Too Like the Lightning (Terra Ignota, #1)

by Ada Palmer

enough. And will you have Mycroft working on my case?

surpasses even language. It is spring in China, Korea, and Japan, so spring everywhere. “Not the Executive Chamber, Mycroft. This way.” I followed a soft-footed clerk, feeling fear’s prickle on my neck as we passed the meeting rooms and the computer lab where I was sometimes put to work, entering instead a bash’apartment which sat above the chambers like the control room above a factory. “The Servicer

familiar, children of executives who held high office in the Hive

him as he approaches sixty, have not kept stress from silvering his temples. He addressed me in Japanese, but for you, good master, I shall render what I can in common English.「The thief used the Canner Device.」 My tracker bleeped alarm as my pulse spiked.「I

None of this was plausible, least of all my innocence,

“I serve at the pleasure of J.E.D.D. Mason.” That he pronounced with greater relish, though, for her sake, he contracted it ‘Jed Mason,’ as so many do. “No enemies? I’ll ask again later. Now, is there any part of the house which it would be inconvenient for me to search first?” She planted herself in front of him. “Slow down, Blacklaw. I’m the officer in charge right now.” “In charge of keeping the lifeblood of the world speeding on its course, I understand.” He gave a nod—almost a bow—to Mukta. That eased Lesley’s frown a notch. “Indeed.” “And I keep the peace among the gods. I believe we are both officers in charge.” At this point Lesley strongly considered exercising her legal right to kick an obnoxious Blacklaw in the (there were no nuts) stomach. It was a reasonable impulse. The Blacklaw sash around this visitor’s waist proclaims his choice to renounce all protections of the Law—Hive laws and Romanova’s neutral Gray Laws—and to face the Earth with no protection but his own strength, and the restrictions others’ laws may place upon their use of force. A Mitsubishi or strict Cousin may not, by their own chosen laws, indulge in fists and brawling,

Sugiyama answered this question with a speed which indicated