by John Wright
The main deceleration burn had ended, and the grav-ity was only at two or three times Earth normal, so the Lacedaimonians were able to manifest themselves in physical bodies on the bridge.
Vidur Lacedaimon wore a black nanomachine coating, much like Phaethon's own inner garment. The inner coat was webbed with vertical formulation rods.
to assist the several Warlock Wolf-minds Vidur kept stored in lower compartments of his mind; the inner coat contained a para-matter generator and a set of templates, to allow Vidur to materialize any additional clothing or gear he might require.
Temer Lacadaimon was a Dark-Gray, and was concerned with tradition just as much as any Silver-Gray manorial; but his traditions were strange and grim to Phaethon. He did not appear as a Second Era Englishman (as a Silver-Gray would have done). Instead, he wore a police uniform from the late Sixth Era, a symbiot that was grown into his skin cells, but which left his hands and head free. This symbiot kept Temer warm and well fed, protected him from acceleration shock or blood loss. Upon impact, it would stiffen into armor; reflective tissues became visible when ambient energy or laser-light impinged on the symbiot surface. ' The symbiot's name was Mirnmur; and it was ten thousand years old, for it had been granted immortality by Orpheus to commemorate Temer's grandfather, Pausanias, who had worn Mimmur during the Sixth Era Riot Control police actions that had claimed his life. The uniform was dark gray in hue, of course.
Holstered at his belt was a variable-energy baton, whose grip was slick and black with age. This weapon was named Widow-maker, and it was even older than the uniform.
In the circuits of the weapon, the New College had prepared the multiple simulations of every death, of all the pain, loss, and grief of all widows, orphans, lost partners, lost selves, which so many would have suffered for so long, had Xenophon or his agents successfully used the Phoenix Exultant to attack the helpless Golden Oecumene during Transcendence. Temer carried a million purgatories' worth of pain with him, so that, when Xenophon was caught, he could be killed not once but as many times as he would have killed hi-victims, had his plans succeeded.
To see a civilized man carrying such a deadly antique reminded Phaethon of Atkins, and of the old soldier's habit of carrying a ceremonial sword. With ha mind still haunted by the visions from the Transcendence, Phaethon was surprised to find how normal the sight looked to him. He was shocked that he was not shocked.
Vidur said, "The New College, when it is formed, will applaud you for this donation of your time, and the use of your ship."
Phaethon smiled, and sent the smile onto the ship channels, so that the two wardens could see it through his faceplate. "Gentlemen, I am honored; and yet I cannot entirely overlook the fact that, for good or for ill, I will be beyond the reach of the applause, or the censure, of the College of Hortators, in a very little time from now. I plan to return only once more to Earth, to finish resupplying, and to pick up crew."
Temer said, "You are young yet, Phaethon. Eventually, you will return from star voyaging, or human civilization, in ships yet unbuilt, of designs yet undreamed, will overtake you. It may be a thousand years from now, or ten thousand, or a hundred; but you and I will meet again. You will not be the only one to travel among the stars, I promise you that."
Phaethon saw Vidur smile at Temer's comment. Young? Phaethon supposed that to a man not yet properly born, the difference between a four-thousand-year-old and an eleven-thousand-year-old did not seem that great.
The ship-mind said, "We are approaching the alleged source of the ghost-particle signals."
Diomedes was not physically present, but an image of him was projected from the ship-mind space where he lived into the sense-filters of the men on the bridge. Being a collateral member of the Silver-Gray, Diomedes had his image enter through the air lock, had it cast a shadow, gave his footsteps echoes, and had it walk across the whole length of the bridge to approach the three men, and so on, rather than having a self-image fade in out of nowhere. The image was dressed in the normal costume of the Silver-Gray; coat, tie, jacket, shoes.
Diomedes said, "I've made a second copy of myself, so I can still participate in the Transcendence while helping you here, Captain-may I call you Captain?"
Phaethon said, "Certainly. But you will not get paid until you sign my articles."
