Jehovah and MASON took me with them, a fast car’s flash from Alexandria to Romanova. The Hive Council Building stands in the Forum where the Temple of Concord did in true Rome, but that upper chamber with its monumental statues of Hive founders is nothing, merely the wound through which you enter lower halls which spread beneath the Forum and Capitoline like the foundation of a pyramid. Sunlight followed us down, through science’s ingenuity, so the Hive Council Chamber was day-bright, and kitchen trees choked the outer walls with every fruit in Nature’s palette. The bench that ringed the center of the hall was built to seat a hundred, a relic of the days after the Church War, when Thomas Carlyle had imagined that the multiplying Hives would multiply still more, a law for every dream that had a million dreamers. Now a little ring of chairs stands in the center, eleven, the seats of the last few dead Hives kept on hand for the convenience of guests, and Guest. I was heartened to see Chair Kosala in her Cousin’s Wrap and President Ancelet in his Olympic Committee jacket sitting side by side as couples should. Faust fidgeted with excitement, and Dominic in Mitsubishi raiment twitched in his chair, uncomfortable sitting in a company he was used to waiting upon as a servant. The King of Spain rose to greet his Son as we arrived, then warmly greeted Caesar, and Achilles, who entered with us, plucking an apricot from a branch but shooting the underground sun a distrustful stare. Oh, the wonders Jehovah’s Utopian guards made of those fruits, reader: eyes, books, egg sacks, ore crusting an asteroid, while their U-beasts played among the branches, a blue-scaled horse grazing on grapes while a dwarf wyrm, a microceratops, and a coyote chased each other among the trunks. Dominic fell from his seat as his Lord God entered, and kind Jehovah walked quickly to him, so he would not have to dishonor his Mitsubishi colors by crawling. Caesar made for his customary seat, Achilles following, but had no chance to sit.

“Cornel Semaphoros MASON!” Faust’s shriek and the long-discarded name of the Emperor’s birth bash’ made us all spin and stare at the Headmaster, who shook his head like a disappointed parent. “I know my sister broke your heart, and a rebound is natural, but Achilles? Really? There is such a thing as asking for it!”

Death in the guise of MASON blushed.