The Will to Battle

by Ada Palmer

  I: 「They made their own choices … 」

  Kohaku: 「You could have reminded them their duty is to the many, not the few. Toshi tempted by bash’ and Hive, Vivien to save the Humanists, each privileging one minority. Humanity in our age has consented to turn its essence into math and submit all to the razor of the Censor, but when that self-same Censor refuses to put the good of the many before that of the few, fear for the many.」

  I: 「I’m sorry.」

  Kohaku: 「Don’t offer to the starving the empty word ‘food.’ Do something. Get to the Censor’s office. Su-Hyeon’s grown straight and strong, but they’re far from ready to rule alone.」

  I: 「I’m needed here.」

  Kohaku: 「Has it occurred to you that one of the reasons Tai-kun is letting Themself slip back into the mongrel tongue of Their childhood is that They have the crutch of you there to facilitate it?」

  I: 「Papadelias.」

  Kohaku: 「What?」

  Papadelias. There he was before me. We had reached a broad ice thoroughfare, lined with igloo shops which bloomed from the Earth like moons, some smooth, some faceted. Their domes in turn nestled in the crannies of a vast, twining ice folly, not so much a sculpture as a doodle in three dimensions, whimsy braiding pillars and curves into an ice jungle which lined both sides of the roadway and crossed in undulating arches above us. The folly shimmered with internal lights, which in daylight played through it like rainbows through prism, but at night, which already dominated day in the maturing summer darkness, the eerie rainbow makes it seem as if cunning has sown the ground with seeds of fire, and reared the Southern Lights. And there sat Papadelias. He was at a café, sipping a self-heating mug of something whose steamy head wafted in white waves through the pure Antarctic air. An empty plate testified to the length of his wait, and his position to its intentionality. Of the dozen cafés in sight, many commanded views of the bustling iceway, its outer lanes textured for walking while the inner strip was smooth for skaters, but from this seat alone Papa could also watch the History Gate. Of course he had guessed which gate we would use. On spotting us, Romanova’s Commissioner General rose, unfolding from his ice table ponderously, like an old albatross, not quite too time-beaten to manage the complexities of its wingspan. “No video.”

  He mouthed it. The trustee of Earth’s justice would not say it aloud, not in this ant farm of activity. I understood at once. Why had Sniper’s reply to Jehovah’s challenge not been a video? Sniper would not send bare text. Sniper would stand bold on every screen, those coal-bright eyes, those athlete’s shoulders, sporting at last in public the assassin’s costume the living doll must have tailored for itself by now. Bare text? It would be more like Sniper to parasail into Buenos Aires and proclaim its acceptance from atop the obelisk, with fans supplying fireworks and marching band. We must make sure no one realizes. With humanity’s honor and survival hanging by this truce’s thread, Papadelias had come here, just as we had, to try to make sure no one realizes something is wrong with Sniper.

  Papadelias only mouthed it, but there were a thousand Humanists in line of sight who might have read it on his age-dry lips, and worse, passing Utopians, Utopians with their otherworldly hippogriffs, and lightengales, and iridescent lazards, and who knows what technology within. Jehovah’s Delian guards scanned all faces within eyeshot, and dispatched swarms of eavesdragons and butterslies to seek suspicion in the whispers of the many who had paused to marvel at this great conjunction: the Olympic Champion, the Commissioner General, the Imperator Destinatus, the Criminal of the Century, and Achilles.

  “Someone do something distracting,” I hissed.

  “Chair Quarriman?” Achilles interrupted in the expansive, thundering voice which had carried his orders across assembled squadrons in the age before the microphone. “I have a selfish but important request to make, and I want to get it in before we’re interrupted further.”

  Curiosity eclipsed suspicion in all spectators’ eyes.

  “What?”

  “I want to compete in the Games, for the Greek Team, in track and field, but I didn’t qualify formally because I was five centimeters tall during the try-outs, and I don’t have a birth certificate because they didn’t use them yet in the millennium when I was born.”

