“I’m sure it never will be. So, do you find it credible that the bureaucrats who sort the letters before sending them on have a major political impact on the Cousins? Traditionally you’re the one at the bottom of everyone’s Seven-Ten lists; this mess has quite stolen your spotlight.”
Sniper scratched its black hair with childish modesty. “If the experts involved say they don’t know yet, then certainly I don’t. So far as I understand it, the letters sent to the CFB are actually sorted by computer. All the CFB people do is tell the computers what criteria to use. It must be true that those criteria influence things, but I’ve no reason to think they’re any less objective than the criteria the World Food Production Index uses to count foods, or the Romanovan Censor uses for population and economy. No one doubts that the data that comes out of the Censor’s office has more global impact than just about anything, but that doesn’t mean that Ancelet dictates it. If I were a sinister conspiracy, Vivien Ancelet isn’t the someone I’d try to bribe. Neither is Darcy Sok.”
“You’re speaking purely hypothetically, of course?” Faust tested.
“Of course.” There is a tendency to hide normal expressions around the Master Brillist, fearing they give away too much, but Sniper had long since outgrown such paranoia, and gave the Headmaster the dark wink he was fishing for. “The Censor can’t change the numbers, they just read them. I imagine the CFB is about the same.”
“So you’re not concerned at all?” Faust tested, winking at the knot of researchers (for all spectators in Ingolstadt are researchers) which had gathered, taking notes on the encounter, and whispering in the clinical German their great founder had judged to be the best language for a researcher to think in.
“Of course I’m concerned,” Sniper answered, “I’m concerned what damage these rumors will do to the Cousins.”
“Oh?” Faust glanced to his watching students, an arched brow promising to quiz them on their notes and readings after the encounter.
Sniper never minds an audience. “The CFB is the heart of the Cousins. All the other major Hives are run by political types, power brokers, from Mitsubishi directors to President Ganymede. They’re vokers, too. They like power, it’s their play as well as their work, and what they do in office is at least partly dictated by what will make the people keep them there. But the Cousins don’t have elections, don’t compete, they just get suggestions filtered by the CFB, and they put into office whatever generous soul is willing to take on something so onerous. That’s what makes the Cousins a family, instead of a corporation or an empire. If people start doubting the CFB, they’re doubting what makes the Cousins cousins.”
As Chagatai, on those rare evenings when ?ναξ Jehovah dines at home, savors afterward the leftovers and remnant dinner wine whose brilliant pairing the chef best appreciates, so Faust savored the thousand subtleties of Sniper’s answer.
“Do you agree, Headmaster?” Sniper pressed.
“No,” Faust answered thoughtfully, “if I were an evil conspirator I would definitely bribe the Censor, especially the current one, since you get the Cousin Chair’s spouse in your pocket at no extra cost.”
Sniper frowned. “That’s not an answer. You’re the one who quizzed me about the CFB, so you may as well return the courtesy. Do you agree the CFB is the core of what separates the Cousins from other major Hives?” Did you catch it, reader? Faust did: ‘major Hives’—how elegantly we exclude Utopia and Gordian.
The Headmaster’s eyes sparkled. “There, dear Sniper, you have hit one nail on the head. There are other traits most Cousins share, of course, I’m doing a seminar on that if you’re interested, but you’re right, if I wanted to weaken the Cousins—still speaking hypothetically—undermining the CFB would be a fine course. The Cousins don’t have many weak spots, but the CFB is very like a jugular.”
Sniper’s black eyes flashed as it homed in on its prey. “I hear Chair Kosala’s so worried they called an emergency meeting of admins and experts.”
“That would not surprise me.” The Headmaster turned off the main path, down an alley of rainbow-dyed waterfalls and toward the cobblestone border of the Old Town.
“Do you think they’ll call in J.E.D.D. Mason?”
Faust’s brows flexed. “Why do you ask that?”
“Young as they are, J.E.D.D. Mason was elected the Graylaw Hiveless Tribune again this year, and they’re also a polylaw, and aren’t they an executive of the Cousins’ Chief Counsel’s Office?”
“Yes. Quite the combination.”
Sniper could not help but follow Faust’s glance across to the observers. These now included several elite Fellows, their heads ostentatiously shaved to display the blotches of pressure spots, proof of their participation in the Institute’s eternal mind-machine interface experiments, which crawl toward digital immortality as slowly as Utopia toward worlds past Mars. Even to hold the gaze of such a specimen is a compliment. Sniper took the lead as the pair squeezed single-file along the whitewashed alley, where the Gordian flag, with its brain-like gold knot against a scarlet field, competed with the brightness of spring laundry. “It must be hard to keep straight, J.E.D.D. Mason having so many different offices. Last I checked they held an office of sorts in every Hive except Utopia, despite still being a minor, and popular enough among the Hiveless to get elected Graylaw Tribune twice. Which way now, Headmaster?” Sniper asked at alley’s end.
Faust pointed right with his cane, up a shopping street where fruit and candy tempted like jewels. “The Hiveless do have the most discerning taste.”
“Did you know J.E.D.D. Mason met with the Mitsubishi Directors three days ago?”
“Did they? Well, they are a Directorate Advisor.”
Sniper’s eyes sparred with Faust’s. “Don’t you think that’s odd? Cornel MASON’s adopted kid being so close to the leaders of the Mitsubishi? Not to mention all the other Hives?”
“Not really. J.E.D.D. Mason’s a very bright child, Sniper, much admired. Much like you.”
Sniper’s smile accepted the compliment. “The Directorate meets with J.E.D.D. Mason far more often than any other advisor. Some even call them the ‘Tenth Director.’ Some even say they’re really Hotaka Andō Mitsubishi’s son.”
“I have heard such a thing said.”
“Do you believe it? Do you believe J.E.D.D. Mason is Andō’s son?”
Faust sighed, swatting at the cameras which buzzed close in the Old Town’s unaccustomed cramp. “Is this why you came to see me? To bait me into embarrassing one of my colleagues in front of millions of viewers? Not a very elegant game, my dear.”