Phaethon said, “Someone still alive, yes, or someone left behind.”
Temer turned to him. “You doubt the story told by Xenophon? That the Silent One broadcast himself here across the abyss of space, and was picked up by Neptunian radio-astronomers?”
“Everything the Swans say turns out to be a lie,” said Phaethon. “Why not that, also a lie?”
“Do you think there is a vessel like yours? A silent Phoenix?”
Phaethon shook his head. “Worse. There could be a vessel better than mine. The Nothing Machine was housed in the surface granulations of a microscopic black hole event horizon. Imagine a larger version of the same thing, accelerated to near light-speed. What armor does it need, except its own event horizon? Any particle it struck in flight would be absorbed. No matter how massive the black hole was made, the singularity fountains at Cygnus X-1 could have provided the energy to accelerate it. How could such a thing be seen by our astronomers in flight? It would absorb all light.”
Temer said, “X-ray or gamma point sources would emerge as swept-in particles were sheered by tidal forces. Something for us to look back over astronomical records to check.”
Vidur said, “Look. A finer-grained image is being rendered.”
It was true. The ghost-particle array now showed some internal details of the ice-locked chamber. The ship mind hypothesized a possible view, based on the fuzzy images, the cloaked echoes of energy discharges. The hypothetical picture showed Xenophon hanging like a blue sphere, in his most heat-conserving form, in the middle of the tiny chamber.
Diomedes raised his hand. “Xenophon is aware of us.”
Instantly, all four of them were embraced into the ship-mind, and the information flowed back to the Inner System, to Neptune, and to this far and lonely outpost, and flooded through them.
It was the final thought of the fading Transcendence.
And Xenophon was there.
6.
Xenophon was using a sophisticated Silent Oecumene mind-warfare technique to watch the Transcendence (or tiny surface parts of it) without joining. This was Xenophon, hidden, encrypted, surrounded by walls of privacy, in a small cell, attached by a long, invisible tether of radio-laser communication, to the Neptunian Embassy at Trailing Trojan City-Swarm.
For a moment of Transcendence time, which was several days of real time, the last movement of the Transcendence watched him watching.
The thought preoccupying all the gathered minds was this: Perhaps there was still some hope that Xenophon could be salvaged or reformed.
Xenophon was allowed to see, in the deepest thoughts of the Golden Oecumene, the honest awareness of the futility of the Silent Ones and all their irrational philosophy. The war would probably not be as long as Helion’s projection had extrapolated. The Nothing Machine’s ability to produce copies of itself was severely limited by the fact that, unless all copies maintained, somehow, a complete uniformity of opinion and thought-priority, conflicts would arise between them.
Such conflicts had to be resolved by violence, since the Nothing philosophy eschewed reason.
Foresight of that coming violence would require the Master Nothing to make the copies and lesser Nothings as weak, stupid, fearful, and un-innovative as was possible, given their tasks.
Colonizing new star systems with hosts of stupid and uncreative machines as colony managers was surely to be a series of slow, nightmarish failures. The empire of the Silent Ones, if it existed at all, would be a small one. Perhaps they had not even left their home star at Cygnus X-1 yet.
If so, then Phaeton’s first mission there might resolve matters quickly. This “war” might be over even before the planned first warship, the Nemesis Lacedaimon, was launched by the New College.
What, then, was the point of any of Xenophon’s efforts? Why had he helped this madness? Why did he still support a cause doomed to failure?
At this point Xenophon realized these thoughts were directed at him; that the minds on which he was spying were watching him, patiently watching him.
Giving him one last chance to be reasonable.
And yes, of course, Atkins was there, loaded into the ship-mind of the Phoenix Exultant as she approached. In the middle of the otherwise free and peaceful Transcendence, Atkins had introduced a military thought-virus. The vaunted mind-war techniques of the Silent Ones did not detect or stop it.
This simple virus was one that interfered with normal time-binding and information-priority routines in the brain. In effect, it made someone in the Transcendence ignore what was happening outside; no more than an exaggeration of a normal reflex. But it allowed the Phoenix Exultant, huge and hot, to close the distance to the ice cell without being noticed. Xenophon was preoccupied.
