Dominic pointed to a bookcase. “On top of Maimonides.”
The Utopian lifted a cloth sack from its seat on top of the old volume, and checked the deadly tool humming away within. “How long have you had it?”
“Three days,” Dominic answered. “I found it by one of the emergency exits from the understructure of the Saneer-Weeksbooth bash’house. Whoever used it to deliver the Seven-Ten list knew you’d catch them if they used it again, so they dropped it then and there. Our thief expected you Utopians to be called in, and they were willing to sacrifice such an expensive toy just to plant that little piece of paper in Ockham Saneer’s trashcan. Whatever this enemy is that we’re hunting, it is a rare bird that I look forward to tasting.”
Carlyle rose now, as if the new figure looming over her made her suddenly realize she was still slumped on the floor. “That’s the Canner Device? The Canner Device? From the Canner Murders? The one that tricks the trackers?”
Dominic chuckled. “You must’ve switched it on yourself, Carlyle, when you knocked against the bookcase, and our pet Utopian tracked it.” He flashed a smile at a volume of Seneca on the desk beside him. “How Providentially improbable.”
Carlyle gaped, and the digital eyes shown by the Griffincloth surface of Voltaire’s Utopian vizor seemed to lock on her. “Who is this Cousin?” the Utopian asked. “They’re not in the client registry.”
“The Saneer-Weeksbooth bash’s sensayer,” Dominic answered. “Carlyle Foster. Carlyle, may I introduce one of the Emperor’s Familiares Candidi, Voltaire Seldon.”
Voltaire frowned. “You know this is a warded zone, Dominic, inside the defense orbit for the Alphas present. Variables are pandoras. Foster, you will let me shuttle you to the exit.”
A playful smile on Dominic’s face always seems monstrous, like those nightmare fish of the deep sea that lure prey with their false, sweet lights. “Foster is not an outsider, she’s my parishioner, which makes her a member of the household. Isn’t that right, Foster?”
Carlyle had one second here to think, facing those strange digital eyes, before she had to choose: remain or go? “Yes. Yes, Dominic’s my sensayer.”
“This is a session?” Voltaire asked.
Dominic made Carlyle be the one to answer. “Yes.”
“It’s private,” Dominic added, “so kindly take your toy and leave.”
Voltaire spirited the device into the sunset depths of his long coat. “You should have given this to us as soon as you found it.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“You wasted human effort, slowed our progress, aided entropy.”
“I’ve been very busy.”
Digital eyes turned again on Carlyle, squinting, while Voltaire’s fingers played at controls within the sleeves whose Griffincloth transformed the wall behind into a honeycomb buzzing with phosphorescent fox-wasps. “Foster, you will hold still, please.”
Carlyle shied back as the Utopian reached for her throat. “What are you doing?”
Voltaire’s hand locked on the Cousin’s slender shoulder. “You will hold still. This will not hurt or harm.”
I was impressed that Carlyle did not scream as snakes shot from the Utopian’s sleeve. The first fast-striking serpent wrapped itself around Carlyle’s neck to hold the target steady as three others slid into place across her cheek and shoulders, like roots crawling over stone. Only their front sections emerged, white scales glistening like old ice, while the rest of their long bodies stayed in the depths of Voltaire’s sleeve, so one could not guess how deep the coils ran.
A dog learns fast to cry for help to its protector. “Dominic!”
“It’s all right, Carlyle. Seldon here belongs to Ma?tre Jehovah.” Dominic refuses to call the Utopian by the name of the Patriarch. “He will not harm thee, though one could wish he were a bit better house-trained.”
The central serpent opened its jaws to bare gold-bright connectors, which it plunged into Carlyle’s tracker. “They’re transmitting video.” Voltaire’s digital eyes narrowed as data flowed in from the serpent. “Someone’s scrying.”
Dominic’s eyes hardened. “A spy? Didst thou know, Foster? Answer carefully.”
Carlyle’s throat twitched, but fear of the snakes gave her a good excuse for silence.
Dominic’s fingers flexed as if hungry for the sword which did not hang at his rope belt. “Who’s listening, Seldon? I can think of several possibilities.”
“Six seconds and I’ll know.” Another snake, or perhaps a different part of one of the first few, let a coil peek out of Voltaire’s neckline as it slid across its master’s shoulders. Swissnakes they’re called, an infinitely useful U-beast, and I’ve never been certain how large a colony lives inside that coat. I’ve never spotted more than six heads at once, but I have seen so many different-seeming heads, armed with everything from a radiometer to a corkscrew, that I would not be surprised to see Voltaire dispatch twenty at once, or for the entire coat to dissolve into a weft of serpents.
“It’s Mycroft Canner,” Voltaire concluded.
Dominic laughed openly. “Mycroft must like thee, Foster, to be spying. He must have worried for thy safety in my lair, or perhaps for the safety of our mutual young friend. We must ask him.”
“Should I counterspell?” Voltaire offered, snakes purring in readiness.
“No point. Our Mycroft is a little hydra, they’ll grow two eyes where you put one out.” Dominic smiled darkly at Carlyle and, through him, at me. “Thou wouldst be wise, Mycroft, to concentrate on thine own work for the time being, and stay far away from mine. As dear to Notre Ma?tre as thou art, my patience has its limits.”
So did the Utopian’s. He retracted the snakes, like inhaled smoke. “If you’ll excuse me, I have progress to progress.”
“Of course.” Dominic dismissed Voltaire with a bored wave. “I might call you if I find anything else useful.”
The Utopian paused in the doorway. “You should register Foster as a formal client. Security aside, you know Madame doesn’t like you giving it away.”
Carlyle clutched her wrap, as if to assure herself it was intact. “We haven’t—”
“You could do the registration for us, couldn’t you, Seldon?” Dominic asked, almost sweetly. “That would be much more convenient.”
“I could…”
“What do you say, Foster?” Dominic invited. “Wouldst thou like to let the Utopian handle thy registration, while we finish our session? There was another question thou wert about to ask, was there not?”
Watching through Carlyle’s tracker I could see Voltaire gazing at her, intense eyes trying to advise in silence, but the vizor’s electric shimmer would not let them seem earnest.
Carlyle took a deep breath. “I’ll stay.”
I saw Dominic swallow down their surge of victory drool.
Voltaire turned away. “As you prefer.”
This is no rescue! Giving the monster everything he wanted! Thou hast mocked me, Mycroft, inviting me to pray when thou knewest what outcome waited.
Ah, reader, I understand it is your kindness which fills you with this hubris, but it is hubris still. You presume, not only to advise your Maker, but to demand that He respond to your advice by revising the infinite and perfect Plan of His Creation precisely as you—with your flawed and finite wisdom—recommend?