I nodded. It may be strange to you, but it is the most natural of fears to Good ?ναξ Jehovah. If He was born a God, why not all of us? Perhaps every human being in this world was a visiting God like Him, trained by society not to realize what we are, to think that the universes to which only we have access are mere imagination, not Realities themselves. And if we are all Gods and mortal, do our universes die with Us? Does every human death take with it another cosmos, infinite, life-filled, and better than this one? I could not prove to Him it was not so—can you?
The Emperor stumbled, his weak left foot giving way, but he concealed it by bending to lift my hat from where it lay, and pulling from within it the dripping gray Familiaris armband, which I carried always but so rarely wore. “I’m going to have them sew this to your sleeve. The world knows about you now, you need the visible protection of my law or the next angry mob may do worse than knock you down.”
“Yes, Caesar.” I took it from him, wringing it out in my hands.
“It’s too dangerous for you to walk the streets alone. Ever. Ever again. If I catch you out unguarded one more time, or even trying to get out, I’ll lock you in a cell in Alexandria, and the only time you’ll ever leave again is if I lend you out to someone who has their own cell ready for you. And I’ll have you hobbled. Surgically. I mean it, no second chance.”
“Yes, Caesar. I understand.” A deep breath. “What now, Caesar? You have caught me, you must have more need for me than this.”
“We need you at the Capitolium. The Censor has called an emergency session of the Senate to hear Jehovah present their findings on O.S., but we need you to help write their speech. Jehovah is still too distraught to make themself comprehensible to anyone but you.”
I looked to the Capitolium on the hill behind us, the clouds now lightening over the temple which, in real Rome, would have held offerings to Jupiter, but here housed the constitutions which govern the many kingdoms of man—not much difference.
“You have an idea of how Jehovah fits in all this, don’t you?” Caesar tested.
I sighed slowly. “Not a clear one, Caesar. History’s largest war is coming. In the middle of it, Bridger was born human with the powers of a God, and Jehovah was born a God with no more powers than a human. When you first meet Bridger it’s instinct to ask: Why me? Why did God show this miracle to me, of all people, when so many better people throughout history prayed their whole lives for this and got nothing? It takes some time for the selfishness to wear off. The real question isn’t why me, it’s why now? Why, out of all the moments in history, would God show Their face now? It is not coincidence. I don’t know if Jehovah is here now because Bridger is necessary for the war, or if Bridger is here now because Jehovah is necessary for it, but I am sure they are here so they can meet, and meet at this moment of humanity’s greatest testing, the first true universal war. God, the God Who made us, is the only other member of Jehovah’s species. Deus Monotheistus one might say. Jehovah needs to meet Them more desperately than any Homo sapiens ever has. This Universe’s God is not so cruel as to deny Him that. That’s why Bridger is here.” I looked up into MASON’s uncertain eyes. “I’ve never been sure, Caesar, if … do you believe Jehovah is a God?”
“Whether they are or not, my duties are the same.” He handed me my tracker, kept safe and dry in the depths of his pocket. “If you slip that again without my permission I’ll kill Saladin.”
I had not thought I had the strength left to shudder so. “Understood, Caesar.”
“Papadelias has arrested the Servicers who helped you. Papa’s as eager to talk to you as I’ve seen anyone be eager for anything in my entire life. I can put them off for a few hours, until Jehovah is done with you, but no longer.”
“Thank you, Caesar.”
“Where is Bridger?” he asked.
A sob leaked. “I don’t know.”
I did not fully understand how true my words were until after I spoke them, when I set my tracker back into my ear and switched it on.
“Mycroft!” It was the Major’s voice, harsh over the intercom the instant my signal went back on line. “Where in Hades have you been? Bridger’s gone! We went to the Sniper museum to get more equipment from the toy stash, but the police were waiting, your Papadelias, with men everywhere, and some kind of electropulse, it fried the teleporter, all our radios, everything. They captured Boo and Stander-G. Bridger turned invisible and flew off to who knows where. We’ve lost touch completely.”
“Bridger’s alone?” I cried, unable to care whether Caesar or anyone could hear me.
“They’ve got their nonelectrical equipment, but that’s it. It’s been two hours and no contact.”
I cannot call this feeling fear. It is not fear after the dam breaks, when you watch the floodwaters wreaking their unalterable destruction. It is not fear as you watch the armies already locked in battle. It is not fear as you are dragged in your coffin-cage to the execution chamber where you know your justice waits. If I still doubted there was a God, I would have felt doubt here, but all I felt was resignation, Providence’s clockwork clicking on.
“There’s nothing we can do, Major,” I answered. “If Bridger wanted us, if Fate wanted us to be with Bridger, we would be. They don’t. There’s absolutely nothing we can do.”
The Major paused. “I’ll count to ten, shall I?”
“What for?”
“Till you admit you don’t believe that either.”
CHAPTER THE EIGHTEENTH
Aristotle and Alexander
Aulus Gellius preserves for us a letter of Philip of Macedon to Aristotle reporting the birth of his son. I thank the gods, says Philip, not just that he is born, but that his lifespan overlaps with yours, that with your teaching he may prove worthy of us, and of the kingdom that will be his. The letter is a fake, of course, but mere fact has no power to erase so potent an idea. So many moments, from the first cave scribbles to the stars, Fate could have chosen to give us our Alexander, but it sent him when the Philosopher was there to teach him, so that the two, in meeting, might make this world.
“You’re waiting to see who’s safe, aren’t you?” Tully was hoarse from preaching, weak from standing, our warmonger still unequal to Earth’s 1G embrace. “You’re hoping your own Hive will be exonerated when J.E.D.D. Mason and Papadelias present their findings to the Senate, as if only the guilty Hives will suffer. You still think this is a trial, where the bad guy will be punished and the innocent will go home and sleep snug in their beds. It isn’t. No one sleeps snug anymore. The Censor knows it. That’s why they’ve frozen the stock market, and set a cop on every street corner in Romanova. The exposure of this assassination system isn’t just a scandal coming to light, it’s the end of the system which has kept the peace for two hundred and fifty years. The end of peace!”
Tully paused, expecting the crowd’s voice to rise in agreement, criticism, shock, some noise, any noise, but the spectators crowding the Forum stood in sickly quiet, like children dragged from their predawn beds, not yet ready to register the waking world.