La Edad De Oro (97 page)

Ynought Subwon of New Centurion Mansion, Dark-Gray School, now stood to speak. “Take heart. You are not alone, Phaethon.”

He turned to the dais. Being a Dark-Gray, he spoke directly to the point: “Masters, I have a guest to speak on Phaethon’s behalf. If people think us unfair, the College loses power. Therefore we must listen.”

Tsychandri-Manyu Tawne of the Gold Mansions held up his little finger: “We waste time with this. Note my objection for the record.”

Nebuchednezzar nodded, “Without further objections, so ordered. Please introduce us, Mr. Ynought.”

“Here,” said Ynought.

The main doors behind Phaethon opened and closed. Uselessly, because the figure that floated forward passed through the door leaves like a phantom, spoiling the illusion. And it floated rather than walked.

The figure was black-and-white, man shaped, fuzzy at the edges, with small flickers trembling through it. And the depth-perception balance was off, so that the figure seemed at times to be large and close, at others, tiny and far off.

The shadowy costume of the black-and-white image was hard to see at first. Atop was a bronze-age helm, plumed with a horse’s tail. A long cloak, like a black mist, draped down, passing into and through the floorboards, obscuring most other details. Up from the right hand of the figure came two thin and insubstantial lines, swaying and blurred. It took a moment to realize that these were meant to be two ash spears in his right hand.

Several Hortators made faces of disgust, the same face lords and princes of some earlier age might have made to see a smelly, ill-clad beggar, unshod and unwashed, step into their golden feast hall. The thought on every face was obvious: even the poorest of the poor could get a decent icon to represent himself, from a charity or a mass-mind, if from nowhere else. Who was this indigent?

A voice, faint, hissing with static, issued from the helmet. Again, the perspective was bad: the voice seemed to come from every direction at once, without overtones, without acoustics. No face was visible under the helmet.

“Hortators and Masters of the College, may I speak? I apologize if my tongue is slow and halting. I am the ghost of Diomedes of Neriad, once called Xingis. Diomedes Prime, from far beyond Neptune, in me broadcasts his thoughts, and parts of his thoughts, and the signal crawls across hours and hours of distance to address you. He could not afford to send his whole mind; I am his partial. He does not know what I say now; hours must pass before any return signal reaches trans-Neptunian space; therefore I must guess, with dim, impoverished mind, at his instructions.

“And he has expended the utmost last of all his wealth to send me here. My thoughts will never again merge with his unless, by mercy, or some unexpected chance, a charity or money-lender grant me funds enough to drive my signal the uncounted millions of miles back to the Outer Rim. I have no storage here; it is likely I shall die and be erased once the meter measuring my funds runs down to zero. Will you hear me speak, good gentlemen?”

Asmodious Bohost of Clamour House called out: “We are all impressed with your pathos. Please continue!”

Tsychandri-Manyu Tawne spoke: “Asmodius, silence! Your japes diminish our esteem, and offend the dignity of this College. Partial of Diomedes, proceed, I pray. We heed your words with grave attention.”

“I will speak,” said Diomedes. “Among the Neptunians, Phaethon is a savior. If other stars had living worlds, it is we who could pioneer them. Immortality is a golden cage for you; who among you would dare to travel far beyond the Noumenal Mentality, beyond the sight and wisdom of the Sophotechs, beyond any hope for resurrection? Who except for Phaethon? Who else? We Neptunians. Listen.”

The figure raised a shadowy hand. “Fortunate children of a fortunate world, you are surrounded and involved with wealth and luxury and power from your first breath through all the days of your life. We who live in outer darkness have neither days, nor breath. Our resources are scant; our luxuries are few. And yet in return for this poverty, we have continuously what you know only during Masquerade, liberties unknown to you here. Our thoughts are our own; our privacy is absolute.

“An Eremite or Cold Duke who wishes for a private place or kingdom of his own need only find an asteroid or comet-head somewhere in the interstellar gloom, release his nano-machines, and sculpt the ice to whatever shape he fancies. From his own body he can make his subjects, his crystal gardens, his dream selves; from his own brain stuffs, he can make pseudo-intellects or subcompositions to govern all. Delirium and suicide and crude simulations without color are the entertainments of these lonely kingdoms; and his empire consists of no one other than himself, and whatever self-replications, reiterations, child partials, clones or autosexual harems, he has the templates and the energy to create.”

