John Wright - The Golden Age

floor or ceiling. The colorful lining was a made of folds or smooth lumps of tissue, feather soft, without any rigid shapes or hard edges. The polymimetic material was meant to conform to many nonstandard or eccentric body shapes. A shallow crater a dozen paces across occupied the floor of the pool, filled with living-water. Phaethon thought it looked like a stomach.

"What is this place?" asked Phaethon recoiling in disgust.

"This place does not abide by the Consensus Aesthetic."

"I can see that!"

"... It is from one of the Counter-aesthetic Schools, the Neomorphetics, who are part of the Never-First Movement. They are the most vocal opponents of the traditional social and artistic forms...."

"I know who they are," replied Phaethon testily, "I haven't forgotten everything." The Never-Firsters were recruited from the second generation after the invention of immortality. They opposed whatever the elder generation preferred. The whole movement seemed to be based on the idea that, for some incomprehensible reason, wealth and power should go from the elders (who earned it) and be given to the youth (who had not). Perhaps laws and institutions had been different before the invention of immortality; but such concerns seemed, these days, somewhat moot.

Phaethon said: "Helion calls them the Cacophiles, the lovers of ugliness. I used to argue that there was something hopeful, futuristic, and daring about their work. But, ugh! Maybe Helion was right. That pool has a dubious hue—does that water contain hallucinogens?"

"A soporific to ease the acceleration shock, master, and entertainment chemicals to pass the time during the journey."

"Oh? How long is this journey?"

"From here to Geosychronous Orbit? Three hundred seconds."

"I think I can tolerate the tedium of my own company for five minutes without undue boredom or despair, thank you. In fact, I think I can do without the Cacophiles and their elevator altogether."

For he had discovered a thoughtspace inside the armor. As if a dozen Argus-eyes had opened into his brain, the sense-impressions of the armor flowed into his cortex; the capacities and powers into his memory; the controls into his motor nerves. The armor had a truly astonishing number of control interfaces, servo-minds, and operator hierarchies. All these controls did not seem to be attached to any circuits or channels, however. Whatever machine or system this armor was meant to control must have been one of almost infinite complexity and sophistication.

Phaethon, with the armor, was able to use these control-interfaces to dominate the local thoughtspace. It required less than a second to see and analyze the energy flows within the tube walls, create the proper anchor fields and generators within the armor lining, erect a magnetic force zone around himself, and ride the energy motions along the tube axis upward at several multiples of the speed of sound. Some emergency routine in the window allowed the panels to bubble and snap aside, shutting behind him as he soared upward before any air escaped into the vacuum inside the tube. The black lining of the armor had interpenetrated his every tissue, nerve, and bone, stiffening his body to the consistency of a block of oak. He was easily able to tolerate the nine gravities of acceleration; the armor's internal monitor assured him that, had there been time to complete the tension adjustments within his cells and membranes, he would have been able to withstand ninety.

"Rhadamanthus, I'm not endangering anyone, am I?" "I would have warned you, young master, had you been." Phaethon flew on a waft of unseen force to the top of the space elevator. Here was a wide, weightless, roughly spherical space, a mile across. The walls were dotted with docks and portcullises leading to interplanetary ships or to the cylinders and habitats of the ring-city. Phaethon turned his sense-filter to subtext, so that the scene was overlaid with maps and diagrams showing his location and labeling the machineries and energy-arrangements around him.

Phaethon saw evidence of movement inside many of the

machines and conduits leading through the space. He looked into the Middle Dreaming to see the meanings attached to these activities, and understood that the Sophotechs maintaining the environmental integrity of the ring-city were taking precautions against any accidents Phaethon's flying suit might cause. Insurance efforts were tracking the cost of the precautions, which would be charged against his account should any accident occur. A side thought indicated that, since Phaethon's account was bankrupt, the potential lien should be charged to Helion, along with the other pertinent details of the present situation.

Phaethon turned toward Rhadamanthus, who (now that Phaethon's sense-filter was turned back on) manifested an image. Rhadamanthus looked like a penguin dressed in black-and-gold adamantium armor. His helmet was of generally the same Egyptian-looking style as Phaethon's, but with an elongated face mask to cover his beak.

"Rhadamanthus! What is this?!"

The penguin craned his neck and thoughtfully examined his own chubby gold-coated body, even lifting his stubby wings to gravely examine his armpits. "Is something out of order, sir? Silver-Gray protocol does require that I try to blend into the scene, after all."

"And this blends? A penguin in space armor?"

"Well, sir, a penguin could not be levitating here next to you without such armor. Not realistically."

"You don't seem to be taking my troubles very seriously."

"A sense of humor is most useful when dealing with human beings, sir."

"And, apparently, when dealing with Sophotechs, too. You and your brethren are informing Helion of my movements and actions. Is this also a joke?"

"He only has rights to know of those things which concern him, such as, for example, when you are spending his money."

"Even though my amnesia blotted out the fact that it is his money, and not mine, that I'm spending, I suppose?"

"It does not perhaps seem fair, sir, but you did agree to these terms."

"And, apparently, I've agreed to forget that I've agreed. Everyone says this is a golden age. Shouldn't it be run a little more fairly?"

"What does the young master suggest?"

Phaethon swung his leg to counterrotate his body till his head pointed toward with the main motion lock. The internal structure of his armor changed, developing a microscopic system of rail-guns along his back and legs. Particles with very low rest-mass, ejected backward at near the speed of light, grew in mass enough to accelerate him forward. Ray-thin parallel streamers of light hissed backward from his armor, ruby

red.

Beyond was the first segment of the ring-city. Unlike the space yard he had just left, this segment was spun for gravity. Phaethon sped along the axis. This cylinder held traditional forms; overhead and underfoot, the distant curving walls were green with forests, blue with lakes.

"Perhaps I should not be bound by obligations I've forgotten."

"But, sir, that would create an incentive for everyone to escape their obligations simply by erasing their memory of them. If you had wanted such an easy-escape clause written into the contract which presently binds you, presumably, you would have written it in."

"And presumably they—whoever they are—would not have agreed."

"That is a safe assumption."

The next three cylinders were neomorphic, filled with strange shapes and convolutions. The next cylinder was walled with oceans of pewter blue, with earthlight shining up through submerged windows. The cylinder beyond the next motion lock turned at a slower rate of spin, and the walls were sculpted with the rust red canyons and dry-ice snows of Mars.

Phaethon asked, "Why couldn't I be prevented from making such a foolish agreement in the first place?"