The Golden Age

by John C. Wright

  The Eleemosynary supervisor paused to let his comment sink in. He continued: “Gentlemen of the College. There was no attack. We were there; we would have seen it.”

  Phaethon said, “The attacking virus was successful, and may have edited your memories.”

  Some of the looks of impatience were hardening into expressions of boredom and contempt.

  “With all due respect,” said the Eleemosynary supervisor, “such a redaction would require this virus to bypass sixty-four information security checkpoints in our mind-group, and alter four sets of records: the original, the backup, the conscience ordinators, and the data traffic control monitor. Since our records are kept in associative analogue pathways rather than by a linear system, the virus would have had to examine each record, or even each thought, and do all this while suppressing the awareness-flow telltales of each and every member of our mass-mind’s local interest group. Assuming it take two units of information to alter one unit (one to identify and one to falsify), we are estimating a volume of some eight hundred sixty-three billion seconds of intelligence. Only Sophotechs are capable of such feats.”

  “The attacking virus was constructed and guided by a Sophotech,” said Phaethon.

  There was a titter of embarrassed laughter around the chamber. A Sophotech attempting a murder?

  Phaethon said, “I know it sounds absurd; don’t you think I know how absurd it sounds? But it—I think it is called Nothing—it was not one of our Sophotechs, not part of the Earthmind community! It is a mind from outer space, it must be!”

  A dull silence filled the room.

  The looks of contempt had changed. Contempt was a look one gave to equals, men whom one scorned but who were nonetheless sane men. Now the expressions become looks of pity.

  Tsychandri-Manyu needed no honed instinct to tell him the mood in the chamber had changed again; it was obvious. “Gentlemen, we are all familiar with the erratic and frantic behavior of those who face exile. They calculate that it will do no harm for them to attempt anything—anything at all—which might avert their fate. After all, what do they care if they lie or cheat or falsify, when they will not be alive long enough to suffer the consequences of their deceits? Gentlemen! Why are we wasting our time with this? I would like to move, yet again, on the matter of Phaethon’s term of exile. I move that it be permanent and absolute, so that not even food, basic services, shelter, or computer time will ever be sold to him.”

  There was a loud noise of assent, many voices calling for the final vote.

  Nebuchednezzar said, “The motion to end debate and to call the question has been moved and seconded.”

  Helion rose to his feet: “My son is not a liar!” he spoke in a voice like thunder.

  Whispers died.

  Nebuchednezzar said, “Helion, your comment is not in order at this time.”

  Helion said, “Phaethon is telling the truth. We are Silver-Grays. We do not and cannot lie. And of all Silver-Grays, he is the most truthful.”

  Nebuchednezzar said: “I will interpret this comment as a motion to open debate on the issue of whether or not to call the question. Is there a second?”

  Gan-Seven Far-Gannis of Jupiter stood up: “I will second the motion. Rhadamanthus is at hand; Phaethon is, after all, a Silver-Gray, and has deep-memory reading circuits. Would not a Noetic examination instantly reveal the truth of the matter? This is the standard procedure in such cases. We need not be impatient.”

  Helion’s voice came softly into Phaethon’s ear. This was yet another violation of the protocols binding everyone else in the scene. His father’s voice said: “Just say the words, ‘I swear,’ and we shall have the truth.”

  But Phaethon stood silent.

  Nebuchednezzar said, “Is something the matter, Phaethon? Is there a reason why you are reluctant to permit a Noetic examination? If you wish us to examine your thoughts, please open a Noetic deep channel.”

  Phaethon was suspicious. Gan-Seven Far-Gannis was that part of the Gannis Hundred-mind that traveled between Jupiter and Neptune as a trade factotum. Why would he be eager for Phaethon to be vindicated? The fact that Far-Gannis had close ties with Neptunians was, perhaps, no grounds for suspicion. But what if he had ties with Xenophon?

