by John Wright
Without a word of greeting, Atkins drew a memory card from his weapon belt, and held it up. "Here are the Warmind's instructions. I have reviewed the plan and concluded that it is the best our present limited knowledge allows. The fundamental goal of this plan is to locate the enemy high command, the entity you refer to as Nothing Sophotech."
"Why do you say, 'refer to'?"
"We don't think it's a Sophotech. The things Scaramouche said to you may have been calculated to create that impression, perhaps to dishearten any opposition. No one wants to fight a Sophotech, do they? But I insist that you agree to follow by the provisions of misplan, before I show them to you."
It took a moment for Phaethon to understand what was being asked of him. "How can I agree in ignorance?"
"How can you think you can be of any help to the military effort to defend the Golden Oecumene when you have steadfastly refused to join the military? The need for coordinated action, guided by a unified plan, is so obvious during emergencies of this kind, that I am amazed that the laws will not permit me to conscript you and expropriate your ship for this purpose. The laws won't let me do what I need to do to let us survive this war. Those laws might get us all killed. So what can I do now? I've complained to my superior about you, and explained that the military needs you and your ship for this plan to have any chance."
"And the response, I assume, did not create great pleasure in you?"
Atkins looked annoyed. "Get that smirk off your face, mister, this is not funny."
"I intended no jest, Marshal Atkins! Nor was I smirking; this is simply my natural expression. But I cannot hide the pleasure with which I hear the news that my individual rights are still carefully respected by the Parliament and the Sophotechs, even in such times as these. And I had thought all this time that the Parliament was the main source of danger to my liberty. How strange that they should defend it."
"Don't pick out a silverware pattern yet."
"I beg your pardon?"
"I mean, don't fall in love with the Parliament. The Parliament would have done everything I wanted in an instant if the Sophotechs, without exception, had not advised them not to. Westmind predicted that the Curia would have overruled the Parliament in an instant, knew the Censor would censure them, and predicted that the Hortators would have them all ostracized and picking through trash in Talaimannar before the day was up, if they treated you that way. Nebuchadnezzar himself spoke up for you."
"How ironic."
Atkins held up the memory card. "If he hadn't, you'd be a buck private right now, and these would be boot-camp downloads and mind-sets and orders, not suggestions."
"What did Nebuchadnezzar say?"
"He said any civilization that could not produce men willing freely to volunteer to fight and die in her defense did not deserve to survive." Atkins paused a moment to let that sink in. Then, in a harder voice: "And I told him I'd rather have my civilization, my folks and my friends, survive, whether they 'deserved to' or not. There's something really screwy about a set-up where one guy like you, just on his own, gets to decide whether or not our civilization 'deserves' to survive." Atkins held up the card, and concluded: "Well? Do we have a deal? Are you going to follow the plan to the letter?" "You ask me to sacrifice my ship and perhaps my life on a plan, which I am not permitted to examine? What kind of businessman do you think I am?"
"I don't give a damn what kind of businessman you are. I'm trying to find out what kind of patriot you are. If I tell you the plan, and you don't agree to follow it, and then you do something stupid and fall into enemy hands, then they'll get the plan, and I don't want that."
"Come now, Marshal! What you ask of me is unreasonable."
"War is unreasonable. If it were reasonable, it would be called 'peace.' The only other thing I can do is show you the plan under seal, and then have your memory of the plan redacted, allowing you only to keep the knowledge that there is a plan and that you agreed to it."
"After I woke from the redaction, I would not know why I had agreed. I wouldn't even know whether or not the memory of agreement was true, or was a false memory planted by you for some overriding military purpose. I only just recently escaped from the labyrinth of missing memory; do you expect me to step back into that maze again?"
"Sorry. What else can we do? I don't want the enemy to find out the plan through you. Besides, think of it this way: this time, when you go back into the Labyrinth, you'll be Theseus. This time, it'll be the monster in the middle of the maze who'll find he has a cause to be afraid."
"You have the soul of a poet, Marshal Atkins."
"Kipling, I hope."
"I mean, you pepper your speech with such archaisms, you sound just like a Silver-Grey."
"With all due respect, my tradition is older than yours, older than anyone else's. My profession was the first one man ever made, and it'll be the last one to go. It's the one that makes all the others possible. So what do you say?" He held up the card for the third time. "Does our civilization deserve to live, or not?"
Phaethon slid aside the panel of the symbol table. Underneath was the portable noetic reader Aurelian had given Daphne. "I can use this for the redaction. I have enough capacity in my armor and in the ship-mind to do all the necessary iatropsychometry. I'll be flying blind when I awake, I suppose." And Phaethon heaved a great sigh. "One would expect I'd be used to that, by now."
