John Wright - The Phoenix Exultant

And how had they changed and improved their minds and selves without the benefit of noetics, noumenology, redaction, or any science of psychiatric editing or self-consideration? Had it just been by an effort of will and the practice of a habit of virtue?

The symbol of the Tritonic Neurofrom Composure scholum appeared on the mirror, indicating that the messenger was loaded and awake. Phaethon drew a breath, mentally recited his formulated Warlock autohypnotic mantra one last time, and steeled himself. Had he just been marveling at the stoicism of the mortal men of earlier ages? He himself was now mortal. And it was his stoicism which would now be tested.

"Good afternoon," said Phaethon. When that produced no response (he still was not used to the lack of a translator to convey his meaning into other formats and aesthetics) he said, "Start. Go. Initiate. Begin. Read Message. Please."

"This is the messenger. I represent information from the presently dominant sects and discourses embraced by the Tritonic Neuroform Composition. If your question or provocation is one which has been anticipated by my writers (if I have writers), then a recorded response will be brought forward to reply. The lector is flexible, and can organize and edit the responses according to the logic of your statements, if it so chooses. If your question is one which has not been anticipated, expect a spate of nonsense and irrelevancy. On the other hand, if I am, in fact, a self-aware entity, then my responses are not merely the recorded statements of the writers, but the freely chosen deliberate communication of a mind having a perverse joke at your expense. (Please note that, if I am a self-aware entity, then erasing me from your communication buffer would be an act of murder. Constables may be standing by.)"

Phaethon blinked in puzzlement. This was hardly what he had been expecting. "Pardon me, but are you in fact a self-aware entity?"

"I have been programmed to say that I am."

Phaethon checked the memory space the messenger-tree occupied. It was large. Large enough to hold a self-referencing (and therefore self-aware) program? Unlikely, but with proper data-compression techniques, it was not impossible. It would be a reckless act to erase what might be self-aware. But then again, it would be typical Neptunian humor to absorb large sections of expensive memory with an unintelligent messenger-tree no one dared erase.

The messenger said, "And please do not attempt to place the burden of proving my humanity on me. The law against first-degree murder does not hold that those who cannot prove their humanity are subject to instant and arbitrary death."

The joke seemed particularly cruel to Phaethon, since he himself, by pursuing this call, might be exposing himself to instant and arbitrary death. What if the agents of the Silent Ones were listening?

"Can you give me a precis of who is presently in charge of, or wields the most prestigious and influence in, the Neptunian Duma?" The "Duma" was the Neptunian name for their main social organization. It was made of partial minds and client minds beamed in by Neptunians, who were too scattered to represent themselves by any direct means. The partials combined and evolved in a seething, tangled mass of vigorous conflict, to form a consensus entity, or, rather, successive sets of consensus entities, whose proclamations influenced the course of Neptunian dialogue and society. The Duma was more like a clearinghouse and central marketplace of ideas rather than like a parliament.

Neptunians were highly individualistic and eccentric, and so they instructed their representatives to place a higher value on obdurate zeal than on rational compromise. Consequently, the Duma was often insane, pursuing several contradictory goals at once, overreacting or underreacting with no sense of proportion to the petitions, ideas, and new lines of thought that the Neptunians, from time to time, introduced. The Neptunians had never yet reprogrammed the Duma to behave with logic; this baroque form of social government apparently amused the Cold Dukes and Eremites of Neptune far more than a rational one would have.

The messenger-tree said: "The Silver-Grey School has recently won wide acceptance among the Duma. It is presently the dominant school, followed, but not closely, by the Patient Chaos School."

Phaethon leaned forward, eyes wide. "The Silver-Grey? How is this possible?" As far as Phaethon knew, there had never been any Silver-Grey among the mad things of Neptune.

The messenger-tree continued: "Many thought-chains and dialogues within the Duma are consumed with topics prompted by Diomedes of Nereid, who recently shamed the Hortators of Earth, and who, by being poor, tricked them into giving him great wealth. Diomedes and Xenophon mingled to create out of themselves a temporary mind named Neoptolemous, who outwitted the Cerebelline named Wheel-of-Life. Neoptolemous now owns the titanic starship called Phoenix Exultant. Trillions of tons of metallic antihydrogen, chrysad-mantium, biological and nanobiological material, are aboard, and the shipmind is a million-cycle entity with a vast wealth in routines and capacity. This victory brought great prestige to Diomedes and to his son Neoptolemous. Diomedes, in his Living Will, set aside a fund of that prestige to promote a Silver-Grey School among the Duma. He did this in memorial for a friend of his, who was unjustly treated by the College of Hortators, and sent to his death in exile."

"May I send a message to Diomedes? Can you speak on his behalf?"

"I have templates from most of the major chains of thought among the active Duma members, including Diomedes, and therefore I can pretend to be him and form responses based on my anticipation of what he would say if he were here. When this message is transmitted back to the Neptunian embassy, Diomedes will have the option either to reject or accept the representations made as his own. If he should accept, this messenger will be implanted into his own memories, so that he will thereafter believe he himself was here and made these comments. However, I am required to warn you that Diomedes, as of last assembly, no longer existed as a separate entity. He was still a part of the Diomedes partial-composition. The actors for Diomedes and Xenophon fell into dispute over which parts of Neoptolemous belonged to Diomedes and which belonged to Xenophon. Neoptolemous' thoughts have not yet been untangled and resolved back into two separate entities. In other words, Neoptolemous has not yet made up his minds."

"What is the basis for the dispute? Is it the ship?"

"The Patient Chaoticists are eager to dismantle the ship and distribute the wealth among the starving hosts beyond Neptune; the Silver-Grey urge the ship be used for an expedition to establish colonies at nearby stars. The Patient Chaos plan would bring money into the starved Neptunian economy; whereas to fund an expedition such as the one which Half-Neoptolemous Semi-Diomedes proposes would drain the economy. Didactions from Patient Chaos assert that the present ruination of the economy was caused, in large part, by investments made into Phaethon's Expeditionary Effort."

At that point, he was interrupted by a chime. The wall-panel to the left slid back to reveal the image of the nest-of-snakes face of Antisemris. "Pardon me for interrupting, but, as a major investor who just entrusted you with a good deal of money, I was just wondering why you were wasting my investment chatting with a Neptunian machine about politics. We bought you this messenger so you could read the help-wanted advertisements it carries! And don't bother to tell me that you were investigating their market needs. All you need to know is what kind of grunt-work of line-checking they need done; its not as if their internal politics affects the kind of short-markets we are looking for!"