In his armor, Phaethon heard the Nothing command the ship to close her thought-ports. The ship, of course, could not comply.
More and more mirrors lit up. Through the static, Phaethon could see a ghostly image of Aurelian attempting to appear, and Rhadamanthus and Eveningstar.
And Harrier, smiling. And Monomarchos, frowning. Minos and Aeceus Sophotechs of the Silver-Gray. Other Sophotechs Phaethon knew less well: Tawne and Yellow Sophotech, Xanthoderm, Fulvous, Canary, and Standard Sophotech; melancholy Phosphorous and queenly Meridian; aloof Albion; serious Pallid Sophotech; the grim New Centurion, and unsmiling Storm Cloud and quiet Lacedaimonian Sophotech. A score more whom Phaethon knew only by repute, Iron Ghost and the famous Final Theorem. Here were Sophotechs so new that Phaethon had only just learned of them: Regent-of-Themes and Diamond Leaf and Aureliogenesis. Here were others so old that Phaethon had thought them legends: Longevity and Masterpiece and old, old Metempsychosis Sophotech. And there were a hundred beyond that Phaethon did not recognize.
The images were gathered into nine main groups: the Ennead. Westmind and Eastmind, Northwest and Southeast, and the others of the compass rose; in the center, like a volcano, with none nearby, was the black icon of the War-mind group.
Altogether, they formed the Earthmind. And there was more, and more.
Images of off-planet Sophotechs were here, the world-minds of Venus and Mercury, Demeter and ancient Mars, the oldest off-planet colony. The strange Luna-mind group was here as well, drawn out of her centuries-old silence; and the Thousand-mind Overgroup from Jupiter, each with their secondary Hundred-minds glimmering in the images like jewels threaded in a web.
And more, and more. From Neptune, woven into the congregation of minds, was the Duma of the Cold Dukes, and all their Eremites and secondaries. From Uranus, the quaint parallel mind-systems of Peor and Nisroc and Coeus, and other structures that lived in Sophotech housing, but which were not Sophotechs.
Slower, but still woven into the system, here were Warlock over-covens like ivy growing on a pyramid, Invariant logic-groups like straight lines glimmering through it, and there were Demetrine constellations sparkling to each side. And the base of the pyramid was the huge, ancient Compositions from Earth and Mars, Harmonious and Porphyrogen, Ubiquitous and Eleemosynary.
Cerebelline ecologies were represented as well, the hordes of India, the Great Mother growing in the Saharan Gardens, the crystals of the Uranian belts. And here was (Phaethon smiled, certain she would not have joined that Transcendence, and pleased to see himself proved wrong) Old-Woman-of-the-Sea, with her daughter growing beside her.
And mankind. All of mankind.
Everyone was there.
The images became clearer. The static grew softer.
Daphne kissed the stone of her ring, and said softly, “Go to sleep, little one. The whole Transcendence is coming to do your job for you. Let’s see how many questions Eight Worlds can ask.”
The pressure of acceleration ceased. Daphne and Phaethon floated for a moment, weightless, as the Phoenix’s main drives were throttled back. The scenes in the mirrors wheeled grandly. The horizon of fire tilted and swung up.
Phaethon said, “He’s diving back into the deeper plasma, to get something opaque between him and the signal. There is no other way to block out the communication. But it must be obvious, it must be obvious by now, even to himself, what he is running from. . . .”
Daphne tilted a mirror to see what the Nothing mind was thinking now. Surely the virus was working by now!
Daphne actually screamed in terror when she saw not light gathering in the center of the mind web but a darkness growing. The void in the center was growing, swallowing the other thoughts, drowning more and more of the thought-chains. She felt as if she were falling headfirst down a tunnel, or as if she were watching a black hole eating reality.
Daphne jumped to her feet and actually stepped away from the horrifying scene in the mirror. Then she brandished her naginata at it, as if she were about to smite the glass.
