John Wright - The Golden Transcendence

Phaethon stepped forward, arms raised as if to embrace her. "Darling, I have so much to tell you...."

She fended him off with her free hand. "Aren't you going to introduce me to your father? Hello, Helion!" Phaethon stepped back, puzzled. He said, "What? You know him. You were just in the air lock with him." Helion said dryly to Daphne, "Don't toy with the boy. He's confused enough as it is. I'm trying to learn his master plan for how he intends to survive the next few hours." With an ostentatious gesture, Helion draw out his pocketwatch, clicked open the cover, scrutinized the dial. "Please consummate your kissing and making up with dispatch. I'd like to conclude my conversation with him."

Daphne put her hands on her hips, glaring at Helion, "Hmph! And what makes you think, may I ask, that I'd kiss and make up with a single-minded, pigheaded clod who does not have the sense to see what's right in front of his nose, who keeps running off, getting in trouble, getting lost, getting shot at, losing and finding bits and pieces of his memory he cannot keep straight, ruining parties, building starships, starting wars, upsetting everybody, and who keeps saying I'm not his wife whenever he's losing any arguments with me, which he does all the time?"

Phaethon, from behind her, took her shoulders in his strong hands, and turned her body to face him, taking her in his arms, despite any protest or struggle she might have made. She put her little fists against his chest, and pushed, but in the heavy gravity, she only succeeding in losing her balance, and she found herself standing on tiptoe, both leaning backward and pressed up against him, caught in the magnificent strength of his arms.

He lowered his head and stared into her eyes. "I think you will," he said softly. "You are the only version, the only person, who has ever urged me to pursue my dream; you are the only person whom I would forgo that dream to possess. I saw the first during our long trip together from Earth; to recognize the second, it required me to see myself when another man was possessed by my thoughts. Those thoughts were always of you, my darling, my best, my beloved. And it is not the old Daphne whom I loved, whom I love now, but you. I will say one last time that you are not my wife; because I married her, your elder version, not you. You I shall marry, if you will have me; and then I will never call you anything other than my wife, my beloved wife, again."

Her eyes were shining, drinking in the sight of him, and her cheeks had blushed a delicate rose hue. She shrugged her shoulders a bit, as if trying to get away, but her hands were pinned by his embrace. "You take me a lot for granted, mister...." she said. Her voice was breathless. "What if I say no?"

"I offer, as my gift to the bride, my life and my ship and my future, all for you to share with me, and every star in the night sky. What is your answer?"

When she parted her lips to speak, he kissed her. Whatever words she may have wished to say were smothered into little happy moans. Perhaps he knew what her answer would be. Her straw hat fell lightly from her tilting head and fluttered to the walkway. The two ribbons of the bow were twined around each other, snarled into one.

Helion politely turned his back, and pretended to consult his pocketwatch. "Isn't it more traditional for the man to kneel on occasions of this nature?" he inquired of no one in particular.

Diomedes of Neptune and a mannequin representing Marshal Atkins came out from a nearby railway terminal and began sliding along the surface of the walkway toward them.

Helion walked toward the two men, using a mental command to nullify the action of the surface substance of the walkway, which otherwise would have carried him forward without effort. His love of discipline required that he avoid, when he could, such artificial aids for walking.

Atkins saw what was taking place over Helion's shoulder, dug in his heel as a signal to stop the walkway. Either through politeness or embarrassment, Atkins cleared his throat, clasped his hands behind his back, and stepped to one side of Helion, turning to face him, so that he was not looking at the source of the moans, giggles, and murmurs beyond.

Atkins said to Helion, "I've examined your records. You'll be happy to know that the previous Sophotechs working on this station were not destroyed because of catastrophic failure of the energy environment, as you thought. They committed suicide in order to stop the spread of the mental virus which had taken control of them. They were gambling that your previous version would be able to quell the storm without their aid. The good news there is that means your present system looks secure. In order to drive the Phoenix Exultant down toward the core, we need you to use your Array to create a subduction current in the plasma, large enough and fast enough-a whirlpool, actually-to suck the ship down into the location in the outer core radiative zone where the enemy is waiting. Can you do it?"

"I can bring two equatorial currents into offset collision to create a vortex whose core will have low density, creating a sunspot large enough to swallow planets whole. How far down into the opaque deep of the sun I can drive the vortex funnel, or what unprecedented storms and helmet streamers will result, remains yet to be seen. Hello, Captain Atkins. It is good to see you. How do you do? I am fine, thank you. I see the passing centuries have not altered your ... ah ... refreshingly brusque manners."

Atkins's face was stony. "Some of us don't think polished formalities are the most important thing in life, if you don't mind my saying so, sir. Not when there is a war on."

Helion arched an eyebrow. "Indeed, sir? Those niceties which make us civilized, in the opinion of many accomplished and profound thinkers, are of more importance during emergencies than otherwise. And if not to protect civilization, what justification does the mass slaughter called war ever have?"

"Don't start with me, Mr. Rhadamanth. This is an emergency."

Diomedes, meanwhile, was leaning to look behind Helion, staring with open fascination at the display Phaethon and Daphne made. "I have not seen non-parthenogenic bioforms before. Are they going to copulate?"

Atkins and Helion looked at him, then looked at each other. A glance of understanding passed between them.

Atkins put his hand on Diomedes's elbow, and pulled him back in front of Helion. "Perhaps not at this time," Atkins said, straight-faced.

"They are young and in love," explained Helion, stepping so as to block Diomedes's view. "So perhaps the excesses and, ah, exuberance of their, ah, greeting, can be overlooked this once."

Diomedes craned his neck, trying to peer past Helion. "There's nothing like that on Neptune."

Helion murmured, "Perhaps certain peculiarities of the Neptunian character are thereby clarified, hmm ... ?"

"It looks very old-fashioned," said Diomedes.

Helion said, "It is that most ancient and most precious romantic character of mankind which impels all great men to their greatness."

Atkins said, "It's what young men do before they go to war."

Diomedes said, "It is not the way Cerebellines or Compositions or Hermaphrodites or Neptunians arrange these matters. I'm not sure I see the value of it. But it looks interesting. Do all Silver-Gray get to do that? I wonder if Phaethon would mind if I helped him."

"He'd mind." Atkins interrupted curtly. "Really. He'd mind."

"Upon this occasion, I feel I must agree with Captain Atkins," added Helion.

The two men exchanged a glance. The tension which had been in their features just a moment ago was gone. They were both very old men; Helion had been four hundred years old when noumenal immortality had been invented; Atkins, living then as an artificially preserved brain inside a battle cyborg, was rumored to be even older. They both remembered a time when things were different.