“Prime Minister Perry?” It was not Sniper who said it first, but one, then a dozen of the crowd whose shock gave way to curiosity.

“That’s the Prime Minister!”

“And President Ganymede!”

“What’s going on?”

“Sniper!”

“Is Sniper hurt?”

“Why…”

“MASON?”

The crowd’s eyes migrated up now to the shattered window wall above, where MASON, Chair Kosala, Director Andō, Princesse Danaë, Headmaster Faust, the King of Spain still in Madame’s arms, Carlyle Foster–Kraye de la Trémoïlle, Martin, Dominic, Jehovah, and myself stood in our ruffled suits, and skirts, and habits, bare before the crowd, and before Sniper’s floating cameras, which transmitted the image instantly around the world.

CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH

The Suicide of Cato Weeksbooth

That night we all felt, I think, rather like Machiavelli. Not the advisor to wicked princes that history imagines but the frightened politician, ever burning midnight’s oil scouring letters and dispatches in his desperate effort to predict which of Europe’s terrible giants—the pope, the kings of France or Aragon, the Holy Roman Emperor, the Swiss—would next send an army to sack and slaughter fragile Florence; the question was never if the end would come, just which. After Sniper’s withdrawal, the Powers retreated to their cliques: Andō and Danaë to Ganymede’s infirmary bedside, Chair Kosala to hear the hard truth about the CFB from the Anonymous, Spain with Madame, all milking what they could from the few hours before the excuse of Ganymede and Perry’s injuries could no longer placate the press. Attempts were made to draft a statement, but none could agree which lie was best, or, if telling the truth was better, what the real true explanation was for why the world’s elite had degenerated into violence while meeting at a costume brothel with Mycroft Canner.

My place that night was with Jehovah, not as His companion this time, nor guard, nor secretary, but as His translator as He answered the thousand questions and requests of every Power. The cold face shown by Providence that night had incited a dark passion in Him, for which the labels ‘sorrow,’ ‘anger,’ and ‘despair’ were equally inadequate. In its grip, He lost again that art always so hard for Him: selecting words humans can understand. On peaceful days His handicap, as one might call it, manifests only as hesitation, a pause before each sentence as He checks His words, but in crisis thoughts must flow freely. As the only creature who has managed to attain any fluency in Jehovah’s ‘language,’ it fell to me to sit with Him and paraphrase the answers and orders that poured forth raw from His tongue, like sunlight which must be weakened by atmosphere before its thin remnants can succor fragile life. Here I fail, reader, not only you but Him. I could leave nothing more useful to posterity than a transcript of His actions that night, the plans He set in motion in every Hive, missions given to Martin, to Heloïse, to Aldrin and Voltaire, to Dominic (after the flogging ordered by the Duke), advice to Kosala, philosophy to Caesar, yet I hardly remember what He did or said. They are right, I think, who say the human mind cannot comprehend infinity. For all the billions about to be uprooted, I could think only of Bridger. Where was he? What was he doing? Was he, as I had instructed, watching silently? As disaster broke, would he still sit back and observe? Or would kindly folly drive him to try again to come and save me? Or everyone? I saw in my mind his small arms grabbed by some dark watchman, Papa perhaps, or Dominic, as he tried to approach me. Bridger in tears, in chains, seemed to float before me, a second specter joining Apollo’s at my side. I drifted thus half dreaming until dawn, but so did you, reader, or, if you are more distant, so did your ancestors. It had been centuries since the whole world spent a sleepless night. We do not have time to follow every friend and foe through their dazed wanderings—you must turn to other chroniclers for that. Here I shall choose just one among Earth’s countless frightened houses in which to have you pass this night, the one in which the impact of the news was harshest: the Saneer-Weeksbooth bash’.