Cover

The long years of near-utopia have come to an abrupt end.

Peace and order are now figments of the past. Corruption, deception, and insurgency hum within the once steadfast leadership of the Hives, nations without fixed location.

The heartbreaking truth is that for decades, even centuries, the leaders of the great Hives bought the world’s stability with a trickle of secret murders, mathematically planned. So that no faction could ever dominate. So that the balance held.

The Hives’ façade of solidity is the only hope they have for maintaining a semblance of order, for preventing the public from succumbing to the savagery and bloodlust of wars past. But as the great secret becomes more and more widely known, that façade is slipping away.

Just days earlier, the world was a pinnacle of human civilization. Now everyone—Hives and hiveless, Utopians and sensayers, emperors and the downtrodden, warriors and saints—scrambles to prepare for the seemingly inevitable war.

Ada Palmer

The Will to Battle

Terra Ignota - 3

ePub r1.4

Watcher 15-01-2021

Original title: The Will to Battle

Ada Palmer, 2017

Cover art: Victor Mosquera

Digital editor: Watcher

ePub base r2.1

TOP SECRET MATERIAL: NOT FOR PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION

THE WILL TO BATTLE

A CHRONICLE OF EVENTS, begun in JULY of the year 2454

Undertaken by MYCROFT CANNER, at the

COMMAND OF CERTAIN PARTIES.

ALL CLASSIFYING BODIES MUST DECLASSIFY THIS DOCUMENT BEFORE IT IS CONSIDERED DECLASSIFIED.

ALLIANCE TOP SECRET

CLASSIFIED BY: Censor Jung Ancelet Kosala; S.O. 2454-147

REASON: Military Operations, Poly-Hive Security Vulnerabilities

DECLASSIFY: August 1, 2504, subject to Senatorial approval

EUROPEAN UNION TOP SECRET—Très Secret Défense

CLASSIFIED BY: Their Majesty Prime Minister Isabel Carlos II

REASON: Hive Security Vulnerabilities, Inter-Hive Relations Risk

DECLASSIFY: August 1, 2504, subject to Parliamentary approval

GORDIAN SECRET—Geheime Verschlußsache

CLASSIFIED BY: Executive Chancellor Carlyle Hassal-Krane

REASON: Inter-Hive Relations Risk

DECLASSIFY FOR RESEARCH ACCESS: August 1, 2459

DECLASSIFY FOR PUBLIC: Five years after the death of J.E.D.D. Mason

IMPERIAL TOP SECRET—SECRETISSIMA

CLASSIFIED BY: DICTUM ABSOLUTUM

HUMAN TOP SECRET—Ultra Secreto Humano

CLASSIFIED BY: President Vivien Ancelet

REASON: Military Operations, Hive Security Vulnerabilities

DECLASSIFY: Ten years after stabilization of current crisis

UTOPIA TOP SECRET—Cosmic Top Secret

CLASSIFIED BY: Ichabod Hubble, Harbinger Peacebonding Constellation

REASON: Safeguarding Nuclear Facilities and Weapons of Mass Destruction

DECLASSIFY: After weapons systems are no longer a relevant threat

TOP SECRET MATERIAL: NOT FOR PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION

This Document is certified Potentially Harmful by the Cousins’ Legal Commission, and its circulation in any form is banned for a period of five years, renewable pending review.

Cause for certification: potential harm to the public peace, potential harm to minors herein portrayed, potential harm to Servicers herein portrayed, potential harm to Cousins herein portrayed, potential harm to real and living persons herein portrayed.

Private access may be granted by judicial order.

Not to be published without the permissions of the Romanova Seven-Hive Council Stability Committee, the Five-Hive Committee on Dangerous Literature, Ordo Quiritum Imperatorisque Masonicorum, the Cousins’ Commission for the Humane Treatment of Servicers, and His Majesty Isabel Carlos II of Spain or successor.

