The Will to Battle

by Ada Palmer

  I wish you had—those were the silent words I read in Caesar’s eyes.

  So did Voltaire. His smile dimmed. “We are not ready to abandon Earth.”

  Not ready? What did that mean? I strained against the gentle lion, tried to read digital eyes. Not ready? Are their preparations incomplete? There had been plenty of time. I knew Apollo’s plan. Stock Luna City with everything life requires: samples, soils, fuel. The Moon will be the backup world, a second home, ready if human folly destroys the first. This world may burn, but on the safe and distant Moon Utopia will wait for Earth to cool and Mars to warm, and there will still be humans. Luna City can’t hold all of Utopia, not a tenth, not a hundredth of its current Membership, but it can hold a precious few, enough. The rest would stay on Earth, lie low, the smallest Power doing its best to be invisible as the great Leviathans make war. If Earth survives, Utopia survives; if not, Utopia survives still on the Moon, and guards our Second Chance. But instead you attack the Leviathans? You have pulled out their deadliest fangs, but now the remaining fangs will seek your throat. They can destroy you! Rip you down, so there will be no exodus! No seeds to fly! No vanguard of the Great Project! Utopia could die! Why do this? Did the lunar preparations take longer than expected? Has our cruel Maker made the fledgling not quite strong enough to fly yet, as He sets the nest afire? No. There was time. The Moon is ready. The failure is Utopia itself, kind, weak Utopia. You have a conscience. You are ready, but not willing, to abandon Earth.

  Apollo: “I want to drink with you, and live with Seine, and stand on Mars, and breathe the air we made, but I’d go mad, I know it, I’d go mad living on, knowing I left them to go through this alone.”

  You failed first, Apollo. You know you failed, I hear it in your breathing as you crouch behind that gutter waiting for our attack. Your heart broke the first time a Utopian turned down Mars, but you have done the same. You could have escaped, taken the waiting shuttle to the Moon where Saladin and I could never touch you. But you knew Seine Mardi was in danger, and you have a conscience, and you think you could not live with yourself if you abandoned her. You were never strong enough to destroy this world to save your better one. You bound your fate to hers, and once my Saladin and I have steeled ourselves with a last kiss, we will burst out from behind this dumpster and face you two in battle. You and your earthbound lover must either slay us and survive together or die here, on Earth, failure Apollo, and never touch the stars. And now it turns out they are all as weak as you are. Grounded by conscience, the Utopians are not brave enough to let billions die while they hide away to safeguard everything. They won’t abandon this world to destruction, not even to protect all better ones. They bind their fate to Earth’s. No second chance. Utopia will join the war.

  “Do-on’t,” my voice cracked. Are you surprised I stayed silent so long, reader? I was not silent. I was screaming through all this, screaming beyond what breath and blistered throat could sustain, but the Delian’s black lion had muffled my screams with its kind paw, until exhaustion weakened grief enough to grant me words. “Don’t be Troy.”

  Somebody has to be.

  Not them. Not them! They could have been distant Phaeacia, guarded by the black and airless sea that lies between them and the bloody fields of Troy. Or like Olympus! They began this conflict, hold the heavens, but have no need to fight in it. Let them descend from time to time to aid some side, or mourn some passing hero, but suffer nothing worse than fleeting wounds and sorrow. You know, my master, what story was in the mind that conceived this war, whether you blame Bridger or Apollo. The side that gives the first offense, the one that breaks trust and hospitality, that steals Helen and all her treasures, that side unites all the Greek forces against it. That is Troy. That side will fall. We cannot afford for it to be their towers that topple when their towers touch the stars. Don’t be Troy. Someone, I beg you, make them not be Troy.

  Fear not, Mycroft. They gave those towers away.

  “Achilles…” I choked out. That was the someone to pray to, not our distant Maker; He had already given us the key. Achilles can stop this. He can choose them. The side that has Achilles can’t be Troy.

  Achilles met my eyes, and showed me the tears in his, for the Great Soldier finds no shame in tears when Fate gives cause. Then he turned away, and placed his hand on MASON’s arm.

  “I imagine,” the Delian continued, “that most of you now need to go denounce us. I recommend that you make it very clear that the payment you have accepted from us was in return for the property destroyed, and that it in no way means you condone the kidnappings. Unless you happen to condone the kidnappings.”

