John Wright - The Golden Age

The faceless mannequin said, "Why do you hesitate?" It held up its right hand and wiggled its empty fingers. "You can see I do not have my sword-icon any longer. Besides, nothing can harm the manor-born; you are never where the danger is. Is that not the whole point of your school of life?"

"It is not that," Phaethon said, "You yourself have said I cannot deliberately do anything to recover my lost memories, or else the Hortator's exile will fall on me."

"True. However, adherence to the Hortator' s boycott is voluntary, or, at least, that is the pretense. Xenophon will not honor it, not in the far darkness of space. The Sophotechs are strong in the light of the Inner System; but the universe is wider and night is deeper than they know.

"But even should you not care to resume your memories, small matter! You and Xenophon can rediscover your friend-

ship from clean beginnings; the project of the Third Sun waits, and Nothing Sophotech is eager for its parent and creator! Look. My real body is approaching. You must gather your real body also. Where are you? Where is your armor?" Phaethon turned his head, amplified his vision. Sliding around the edge of the horse paddock in the distance, he saw the ice blue semiliquid substance of Neptunian space-armor, with knots and chords of neural webbing, biomachinery, and temporary sub-brains inside. The armor swelled as more mass poured around the corner. It clung flat to the ground, crawling on a thousand tiny legs; as if a pond of gelatin had been somehow stirred to impersonate life and motion.

Phaethon turned back. "I thought the Neptunian Legate designed you to look like a human being."

"The human body which my master ejected as he flew was no more than a distraction, filled with an expendable personality, false memories, and meant only to attract pursuit. I was grown from cells dropped into the grass, from a single spore overlooked by Atkins's probes. Our memories—there are a thousand of us, experts in all phases of deception and military nanoengineering—we were stored in submolecular codes." "You are only one day old?"

"Indeed; and I have devoted all of my life to finding you. Will you come with us? Your sire is dead; your wealth is gone; your wife is drowned. Come away. There is nothing for you here on Earth. Nothing."

Phaethon's favorite century in his life had been the time, long ago, when he and Daphne had visited the macrocomplex of the Bathyterrain Schola, beneath the Pacific Rim tectonic crustal plates. The Bathyterrains had been extremely pleased because certain tidal effects influencing the core convection currents had been altered to their favor by Phaethon's repositioning of the moon. They had declared a festival to honor him, and Daphne also. Her dream-documentary of the progress of heroism through history had achieved a zenith of popularity among them.

He and Daphne found the Bathyterrain city a wonder of engineering, beautifully fitted to the new sense perceptions

and body forms that life beneath the magma layer required. Reverse towers depended from the crowns of antimountains, and mosaic rune-shapes holding a million libraries and thought gardens, like cathedral domes, gemmed the sides of anticanyons, with substances and textures inexpressibly lovely in the echo-shadows and refractions of their new son-arlike perceptions. The Bathyterrains themselves were a warm and witty, hospitable and idealistic people; and they gave Phaethon and Daphne the password to the city.

Their new bodies had involved four new sexes and sixteen new modes of ecstasy, which Daphne found fascinating and which Phaethon enjoyed. New ecologies of domesticated animals, formulations, and viruses, were being designed along the same lines. Daphne's knowledge of equestrian biocon-struction provided a format that made it easy for the sciences related to these new somatic designs to be downloaded into her memory; and Phaethon's space engineering was applicable, in an odd way, to the environment of Earth's submantle.

He and his wife joined the effort. It was the only time she and he worked together on the same projects.

It was a new honeymoon for the two of them, made all the more delightful by the friendship and honor in which the Bathyterrains esteemed them. Eventually, their nostalgia for traditional human forms, and for the Consensus Aesthetic, made them bid farewell to the deep dwellers; but, for a time, Phaethon's life with his bride had been a time of pure excitement, useful work, and high delight.

Those days would never come again. Nothing for him here on Earth. Scaramouche's words struck home. Phaethon felt a sense of rising hope and rising despair. Hope, because maybe there was something for him out in the dark of the far solar system. A change to make a new sun burn in the gloom, a chance to turn ice and rock into habitats and palaces fit for mankind, monuments to human genius. And despair, because maybe there was nothing for him here.

"How can I trust you?" asked Phaethon.

"Open your forbidden memories; you will find my master there."

"I mean, how can I trust you without taking such a drastic

step?"

"As to that, I do not know. The cruel technology of your society makes it unwise to trust your eyes, your memory, your thoughts. You may not be who you think you are. Everything you know could be false. This could be a dream. Your only guide of action can be to follow your instincts and feelings; how else can you be true to your character?"

Phaethon nodded. Had not Earthmind Herself advised as much?

And after all, Phaethon did not know beyond doubt that Atkins was correct in his suppositions. Besides, the notion of an enemy external to the Golden Oecumene was impossible and absurd. There were no enemies; the concept was as much an anachronism as Atkins himself. There was nothing external to the Golden Oecumene, anywhere in space.

Scaracmouche said: "Besides, do you trust this society here on Earth more than you trust my master? They have hidden your memory and stolen your life; my master seeks to restore your life."

Phaethon said, "At least let me call out to confirm what you have told me so far. If what you have said is true, I will tend to believe the rest is true."

"Be careful in your contacts. Route the calls through a public annex, without alerting Rhadamanthus. I would prefer to avoid coming to the attention of your Sophotechs. Legally or illegally, they will find a way to stop your escape, once they

know."

"How can anyone be afraid of Rhadamanthus?" "Phaethon, please believe that your government, urged by your Sophotechs, has done many hurtful and dishonorable things, which were later purged from all your memories." "They would not do such a thing without our consent." "Oh? And who has told you so? The Sophotechs? But no matter. Make your call. Perhaps not all your lines are tapped." And it held up its right hand again, fingers spread, a peace

gesture. Phaethon glanced behind him. The Neptunian had flowed

over and through the fences of the paddock, and was approaching through the cypress groves. Yet it was still far away; and besides, Phaethon did not fear any physical attack—he was not physically present.

Phaethon closed his eyes, disconnected from Rhadamanthus, turned his sense-filter back on, summoned his private thoughtspace, and touched one of the icons circling him. The yellow disk icon opened a communication line to a local library channel. He was in the Middle Dreaming, so that, in a single instant, a search routine found information and inserted it into his memory. Faraway Explorational Effort had indeed bought a significant debt from the Wheel-of-Life Biotechnol-ogic Effort; debts owed by Phaethon Celestial Engineering.

Phaethon opened his eyes. He saw, not a mannequin, but Scaramouche, dressed in comic garments pale as death, face split in manic grin, eyes glittering. Disconnected from Rhadamanthus, Phaethon was back in the Red Manorial version of the scene, so that a black aura of malice and palpable evil radiated from the looming figure like a stench.