John Wright - The Golden Age

" 'Deeds of renown without peer ...' " murmured Phaethon thoughtfully.

"Exactly!"

It was a glorious vision, to see himself as a revolutionary, reshaping all of society to a higher and better purpose. But he did not believe it. "Is that supposed to explain why my private thoughtspace is equipped with nothing but engineering, ballistics, and terraforming routines? Is that why my eyesight is equipped with dozens of search-and-analysis routines, of the type only used by space scientists? Is that why I bought trillions of metric tons of biological nanomachinery from the Wheel-of-Life Biotechnology Effort?"

"Not at all. Because of your difficulties on Earth, the Nep-

tunian Composition offered to help you build your own artificial planetoid. The overall plan was to sweep up the rings of Saturn to form new moons, and ignite the atmosphere in the same fashion Jupiter has been, for energy. Your new So-photech, Nothing, would rule its own miniature planetary system."

Phaethon smiled. He had worked on a Saturn-ignition project at one point in his career. The success of Gannis's Jupiter made the next Gas Giant out a logical candidate for similar improvement. But Phaethon knew the facts about Saturn.

"The public would never permit Saturn to burn. They are too much in love with those useless rings, and they are willing to spend profound amounts of time to preserve them."

"Nothing Sophotech sought a way to outbid the preservationists."

"But Saturn has insufficient mass for self-sustained ignition—"

"The ignition would be sustained, at first, by forced bombardments of massive amounts of antimatter! And, thereafter, an array deep in the sun, with Helion's help, would focus some percentage of the solar output to a tight maser beam, which, sent across the system to Saturn, would maintain the temperatures necessary for ongoing nucleogenesis!"

"But the distances involved would produce such an amount of energy-loss ..."

"Technical details! You thought it could be done! The Nep-tunians were trying to help you! You see the advantage to the Neptunian Tritonic Composition, do you not? Neptune, and the clouds of ice beyond, is where the freaks and dissidents and those who yearn for freedom from Sophotech intrusions go. For privacy, for liberty. But, so far from the sun, there is no cheap way to manufacture antimatter in large amounts. The Neptunians make a virtue of necessity, and live in a low-energy environment without human bodies, and without complex communication webs. There is no Noumenal Mentality to save far voyagers from death. Their lives are filled with death and glorious pain; yet they are truly and actually alive. But if Saturn were to become a third sun, the home of a

Sophotech unafraid to explore new concepts of morality, and produce antimatter like the Mercurial Stations do now, the cost of shipping energy to Neptunian colonies would be cut in half."

Phaethon opened his mouth to voice another objection, but closed it again.

Because the story did make a sort of sense. If the core of Saturn could be artificially pressurized (for example, with an application of the same technology Helion was using to churn the sun's core) then the conditions could be maintained for hydrogen fusion. But any part of the pressure-cage that could not be created or maintained by remotes would require a man in armor—armor such as his—to descend into the core to oversee the work.

And it did explain his massive purchases of antimatter from Vafnir.

The desire to people the Saturnine moons, once they were heated, with friendly environments also explained his purchase of so many tons of biological material.

And the dream was worthy of him. To be the master of one's own miniature solar system! He could design the moons and moonlets howsoever he chose.

It had always bothered him to see waste; to see Gas Giant atmospheres not mined for their wealth in hydrogen; to see energy from stars spill into the void, without a Dyson Sphere to catch and use it; to see iron and copper and silicates scattered in a hundred million pebbles and asteroids, instead of in a smelter or nanoassembly vat. Because Phaethon could always see the human lives that were poorer than they ought to be, poor, because they did not have the, energy, resources, or time to accomplish what they desired.

"Let us pretend, for the sake of argument, that I believe you," said Phaethon. "What is it you want from me?"

"I represent Xenophon. You recall him, surely? You would not be wearing that armor unless you had recalled something of your past."

"What's his full name?"

"Xenophon Unnumbered Faraway Amoeboid, Tritonic

Composition, Radial Conflict-Structure Mind-Sharing and Consumption, Nonconsistent Amalgam Neuroforms, Patient-Unrepentant Chaos School (Era Undetermined)."

Faraway Station was one of the places to which records showed Phaethon had made several trips over the last few decades. And he did recognize the name, from the news re-enactments, if not from anywhere else. Xenophon was one of the three aspects of the tangled Neptunian group-mind that ran the station; the others were Xerxes and Xanthocholy. The three of them (when they manifested as three) were famous for their efforts to establish colonies at ever more distant positions in the cometary halo beyond Neptune, private deep-space stations where the jurisdiction of the Parliament could

never reach.

It was not unreasonable that Xenophon and his two brother-aspects would help Phaethon in any effort that might produce a revolution in society. Everything so far still fitted the facts Phaethon knew.

The faceless mannequin said, "Xenophon is your partner; a comrade to you whose friendship has been confirmed by the strongest oaths and signs of brother love. But you have forgotten him. He has not forgotten you. Since last night, he has contacted Wheel-of-Life, who, besides Gannis of Jupiter, was your major creditor. From Wheel-of-Life Xenophon has purchased your debt. Do you comprehend what this means? The equipment you had stored at Mercury Equilateral will pass into our possession to pay your debts. We can return it to you. The project can continue. Your life can continue."

Your life can continue. The phrase rang in Phaethon's ear. He straightened up, astonished, suddenly, to realize that all this time he had been at this Millennial Celebration, this Masquerade, impatient, and slightly bored. Now he knew why he had been bored. Scaramouche had put a name to it. Phaethon had been waiting for the Celebration to be over so that his life could continue.

He wanted this mystery out of the way so that his life could

continue.

"What do I need to do?" asked Phaethon.

"Come! Unbury your real body from wherever it may rest—we found no trace of it among the Rhadamanthine mausoleums—bring your splendid armor and come hence! My body, as I have said, is near; already I have oozed from the sunless pit to which the hunt confined me, and even now I lumber on thick legs to reach this place. A coded pulse will summon my master's camouflaged vessel. You and I shall escape the oppressive heat and gravity of your swollen in-system sun, and travel to the ice belt beyond Neptune, where Sol is diminished to no more than a brighter star."

Phaethon was wary again. "I will undertake no such long journey without clearer proof that your master and I were the partners and comrades you claim."

"Remove the locks on your brain space; I will transmit your lost self to you. Your thoughts will be restructured, and the satisfaction of your doubts will seem, at that moment, clear. We have a copy of your memory. Your life is in our hands; we are trying to return it to you. All you need do is open your mind, open your eyes, and prepare to receive it."

Scaramouche wanted him to turn on his sense-filter. Suspicion tickled him again. He remembered how persistently the Neptunian Legate from last night had tried to persuade Phaethon to open the circuits leading into his private brain-space.