Guildbreaker: “So you say Sniper is the most important Humanist because they let President Ganymede win?”
Sugiyama: “Not just that. They meet a lot, Ganymede and Sniper, behind closed doors. Sniper’s careful never to admit anything, but no one would hand someone the Presidency without a big price tag attached. Why share power as Co-Consuls when you can blackmail Ganymede and not have to go to any boring meetings? I’ve met Sniper hundreds of times, so I know something of how the kid thinks.”
Guildbreaker: “And Hotaka Andō Mitsubishi you ranked below even Felix Faust?”
Sugiyama: “When I have time I’ll write summaries of my unfinished editorials for you, unless you have someone on your staff who reads Japanese.”
Guildbreaker: “I do.”
Sugiyama: “Of course: Tai-kun.”
(Note: Sugiyama means J.E.D.D. Mason, whose Japanese nickname I understand has something to do with being a young person crowned or near a crown.)
Guildbreaker: “You realized when you wrote this that it would be quite a blow for Director Mitsubishi to be ranked so low by their native paper.”
Sugiyama: “Nothing like a good kick in the balls to get people going. You may not be aware, but I’ve been watching my Hive eighty years now: things are bad. We’ve been letting ourselves shrink too long. It isn’t good for us, sitting like lumps watching the Masons grow. But it’s not only my own Hive I’m kicking, there’s wallop enough for the Humanists, and for Europe. All three need it, the Cousins too. My draft editorials will make it clearer. I was sad when I quit that they wouldn’t be published, but you’ve got to hand the reins to the new generation sometime. Masami-kun has some pretty stimulating names on their list too, Darcy Sok and Crown Prince Leonor especially. Give the kid a year or two and they’ll be better than I was. Well, as good, maybe.”
(I asked Mycroft what I should read of the pattern of honorifics sometimes present and sometimes absent in Sugiyama’s English; Mycroft was unhelpful.)
Guildbreaker: “Would you be willing to let me schedule you for an Enhanced Memory Session to recall in detail the activity at the Black Sakura offices in the week before the theft?”
Sugiyama: “I don’t like Utopians pumping chemicals into my brain.”
Guildbreaker: “It could be vital.”
Sugiyama: “I still don’t like it.”
Guildbreaker: “The alternative is for me to send a professional police interviewer, which would take much longer. I’ve endured both myself, and I dislike drugs, but I vastly preferred the E.M.S.”
Sugiyama: “I’ll think about it.”
Guildbreaker: “Time is a factor.”
Sugiyama: “I’ll need at least one minute to think.”
Guildbreaker: “Of course. Are you familiar with how an E.M.S. works? Do you want to hear about the side effects?”
Sugiyama: “I’ve done them before, I just don’t like it.”
Guildbreaker: “I must also ask you to speculate about who else might have seen your list.”
Sugiyama: “You’re sure it leaked, aren’t you?”
Guildbreaker: “The theft seems to be engineered to bring your list before the public eye.”
Sugiyama: “My thought as well, someone at Black Sakura who saw my list and couldn’t bear not to let the public see it.”
Guildbreaker: “Or was bribed by one of the Hives that would benefit.”
Sugiyama: “You don’t know us at all, do you? Black Sakura isn’t a normal paper like Le Monde or Shanghai Daily, it’s staffed entirely by vokers, not just vokers but total Japanese Mitsubishi culture-obsessed literary zealots. It’s not unusual for us to spend a week in the office without sleeping, most of us hardly see our bash’es, and I don’t know a one person there who manages to spend their whole salary, since we don’t really do anything but work. Most of them wouldn’t know what to do with a bribe if you offered it to them, and a lot of them would probably physically attack anyone who suggested intentionally tampering with the press. There’s always the possibility of an outsider sneaking into the office, but if one of Black Sakura did it, it was because they wanted the public to see my last great work, not for money or power.”
Guildbreaker: “What about this Assistant Editor who went public about the theft and substitution, Hikaru Nakahara.”
Sugiyama: “Journalistic conscience, not bribery. If I know Nakahara-san they probably spent a long night deciding whether to go public or hand in their resignation. Well, there will have been some ambition in it. When Hagiwara-san resigns, Nakahara-san will probably take over, and readership will skyrocket with all this fuss. If scary criminals think we’re important enough to burgle—”
Porphyrogene: “Imprimantur.” (Translation: “Let them be printed.”)
I held out my hand to silence Sugiyama, who could not hear the new voice over my tracker, but was startled seeing me sit so abruptly straight. Others always tell me they could not bear to live with a tracker connection set on permanent priority, so the person on the other end may hear and see through mine at any time without my knowledge, and speak to me suddenly without any warning beep or me having to select ‘Take Call.’ After seventeen years of the privilege, never facing any scene alone, nor enduring a second’s delay before the Porphyrogene’s words reach me, I could not bear to live without it.
Guildbreaker: “Quae?” (“What?”)
Porphyrogene: “Indices. Collegis auctoribus, petitum est ut indices perendie cum aliis pervulgare liceat. Nihil obstat. (The lists. At the urging of [Sugiyama’s?] colleagues, it has been petitioned that they be allowed to be disseminated with the others the day after tomorrow. Let nothing prevent it.)”
Sugiyama: “What’s happening?”
Guildbreaker: “I am to tell you that there is no legal obstruction to prevent Black Sakura from publishing the two lists, yours and Masami Mitsubishi’s, when the other papers release theirs on the day after tomorrow.”
Sugiyama: “I was about to ask that.”
Guildbreaker: “Yes, they knew you were.”
Sugiyama: “Is that Tai-kun on the line?”
Guildbreaker: “Yes.”
Sugiyama: “Tai-kun themself. Quite the honor for my little mystery. Has Tai-kun met with Director Andō about this yet? Has the Directorate approved the publication of the lists?”
Porphyrogene, in English, repeated verbatim by Guildbreaker: “The Directorate has no right to silence words; only the author does. This theft tells us that some specter wants your list in the world’s eye. We know not why. By publishing, you blindly serve that specter, but you also serve Truth, and relieve the curiosity-pain of frightened humanity. You must choose, but if within these two days we can name the specter, you will choose less blindly.”