  And the enemy virus in the Mentality, hunting for Phaethon’s mind, as far as Phaethon knew, was still out there. Phaethon had opened sensory, kinesthetic, and somatic channels between his brain and the Mentality in order to project a self-image into the fictional chamber Helion had created here. There was no direct access at the moment to his memories, deep structures, or thoughts. Opening a Noetic channel, however, would render him vulnerable to that virus.

  Phaethon wondered if the attacker’s technology would allow him to kill Phaethon, and replace him with a partial-mind of something that thought it was Phaethon but was loyal to whatever goals or desires the enemy preferred. It was a chilling thought.

  Perhaps it had been done already. How many of the Hortators around him had been replaced by puppet creatures of the enemy … ?

  Phaethon said, “The Nothing Sophotech may still have some sort of unmaker virus free in the Noumenal Mentality. If the design is advanced enough to defeat all your wards and guards without being detected, I would fear opening my unshielded brain up to any deep-structure Mentality channels.”

  Several of the Hortators laughed out loud. Others smirked. Epiraes Septarch Fulvous of Fulvous House, one of Tsychandri-Manyu’s minions, called out, “If the honorable Phaethon must invent the flimsiest of excuses, could he at least make it entertaining, please? I am having trouble with my suspension of disbelief.”

  Harrier Sophotech raised his hand, “I realize that I am not a member of the College, but could I make a simple suggestion? Have Phaethon broadcast a copy of his mind-information onto a public channel; broadcast only, not receive; no external impulse can reach him, and this virus he fears, whether it exists or not, will not affect him. Meanwhile, you gentlemen may examine the public copy to your heart’s content. What do you say?”

  A sensation of warmth and pleasure filled Phaethon, straightening his back. A knot of acidic tension of which he had not even been aware suddenly relaxed in his stomach and released him. Harrier’s suggestion made perfect common sense. In a moment, the College would see that he was telling the truth; the existence of the interstellar menace would be confirmed. The College had already taken a vote: if Phaethon were telling the truth, he would be cleared. He would he free to return to his life and his dream. The Phoenix Exultant was waiting for him, the stars were waiting for him, and, this time, nothing would be standing in his way.

  2.

  Phaethon froze the scene, and stepped out of the Deep Dreaming. He woke to find himself in his armor, half curled in the warmth and blackness of the Eleemosynary public box. The helmet circuit sent pictures from the faceplate-eyepieces directly into his optic nerve; he could see the telltale lights and dream points on the controls and glyph signs inscribed on the interior of the casket.

  Commands went from his thought into his suit interface.

  The black lining of his armor was able to nanomanufacture a data crystal (Phaethon vented the production waste-heat as a jet of steam into the liquid medium in which he floated) and this crystal he filled with his memories.

  Phaethon opened the control panel with his finger manually. (Imagine using his hand to open a control! He felt just like a man from the prehistoric past.) With the panel open, he found the jack to accept the data crystal, and had his armor circuit impose an energy pattern on the wiring to trigger the activation switch. Thus, there was no physical connection to himself when his recorded memories were transferred to a public inspection channel.

  Phaethon stepped back into Deep Dreaming, saw the austere Inquest Chamber of the Hortators around him, frozen. He started time again. “A copy of my mind is available for your review on public channel 2120.”

  3.

  Once the summons was read, the oaths affirmed, and the reversion circuit
s were made ready, the Mentality opened itself into many minds. The College of Hortators, each and every one, remembered Phaethon, and became Phaethon.

  They saw and suffered the scene. All of them wept above the coffin of Daphne. All of them heard Eveningstar’s curt refusal. All of them wandered, thoughts heavy with despair, out onto the steps in front of the mausoleum. All of them saw Scaramouche and heard his mocking talk.

  All of them felt the sword blade cut their neck, felt cold steel and hot blood.

  Then the Phaethon who had been Benvolio Malachi, the Mnemonicist, said to the other Phaethons: “There is a time-texture friction here, of the type one only sees with redacted memories. Note the extra read-lines and time-cues. This memory has been tampered with.”