  Traffic stopped. If you have seen starvation in the poise of a beast, the stare of a vagabond, the tension of a mantis as it fixes every fiber on vigilance, then you know the hunger of the athletes passing in their bright team jackets as they locked eyes on the most famous runner in all of human history. I too had wanted it. I too had imagined those godlike arms taking up the discus and the javelin in the open field, though I had not dared ask. Quarriman herself swelled bodily with the thought, as if she were imagining scoring a starting line into the bald ice here and now to take him on. She placed both strong hands on Achilles’s shoulders. “No athlete in the history of these Games would forgive me if I said ‘no.’ We’ll find a way. I don’t know if you’ll be able to complete formally on a team, but … we’ll work it out somehow and … Yes. Yes. Yes.”

  Applause exploded from the crowd of passersby, spontaneous as rain, and echoed through the humming ice above.

  Did they believe, then?

  That he is Achilles? I think the answer is: sometimes. They know the world is better if he is. Surely you have discovered that emotions let you sometimes tell yourself the possible is real, even without proof. Perhaps on some historical tour you have been shown an artifact: this might be the sword of Charlemagne, this little face of gold might be the tomb-mask of Agamemnon, this grove is where Robin Hood camped if he was real; you let yourself believe a little bit, even if you disbelieve, too.

  Papa’s shoulder blades cracked brokenly as he stretched. “May I join your tour? I’m off duty.”

  The Delians and their attendant monsters flashed their willingness to remove the intruder, but Jehovah was Judge here. “Do,” He invited.

  “This way.” Quarriman beckoned. “Have you talked to the Greek Strat President, Achilles?”

  “We’re breaking bread together tonight. I still can’t understand how filling out a form determines your homeland, but…”

  Papa fell in close beside me, muttering in quiet Greek. «I thought after the near-fatal Mycroft-napping two weeks ago, MASON very sensibly forbade anyone to take you outside unrestrained.» At this point smiling, cautious Papa cuffed my right wrist to his left with gentle Cannergel. «You arranged this little visit?» he asked.

  «Yes.»

  He raised a chiding finger. «You have no possible excuse for not having invited me along.»

  «True, Papa, I have no excuse.»

  «Epicurus’s stunt on the Rostra has this whole apocalypse teetering on Sniper’s cooperation, and you didn’t even think to ask Sniper first if they’d play ball.»

  «That wasn’t my decision.»

  «You have to keep Epicurus talking to me, Mycroft. I could’ve warned them not to gamble. Start keeping me in the loop or I’ll arrest the lot of you for … for … »

  I couldn’t help myself. «Inciting to not riot?»

  «You know what isn’t funny, Mycroft? Declaring war on the whole world without warning anyone!»

  «I know.»

  «One call, that’s all it would’ve taken. Half my own staff is threatening to quit if I don’t arrest Epicurus right away, the other half if I do!»

  We hushed as the Bulevar Aurora Australis reached its choke point at the entrance to the grand dome, not trusting even the barrier of Greek to ward off eavesdroppers here. I had not expected such a change in the first cavern, whose spell had always lain in its lofty emptiness, as when one steps from cramped city alleys into a cathedral, whose height and light air feel more like outside than outside. Now the dome was full, not just with people, but with exhibits which assaulted us on entry with their polychromatic helpfulness. “Learn How Your Thermal Film Works!” offered a sparkling banner and accompanying booth. “Why Don’t My Lungs Freeze?” “What Is Ice Gr
ass?” “What Will the Runners Run On?” “Extracting Energy From Ice!” “How the Domes Were Made!” “Weddell Suits Make Freezing Water Feel Warm: Try It Yourself!” and, best but almost shy among its peers, “Martian Technologies at Work in the 2454 Olympics.” I tripped over the black lion in my perplexity. Surely that last banner should have been on every booth, for I had seen every one of these technologies mentioned in some bulletin from the brave young outpost which was preparing our brave young world.

  Again my tracker.

