“And we can slow them down,” Andō confirmed. “I will tell Tai-kun I am displeased with this slow progress, and have them order Martin to focus on hunting down the Canner Device and Seven-Ten list thief. Tai-kun is very willing to be told to pursue one question but avert their attention from another. That’s why we all agreed to put this in their hands in the first place.”
“Yes, that’s consistent with what I’ve seen,” Ockham agreed. “Tribune Mason only came in person to the bash’house once, and after some … very strange interactions exposing the Mitsubishi traitors within my security, they left saying they were afraid that, if they stayed, they’d learn too much. They intentionally avoided investigating more.”
The ghost of a smile on Ganymede’s somber face tempted the others to curse inside that there were no cameras to make it immortal. “Their Highness tried their best, then. Martin is the problem.”
“And Papadelias now,” Andō added. “Tai-kun can control Martin.”
Ockham turned to Perry, who was fidgeting with the wrinkled fabric of his trousers. “Papadelias is European. Do you have any influence with them, Prime Minister?”
“Me?” Perry looked from face to face. “I … It’s true Europe will suffer if O.S. comes out, but, from what I know of Ektor Papadelias, they’re a detective first, a Greek fifth, and a European Member somewhere around priority twenty, after many other things like truth, and the Alliance, and reliving the glory days of Mycroft Canner. I don’t think even the King of Spain could have persuaded Papadelias to hush anything up, not for Europe and politics.”
Quiet faces mulled on that.
“As far as Papadelias goes, Excellencies,” Ockham braved, “my instinct is that we do nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“The biggest danger is giving ourselves away. If some intervention hinders the investigation, that will only make us look more guilty. Martin has a pattern, nothing more, and there is no true proof against us that I know of, not outside the bash’house itself, which neither Martin nor Papadelias can access.”
The Duke President nodded agreement. “There are no tracks for us to cover. If we leave it alone, and continue to demand that Martin concentrate on uncovering who planted the Seven-Ten list, they won’t be able to waste more time chasing shadows. Do you agree, Perry?”
Europe’s Second-Choice Prime Minister sat forward on his little bench, where he preferred to sit silent, absorbing the conversation like a patient sponge. It was half deference that made him the quietest of the three Hive leaders here, but half exhaustion. History does not give with both hands. If the European Union enjoyed an easier birth than the other Hives, its apparatus a century old before the Great Renunciation, it pays the price whenever its nation-strats rehash their ancient grudges: you seized my borderlands, you executed my hero, you conquered me a thousand years ago and I remember. All Europeans are equally guilty, English, Flemish, Kurdish, myself no less, for I catch myself from time to time rejecting good sense just because it came from a Turk’s lips. The strat delegates who make up Europe’s Parliament, and the strat leaders—Presidents and Premiers, French, Belgian, Laotian, Canadian—who sit on her Executive Council, they all answer, not just to Now, but to the pride of Then, and every problem must consider the silent wishes of countless ancestors. For Casimir Perry, a man who is no king, to herd these vindictive cats toward compromise takes every card in statecraft’s deck, and more hours than any man should spend awake. “I’m calling a hit,” he said.
Ockham’s eyes grew round as planets. “A hit now, Prime Minister?”
“It can’t wait. We have a Hive to save.” Perry’s gesture brought the files up in all their lenses. “The Cousins are toppling, not just weakening, toppling, the whole Hive. Masami Mitsubishi is your ba’kid, Andō, how could you let them put Cousins’ Feedback Bureau Chief Darcy Sok on their Seven-Ten list? Have you even seen the footage from Casablanca? With the furor after the theft of the list, there are more journalists at the CFB now than employees. The Feedback Bureau is the heart of the Hive. If word gets out what’s really been going on in there, that’s it for the Cousins, they’re dead, and I don’t just mean Bryar Kosala. It doesn’t matter they’re the second-largest Hive, after a blow like this they’ll shrink to smallest in no time, if they manage to stay together as a Hive at all.”
With feather-smooth motions and an embroidered handkerchief, the Duke made art even of blowing his nose. “Is that bad?”
“The dissolution of a Hive? Of course it’s bad! We’re not talking about the Masons here. The Cousins may not be in our alliance, but all our members benefit from them, depend on them, every day.”
Andō frowned, impassive. “The Masons and the Cousins agree too often. Between them they have 48 percent of the population.”
The claim made Perry stiffen. “Masons and Cousins never agree, they’re polar opposites.”
“Exactly, they propose opposite plans, then compromise, and reduce any debate to reconciling their two proposals and ignoring everybody else’s.”
“If you were ever there for the debates,” the Duke added, “you’d understand.”
Andō took charge before the Outsider could return the slight. “You know my bash’child Toshi works in the Censor’s office in Romanova. Before all this began, their prediction was that, within two years, the Masons plus Cousins will go over 50 percent, and the 36 percent we have between the three of us will shrink to 33 percent or less. The Seven-Ten list mess has only accelerated that; it could happen this year. We can’t let the Masons and Cousins create a real majority.”
Perry clutched the rim of his bench, as if clinging to a more stable past. “You planned this. You’re trying to tear the Cousins down!”
Is that a smile on Andō’s face? “Whatever the cause, the Cousins failing would mean one point seven billion Members seeking a new Hive. You said yourself Cousins and Masons are opposites. Ex-Cousins are unlikely to become Masons, and they’re certainly not going to turn Utopian. A lot may linger as Whitelaws for a while at least, but Hivelessness is only so appealing. That leaves Gordian or us, and one point seven billion people are not about to convert to Brillism overnight.”
Perry sprang to his feet; a kiss from sparkling Dana? could not turn a man so red. “You expect ex-Cousins to join us after O.S. is exposed? Or had that by-product not crossed your minds when you dispatched your little thief?”
“Thief?” Andō repeated. “You misunderstand. We had nothing to do with the theft of the list, we would never jeopardize O.S. like that.”
Ganymede nodded confirmation. “Never.”
“The three of us,” Andō continued, “you included, Perry, agreed at our last meeting that we had to silence Sugiyama’s Seven-Ten list article about Fran?ois Quesnay, or there would be a disastrous anti-Mitsubishi backlash. So long as my Toshi was writing the substitute list, it seemed a good opportunity to bring the world’s attention to the corruption in the CFB. I suggested that Toshi consider putting CFB Chief Darcy Sok on their list, just to weaken the Hive a bit, no more. This theft, which has turned a slight nudge into an earthquake, that was someone else.”
Perry made fists. “This violates the spirit of O.S., Andō. You took advantage of a hit we all agreed on to advance an agenda we never talked about.”
Andō scowled. “I don’t recall the terms of O.S. requiring me to give you equal access to my adopted children, as well as to my assassins.”
“They’re not your assassins,” Perry spat, “they’re our assassins.”