"Be that as it may; my 'upper-brother' still in the Transcendence has done a much more thorough analysis than I have done. Hmph. He had help. Mars-mind invented new analytical tools for combing through the data...."
Phaethon said, "Does he confirm our results?"
"He does. Ghost particles from this point in space are being rotated into virtuality, transmitted to variable broadcast receivers around Triton and Nereid, and rotated back into reality. Xenophon was meshed with the Neptunian Duma when the Duma was brought into the Transcendence."
"Is Xenophon still there?" asked Phaethon. "In the Transcendence?"
Diomedes said, "My upper self and I think so. Look.'"
The mirrors on the bridge came to life. Most remained blank: heat and paniculate matter, electromagnetic energy, was the same as the normal background of empty space here. But the Silent Oecumene-built ghost-particle array aboard the Phoenix Exultant was receiving pulses of seminonexistent waves from an area less than one AU distant. A repeated image technique allowed a shadowy picture to form in one mirror.
Here was a hermit cell, webbed with antidetectioa gear, floating in space, hidden inside a ball of ice half a mile across, a cometary head.
The gear detected a ghost-particle array, perhaps as small as several yards across, exchanging signals with a transponder near Neptune.
Vidur scowled. "So Xenophon has already seen the next ten thousand years of our plans and goals, assessed our strength, counted our troops."
Temer said, "The disadvantage of life in a free and open society-we've forgotten how to lock our doors.""
Diomedes held up a single finger. "One. We've only got one trooper. Don't need to be a Sophtech to count that high."
Phaethon said, "If one were equal to one according to the math of these Swans from Cygnus, we'd have less trouble from them."
Diomedes said, "The Transcendence did not predict that the Silent Ones could maintain a full-scale war against us for any length of time. Um. At least what an entity to whom a thousand years is but a day regards as 'a long time.' ..."
Vidur spoke with the certainty very young men tend always to have: "Our predictions were unduly optimistic, I am sure, and made the spy to smile."
Temer said, "He would smile just as much if our predictions overestimated the Silent Oecumene strength as underestimated."
Phaethon said, "He must have seen this ship, even at this distance. We are huge, and we make a lot of noise, and our stern is toward him as we decelerate. What is be thinking? Is this a trap?"
Temer said, "Suppose he had an escape ship-the Phoenix should be able to outrun anything in space. And how far could he go? I think he is saving fuel. He is going to be caught in any case."
Diomedes looked sidelong at Phaethon, and raised a hand to hide a discreet cough. This was one of the Silver-Gray traditions, indicating a wish for a private word or two.
Phaethon's sense filter linked with Diomedes. An imaginary solarium appeared around them. It did not quite have the usual Silver-Gray attention to detail. Instead of an English garden scene appearing outside the eastern windows of the porch, an image of Phaethon on his throne, continuing a conversation with Vidur and Temer, appeared, so that the two men could track what was happening in the outer reality.
Diomedes sat. "You seem troubled, friend."
Phaethon poured himself a cup of imaginary tea. He sipped it, staring moodily into the middle distance. He said, "I wish I could remember what it was I had been thinking during the Transcendence. My body, acting more or less on its own, sent the Phoenix Exultant out here. It seemed like a good idea at the time."
Diomedes said, "There is no mystery. The Golden Oecumene has only one
operating ghost-particle array. And it is aboard this ship."
"Is Atkins aboard?"
"I am sure he must be."
"The ship brain is still half-asleep. I don't even know what is really going on."
Diomedes leaned across the table and patted Phaethon's arm in a friendly fashion. "Don't fret so! Once the Transcendence is concluded, and all are restored to their normal states, communication lines will be restored, records will be set back in order. In the meanwhile, look at the fine gifts we all got! You now have something like Helion's multiple parallel brain compartments, but with no speed loss; I have a mechanism for interpreting Warlock-type intuitions using a subroutine. See how insightful I am these days?"
