I just read I.L. Huchu's The Mystery at Castle Dunvegan. Ropa, a perpetually broke ghost-talker, gets dragged to a conference of snotty wizards who basically rule this future Scotland. This book's less fun than Huchu's others, though Ropa's still a great, snarky narrator. But she's miserable, trapped in a castle with the architects of her country's ruin. And after the Trump administration and its million dead, dystopia's no longer entertaining.

Where's the Castle of Sane Policy? I'm not whining for Utopia here. But... sanity would be nice.

THAT NIGHT

I know some alien observers, here to quietly study us savages. Not to offer us Galactic membership--at least not in my lifetime!

I wander town on foot. Looks like Santa Cruz, California--though I don't recall driving down here and haven't been here in years. Down in the flats of the river delta, I peer in a shop window. A photo's taped up inside: shows a round, glassy, elegant pavilion. I recognize it--the "Palace de Charlemagne". A misattribution--it did house French kings, but well after his time, from 1100 to 15-1600? It was built by Abbott Suger, same architect who did that airy 1100s chapel, the start of High Gothic. Start of modern architecture, really--building as an art, with features consciously chosen to move people's spirits--not just keep the rain off or impress via opulence or brute scale.

A tall robot shambles up. Just a 3-meter tripod with a camera head. No hands at all! An alien observer, but one I don't know--wait, slightly familiar--something to do with a woman named Daphne who turned into a fish?

An alien woman I definitely know walks up from the other direction. Her antennae perk up, curious what we're staring at. As she sees that photo. she gasps in shock. "How is it you know of our Galactic legend?"

"The Palace Of Good Policy." She explains it's a galaxy-wide legend and symbol of fair government and wise societal decisions. "This is evidence your people had previous contact--or were Galactic and fell back into this dark age."

"What? That's not a legend. It's a real palace. Well, chapel. Built nearly a thousand years ago. It's still a tourist attraction. I've never visited, but relatives have. Good government, huh? It was a symbol of a cultural rebirth; its region became the heart of that continent for centuries, and the people there still have good associations to Charlemagne and his legacy. So I guess they do associate it with good government--for the period. But... legendary?"

I pause and think it over. "It WAS progressive compared to the dark age that came before, but still a sexist, hereditary monarchy. How'd a medieval Earth building become a symbol for all you Galactics?"

She laughs of course. It's absurd to think the legend could come from Earth--the worst-governed world in the Galaxy. Famous for it. "Look, I like plenty of individual Terrans. I like you. But I've never hidden my opinion of your people's policy of letting sociopaths rule. It's just coincidence. Your Palace can't be the source of our legend."

Except... that photo's a spittin' image of their myth, and it's real. The tall, spindly robot quietly assesses the odds, and concludes "It does not seem likely to be chance. Perhaps this really is the origin of the myth."

I try to think of physical monuments to genuinely better government. I can't come up with much. Camelot? I don't think so. Iceland's parliament, in that steaming rift? As Monty Python put it, "Soddy Vikings!" The Statue of Liberty, the US Capitol? These days? Please.

People, sure. Lincoln, Gandhi, King and others gave their flawed lives to free others (and got killed by haters, every one). But structures? INSTITUTIONS? After the millions massacred last century in the name of ideals, what do we have to show?

And yet, that chapel seemingly inspired billions of Galactics we never knew of.

NOTES IN THE MORNING

• Santa Cruz: Went to college there and started to escape my family's brainwashing.
• Buildings as political symbols: in Castle Dunvegan, the English invaded Scotland, shot their Parliament, gutted their institutions, and now deliberately keep the North poor and hungry. A future knocked into the past! Exactly what Israel's done to Palestine, and Russia's trying to do to Ukraine, and Trump swears he'll do, if re-elected, to blue states & cities like mine. (Santa Cruz is even bluer than San Francisco--or rather, Green.)
• Tall robot, Daphne, fish: a real dream, Daphne Thinks! I just checked; it dates from 2007, when I took an art history class & saw those Gothic churches--Saint Denis in the 1100s and Sainte Chapelle from the 1200s.
• Symbol for Galactics: The dream hints that ideals matter even if their incarnation's primitive & flawed. The thuggish politics of my era have turned me too cynical and shortsighted. You never know who your ideals will inspire--a thousand years from now, or a thousand lightyears away.

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