  “Your motive yes, your methods absolutely not,” Kosala answered, clear and calm.

  Spain nodded agreement.

  Spain and Kosala looked to Ancelet, expecting agreement from him too, I think, but he was hushed, a Censor’s instincts warring with a president’s inside him, as the casualty predictions, multiplying in his calculator-mind, muddled his duty.

  Kosala’s was not muddled. “If you thought disarmament was an issue, you should have started a dialogue.”

  “Even had all Hives agreed to cloister all harbingers and adepts in neutral custody, we do not believe all would have acted on that compact in good faith. Several Hives have proved themselves willing to both conceal and use abominable means. But you are right that, by striking alone, we have violated the compact between the Hives. You must go denounce us.”

  I read respect in Kosala’s pursed lips. “Yes, you…” Confusion exiled it. “Jed? What are you doing?”

  He was stripping. He stripped off the black coat with its pleats and cording, and as He did so it withered somehow, wilted, the black pigment draining from it as it left His body, as if it could not exist without a Maker to sustain it. My eyes could not explain it until the coat blipped static for a moment, then died away into the dull green-gold of inactive Griffincloth. I should have realized. It had always been Griffincloth. All Hives had let Him wear their sigils: Mason, Mitsubishi, Europe, Cousin; all who thought Him one of them had marked Him so. Even Utopia. This Visitor has worn His nowhere all this time, an eighteenth-century cut but Griffincloth, showing a world with nothing in it that can be understood by our senses, so we see only his Peer’s opposite, pure black. That must have been the shimmer, I realized. During His resurrection, that shimmer on the video that some call proof of fakery, others of miracle: it was His coat rebooting after Sniper’s Weeksbooth Counterbombs fried all the electronics on the Rostra. Just Griffincloth, no miracle, no fakery. Just truth.

  Utopia: “What are You doing?”

  Jehovah: “I return this to you.” He held out His coat.

  Utopia: “No need. We’ve broken with your mother, not with You, we still—”

  Jehovah: “I shall not accept the terms you gave My mother.”

  Utopia: “What?”

  Jehovah: “You gave My mother only your conditional surrender.”

  Utopia: “I … we…” Digital glances flew.

  Jehovah: “I will have your unconditional surrender.”

  Utopia: “It would be wiser to negotiate this in private.”

  Jehovah: “I shall not negotiate. I shall remake this world. For that I must have the absolute freedom granted by universal absolute surrender.”

  Voltaire: “Mike, we know You want a future with us in it.” Vizored eyes may be false, but not the kind smile on Voltaire’s bare cheeks. “We know You love what we love.”

  Jehovah: “I love many things. What if My new world has no room for you?” The Visitor still held out His coat. “I return this to you, and thank you for it, and for your hospitality. Give both to Me again when you give Me your unconditional surrender.”

  Voltaire: “We’ll give You everything you want. We won’t set any maximum on what You can ask of us during the war, or during the reconstruction, so long as we have enough to keep our terraforming schedule. The only things we’ll keep from You are harbingers, Mars, and the far distant fut
ure.”

  Jehovah: “What if I want Mars, and the far distant future?”

  Voltaire: “You want a world that doesn’t need O.S. or death. So do we.”

  Jehovah: “I do not know what I will do to this world if war makes it Mine. What if I banish Utopia forever from the Earth? What if I chase you, homeless and unwelcome, from every corner of human dominion—My dominion—until you flee into the black of Space? And what if even there I follow you, and take from you the Moon, and next take Mars, and next Europa? What if I drive you from every rock and hiding place technology can touch, home after home, as I exile you to the dark exhaustion of forever?”

  Even Caesar caught his breath.

  Voltaire: “You wouldn’t do that.”

  Jehovah: “I do not know what I would and would not do; no more do you. Mycroft has indeed taught Me to love you, and to love what you love. In the name of that love, I will not deceive you into thinking you are safe from Me. What if I do not choose you to be the architects of My future? What if I choose them?” His steady finger pointed to the silent, wide-eyed form of Felix Faust.

  Voltaire: “I know You, Mike.” The hostage who had watched this Boy grow up still smiled. “I’ve known You almost since First Contact. I know what You wish this world was like.”

  Jehovah: “Do not mistake Me for a human thing.”