A set of tiny wrinkles formed around Atkins's eyes. It was not the standard face-symbology, but Phaethon recognized the look from old historicals. Despite the fact that the man's mouth was still, as ever, a grim line, he was smiling. It was a look of admiration, of pleasure, even of joy.
"Well, well," said Atkins. "Will wonders never cease? You're a bold man after all."
"The boldest, I hope," Phaethon replied.
"Second boldest," Atkins corrected.
"You look pleased nonetheless, Marshall Atkins."
"I am happy to be seeing action, Mr. Phaethon. It is always a lot worse than you think it is going to be, and the civilian authority is usually more ready to go to war than the military professionals, and when these things start, usually the good guys aren't ready, aren't trained, aren't equipped. But still. But still..."
"But still this is the task for which you have kept yourself in readiness for centuries without count, is it not, Marshal Atkins?"
Atkins squinted, and looked off to the left, almost as if he were shy, and amused at his own shyness. He snorted through his nose. "The most likely outcome here is, that we are both going to buy the farm, Mr. Phaethon."
"What farm?"
"Sorry. I mean we are both going to die. Probably many times. Whether or not my backup copies think they are the same guy as me won't make my dying any easier; and if we are fighting a Sophotech after all, we may be in for a fate worse than death. We could be turned. Edited. Made into loyal copies of ourselves, working for the other side. So there is no reason to grin."
"My dear sir, I am not 'grinning.' As I said before, this is my normal expression."
"You never looked like that on the ground."
"This is my normal expression aboard my ship. No one has been privileged to see it on my face before."
Atkins chuckled, and Phaethon could not restrain a great laugh of reckless joy. He tossed back his head as if he had heard a trumpet sounding in the distance. "Come! I fear no Silent Oecumene, no dark swans from a dead star, no evil Sophotechs! I fear nothing. My heart is filled with fire; I have the strength of titans in me! Here all around us is my dream, come true in the form as I would have it, each erg of energy, each molecule and field of force fitted to my design; from prow to stern, keel to superstructure, this is all my thought made real; and made real to defy a world that has forgotten what that word 'real' once meant. Welcome aboard my ship, Marshal Atkins! We will face the foe together; we shall triumph, or perish with honor; that is my promise. Here is my hand on it."
A slight tension pulled at Atkins's cheek, as if he were smiling at Phaeth
on's presumption. Or, perhaps he was pleased by the enthusiasm. "The ship is not legally yours, and we are not going any farther than Jupiter, to take aboard'the real owner; who, if he had any options, would run away and hide, rather than face me. But he has no options. He will show himself." He doffed his gauntlet and took Phaethon's proffered hand.
Phaethon said, "Off to battle, then?" Atkins said, "Off to battle. Is there anything to drink aboard this boat? This kind of thing calls for a toast." They shook hands.
Phaethon seated himself on his throne. The thought-ports on his armor opened. "All stations, systems, subsystems, partials, routines, and commands! Heed me; your captain speaks. Prepare the greatest ship ever crafted by civilization for her maiden voyage; and even if it is to be a voyage that will end in fire and destruction, let us make ready in all due haste! Initiate your sequences and run the checks: the Phoenix Exultant this day is launched!"
In his brain and in the brain-augmentations in his armor, the preliminary system checks began. Mirror after mirror lit up around him. The throbbing hum of energy at work could be heard in the distance.
The initial round of checks were semiautomatic; it would not be until an hour or so from now that he would need to merge with the ship-mind and oversee the final high-energy build-up processes to bring the engines to burn temperatures.
He had plenty of time to discover what this plan was that Marshal Atkins had brought from the Warmind, plenty of time to compose whatever last good-byes, or set in order what last will and testament he might require. Plenty of time.
So then, to Atkins he said, "What was that about a toast?"
"It's an old tradition. You'll love it."
"Marshal, I know what a toast is; I live my life in a Second-Era Victorian simulation as a lord of the manor. They drink like, well, like lords. I was wondering to what you were going to toast?" A remote shaped like a cabin boy was already approaching across the wide expanse of the golden floor, carrying a tray with two crystal goblets.
Atkins took one cup in hand. "Why, Mr. Phaethon, I thought that would be obvious."
He raised the sparkling goblet.
"To the Phoenix Exultant"
"To the Phoenix Exultant!"
"And, though I doubt it, long may she live."
Phaethon's heart was full, and had no room for doubt. He said, "Long may she live, and far may she fly."
They touched glasses with the tiniest chime of crystal noise.
Here ends the second volume, THE PHOENIX EXULTANT.
The tale of the Golden Age concludes in the third volume, THE GOLDEN TRANSCENDENCE.
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