Jehovah’s black eyes took some seconds to digest the pair. “The recent Death of a Parent has made the one on top consider Reincarnation. The other I can’t see well from here.”

Faust held his Nephew close, and remembers wondering whether he did it because children build connections through touch, or to comfort himself. “Your Mother made a Bet with me when we built this Place, that they could combine de Sade’s and Diderot’s Techniques with Brill’s to raise a Human-Creature more alien and ‘Enlightened’ than anything anyone had imagined Humans could become. I still say you’re not too many Steps past Diderot’s Rameau and Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, but on the other hand you exist, which is a real Plus. I need you.” He turned the Child to face him. “You’re eight Years old and you can understand the secret Dynamics between the Hives, but not the Rules of Tag, or Grammar. You’re what I need. Things are bad, Donatien. Something is brewing; your mother’s smug Smiles are Proof enough. Gordian is vulnerable. Our old Brain-bash’ is running dry, and, with the Mardis dead, there’s no one else I know of with a Psyche novel enough to keep us fueled with Innovations through what’s coming. You know what I mean, don’t you? The Utopians fuel their Spaceships with whatever they can mine from the Space Rocks they’ve already reached, and the Resources on those Space Rocks limit how much further they can go. You’re the only Outpost left on my Frontier with enough Resources to let me go further. I don’t like to let your Mother’s Fangs sink into Gordian, but we need a Brain-bash’, and at this point, Donatien, it’s you or no one.”

* * *

“Thank you for inviting me to address you, Senators.”

Bryar Kosala had refused to change her wrap, so faced the concentric tiers of Senators with her sleeves still speckled with Jehovah’s blood and brains. The luminous egg-white marble of the hall around her crackled with the fabric hiss of Senators fidgeting in their seats, pretending not to be prisoners as the restoration of the transit network made the mob in the Forum outside swell and swell. The Senate ranks had never been so thin, patches of different Hives, who in peaceful days comingled happily, clumping with rows of No Man’s Land between them. The Masons were in good attendance, the Cousins also, Brillists, the eight Utopian Senators clustered in the back row, and the four Hiveless Senators in the front near the Hiveless Tribunes, but the guilty Hives had deserted. The Europeans used the meeting of their own Parliament as an excuse, while the Humanists were simply AWOL, and the Mitsubishi sent only two Greenpeace Members and one lone Korean to make a savvy quorum call; without a two-thirds majority, even the Senate of the Universal Free Alliance could do nothing more dangerous than talk.

“Two weeks ago,” Bryar continued, “O.S. used their assassination system to force Black Sakura reporter Tsuneo Sugiyama to retire and let Masami Mitsubishi write this year’s Seven-Ten list. That’s the same list that was later stolen and left in the Saneer-Weeksbooth bash’. This stunt was engineered to bring more attention to the list, and to one name on it: Cousins’ Feedback Bureau Chief Darcy Sok. The resulting investigation of the CFB released a report last night, and conflicting versions have been circulating ever since. Jed Mason was to present a full report to you today, but Sniper’s attack has made that impossible. I am grateful, therefore, that you have invited me to present the truth myself.