John Wright - The Phoenix Exultant

Phaethon realized in horror that Atkins was about to kill a perfectly innocent man in Alaska, without any warning or mercy. He moved to grab Atkins' arm, shouting, "No! Stop!" Atkins swayed to one side, and kicked Phaethon's feet out from under him, so that he fell to his hands and knees.

"PHAETHON, STOP." One of the diamond parasols next to the image of Harrier Sophotech unfolded, blinked, and displayed an image of a tall figure, stern, kingly, and grim, dressed in Greek armor with breastplate, hoplon, and horse-plumed helm. On his shoulder was a vulture, and at his feet, a jackal. To either side of this kingly figure stood two winged beings, masked in brass hag-faces, with nests of snakes for hair.

Phaethon stared up at the apparition. "Diomedes ... ?"

The figure's armor was drenched in blood from crown to heel, old blood and new blood, brown and bright red, splashed together. In its hand was a spear of ashwood. The voice came out at a lower volume: "Not Diomedes. I represent the War-mind Sophotech Group. This image is, I trust, the correct mythic symbol to fit into your Silver-Grey aesthetic?"

Phaethon climbed to his feet. Atkins was still squinting at the sky. Phaethon took a half-step forward.

The blood-red armored figure said, "STOP! You have already attempted once to interfere with the military operations of the Golden Oecumene armed forces. You are liable for charges of treason, which carries the only death penalty recognized by Foederal Oecumenical Commonwealth law. Do not increase your offense."

Phaethon was startled, and froze in his steps. 'Treason? To stop him from murdering someone ... ?"

"Interference with the constabulary is merely obstruction of justice. Interference with the army during the course of an ongoing battle is giving aid and comfort to the enemy. This crime is the only one mentioned by name in our Constitutional Logic, and is the most ancient. The Warmind Group is unlike all other Sophotech constructions, and recognizes no priority above that of the salvation of the Commonwealth from external enemies. Do not deceive yourself. Merely because this law has not been enforced since the beginning of the Sixth Era has not caused this law to lapse or to lose its full force and effect. Your attempt to interfere means that you may yet be tried for treason and executed. This matter is quite serious."

Atkins addressed the red-armored figure. "Warmind Group!"

The Super-Sophotech saluted. "Sir!"

"The events happening here are classified as secret. You may not release the data concerning Phaethon's attempted interference to the Curia or to any other civilian body, except for the appropriate members of the Parliamentary Military Oversight Committee, until and unless I instruct you otherwise. Is that clear?" "Yes, sir!"

"Summarize report on last action-situation." "Entire action took place within 0.002 picoseconds. At that time, directed-energy weapon entered target skull at midbrain and cortex, disabling fast-reaction circuits, but leaving the target's implants, including noetic and noumenal broadcasters, intact. Beam exited skull through upper crania. Brain signal action was closely monitored during the next .04 seconds. Noetic information allowed sniper platform to track which neural pathways were being engaged for which thoughts. While the noumenal espionage delator was unable to break the Silent One encryption on the enemies' thoughts, it was nonetheless able to detect nerve-paths leading toward suspicious sectors or circuits embedded in the target's brain. Those sections were disabled with a secondary-beam targeting by a surgical program from the orbital sniper platform. The Estimator anticipates that this prevented even any thoughts of suspicion or inhibition from forming, because it believes that those secondary sections were where the suspicion reflexes of the brain were kept, and the energy weapon was able to reach and destroy the suspicion-reflex brain cells before the pain-signals from other parts of the nervous system, traveling at biochemical speed, were able to reach them.

"Hence the target was completely without suspicion or inhibition, and was unable to override its pre-established highspeed reflexes. Finding itself in a brain under fire, it activated noumenal recording circuits, and broadcast itself to a safe station. Harrier Sophotech's predictions in this regard seem to be have been confirmed. Signal was intercepted by cislunar sail and suppressed. Unfortunately, the enemy thought-encryption system, which is based on an infinite-infinitesimal number process we cannot decode, prevented the signal from being trapped or recorded property. Scaramouche is dead beyond recovery."

Phaethon turned to Harrier. "What is going on? What prediction did you make?"

Harrier smiled, and said, "The other odd thing that Mr. Jason Sven Ten Shopworthy did, aside from leaning on his left elbow at the teahouse, was that he sleepwalked on his way home last Tuesday. While his body was on autopilot, records indicate that his mind entered into the Orient Free Market Group Thought-shop Mall in the Deep-Dreaming Commercial Channel. He visited quite a number of shops and business, and ran many free samples, and, all in all, seemed quite impressed with the luxury and wealth of our commercial consumer markets."

Phaethon said, "I don't understand. How could our wealth impress him? He was from the Silent Oecumene, which, by all accounts, was much richer in energy than our Golden Oecumene by an almost infinite amount. What was our wealth to him?"

"But their technology was arrested at the Fifth-Era level of development. They have only those technical advances from the Sixth Era, the Era of the Sophotechs, that we broadcast to them. There is no evidence, however, that they had in place any of the social or marketplace structures necessary to take advantage of those developments. Furthermore, it is not clear what percentage of the population survived the events depicted in the famous Last Broadcast, nor what their level of civilization was thereafter. War can do terrible things."

"Are you suggesting that their technology level is less than ours? Less? I had been assuming all this time it was greater..."

"Mr. Rhadamanth," said Harrier, "if you came for the first time from a more primitive circumstance and entered into the Golden Oecumene, what is the first, the very first, technological advantage of which you would avail yourself... ?"

Phaethon looked at Daphne. Perhaps he was thinking about her past.

He said, "We did corrupt him. Scaramouche bought a Noumenal Immortality account, didn't he?"

Harrier said, "And suppose you were an alien spy. You could not send your brain-information into any Golden Oecumene Sophotech or any of our mind banks, could you? So where would you send it? To which Sophotech would you direct the broadcast?"

Phaethon looked back and forth. "There is really something horrible about you all, Warmind, Harrier, Atkins. You just shot an innocent man without warning."

Harrier said, "If a police officer must shoot through a hostage to strike a criminal hiding in his mind, who is to blame? The officer, or the criminal who deliberately put that hostage in danger?"

Atkins patted Phaeton on the shoulder. "I think you need to reload some intelligence enhancers or something, sir. Maybe you're tired. Warmind! Tell our newest recruit about Mr. Shopworthy."

"Mr. Shopworthy is unaware of what occurred. He is presently recuperating in the Orpheus Alaska branch of the Noumenal Immortality life bank."

Atkins turned and stared at the eastern horizon. There was no hint of light there yet, but a predawn smell was in the night and, on the shore and not far away, first one bird note, then another, rang out, and soon the air was filled with song.

"Dawn's coming," said Atkins.

"It's refreshing!" said Daphne. "I always have loved the dawn! A time of hope, isn't it... ? And we really are going to defeat these creatures, aren't we? These monsters?"