Since I try to render everything in English, I have often struggled with the titles we closer servants use for He Who has so many. We His intimates are, as you must have observed, possessive servants, each craving to be somehow uniquely His. While any Mitsubishi may call Him Tai-kun or Xiao Hei Wang, any Spaniard Alteza, and any servant at Madame’s Jeune Maître, Dominic alone may use mon Maître, Heloïse mon Seigneur, Martin Dominus, and I would feel bitter jealousy if any (save my Saladin) shared my Ἄναξ. Even MASON respects this strict division, and not from an objective distance, either, for I think he too would quake if he heard one of Jehovah’s other fathers call Him Filius, or Him call another pater.

MASON: “More inconvenient for you, I think, than for me, canis.”

Dominic: “True. That’s why I sincerely hope you will take this advice, for my sake, and for yours. This is not a threat, Majesté. I do not imagine that I could destroy you, even if I had two Hives united behind me. I merely say this: if you crush me I will bite back, and you can’t afford to be wounded right now. All I want is to kill a worm we both want dead. It is a small petition.”

MASON: “I will consider it.”

I do not know what answer MASON gave in the end. The Emperor did publicly condemn hasty land laws like Odessa’s, and the Mitsubishi strike did end. The Mitsubishi voted as Dominic promised. A bash’s right to raise its children as it wished triumphed one hundred thirty-two against a bitter sixty-eight, casting Cook’s resurrected Set-Set Law back into the dust of history. As for Sniper—patriot, assassin, blasphemer, πολέμιος, self-styled tyrannicide—Natekari’s motion to declare Sniper an Enemy of the Alliance passed, barely, a technical majority, ninety-eight to ninety-four, with eight Utopian abstentions. A Whitelaw Tribune vetoed at once, and before anyone could move to overturn the veto, that strangest Senator, Olympic Champion Aesop Quarriman, very sensibly demanded that the Court examine the legality of a bill which stripped a Hive of the right to protect one of its own members. Now Sniper’s sideways death sentence lingers toothless in the Courts. Meanwhile, Dominic’s hastily appointed Acting Mitsubishi Senators can say with honesty: “I don’t support O.S. Look, I even voted to kill Sniper.” Nicely played, Dominic. You make Madame proud.

CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH

Inviolable

Written August 4–5, 2454

Events of May 1

Hobbestown

TO THE OFFICE OF GRAYLAW HIVELESS TRIBUNE J.E.D.D. MASON, FROM THE OFFICE OF BLACKLAW HIVELESS TRIBUNE CASTEL NATEKARI 4/17/2454: A community of concerned Hiveless requests Tribune Mason’s attendance at a Town Hall Meeting to be held in Hobbestown City Hall at 4 PM UT on Friday May 1st, 2454, at which Tribune Mason will be asked to answer for their continued fitness for the office of Tribune.