“Forever?”
<forever, thisbe! people go there and they never leave, never, they stay and stay and stay. there’s people there who have been there for a decade, and never gotten in a car, not once, just stayed in paris for years and years.>
“It’s in Paris?” Again Thisbe’s brow arches; did yours arch too?
<yeah, [XX] boulevard [XXXX], paris. some people stay forever, and sometimes new people come out of it, people who were never ever in a car before, but they’re not babies, they get married, they have to be adults, but they spent years never leaving the black hole!>
“And J.E.D.D. Mason goes there?”
<all the time. are you going to investigate it, thisbe? awesome! oh, i don’t know whether to ask you to tell me the secret or not. it’s sidney’s and my favorite guessing game. we have a bet on who can figure it out first. i guess if you win we both lose? but it’s cheating actually going there.>
“It’s work,” Thisbe answered flatly. “I’ll tell you if security requires.”
<ok. black hole, so cool. do you need anything else?>
“No, thanks, all set. Thank you!”
<sure.>
Thisbe signed off, to face a pale and staring Carlyle Foster.
“Do you…” He whispered it, though no one was around, since whispers are the proper tone for fear, and trespass. “What do you intend to do?”
“Turn up and ring the doorbell.”
“But—”
“We need to know about J.E.D.D. Mason, Carlyle. We cannot in good conscience leave Bridger in Mycroft’s power while Mycroft is so obviously being controlled by this … deeply weird person. You said it’s probably a bash’ doing weird things with theology. Let’s find out.”
He swallowed hard. “Is this allowed? I mean, using the car data like this?”
“Of course. I’m authorizing it.”
“But just turning up?”
She finished fastening her boots. “I’ve run the public searches. There’s tons of cute photos of J.E.D.D. Mason as a child in famous people’s arms, and all the useless gossip you could want, but nothing to tell us what they’re actually like, or explain how they behaved upstairs today, or why they have this hold on Mycroft C—” She caught herself. “We need to know.”
“We’re talking about walking up to a high-ranked politician’s private home. There’ll be a million security.”
“Then I’ll flash my million credentials,” she proclaimed. “I’m a security officer for the Six Hive Transit System, Carlyle. I am authorized to take whatever measures I see fit to protect this bash’ and the welfare of the world. I have all the clearances I need, and, while you’re with me, you do too.”
“I … hadn’t thought of that.”
She rifled in her closet for a jacket. “I’d hoped you could help me investigate whether this is a cult or a theology bash’ like you said, but I’ll make do on my own if you’re scared to come.”
“I’m not saying I…” Something inside the Cousin started to feel stronger. “I’ll come, definitely. I’ll come. I’ll help. I agree we should investigate. We should investigate. I just…”
“Avignon first, Paris second. The car will be here in a moment. Shall we head up?”
The Cousin clutched his wrap. “Now?”
“Best to strike while we know Mycroft and J.E.D.D. Mason are both elsewhere.”
Urgency has a way of stifling caution, and conscience. “Why Avignon first? If the Paris address is so strange, it sounds like the heart of things.”
Thisbe smiled her careful, calculating smile. “Because if Eureka Weeksbooth thinks this ‘black hole’ in Paris is one of the most exciting places in the world, I want to know as much as I can before I ring that bell.”
CHAPTER THE EIGHTEENTH
The Tenth Director
I failed to watch Carlyle. The car’s flight granted me seventy-one minutes before I was locked once more in the silence of the Censor’s Office, watching those numbers return and return which my imagination always writes in Kohaku Mardi’s blood: 33-67; 67-33; 29-71. But in the seventy-one minutes of my flight, I did not think of Carlyle. I could not. You may scold, reader, that I should have been more careful, that Bridger and his power—if real—are the most important thing in the world. But there is One Whose call makes this world fall away from me like dream. It was He, quick to keep His promise, Who called over my tracker, and bade me join His call to Tōgenkyō, where the Nine Directors, towering oaks whose umbrella branches shield and dominate the Mitsubishi billion, shuddered in the storm.
“The decision to hide this action from Ockham Saneer in the first place is difficult to understand. This persistence in wanting to continue to hide the details from them now is frankly intolerable, and an insult to one of the most dedicated and worthy officers any of us has the privilege of working with.”
Chief Director Hotaka Andō Mitsubishi was the first voice I heard over the tracker. The video feed showed him at the head of the long table where the Directors gathered, their spring suits livening the conference room with waterfalls and new grass, cats and calligraphy, clouds and koi. It was night already in Tōgenkyō, cloudy, and through the windows I could see the capital’s skyscraper towers painting their lotus shapes in strokes of light against the black canvas of sea and starless sky.
“They’re an officer of another Hive, not ours.” The Directors speak English in the conference room, the compromise language which makes no claim about which nation-strat is strongest.
Andō scowled. “Humanist or not, we trust Ockham Saneer every day with the welfare of our Hive and all its Members.”
“True.” It was Director Huang Enlai who answered, the squat and hardy leader of the Dongbei region sub-nation-strat, not the most powerful of the five Chinese Directors, but the safest in his seat, anchored by six decades’ experience and the loyal votes not of his small home region, but of the multitudes of Chinese Members too fed up with the endless tussles between the Beijing and Shanghai blocs to throw a vote to either. “I agree we can trust Ockham Saneer in almost every situation, but there are different kinds of trust. I trust my doctor with my life, but not my dirty laundry.”
“And Ockham Saneer doesn’t trust the transit system to people who infiltrate their home under false pretenses.” Andō’s glare swept the faces of the five Chinese Directors. “I spoke with President Ganymede. They have agreed keep this incident a secret to avoid a public scandal, but they are justifiably furious. The Special Guard we provide for the Saneer-Weeksbooth bash’ is the oldest and deepest seal of friendship between our Hives, and much more than symbolic. Having them undermine Saneer within their own bash’house jeopardizes generations of carefully cultivated relations.”
Old Huang Enlai gave a little sigh. “I’m not saying it was a good idea. I’m saying that revealing the entire back end of how it happened is itself a different bad idea.”
“How bad?” Andō looked from face to silent face. “The rift this could create between us and the Humanists is the largest crisis we’ve faced in years. If airing a small piece of dirty laundry can prevent that, it is more than worth it.”
Silent faces stared back.
“I hope you’re right.” Kim Yeong-Uk spoke up now, Korea’s hard-won lone Director. “But if you aren’t, if revealing the truth to Saneer and Ganymede would be more dangerous than the rift this is already causing, all the more reason for whoever authorized this action to speak up and let the entire Directorate know what we’re really dealing with.”