John Wright - The Golden Age

Then he said, "Can you manipulate the stock market in the fashion the Eleemosynary described, to force Eveningstar to bankrupt Daphne's account and expel her from her dreamworld?"

"I could not presently do such a thing for you. You do not have the resources."

"What if I win the law case and I turn all of Helion' s wealth over to that task?"

"There are several possible outcomes. The most likely is that you will trigger a general stock market collapse, ruining your own fortune in the process, to ruin Eveningstar and release Daphne. At that point, I predict that she will wake briefly, ignore your entreaties, and return into a less expensive dream delusion. But naturally, my ability to predict human action is based largely on speculation."

Phaethon tapped his armored fist, very lightly, against the glassy surface of the coffin. It made a sharp clicking noise.

Daphne's face was only two inches away, and he could not reach it.

"Would that cause a general economic collapse?"

"It depends on what you define as collapse, young master. It will be a depression. In less than two hundred years, the economy should return to nearly its old level."

"But everything would be entirely legal?"

"The law would have no cause to complain, young master."

Phaethon stared down at the motionless figure of his wife. He opened his fist to touch the unyielding surface with his gloves' metal fingertips. A hard expression settled onto his face. "Then all I need do is be patient...."

"I should warn you, though, sir, that certain repercussions might result...."

Phaethon straightened. His tone was brusque. "That will be all, thank you, Rhadamanthus."

"Does the young master wish to hear what might happen if—"

"I believe I said that will be all."

The penguin bowed and waddled back toward the receiving chamber.

Phaethon, after one last lingering glance at his wife, turned to leave. He did not want to download directly back to the Eleemosynary public casket, nor did he care to return to the receiving chamber, where, from the clumsy noises of flippers on carpet, Phaethon could tell Rhadamanthus was still pretending it had a presence." (Pretending, because the clarity of his sense-filter showed him that Rhadamanthus was still online.)

But there was a large door leading outside at the other side of the hall; and an internal register showed that this manne-' quin had an extended range, and could easily leave the building, if Phaethon so wished.

Impatiently, he strode across the hall, metal boots ringing on the floor. He threw the doors wide.

It was a beautiful scene. The light was dim, like the light of sunset, but the shadows came from overhead. Phaethon had not noticed that the real sun had set long ago. The light now

came from the blazing point of Jupiter, rising to the zenith, a time called Jovian Noon. In the shade of many tall cypress trees rose marble obelisks made soft by dappled shadows. Bees and other servant-insects made by Eveningstar were droning in the scented air, and gathered honey, aphrodisiacs, and pleasure drags in a series of hives beyond a hedge to the left. To the right rose a slope. In the pasture several horses were grazing. Beyond the slope rose the handsome scarlet-and-white towers of a nearby Eveningstar Nympharium. Flying banners from other tower tops showed the emblems, of the Eveningstar's sister mansions of the Red School: the doves, roses, and hearts of Phosphorous House, Hesperides House, and Meridian Mansion. Beyond the towers, to the north, above tumbling white clouds, gleamed a faint silver rainbow of the ring-city. Near the ring, a scattering of lights from power satellites or Jovian ships glinted like gems in the twilight false-noon. It was a beautiful scene.

Bringing his eyes down, Phaethon recognized one of the horse breeds gamboling on the hillside in the distance. It was one of his wife's designs.

Phaethon closed his eyes in pain. "There was a time when I called this a paradise! It is fair to look at; but it is Hell."

There was a footfall behind him. A voice of sinister glee spoke softly: "You are not alone in your assessment, great Phaethon. The princes of dark Neptune will be so happy to hear how you finally agree!"

Phaethon turned. A man stood on the stair behind him, dressed in doublet and hose, shoulder puffed with comical flounces. He wore a white three-cornered hat. His nose and chin were extended six inches from his face, almost touching, and his cheekbones were outrageously pronounced. The round cheeks and the red nose were tipped with red. The eyes were two slits, filled with menacing black glitter. In one hand he held a rapier from which ribbons and white rose petals dripped.

Phaethon had seen this costume before. It was a brother to the Harlequin costume Phaethon had been wearing once: both

were characters from Second-Era French comic opera.

The figure bowed low enough to sweep his hat plumes across the stair. He spoke in a tone of manic cheer. "Scara-mouche, at your service!"

THE MASQUERADER

Welcome to reality unmasked," smiled the figure, his eyes dancing. His voice was a soft, slow lilt of song, as if he relished every word. "Welcome, good Phaethon, to Hell."

Phaethon took a step backward down the stair, to put an extra pace of distance between himself and this odd figure.

Scaramouche was speaking. "The projections of our So-photech indicated that you would come in person; I am sorry that we were mistaken. And watching Rhadamanthus's signal actions did not lead us to you—till now. Come! My real body is in a pit not far away. You have, I doubt not, many questions; we shall make answer."

Phaethon said, "Outside a grove of Saturn-trees, when I turned off my sense-filter, a Neptunian eremite, huge, cold, and monstrous, appeared in my view."

"It is good to see what others would hide!" said the grinning figure with an odd and almost boneless sideways nod of his head. "But time steals life while you dilly-dally and delay. Come! Away!"

Phaethon said, "The Neptunian, he spoke as you do now, claiming to be friend and comrade-in-arms forced out of my memory. He fled as Marshal Atkins approached, but he threw a fragment of himself back down to Earth as he exited the atmosphere. Am I to assume you are that fragment, now in this shape? You are from Neptune?"

"Your blindness is passing; your mind more ready to receive our truths. Come! Do you finally wish to know what it was you forgot at Lakshmi?"

"Of course; but I wish to know who and what you are. Atkins's machines said your technology could not possibly have been produced by any group within the Golden Oecu-mene. Do you claim to be from another star? But there are no colonies beyond the Oecumene; nothing but a few scattered robot probes. I assume that this is some masquerade trick, some jest at my expense by jealous nincompoops. Who are you?"

"I am as you see! Will you come?! Scaramouche holds wide the door to flee this false, gold-painted hell, but that door is swinging shut as you stand swinging your jaw!"

Phaethon turned off his sense-filter to look at his true environment. There was no significant change, except that the figure on the stairs above him now appeared as a mannequin of gray lightweight synthetics, faceless and sexless. Code markings on the chest showed that this was one of the mannequins that rested in the receiving chamber of the mausoleum. (Phaethon's own "body," of course, now looked just as gray.)

In that same moment, the figure lunged, its empty hand darted toward Phaethon's chest.

Phaethon said, "Sir... ? Are you trying to stab me with an imaginary sword?"

The figure straightened up, an uncertain hunch to its shoulders. Then, with a relaxed posture of aplomb, it pantomimed the act of saluting and sheathing a sword (even thought there was, to Phaethon's eyes, no sword and no scabbard.)