Fénix Exultante (62 page)

Phaethon wondered why anyone would volunteer to have such a disorganized and tardy consciousness. But then again, the Invariants and Tachystructuralists no doubt wondered the same thing about Phaethon’s clumsy, slow, organic, multileveled, and all-too-human brain.

And so it was with considerable surprise that Phaethon saw his slate light up with a reply before even half an hour had gone by. Daughter-of-the-Sea must have reconstructed part of her consciousness, or assigned a special flock of thought carriers, to maintain near-standard time rates just for his sake, in case he should call. He was touched.

The reply was radiating in the form of inaudible pulses from a group of medical bushes and vines clinging to the southern cliff shore.

The translation ran: “Anguish is always greater than the words we use to capture it. Can I attempt to express my soul unblamed? What are your thoughts but little lights, glinting in through all the stained-glass panes of words, burning in the loneliness of your one skull? And you would have me cast such light as that toward eyes of blind Neptunians. Where is coin enough to burn within the Pharos of such high desire, that I might make a bonfire even giants envy, and cast so bright a beam across so wide a night? And to what end? Success shall gather Phaethon to heaven, to struggle with silent monsters in the wide star-interrupted dark; or failure pull down Phaethon into a lonely pauper’s tomb beneath some nameless stone. In either fate, bright Phaethon departs, all his fire lost, to leave me, Daughter-of-the-Sea, again in misery and solitude on this frail, saccharine, spiritless, thin-winded, green-toned world I so despise.”

Phaethon frowned. Struggle with silent monsters in the dark? Did Daughter-of-the-Sea expect Phaethon to conduct some sort of war with whatever had been left of the Second Oecumene? Perhaps these “silent monsters” were a metaphor for the various forces of inanimate nature with which any engineer must struggle as he builds. No matter. One could not expect to understand everything even people of one’s own neuroform meant to say.

But he understood the thrust of the message. Daughter-of-the-Sea wanted to know what was in the deal for her.

Phaethon had the translator cast his reply in the same florid mood and metaphor as hers: “I will create for you, out of some rock or cometary mass circling Deneb or far Arcturus, a world to be the bridegroom of your delight. All shall be as your desires say. The angry clouds of long-lost Venus shall boil again with the drench of stinking sulfur in that far world’s atmosphere, and never need you breathe this thin and listless air of Earth again. Tumultuous volcano-scapes shall flood a trembling surface, immense as any laughter of a god within your ears, and once more shall you watch as hurricanes of acid pour in flame from ponderous black skies of poison into reeking seas of molten tin. You will be embodied such as you once were on Venus, Venus as she was so long ago! And veneric organs and adaptions (which find no other place or purpose, old Venus lost) now shall bloom from you again, to yield to you those hot, strange, powerful sensations, unknown to any Earthlike eyes, those sensual impressions that your memories so faintly echo. Come! Aid me now! And once the Phoenix Exultant is mine again, she shall nest within the circle of the Galaxy, and brood, as her young, a thousand shining worlds.”

It was the same offer he had made Notor-Kotok. Chemical codes appeared on the translation screen, and again he took up another precious gram of his limited nanomaterial, impregnated the message into it, and dropped it into the waters.

A night bird gobbled it.

4.

It was Greater Midnight when Phaethon went belowdecks to perform his evening oblations. This included a feeding hardly worthy of the name “mensal performance” (he merely slapped nutrients into his cloak-lining, and let the cloak feed him intravenously). Next, he underwent a careful and very spartan sleep cycle. Finally, he did an exercise of adjustment to his neurochemistry, which he encompassed in a ceremony called “Answering the Circle.” This ceremony dated from the early Fourth Era, and had originally been used to restore weary members of vast group-minds to their proper health and courage and purpose.

It was hours later, in the dead of night, near Lesser Midnight (as Jovian Midnight was called) when Phaethon emerged on deck again. The slate showed a response from Daughter-of-the-Sea had arrived, this time, from another center of her consciousness housed in filtration grasses somewhat inland of here. The slate was not complex enough to tell him if this part of her mind was analogous to a “conscious” level, or if this was a subconscious reaction, something like a dream. “Poor-seed-scatter-answer-dark/masked/approaching-bright promises sowed-accept-a world to keep you gently chained? Now comes one.”