LET IT BE HEREBY KNOWN THAT ANY, MASON OR OTHER, WHO DARES UNLAWFULLY VIEW, CIRCULATE, REPRODUCE, TRANSFER, DISPLAY, DESTROY, OR ABUSE IN ANY WAY PART OR ALL OF THIS DOCUMENT SHALL BE SUBJECT TO THE SEVEREST EXERCISE OF THOSE CAPITAL POWERS WITH WHICH, BY MOST ANCIENT MANDATE, MASON IS INVESTED FOR THE PRESERVATION OF THE EMPIRE IN TIME OF WAR.

TOP SECRET MATERIAL: NOT FOR PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION

A SEVEN-TEN LIST

FOR Our Changing World

1. Cornel MASON (Mason), Masonic Emperor

Mycroft “Martin” Guildbreaker (Mason), Minister Porphyrogeni, Familiaris regni

Xiaoliu Guildbreaker (Mason), Familiaris regni, Martin’s spouse

Charlemagne Guildbreaker Senior (Mason), Romanovan Senator, Martin’s grandba’pa

2. Bryar Kosala (Cousin), Cousin Chair

Heloïse (Minor), Cousins’ Board Advising Member

Lorelei “Cookie” Cook (Cousin), Romanovan Minister of Education, Nurturist faction leader

3. Vivien Ancelet (Humanist), Humanist President, Kosala’s spouse

Jung Su-Hyeon Ancelet Kosala (Graylaw), their bash’child and Ancelet’s successor as Censor

Ganymede Jean-Louis de la Trémoïlle (Humanist), former Humanist President, in custody

Aesop Quarriman (Humanist), Romanovan Senator, Olympic Champion

4. Isabel Carlos II of Spain (European), Acting European Prime Minister

Joyce Faust D’Arouet (Blacklaw), Spain’s fiancée

Mushi Mojave, Aldrin Bester, Voltaire Seldon (Utopians), her hostages

Saladin Canner (officially deceased), her dog

Julia Doria-Pamphili (European), Head of the Sensayers’ Conclave

Ektor Carlyle Papadelias (European), Romanovan Commissioner General

5. Dominic Seneschal (Blacklaw), Acting Mitsubishi Chief Director

Hotaka Andō Mitsubishi (Mitsubishi), Mitsubishi Chief Director, in custody

Danaë Marie-Anne de la Trémoïlle Mitsubishi (Mitsubishi), Andō’s wife, Ganymede’s sister

Masami (reporter), Toshi (Censor’s analyst), Hiroaki (C.F.B. staff), et al., Mitsubishi bash’children, not set-sets

Carlyle Foster-Kraye de La Trémoïlle, Dominic’s parishioner, sensayer

Jyothi Bandyopadhyay (Mitsubishi), Greenpeace Mitsubishi Director

6. Felix Faust (Gordian), Headmaster of Brill’s Institute

Jin Im-Jin (Gordian), Speaker of the Romanovan Senate

7. Mycroft Canner (Servicer), The Eighth Anonymous, our chronicler

8. Jehovah Epicurus Donatien D’Arouet Mason (Minor), Graylaw Hiveless Tribune, Porphyrogene, Cousins’ Board Advising Member, Humanist Deputy Attorney General, European Council Counsel, Mitsubishi Directorate Adviser, Gordian’s rising Brain-bash’ Stem, Alien, Heir Presumptive to the Throne of Spain; a God

Gibraltar Chagatai (Blacklaw), His housekeeper

9. Ojiro Cardigan Sniper (Humanist), Thirteenth O.S., at large

Ockham Prospero Saneer (Humanist), Twelfth O.S., in custody

Lesley Juniper Sniper Saneer (Humanist), their second in command, at large

Tully Mardi (Graylaw), warmonger, their ally, at large

Thisbe Ottila Saneer (Humanist), smelltrack artist, in custody

Cato Weeksbooth (Humanist), mad science teacher, in custody

Eureka Weeksbooth (Humanist), Cartesian set-set, at large

Sidney Koons (Humanist), Cartesian set-set, in custody

Kat and Robin Typer (Humanists), one in custody, one at large

10. Achilles Mojave, a hero

Patroclus Aimer, his lieutenant

Looker, Crawler, Medic, Stander-Y, Nostand, his remaining men

Diverse Servicers pseudonymized, his Myrmidons

Private Croucher, a deserter

Boo, a real dog

In Memoriam:

Bridger, a miracle

Mommadoll, Nogun, Stander-G, his creations

Casimir Perry, a.k.a. Merion Kraye, a villain

The Mardi bash’: Geneva, Aeneas, Jules, Chiasa (Masons), Leigh (Cousin), Malory, Seine (Humanists), Jie (Mitsubishi), Makenna (European), Mercer (Gordian), Kohaku, Luther Mardigras (Graylaws); their bash’children Laurel, Ken (Minors), and Ibis (Cousin); and their friend Apollo Mojave (Utopian), first casualties of the war

For Warre, consisteth not in Battell onely, or the act of fighting; but in a tract of time, wherein the Will to contend by Battell is sufficiently known: and therefore the notion of Time, is to be considered in the nature of Warre; as it is in the nature of Weather.

—Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan XIII

CHAPTER THE FIRST

We the Alphabet

Written July 6, 2454

At Alexandria

Hubris it is, reader, to call one’s self the most anything in history: the most powerful, the most mistreated, the most alone. Experience, and the Greek blood within my veins, teach me to fear hubris above all sins, yet, as I introduce myself again here, I cannot help but describe myself as the most undeservedly blessed man who ever lived. I, who once moved act by act through the catalogue of sins, I, cannibal, torturer, traitor, parricide, who at seventeen gave myself over to deserved execution, I, Mycroft Canner find myself at thirty-one alive, healthy, with far more liberty than I deserve, making full use of my skills in the service of not one, but several worthy masters, and even permitted to sleep at night in the arms of he whose embrace will always be the one place in this universe where I most belong, while he too lies in his proper place, on the floor outside his mistress’s bedchamber.

War has not yet come, but the waters have withdrawn to form the tidal wave, leaving the beaches and their secrets bare. Hobbes tells us that war consists not in Battle only, but in that tract of time wherein the Will to Battle is so manifest that, scenting bloodlust in his fellows and himself, Man can no longer trust civilization’s pledge to keep the peace. If so, we are at war. We have been these four months, since Ockham’s arrest and Sniper’s bullet revealed too much truth for trust to stay. But we do not know how to turn the Will to Battle into Battle. We have enjoyed three hundred years of peace, World Peace, real peace, whatever the detractors say. This generation has never met a man who met a man who marched onto a battlefield. Governments have no armies anymore, no arms. A man may kill another with a gun, a sword, a sharpened stone, but the human race no longer remembers how to turn a child of eighteen into a soldier, organize riot into battle lines, or dehumanize an enemy enough to make the killing bearable.

We will learn fast. Man is still a violent beast; I proved that thirteen years ago when the swathe of atrocities I scarred across the public consciousness stirred the world to scream in one voice for my blood. We will make war, but no one wants to light the first match when we do not know how fast the fuel may burn. Three hundred years ago humanity had weapons enough to exterminate ourselves a hundred times over. Now the technology that birthed those weapons is so outdated that children who split the atom for a science fair are labeled antiquarians. We have no newer weapons, but no one doubts that, with a month’s cunning, the technologies that cook our food and slow our aging will birth horrors beyond imagining. If we survive, the wreckage of posterity will want to know how. It is for curious posterity, then, that I am now commanded to keep this chronicle.

I have done this work before. A week ago my masters presented to the world my little history of those Days of Transformation, now four months past, which left us on war’s threshold. They tell me that the history has done what they had hoped: shared much of the truth, without pushing us farther toward the brink. My great merit as an historian is that I am known to be insane. No court or council can trust my testimony, and each reader may pick and choose what to believe, dismissing anything too unsettling as lunacy. I gave the public what it wanted of the truth, no more, leaving the pundits and propagandists free to shape opinion into faction, and faction into sides and enemies.