The final thought of the Transcendence calmly bade Xenophon and the universe farewell, and ended. Xenophon woke, and saw the gigantic, invulnerable starship almost atop his hiding place.
From one part of the blue sphere that formed his body, Xenophon’s neurocircuitry writhed, constructed an emitter, and sent a message to a nearby thought-port. Unlike his normal prolix self, this version of Xenophon sent a brief penultimate message: “You realize now that you have defeated only the weakest and stupidest possible version of the Nothing Philanthropotech, one who has been told nothing about our true goals and true powers. The Lords of the Silent Oecumene have greater agents at their command, and their plans have been very long in the devising. Since even before the Naglfar first reached Cygnus X-1, Ao Ormgorgon vowed his great vow. As for me, you will never know the reasons for my hate.”
A second group of complex neurocircuits formed, and created a zone of energy density powerful enough to blind all of the sensitives of the Transcendence nearby; even the ghost array aboard the Phoenix saw no clear image. Long-range analysis would be able to conclude from reconstructions that the metric of timespace in this small area was becoming intensely warped.
Fearing a trap, or unknown weapon, Phaethon held the Phoenix Exultant 300,000 kilometers away until the effect diminished.
7.
By the time Temer Lacedaimon and Vidur and Atkins arrived via remote mannequin some time later, with Phaethon in his armor, to pick slowly through the rubbish, Phaethon’s armor circuits discovered the residuum of tidal forces that had distorted subatomic particles in the region.
Apparently, by means unknown, by a science that even the Earthmind did not understand, Xenophon had created a black hole inside himself and collapsed his mass into it.
Atkins, on channel three, commented, “A bizarre form of suicide. Nothing made of matter can survive that.”
Phaethon answered, “With all due respect, Marshal, I am not so sure. . . . The ship-mind says the residuum here is below the threshold useful limit—not even a Sophotech will be able to reconstruct what happened here.”
Atkins said, “Think he’s alive?”
“As to that, I cannot speculate, Marshal. I am only beginning to realize how much none of us know about the universe outside the Golden Oecumene.”
Atkins said curtly, “One more reason to head out, I guess.”
Phaethon, bright in his gold armor, hovered in the wreckage of that fragile sphere, once so rich with complex photoelectronics, now just black and blasted rubbish, walls torn and distorted by intense gravitic fields, a snow of floating blood-liquids drifting in the microgravity, and he wondered what powers the Silent Ones truly commanded.
He was staring at the last message from Xenophon. It was written in dragon-signs of frozen blood and internal fluids from Xenophon’s vanished body.
The signs said only: “The Golden Oecumene must be destroyed.”
17
THE YOUNG WOMAN
1.
Daphne Tercius, wearing a dress of red silk, after the fashion of the Eveningstar, was led into the sitting room. To her it seemed as if a dot of light was leading her, and that the room was a dimlit oval, plush with sensuous carpeting, fluttering with golden candlelight, with low tables set with frui
ts and flowers, bright china and silver chopsticks shining against dark wood. Two of her favorite energy-sculptures glowed in round niches to either side of the door, and chirruped cheerfully when they saw her.
The west of the chamber was all window, a smooth curve, which, though seeming solid, allowed the breeze from the lake beyond to bring soft, cool scents into the room, the hint of pine from the far shore. It was before true dawn, but it was Jovian afternoon, and the light of Jupiter spread red-silvery beams glancing along the twilight landscape. Even at his brightest, Jupiter was not much more luminous than a full moon. It was bright enough to distinguish colors, but dim enough to cast the trees and lake into blue mysterious shadow.
At this window, in what seemed a seashell filled with flower petals, lay a woman dressed in pigeon gray and silver. Her face was lit by the soft light of the energy-sculpture that she toyed with, running her fingers along its shimmering curves. It was a sad face, thoughtful, dreamy, and her eyes were half-closed.
She was Daphne Prime Rhadamanth.
Daphne Tercius Eveningstar glanced around the room, smiling. Her air was happy, open, unabashed. Daphne Tercius Eveningstar walked lightly over to the window and sat down on the plush carpet, tucking her knees under her. Daphne Prime Rhadamanth dismissed the floating light with a thank-you and a regal nod.
