John Wright - The Golden Age

The memory chamber was in deep dreamspace. It was as real, and as unreal, as everything else in Rhadamanthus Mansion.

To be sure, somewhere, in reality, there must have been a real housing for the mansion's self-aware sophotechnology; a power supply, cables, neural conduits, computer laminae, in-formata, decision-action boxes, thought nodes, and so on. Somewhere was the real, physical interface machinery that fed carefully controlled patterns of electrons into circuitry actually woven into Phaethon's real auditory and visual nerves, his hypothalamus, thalamus, and cortex.

And somewhere, presumably, in the real world, was his real body.

His real self. But what was his real self?

Phaethon spoke aloud: "Rhadamanthus, tell me."

"Sir?"

"Was I a better man ... back before?"

The Polonius-shape here was replaced by a Victorian-era butler in a stiff-collared black coat showing a double row of well-polished silver buttons. The butler was red-faced,

slightly portly. His chin was clean-shaven, but the handlebar mustache led to enormous muttonchop sideburns, whiskers reaching right and left halfway to his shoulders.

The butler image stood in the doorframe, a white-painted narrow stair curving away behind him, but he did not, or could not, enter the room.

Rhadamanthus spoke in a kindly voice, roughened by a slight Irish brogue. "In many ways, aye, that you were, young master."

"And was I happier... then? ..."

"Indeed you were not."

"Unhappiness in the golden age? In this pure, unsullied Arcadia? How can this be?"

"You did not think our age so perfect then, young master; and it was something else, not happiness, you sought."

"What did I seek?" (But he knew. The words on the casket said it. Deeds of renown without peer.)

"You know I cannot say. You yourself gave the order which silences me." The butler bowed slightly, smiling without mirth, eyes grave. "But the answer lies within the casket you hold."

Phaethon looked at the words on the lid. He tried to make himself feel doubt. Deeds of renown without peer. In this golden age, there was nothing men could do that machines could not do better. So why did this phrase send a chill of pleasure down his spine?

He looked left and right. On shelves and in glass cabinets surrounding him were other memories. But the other memory boxes, caskets, and chests in the Archive Chamber surrounding him all were clearly labeled, marked, and dated. They bore no cryptic riddles.

And they carried seals or affidavits from the Rhadamanthus Law-mind to affirm that the redacted memories had been taken from him with his own informed consent, not to escape some legal debt or obligation, nor for some other unworthy purpose. Most of the boxes bore the green seal of memories saved from his thirty centuries of life, edited out from his organic brain merely to save space and prevent senility over-

load. Others bore the blue seal of a minor oath or voluntary obligation, either thought-work whose copyrights he had sold to another, or else some argument or lover's spat that he and his wife had both agreed to forget.

None of them dangerous. None of them ominous.

"Rhadamanthus, why does this box not say what is in it?"

He heard footsteps, light and quick, tapping up the stairs behind Rhadamanthus.

He turned just as a dark-haired woman with vivid features stepped past Rhadamanthus and into the room. She was wearing a long black coat with a ruffle of lace at her throat, and in one hand she carried her mask like a lorgnette.

She had eyes of luminous, dancing green, which blazed, perhaps with mirth, perhaps with fear or ire, as she called:

"Phaethon! Drop the box! You don't know where it's been!"

Phaethon removed the key, so that the red letters faded, but he kept the box in his hand. "Hello, dear. Who are you supposed to be?"

"Ao Enwir the Delusionist. See?" Throwing back her head, she held open a flap of her coat to display her pinch-waisted vest, spiderwebbed with Warlock signs and studded with re-sponders. The masculine cut of the garment had been rounded somewhat to accommodate her. Only her shoes were feminine; a projection or spike from the heel forced her to walk tiptoed.

"Enwir was a man."

Her head nodded forward with a sway of hair. "Only when he wrote his Discourses. He arranged the March of Ten Figments as a woman. Are you supposed to be Demontdelune?"

"Shakespeare's Hamlet."

"Oh."

A silence hung in the air for a moment.

Unlike other women he knew, his wife did not change body shapes or styles when fashions changed. She had kept the same face for centuries: fine-boned, small of chin, wide of brow. Her skin was a lustrous golden brown; her hair was black and shining as jet, and fell just past her shoulders.

But her personality was displayed in the glitter and motion in her wide and flashing eyes, mischievous or dreamy by turns. Her lips were a trifle wide, and her mouth quirked from moment to moment impish grins, solemn dryad pouts, or sensual nymphic smiles, one after another in restless succession.

Now her face was still and calm, except for the skeptical twitch that raised one eyebrow.

Then she shrugged and waved her mask at Phaethon's casket. "And just what in the world did you imagine you were thinking you were doing?"

"I was curious...."

"Let's just call you Mr. Pandora from now on!" She sniffed and tossed her hair and rolled her eyes to heaven. "Didn't fat Rhadamanthus here warn you that you'll get tossed out like wet garbage if you open those old memories?"

Rhadamanthus in the doorway muttered, "Mm. I don't think I used quite that wording, mistress...."

Phaethon hefted the casket thoughtfully, pursed his lips.

His wife took a step forward, saying, "I don't like that look on your face, lover. You're thinking rash, rash thoughts!"

Phaethon's eyes narrowed. "I'm just wondering why, when I beat the bush to flush out whoever was behind my amnesia, I got you...."

She put her little fists on her hips and stared up at him, her mouth a red O of outrage. "Suspicious of me, are you now?! Well, I like that! You're the one who wanted me to keep you away from the casket! Just see if I do you any favors anymore!" And, arms folded across her breast, she tossed her head angrily, making an exasperated noise in her nose: "Hmph!"

"What I want to know," said Phaethon, a little impatiently, "Is how long you were going to let me live my life without telling me my life is false? How long were you going to lead me around blindfolded?"

She stamped her foot. "False?! And you think I'd just live with a copy of my own husband? If you love someone, real love, you can't love their copy." But she could not hide a

strange look of guilt and uncertainty that crossed her features at that moment.

Phaethon's voice was grim and remote: "Is my love real? Or was that a false memory too?"

"You're the same as you were before; nothing important is in that damn box!" She turned to face Rhadamanthus. "Tell him!"

Rhadamanthus said, "No false memories were added. Your personality has undergone no major change; your basic values and attitudes are the same; the memories which that casket-icon represents are surface-structure memories only."

Phaethon shook the box toward her. "That's not the point!"

"Well, what is the point?" she asked challengingly.

"What's in this box? You know and I don't. You were never going to tell me?"

"You know! Exile and dispossession are in that box! Isn't that enough for you? Isn't anything ever enough? You open that box and you lose me. Isn't that enough?"

"Lose? ... You wouldn't come with me? Into exile?"

"N—uh. Are you asking me? Do you want me to come? No! That's a stupid idea! What would we live on?"

"Well—" Phaethon blinked. "I was assuming they would let me take my own property, or that I could sell or convert some of my holdings, to ..."