John Wright - The Phoenix Exultant

The amidships were burnished plates, smooth and unmarred. These could be altered, raised and lowered, to change the cross section and therefore the performance characteristic of the Phoenix Exultant at near-light speed. When the great ship was traveling slowly enough, these plates could be spread and opened like the petals of a rose or the sails of a clipper ship, and erect ramscoop fields to gather interstellar gas into the ten thousand titan-sized nuclear furnaces that lined the middle kilometers of the ship. This raw material could be used to produce fuel in flight. The Phoenix Exultant carried factories for the nucleogenesis of antimatter, in volume and output as large as any dozen of the antimatter-production facilities orbiting near Mercury Equilateral.

At rest, when the interstellar gas was too tenuous to gather, the port and starboard armor could open like the gills of a shark, and the Phoenix Exultant could plunge into the outer layers of a star, diving through photosphere and corona, and gather cubic acres of plasma into holding cells for the refueling process.

Aft were the engines and drives. Those exhaust ports could have swallowed the whole space station in which they stood.

These engines could drive that ship at speeds nothing but light itself could outpace. There were no other engines like those of the Phoenix Exultant. None had ever been built before.

There was no ship like her.

And yet the ship was cold, the drives were silent, there was no gleam of lamp or light anywhere on her, except the reflected light of the Mercurial sun, caught on certain plates and panels, blazing from her golden hull.

Daphne had her hands before her face. The image of the streamlined triangle of golden admantium was burned green behind her closed eyes. She blinked her eyes clear.

She asked, "What were you saying, darling?" (Something about the two of us, something damn important!)

Phaethon was staring down between his feet. "Hm? That's odd. Look at that ship in the distance." He pointed, as if he expected her unaided eyes to match the visual amplification and tracking systems rebuilt into his nervous system and armor.

"Something about us, dear ...?"

He looked up. "I'm sorry. What?"

"Oh, nothing, darling." (OK. Fine. Be that way. Any day now, I'm going off with Atkins, and you can crawl up next to your frozen wifesicle for comfort.) "What was it you were gawking at? I cannot believe you'd be staring at another ship at a time like this! What would your golden Phoenix-bride say if she knew?"

"Can you see? That dot in the distance."

(Of course I cannot see it, you dunderhead.) "What in particular is so very interesting?" (I cannot imagine anything at all so interesting that you're daring to intrude it into what might very possibly be our last few moments together!)

"I'm looking at a radar identifier that flies the heraldry of the Winged Chariot of Fire."

(I take it back. That is interesting. A little.) "Winged Chariot of Fire is Helion's private yacht."

"She's docking with the Vulcan, his sun-diver bathysphere. Look. Fuel cells from the station are lining up to meet him. More cells are being sent out."

(What in the hell is Helion doing here?) "What in the world is Helion doing here?" (I betcha don't know either, do you, darling ... ?)

"I don't know."

(Knew it.) "It's only thirteen days till the Grand Transcendence. Why isn't he on Earth, with the Peers, preparing?"

"I don't know."

(You said that already, darling. Now then, what about kissing me good-bye ... ? And how do I bring the topic up without spooking him away... ?) Daphne stepped closer to Phaethon. "You know, darling, I thought things would get less confused, less dangerous, once I rescued you. But now everything is worse than ever... !"

He began to step toward her and began to raise his hands, as if, perhaps, to embrace and comfort her, when, at that same moment, Sigluvafnir stepped back into the room. "To the exile calling himself Phaethon, Vafnir will, under protest, and only for the purpose of clearing up certain legal matters, agree to see you now."

Phaethon turned to Daphne. "I fear this is good-bye. I may not get a chance to see you before I am sent to my ship. I mean ... the ship that once was mine. There is much in my heart I wish to say ..."

Sigluvafnir: "Hoy! We have no more time to waste! If you wish to see Vafnir, now is now, and later is too late!"

"We must make some arrangement as to what is to become of you. Put your canister into a microconsumption orbit and keep the beacon burning. I'll send an attendant ship from the Phoenix, if I can. I still hope Rhadamanthus or your Eve-ningstar can do something, though I am not sure what."

Daphne smiled. "I know where I'm going. I'll be line. Go off to your battle and kill your black monster without worrying about me. Because I just realized that I have, shall we say, certain legal matters of my own to clear up. There is something you need from Helion; and I think I know how to get it."

Phaethon's posture showed surprise. He knew Daphne had conceived a hate for Helion. Now she wanted to talk to him .... ? "He will not receive you."

"Oh, he'll see me, all right. I know how to take care of that!" She smiled. "The Grand Transcendence is still thirteen days away, isn't it? That means the Masquerade is still in force."

Sigluvafnir issued one last warning. There was no further time for words.

Phaethon put out his hand.

(Shake hands?!! If you try to shake hands with me, I'll rip your arm out of your socket and beat you to death with it.)

He said, "Good luck."

Daphne smiled. (You're lucky you're wearing invulnerable armor, you stinking sack of medical waste. Otherwise, you'd be suffering multiple contusions delivered by a bleeding ex-limb!) She demurely put her little hand into the palm of his gauntlet. "You are most kind to be concerned about me, sir. I am ever so very grateful for what attention you can spare me from your other concerns."

Phaethon pulled on her hand to draw her quickly and securely into his arms. Even through her suit, his hard embrace drove the breath from her, and she melted to him, pressing as closely as the suit-fabric allowed. "I'll come back for you," his voice burned in her ears.

Then he departed.

Daphne stood looking after him, love shining in her eyes, forgetful of all else.

There hung Phaethon, resplendent in his armor, hovering in weightlessness within the axial visitor's dodecahedron at the dead center of the Mercury Equilateral Station. Wide, white expanses of pentagonal hull surrounded him. One of the Pentagons was tuned to a window. In the window, like a golden blade against a velvet black background, loomed an image of the Phoenix Exultant.

His ship.

Out of deference to Silver-Grey aesthetic conventions, or, actually, out of mockery, one of the other pentagons was designated as "floor" and the one opposite it was "overhead." This "overhead" panel was blazing with direct light, rather than the indirect lighting all space tradition required. In fact, it was ablaze with the direct light of the Mercury-orbit Sun, so that Phaethon had to adjust his vision centers.

More mockery: Victorian furniture, chairs and settees on which no one in microgravity could sit, were bolted to the "floor" panel atop an expensive rug. Antimacassars, spinning slowly, sailed above the chairs. A tea service floated nearby, with a ball of scalding tea, held together mostly by its own surface tension but with moonlets of little teadrops all around it, surrounding the silver teapot. Tumbling china cups had drifted in each direction on the ventilation currents. Fortunately, the sugar bowl had held lumps, not powder.

The other bulkheads were established in a nonstandard aesthetic. Objects of unknown use, like strange half-melted candles, rotating glassworks, or webs of laser-light, shimmered in the bulkheads, extending arms or mists toward the center of the chamber.