John Wright - The Golden Transcendence

"No, that was a vision. The war I saw has not yet begun. ..."

"Once Phaethon is done, the Phoenix Exultant shall return from her refitting at Jupiter one last time to Mother Earth, to pick up Daphne Tercius. Sir, it is not too late."

Helion sat up in bed and looked around his bedchamber in Rhadamanthus House. Outside the window, a rose garden, blooms gone, lifted empty thorns beneath a slate gray English winter sky. Shadows softened the dark rafters above. There was a fire in the grate, but little could it dispel the cold, the gloom of the January day.

"Not too late ... ?" muttered Helion.

"To go. To go with him, sir. To follow your son to the stars."

The Phoenix Exultant was in trans-Neptunian space. At 350 AUs the sun was only one of the brighter stars. The ship's three-kilometer-wide main dish had been deployed, hanging in space nearby, and was pointed back toward the Inner System, synchronized with orbital radio-lasers near Jupiter. More ship fuel was being used to maintain radio communication than to decelerate the hundred-kilometer-long vessel.

Those aboard who were still within the Transcendence had slowed their personal times to a mere snail crawl. Hours passed between a signal sent from this distance and any reply from the Inner System Sophotechs. There was a slightly shorter lag-time during communion with the Invariant populations in the cities in space at the leading and trailing Trojan points in Jupiter's orbit.

Phaethon had undergone naval vastening, and was one with the ship. He was in four-on four-off, spending every other watch in the transhuman state of consciousness. However, as the ship approached her goal, Phaethon was finding the memory-distractions too great, the transitions too jarring, and woke up.

There he was, in his specially designed high-acceleration body, in his Chrysadamantium armor, in the captain's chair, on the main bridge.

Exactly where he was meant to be.

Aboard in the ship's mindspace were the two wardens from the Dark-Gray Mansion, Temer Lacedai-mon, and Vidur-yet-to-be. For legal purposes, and to fill out the memory of Vidur Lacedaimon once he was born, this partial was standing in the place of his unborn principle.

The main deceleration burn had ended, and the grav-ity was only at two or three times Earth normal, so the Lacedaimonians were able to manifest themselves in physical bodies on the bridge.

Vidur Lacedaimon wore a black nanomachine coating, much like Phaethon's own inner garment. The inner coat was webbed with vertical formulation rods.

to assist the several Warlock Wolf-minds Vidur kept stored in lower compartments of his mind; the inner coat contained a para-matter generator and a set of templates, to allow Vidur to materialize any additional clothing or gear he might require.

Temer Lacadaimon was a Dark-Gray, and was concerned with tradition just as much as any Silver-Gray manorial; but his traditions were strange and grim to Phaethon. He did not appear as a Second Era Englishman (as a Silver-Gray would have done). Instead, he wore a police uniform from the late Sixth Era, a symbiot that was grown into his skin cells, but which left his hands and head free. This symbiot kept Temer warm and well fed, protected him from acceleration shock or blood loss. Upon impact, it would stiffen into armor; reflective tissues became visible when ambient energy or laser-light impinged on the symbiot surface. ' The symbiot's name was Mirnmur; and it was ten thousand years old, for it had been granted immortality by Orpheus to commemorate Temer's grandfather, Pausanias, who had worn Mimmur during the Sixth Era Riot Control police actions that had claimed his life. The uniform was dark gray in hue, of course.

Holstered at his belt was a variable-energy baton, whose grip was slick and black with age. This weapon was named Widow-maker, and it was even older than the uniform.

In the circuits of the weapon, the New College had prepared the multiple simulations of every death, of all the pain, loss, and grief of all widows, orphans, lost partners, lost selves, which so many would have suffered for so long, had Xenophon or his agents successfully used the Phoenix Exultant to attack the helpless Golden Oecumene during Transcendence. Temer carried a million purgatories' worth of pain with him, so that, when Xenophon was caught, he could be killed not once but as many times as he would have killed hi-victims, had his plans succeeded.

To see a civilized man carrying such a deadly antique reminded Phaethon of Atkins, and of the old soldier's habit of carrying a ceremonial sword. With ha mind still haunted by the visions from the Transcendence, Phaethon was surprised to find how normal the sight looked to him. He was shocked that he was not shocked.

Vidur said, "The New College, when it is formed, will applaud you for this donation of your time, and the use of your ship."

Phaethon smiled, and sent the smile onto the ship channels, so that the two wardens could see it through his faceplate. "Gentlemen, I am honored; and yet I cannot entirely overlook the fact that, for good or for ill, I will be beyond the reach of the applause, or the censure, of the College of Hortators, in a very little time from now. I plan to return only once more to Earth, to finish resupplying, and to pick up crew."

Temer said, "You are young yet, Phaethon. Eventually, you will return from star voyaging, or human civilization, in ships yet unbuilt, of designs yet undreamed, will overtake you. It may be a thousand years from now, or ten thousand, or a hundred; but you and I will meet again. You will not be the only one to travel among the stars, I promise you that."

Phaethon saw Vidur smile at Temer's comment. Young? Phaethon supposed that to a man not yet properly born, the difference between a four-thousand-year-old and an eleven-thousand-year-old did not seem that great.

The ship-mind said, "We are approaching the alleged source of the ghost-particle signals."

Diomedes was not physically present, but an image of him was projected from the ship-mind space where he lived into the sense-filters of the men on the bridge. Being a collateral member of the Silver-Gray, Diomedes had his image enter through the air lock, had it cast a shadow, gave his footsteps echoes, and had it walk across the whole length of the bridge to approach the three men, and so on, rather than having a self-image fade in out of nowhere. The image was dressed in the normal costume of the Silver-Gray; coat, tie, jacket, shoes.

Diomedes said, "I've made a second copy of myself, so I can still participate in the Transcendence while helping you here, Captain-may I call you Captain?"

Phaethon said, "Certainly. But you will not get paid until you sign my articles."

"Be that as it may; my 'upper-brother' still in the Transcendence has done a much more thorough analysis than I have done. Hmph. He had help. Mars-mind invented new analytical tools for combing through the data...."

Phaethon said, "Does he confirm our results?"

"He does. Ghost particles from this point in space are being rotated into virtuality, transmitted to variable broadcast receivers around Triton and Nereid, and rotated back into reality. Xenophon was meshed with the Neptunian Duma when the Duma was brought into the Transcendence."

"Is Xenophon still there?" asked Phaethon. "In the Transcendence?"

Diomedes said, "My upper self and I think so. Look.'"

The mirrors on the bridge came to life. Most remained blank: heat and paniculate matter, electromagnetic energy, was the same as the normal background of empty space here. But the Silent Oecumene-built ghost-particle array aboard the Phoenix Exultant was receiving pulses of seminonexistent waves from an area less than one AU distant. A repeated image technique allowed a shadowy picture to form in one mirror.