John Wright - The Golden Age

"Logically, to avoid this, a sufficient uniformity of operative decision-making mores and values above a threshold level of participants must obtain; these decision values must include, at least, a priority placed on the preservation of the peaceful resolution of perceived and real conflicts. The term 'conformity' is not necessarily inappropriate to depict this uniform decision structure."

Kes Sennec was of the Invariant neuroform, a highly integrated unicameral nervous system. His brain had accessible subroutines, habits, and reflexes, but no subconsciousness properly so called. The Invariant neuroform was the second least popular among the Golden Oecumene, since all people with such uniform brains tended to think and act with startling uniformity. The Invariants had no emotional difficulties or internal conflicts.

(Kes Sennec's view of the room was entirely stark and real,

with no filter, no editing. He saw Helion's body as a human-oid mannequin; he saw the tiny dull-colored plugs and antennae along Gannis's neck that connected with the Gannis Over-mind; he saw the electronic activity surrounding all Wheel-of-Life's pets and pseudo-plants. He could see the wires and nodes swirling among Vafnir's column of flame, and the mechanism producing the field effects where Vafnir's consciousness was actually stored. To Kes Sennec, Orpheus was merely a remote on treads, skeletal, equipped with waldo-hands, lenses, and speakers. It all was unappealing, plain, colorless.

(Also, the outside noise, distant music, yells, and odors coming in through the window, were part of Kes Sennec's all-embracing attention. Once again, Helion could not tolerate the other's scene. Helion's brain structure required him to rate sense impressions by priority, and to ignore sensations of low importance. Kes Sennec's Invariant brain saw everything, paid attention to everything, judged everything with inhuman, unemotional precision.)

Kes Sennec concluded: "Those who act to prevent war and violence from occurring cannot properly be called 'selfish' and 'ignoble' even if they act in a way which benefits their self-interest."

Ao Aoen said, "As always, Peer Kes Sennec's comments daze me with their precision, and I cannot follow them. Unselfish? Why have none of us said aloud what secretly motivated Peer Helion's proposal? Is it a dream we seek to kill, perhaps the greatest of dreams ever? What is this dream? Can any tell me? Do any outside this chamber yet recall?"

No one answered him. There was silence.

Phaethon rode the night wind.

For several minutes, he hung, going whichever way the wind pushed him. Then he floated on his back, looking up at the stars. He activated an internal regulator to slow his time

sense, till he could see the movements of the stars as visible, grandly turning in their paths across the sky. Slower still, and the North Star was ringed with concentric haloes as the hours, compressed into a moment or two, hung before him. In a moment, most of the night had passed.

"What if I've done something which actually is horrible, unthinkable, or even endangered the Golden Oecumene? Do I really want to know? Curiosity nags me; it whips me on. And yet I did this to myself: the ignorance is self-imposed. Perhaps the alternative is worse.

"Is ignorance so hard to bear, then? There is so very much in life we do not know...."

Staring up at the night sky, Phaethon opened his hearing to include ground-based and satellite radio. Information from a thousand sources, a hundred thousand, flowed into his brain. There were countless signals and communications radiating from Earth, from the satellite city-ring, the houses of the moon, and green Venus in her new cooler orbit, already shining with the radio noise of civilization. The collected asteroids of the remade planet Demeter had fewer cities, but brighter, as the scientific communities and experimental modes of life there used more energy than sober, older Terra. The Jovian moons, a solar system in miniature, were a beacon of immeasurable energy, life, motion, and noise; some people considered it the real center of the Golden Oecumene. At the Leading and Trailing Trojan points, the million space-metropoli of the Invariants pulsed with calm and steady rhythms. At the edge of night, the Neptunian energy-webs and communication systems extended out to the Oort and Kuiper belts. There were a few distant flickers from remote stations beyond that; one beacon from the Porphyrogen observatory at 500 AUs, like a last spark in the dark.

And then, nothing. The roar of the stars, the whisper of background radiations, was meaningless, like the noise of a storm at sea. Nowhere were there intelligent patterns. There were no other colonies, no outposts. The Silent Oecumene, perhaps, might still exist near Cygnus XI; but, if so, it was a civilization without light or energy or any transmission.

Nothing was in the night. There was only empty noise and empty abyss.

Phaethon restored his time sense and the stars froze in place.

"No," he said. "I will not be false."

He recalled that the Neptunian had called the Golden Oec-umene a world of illusions. Maybe it was. "But I will not be deceived. I swear it. If there is anything out there in the stars to hear me: you have heard. I have made my vow."

The stars were pale, and a red rim of light touched the East. He had floated higher than he thought, and, at this altitude, it was nearly daybreak. Now he turned to right himself, and, like a diver plunging into a deep blue, down he fell toward the land below. The winds rushed in his ears like the loud, wild noise of many voices.

In the Palace:

"If this dream is one we can kill, we should kill it, O my Peers," said, or sang, Ao Aoen, and several voices and images of light flowed from his figure. "Our own self-preservation, and the protection of our beloved Golden Oecumene from the horror of war—a horror only we are old enough to recall— both urge us to the tourney against this archangel of fire whom we so fear that we dare not say his name. Our cause is just; but is our strength equal to the task?

"Convince me, O Peers, that the Hortators will aid rather than oppose our efforts to smother the fire of the soul of man—and my fickle convictions may change again. My empire of dreams can reach into the thoughts and smiles of millions; convince me it can be done, O Helion, that you can wrestle with this spiritual fire as you once tamed the fires of the sun. With—oh, of course!—a happier outcome than that event brought forth!"

Phaethon put in a call to his mansion. "Rhadamanthus! Rhad-amanthus! I know the Silver-Gray protocols don't let you manifest in a way that jars the scenery; but this is an emergency. Something odd happened to me this night; I need your help to find the answers."

His sensorium signaled to admit a new object. A moment later, out of the high clouds behind him, surrounded with a roaring engine noise, a small black shape darted on wings. It did a snap-roll and came closer, till it paralleled Phaethon's plunging descent.

It was a penguin wearing bow tie, aviator goggles, and a long white scarf. The penguin's stubby wings were spread, its bullet head thrown back, its little beak cutting the air. A contrail of vapor issued from its little webbed feet.

"Oh, come now, Rhadamanthus! This blends?!"

The penguin cocked it head. "It is a bird, young master."

"Realistic images or none at all! That's the motto of our manor. Penguins do not fly!"

"Hmm. I hate to say it, young master, but neither do young men."

"But—a contrail—?"

"Ah, sir, you may check my math if you like, but a penguin-shaped object traveling at this speed through this atmosphere—"

Phaethon interrupted. "Be realistic!"

"If the young master would care to look behind himself, I think he will see he has a condensation trail not unlike my own—"