John Wright - The Golden Transcendence

And music pulsed softly, elflike, from the robes, a hint of chimes, a laughter of distant strings, a dreaming of soft sonorous horns, slowly breathing. (This more illusion,") Phaethon sent to Daphne on a secure side-channel, like a whisper. He showed her that. the mirror to his left was still detecting a gravitic point source in the air where the singularity hung. Electric circuits in the door motors had opened and closed, but no signals had entered the circuits from outside: ghost teleportations of electrons, no doubt. Radar indicated no physical substance in the shining, fairy-shimmering robes of light, no body underneath. Daphne sent back an image of her own face, bug-eyed her shoulders shrugging, as with text saying: If this is a hologram, where is the music coming from? Phaethon sent back that perhaps ghost particles, is-suing from the singularity, were forming uncounted trillions of air molecules, enough to form pressure waves, and create sound vibrations. If so, the feat was staggeringly complex, casually impossible, one impossibility built upon another, to create something as simple as a sigh of strings and woodwinds.

Daphne whispered on their side channel. ("What? Is this meant to impress us?")

Phaethon sent back that this entity had already displayed its power. The super-dense plasma gripping the ship could easily, if the pressures changed, rupture even the Phoenix Exultant's nigh-impregnable hull.

This display, no doubt, was meant to show the Silent Oecumene machine's delicacy, its fine control.

("Yes") Phaethon sent back to her. ("It's trying to impress us.")

("Okay,") sent Daphne, looking fairly unafraid. ("I think it might be working")

From the mask now came a stately swell of horns. A timpani of drums and deep majestic strings gave tongue. And in the midst of the music, there came a voice: "Phaethon of Rhadamanth, unwitting Earthmind's tool: you have been utterly naive. All your plans are transparent. Examine them, and you will find them illogical, worthy of pity. The war between the Sophotechs, the Wise Machines, as you call them, of the First Oecumene, and the Philanthropotechs, the Benevolent Machines, of the Second Oecumene, has its roots three ages in the past, since the Era of the Fifth Mental Structure, and shall not be concluded till after all stars turn cold, and universal night engulfs a frozen cosmos. You cannot guess the magnitude of this war; you know nothing of the issues involved. And yet you have been placed here, the pawn of minds greater man your own, trapped between opposing forces, and forced, in ignorance, to choose. About the fundamental nature of the Sophotechs, of philosophy, and of reality itself, you have been wickedly deceived. Now, at the final hour, despite all you have done to render yourself deaf, and blind, and numb to truth, nevertheless, the cold, inhuman truth will speak. Your choice now is to understand, or perish."

Phaethon, to his surprise, found a spark of anger burning in him, growing hotter as the tall, peacock-robed specter spoke.

In angry humor, Phaethon exclaimed, "Perhaps one day, in some more perfect world, liars will be forced to say, as they begin to speak: 'Listen! I intend to tell you lies!"

Daphne leaned her head toward him, and said in ironic tones: "But no; for then they would be honest men."

Phaethon nodded to her, and returned his grim gaze to the phantom. "Till that day, I suppose, every falsehood will have the same preamble, and declare itself the utmost truth. Well, sir, I tire of it. Each one of your slaves and agents I have come across has played out the selfsame tired ploy with me; promising dire revelations, then wearying my ears with crass mendacity. Next you will tell me how the Sophotechs, consumed with evil designs, have deceived both me and all mankind."

There came a sound of wind chimes, and the voice spoke again: "Yet it is so. Patient and remorseless, your Sophotechs intend the gentle and slow extinction of your race. For proof, consult your own sense of logic; for evidence, inspect your life; for confirmation, ask the Daphne who sits by you."

Phaethon glanced at Daphne, puzzled by the comment. Daphne said fiercely: "Why are we listening to this? Zap him with the gadfly and let's go! Why are you hesitating?"

The mask turned toward her, and tiny silver glints traveled down the metal cheeks like strange electric tears. Sardonic music danced through cool words: "Phaethon confronts the first of three rank inconsistencies in his fond plan against me. The virus cannot be applied unless I enter into the ship-mind, an action I must volunteer to do. Therefore he must convince me. But he is convinced that I cannot be convinced, because he thinks me irrational, immune to logic. A paradox! Were I logical, I would not need the virus to begin with."

Daphne looked angrily at Phaethon. "I thought you said he was going to want to take over the ship? To get into the ship mind. Wasn't that the plan? How come he's not cooperating?"

Phaethon sat still, not moving, not speaking.

The cold voice answered Daphne. Bass notes trembled from the peacock robes, the plumes on the mask nodded slowly. "Earthmind perhaps misunderstands my priorities, and misinstructed you. The ship is secondary. It is Phaethon I desire."

Daphne stared up in fear and anger at the specter. "Why him?"

Distant trumpets sounded. The fans of feathery ribbons on the shoulderboard stood up and spread. "He is a copy of one of us."

"What-?!"

"Phaethon was made from the template of a colonial warrior. Which colony did you think was used?"

The specter paused to let Daphne contemplate that comment.

Then, continuing, the haunting voice said, "All others here in the First Oecumene, have been bred for docility, trained for fear. Phaethon was carefully made to be bold enough to accomplish the enterprise of star colonization, yet to be tame enough to create colonies of machines and machine-pets, manor-born, like him, not free, like us. "The calculation, thanks to chaos, erred. Thanks to chaos; and thanks to love, which is chaos. "He fell in love with, and would not leave, his fear-ridden wife. Another wife, braver, was supplied to him. "You were meant to supply the defect, wild Daphne, Thus, you two were sent to confront me. Earthmind knew I would not waste time talking to tame souls."

Daphne looked at Phaethon, who still hadn't spoken. Was he all right?

Daphne hissed to Phaethon, "Don't listen to his lies! You don't need to speak to him."

The specter intoned gravely, "Ah, but that is the sec-ond error in your plan. You deem me defective, yet un-aware of my defects, the mere victim of errors which my makers made. If so, then persuasion is pointless, like talking to a volitionless clockwork. Yet you must, nonetheless, persuade me to accept your virus, so to speak, volitionally. How shall you do this if you nei-ther listen to nor speak to me? Nor am I so simple, nor are you so insincere, as to pretend a conversation, to listen and not to hear."

Now Phaethon stirred and looked up. Whether he thought his plan had failed, or whether he still had hope, could not be detected in his voice or manner. He spoke in a neutral inflection: "What is the third error in my plan?" "Phaethon, you believe that any Sophotechnic thought must correspond to reality; that reality is self-consistent, and that therefore Sophotechs must be self-consistent. You call this integrity.

"Second, you believe all initiation of violence to be self-inconsistent, rank hypocrisy, because no one who conquers or kills another welcomes for himself defeat and death. You call this morality.

"Third, because you follow the Sophotech commands even unto danger and death, this indicates you believe that the Sophotechs are benevolent, and are moved by love for humankind.