Achilles: “Nothing. I want nothing from you, and neither does Sniper or anyone. You’re a traitor, Thisbe. You betrayed O.S., and human dignity, and all of us, this whole, beautiful world that you apparently don’t care about, you’ve treated it like garbage, and now you think we’ll invite you back to gloat in your comfy armchair like some leisure-bloated queen, spraying your potions while the rest of us sweat and fight it out with honest arms? Well, now you reap the consequences. Now Fate’s going to grind on without you, and if this war makes a thousand names immortal, yours won’t be one of them. Even if you could help, I’ll never beg you. I’d rather face a man bare-handed than with some coward’s poison knife, and so would Sniper!”

CHAPTER THE EIGHTEENTH

Terra Ignota

Written August 17–18, 2454

Events of June 15–July 15

Written at Alexandria

“Human Ockham Prospero Saneer, you may now choose the Hive membership of two of the three judges who will oversee your case, or, if you prefer, you may request Hiveless judges. Be advised that, because of the coindictment of all Humanists in the Wish List conspiracy, you cannot choose a Humanist, nor can the Prosecution when they select the third judge.”

This was the first of the many crises which burst from the trial like Zeus’s lightning from a churning storm. It was impossible to say whether any given blast would scar only a small patch of Earth, or spark a wildfire to ravage the tender slopes of peace. My madness, worsened by Thisbe’s ‘audition,’ kept me tethered in MASON’s custody through these weeks, where I worked to finish my history. When I could, I watched the newsfeed, but most of the trial I experienced in jolts, bald summaries as each fresh shock reached Alexandria.

Prospero was beautiful that first day, that first week, the second week, the third, as balanced and statue-steady as when he had stood master in his own house. “I request a Mason and a Graylaw Hiveless. Let my trial begin.”

“Perfect.” Apollo’s voice was gentle, his awe-hushed syllables vanishing into the soft walls of my cell as shadows fade into an overcast day. He lay some moments more in silence, stretched on his back with his feet against the floor-length window, so the Masonic capital spread sideways at his feet like a metropolis dreamed by those gulls that nest on cliff walls. “Perfect.”