John Wright - The Phoenix Exultant

"This is some of the easiest training to acquire; all of it is in the public domain, and such training fits every standard jack and neuroform. It is true that the Sophotechs can perform any of these operations more swiftly and more efficiently than can we. But it is also true that they cannot do everything at once, at every place at once, as cheaply as everyone wishes. There is always someone somewhere who wants some further things done, some further work accomplished. There is always someone willing to pay much less for work moderately less well done. Why can't we be the ones to find and do that work?"

The first shift Phaethon sent to completing some of the assembly line-type tasks, mostly data-patterning and link-cleaning, which Ironjoy's old markets still needed done. That was much as before.

But a second group he sent to harvest some clothing he had bargained with Daughter-of-the-Sea to produce for them. Like her mother, she cared nothing for the Hortators. Phaethon, the day before, had found a translation routine buried in Ironjoy's back-files that would allow a human neuroform to communicate with the Daughter's odd mind arrangement and time frequency. She was more than happy to provide the community with some much-needed sturdy clothing, as well as certain Pharmaceuticals and foodstuffs, in return for some simple bird-tending, weeding, and microbiogenisis her bodies needed. And, most of all, the Daughter wanted the many imploring advertisements which had been sent by many donors and suitors to engage her attention to be sent away. As it turned out, she was weary of them.

Now, the Afloats would be dressed better even than the Ashores, and in garb both clean and dignified. Surely it would improve their esteem, mold their slovenly demeanor to better forms! Phaethon wondered why not one of these Afloats had spent any time trying to communicate with Daughter-of-the-Sea before.

A third group, under his direction, was sent ashore to the graveyard of houses. This was not a party of festival-goers, not a simple house-felling operation. Instead, Phaethon conducted a survey, found every house-brain and brain seedling, and sent the group to restoring, cleaning, regrowing, and rewiring. He estimated that, with these brains linked in parallel, by the end of two days, the thought-shop would have the brain capacity of a Rhadamanthus outbuilding, enough to give every Afloat personal help at job-hunting, as well as being able to take over some of the more routine tasks of such jobs.

This would also give each Afloat the ability to log on to the mentality (if they could find a server who would accept them) and send messages to Ironjoy's markets without going through Ironjoy.

Again, he wondered why none of them had thought of it before.

A fourth group he sent to cleaning the rust off the barge. This he did, not because it helped forward any scheme, but only because the hull was dirty and unsightly.

The final group, consisting only of boxlike neomorphs, swam along the strands of connection fiber and old nerve wires that shrouded the many floating houses like so much cobweb. With mechanical grapples from the robotoolboxes on their prows, they spliced together and gathered up rolls of the material. And they grumbled every second of their task, complaining to each other in sharp, time-compressed subsonic bursts, but Phaethon expected them to find enough wasted fiber to allow him to wire the entire floating community for light, power, speech, and text. The actual work of physically stringing wires from house to house could be done by the spider-gloves in a matter of hours.

And, gloating in his secret thought, Phaethon expected that these last two improvements together, if any of the Afloats were clever enough, would allow someone else here to set up a search engine and a thought-shop of his own, and break Ironjoy's monopoly forever. Did they dislike Phaethon's stiff insistence on punctuality, proper dress, sobriety? All the better. The more unpopular Phaethon was, the quicker some other Afloat would be to go into the business and draw away his customers.

At sunset, Phaethon had a little ceremony. Everyone who was not working the night shift was on the deck of the barge when he pointed toward the darkened houses all around them. He made the restart gesture.

And light flared from every window, lamps flamed, beams glittering across the water. It was a breathtaking sight.

In chorus, the houses all spoke at once, "Welcome, masters and mistresses! We slept; now we wake. It will be our pleasure to serve you!" And, at Phaethon's cue, in hushed, huge voices, which rolled across the water, the houses in choir began to sing the ceremonial housewarming song from the Fourth Era.

It was a sight to expand the heart. Phaethon felt a tear of pride in his eye, and smiled in mild embarrassment as he wiped it away. He looked up and saw, in the distance, peering warily over the cliff, a group of silent Ashores, half-nude, or garish in their advertisement smocks, drawn by the echoes of the song. They stood as if amazed by the lights.

Phaethon smiled, and turned. Behind him stood the Afloats, handsome in new jackets and trousers of brown and dark brown, tunics, skirts and films of white or green. And yet why did so many of them slouch, or knot their shirttails, or stain their skirts? Why did none of them smile? Phaethon had been expecting them to cheer. Didn't they want their houses to be lit?

With a brusque gesture, Phaethon dismissed the day shift, cautioning them to appear sober for work the next day. Then he strode down the ladder to the cabin in the aft of the barge, which had been Ironjoy's sanctum and restoration chamber.

Several days had gone by; it was time for the next step of his plan.

Ironjoy's restoration chamber was barren except for a cot, a formulation rod, an ewer of life-water and an aspect mandala tuned to nearby thoughtspace, obviously meant to watch for Sophotech or Hortator calls and police activity. Ironjoy certainly did not coddle himself; these quarters were more stark than most of his employees'. Perhaps the pleasure of dominion and control, a pleasure now so rare in the Golden Oecumene, was enough to sustain him.

A housecoat programmed with a score of medical functions hung from a rack, with a dozen medical history files stacked in coin slots along the vest; Ironjoy evidently used it to cure some of the older Afloats. Phaethon frowned to see a euthanasia needle clipped to the housecoat belt in a sterile holder.

Two walls of the cabin were fixed. Opposite the door were narrow windows looking out upon the bay and the cliffs beyond. The other two walls were not smart-walls, but they knew a few words, and they could slide open.

Behind one was a Demeterine decorative screen of surprising elegance and taste, a pattern of gold birds and dark blue Demeter-style fruit. Sound threads were woven through the panel, but Phaethon did not have a reader to receive the signal, and so the threads gave a few puzzled chirps and woodwind notes when he looked at various parts of the design, but then, unable to follow the pattern of his eye movements, the threads fell into puzzled silence.

It was a magnificent work. Phaethon did not know enough about this particular form to guess the artist's name, but Phaethon wondered again about Ironjoy's character. Who would have guessed that such a meditative and abstract delicacy attracted him?

Behind the other wall, facing the blue-gold decoration, were three talking mirrors. They must have been tuned to place their calls as soon as light hit them. The moment the walls slid back, the mirrors formed images of Ironjoy's three main customers.

He was not unprepared. Phaethon stood straight in his armor, with the magnificent decoration panel forming his backdrop. He spoke briefly, introducing himself and explaining the change of circumstance. "I intended to fulfill all of Ironjoy's contracts with you to the letter-the work performed today will testify to that. It is my hope that you will consent to deal with me on the same basis you dealt with him. It is only until his release a few weeks hence. What do you gentlemen say? Do we have an understanding?"