  The Phaethon who had been Tau Continuous of the White was an engineer, by nature a methodical thinker. “Maybe it is the alleged virus.”

  They all knew that read-line tags could get scrambled by imposing two mind systems into one thoughtspace … or two memories.

  The Phaethon who had been Ao Sinistro was able to use a burst of intuition to assemble the scattered read-line fragments, to look at them as though they were a shattered geometric shape, combine that shape like a puzzle, then retranslate the result back into a linear format. From that, the association path traces of the original memory could be read. He said, “Here is the memory, whole and untouched. Who of me is willing to see the unhindered and unhampered truth?”

  All the Phaethons, of course, wanted to see the truth. After all, they were Phaethon.

  And a new memory came.

  4.

  They remembered standing on the stair outside Eveningstar Mansion. They remembered the sensations of hopelessness and sorrow; sorrow without cure. Daphne was gone.

  Phaethon drew a deep breath, searching the gardens and the sky, perhaps for inspiration, perhaps for some sign promising escape from this world of flat despair that had trapped him.

  Since it was a Red Manorial scene, the wind was not merely refreshing, scented with autumn, but also filled with a wild melancholy. The tattered clouds were turning red-gold in the sunset, as sight as strange and sad and haunting as the funeral ship of a fairy king descending in flames to the waves. The far hills, draped in shadows like the vestments of conquered titans, seemed like the towers and gates to some alien world, threatening, terrible, but challenging, as if daring him to penetrate their secrets. In the near distance, on a grassy slope tinted with cherry, rose, and scarlet dusk light, a stallion of a brand Daphne once had made now reared against the sunset, uttering a wild cry, and tossing its mane with furious pride.

  It was as if the landscape itself were urging him to wild, swift, relentless deeds. Deeds of peerless renown.

  “But of course!” Phaethon was jarred with sudden hope. “I do not now recall the password or secret key to waken my Daphne. But such a word (why not?) could be hidden in the casket of locked memory. And in that box is the man she lost, not me.”

  But what use would it be to waken Daphne, only to suffer exile immediately thereafter?

  It took him but a moment to invent a story. He could pretend he was attacked, that he had to open the memory box. But attacked by whom? There was no way any such attack could take place, except by an entity as smart as a Sophotech, able to infiltrate the Golden Oecumene, alter records, and erase memories. But where could such a Sophotech originate?

  Phaethon remembered that Atkins had been investigating some Neptunian Masquerade prank. That gave him an idea. Atkins was actually investigating an external threat to the Oecumene. The evil Sophotech would belong to a highly advanced but completely invisible interstellar civilization. A civilization people by aliens, or the descendants of a lost colony. Or time travelers or wombats or hobgoblins. The excuse did not matter. All that mattered was that, if the Hortators thought Phaethon were acting on an understandable impulse—a reaction to a threat, no matter how far-fetched—then they might be lenient. Certainly they would not for a moment believe in the threat themselves, but if they thought Phaethon believed in it …

  But how to make himself believe? He would have to falsify his own memories, of course, in order to cheat the Noetic examination that certainly would follow. Any purchase of a pseudomnesia editor would be normally be noticed and recorded … except that it was still a time of Masquerade.

  Phaethon turned on a Scaramouche costume. Disguised, he then opened a channel to a Red Manorial redaction boutique in the Deep Dreaming. He bought and downloaded a self-deception program, and began writing the illusion to inscribe into his own memory paths.

  His hopes were pinned on three ideas: First, anyone who knew him would conclude that self-deception was utterly out of character for Phaethon. Second, Atkins, if asked about his investigation, could not and would not answer. And third, Phaethon himself would, by that time, be firmly convinced that there was an alien super-virus lurking in the mentality, hunting for him, and so therefore he would have an excuse to refuse a noetic examination. If he were not neotically examined, this tampering would not be noticed.

  As an added bonus, he would, of course, by then, have forgotten all about this moment and this falsification. He would still be able to think of himself as an honest man, and have no reason to think otherwise.

