“I’ve been busy.”

“You wasted human effort, slowed our progress, aided entropy.”

“I’ve been very busy.”

Digital eyes turned again on Carlyle, squinting, while Voltaire’s fingers played at controls within the sleeves whose Griffincloth transformed the wall behind into a honeycomb buzzing with phosphorescent fox-wasps. “Foster, you will hold still, please.”

Carlyle shied back as the Utopian reached for her throat. “What are you doing?”

Voltaire’s hand locked on the Cousin’s slender shoulder. “You will hold still. This will not hurt or harm.”

I was impressed that Carlyle did not scream as snakes shot from the Utopian’s sleeve. The first fast-striking serpent wrapped itself around Carlyle’s neck to hold the target steady as three others slid into place across her cheek and shoulders, like roots crawling over stone. Only their front sections emerged, white scales glistening like old ice, while the rest of their long bodies stayed in the depths of Voltaire’s sleeve, so one could not guess how deep the coils ran.

A dog learns fast to cry for help to its protector. “Dominic!”

“It’s all right, Carlyle. Seldon here belongs to Maître Jehovah.” Dominic refuses to call the Utopian by the name of the Patriarch. “He will not harm thee, though one could wish he were a bit better house-trained.”

The central serpent opened its jaws to bare gold-bright connectors, which it plunged into Carlyle’s tracker. “They’re transmitting video.” Voltaire’s digital eyes narrowed as data flowed in from the serpent. “Someone’s scrying.”

Dominic’s eyes hardened. “A spy? Didst thou know, Foster? Answer carefully.”

Carlyle’s throat twitched, but fear of the snakes gave her a good excuse for silence.

Dominic’s fingers flexed as if hungry for the sword which did not hang at his rope belt. “Who’s listening, Seldon? I can think of several possibilities.”

“Six seconds and I’ll know.” Another snake, or perhaps a different part of one of the first few, let a coil peek out of Voltaire’s neckline as it slid across its master’s shoulders. Swissnakes they’re called, an infinitely useful U-beast, and I’ve never been certain how large a colony lives inside that coat. I’ve never spotted more than six heads at once, but I have seen so many different-seeming heads, armed with everything from a radiometer to a corkscrew, that I would not be surprised to see Voltaire dispatch twenty at once, or for the entire coat to dissolve into a weft of serpents.

“It’s Mycroft Canner,” Voltaire concluded.

Dominic laughed openly. “Mycroft must like thee, Foster, to be spying. He must have worried for thy safety in my lair, or perhaps for the safety of our mutual young friend. We must ask him.”

“Should I counterspell?” Voltaire offered, snakes purring in readiness.

“No point. Our Mycroft is a little hydra, they’ll grow two eyes where you put one out.” Dominic smiled darkly at Carlyle and, through him, at me. “Thou wouldst be wise, Mycroft, to concentrate on thine own work for the time being, and stay far away from mine. As dear to Notre Maître as thou art, my patience has its limits.”