La Edad De Oro (90 page)

Phaethon remembered now the notoriety that had surrounded him. It was not just for the violence he had attempted. (As long as human passions were still legally permitted to exist in the human nervous system, there would always be violent impulses. Many people attempted crimes. There were six or seven attempts every century.) Phaethon’s notoriety sprang from his position in society. Other men who gave in to moments of rage were usually primitivists or emancipated partials, people without resources, whom the Constables, guided by Sophotechs, easily could stop before they hurt anything.

But Phaethon was manor-born, who were considered the elite; and the Silver-Gray, in many ways, were the elite of the elite. The manorials had Sophotechs present in their minds, able to anticipate their thoughts, able to defuse violent problems long before they ever arose. No manor-born had ever committed a violent crime. Phaethon was the first.

In his armor, Phaethon could shut off all contact with the Sophotechs; his thoughts could not be monitored; his violent impulses could not be hindered by a police override. In his armor, Phaethon could act independently of any social restrictions. He was in his own private world; a small world, true, but it was all his own.

“The Red Manorials, perhaps, forgave me. But the Curia was not so amused. The penalty they imposed was forty-five minutes of direct stimulation of the pain center of my brain…” (Phaethon winced at the memory) “…but the Court suspended fifteen minutes from my sentence because I agreed to erase the rescue persona. Afterwards, the Curia ordered me to experience the memories and lives of the Constables I had humiliated, so that all their anger and frustration and pain happened to me. The fight did not seem so glorious any longer…

“That punishment I was glad to suffer; I knew I was in the wrong. The Curia and Eveningstar did not bargain, no. But the College of Hortators did.

“It was a devil’s bargain. They found me during a moment of weakness. I destroyed my memory. Was I trying to commit suicide?”

“And what about now, young sir? Have you reached the state of resignation and acceptance?”

Phaethon straightened, wiped his face, squared his shoulders. He drew a deep breath. “I will never be resigned. Perhaps everything is not lost yet. Unless…” Phaethon looked troubled. “Am I just fooling myself again? A recurrence of the denial part of the grief cycle?”

“You know I cannot take a Noetic reading of you at this time. I do not know the state of your mind. You must avoid giving into fear or despair… but you also must avoid giving in to false hopes.”

“Very well, then. Maybe there are steps I can still take. Put a call in to that girl who is impersonating Daphne. She seems like a good person. Ask her if—”

“I am sorry sir, but she is no longer receiving your calls, nor am I allowed to transmit them.” “What…?!”

“None of the major telecommunication or telepresentation services will accept your patronage hereafter. Daphne Tercius has left instructions with her seneschal to refuse your calls, lest she be accused of aiding or comforting you, and therefore fall under the same prohibition under which you now fall.” It took a moment for the implications of that to sink in. Phaethon closed his eyes in an expression of pain. “I thought that I would have some time to prepare, or that there would be some ceremony, or leavetaking.”

“Normally there would be such, and all the participants in the boycott would exclude you at once. But things are in confusion.”

“Confusion…?”

“You must recall that every other memory casket sealed by the Lakshmi Agreement, all across the planet, has opened up. Large sections of the memories of billions of people are returning to them; many are still confounded. All the channels are crowded with signals, young sir. Everyone is sending messages and questions to their friends and comensals; you have stirred the clamor of the world, I’m afraid.”

Phaethon made a fist, but, insubstantial to his present scene on the Phoenix Exultant bridge, had nothing to strike, not even to make a dramatic gesture. “Scaramouche or Xenophon or Nothing or whoever is behind this is using the confusion to hide more evidence and release more viruses, no doubt. More evidence is being erased or falsified. And they must have predicted this would happen once I opened the memory box. But why? We are all taught that Earthmind is wise enough to foresee and counteract all dangers of this type before they arise. Their plan must be premised on the idea that that is not the case. They must have a Sophotech as wise as Earthmind, but not part of the Golden Oecumene Mentality. How else could they have done this? Is there no one we can warn?”