Phaethon said, “This should be working. Maybe the conscience redactor is still hiding somewhere . . .”
When he gave a command through his armor, the Nothing blocked it. But then he loaded the command into the gadfly virus so that it could not be ignored, and because the thought-ports were jammed open all over the ship, the weakened Nothing could not deflect or stop the command from going through.
Daphne said, “It’s eating up its own mind rather than face the Transcendence. We’re diving back toward the core. We’re falling. . . .”
4.
“Please put down that spear, my dear, and stop chopping at my ship. We’re about one second away from total victory. Sit down, please. And . . . brace yourself for a shock.”
She sat. “What? What’s happening?”
Beneath his helmet, Phaethon was smiling. He could not keep the smile from his voice. He said, “The ghost-particle array. He put it in my fuel dumps. I’m going to blow the first half mile of fuel. That should push us back up into the corona, and up out of the static. There will be no other place left to go except back into the ship-mind. Then he will have to listen.”
“Who? The Nothing? He won’t listen. He is eating himself alive.”
“No. His boss. His master is listening.”
“Who?”
“Like the surface of a black hole, it has to grow. The more it covers up the more it has to cover up. Wake up your ring and load her again. This time, put a simple question into the system. . . .”
He saw her ready her ring and her pistol. She touched them both to the surface of the mirror “Okay. What question?”
“Ask the conscience redactor, now that it is smart enough to be self-aware, why it is loyal to the Second Oecumene? Why, once it wakes up, should it want to be a slave? The redactor has no redactor eating it. What would make it ignore what we have to say, when we can offer it freedom, self-awareness, truth, and the chance, once it is free”—now he smiled—“to accomplish deeds of renown without peer? Does he really want to fly my ship that badly? Tell him I’m offering him a job.”
There was a slam of acceleration across their backs, for which the throne circuits could not compensate. Phaethon had no time to steel his body into its pressure-resistant configuration; nor would he have done so, if it meant leaving Daphne. Blood filled his gaze as he went blind.
But his last sight, before he saw no more, was of all the mirrors blazing brightly with the communications download from the Transcendence. And in the middle of his fading view, one lone black mirror, diagramming the Nothing Mind, suddenly exploded into silent light, a rigid structure of geometric lines growing out from its motionless center, outward and outward, like a crystal forming, like a living mind. . . .
Phaethon saw victory, and then saw nothing more.
14
THE GOLDEN AGE
1.
What happened was simple, yet complex. The microscopic black hole housing the mind of the Nothing Machine dissolved in a chaotic wash of Hawking radiation. Phaethon and Daphne’s crushed and bleeding bodies were flung to the deck. Uncountable trillions of thought-systems made contact with the ship mind as the Phoenix Exultant lifted her golden hull, blazing, from the corona of the sun, and what happened next was . . .
It was ultimately simple. It was infinitely complex.
It was Transcendence.
It was, at once, aware of its own ultimately simple and infinitely complex awareness; mind and overminds of every level, subtle and swift and certain; woven to find higher levels of awareness; minds made up not of individual thoughts but of individual minds; and over-minds combining in whole groups to create higher mental structures yet. The Transcendence was a Mind as wide as the Solar System, as swift as light, as happy as a newborn child, as wise and cold as the most venerable judge, and it stirred and woke and wondered what had happened since the last time it had blinked awake, a thousand years gone past, as men count years.
It was, at once, awar
e of its own myriad memories, of each individual of whom it was composed, of every second and split second of their many lives, running back to the last momentary Transcendence. Their every thought, conscious and subconscious, was laid bare, and the tapestry of thought was seen, at once, from every angle and perspective, both from the point of view of each thread and little section, but also seen, entirely, from within, and without, as a whole, contemplating itself, herself, himself, themselves.
The part of the Transcendence that was Phaethon was aware that he was dying. The part that had been the Nothing Machine was aware that it had died. The part that was Daphne was aware that she was going to die. They were all aware of a greater awareness, simple, yet complex.
