I choked. “Apollo attacked you, Caesar?”

He squeezed his own left shoulder, his thumb tracing the contour of a scar beneath. “They said, if they were going to wound me, they wanted to do it honestly with their own hand, that, if everything was to be their fault, they should shed first blood. I didn’t understand. I thought they were just being hysterical, but that wasn’t it, was it?”

My chest contracted, as if the statue’s gaze, though blind and stone, was strangling me. “Apollo asked me once if I would destroy a better world to save this one. That wasn’t the real question, the real question was if I would destroy this world to save a better one. Apollo didn’t just think the war was necessary to keep the next one from wiping us all out. They thought we had to make the world less perfect or no one would be willing to face the hardships of moving on. There are few people left anywhere who are willing to die for something, for their children maybe, but not for a cause, and certainly not for a patch of raw and barren Mars ground. Apollo thought that we need suffering to create people capable of enduring suffering. World Peace does not breed heroes.” My lips trembled. “The day you’re talking about, August twenty-second, 2426, the day Mushi was asked to go to Mars, that was the same day Apollo told the Mardis they had decided to make the war come, even if the others wouldn’t help.”

The Emperor nodded, no surprise left now. “Apollo drew first blood, my blood. You drew second, theirs. After Apollo’s death, I tried to stay close to Utopia, invited other Utopian Familiares, protected them, even against Madame. I did everything I could to help them pursue their future in parallel to mine. I thought the Empire could sit unchanging and nurture them while they progress, separate but not enemies. That book, Apollo’s plan, it’s making us enemies. As MASON I can’t sit back and let Utopia destroy this world, not even to protect a dream I share.”

“They aren’t doing it, Caesar.” It felt strange smiling here, but the thought of adding some salve to good Caesar’s wounds made me feel warm inside. “Utopia is innocent. This isn’t Apollo’s war.”

“What?”

“O.S., the Humanist-Mitsubishi-Europe alliance, the CFB threatening the Cousins, none of it matches what Apollo planned. Their war was to be the Masons against the Mitsubishi over land, with Europe taking your side and the Humanists taking theirs, while the Cousins and Gordian would have stayed neutral. The situation happening now isn’t remotely like Apollo’s war plans. Some of the tensions are the same, the economic balance Kohaku Mardi predicted, 33–67; 67–33; 29–71, but the events, the sides, are totally different. Utopia wouldn’t do it this way. They wouldn’t tear down the Cousins, the group we need to keep the others from getting too vicious. They wouldn’t expose O.S. and make the public call for blood, they wanted the smallest war possible, not a huge, angry one like this will be. This isn’t Apollo’s war. The weapons, Voltaire’s and Aldrin’s, they really are for self-defense. Utopia didn’t do this. The war they’re ready for is coming on its own.”