Kingdom of Cages(38)

Father Mihran had spoken, and the council had spoken, and they had all listened to their Consciences and the city-minds, all of them bred and trained toward compromise and getting along with each other, and they gave in. They gave in for the same reasons their ancestors gave in when Athena Station rebelled against the idea of Conscience implants for its management board—because in the end, they could not resist. They could compromise, but they could not unite. They could discuss and theorize, but they could not truly comprehend the enormity of their guardianship of Pandora and all that it meant.

Tam was right that their parents’ decision to truncate their Consciences was a mistake, but he did not understand why. The family did not need its children to be more separate from each other. They needed them more tightly connected. They did not need a disinterested view, they needed a deeper understanding.

In the nearest kitchen cluster, Dionte washed the cups carefully in the sink, chatting with Imanet and Mana, who were chopping vegetables and sectioning fruit for an afternoon snack. She dried the cups and stacked them with the others in the glass cabinets that curved above the counter, and then dried her hands on a cloth that had been hung over the gnarled branch of a dwarf willow.

Basante would be waiting in her alcove. She did not want to meet him until she was perfectly calm.

You’re not really angry at Tam, she told herself. You’re angry because you’re afraid of what’s about to happen. You’re not sure enough. You haven’t done enough testing. She cut the thought off. She couldn’t afford it. Delay only served the Authority.

She lifted her eyes to pick out her own alcove in the dwelling wall, two tiers up on the left edge of the living spaces. Someone was in there, pacing back and forth. Basante. He spotted her and started immediately down the stairs.

Dionte sighed and strode forward to meet him.

“What did he say—” began Basante breathlessly.

“Come with me.” Dionte took his hand and led him to a cushioned bench in the shade of a spreading lime tree. Its pleasant scent enveloped them as they sat, and its heavy branches provided them with just enough shelter that their kin were unlikely to hear anything awkward.

“What did he say?” repeated Basante.

Dionte looked at Basante with the trained eye of a Guardian. She could practically see the translucent filaments stretching out from his temple, down his right arm, and up into the gray matter of his mind. If she needed to, she could call up a map of those filaments. In fact, she had. She had pored over that map. She had obsessed over it, trying to understand how she could change the nature of the filaments and the implant so that Basante would be able to help her help their family.

Unlike Tam, Basante had always understood the urgency of Pandora’s situation, but once Father Mihran, the family councilors, and Aleph had spoken, his Conscience and its need for compromise would not allow him to stand against them.

In a few minutes, she would change that. Dionte swallowed nervously and hoped Basante did not notice.

“He will not help us bring Helice Trust in,” said Dionte.

Basante thumped his fist against his thigh once, but almost immediately he loosened his hand. “Well, we expected that.”

“But—for the next few days, at least—he will be fully involved in trying to keep the peace with Athena. That will give us a chance to approach the woman directly. He also suggests it’s the pregnancy she is objecting to. We will need to develop our arguments from that angle.”

“Yes, yes.” Basante nodded thoughtfully. “If she could be made to understand the child will be a member of the family…”

“It might help,” Dionte finished for him. “But the most important thing is that the Authority has escalated the threat and Father Mihran still will not accept that the Authority and the Called must be fought.”

“Father Mihran said this?”

Dionte shook her head. “But Tam did, and that is sign enough.”

Basante looked down his nose at her in an expression as close to condescension as she had ever seen on him. “Tam speaks for Father Mihran now?”

“No,” answered Dionte tartly. “But can you name me one open debate in the past decade where Tam’s side came out the loser?” Bas-ante remained silent. “You see? There are plenty of reasons why my brother is the head of the Administrators’ Committee.”

Basante’s little smile grew uneasy. “You almost make it sound like he does not trust his family.” He turned his head just a little, so that he was looking at her out of the corner of his eye. “Or that you do not trust your birth brother.”