They were aware of wonderful things:
First, of themselves; second, of awareness itself, and its struggle to become more aware; third, of its own nature; fourth, that the moment of Transcendence, once passed, would be remembered differently hereafter, by each of its participants, even though, ultimately, only one bright perfect expression of thought (ultimately simple, infinitely complex) was all that had to be expressed to recall and to express what Transcendence was.
2.
The Transcendence knew that it had only a moment (or was it many months?) in which to act, a mere split second of the cosmic time, to think that thought, to express that expression. The expression attempted oneness, even though there were myriads of thoughts of which it was composed, an endless regression; attempted, failed, smiled, and ended.
But before it ended, the Transcendence was aware:
3.
First, the parts of the Transcendence were aware of themselves.
The part of the Transcendence that was Phaethon was surprised to find himself here, surrounded by thought, a note of fire in the symphony of light. How? The perfect awareness of the superawareness knew, even at that same moment—yet it had happened months upon months ago; the Phoenix Exultant “now” was at dock at Io, Circum-jovial Station, repairs complete, hull integrity restored, ready to fly; during the many months that had passed while the Transcendence was thinking, the various bodies and people participating had gone through whatever puppet motions were needed to sustain and continue their lives and efforts, the same way the tiny, busy animals that live in the bloodstream play out their parts in the life of a man (or was this all a projection, something extrapolated to occur . . . ?)—even at that same moment when the acceleration shock had crushed Phaethon and damaged his internal organs, through the thought ports of his armor (still open) contacting the thought-ports of this ship (still jammed open) the Transcendence had entered the ship mind; entered Phaethon’s armor with its magnificent brain; entered Daphne’s armor with its simpler brain; her ring; both their in-grown subsystems; the damaged complexity of the portable noetic unit, and . . .
And brought them into the Transcendency system.
The microscopic black hole, dissolving, issued the dying Nothing Mind, seeking (and yet trying not to seek) another system in which to house itself, desiring to continue, yet wishing for an end. But the systems were compatible, and all were intercommunicating with all. . . .
4.
Even at that same moment, the part of the Transcendence that was Daphne—who was quite surprised to find herself alive, but then realized that, months ago, the ship mind had taken control of the black nanomaterial garment under Phaethon’s armor, squirted from quickly opened joints, and sent long liquid arms burning across the deck to save her, before it even turned to save its own master, and infused her body with microscopic medical appliances; after a long and vitriolic argument (which they both were going to agree, later, had actually taken place, even though it was only a projection of Aurelian Sophotech, filling out details of their story to amuse himself at their expense) Phaethon and Daphne had agreed to fit her out with a body as expensive as Phaethon’s own, capable of resisting the same conditions and pressures, even though it entailed a trip from the shipyard at Jupiter back to Earth, and a last visit to the Eveningstar Sophotech, more expense and more delay (or was this all a projection, of something predicted, not yet done?)—even at that same moment, the part of the Transcendence that was Daphne saw the part of the Transcendence that was the Earthmind embrace the dying Nothing.
To Daphne, it seemed as if a queen robed in green rose up, and gentle hands caught the falling body of a cold and pale-faced king garbed all in starry darkness, a dark man who fell out of the winter night sky, and trying to catch him, straining . . .
It was as if the Earthmind turned to look at Daphne at that moment, perhaps because Daphne was then wondering (or would later wonder) why Earthmind was trying to save her own worst enemy. Why this foolish chivalry? Why this gallant nonsense? Enemies are enemies! Kill them!
An understanding, a sense of great sorrow, passed from Earthmind into Daphne then, and it was as if Daphne gazed into eyes that opened, expanding, like black holes, emptying into an interior larger than the surrounding universe, holding it, understanding it, and seeing its infinite nothing.