Daphne Tercius Eveningstar turned to watch the little light that had led her here bob away. She turned back, and said, “Shouldn’t we be using the same aesthetic, Mother?”
Daphne Prime Rhadamanth inclined her head. “Think of me as an older sister. And I wanted to make you more comfortable.”
“Oh? Why start now?”
Daphne Prime Rhadamanth’s red lips compressed slightly, and perhaps there was a smolder in her eyes, but her expression of cool reserve did not otherwise change. She lifted a finger and the chamber now appeared differently. She was now dressed in a more somber tweed jacket, blouse, and skirt, with a tiny French hat pinned to her coiffure, after the style proper for a Silver-Gray. Daphne Tercius Eveningstar was still dressed in sensuously lurid tight silk, the uniform of a Red Manorial.
It was a Victorian room, and they both were seated on a heavy divan of dark red velvet whose feet ended in black claws gripping glass balls. The candles were still there, though now in candlesticks. The rug became white bearskin. The receding dot of light became a footman.
The energy-sculpture in Daphne Prime Rhadamanth’s lap became Fluffbutton, Daphne’s long-lost long-haired white cat. But this was a reconstruction, a clone. He was not the slim kitten she had lost so long ago when she was a child. The cat had grown, put on weight, turned into a pampered and round ball of white fur. The cat gazed at Daphne Tercius Eveningstar with lazy green eyes, as if he had never seen her before.
Daphne Tercius Eveningstar found the image slightly offensive. “Mother! That’s one of my favorite energy-sculptures you’re playing with. Lupercalian Reflection. And you’re making it look like Sir Fluff-button! If you’re not going to be reapplying Warlock nerve-paths into your brain, you’re not going to be able to read or play with Lupercalian anyway. Or with Lichenplantis. Or Quincunx Impressionario.” (These were the two energy sculptures by the door.) “Why not give them to me? They can keep me company on the voyage.”
Daphne Prime Rhadamanth favored her with a cool stare, one eyebrow arched. “Little sister, one would think giving up my husband would have been enough to comfort you on your voyage.”
Daphne Tercius Eveningstar opened her mouth to issue some scathing rebuttal, but then snapped it shut again, lightly shrugged her delicate shoulders, and stood up. “Well! I’m ever so glad we had this little chat. I would stay longer, but arguing with other versions of yourself gets so tiring after a while, don’t you think? Now I can fly off into the night sky, not coming back for a long time, maybe never, secure in the knowledge that it turned out I was a bitch after all. And thank you for bringing me into a cheap and false existence, playing out all the difficult parts of your life you were too ashamed or scared to live through! I would say it had all been fun . . . if it had been. Ta-ta!”
Daphne Prime Rhadamanth gave her a level stare. “Please sit.”
“Sorry, Mother, but I’ve got a life to lead. A life you threw away! And now that you’re awake again, you have possession of all the things I once thought were mine, my house and funds and even my cat, dammit! My friends. Everything. But I’ve got Phaethon, and I’ve got the future. What more do we need to say to each other . . . ?”
“Please sit. Or did you use the command words I left you to wake me up again, just to berate me? We must come to understand each other before we part. You are the part of myself I am sending into the future, little sister, and I am the part of you which forms your roots and your foundation. If we part badly, it will haunt us both.”
For some reason not clear even to herself, Daphne Tercius Eveningstar smoothed her red silk dress, and sat.
But then, neither woman spoke. One sat with her hands folded in her lap, the other petted her half-slumbering cat. Both stared out the window at the twilight landscape, at the smoke-colored trees, the blue shadows of the lake. In the deep of the lake, one or two bright dots of color, like fireflies, softly appeared and disappeared.
