John Wright - The Golden Age

THE STORM-SCULPTOR

For a few moments, the Peers debated with calm intent solar evolution and decay, and other events to happen many millions or billions of years in the future.

Helion (who was a devoted antiquarian) knew how his distant ancestors would have been nonplussed to hear sane folk speaking of such remote eventualities; just as ancestors more distant yet, the primitive hunter-gatherers of the Era of the First Mental Structure, who lived from hunt to hunt and hand to mouth, would have been equally perplexed to hear the farmers destined to replace them speaking so casually of harvests and seasons months and years away.

"Why do we need a sun?" Vafnir said. "This is premised on the assumption that we will not find a satisfactory substitute source of energy after the sun is extinguished: a premise I, for one, do not accept without question."

Ao Aoen said airily, "The Silent Oecumene sought a novel source of energy. They had no sun either. You recall, before their Silence fell, what horrors we heard from them."

Vafnir said coldly: "Horrors they brought on themselves. The wisdom of the machine-intelligences could have saved them; they preferred to hate and fear all Sophotechs."

"The vaunted Sophotechs were not wise enough to save the only extrasolar colony of man!"

Helion said patiently: "Peer Ao Aoen recalls, surely, that the Cygnus XI system is a thousand light-years distant; hence the death message was a thousand years outdated by the time we received it."

Ao Aoen said: "For us immortals, the space of time equal to one celebration of our Transcendence. A trifle! Why was no manned expedition ever sent to the dark swan system?"

Gannis, breaking in, said, "Aha! What futility that would be! To spend unimaginable wealth to go pick among ruins and graveyards, cold beneath a black neutron-sun. Gah! The idea has merit only for its ironic pathos!"

Ao Aoen had an odd look to his eyes. "The idea has haunted several dreams of mine these past years, and a quarter-mind brother of mine saw an ominous shape once in the frozen clouds of methane in the liquid atmosphere of Neptune. The horoscopes of several of my cultmates tremble with unintelligible signs! All this points to one conclusion: it has now been shown, beyond doubt, that if a ship of sufficient mass and sufficiently well-armored to achieve near light-speed can be—"

Peer Orpheus raised a thin hand. "Enough! This is irrelevant to our discourse."

Ao Aoen made a wild gesture with his many arms and fingers, and sank back in his chair, sulking.

Orpheus said softly: "We must resign ourselves to fact. Helion is correct about this, and about many matters. Of the visions of the future that the Transcendence will contemplate, one of more conformity, less experimentation, serves both our selfish interests, and, at the same time, supports the public spirit of the College of Hortators. Practical and altruistic minds both have equal cause to fear what leads to war. The College of Hortators and the Conclave of Peers must ally. Helion's insight will form the basis of the next great social movement of the next Millennium. It is the vision the Peers will support."

Helion had to use a mind trick to keep his joy in check. He was astonished; this was a signal honor far beyond anything Rhadamanthus had predicted, far beyond what he'd

dreamed. If his vision of the future was adopted by the Transcendence, then he himself, Helion, would be the central figure whose philosophy would shape society for the next thousand years. His name would be on every tongue, every marriage list, every guest-password file of every party and convocation....

It was dazzling. Helion decided not to record the joy he felt now, for fear that future replays of this wild emotion would dull it.

There would be more talk, of course, and more debate, and each of the Peers would consult with their advisors, or issuing authorities, or (in the case of Ao Aoen) spirit guides. There would be more talk.

But Orpheus had spoken, and the matter was fairly well decided.

Soaring, with clouds above and clouds below, Phaethon let the joy of flight erase his worries for the moment.

He and Rhadamanthus penguin played in mock dogfights, doing snap rolls, barrel rolls, loops.

Phaethon was closing in on the penguin when the fat bird did an Immelmann, toppling over on one wing, and righting itself to flash toward Phaethon, and on past, shouting "Rata-tatatat! Gotcha!"

Phaethon didn't know what the word Ratatatat meant, but it seemed to imply some sort of victory or counting-coup. Phaethon slowed and stood in the air, hands on hips.

"My dear Rhadamanthus, you're surely cheating!" The bird, of course, only existed as an image in Phaethon's sen-sorum.

"By my honor, sir, I'm only doing what a bird this size could do. You can check my math if you wish."

"Aha? And what are you postulating for your acceleration tolerance in those turns?"

"Well, sir, penguins are sturdy birds! When is the last time

you have ever heard of a Sphenisciforme blacking out, eh?"

"Point well taken!" Phaethon spread his arms and fell backward onto a nearby cloud. Mist spilled upward around him as he sank, smiling.

"My wife would love this, wouldn't she? Glorious things attract her—wide vistas, grand emotions, scenes of wonder!"

The cloud got darker around him. On another level of vision, he detected electropotentials building in the area.

"... It's just too bad that we live at a time when everything glorious has already been done for us. The only really impressive things she can ever find are in her dream universes."

"You disapprove?"

"Well... I hate to say it, but... I mean, why can't she write those things? She got an award for one oneiroverse she made up once, a Ptolemaic universe thing, some sort of magic planet. I think there were flying balloons in it, or something." He pursed his lips. "But instead of writing them, she just drifts in and out of other peoples' ideas."

"Sir—excuse me, but I think we're floating into someone's claimed space—"

"Someday I'll do something to awe the world, Rhadaman-thus. Once she sees how impressive the real world can be, she won't be so—"

Through the darkening cloud, a figure in a golden boat, dressed as falcon-headed god character from pre-Ignition Jovian storm-poetry, swam up through the cloud, and made an impatient gesture with his long black pole. He wore ornate robes of white and gold and blue, with a complex helmet-crown. "Sir! I say, Demontdelune!"

"I'm not Demontdelune; this is Hamlet."

"Ah. As you wish. In any case, please move aside; I'm trying to sculpt a thunderstorm here, and your fields are interfering with my nanomachines."

Phaethon looked around him, switching his perception to a finer level, and shutting off his sense-filter. The illusionary penguin vanished, but now Phaethon could see extraordinarily small machines attached to each and every water droplet, generating repulsive and attractive fields, herding them. There

were more nanomachines per cubic inch in this area than he had ever seen before.

Phaethon was severely impressed. This man could control the shape and density of the cloud down to the finest level. By arranging the flows of cloud drops, he could create static, or trigger condensation. "But—this is an extraordinary effort!"

"Quite so—especially since I cannot control the wind. I have to play the cloud like a harp whose billion strings all change in length and pitch from moment to moment. My So-photech can speed my perception of time to a point I need to render the performance—I should begin a minute or so from now, as soon as the winds are right—but, to me, at that time-speed, my performance will seem to last a hundred years."

"Fantastic! What is your name, sir, and why do you make such sacrifices to your art?"