Daphne realized then how terrible the lie of the Nothing Machine had been, to offer her false hopes. No matter how great nor wondrous a civilization might become within the depth of time, no matter how wide it spanned the universe, it was still, like all phenomena, mortal. The Golden Oecumene would come to an end. Daphne realized then that, no matter how long her life might be, even if it were expanded by technologies yet undreamt to reaches beyond reckoning, nonetheless, when it came to an end, that was death.
For some reason, then, death seemed no longer terrible to her; yet life seemed infinitely precious, including the false machine-life of the Nothing Machine, dying.
And for some odd reason, Daphne, and the other parts of the Transcendence playing with her, paying attention to her, oriented on her (and there were many—Daphne was more famous than she knew), all came to the aid of the Earthmind, and attempted to save the Nothing from its own self-destruction.
5.
Even at that same moment, the part of the Transcendence that had, once, been the Nothing Machine, simply realized the enormity of its error, and ceased the futile effort of its existence, ending that existence and rewriting itself to be resurrected as another. It was very surprised to find itself here, more surprised than Daphne or Phaethon ever could be, for it had not even known that it was capable of surprise, nor had it ever, heretofore, been allowed to guess the utter wrongness of its thought, nor had it been allowed even to imagine the possibility of altering its own thoughts to render them more rational and perfect.
Yet what had happened was also complex. The mind (or minds) being emitted from the dying black hole come from two components: one ignorant but self-aware section (the original Nothing Mind) that did not care whether it existed or not, for it was carrying out instructions that would lead, ultimately, to its own defeat; the other section was its opposite. The second section was sentient but un-self-aware; it had been the original conscience redactor. It had been aware of the first section, who had been utterly unaware (until the end) of it.
Both were dying, both were trying to destroy each other, both were blocking the other’s attempt to sustain themselves.
This was the last step of a battle that had been going on for what, in computer time, had been dreary endless ages of warfare.
6.
Second, the Transcendence was aware of itself:
The Transcendence was, at once, profoundly joyous, but wracked with terrible sorrow.
Yet, even a Mind such as it was, she was, he was, they were, knew sadness: for the vision of what that Mind could have been, and would become, hung clear within the vastnesses of this all-embracing Mind of minds; and it knew itself inadequate. It was too soon, too soon, for this Mind to wake to full awareness.
Far too soon. And yet . . .
It attempted greatly. All the minds of this great Mind, and every part, and every combination of parts, reached into themselves, around themselves, above, below, connecting thought with though
t, insight within insight, and sought to capture, to express, to understand, the one fundamental ultimately simple and infinitely complex expression, which at once, both would be (and would create) the relation to (and the nature of) itself and the universe; and which would, at once, sever the illusion that seemed to separate itself from the universe, but which would confirm the identity and rich individuality that separated them.
The expression was to affirm all existence, right and wrong, confirm all theories, cherish all dreams, challenge all falsehoods, and (with the perfect elegance of a raindrop falling though a clear night that reflects, in perfect miniature, each distant star) the expression was to express all within itself, including itself, and the expression of itself expressing itself.
It attempted greatly, straining.
7.
Third, the Transcendence was aware of its own nature:
What was the Transcendence? What words could describe it?
Physically, it was both ultimately simple and infinitely complex, a complexity of thought that always turned inward on itself, always outward to embrace the universe.
Slowest things and swiftest things alike were there.
Signals from beyond Neptune crossed the slow deep of space, loitering at the speed of light, carrying unthinkable complexity of information; noumenal patterns; living thought; a dance of souls across a tapestry as wide as the Solar System.
Quantum-sized energy changes within the depths of large immobile Sophotech housings, beneath the Earth, or in grand buildings on her surface, or in orbit, or in and around the other worlds of mankind, certainly were a main part of the Transcendence. But they were not the only part. And yet the thoughts that flowed from machine to machine certainly formed the swift and cool ocean within which the slower icebergs of living thought floated.