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dangerous violations of the antiproselytory aspects of the First Law,
forty-eight hours, a plan to facilitate safe global dialogue about the unavoidable theological questions involved in the supposed resurrection of J—” She caught herself. “Tribune Mason, focusing on—”
call for the urgent passage of a Senatorial Consult recommending that the Seven-Hive Council demand that the Hives known as the Humanist Union, the European Union, the Mitsubishi Group, and the Cousins’ Society draft proposals for the reform and correction of their governments,
“On behalf of twenty-two colleagues, I call for the urgent passage of a Senatorial Consult recommending that the Seven-Hive Council examine, expel, and dissolve the Hive known as the Humanists.”
Universal Free Court an urgent request for a Senatorial Order telling the Court whether to accept or reject Ockham Saneer’s petition for a solo trial with the plea of terra ignota.” “Terra ignota? For O.S.?”
“Order!” the Speaker had to scream. “Order! Order! Minister Cook, you are proposing a new Black Law?” “Yes, Member Speaker.” “Today? You’re proposing a new Black Law today?”
I propose that the following be added to the list of Universal Laws, quote: It is an Intolerable Crime to take action which will cripple a child’s ability to participate in and interface naturally and productively with human society and the world at large.”
“The old Eighth Law.” The dire misnomer cut swathes through the crowd like the curse it was.
Cookie did not flinch. “Set-sets created, enabled, and maintained O.S., and did so without a hint of conscience, because the brainwashing which passes for a set-set’s childhood keeps them from even understanding what a human being is.
What was done to Tully Mardi, crippled on the Moon, and to young Mycroft Canner and the other Mardi children by the think-tank experiments at Alba Longa should not be legal.
think multiple cases of mass murder are proof enough that this should have become law when it was first proposed two hundred years ago. This is not just urgent, Member Speaker, it is two thousand murders overdue.”
Present representing Whitelaws was Dr. Chambeshi Rhymer, an emigrant to our Alliance born
representing Graylaws came Jay Sparhawk, master gambler, sailor, marine
finally, attending for the Blacklaws came India’s brave daughter Castel Natekari, baking hobbyist, retired leader-by-conquest of the Algheni
Castel Natekari, who rose now to face the Speaker’s bench, would not renounce her Blacklaw pride to save such little things as liberty, or life.
“Tribune Natekari, you can’t veto Minister Cook’s Black Law draft until we actually call a vote.”
call for the urgent passage of a Senatorial Consult announcing that Ojiro Cardigan Sniper, having committed the highest act of treason known to the law by attacking
the secularsanct and inviolable person of a Romanovan Tribune, is declared a traitor and enemy of the Alliance, no longer guarded by any law, and that all those who possess the legal liberty to take a human life may, with the Senate’s endorsement, kill Sniper on sight.”
see no reason for us to listen to protests from the representatives of a Hive of sociopaths.” “That’s right! The Wish List proves all Humanists are guilty of murder a hundred thousand times!”
those who have voluntarily submitted themselves to its governance,
nor to force its governance upon any unwilling person, nor to prevent any person from voluntarily dissolving ties with it, unless the motives for that dissolution be criminal and unjust.
“The Set-Set Filibuster?” “Member Speaker, Motion for Cloture!” “Seconded!”
is therefore concluded that no such Authority may justly be the source of any Universal Law.
“Call the Cloture vote, Member Speaker!” Charlemagne Guildbreaker Senior broke in. “We have enough to vote it down!”
Grandpa sighed relief. “Pause a moment, will you, Mason MASON? All in favor of the Motion for Cloture?”
“Ordeeeeer!” Who knew the tiny centesexagenarian had such a scream in him? “Senators, you brought this on yourselves. I have not seen the spirit of this House so abused in a century. Mason MASON has the floor, and if they choose to use their time to make you cool your heels and think again on the foundation of our law, that is a wiser use, both of minutes and of oxygen, than any of you is making.
More than half of those who stayed, like me, shed tears, less at what Caesar was doing than at where he stood to do it, for, as he spoke, his false foot and his true rested with equal firmness on the round brass plaque
“Here, on the Twentieth day of January, 2239, Senator Mycroft MASON filibustered six hours and sixteen minutes against the passage of a new Black Law and was assassinated.”
“Are they my laws?” Hobbes asks. “Your Black Laws, are they the fourteen Laws of Nature I wrote up, teased out by craft and
this Eighth, unwritten, was etched into the heart of every Blacklaw: We do not anger the Leviathans.
First Supplement: the Consensus Laws, commonly known as Gray Laws.
Third Supplement: the Character Laws, commonly known as White Laws.
religious Reservations has increased by a factor of sixty-three, and only capped out at that level because most Reservations have a daily max on Alliance visitors.
your bash’mates about what happened on the Rostra without having to go to Tibet to make it legal.
Cumulatively, religious wars have killed more human beings than there are alive today. There is no more dangerous fire we could be playing with.
“Romanova does not kill. This Universal Free Alliance has never executed a human being, and should not begin now, and that is what this would mean if it passes, even if an independent Blacklaw carried out the deed. We did not execute the war criminals of the Church War, we did not execute the assassin of Mycroft MASON, we did not execute Mycroft Canner, and we should not execute Ojiro Cardigan Sniper. We are different from past governments, and our lack of capital punishment is a part of that difference, symbolic perhaps but still important.
“Ninety-nine in favor, ninety-three against, with eight abstentions. The motion will go on the next session’s agenda.” Eight abstentions. This time my pacemaker’s alarm did not fade so soon. Murmur’s speculation filled the Senate seats as the Utopian island sat in conspicuous silence. I shuddered, and through the cameras I saw fresh strain in MASON’s brow as he tried to read the faces beneath those vizors.
then the Humanists are free to fill their twenty-two seats as they like: twenty-one by popular election, with the last reserved for a heroes’ hero, the Olympic Champion, chosen anew at every Summer Games.
Cook fortified her composure with a long breath. “Human Quarriman, this disruption is—” “If Ockham Saneer told me that my death would save ten thousand lives,” Quarriman interrupted flatly, “I’d let them kill me. Would you?” “There it is,” Achilles whispered. “What?” “A side.”
“For and against O.S.?” I asked. “We had those sides before.”
“Now there’s a symbol, and not an ignoble one: kill me if it will serve the human race. Many have worn lesser sigils proudly. Many will wear this one. When you can tell friend from foe, you can make battle lines.”
You weren’t raised to hero-worship Thomas Carlyle
Now our law’s great scales were weighing two fates for the Humanists: give them a second chance to defend their actions and revise their ways? Or issue an immediate demand that the Humanists dissolve and become Graylaws, or else be expelled en masse
In lulls between the oaths we learned that Fate had spared the Humanists, that day at least. Fifty-one Senators voted to dissolve the Hive then and there, but one hundred and forty-nine voted to give the Humanists a second chance.
As I write these words we have forty-four days until the Will to Battle turns to Battle.
“Is it true that not even the Censor’s database can identify the child who flies in out of nowhere, with the flying sandals?” “Hermes’s sandals.”
Julia Doria-Pamphili,
Papadelias, the unwilling but devoted Commissioner General of Romanova’s law.
His head was bandaged, not from Sniper’s bullet but
she fingered the new pin she wore upon her breast, Quarriman’s bull’s-eye O.S. sigil.