  Voltaire: “I never have. I never would. I recognize You are an Alien. I welcome that. I will never stop trying to help You communicate, and—”

  Static flashed, the coats displaying harsh white mourning blankness. Caesar paled. How good were your preparations for today’s mobs, frail Utopia?

  “Natural causes,” Voltaire announced. “We haven’t failed the Great Test, not yet.” A breath. “You’re not going to make me fear You, Micromegas. I know you are omnibenevolent.”

  Jehovah: “I Am the same Species as My Peer your Maker, Who created plague, and death, and earthquakes, and forgetting, and hid from you the nature of your souls, and, for the sake of Our Conversation, We—not He alone—We drive you now to war and your destruction. If I say I do not know what I will do, that I may hunt you like beasts through every corner of My empire, believe Me.” He turned to Chair Kosala now: “Believe Me.” To Ancelet: « Believe Me. » To Spain His father: “¡Believe Me!” Dominic: « Believe Me. » Caesar: “Crede Mi.” His uncle Faust: “You already believe Me.”

  Faust: “Yes, my Boy, I do.” The old Headmaster inclined his head, a gesture I was not quite able to interpret. Respect?

  Hobbes: “Do you, friend reader?”

  Reader: “What? Do I believe that this Guest of Mycroft’s is so dangerous?”

  Voltaire: “I don’t.”

  Hobbes: “You don’t?”

  Jehovah: “Why not?”

  Voltaire: “Because I babysat our Visitor, so I was there when, once upon a time, little Micromegas saw an insect, as small as the jot of an i, crawling on a windowpane. They wanted to know if it was outside or inside, so They reached to feel, but crushed it, accidentally, nothing left but a splot of color, not enough to call a drop. They refused to move for hours after discovering that, in this strange Universe, so innocent an action could unmake a living thing. In the end I think young Micromegas would have starved in place, had we not convinced Them that even breathing kills invisible creatures, so even doing nothing wouldn’t spare all life. The Alien still mourns that insect, and wears black for it, and is a much, much kinder Being than a human.”

  Hobbes: “A worthy fable. But I have to say, it makes me fear Him more.”

  Reader: “More, Thomas? Why?”

  Jehovah: “In the end I moved.”

  Hobbes: “Precisely.”

  Jehovah: “I am reconciled now to killing.”

  Hobbes: “See? You taught Him to step on insects long ago, your Visitor. And now that statecraft makes Him such a vast thing, He will step on men, and soon forget the little splots of color left behind.”

  Voltaire: “But you care. You care the way that humans care, more. You are not yourself the Author of earthquakes. You know sorrow, and ignorance, and woe, and hope. You want to guard the garden we have worked so hard to cultivate. You even want to cultivate it more Yourself. Put the coat back on, Micromegas. It may take some time to work out details, but that coat’s still Yours, and we’re still friends, and we still welcome this First Contact, even if it’s difficult.”

  Jehovah: “I—”

  “Epicuro,” Spain interrupted with a firmness that made us all turn, “you don’t want humanity to fail your Great Test because the lot of us, who should be out there shepherding, were stuck here, riveted, listening to you arguing theodicy with Voltaire.”

  Jehovah nodded slow assent, and donned His otherworld of black again.

  That pierced the bubble. Kosala rose, Spain, Ancelet, and crawling Dominic, commanded by a gesture to quit his Master’s blessed company and do his Mitsubishi duty. The rising leaders’ bodyguards bunched dense around them, and I saw the Utopians draw farther back, and hold their hands, not up, but out, where suspicious bodyguards could see they held no … wands? runes? lasers? warheads? books?

  Faust lingered. “Why didn’t I get a Space Elevator?” His whine was playful, but play left when the storm-cloaked Delian approached the old Headmaster, and held out a hand.

  “War?” Utopia offered.

  Had I ever before seen Felix Faust’s face grow truly serious? He accepted the handshake. “War.” A glint of smile returned. “I thought you might squirm out of it.”

  The stormy Delian did not smile. “We expected the same of you.”

  “Oh, I fully intend to squirm out of it.” Faust squeezed the proffered hand. “You won’t see Brillists involved in anything. Lie low, that’s the only sensible strategy for we teeny-weeny Hives. But you know that, don’t you?” He leaned in close, peering at the vizor’s surface. For a few breaths Faust studied the Delian’s face, and I saw Faust’s shape through the coat of storm and lightning, his body outlined in spiral ropes of rain like twisted waterspouts. “You voted against,” Brill’s successor pronounced. “You personally voted to abandon Earth. But you lost the vote, and they made you the ambassador today anyway, not Mushi as usual, you. Interesting. And you never introduced yourself. That’s interesting too.”

