Perhaps the Stars by Ada Palmer

Author:Ada Palmer [Palmer, Ada]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781786699596
Publisher: Head of Zeus

CHAPTER NINETEEN

♥

Peacemaker

Written March 19–April 14, 2455

Addendum May 20–June 13, 2455

Events of March 17–18

Alexandria, the Maldives

WE LOST MYCROFT AGAIN.

I’ve been staring at that first sentence for two weeks now, paralyzed about what to say next. I feel stupid starting off with Mycroft when so many dominoes just tumbled, but whatever else about this March may live in infamy, it’s Mycroft’s absence I feel daily, the empty cage, this chronicle which wasn’t supposed to be my duty anymore—among the many things that shouldn’t be my duty. Everyone else has bigger fish to mourn, but maybe you don’t, reader, whoever you are, depending as you do so much on your chronicler that Mycroft’s presence or absence is more palpable for you than night and day. Just like it is for me. So, maybe it’s not stupid, putting Mycroft first. Or maybe it’s just my cowardice, dwelling on the one piece of bad news that’s easiest to face. With Mycroft, it’s temporary after all, missing in action but not worse than missing. Odysseus lives.

I think the root of things was that nobody understood how angry Cornel MASON was.

At first, they were angry at me, for violating their decree (the Prince’s punishment) that the Prince may have no say in the conduct of the war unless They relent and become MASON. So, when Caesar reentered the war room to find me announcing new plans based on the Prince’s advice, well . . . ​I hadn’t really feared MASON before, not viscerally, the Familiaris armband was just my passport to see Mycroft, not serious . . . ​not until that clenched fist was for me. Happily, Bo Chowdhury stemmed the tirade: “This isn’t just advice, MASON, this is another order of magnitude; you’ve been fighting the wrong war.” An hour’s explanation later came the new imperial order: “Get me proof my allies will believe.”

The teamwork was incredible: me, Su-Hyeon, Toshi, Bo, (Huxley was still resting), Xiaoliu Accursed-Through-the-Ages-Guildbreaker, Cato Weeksbooth, whose speed really did feel godlike, and we even had Tully Mardi working from their cell, who’s spent so many years off Earth and is not about to let that light go out. Sometimes, it felt like Martin was with us too, their palpable absent presence urging us on. Now that we were looking, we saw Gordian’s touch in every unsolved puzzle of the war, but Toshi—more ardent than anyone to get proof before our fleets and Andō’s shed more of each other’s blood—kept being our restraint: if we’re right, our adversaries are manipulative masters, so if we want to win allies, we need proof no mind game can undermine. And suggestive details weren’t quite proof. Train tracks spotted in pre-Olympic photos of Eurasia weren’t quite proof. Identifying Eureka’s captors at Casablanca (every one a Brillist!) wasn’t quite proof. Names we pulled from the C.F.B. computers showing who the cars had kidnapped (not one Brillist!) weren’t quite proof.

Meanwhile: “We must retake the Almagest.” Everybody said it, intersecting warnings and ambitions that kept sounding the same chord. We must retake the Almagest before Gordian launches another space attack.

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