John Wright - The Golden Transcendence

But there would be more colonies than this, several civilizations-younger artificial worlds and systems, not yet ready to face the Silent Lords in combat.

Each younger, quiet Oecumene relied, at first (not unlike her foe) on silence to mask her activities; she would wait for some future day to erupt into a First Transcendence of her own. On that day, the new Oec-umene would end her long childhood, raise her radio arrays, and sing out to the surrounding stars of what accomplishments, arts, sciences, and advancements she had made during her long centuries of quiet. And she would have her version of Atkins, as if with trumpets sounding from a battlement, send out a general challenge to the Silent Lords, daring them to combat, warning them away. But each would also have their version of Ariadne Sophotech singing like a siren to the stars, inviting the Silent Ones to give up their sick, insane crusade, to rejoin the body of mankind, to rest from the weariness of war and hate.

As Helion stood and looked out, an image of Rhadamanthus stepped up quietly behind Helion on his balcony, appearing like a color sergeant from a regiment of British riflemen. Rhadamanthus asked: "Well, sir, Ferric Sophotech will soon begin the next Transcendence. Looking back over the past thousand years, is milord satisfied with what the future turned out to have held?"

Helion reflected. "I am pleased that the cacophile movement failed. When Ungannis repudiated all her beliefs, and became Lucretia, my wife (and finally got all the wealth she wanted), I think it was my influence which helped, once and for all, to put down that selfish mess of whiners. I think it was because I was the cen-ter of the last Transcendence, and everyone who saw my vision of the future was inspired. That satisfies me. But..."

"But what?"

"Rhadamanthus, we should have disbanded the Hor-tators when we had the chance! I loved them, I fought for them, and it disheartens me to see them now. The force of conscience and tradition, even in the moat easy of times, is often too critical, too meddling, too harsh. But in times of war and public danger, that same force is invested with an aura of sanctity, of patriotic piety, which renders it a terrible and unreasonable weapon."

Rhadamanthus said gently: "Of all the Hortators, only that single one who voted against Phaethons ban, Ao Prospero Circe of the Zooanthropic Incarnation coven, was seated in the next session. All the others were exposed to public humiliation. But abolish the College altogether as an institution? No, sir. Without it, the Parliament would have arrogated to itself dangerous privileges, as is often the case in time of war, ordering all citizens to military service; seizing control of the money supply; requiring that no disloyal communications be spoken or written, thought, or said; and commanding all citizens to program their emotions to unalterable patriotism. Surely such things must be done, for the sake of the necessities of war; but surely it is a nightmare to allow such things to be done on anything other than a voluntary basis."

Helion looked downcast. His melancholy spirit brought a solemn quiet to his eyes. "And yet, we may take comfort in this war. It is so remote, so long be-tween thrust and parry, and operates across such dis-tances, that whole ages flow by without rumor of the flames and pain and death which have taken place, now here, now there. And further, the languid spirit which might have otherwise descended on mankind is startled awake by the sound of battle trumpets in our half-slumbering ear. We might all have sunk down into dreams, by now, had not something real, and cruel, and necessary, forced us all to action."

Rhadamanthus looked politely nonplussed. "Well, milord, that is not quite true. Actually, not true at all. Wars cost. Industry suffers; innovation lags; the spirit of joy is quelled; delight is replaced by fear. Respect for life is cheapened. Hatred (which is the universal enemy of all things) is no longer despised; instead, hatred is now welcomed and applauded and justified, and called patriotic.

"Even a war as distant and slow and strange as this one, has harmed us all, and cheated us of many fine delights and freedoms we would otherwise enjoy. It is tragedy, mere tragedy, with no such benefits as milord would like to pretend."

Helion looked at him. "And yet there is glory in it also, and many brave acts. Humanity at its finest."

Rhadamanthus said; "If milord will forgive me, I must say, there are certain things about mankind which we machines will never understand. I truly hope we never understand. Would you like to see humanity at its finest? Look up." And the image raised its hand to point. There was one particular star to which he pointed.

Music, many years in transit, from that distant star, at this moment fell around Helion, and his many unimaginable senses came awake. The star herself shifted in her spectral characteristics and apparent luminosity, as if a Dyson's sphere, transparent until that moment, suddenly took on a gemlike hue or polarized all the radiation output into coherent communication-laser pulses; or as if some Solar Array, vast beyond dream, webbing the entire surface of the star, tamed all the light shed into one huge symphony of signals.

The star trumpeted with challenges, and a new Oecumene blared her name out into the wide night, boasting of her accomplishments, shining in the radio light shed by her First Transcendence: the Phosphorescent Oecumene, she called herself, the Civilization of Light, founded by Phaethon and Daphne and their children.

This star was farther than any other colony had been, and safer, for no ship of the Silent Oecumene.

cold, slow, quiet ships, would reach so far for centuries to come.

Even at this point in history, the Silent Ones had no such technology to allow them to build a Phoenix Exultant. How could they? Such a thing required a supercollider and energy source the size of Jupiter to make the metal (and the Silent Ones, long ago spread from Cygnus X-l, living in hiding, nomads, would never dare to reveal their positions by building such a thing). And, even if they did build one, any ships whose drives were kept baffled and cold would never reach the velocities required to catch the bright, loud, roaring, fiery Phoenix Exultant in her flight.

Helion squinted and called more senses to his aid, and delicate instrumentation. For there, in the halo of sudden radio noise and song and motion and light surrounding what had been, till now, merely one other uncivilized star, he saw (or thought he saw) that bright sharp signature, intensely Doppler-shifted, which comes of massive amounts of antimatter totally converting to energy, receding at nearly the speed of light.

Helion said, "This is the sign of Phaethon."

Rhadamanthus said, "Now, perhaps, now he finds more joy in life, having survived so many strange adventures, and the odd horrors of the discovered colonies of Cygnus X-l. But he is forever beyond their reach now. The tiny mote of light which depicts his most recent acceleration burn has taken hundreds of years to reach our eyes. Phaethon flies so far, so swiftly, that even the light which carries news of him is left behind."

Helion said, "Phaethon paused in his flight, far beyond the reach of his foes, to wait for the wakening of this, his latest child. Now she is grown, and calls herself the Oecumene of Light; and on he fares again, blazing!"

So he stood on the balcony, gazing upward, hoping this group of Transcendence messages from the Oecumene of Light would contain messages, also, from Phaethon, to him.

"How I miss him, Rhadamanthus. How I regret..."

Rhadamanthus now leaned and touched Helion's shoulder, wakening him from his dream. "Sir. That was only a projection. It is the Month of Resumption, now, when everyone must return to the burden of being no more than himself for another thousand years. Phaethon has not departed yet. Even before leaving this system, he begins the task that will occupy him for countless thousands of years; already he is chasing enemies."