Too Like the Lightning (43 page)

Jocuvn hunc non arbitror, Caesar (I don't think it's a joke, Caesar),” I answered, not quite daring to meet his eyes, “sed aliquid sinisterius, et credo ut vos omnes non prius placebimini quam omnes Septem apud Matronam conveneritis (but something more sinister, and I think that all of you will not be calm until all Seven convene at Madame's). Omnes suspectum habetis ut unus ex Septem hanc perfidiam coniuraret. (You all have suspicions that one of the Seven planned this treachery.) Omnibus convocatis, invenire poteris si recte sentis. (When everyone has been called together, you'll be able to discover whether you guess right.)”

It is maddening, is it not, my non-Masonic reader, watching the Latin slip past incomprehensible? It is worst with Latin, too, for it was by chance you were not raised to speak French or Japanese, but no one is raised on Latin. Latin is a choice. Hives are strengthened by having a tongue, so MASON chose the language of Rome, of Empire, of Power, simplified to make it easier. It is no race's language anymore (not even Martin Guildbreaker dared study Latin before his
Annus Dialogorum
), so all Masons, whether new converts or the sons of Emperors, are equal as they sit down in those classrooms, the true
sancta sanctorum
of Masonic mysteries, which teach the tongue of power, as potent for Martin as for Machiavelli and Montaigne. It was your choice, reader, whether or not to heed the myth and study Latin; now you pay the price. (I didn't have the heart to cut this.—9A)

I oversimplify; One living among us was raised on Latin. “Salve, Pater. (Hello, Father).” J.E.D.D. Mason entered from an inner room, announced by the guards saluting their
Porphyrogene
. “Mater salutem dicit. (Mother sends her regards.)”

A common father smiles at the arrival of his son, but MASON's face does something deeper, graver, like a ship's Captain peering at the morning sky to see what weather it might bring. “Salve, Fili (Hello, Son),” the Emperor greeted. “Bene investigatio estne? (Is the investigation going well?)”

No emotion accompanied His almost-whispered words. “Canis abest. (The dog is missing.)”

“Abest? (Missing?) Dominicus? Cur? Quamdiu? (Why? How long?)”

(This is where Mycroft started to supply Masonic Latin translations of the Prince's rather bizarre Latin, but I'll try my best to give you the sense of the Prince's actual words.)

“Nescio (I don't know),” the Son answered. “Ni ampliorem quam cimicem olfaceret non peccaret Dominicus. (Unless he smelled [something] larger than a bedbug, Dominic would not sin.)”
1

The Emperor frowned. “Credisne ut in periculem sit? (Do you think they're in danger?)”

“Nullo cursus pacto. (A very strong form of ‘No.') Non ciccus est hic nebulo vero fidus canis. (This scoundrel is not [the membrane around a pomegranate seed, i.e., a negligible thing], [but/truly] the dog [is] faithful.) Quod superest, tibitemet non lucubrandum'st. (That aside, you yourself [emphatic] should not burn lamp oil late at night.) Brevi procaciam conivere potes. (For now, you can blink at this mischief.)”
2

MASON searched his Son's face for some sign of how He truly took Dominic's absence, for it is hard for a father to believe that any child would not feel something at the absence of his most constant companion. His face showed nothing. Have you ever in a museum, reader, seen a case of lizards or small frogs, and you cannot tell in their stillness whether they are alive or models until you press your cheek against the glass and look for breath stirring their sides? Here you would have to do it with a Man.

“Non sufficit. (Not enough.)” The Emperor turned. “You could make a new car system, couldn't you?” Like magic, reader, hear lightness in his English, as when Hector, breaker of horses, after days handing out death to foes around Troy's ramparts, comes home at last to lift his child in his arms. No, it is not to me he speaks. See there, brilliant in the corner, the nowhere children, Aldrin and Voltaire.

The pair glanced at one another. “A new system, Caesar?”

“Everyone is paying too much attention to the Seven-Ten lists, and not enough to the cars. The Seven-Ten lists are nothing, an embarrassment. The cars are the bloodstream of civilization. You have your own system, your own computers. If the Saneer-Weeksbooth bash' goes down, could you take over running transport for the world?”