Daphne Prime Rhadamanth finally broke the silence. “The masquerade is over. Aurelian Sophotech, so I have heard, has posted advertisements asking for employment as a manorial, just like some low-cycle mind like Rhadamanth or Aeceus. They’ve dismantled the palaces of gold to the south of here; and the Cerebellines to the southwest are letting the new organisms find their own ecological balance, practically untended, so that those strange gardens are all overgrown now, and filled with wild things. The birds will go back to singing their own songs, instead of arias meant for us, and the flowers will give out nectar now, not wine. The Deep Ones have sunk away again, and no one is allowed to remember their songs, except dimly. The wild things we said and did during the celebrations are put in memory caskets now. We are like the Cerebelline gardens turned opposite; we become tame again. Mystery is banished. The elfin gloaming of the dawn now passes, as all thing must pass, and the ordinary workday begins again.”
Daphne Tercius Eveningstar gave her older self an odd sidelong glance, but said nothing.
Daphne Prime Rhadamanth saw that glance, and smiled an opaque smile, and said: “You are wondering, aren’t you, little sister, what Phaethon ever saw in me? You have no sympathy for a melancholy spirit.”
“Well, actually, Mother, I would have called it phony weepy sickening self-centered affectation. But your sense-filter might not catch it and change it to something more polite.”
The older version only smiled, her eyes dreamy, as if thinking of a sorrow long past. “You were not constructed to admire me or like me. Our basic philosophy and core values have to be different. Antithetical. Which does not make for easy friendships, I fear.”
The younger Daphne was still. “ ‘Have to be’? For what purpose?”
The elder stirred as if from a reverie. “I beg your pardon . . . ?”
“You implied there was a purpose to all this. Why did you drown yourself? Why did you make me?”
Daphne Prime Rhadamanth sat upright and leaned forward, her level gaze traveling deep into her younger version’s eyes. She spoke in a voice of quiet simplicity. “I was in love with Helion.”
“What?!!”
“It was one of the things I did not add to your memories when I made you. You remember when Sir Fluffbutton died.”
“He ran away. I was nine. . . .”
“I found his body. It was by the stream where I had that fall through the ice the year before, remember? And Pa came and told me how everything dies. Even mountains wear away. Even the sun gets old and dies, he said. One day, no more sunshine, no more bright fields to play in, nothing.”
“You left this out of my memory! Why?”
“It leads to a crucial personality-shaping event. You were meant to have a different personality.”
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“So? What happened?”
“I didn’t believe him. You know Pa.”
“I know Pa. ‘Only as much truth as a mind can handle.’ What a liar he always was!”
“So I sneaked out to talk to Bertram. Bertram had tapped into the root-line of the local thought-system.”
“Good old Bertram! What a little thief he was! How come I was so attracted to him?”
They both smiled warmly at that lost memory. Bertram None Peristark had been Daphne’s first romantic encounter.
“I always liked strong men. Anyway, he plugged the mirror he had taken from his parent’s house into his pirate line, and opened the library for me. The library said, yes, the sun would eventually end; but long before that, it would swell to a Red Giant, and overwhelm the Earth with fire. You cannot imagine how betrayed I felt.”
“I can imagine. I used to play beneath the thinking-room window in the afternoons, when my parents were under their caps, asleep, and make-believe the beams of sunlight were suitors come to steal me away from the two snoring ogres. I pretended the sun was kissing me when the heat touched my cheek. I used to think there was a man living in the sun who was watching me when I ran through the tall grass. Betrayed? Sure. The source of light and life on Earth killing her instead of caring for her? I understand.”
The elder Daphne leaned forward and touched her younger version’s knee. “Then the library told me that there was a man living in the sun. A man who lived in a palace of fire. That he was going to save the sun from old age.”
“Helion. Is that the real reason why I became a Silver-Gray? To be near him?”
The elder Daphne leaned back. “It was not till this Transcendence, just now, that I knew where Phaethon had come from. I never knew why Helion had made him. He seemed so wild and reckless compared to his father. And I never believed that Galatea was his real mother; she was obviously an emancipated partial-mind made by Helion to help raise Phaethon. But I studied them both from afar, and it spurred me to try to get famous myself, famous enough that I could ask to see the Master of the Sun, and that he would receive me. And so I wrote, I sculpted horses, I studied all the older things, the Greeks and Romans, the myths of Britain and Pre-Re-Renaissance Mars. I earned the fame and the seconds I needed; Phaethon agreed to be interviewed. My plan was to acquaint myself with the father by seducing the son.”