The shadowy and faceless helmet seemed to turn left and right with deliberate motion, as if Diomedes were examining the chamber. “Are you repelled? Disgusted? You are wealthy people. You can afford to have emotions. Some of us cannot afford the glands or midbrain complexes required. It would repel you to live in a house grown from your own body, surrounded by children cloned from your own brain information, perhaps; but we are nomads, and cannot afford to carry machineries and bodies as separate things. Whatever cannot be carried as a low-mass information template, be it family or friends or what-have-you, must be left behind. Nor do we have file space enough to keep all our individualities as separate. When the computer space has no more room, and the caravan is about to drift from an exhausted iceberg to new prospects, you too, I think, might find it would be better to become your friend and share his thoughts rather than to leave his mind behind to die.

“Yes, die! For death we have in plenty, which you fortunate Inner Worlds forget. Orpheus machines are few and far between, out there, and some stored cans of memory are lost in far icesteads or broken habitats, or hyperbolic orbits never to be seen again.”

Socrates from the front of the chamber, spoke: “Whoever lives far from the city, in the wilderness where no one goes, who has no laws and no civilization, he must be either a beast or a god.”

Diomedes, in a soft, broken, static-hissing voice, answered back: “Or a man, who is half of both. You Inner Worlds have forgotten pain and death, struggle and success, ambition and failure, work, heartbreak, and joy. You are no longer men. Technology has made you gods. Some of you are gods who play at men, perhaps, but gods.”

It was Helion who spoke then: “We have pain in our lives also. Too much pain.”

“With all due respect, sun god, compared to what we suffer, it is little.”

Phaethon had been standing and remembering what he knew of Diomedes while the partial had been speaking.

They had first met some 250 years ago, for Xingis (as he had been called then) held the copyrights on a paleomnemonic reconstruction of a pre-Composition named Exo-Alphonse Rame (whom modern Neptunian name conventions called Xylophone.)

Xylophone had done pioneer studies on the particle densities and conditions of space between the local stars, and had been one of the designers of the old dark-matter probes. This was meteorological information Phaethon needed for his expedition. At the near light speeds the Phoenix Exultant would reach, a cloud of tenuous interstellar gas would be as solid as a brick wall; and relativity would increase even the mass of weakly interacting particles, neutrinos and photinos, till they would be able to affect baryon-based matter. Xylophone’s theory predicted tides in the interstellar dark matter, based on the initial conditions during galactic condensation; and ripples in these tides would produce clear lanes, spaces emptier than normal space, where travel would be easier.

Diomedes had been more than willing to cooperate and share the information he had, and more. He had been enthralled by the idea of star colonization. All the best astronomical assemblies were in trans-Neptunian space; Phaethon’s wealth, funneled through Diomedes, had transformed the local economy. Company towns sprang up around the staging areas from which advanced probes, and test models of the Phoenix Exultant, were launched into interstellar space. Other industries gathered around the radio dishes, tens of miles in diameter, which floated in the weightless calm so far from the sun’s noise, listening to the return signals of those early probes.

The peculiar rules governing Neptunian psychology and psychogenesis encouraged the Tritonic Composition to create a generation of children or temporary-minds devoted likewise to Phaethon’s vision.

But now those industries would close; Phaethon’s wealth was exhausted. That zealous generation of children and temporaries would be reabsorbed into the parent mass. Or, if their habitats were too far for available fuel to reach, they would be left stranded. Many would go into slow-time hibernation, so-called “ship sleep.” But some would not wake again.

Phaethon woke from his memories when a channel prioritizer from the Eleemosynary Composition stood to speak: “Our compassion is stirred by your woe, good Diomedes. Return to the Inner System; come back into the light. Your brains may join with ours. Our ways can tolerate even the most nonstandard neuroforms. Food and shelter and fellowship are ours to offer, and yours to have.”

Asmodius Bohost spoke aloud: “By God’s dangling phallus! Fellowship!? Shelter?! I’ll do better than that! Why not come and stay with me? I’ll build you a whorehouse, and load it with twenty pleasure menus from my personal Black Vault! If you’re so afraid that immortality will rob your life of zest, I’ll even put a dominatrix-ninja doll among the odalisques, so that, at random, one of the snuggle bunnies will go boom when you plunge in! What do you say?”

Diomedes said softly, “Like barbarians, like Esquimaux, we are more honored by hospitality than by any other thing.” The shadow shape bowed. “But I cannot accept. Shall we leave our wives and half wives, brain mates and parent masses? We are bound by cords of love and tradition to our homes; in many cases, we are our homes. If your generosity is real, however, then give me alms enough to transmit my patterns back across the endless miles to Diomedes Prime, and my family-mind. Otherwise I die here, far from home.” The Eleemosynary Composition spoke: “We shall give you what you need, and be glad to give.”