  Some learn with practice that it is more comfortable for the other party if we break off a handshake before we speak our names: “Huxley Mojave.”

  “Gorgeous.” The Headmaster positively glowed. “Gorgeous. Now!” He clapped his hands. “Cornel, Achilles, Donatien, and … Huxley … you’ll be wanting me to leave, so you can get on with patching up the … bruising that today’s surprise and Donatien’s tantrum have inflicted on the alliance you’re still pretending you don’t have. I’ll leave you to it. Just kiss and make up fast. Don’t want you missing the race!”

  Achilles squinted. “We have four days until the Games.”

  “Not your foot race,” Faust laughed. “Tonight’s race. The list with one name.”

  Caesar and Achilles traded frowns. “What are you talking about?”

  “Did you not read through the lists, Cornel?”

  Death in the guise of Caesar had recovered enough to make fists. “Explain or leave.”

  “The weapons-makers,” Faust answered flatly. “The ‘harbinger adepts.’ There were three lists. The first list is people who surrendered, the second people they kidnapped, and the third list is those Utopia couldn’t get their hands on, who are still at large, and capable of weaving massive, massive death. Everyone has that list now: you, me, O.S., the pretty public. There’s only one name on it, Cornel, one person still not in Utopia’s control who could make superweapons, the most dangerous and valuable person in the world. Everyone who’s anyone will be in the race now, to snatch that fruit. Everyone but me, of course. I shall remain voyeur.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Cato Weeksbooth.”

  CHAPTER THE TWENTIETH

  The Race for Cato Weeksbooth
>
  Written August 19–20, 2454

  Event of August 18

  Klamath Marsh

  As, in a famine, a wise man does not clutch his last biscuit to the end, but chooses carefully the hour it will serve him best, so my many masters judged this the right day to use the bloodhound that is Mycroft Canner.

  The first alarm which went off at the Klamath Marsh Secure Hospital was not the perimeter alarm, but an internal security system on one of the pharmaceutical storage lockers. Possibly someone tried to access the locker, but more probably the alarm box was jostled when one employee body slammed another against the door. It took eleven minutes from the publication of the Utopian lists for reports of trouble at the hospital to reach Papadelias, and twelve further minutes for Klamath Marsh Secure Hospital to fall silent. By then we were already en route—myself, Achilles, Martin, and a mix of guards—but it was sixty-five minutes from Romanova to Oregon, whose mountains offer Nature’s therapy to those minds Science can’t yet heal, and there were many already moving on Cato’s side of the Atlantic. Individual tracker calls leaked from the hospital, but these were few and calculated, most calling their own Hives or personal contacts rather than general emergency lines. The six Masons employed at the hospital could describe only being trapped in some wing far from the prisoner. Papadelias and Spain forwarded us fragments which were not much better. Silence from Kosala, Ancelet, and Dominic confirmed they too were in this race.

  Huxley Mojave supplied our first real view of things, a bird’s-eye view (or dragon’s-eye, or pterosaur’s, or robot’s, or ariel’s) offered on the car’s screen. The mountainside hospital-prison had been quickly fortressed. Someone had severed a pipe, whose foaming spray made the lower slopes to the south and east an impassable cascade of white water and crumbling mud. At the main northern gate of the complex, two heavy construction cranes lashed their long necks like frightened brachiosaurs, and the lynch (or anti-lynch?) mobs stayed well clear. The only remaining approach was the forested crest above the hospital, which, in the predawn blackness, sparkled with the tiny lights of moving figures winking in and out of visibility among the trees. For a mob to reach the mountain so quickly it must have consisted of people who had clearance to land cars in this secure zone, so a mix of cops and the administrators who had already known Cato’s secret location, plus allies they tipped off. The hospital itself was a showpiece of spectacle architecture: curving folds of warm wood, like a tangle of ribbon candy, forming the core structure of walls, halls, balconies, and levels, while all remaining surfaces were glass, which glittered in the clarity of night. Achilles read some patterns in the movement on the slopes, a large group blocking several smaller ones, a parley in progress among some of them, but I concentrated on memorizing the hospital’s blueprints: the gauntlet I was about to run.