoke in the Emperor’s face as he spun and grasped the shoulders of the nearest nowhere. The hood fell back; it was indeed Voltaire Seldon, Madame’s hostage, disguised with a coat of real and robot fish instead of ruins. “And Mushi? Aldrin?”
“Safe.” Voltaire at least, in all this, had a smile. “We were ready for this. All our people are well bulwarked right now. Mobs will find no prey. We voted on this, as a whole Hive. We won’t abandon the present to Madame, not when the present is World War.” A more personal smile. “We won’t abandon you.”