Asmodius Bohost said, “Me, too! I’ll even pay for a lasered tight-beam and a call-back, provided you hop on one foot and change your name to Mr. Twinkle-butt!”

Viviance Thrice Dozen Phosphoros of the Red School gestured toward Nebuchednezzar, raised her closed fan in one red-gloved hand: “Mr. Speaker! I would like to reintroduce, yet again, my motion to have Asmodius Bohost expelled from the College.”

Nebuchednezzar said, “The motion fails for the lack of support.”

“I understand.” She snapped open her fan and smiled. “I just wanted the record to reflect my perfect score.” She delicately took her skirt by the knee, and with a slithering rustle of crimson crinoline, resumed her seat. Viviance Thrice Dozen, so far, had introduced that motion at every meeting both she and Asmodius had attended together.

Tsychandri-Manyu Tawne rose now to speak: “I am certain we are all moved by our visitor’s sad tale of the harshness of Neptunian life. I also fail to see the relevance to our present discussion. Phaethon, at Lakshmi, agreed long ago to exile. This should be an utterly routine matter; all decisions have already been made; the time for discussion is past. Why do we continue to listen?”

The shadow spread its ghostly hands. “Forgive me. I forget that only your Silver-Gray and Dark-Gray Schools force their members to live through every hour of their lives in order. Only they suffer boredom, and learn patience. I thought my message was entirely clear. Perhaps it was not. Please forgive me; my thought speed is limited. I will attempt again. Listen:

“Please do not rob us of Phaethon’s dream. Our outer habitats, so far from your sun’s gravitational well, will be the preferred ports-of-call for future pilgrimages to and from Alpha Centauri, Bernard’s Star, and Wolfe 359. You live surrounded by wealth and comfort; to you the risks seem grave. We live in darkness, far from easily available supplies of energy and reaction-mass. To us, the risks seem worth of the glory of the quest. We do not ask you to take the risks. We only ask you not prevent Phaethon (and us) from taking the risks, and finding the destiny, we choose.”

Gannis of Jupiter stood and spoke. “All of me are sorry. I and we know what it’s like to live in a frontier; the Jovian moons, back before Ignition, were just rocks with a few mines and nanofacturing forests on them. We only had twenty beanstalks reaching down to the K-layer in the Jupiter atmosphere. Twenty! But no matter how nice this risky scheme and mad dream of Phaethon’s might be for the Neptunian Tritonics, it’s not the risk to them our duty as Hortators requires us to address. No, sir. They are free to take their own risks, and why not? But the risks to us, the very real risk that future colonies might inspire war and crime again, is a risk we must weigh. Suppose even one person should be murdered in some future war, or even one mind be deleted from the Noumenal Memory. Is this worth it? Maybe it’s worth the risk to them, to the danger seekers. I’m not saying Phaethon is suicidal; who knows what his motives are? I’m just saying that no man should aid and help his own destroyers. I’ve been aiding and helping Phaethon before this; he and I were friends once. Maybe I didn’t think he would go through with it. Maybe I didn’t think he would destroy us. But I see better now. I can’t help him anymore. No matter what this College decides, not one more atom of Chrysadmantium is going to plate Phaethon’s ship.”

Diomedes turned his empty helmet toward Gannis. “Your concern for future crimes and wars, which may grow up if worlds in other systems flourish, I cannot disrespect. If even a single individual should die—this is tragedy. But in the other pan of the balance scales place that little death, which comes into your souls each time a little more of your freedom and initiative are lost. And a little more is lost each time you decide again never to venture forth from the shadow of the gigantic Sophotechs, who protect and smother you. When will it end? A future utterly determined is a future dead. You have all felt this. Haven’t you all dreamed of star voyages and adventure? Your bodies will always remain alive, but many hopes and souls will die if the danger and the dream of star colonization is strangled. We Neptunians are too poor to resurrect that dream once it dies; none of you will ever again be brave enough to do as Phaethon has done, nor will the turning of the centuries bring new generations with new spirits into power in the Oecumene, because you are immortal. Therefore weigh the tragic death of that one soul of which Gannis speaks, but compare it to the many souls, the great soul of all mankind, which perishes if Phaethon’s dream fails! Small price to pay, good Hortators. Small price to pay!”