Rhadamanthus’ voice: “I feel I should caution you, young sir, that no evidence exists that any attack of any kind has taken place. I am not presently capable of determining whether or not you are experiencing a hallucination or pseudomnesia.”

Phaethon said, “If the Hortators have not officially decreed their boycott of me in effect as yet, can you give me an indication of which efforts, merchant combines, or services will still accept my patronage?”

“Obviously the Eleemosynary Composition has not yet excluded you from the Hospice thoughtspace. Helion is continuing to pay the transaction costs and computer time for you connections with me, and for my conversation with you. The Eleemosynary Composition has left a message, to be given you should you inquire, to the effect that the previous agreement you had discussed has lapsed, and the offer withdrawn. Helion would like to have one last word outside before he shuts you out of my system. You might want to take this opportunity to have anything stored in my mansion-mind recorded into your own private thoughtspace; take any books or memories or proprietary information, alternate personalities, records, or anything else that is yours.”

The image of the Phoenix Exultant bridge began to slip away. It flowed like water, out of the broken, window of the memory chamber. Phaethon’s hands tried to grasp the corner of the nearest control mirror, the arms of the thronelike captain’s chair. His chair. But his insubstantial fingers passed through the images and could not grasp them.

He seemed to stand in the chamber of memory, but his private thoughtspace, reacting to a command he had placed in it, long ago, at Lakshmi, had turned on. Cubes appeared in a circle around him. The two scenes were superimposed; the cube icons seemed to float in midair among the shelves and sunlight of the memory chamber.

One of the cubes, a master program, near Phaethon’s head, had a window floating in its upright face, showing the checklist of Phaeton’s properties that he had planned to remove from the mansion memory.

Whatever sorrow had been on Phaethon’s face was gone. His expression was stern, without being grim; it was not free from pain, but it was free from any acceptance of pain. His face might have been that of an ancient statue from the monument of a king.

He nodded to the checklist and raised a finger in the “run program” gesture.

Lesser memory caskets to the left and right of Phaethon, as if of their own accord, opened, and the cube icons flashed green colors to signal they were absorbing the information. The cubes turned black when they were full.

Much of the material was too long or too complex to be fitted into Phaethon’s merely personal thought space; files were being deleted. A little flash of red light accompanied every deletion, as Phaethon had to approve the order each time. There were so many memory files being destroyed, and so many flashes of red light, coming faster and faster, that soon the room seemed as if it were burning around him, as if, without heat or noise, Phaethon were burning his old life. Here were thought works, centuries dormant, for which he would never have use again; memories of youthful tedium, or scenes redundant with other recollections, which afforded him no amusement, instruction, nor even nostalgia to retain; sciences now out-of-date; rough drafts for contemplation forms no longer practiced; the litter and rubbish of a long, long life at Rhadamanthus Mansion. There was no reason at all for tears to sting his eyes. He told himself it was all trash. And the checklist was one he remembered from Venus, from Lakshmi. He had made it before he signed the Agreement. He had made it knowing the Agreement would break. He had guessed this exile might come. He had planned… He had planned on this, on all of this.

But he had planned on an orderly exit, a withdrawal, perhaps after prevailing on his law case against Helion Secundus. With Helion’s fortune, with entire income of the Solar Array in his hands, he could have bought the Phoenix Exultant out of hock, paid off his debts, and bought the few remaining supplies he needed, restocked his antihydrogen supplies, and departed.

No wonder the threat of the Hortator’s exile had held no terror for him. He had been planning to leave the Golden Oecumene on a journey of centuries, or tens of centuries.

But his plan had been to have himself wait till after the Grand Transcendence in December was concluded, not to open the memory box prematurely, not to fall under the Hortator’s boycott. Were he ostracized, Vafnir would not sell him antihydrogen, nor would Gannis sell Chrysadmantium.

He had not planned on being attacked by Xenophon, or by a virus that could have only been concocted by some non-Earth-mind Sophotech, a Sophotech that logic and history said could not possibly exist.

He glanced out the broken window. The image of the Phoenix Exultant hung against the darkness of the night sky, her golden hull like fire in the glare from the nearby giant sun. A dead hull.