They looked at each other through their vizors. I will never tire of studying the space station which Aldrin's Utopian coat makes of Alexandria. It is not new and cold like a fresh-launched shuttle, but a patchwork, bits of mismatched hull barely space-tight. An ancient space station, if you can imagine such a thing, used, battered, and remade, like the museum wing of the ISSC, where field trips pause to see the original parts of the station that grew appendage by appendage into the current city. That is Aldrin's Alexandria. Voltaire's I avoid looking at—exquisite as it is, I cannot bear seeing the capital in ruins.

“What about the backup station, at Salekhard?” Aldrin asked. “Surely they'd take over.”

“I want two safety nets when civilization teeters.”

Again they traded digital glances. “It's not our constellation, Caesar, but with time and access to the current systems, I imagine we could develop a substitute.”

“How long?”

“I don't know, I'll ask. A lot would depend on whether we can have access to the proprietary parts of the Saneer-Weeksbooth system.”

“Why do you need their system?”

“We'd need to control their cars. We don't have enough, and ours are slower, plus…”

“Plus?”

J.E.D.D. Mason answered more bluntly than Voltaire dared: “The world will not be content handing such power to Utopia. There will be backlash.”

MASON scowled. “Then make it for me. Let it be my Masons, not Utopia, who hold it in the world's eyes. I will not watch this halt the bloodstream of my world.”

“All right, Caesar, we'll see what we can do.”

“Thank you.” Even an Emperor does, on occasion, thank. “How's your part of the investigation going? Well, I hope?”

“Yes, Caesar. The Traceshifter Artifact was only on for two point two seconds at its second activation, inside the Saneer-Weeksbooth bash'house, but we learned much more about its initial effects. We are preparing a report to present to all Seven soon.”

“Good. And Mycroft has been forthcoming?” Here the iron returned to MASON's voice.

“As forthcoming as they can be when they don't really know anything. The ‘Canner Device' is very badly named.”

A glance at me. “Have they been forthcoming about Andō and Ganymede?”

Vizors traded confusion. “Caesar? I'm not sure what you mean.”

MASON's eyes fixed on me with no less menace than the barrel of Ockham's gun. “Andō summoned you to Tōgenkyō, Mycroft, minutes after the break-in was reported. And Ganymede summoned you to La Trimouille.”

“Ye-e-e-e-es, Caesar.”

“Are they frightened for the cars? Or for themselves?” There was disgust in the set of his jaw.

“Both, Caesar, I would say.”

“Why?”

The word transfixed me, like a needle through a butterfly. It was not just Danaë's blackmail that made me hesitate, her power to reveal that I still have my method to move unseen. The Mitsubishi need no blackmail to command me. I serve the world, all of it, every Hive, every human. What I destroyed robbed all, so it is to all that I owe my great debt. I owe Andō, from whom I took Kohaku Mardi, Jie Mardi, probably young Ken if he had lived to choose a Hive. I owe Ganymede from whom I took Malory Mardi, and the half of Seine that belonged more to the Humanists than to her dear Apollo. I owe Utopia. But by law my life is Caesar's. And I owe Caesar too, for Geneva Mardi, for Aeneas, for Chiasa, Jules, and I owe, owe, owe, owe, owe them for Apollo.

“Their Grace the Duke suspected Sniper,” I answered; that much was easy. I could be good witness to Ganymede's innocence, and ignorance. “I helped them confirm it was unfounded. They were upset, worried, largely about protecting the cars, the Saneer-Weeksbooth system, a-and the peace.” Trapped in Caesar's gaze I shivered reflexively, feeling that I must have transgressed, sinned, even though, in fact, it was the truth.

“And Andō?”

Panic took me. Caesar could see it, I read it in his face, imperious like Zeus when he gazes on others, but, for me, he becomes Hades.

If there is a limit on how much righteous punishment Cornel MASON will inflict upon me, that Limit stands beside him. “I can answer,
Pater. Chichi-ue
asked Mycroft about the misnamed Canner Device.”

Three breaths as MASON's mind turned. “Why did Andō learn the device was involved so long before I did?”

“That question is of interest,
Pater.
Perhaps the Tokyo police reported the break-in to
Chichi-ue
before calling Romanova. Or perhaps
Chichi-ue
had a special vigil already prepared.”

“Why?”

“
Chichi-ue
consents that I disclose to you alone,
Pater,
their inherited complicity.”