He ran two other reconstructions through the translator, attempting other modes. The parts of the message unfolded and were interpreted into a coherent format: “Lacking wealth or prestige, lacking funds or friends enough to buy or beg what media Phaethon requires to communicate to his remote Neptunians, Daughter-of-the-Sea this night emanates your message out through several modes. By land and sea and sky it spreads, by light, by speech, by printed letters such as are known no more, save among the far-past-loving Silver-Grey. Each message, scattered like a thousand wanton seeds, recites the promise of rewards to come to whoever might carry it one further step along. In your name, I promised them each gram devoted to your cause would be returned a hundredfold, and any exile ostracized on your behalf would be given a world of his own. Surely uncounted hundreds of these messages were simply consumed by silence, seeds spread on rocky soil.

“But an answer came from one who wears a mask, protected, during the festival, from the eyes of the Hortators. This masked one accepts your offer, and says you will be taken from this place, and carried into the infinite silent wilderness of space, where you will have no one but your solitary love to protect you, never to be seen again. This masked one promised you shall create a world which shall keep you, bound there with gentle chains, and that you not travel so very far into the mysteries of outer space as your ambition dreams.

“Now comes this one.”

Phaethon stared at the words. Was this masked one Scaramouche? Some prankster who had logged on to answer, hidden by masquerade from the retaliation of the Hortators? Or perhaps a dream or fantasy invented by some non-literal segment of Daughter-of-the-Sea’s scattered consciousness?

In any case, the words seemed ominous. His armor had been left below; Phaethon wondered if he should go down and put it on.

On the other hand, the battery power of the suit was not infinite…

Then he heard the noise of motion in the water not far away.

In the dim light he could see an awkward shape moving through the water with plunging energetic splashes. It was hard to see, in the gloom, the body-form of the creature. It seemed two-headed, many-legged. Or perhaps it was a slim manlike shape astride a larger swimming shape.

There was a clatter as the creature or creatures came up against the hull. Then a high-pitched whinny, and more clatter, pounding noises, as they climbed from the water to the floating stairs of the gangway. Whoever or whatever it was was out of sight below the curve of the hull.

“Ahoy! Hello!” came a voice. “Permission to come aboard!”

Phaethon stiffened. He recognized that voice.

Then came a rushed, huge hammering of some large beast pounding up the gangway stairs.

Phaethon turned, voiceless and numb with astonishment.

The tall shadow of a horse came plunging over the gangway stairs, water flying from its mane and tail. Clinging low over its neck, head down, jacket flying, was a slender form in archaic riding habit. Black hair swirled around her head.

She laughed in joy, and the horse reared and pawed the air, perhaps in annoyance, perhaps in triumph.

With a smooth movement, the slender form dismounted, and walked lightly over to where Phaethon stood wondering.

She tapped her riding crop against her tall black boots. She ran her fingers through the silken mass of her hair. “I lost my hat,” she said. And then, stepping close: “Aren’t you going to kiss me?”

There, in the dim light of the stars, beneath the diamond pavilion canopies, was Daphne, smiling. She wore a long dark jacket, laced at the throat, and skintight pale riding breeches.

“DaphneNebuchednezzer” He tried to remind himself that this was the doll-wife, the copy, and he told himself that the sudden emotion that flooded him made no sense, no sense at all.

“Daphne-in exile? How long have you been ostracized?”

“Since about a second ago, when I said hello.” She smiled an impish smile.

“But—why? Your life is ruined now!” His voice rang hollow with horror.

“Silly boy. I’ve come to rescue you. Aren’t you going to kiss me? I’m not going to ask you again.”

It made no sense. It made no sense at all. This was not really the woman he had fallen in love with, was it? Why had she ruined her life to be with him?

He took her in his arms. He bent his lips to hers.

Suddenly, it made perfect sense.

On the deck of the barge in the gloom, Phaethon and Daphne stood in each other’s arms. Her stallion was quiet, standing near the stern, his nose moving among the crystal panels of the pavilions overhead.