  Smiling grimly, Phaethon loaded the program to begin erasing and rewriting his own memory.

  5.

  The Phaethon who had been Phaethon exclaimed: “But that is not what happened!”

  But he was alone when he said this. All the other Phaethons had returned to their own identities, and were staring down at Phaethon with remote, august, and unpitying stares.

  “But that is not what happened!” Phaethon said again.

  Neo-Orpheus said, “Not that you recall, you mean. But the reason why your recollection is in error, is because you yourself falsified it.”

  Phaethon said, “But I would never do such a thing! You all know I would not!”

  Neo-Orpheus smiled thinly. “We know that is what you had hoped we would believe. The record shows us everything.”

  Phaethon made an angry gesture: “The record has been falsified! During the moment it took me to transfer my copy to Channel 2120, the alien Sophotech or its unmaker virus must have rewritten the memory chains.”

  Tau Continuous Albion said, “Albion Sophotech informs me that such tampering is not theoretically possible. He has examined the record we just experienced, subjecting it to six levels of redundant scrutiny. No evidence of tampering has been found. Is there any contrary opinion?”

  Nebuchednezzar Sophotech had a thoughtful look, his eyes focused on the distant ceiling. “I also am examining the Mentality records, and have invented three new tools of statistical analysis to do so. During the transmission from the Eleemosynary box to our local service, there was no opportunity for anyone or anything to affect the data. If it had been modified during the reading process, the modification would have had to have been introduced between every other picosecond pulse of the main circuit action. To fit such an enormous volume of change into so short a time would require a data-compression technique beyond the Planck unit limit. In theory, such a compressed data formulation could be assembled under what scientists call nonrational continuum conditions, either within the event horizon of a singularity, or in the achronic conditions preceding the big bang. There is no way known to our science of crossing such an event horizon, or of passing the information intact from inside a singularity to the outside.”

  Tau Continous said, “In other words, not possible.”

  Nebuchednezzar brought his eyes down. “Not possible within the present state of our technology.”

  Kes Satrick Kes spoke for the first time. His voice was flat, crisp, and precise: “I note a symmetry in both of the world-views here. Phaethon’s view is that he is being persecuted by an alien sophotechnology, which he supposes to be sophisticated enough to alter or falsify the evidence to the contrary. The other view, which the testimony of the record supports,
is that Phaethon, in desperation, falsified his memory and erased his own knowledge that he had done so. Both world-views adequately explain the appearances, and are self-consistent. Occam’s razor urges us, when two explanations adequately explain the phenomena, to choose the one requiring fewer hypothetical assumptions. Naturally, I estimate that it is more likely that a man could falsify himself (which is something we see all the time) than that an alien, utterly unknown civilization (which is something we have never seen) could adopt a hostile posture toward us; single out Phaethon for attack; and yet be familiar enough with all of our protocols and systems to forge multiple sealed records and memories without being detected by the Earthmind. Without additional evidence, I will assume Phaethon’s version of events is false. A Noetic examination of his brain directly could provide the additional evidence we need to reverse this opinion. But I anticipate that Phaethon, in order to be consistent with his present beliefs, will continue to refuse such an examination.”

  Phaethon said, “The threat is real, even if I am the only one who sees it. I dare not reestablish a direct connection to the Mentality. The Nothing Sophotech has acted; I saw the results just now, practically in front of our eyes.” But his voice was low, his eye was dull; the look of man who knows, beyond question, that he will not be believed.

  The other Hortators did not bother to make so careful an analysis as Kes Satrick Kes. Most did not even bother to record a speech, or proffer a supporting opinion, but simply announced their support for an endless, permanent, and absolute exile to be imposed on Phaethon.

  Helion’s voice came, once again, quietly into his ear: “You are clearly suffering from a self-imposed paranoid fantasy. Open your deep structure mind to the Noetic probe, and we will be able to undo the harm. We can redact these false beliefs entire out of your mind and memory. This may be your last chance, son; the Hortators are voting.”