John Wright - The Phoenix Exultant

The murmur of anger rose to a shout. It was a horrible noise, one Phaethon had not heard before in all his life; the sound of a thousand voices all calling for Phaethon to get out, to leave, to let the performance ceremony continue. Instead of music, now, shouts of outrage, shrill questions, and sounds of hatred roared in the air.

The three gray mannequins were still motionless at the bottom of the ramp. Phaethon raised his hand and pointed a finger at these three. He knew no human ear could hear him or distinguish his words over the roar of the crowd; but he also knew that there were more than human minds listening to him now. Events like this rapidly filled the news and gossip channels; anything he did would be analyzed by mass-minds and by Sophotechs.

"The enemies to the Golden Oecumene are here among you. Who projects into these three mannequins here? Where are the constables to protect me from their violence? Nothing! For all your superior intellect, you cannot and you dare not strike at me openly; I denounce you as a coward!"

Another rustling murmur ran through the vast crowd there. Contempt and disbelief, disgust and anger were clear on every face. And then, just as suddenly, the eyes focused on him went glassy and dull. By an unspoken common consent, the crowd were tuning their sense-filters to ignore him; perhaps they were opening redaction channels to forget him, so that, in later years, their memories of this fine day would not be marred by the rantings of a madman. Like a wind blowing through a field of wheat, with one motion, every head in the crowd turned back toward the lake.

Phaethon smiled grimly. Here was the moral error of a society that relied too heavily on the sense-filter to falsify their reality for them. Reality could not be faked. The Deep Ones did not use anything like a sense-filter. If the Deep Ones had any channels open in the mentality, they would still be aware of Phaethon, and they would still refuse to offer their gift of song to one, like Phaethon, who would not and could not thank them, or repay them, or return the gift. The crowd could well ignore him; but the Deep Ones would not sing.

Were they waiting for him to walk away? It must occur to some of them that it would take hours for him, on foot, to walk beyond hearing range of the Deep Song. Were they all willing to wait that long? It also should occur to someone that, by the rules of the ostracization imposed on him, Phaethon could neither buy passage on any transport or accept a ride as charity. The only other option, logically, would be to have a ride imposed upon him without his asking.

It was a contest of wills. Who was more willing to put up with the inconvenience of Phaethon's exile? Phaethon, who knew he was in the right? Or the crowd, who perhaps had some nagging doubt whether the Hortators had been entirely correct?

If those who opposed him were certain of the moral right-ness of their position, Phaethon thought, they would simply call the constables and have him removed. And if not...

The hatch swung shut in front of his nose. The ramp and guy lines retracted into the docking tower. Phaethon felt a swell of motion in the deck underfoot.

The airship was carrying him away. He stepped over to the windows, hoping for a last glimpse of the three mannequins at the foot of the now-retracted ramp. He saw them, but their arms now hung limply, heads lolling, in the stoop-shouldered posture indicating that they were now uninhabited. Xenophon's agent (or Nothing Sophotech, or whoever or whatever had been projected into them) had disconnected and fled.

With a grand sweep of movement, the towers and the wide balcony ringing the space elevator passed by the observation windows. The world was tilted at an angle, as the airship heeled over, tacking into the wind and gaining altitude.

Phaethon felt a moment of victorious pleasure. But the moment faltered, and a sad look came into his eyes, when, outside the windows and far below, he saw the blue reaches of Lake Victoria. Sunlight flashed from the surface of the lake, and the texture of high, distant clouds was reflected in the depths. Amid those reflections, Phaethon saw the flotilla of ancient beings with their singing-fans spread wide. But he was too far away, by then, to hear anything other than a faint, sad, far-off echo.

Even if, by some odd miracle, his exile were to end tomorrow, Phaethon would never hear what the Deep Ones now would sing, no record was made of it, and no one would speak to him of it.

With an abrupt motion, Phaethon turned and stepped to the bow windows, staring out at the African hills and skies ahead.

A silver strip of shore passed by below him. Ahead was an endless field of cobalt blue, crisscrossed by whitecaps-the Indian Ocean.

Phaethon spoke aloud. "Where are you taking me?" Again there was no answer. He found two hatches at the back of the observation deck, with gangways leading up and down. He chose the upward ramp and set off to explore.

On a windowless upper deck, surrounded by a mass of cables and fixtures, he found a six-legged being, with six arms or tentacles reaching up from a central brain-mass into the control interfaces. Wires ran into the cone-shaped head. Sections of the body were plated with metal. Three vulture faces stared out in three directions from the central brain-cone. The hide was dotted and pierced with plugs and jacks, inputs and outlets. Multiple receivers aided the migration instincts and flying sense built into the bird heads with orbit-to-surface navigational plotting.

"You are a fighter-plane cyborg," said Phaethon in surprise. He had never seen such a thing outside of a museum.

The vulture eyes regarded him coldly. "No longer. All memories of war and battle-flight, dogfighting, system ranging, dive-bombing, all such thoughts and recollections I sold long, so very long ago, to Atkins of the Warmind. Let him have nightmares now. Let him recall the smell of incendiaries burning villages and hamlets, and pink baby-forests screaming. I recall flowers and kittens now, the songs of whales, the motion of cloud above the ocean; I am content."

"Do you know who I am?"

"An exile; an exile wealthy beyond all dreams of wealth, to judge from the armor you wear. Famous, to judge by the channel traffic your movements excite. All the world forgot, and then all the world, just as suddenly, recalled the mighty ship you dreamed; every mind in the networks still is reeling from you; every voice cries out against you. Are you he?"

Phaethon wondered why the creature did not discover his identity merely by looking into the Middle Dreaming. "You are not connected to the mentality, then, sir?"

The three vulture heads snapped their hooked beaks open and shut with loud clacks. "Gah! I scoff at such things. There is nothing in me I need to transcend. Let the young ones play their games; I take no part in the celebration of the Golden Oecumene."

"It seems, now, that I will take no part, either. You have guessed me, sir. I am Phaethon Prime of Rhadamanth."

"No longer. Surely you are Phaethon Zero of Nothing."

The name struck Phaethon to the heart. Of course. He had no copies of himself any longer in any bank. He was no longer Phaethon Prime, the first copy from a stored template. He was a zero. The moment he died, there would be nothing more of him. He had no mansion, no school.

Phaethon said, "And you do not fear to speak with me?"

"Fear whom? The College of Hortators? The Sophotechs? Upstarts! I am older than any College of Hortators; older than any Sophotechs. Older than the Foederal Oecumenical Commonwealth." (This was the old name for the Golden Oecumene.) "They are delicate structures, based on no real strength. They shall pass away, and I shall remain. My way of life has been forgotten, but it shall return. I remember nothing but kittens and clouds, for now. Memories of burning children shall return."