John Wright - The Phoenix Exultant

Each of the three spoke for a moment, describing the work they might need over the next few days, asking questions, and issuing tentative consent. Each one seemed to be aware that if he mistrusted Phaethon, or refused to deal with him, the other two would rush in to fill the gap.

An identification gesture had brought their names to the surface of the mirrors in a subscript. The indigo-faced man on the left was Semris; the writhing mass of bloated snakes in the middle was a neomorph named Antisemris; a tube with mechanical arms with emblems of a half-Invariant was labeled Notor-Kotok. Semris, to judge from the name, was a Jovian, perhaps from Io. Antisemris was evidently an undermind or child of Semris, but who had joined the Cacophile movement.

The Ionians came from what had once been a wild and dangerous world, and some small few had not put away their wild and dangerous personas after that moon's volcanisms were tamed by planetary engineers (Including the famous Geaius Score Stormcloud of Dark Grey, a terraformer whose work Phaethon had studied, followed, and admired.) If Semris was one of those few last Wild-Ionians, he would ignore the Hortators; they had long ago condemned his mental template as destructive and temperamental.

Likewise, Antisemris was a freak, perhaps a Nevernext, and Hortators' standards would mean little to him. Both were the type of unsavory people, perhaps insane, whom Phaethon would never have received or entertained, back when he had been a Silver-Grey Manorial.

Notor-Kotok was a different case; he spoke somewhat like an Invariant, somewhat like a Composition. Phaethon suspected that he, or they, were actually a small combination-mind made of people whose relatives and friends had been exiled, and who had all contributed a few thoughts to make a composite being that would still look after their relatives, talk to them, or find them work. The being was modeled along unemotional Invariant lines, perhaps to render it immune from Hortator pressure. Phaethon had heard of such things before.

Phaethon said, "You gentlemen will be pleased to note that I intend to make improvements to the working conditions here. This will no doubt increase productivity. The greatest loss to productivity is to false-self dreams and deep intoxicants. I believe the Afloats are driven to these things out of despair for their relatively short life spans."

Antisemris fluttered several of his snake-heads. "Too true! Yet what can be done? Orpheus controls all noumenal recordings."

"Gentlemen, it is well-known that the Neptunian Tritonic Composition can store brain information within the laminae of their special material. At near absolute zero temperatures, there is no signal degradation, even over centuries. With cascade-sequence re-recording and corrections, the Neptunian superconductive nerve tissue can retain a given personality for aeons. I recommend we create a branch of the Neptunian school right here. The Neptunians scoff at Hortators' mandates; we will find no difficulties finding Neptunians willing to deal with us. And, once that is done, whole new markets will open to us. We will no longer need interpreters or Eleemosynary routines to communicate with the Neptunian neuroforms. And you know those outer markets are hungry for even simple thought-work."

"Your proposal?" asked Semris.

"Gentlemen, I ask for your investment. An initial fund of some sixty-five hundred seconds should allow us to buy a channel of communication, if not with Triton or Nereid, then at least with the Neptunian Legate-mass stationed near Trailing Trojan city-swarm, where they keep a permanent embassy. A modified search engine could examine Neptunian thought-space for work opportunities; we will have labor, cheap and plentiful. I estimate we can make our return on the investment in a matter of days."

Semris said, "A new market is always attractive; but I have dealt with Neptunians before, the group who did work on Amalthea. They are tricky and unlovable, and enjoy cruel jokes. Ironjoy was always against the idea of opening markets with the Neptunians."

Some snake-heads of Antisemris stared at each other in puzzlement. "Neptunians are also very far afield! Think just of how long it would take to broadcast across the radius of the Solar System to ask a query or get a response from Neptune. Telepresentation is impossible; second-by-second oversight of the work is impossible."

Phaethon said, "The distance is not an obstacle for piecework done in large blocks, especially high-quality work with low data densities. I hope to train the Afloats to be able to work without supervision."

Antisemris was unconvinced: "Why stir up so many changes? We are all satisfied with the way things have gone heretofore. The Afloats have nowhere else to go; change may confound things! Why irk the Hortators more than we must? We subsist only because they do not have the patience to squash us all. No, for once, the flat-headed Semris, no doubt by accident, has uttered a truth."

But Notor said, "I place a high priority on keeping the mental well-being of the various Afloats at an optimal or praedo-optimal level, as measured by the Kessic sanity scale. Increased life would be beneficial, as would increased markets. Yet I have curiosity about Phaethon's motives. Your plan to find work in the Neptunian markets does seem disproportional to the desired effect."

"Yet, Mr. Notor, you do not object to dealing with Neptunians in and of themselves?"

"Allow me to employ a metaphor. I will accept any coin that burns." (This was a reference to the antimatter currency.)

Phaethon heard some warbling bird notes from the tapestry behind him. Perhaps one of the men in the mirror had glanced at the gold-and-blue figures, and his eye motions had been interpreted to reveal his emotional state. Phaethon now realized for what purpose the crass Ironjoy kept such beautiful art. And while Phaethon was not familiar with the note codes and tuning of the emotion-reactives woven in the tapestry, he could make a good guess.

Hiding a smile, Phaethon now bowed to Semris and Antisemris. "If you gentlemen are not interested after all, perhaps you can allow Mr. Notor and I a little privacy to discuss some matters of mutual interest and mutual profit..."

Semris and Antisemris interrupted each other, suddenly eager to discuss the matter further.

Less than an hour later, Phaethon had the money he needed to place a call to the Neptunians.

Phaethon folded the wall over two of the mirrors, used Ironjoy's formulation rod to calm himself and fix his purposes in mind. Then he turned to the mirror and placed the call.

In their present orbital positions, it took sixteen minutes for the signal to go to and to return from near-Jovian space, where the Neptunians maintained a permanent legate. This delay, Phaethon had expected.

But then, while Phaethon stood idle, doing nothing, there passed another five minutes while the messenger speech-tree loaded from the signal into the limited mind-space of the thought-shop's isolated communication circuits.

There was a further half-minute delay as line checkers and counteractants and virus hunters examined the received messenger speech-tree for viruses or surprises, a precaution not usually necessary, except when dealing with Neptunians.

The delay of time was considerable. Phaethon reflected that Rhadamanthus could have performed a million first-order operations in this same amount of time, or Westmind, a hundred million. Almost six minutes had passed. The true depth of his poverty impressed itself on Phaethon. He was living like some creature out of a forgotten age of history, practically like a Third-Era Victorian in truth.

How had those ancient British folk, or Second-Era Romans or Athenians (so prominently pictured in Silver-Grey Simulations) tolerated all the mess, delay, and anguish in their lives? How had they faced the inevitability of death, disease, injustice, grief, and pain? How had they tolerated the loneliness of being frozen in the base neuroform, without even the possibility of joining a mass-mind?