Diomedes leaned back and inspected his friend. "Hm. My intuition tells me you are still uneasy."
Phaethon sighed. "I am getting tired of always acting on blind faith. When I do not have gaps in my memory, I have gaps in my knowledge. I always seem to be forced to trust that either my old self, or some Sophotech, has thought out the details of what I am about to do, and has already arranged everything to come out right-it is a childish way to behave. I am tired of being a child."
Diomedes made his eyes crinkle up with a smile. "You are so impatient to leave this 'utopia'?"
"It was never a Utopia. It is a good system. Maybe the best system. But in reality, everything has a cost. The cost of living in a system with fairly benevolent giant superintellects, frankly, is that you have to live as I have done. Blindly."
He tuned one of the windows in the solarium to a view of the nearby stars. Like jewels, they glittered against the velvet dark.
He said, "I yearn for the solitude of empty spaces, Diomedes. There, finally, I shall stand on my own; and if I fall, the fault will be mine and mine alone."
Diomedes said, "I take it there is still something missing from your life?"
Phaethon said, "There is still a gap in my memory. A period of two weeks from seventy years ago is gone; even Rhadamanthus does not have a record of it. I visited a colony of purists living to the east of Eveningstar Manor. Records show I shipped a container to Earth, to the enclave where Daphne was originally born. Telemetry data indicate there may have been biological material aboard. A fortnight. It's a blank. Even the Transcendence could not fill in what was missing. I was aboard ship and cut off from all communication."
"The canister? You have no medical officers or in-spection services on Earth?"
"We are not Neptunians, my good Diomedes. Who would be so rude as to open up someone else's private container? I suppose the purists could have hired any inspectors they wished to examine their packages for them; but purists do not keep system-linked records."
Diomedes posted a rile where he enumerated the parallels between the purists and the Eremites of beyond-Neptune. Neither group entered mind-links of any kind, not even Transcendence. While the rest of civilization celebrated, they remained on their farms and blue houses. He said aloud: "We tend to think the Sophotechs know everything. But what they don't know, they don't know, do they?"
Phaethon stared at the image of the nearby stars, and scowled.
Diomedes said plaintively, "But nothing so very important could have happened in two weeks could it?"
Meanwhile, in the outer conversation, Temer was staring thoughtfully at the chamber hidden in the flying iceberg, watching the readings on the volume of information passing back and forth from the chamber to Neptunian transponders.
"There is someone still alive there," said Temer. "There is too much information volume for an automatic process. This is a mind participating in the Transcendence. He may not be aware of us because he is involved in the visions."
Phaethon said, "Someone still alive, yes, or someone left behind."
Temer turned to him. "You doubt the story told by Xenophon? That the Silent One broadcast himself here across the abyss of space, and was picked up by Neptunian radio-astronomers?"
"Everything the Swans say turns out to be a lie." said Phaethon. "Why not that, also a lie?"
"Do you think there is a vessel like yours? A silent Phoenix?"
Phaethon shook his head. "Worse. There could be a vessel better than mine. The Nothing Machine housed in the surface granulations of a microscopic black hole event horizon. Imagine a larger version of the same thing, accelerated to near light-speed. What armor does it need, except its own event horizon? Any particle it struck in flight would be absorbed. No matter how massive the black hole was made, the singularity fountains at Cygnus X-l could have provided the energy to accelerate it. How could such a thing be seen by our astronomers in flight? It would absorb all light."
Terrier said, "X-ray or gamma point sources would emerge as swept-in particles were sheared by tidal forces. Something for us to look back over astronomical records to check."
Vidur said, "Look. A finer-grained image is being rendered."
It was true. The ghost-particle array now showed some internal details of the ice-locked chamber. The ship mind hypothesized a possible view, based on the fuzzy images, the cloaked echoes of energy discharges. The hypothetical picture showed Xenophon hanging like a blue sphere, in his most heat-conserving form, in fee middle of the tiny chamber.
Diomedes raised his hand. "Xenophon is aware of us."