Hadn’t he had a backup plan? Wasn’t there anything to salvage from this mess?

Phaethon raised his eyes from the circle of cubes.

In the background of his personal thoughtspace was a wheel of stars. It had been there every time he had turned on his personal thoughtspace. The fact that he hadn’t recognized the background content of his personal area here should have been a clue that it was important.

The wheel of stars: it was impossible to believe he had not recognized it.

He reached out his hand. The galaxy was both smaller and closer than it appeared. He took it in his hand.

Like veins made of light was the umbrella of possible travel routes he had planned through the nearby stars. Where his finger touched a route, images unfolded to the left and right, showing acceleration and deceleration calculations, estimates of local densities of space, notations of possible sources of volatiles for refueling in-flight, notes on where previous unmanned probes had gone (including summaries of scientifically significant discoveries and observations) and, more important, notes on places where unmanned probes had never gone.

The galaxy lay like a jewel in his hand. The stars were turning slowly, as the map ran through time adjustments for various periods in the projected voyage. Like a path of fire burned the trace of his first planned expedition. Branching world-lines for alternate routes reached out across stars and light-years.

It was beautiful. He would not give it up.

“Previous Phaethon, whoever you were: I remember you; I forgive you; I am you,” he whispered. “I hated you for banishing my memory. I could not imagine what could have prompted me to butcher my mind in that way, what could have urged me to accept so much pain. Now I remember. Now I know. And I was right. It was worth the risk.”

Somehow he would still save his plan. Somehow he would still save his dream…

Rhadamanthus, in his shape as a butler, cleared his throat. Phaethon looked up from the galaxy he held.

It was Helion.

Helion stood at the threshold of the memory chamber. His face was stern and sad. He was dressed out of period for Victorian England; instead, his self-image wore his snow white ablative armor of solar-station environment. He wore no helmet; Helion’s hair shone like spun gold. The activity of Phaethon’s deletions made red light flow across the scene like flame; the reflections burned in his armor.

Helion stepped into the chamber. Phaethon’s private thoughtscape was excluded; the red flashes vanished, and the galaxy disappeared from his hand. The image of near-Mercury space disappeared from the window next to Phaethon. Instead, the broken window now let in sunlight, warm summer air, the smell of flowers, the drone of bees, the scents and sounds of the ordinary daylit world.

“Son,” said Helion, “I’ve come for any last words we might have with each other.”

Phaethon pointed two fingers. This was Helion himself, not a recording, a message persona, or a partial. “What do we have to say to each other, Father? Isn’t it too late? Too late for everything?” Bitterness and irony showed on Phaethon’s face. “You may be exiled yourself, just for speaking with me.”

“Son—I had hoped it would never come to this. You are a fine and brave man, intelligent and upright. The boycotts and shunnings of the Hortators were meant to stop indecencies, deviations from acceptable behavior, acts of negligence and cruelty. They were meant to restrain the worst among us. They surely were not meant for you!” Sorrow was deeply graven on Helion’s face. “This destiny is worse than we deserve.”

The chamber seemed more real as Helion entered. It was a subtle change, one Phaethon might not normally have noticed. The colors were now brighter, the shadows of finer texture. The sunlight entering the many windows took on a rich and golden hue. Individual dust motes were now visible in the bright sunbeams, as was the wood grain of the polished wainscoting where the light fell, bringing rich glints and highlights from caskets and cabinets on the surrounding shelves.

Not only sense impressions were brighter and sharper in Helion’s presence. Phaethon felt more alert, at ease, and awake. Perhaps the circuits in Phaethon’s brain stem and mid-brain had not been receiving very much computer time from Rhadamanthus; certainly the simulated sensations fed into Phaethon’s optic nerve had not been of as high a quality as what Helion could afford for himself. Helion had been paying for Phaethon’s computer time, but, quite naturally, reserved more time for his own use.

It was as if Helion’s wealth and power surrounded him like an aura of light. Phaethon doubted that Helion was even aware of the effect on other people.