Silent as a lion (which is as much a cat as any other), Ganymede prowled in between the pair. Reaching gently, he massaged Kosala’s shoulder with his right hand, while with his left he stroked the underside of Vivien’s palm, as lovers do inviting one another to hold hands. Neither victim glanced back, but both smiled at the touch of gentle fingers, Chair Kosala arching her back, while the Censor grasped the President’s fingers, soft as a woman’s, and held them warmly. Ganymede pressed his luck, moving closer to Bryar until their flesh shared heat, then craned his neck to let his breath reach between the dreadlocks and tickle Vivien’s bare ear. Only then did Chair Kosala turn to see why one of her bodyguards was trying so hard not to laugh. She almost screamed. “Ganymede!”
She and Vivien gaped at the Duke between them, who smiled, looking as smug as the sculpture behind him of naked Hephaestion basking in the hungry gaze of Alexander. In fact, since Duke Ganymede himself had been the model for that particular Hephaestion, the likeness was exact.
“You see,” he lectured, “this is why couples should stand together in this room, not apart.”
As the pair stood frozen, Ganymede gave each kisses on both cheeks, then pressed them into one another’s arms as if arranging dolls. “Like that, see? Better.”
They held the pose only a moment before balking back. “Ganymede,” Chair Kosala began, “I … we were looking for you.”
“Then it was mutual. Come, there’s something waiting for you on the Ruby Walk.” He seized Chair Kosala by the hand, the lace of his cuff mingling with her hanging silks like the leaves and blossoms of wisteria. “Something for your bedroom wall.”
Pure Indian ancestry has made Bryar Kosala’s hair as rich and dense a black as any on the planet, almost dense enough to hide behind. “I thought you’d forgotten about that.”
“Dearest Bryar, I never forget anything. Come along, Vivien.” He dragged the Censor by his Graylaw sash. “Bryar’s not going use this piece alone.”
Ganymede swept out of the salon with the speechless couple helplessly in tow.
The long main gallery they entered now had a sleek, reflective red carpet, which preserved the tracks of Humanist boots, no two alike, whose custom soles stamped the receiving fibers with the sigils of the many athletes, actors, thinkers, and tricksters who played the celebrity game well enough to walk Ganymede’s halls. Humanist boots are a custom nearly two hundred years old, created when the Olympian Hive, which lived for sport, merged with World Stage, which lived for concert and spotlight, to form the ‘Humanists,’ united by the passion to excel, achieve, improve, and constantly surpass the past limits of human perfection. I believe there has never been, nor shall be again, a government as stable as the Humanists. Rome grew mighty under Kings, then stifled as they became tyrants, forcing the bloody revolution which birthed the Republic. When that Republic’s conquests outgrew the Senate’s power to govern, it took a second bloodbath to return to monarchy. How many bloodbaths has France endured? India? China? Florence and Athens, trapped in their constitutions, unable to switch to monarchy when crisis demanded one voice? The Humanists alone have escaped this cycle, trusting voters to choose not only governors, but governments. Humanist elections have no short list of candidates. All may vote for anyone they please, and everyone who receives even a thousandth part of the voting pool receives in turn that portion of the power. Today universally beloved Ganymede commands sixty-three percent of the vote, and so wields sixty-three percent of the powers of government, and adds ‘President’ to his list of titles. The other thirty-seven percent of the power is distributed among his rivals: twenty-two and the title of Vice President to the runner-up, six to one Minister of Justice, the final nine to a council of minor celebrities currently dubbed Congress. Fifty years ago, when charisma was less concentrated in one star, the frontrunner had boasted a mere seven percent and the title Speaker, while three percent went to a Vice Speaker, and the remaining ninety to a Senate of more than five hundred names. It was a revolution, reader, a transition from republic to dictatorship in fifty years without a single drop of blood. Detractors call it a cult of charisma, but the Humanists themselves use aretocracy, rule by excellence.
«Grand frère!»
Danaë’s greeting rang through the halls like fanfare. She rushed to her brother, the sleeves of her kimono rustling like a flightless bird which flaps in its excitement, forgetting for a moment that it is Earth’s prisoner. The view through Ganymede’s tracker camera was stunning as she threw herself into his arms, rivers of spring blooms flowing across her silks like a florist’s window with many more colors than mere rainbow. Danaë rained kisses upon her brother, and the sparkles traded back and forth between their silks made the scene almost blinding. Such scenes are even more powerful in person, seeing the twins’ eyes lock, the same gem-deadly blue; their hands intertwine, the same china doll fingers; Danaë’s cheek brushing Ganymede’s mane, as gold as hers. Danaë’s station demanded that her hair be bound modestly back, though the sheer bulk of the coil dared one to imagine what ocean of sunlight would pour down if it were free. Her station also demanded that she not throw herself so enthusiastically upon another man in public, and her husband was not slow to place a firm hand on her shoulder.
“Hello, Ganymede. Thank you for inviting us again.” Chief Director Hotaka Andō Mitsubishi’s voice was cheerless as old stone. His suit this evening was spectacular itself, a rich blue like deep water, whose winter pattern of fine spirals was halfway through transforming into the ripples of a rain-spattered spring pond, koi and turtles appearing through the blue as if rising to feed.
“The pleasure is ours.” The Duke crushed the orchid-fragile knot of Danaë’s obi as he held her tight.
Director Andō pulled harder at his wife. “Come, Danaë, let’s let your brother breathe.”
Smooth as a dancer, Danaë peeled one arm off of her brother and netted her husband in its grasp, forcing the pair to sandwich her in one affectionate embrace. The photographers went mad.
“I saw the ice sculptures out front!” She shouted in her joy. “I can’t believe that horse’s tiny legs are strong enough to support its whole body, and Lady Godiva on top, and so much hair!”
Ganymede let his head rest on his sister’s shoulder as she held him. “That’s nothing. Wait until you see out back. The whole hedge maze is iced so you can skate the entire course, and it’s lit so the colors change each time you move, like skating on the Northern Lights.”
“Oh, we must have a race!” She gave her twin and husband each a fresh kiss before letting go. “Wouldn’t that be marvelous? I bet I can make it through the whole maze faster than either of you!”
The gentlemen exchanged a chuckle.
“Come, come, let’s race!” Her eyes pleaded with her husband’s. “It would be such fun, and we can invite the others! His Majesty, Bryar and Vivien, the Emperor, and Felix—can dear Felix skate?”