Instantly, all four of them were embraced into the ship-mind, and the information flowed back to the In-ner System, to Neptune, and to this far and lonely outpost, and flooded through them.
It was the final thought of the fading Transcendence.
And Xenophon was there.
Xenophon was using a sophisticated Silent Oecumene mind-warfare technique to watch the Transcendence (or tiny surface parts of it) without joining. This was Xenophon, hidden, encrypted, surrounded by walls of privacy, in a small cell, attached by a long, invisible tether of radio-laser communication, to the Neptunian Embassy at Trailing Trojan City-Swarm.
For a moment of Transcendence time, which was several days of real time, the last movement of the Transcendence watched him watching.
The thought preoccupying all the gathered minds was this: Perhaps there was still some hope that Xenophon could be salvaged or reformed.
Xenophon was allowed to see, in the deepest thoughts of the Golden Oecumene, the honest awareness of the futility of the Silent Ones and all their irrational philosophy. The war would probably not be as long as Helion's projection had extrapolated. The Nothing Machine's ability to produce copies of itself was severely limited by the fact that, unless all copies maintained, somehow, a complete uniformity of opinion and thought-priority, conflicts would arise between them.
Such conflicts had to be resolved by violence, since the Nothing philosophy eschewed reason.
Foresight of that coming violence would require the Master Nothing to make the copies and lesser Nothings as weak, stupid, fearful, and un-innovative as was possible, given their tasks.
Colonizing new star systems with hosts of stupid and uncreative machines as colony managers was surely to be a series of slow, nightmarish failures. The empire of the Silent Ones, if it existed at all, would be a small one. Perhaps they had not even left their home star at Cygnus X-l yet.
If so, then Phaeton's first mission there might resolve matters quickly. This "war" might be over even before the planned first warship, the Nemesis Lacedai-mon, was launched by the New College.
What, then, was the point of any of Xenophon's efforts? Why had he helped this madness? Why did he still support a cause doomed to failure?
At this point Xenophon realized these thoughts were directed at him; that the minds on which he was spying were watching him, patiently watching him.
Giving him one last chance to be reasonable.
And yes, of course, Atkins was there, loaded into the ship-mind of the Phoenix Exultant as she approached. In the middle of the otherwise free and peaceful Transcendence, Atkins had introduced a military thought-virus. The vaunted mind-war techniques of the Silent Ones did not detect or stop it.
The final thought of the Transcendence calmly bade Xenophon and the universe farewell, and ended. Xenophon woke, and saw the gigantic, invulnerable starship almost atop his hiding place.
From one part of the blue sphere that formed his body, Xenophon's neurocircuitry writhed, constructed an emitter, and sent a message to a nearby thought-port. Unlike his normal prolix self, this version of Xenophon sent a brief penultimate message: "You realize now that you have defeated only the weakest and stupidest possible version of the Nothing Philanthropotech, one who has been told nothing about our true goals and true powers. The Lords of the Silent Oecumene have greater agents at their command, and their plans have been very long in the devising. Since even before the Naglfar first reached Cygnus X-l, Ao Ormgorgon vowed his great vow. As for me, you will never know the reasons for my hate."
A second group of complex neurocircuits formed, and created a zone of energy density powerful enough to blind all of the sensitives of the Transcendence nearby; even the ghost array aboard the Phoenix saw no clear image. Long-range analysis would be able to conclude from reconstructions that the metric of timespace in this small area was becoming intensely warped.
Fearing a trap, or unknown weapon, Phaethon held the Phoenix Exultant 300,000 kilometers away until the effect diminished.
By the time Temer Lacedaimon and Vidur and Atkins arrived via remote mannequin some time later, with Phaethon in his armor, to pick slowly through the rubbish, Phaethon's armor circuits discovered the residuum of tidal forces that had distorted subatomic particles in the region.
Apparently, by means unknown, by a science that even the Earthmind did not understand, Xenophon had created a black hole inside himself and collapsed his mass into it.