In the east, like a rainbow of steel, the lower third of the ring-city shone with moon-colored arch-light, silver at the horizon, shading to a golden rose-red in the heights. This was the reflection of a sunrise still hours away, light and reddened, bent by the atmosphere and cast against the orbiting walls and sails of the city, to shine down again on parts of the world still embraced by night. That great curve of light was reflected again to form a rippling trail across the waters, like a road, beyond the horizon, to heaven, and reflected once again, from the ripples, to play against Daphne’s cheek and gleam in her dark eyes. Phaethon, looking into those eyes, wondered at how many twists and reflections of sunlight, arch-light, and sea-glimmer were required to make the light in his wife’s eyes dance. Yet it was still light from the sun.

His wife’s eyes? No. Exact copies, perhaps. But the woman wearing them was nonetheless not his wife. The light in her eyes ultimately came from the sun; but it was not sunlight.

The thoughts and memories ultimately came from the real Daphne; but this was not Daphne.

This ex-doll, this sweet girl whom he did not love, had embraced exile, and perhaps death. Why? To be with him? Because she thought herself to be in love with him?

The sense that things made sense, so strong just a moment before, was crumbling.

“Why are you here, really?” The words came out stiffly.

Suddenly, their embrace was mere awkwardness, the unwanted intimacy of two strangers.

Daphne stepped away from him. Her head was turned so that he could not see her eyes. She spoke in a voice brittle and impersonal: “I’ve had my ring organize and write the beginning of the story of how I got here. I’m coming out with a sequel to your saga. After so many years of not having anything to do, now I have it! I thought you would be pleased—you’re always nagging me about how I should take up a vocation again.”

A sequel? Evidently she referred to the heroic dream-documentary she had written when they first had met, the thing that had made her first send her ambassador-doll to go interview him on Oberon. A doll had been sent because she had been afraid to travel outside the mentality range, outside of the range of her noumenal immortality circuits. Afraid of exile; afraid of death.

He reached out, took her gently by the shoulders, and stared down into her face. No. This here was the doll, or, rather, the emancipated woman who had once been that doll. The memory that she had written that first documentary was an implant from the Prime Daphne (but since Prime Daphne’s talents and ability to write had been implanted as well, did that make any difference?)

Her eyes were shining with unshed tears, but her face was calm. Her love for Phaethon was an implant as well, a false memory. The enormity of the sacrifice she had made by coming here stirred up the pity and kindness she saw in his face. Kindness, but not love.

(But he had started his fall in love with Daphne when he met this doll. Met this Daphne. Did it really make a difference?)

He said sadly, “No one will read it. We’re both trapped outside now.”

She just smiled. “I don’t have my communion diary with me, so you’ll have to read about my adventures as multitext. You have an experiencer built into your armor? It’ll be quicker than telling you.”

Against his wishes, a small, faint smile of pride tugged at his mouth. “I have everything built into my armor. Let us go below.”

Daphne had tried to forget Phaethon only on the first day. Her new house was a portrayal house, a living work of art built mostly out of pseudo-matter and lightweight diamond coral, and it floated like a crystal lotus in a wide lake of azure resistance-water. The ornamentation was built into the walls as overlapping million-fold layers of mathematic arabesques, and a Red Manorial program inserted in her sense-filter allowed her to understand the microscopic complexities of the baroque, rich patterns as if stabs of sublime emotion were being thrust directly into her heart. Gay and carefree, chattering with a dozen conversation balls, which floated lightly around her head, skipping, Daphne danced up the ramp into her new home. She had just come from a dazzling performance of an art called Spectorialism, and had seen two competing masters of the art, Artois Fifth Mnemohyperbolic and Zu-Tse-Haplock Niner Ghast, intermingle their minds and create a new entity, and a new way to reconcile their neo-romantic and cultural-abstractionist schools. It would change the history of Spectorials forever, it would change the way Spector-people ate and wed and formed abstractions for recording. Daphne felt blessed to have been among them when it had happened.

A friend of hers, Lucinda Third of Second-branch Reconstructed Meridian, had already proposed to apply the same philosophy to ancient poetry, and to absorb the lives of fictional heroines from myth, Draupadi and Deirdre-of-the-sorrows, into her persona-base without tagging the memories as false, then to see if new poems could be written into life, fiction and reality combined, the same way Artois and Zu-Tse had written new energy levels into the periodic charts of their artificial spectration systems. It was a daring idea. It was a daring time to be alive.