“Inherited?”

“Prior aliquis publicus Mitsubishus auctor fuit. (Some earlier Mitsubishi official planned/designed/authored it, i.e. the device.)” That part had to be in Latin to keep Andō's truth secret from Utopia, but English was enough for the rest. “Its root and cradle are expunged, its conception rued and condemned by
Chichi-ue
and all his peers, but fearsome is the public storm which threatens if exposure links Japan to the blame and name of Canner, so fearsome that the dread of it is wielded by the Mitsubishi splinters one against another even now, imperiling many beyond
Chichi-ue.
”

“I see.” Thinking in Latin already, Caesar doubtless found his Son's tangled English easier to parse than the frowning Utopians did. “Then I must remind the minor Directors once again that my friendship extends to Andō, not to them, and that my hand is gentle only with those I trust. Is Ganymede aware of this tie between Andō and the Canner Device?”

“Non credo. (I think not.)”

Slinking a pace toward the shelter of the
Porphyrogene
made me bold enough to speak. “I ha-a-ave told everything I know about it, Caesar, to Aldrin and Voltaire, and I am wo-orking to track down the people I knew who were connected with it at the time.”
The
time, reader—for me there is only one time, and Caesar knows it. “But I've been busy with the Censor and…” I could not name the other things.

“Then you may pursue that further when I finish with you tonight.”

“Prior sumus, Pater. Manere debes. (We are prior, Father. You must wait.)”

I froze here, awaiting Caesar's verdict. We all had to. In this Masonic sanctum all were
Familiares,
even these Utopians, the gray armbands dull against their coats like damage on a painting. Theirs, though, were special, edged in white like J.E.D.D. Mason's (though without his purple trim), to show that, while the Emperor trusts them absolutely, the Utopians do not trust their Members to his Capital Power. These Utopians are not Caesar's but loaned to Caesar, and there is a guardian constellation ready to snatch them back to the heavens. Are you surprised, reader, that you have never heard of the
Familiaris Candidus,
White Band
Familiaris
? It is a recent office, created for Apollo Mojave by Cornel MASON when he came to the throne twenty-nine years ago. That J.E.D.D. Mason's armband too is edged in white is often taken as another proof that he is not the successor.

“Esto, Pater,” the
Porphyrogene
conceded. “Prior fias. (You may be first.)”

MASON nodded thanks for his Son's concession.

“Quid vis, Caesar? (What do you want?)” I asked.

Why did Caesar answer in English? I think so the Utopians could witness what good use he put me to. “I will have from you what you give the Censor. You will tell me what these new Seven-Ten lists will do to the world, and what the old lists would have done if only
Black Sakura
were violated and not the Anonymous and Brillist lists as well. Andō, Ganymede, and the Anonymous are giving this part of the affair far more attention than it seems to deserve. You'll show me why. Then you may resume your other work.”

In my heart I raised a silent, grateful prayer that he did not want to ask me about my presence at the Saneer-Weeksbooth bash'. As fear eased, I felt at last the touch of after-midnight. “I will do it, Caesar,” I answered, “but I don't think I can do both jobs tonight without another dose of anti-sleeps, and I'm over my limit again.”

There are a few souls who would have smiled pity at my fatigue, the Major, Bridger, perhaps you, magnanimous reader, who have seen my labors of these past days and counted how rarely I have taken food or rest. In Alexandria not even the Utopians, who love all of creation with a child's love, had smiles for me.

MASON turned to Utopia. “Will your investigation suffer if Mycroft sleeps and serves you tomorrow?”

Digital glances. “That should be all right. We could use some rest ourselves.” They turned to J.E.D.D. Mason. “Is that acceptable, Mike?”

His Utopian nickname is not short for Michael, though the invocation of Heinlein's might be intentional. It is short for Micromegas, “Littlebig,” the alien visitor from Jupiter who towers over humankind in grandeur and philosophy in Patriarch Voltaire's famous (and possibly Earth's oldest) science-fiction tale.

He raised His eyes to Aldrin, slowly, intentionally, and the hairs on my neck stood stiff as I saw Him actually seem to look at something in the room with Him. “How long until the next Mars launch?” He asked.

“Two days, one hour.” Her eyes wanted to ask the reason for the question, but her tongue knew better.