Papa nodded his sympathy. “Censor, then.”
Vivien swallowed harder. “I’m also stepping down as Censor.” He raised his eyes to face the crowd again. “I don’t want everyone to think the Censor’s always been the Anonymous. It was coincidence with me; the skills that let me track the previous Anonymous also caught the last Censor’s eye, but that’s the only connection between the two offices, and no previous Anonymous has been Censor or vice versa. Anyway, I filed my resignation as Censor as I left the office. My last act as Censor was to place a twelve-month freeze on the Senatorial proportioning. The number of Senators allotted to each Hive will remain locked as it is now. No matter how many people leave one Hive for another, even if one Hive dissolves, or two merge, or who knows what, the governing body that has safely maintained this utopia longer than any of us has been alive will stay in its present proportion, and stay in control. It’s my hope this will make people wait, and think, and keep the changes slow. All day today my … the Censor’s … office has been flooded with applications to switch Hives, more than we normally get in a year. If you have doubts about your Hive, there’s no reason to switch today, you can switch tomorrow, next week, after six months, after we all know more about everything.” He steeled himself, one last deep breath. “I know nobody trusts the Humanists right now. Nobody can trust Ganymede, and after this nobody can trust the Vice President, either.” He dug his fingers hard into his Graylaw Hiveless sash. “Before I left my office, I filed an application to join the Humanists. It should be processed within a few days. In that time, the Humanist Senators should have no difficulty passing a vote of No Confidence in the current Humanist government. In the emergency election that follows, if I am nominated for office in the Hive, whether Preisdent or any other office, I will accept, and, since all the other Hives still trust me, hopefully I can help oversee the Humanists as we transition to a system without O.S.”
A real cheer rose now, confident, unanimous, and, to not a few of us, frightening.
*
?Non, Altesse, les Utopistes et les Brillists sont différents.? (No, Highness, Utopians and Brillists are different.)
“Quomodo?” (How?)
The nurse sighed at her young Charge, eight years old then, too big for her to carry Him as she used to. ?‘Quomodo’ n’est pas fran?ais, Altesse,? (‘Quomodo’ is not French, Highness,) she corrected gently as she set Him on His feet. ?Dirons, ‘Comment.’? (We say, ‘Comment.’)
?Comment?? the Child Jehovah parroted.
Felix Faust turned to watch the pair. Do not ask me how the thirteen years between this scene and now have changed Faust, reader; you may as well ask how they have changed the Sphinx. The master of Brill’s Institute of Psychotaxonomic Science sat as ever by his window in the Salon de Sade, burying his grief over the loss of his prize pupil Mercer Mardi by studying the Flesh Pit where Madame’s clients explored the depths of love. “Language trouble again?”
“It’s been rough all day, Headmaster.” The nurse brushed fluff off Jehovah’s miniature jacket, black mourning silk fresh from the tailor’s, since my murders were the first time He had needed mourning dress, and at the tender age of eight He had not yet started to demand that His clothes always be the color most different from the Light of This Universe’s God. “We just had the most frustrating failure to converse with Papa Andō, didn’t we, young Highness?” the nurse prompted.
“Hola, Uncle Felix.” Jehovah tried to stop there, but His nurse’s expectant frown commanded that He try again. “Vale … Ohayō … Bon … Guten Tag?”
“Guten Tag, Donatien.” Faust patted his lap. “Come, sit on my Lap.” The master Brillist used German with the boy, that modular, semielastic tongue that gives all nouns the capitalized dignity which its bastard cousin English reserves only for names, Gods, concepts, and the selfish I. “It’s not your Fault, we’ve all had a hard two Weeks.”
The Headmaster says he felt Jehovah shiver as He settled into his lap. Fatigue perhaps? Or something subtler? I cannot confirm, for at this moment I was still in my cage in Papa’s prison van, dreaming of execution. “It makes no Sense that Things stop,” the Child began.
Jehovah’s uncle mussed His hair. “I miss Mercer and the Others too.”
“How will you stop Caesari burying Appollonem in Pantheon?”
Faust tapped Jehovah gently on the shoulder, the barest pantomime of a slap. “You’re Latinizing again. And why would I want to keep Apollo Mojave out of the Pantheon? It’s a reasonable Suggestion, even if Cornel is still thinking with their Dick.”
“You need them to be conspicuousment Outsiders,” the Child answered, “to distract Everyone from noticing ut you’re also Rivals for the Trunk.”
Faust gave his Nephew a reassuring squeeze—back then Faust still thought Jehovah’s physical detachment might someday develop toward some second stage. “Slow down, Donatien, one Idea at a time. What is this Trunk?”
“Of the Evolution Tree. A Tree has many Branches but one Trunk. When it’s still young you can’t tell which of the top Branches will become the Trunk, and which will branch off and lose Momentum. The Dinosaur Branch got as far as Birds, but only Mammals achieved Sentience. Humanity’s Tree had many Branches too: Tribes, archés que, nationesque, religionesque. Some persist in Reservations, but yappari Hives turned out to be the Trunk.”
Faust recorded all of this, and wants me to warn you that a mere transcript cannot capture the pauses as Jehovah hunted for elusive words, or the shifts in His tone and body language, almost absent, which Felix Faust, alone of all men, claims that he can read. In the original transcript, Faust also corrects Jehovah’s German strictly after every line, but I shall omit this, since you, reader, are not attempting to raise a heptalingual Child.
“I’m not sure if Trees actually grow that way,” Faust answered, “but I think I understand.”
“Itaque, every via … Branch … worries it might not be the Trunk.”
“You mean the Hives?”
“Viae,” Jehovah corrected. “Branches. Ways. Going Ways. Only the leaving Hives say the Rest are wrong.”
“Which Hives do you think are leaving?” Faust asked at once.
“You and Utopia.”
Faust stroked the bristle of his chin. “You think we’re dying out? I could see that, we are the smallest two.”
“Not dying. You leave, explore, exitis, go.” The Child flexed his still-growing fingers, not an idle fidget but deliberate practice, like an athlete impatient to rehabilitate after an injury.
“The Utopians are leaving, that’s true,” Faust confirmed. “I doubt if anyone expects many to stay once they have Mars.”
“You go too. They go out, you go in.” Jehovah illustrated this point, one small hand pointing to the infinity beyond the ceiling, the other to the equal infinity within His uncle’s skull. “Either the Trunk is on Earth, or in Space, or Inside with Brain Words. If Either of you is right, the Majority is wrong.”