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three-hundred-year-long stability. Wasn’t it? I backed up to sit on the bed. “What do you mean Turmoils? What would precipitate Turmoils?”
    I couldn’t read him. I couldn’t tell if he was confused or upset, or if he felt sorry for me. It was all there, but what he said aloud was, “I think.” He swallowed. “I think it’s just as it was, and that they’re hunting down and killing anyone they believe is bioed. That was…the raid on the palace, the people surrounding the seacity. Not the Good Men, but the people, in the territories and in the other seacities. Most of the people here are administrators, so they think…”
    “That they’re bioed?”
    He nodded. “It was always a danger. The Sans Culottes, you know, want equality, so they swear allegiance to natural people, not to any state. And now they know the Good Man is not precisely of the people, not like the rest of us. And they whipped up a frenzy of maybe there are more. If the Mules lied and took over again, they might be all over .”
    “How do they know?”
    He made a gesture, like it was all up. “The Usaians,” he said, referring to the messianic cult that had modeled their revelations on the principles of the long-vanished country which used to occupy vast portions of North America, the same cult that was now firmly in control of Olympus seacity and its dependencies. “They broadcast—Their propaganda station—They broadcast the truth about the Good Men.”
    I looked blankly at him for a moment. It had been part of the regime of the Good Men to prevent wide broadcasting and news reporting except by those licensed to do so. The technological stop for such activity was in Circum Terra. Simon and I had been part of an invading party that had taken control of the station and removed those controls.
    “But how can that be in their interest?” I said. “Lucius Keeva, in Olympus, is as much of Mule stock as the rest of them, and he’s the face of the Usaian revolution.”
    “Oh, they’ve convinced everyone he is different . He saved one of their own. Some act of heroism or other, all conveniently filmed.” He made a face, then a dismissive hand gesture. “The thing is, we have nothing like it. And it’s different, anyway. The Usaians want only equality under the law, but our movement was supposed to make everyone equal. Really equal .” He sounded almost desperate. “The law can’t make you really equal.”
    A sarcastic voice at the back of my mind asked how they intended to perform this miracle, but I didn’t say it. He went on, “So, when they found out what Good Man St. Cyr was, he wasn’t an acceptable Protector. Some hotheads got to talking, out in Shangri-la, likely in some tavern or bar or diner, and they decided that he was just doing what they’d done before, the Mules becoming Good Men and some people, not quite hotheads, who had been plotting this for a long time, found the opportunity they needed to ignite a revolution only they have the power to control. A revolution far more destructive than we anticipated. The Good Man is caught in it, and—”
    “And?”
    He bowed his head. “We’ll need help. Don’t tell me you’re enhanced. The Mules were enhanced. But they fled or laid low until the madness of the crowds passed.”
    “We can’t wait that long. Did they capture Simon?”
    Alexis frowned. He looked puzzled or perhaps upset. When someone has a face that doesn’t owe much to beauty and which time has etched with wrinkles clearly due to frowning a lot, it’s hard to tell if they’re frowning or merely thinking. “Yes,” he said. “Or at least the word is that they’re trying to trade him to the Good Men, in exchange for a promise not to invade and not to pursue their vengeance against the revolutionaries. The revolutionaries hope to establish their own fiefdom here, with no interference. They’d rather reign in a tiny place than get in an enormous war they’d be sure to lose.” He took a deep breath.