  Julia Doria-Pamphili: « If Jehovah is War, and you’re Death, and dear Madame is Pestilence, who’s Famine? Do you think it could be me? »

  I: « I … geh … Julia … »

  Julia: « Do you know where I am right now, Mycroft? I’m still at the Vatican. You forgot to make sure they made me leave. »

  I: « What have you done? »

  Julia: « Nothing. » Her sweetest purr. « Just chatted. So many new, unpublished weapons these fine holy leaders have, and better, they don’t know to think of them as weapons. I’m stocking my arsenal. Can’t wait to get back to my rebellious little Conclave and slit some spiritual throats. »

  I: « I can’t chat, Julia, I’m on duty, as Servicer and Familiaris. »

  Julia: « You have to talk to me, Mycroft, I’m still your court-appointed sensayer, and that’s not about to change. No one would dare break up a match so clearly made in Hell. »

  I: « I know, I … I’ll give you a session soon, just, please, call back another time. »

  Julia: « Why not now? Because Papadelias is there with you? You can tell your Papa, next time they set their sights to bring me down, they should remember that, while I do have the means to lubricate juries and make sure evidence is lost, I don’t actually need to flex those muscles anymore. Plastic has been made flesh, a messiah resurrected, and an ancient demigod walks the Earth; Church is currently more indispensable than Law, so I’m impregnable. »

  I: « Do you really want me to pass that on? »

  Julia: « You would, if I commanded, wouldn’t you? You sweet, whipped thing. »

  I: « You can’t claim credit for breaking me, Julia. »

  Julia: « I know. They taught me envy, your Madame and your Jehovah. »

  I: « Madame perhaps. Ἄναξ Jehovah taught you nothing if you envy Him. »

  Julia: « Forty-eight hours, Mycroft. If you haven’t scheduled a session by then … »

  I: « Tully Mardi. »

  Julia: « What? »

  I: « Famine. And you know I’m not Death. Goodbye, Julia. »

  At last the privacy of an ice-glass elevator delivered us to the greater privacy of the athletes’ wing. Along the main hall, posters of sport triumphs alternated with the doors of private training suites, bright with team colors. It was not hard to spot the door with eight guards flanking it, all in Humanist boots, with the bull’s-eye’s Olympic rainbow bright upon the inky jackets of the Humanist Black Team—Sniper’s team. Through the frosted window in the door I could see the familiar blobs of Sniper’s preferred exercise equipment, its favorite posters of role models and teammates, and I heard the rhythm of breath and force as someone practiced fencing lunges. Jehovah knocked.

  “Who is it?”

  “Those you expect, the Law, and Mycroft Canner. If some of these are unwelcome, they may be excluded.”

  A pause. “The Law … you mean Martin Guildbreaker?”

  “Ektor Carlyle Papadelias, who will, for the peace’s sake and Mine, keep secrets.”

  As we heard the door unbolt, the diagonal black sunburst rays of Sniper’s team jacket rippled like snakes behind the textured glass. Once I was inside, even the uniform and fencing mask could not make me mistake our host for Sniper. It was a good impersonation, even down to Sniper’s gait, sprightly but careful like a spider’s, but those were not the curves of Sniper’s sport-perfected calves, and an eye who knew to look for it could spot the stiffness of the binding which concealed breasts.

  “May I introd—” I began as I closed the door behind us, but interruption killed courtesy dead.

  “Where’s Sniper?” Papa pressed.

  “Missing.” Lesley Juniper Sniper Saneer removed her fencing helmet to reveal makeup and a short black wig which simulated her beloved bas’sib to the millimeter. Her body was tense within the form-fit fencing whites, but she still somehow seemed lifeless to me, Lesley’s customary vibrancy muted by the straight black wig which stifled the curls which should have clouded around her, like the windswept surface of a tree. “We thought your side had captured them, until your announcement made it obvious you thought they were still with us.” Lesley swept the detritus of cups and socks and citrus peels off the room’s chairs, and the sofa on whose clean blueness her doodles already twined like weeds. “Sit?”

  “Thanks. How long have they been missing?”

  “Since April fifteenth. The day Ojiro and Tully rescued Mycroft, and we worked out the temporary truce to stop the riots after the mass indictment.”

  My stab wounds panged. That day? One answer loomed, grim but easy. Dominic’s trap had worked after all, and these nineteen long days the monster had had the heretic at his lack-of-mercy. When my mind fills with horrors, reader, they are specific. Nineteen days; if Dominic had Sniper that long, the pentathlete would be in no condition to run, or fence, or stand, or likely speak again. But, no. It did not fit. A Dominic who had Sniper in hand would not still brood, claw at his Blacklaw sash, or waste hours on Mitsubishi board meetings and shareholder hobnobbing. Dominic did not have Sniper. I knew it, and from Ἄναξ Jehovah’s face I saw He knew it too.

