Bridger sniffed, trying not to drip again on Saladin’s shoulders. “Do you think Redder’ll be okay now? Do you think they’re off somewhere, okay?”
“No idea.” Saladin closed the coat around him now, so his passage through the plastic sheeting seemed like nothing but a breath of wind. “If you want to pray for them, try Hermes. Gotta figure Hermes likes imaginary friends.”
It isn’t easy to make the Major smile.
CHAPTER THE THIRTY-SECOND
That There Are Two
This History has two halves, reader, strange as it is that seven days should take two books to tell. But they were dense days, not just with events, but with inhabitants, many, different, like these wildflowers in the trench where all began. Here one stray footstep snaps many different plants, releasing different saps, and smells, and stirring up the insects hidden underneath. The surge is just beginning now, the armies of crawling life which swarm forth, as if born from the broken stems. You do not see their full numbers yet, but I hope I have, at least, shown you enough to realize that these first scouts you do see, like the others that will follow, were not born from the stems. These swarms, these changes, were all waiting in their sleepy tunnels, all with causes that you can now understand. You do not have to believe. You only have to believe that we believe, that I, that Dominic, that Carlyle who stumbled on so much, believe in Bridger, acted on that belief, and that we believe too in the second Thing that Providence placed in Carlyle’s path on this, the morning of the twenty-seventh, in that same fitting spot where, four days prior, he first saw Divinity reveal Itself. Perhaps you will not be satisfied. This last change I am about to show you is too subtle. You want politics, apocalypse. I will show you that, too, as an addendum, the scissors that can still beat paper, perhaps even our deceptive, one-piece house of cards. But if, this morning, Carlyle comes to Bridger’s trench once more, despite Ockham’s command, it is because Ockham, the cars, the Humanists, the theft, the Earth, are on a different scale. Not on the scale of miracles. Bridger is as much more important to Carlyle, as much more real, as your clothes, your friends, your problems, the floor beneath your feet are more real and more important to you than we and our problems of an age now passed. This is the true last chapter of this first half of my history, the last chapter for Carlyle, for me. Here we glimpse the full and concrete shape of the Intervention—still shadowed but a shape in darkness instead of just darkness, a form with edges, definition, so we may say with certainty ‘I saw Something’—the Intervention of Our Maker. The rest is merely what that Maker made.
“Bring ’em out! Bring out Mycroft Canner! We know you’re hiding them, you filthy shitsack Servicers!”
Sticks and stones were not to be found in the clean glass tiers of Cielo de Pájaros, but trash flew just as hard, raining down on the heads of the Servicers who cowered amid the grass and petals of Bridger’s flower trench. Their attackers were on the bridge above, five lamentably sober Humanists, who had pried open a garbage robot, baring yesterday’s deposits ready to burst and smear.
“Bring the monster out here or there’s a lot worse where this came from!”
I must say this first, reader: I am no Beggar King. My fellow Servicers have never considered me their leader. If some gather around me in the dorms it is because I am resourceful, and there are certain problems one does not take to the Cousins who are our babysitters. Criminals tend to have unfinished business, which often threatens the bash’es left behind. Many of these Servicers would have moved mountains in the past to save friends and family, but cannot anymore. I still can, begging favors from Madame or MASON when I dare, and when the need is great. So, when my need is great, the others are eager to give back.
A shout rallied the Servicers below: “Protect the food!”
Servicers have few things we can call precious, but a good meal justly earned is chief among them, so this picnic laid out on checked blankets on the grass was as worth fighting for as all the gold in Troy. They formed a makeshift wall, sheltering plates and platters with scraps from the dump, empty boxes, their uniforms, themselves, happy to accept a splatter if it would save a sandwich.
The attackers spat. “You’re gonna lose a lot more than your lunch if you don’t send Canner out! One call’s all it’ll take to have my whole crew down here, you’ll see what damage a rugby team can do!”
A leader stepped forth among the Servicers, bristling with rage, but nameless here thanks to Kosala’s censorship. “Look! We don’t know anything about Mycroft Canner!”
“Don’t give us that shit! The cops may be trying to cover it up, but the pictures are all over! Canner’s hiding out as a Servicer!”
What was once chili struck the Servicer’s shoulder, spattering rancid juice across her cheeks. “There are a couple hundred thousand Servicers worldwide! What makes you think we’d even know if it was true?”
The rot rain did not stop. “We’re not buying that! Canner had a whole pack of Servicers with them when they came back to finish off that Mardi survivor. You’re all in it together!”
Carlyle Foster rushed up behind the attackers now, his wrap and long scarf fluttering like silks around a fleeing nymph. His talk with Bryar Kosala the afternoon before had done much to revive his spirits, though he would have risen full of strength that day regardless, for March the twenty-seventh was sacred to Asclepius, Dionysus, Rama, the Bodhisattva Tara, the Egyptian powers Neteret Renenutet and Neter Nepri, and to St. Rupert of Salzburg, a day on which men honored their Creator in many ways in ages past, and still do today. The good Cousin charged in, ready to place a restraining hand on the nearest Humanist, but their last claim froze him. “There’s a Mardi survivor?”
The attackers turned, their anger ready to give way to scorn. “Where’ve you been, Cousin, Mars? It happened yesterday, the video’s all over. Tully Mardi’s the kid’s name, was addressing a crowd when in charges Mycroft Canner with a pack of Servicers. Good thing the kid recognized Canner or who knows what they’d have done!”
“Not that we’d expect you to care,” another added. “This is your fault.”
Carlyle drew back. “My fault?”
“You Cousins. Don’t try to tell me it wasn’t Bryar Kosala who kept the Emperor from putting that monster out of everybody’s misery. ‘Oh, Canner’s just a poor traumatized little orphan!’ ” he whined, mocking Kosala with a squeaky voice which sounded nothing like her, “ ‘We just need to be extra-nice to them and they’ll turn into a good boy!’ ”
Carlyle’s smile stayed serene. “Actually, Bryar Kosala doesn’t think that,” he corrected.
“What?”
“They don’t think that. I’ve talked to Chair Kosala personally about Mycroft Canner and Kosala had nothing to do with the decision not to kill them.”
“You talked to Bryar Kosala?” Fresh fire lit the mob’s eyes. “Then it’s true! Kosala knew! Do all the Cousins know? You’ve been covering it up, haven’t you!”
“No! No! Nobody knows! I know because … I’m Mycroft Canner’s sensayer.” See how ably our Carlyle lies? “I’m not their regular sensayer, though,” he backpedaled quickly, “but I get called in sometimes.”
“Their sensayer?”
“How long have you known?” the hoodlums asked at once.
“What’s your name, Cousin?”
“Who made the decision? Who kept Canner alive?”
“Was it the Utopians? We saw them save Canner in the video.”
“How’d they get the Emperor to agree?”