This chronicle is different. My first history was written to be shared and used, now, by my masters. This chronicle cannot be shared, not while these secrets are still War Secrets. The powers that bid me record their doings week by week will not even let each other read the transcript. I alone enjoy this strange trust from the many leaders of what will soon be warring states. I hear the inner whispers of palace and boudoir, whispers which will shape armies, yet which history will never hear unless someone records them. It is this human underbelly of the war my masters bid me chronicle, not for the public, nor even for themselves, but so a record will survive, and with it some apology, as Plato’s apology preserves lost Socrates. We will lose them all in this, I fear: the wise and iron Emperor, patriot Sniper, subtle Madame. We have already lost the best. There lies my chief regret, reader. Since you cannot trust a madman’s word, I cannot persuade you of the one fact which is true comfort to me, even as I grieve. He was real: Bridger. There was a boy who walked this Earth who was a miracle. I held him in my arms. The Divine Light within his touch brought toys to life, made feasts of mud pies, raised the dead, and through him the God Who Conceived This Universe, Who usually sits back invisible, revealed Himself. I wish you could believe me. There is Providence, reader, an inscrutable but intelligent Will which marched us with purpose from the primeval oceans to these battle lines. That is how I know you will be alive to read this. He Who put such effort into mankind will not let us end here. No, I lie. I do not know with certainty that He still needs us. Those fatalists, who have long preached that all things, from the insect’s flutter to these words you read, are fated, determined, written up yonder in the Great Scroll, never considered that that Scroll might have an Addressee. There are two Gods, reader, at least, He Who Conceived This Universe, and He Who Visits from Another, just as Infinite and just as Real. We humans are the letters of a message our Creator wrote to make first contact with His Divine Peer. Now that the letter has been received, it may be crumpled and discarded, or set aside as keepsake in a coffin-stale drawer. We the alphabet may pray only that Their new friendship will continue to rely on words. If so, we will survive.

CHAPTER THE SECOND

Human Dignity

Written July 7–8, 2454

Events of April 8

Almoloya de Juáres

“I, Vivien Ancelet, hereby undertake upon my human dignity that I will execute with faith and vigor the office of President of the Humanist Hive.”

Imagine hearing these words, not in the flesh, not in Buenos Aires, where you strain on tiptoe to glimpse the podium over the ocean of excited heads, nor even on live video, the new president’s bold image electric in your lenses. Instead you see him on a crass screen, barely a hand’s span square and pixelated by technology’s incompetence, replayed from a recording, so you do not share this moment with your billion brethren, but receive it only as tardy proof that the world outside these prison walls sails on without you.

“I swear to obey and preserve the Constitution and the Laws of the Humanist Hive,” the oath continues, “to sustain the Hive’s integrity and independence, and to promote all that will advance it and oppose all that may harm it. I will foster the Pursuit of Excellence of all Humanists, safeguard their rights and freedoms, and safeguard too the Olympic Games, the Olympic Spirit, and all who carry it. To these ends I will employ all the means…”—the new president’s voice wavers here, since he—like you, reader—has only recently discovered that “all the means” of the Humanist Hive has so long meant O.S.—“… all the means which the current Constitution of the Humanists places at my disposal, and when the disposition of the vote changes that Constitution, I will serve its new form with equal vigor. I will faithfully discharge these duties without bias or regard to any previous or current personal affiliation with any other Hive, strat, team, or other institution. I further swear to support the principles and reforms of Thomas Carlyle, and to maintain the Carlyle Compromise and all other treaties that continue to serve and safeguard Humanist welfare. I swear to preserve in secret the knowledge granted by my office which must be kept… kept secret.” He almost didn’t stumble. “Should I at any time break this oath of office, or in any way betray the Members’ trust, I shall submit myself to punishment by the laws of the Hive. This is my solemn oath.

“I wish to add,” Vivien Ancelet’s voice sounds suddenly more human here, a man’s words, not a recitation, “separate from this formal oath of office, my own personal pledge to my now-fellow Humanists that my past offices, and the allegiances associated with them, will not interfere with my exercise of this one. I am no longer Hiveless. I am no longer Censor. I am no longer an officer of Romanova. I am sincere in my pledge to uphold Humanist interests, even above those of the Carlyle Compromise and the Universal Free Alliance if need be. I am also no longer the Anonymous. My commentary will, from this point on, always be biased in favor and service of the Hive that I have joined. I am a Humanist, and speak as one—although not yet in Spanish,” he added with a sheepish tone, “for which I apologize, but it is better, I think, for the whole world to hear and understand this, not just our Members. There is a new Censor now, and a new Anonymous, and both are worthy of those offices. I trust them completely to fulfill their duties as well as I or anyone could. I hope you will trust them too, as much as you trusted me, before I was called to give up those offices for this one.”