  “And Tully?” I asked at once. “Sniper and Tully were together when I saw them.”

  “Tully knows nothing. They parted as normal when they both left you.”

  Papa frowned. “Who wrote that letter from Sniper that The Olympian printed?”

  “I did,” Lesley answered, helping herself to sport tonic and offering the same. “On behalf of O.S., I heartily accept the offer of a truce until the Olympics, and, as next in line to head O.S. after Ojiro, I am fully empowered to accept—Tully is not, I am. Unfortunately, thanks to the Olympic fever you’ve stirred up, the public is going to flip if we don’t have Ojiro Cardigan Sniper here to light the torch. I can impersonate them at a reasonable distance, but I can’t run a pentathlon at Olympic levels, and I can’t stand up to the quality of cameras you’ll have at the Opening Ceremony.” Lesley took as deep a breath as her disguise permitted. “Either we have to find Ojiro before the Olympics start, or we need a very different plan.”

  Many different plans brewed in us in the hush that followed, punctuated only by the churn of exercise equipment from the suite next door. Bad plans, all of them. Mine was the worst. The dolls, I couldn’t think of anything but dolls. If Bridger were with us he could bring one to life, bring ten to life, create a cooperative one by dressing it in a Mason’s suit, or one of Heloïse’s habits, or my own, to make it loyal to Jehovah. It would urge its half of the world to yield to His inexorable rule. No war, and then He would have leisure to rewrite the constitutions of the Humanists, and Cousins, and Europe, all the Hives, and make a world that lives on without murder. No, there would still be the Mitsubishi land problem. New land, then? A new world? A time-ray to make Mars’s terraforming finish overnight? No, Mars is for Utopia. A new Earth, then, create two new Earths in her Trojan points, with prebuilt cities instantly upon them, an Earth for every Hive, a fleet of ships to swarm among the worlds, among the stars, and the Kind, Wise, Divine Mind of our Good Master—Kinder than His Peer—to guide humanity through her glorious transition. All we need is Bridger.

  Again a call over my tracker.

  Apollo Mojave: “You would turn us back so far?”

  I: “Not back, Apollo. Forward! New worlds! Now! Enough for all, without any necessity of war. And when Mars finished at last, Utopia could move, safe and unenvied, to enjoy your red birthright.”

  Apollo: “But would Mars finish, Myc
roft? If we, who work so hard to reach fresh planets, find them instantly at hand? Who would break their backs making red deserts green for their great-grandchildren when unclaimed paradises teem with fruit? A new world that does not require us to be brave—how kind a poison.”

  I: “No! That isn’t—”

  Apollo: “You’re right, not poison. It’s a sedative, to lure the dragon into sweetest dreams. How long would happiness like that lock humanity in slumber, lulled by this one sun? Five hundred years? Forever?”

  I: “Not forever. The dream would wake us, the dream of voyages, of distant stars!”

  Apollo: “Society changes, Mycroft, faster, faster, always, always. How many eternal-seeming dreams did our ancestors have five hundred years ago that we now laugh at?”

  I: “We won’t lose this one. It’s as ancient as maps, as ships, as the first hand that grasped a walking stick and crossed a mountain.”

  Apollo: “Mycroft, we both believe that humans can, with time and industry, do anything, but one thing humans can definitely do is throw old dreams away. You know how many people these days never even venture to the Moon: too dark, too frightening, too far. Today only our littlest Leviathan has wings. You can’t promise it won’t forget what they were for if it swims happy with the others for five hundred more years. Or if it is swallowed up, as seven become one.”

  I: “Jehovah will protect you. Jehovah loves you!”

  Apollo: “Cornel would have protected me to the world’s end, but I broke their heart, and spilled their blood, and made them go be Emperor alone. Complacency is the enemy, Mycroft, not xenophobia. An old phoenix needs burning.”

  I: “There are better spurs to change than war.”

  Apollo: “Name one.”

  I: “Any!”

  Apollo: “Name one.”