The screen went dark. Tears welled in me, but practice did not let them fall. If one man in this world had deserved to see the oath live, to have been present when his allegiance shifted to a new commander in chief, that man was Ockham Saneer. Instead we watched it here, nineteen hours after the inauguration, and Ockham could not even stand to hear the words, since fetters and prison custom bound him to his chair. He did not even have his boots, just the jail uniform, slack navy and orange mockingly festive, like a child’s shapeless attempt to wrap a birthday gift. Ockham did not weep at his own state, but I saw him flinch, one taut twitch of his cheek, grief’s only token upon that bronze-strong Indian face, which always reminds me which people, alone among antiquity’s war-ready thousands, halted Alexander.

“Complete voter turnout take four hours, seventeen minutes.” These words at least were live, spoken in warm (if imperfect) Spanish by President Ancelet, who sat across from Ockham in the sterile interrogation room.

Ockham smiled at the speed with which his billion fellow Members had done their democratic duty.

“¿Want to see the interimo vice president to swear cérémonia of Sawyer Dongala?” Ancelet offered, his well-meaning infant Spanish dappled with stray French and English. “After me, the biggest vote numbers are for Sniper, ex-president Ganymede, you, your éspoux Lesley, J.E.D.D. Mason, and Sawyer Dongala, so Dongala agrees to be vice president while we hold whether any these other is eligible in the circonstances. A second urgency vote confirmed Dongala.”

Ockham’s throat cracked, stiff from the ten cautious days since his arrest, during which he had spoken nothing but guarded monosyllables and “toilet.” “I ac—khh—acknowledge that you have been lawfully elected President of the Humanist Hive, and that you now hold all the authority to question and command to which that office entitles you.”

The warmth in the new president’s smile sharpened at once to action. “¿Who ordered Sniper to attack contre J.E.D.D. Mason?” he asked, with the sharp speed of a man who had never doubted that Ockham’s silence, which had not broken for all the threats and enticements the law could offer, would break for him. “¿Who else to know?”

“English is alright with me if it’s easier for you, Member President,” Ockham invited gently, switching over. “No one else knew, to my knowledge. Oji-jiro acted alone.” He tripped over Sniper’s rarely voiced first name. “The bash’ was entirely out of contact with President Ganymede at that point, and even Lesley and I knew nothing of Ojiro’s plans.”

Ancelet nodded his thanks for Ockham’s linguistic courtesy. “Then Sniper did act alone.” His shoulders eased. “Tell me about O.S.”

“On or off the record, Member President?”

“Off, for now. We’ll need a public statement soon, but first I myself need to understand.”

That answer pleased Ockham, if I read him right. “Why is Mycroft here?” he asked.

Ancelet followed Ockham’s gaze to where I sat on a metal bench in the corner, hugging my knees and trying to ignore the prison wraiths which clawed at my limbs and shoulders. I cannot tell you whether these wraiths are the ghosts of past prisoners, or simply spirits of the jealous walls, which recognize in me another criminal who should be theirs to claim. I try to tell myself there are no prison wraiths. This was not even a real prison, just a jail, a fleeting holding place for those awaiting trial, which should never have held anyone long enough to birth a bitter ghost. Still, here, as in every prison whose threshold I have crossed since my crimes, I saw the wraiths, heard them, felt their tendrils, real as the cloth across my skin.

“I’m not allowed anywhere without a bodyguard anymore,” the new president answered. “I thought you’d prefer someone we both know and trust.”

Ockham frowned at me. “Is that the only reason?”

“No. You may or may not be aware, but I’ve relied on Mycroft a long time, not just as Censor but in my… secret office. Mycroft is my assistant, advisor, apprentice. My successor.”

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