The Phoenix Exultant Read online

  12

  AT DAWN

  1.

  Phaethon turned his back to both of them, irked and angered, but unwilling to show his exasperation. He found a wall socket leading to the barge power-core, and pretended to busy himself programming an adapter out of his nanomaterial cloak, to recharge his drained armor batteries.

  The other two said nothing. Despite all the unasked and unanswered questions, no one spoke.

  Daphne stood leaning back against the rail, ankles crossed, hands near her hips grasping the rail to either side. A soft night wind tossed her mussed hair. Her face was still smudged, but she looked lovely nonetheless.

  Daphne wore a slight, dreamy smile, and her eyes were on the distant horizon. She looked as if all were well with the world. But that slight supercilious arch to her eyebrow, that slight catlike smile, also made her look as if all were right with the world only because of some secret scheme of her own, a scheme which, under its own power, needing nothing more from her, moved to its long-foreseen conclusion.

  Meanwhile Atkins stood still, patient as a stone, while his small black remotes, like little scampering seashells, combed back and forth across the burnt and flame-scarred area of the barge deck.

  Phaethon thought, in a spasm of irritation, why shouldn’t he be patient? Atkins was still immortal.

  Some part of the anger in Phaethon’s mind bubbled to the surface. He shut off the wall socket, and turned to glower at Atkins.

  Phaethon pointed toward Daphne, and snapped at Atkins: “Before anything else happens, I want Daphne’s noumenal immortality copies restored. They were taken from her wrongfully: Her exile is wrongful, since she was exiled only for helping me, and I should not have been, and would not have been, ostracized by the Hortators if you had had the decency to speak up at my inquest hearing, and tell the College of Hortators the truth!”

  “Yes, sir,” said Atkins in a polite tone. “I am sure you do want that. Was there something in particular you think I can do to help you out there, sir?”

  Phaethon told himself that anger was both irrational and undignified. He was sure a self-consideration circuit would show him whatever subconscious associations or allusions were provoking his sense that he had been treated unfairly.

  But the anger was there nonetheless. “Yes. You can issue an official apology. You can pay monetary damages to my wife for the period of time she was deprived of the use of her immortality circuit, a circuit she had every right to use and which, had it not been for the deception you practiced on the College of Horators, she would have been able to use. Her life was and still is in danger during every moment her immortality circuit is disengaged, because any fatal accident she suffers now will permanently destroy part of her thought-record, and, if she loses too much memory, that may prejudice her rights to her own identity!”

  Atkins said curtly, “Not much I can do about that, sir. Was there anything else?”

  “Yes! You can offer her a public apology and monetary damages for the amount of time she was impressed into involuntary servitude as an operative of the Oecumene Warmind Military Hierarchy. Or do you deny that the military was using her as bait to lure the Silent One agent out into the open? You were treating her as if she were one of your people, risking her life, putting her in a combat situation, but you did not give her the option to volunteer for that life-and-death mission. Nor did you give her the benefit of the training, arms, and equipment, which you have given the lowliest soldier in your ranks, in order to give him the chance, at least, to defend himself! A chance you did not give her!”

  He looked aside and saw that Daphne was smiling. Phaethon felt a moment of confusion and hope. He said, “Unless … did you volunteer for this, Daphne? Did Atkins explain the situation to you, and you came nonetheless? That was what was missing from the days after you left Atkins’s house, in the record you showed me, wasn’t it? Some period of training or preparation, when he readied you to face this danger … ?”

  And he could not help but smile in relief. For a moment, for just a moment, he had thought that the government and the society of the Golden Oecumene was capable of the type of mean, low, and deceptive practices which the barbarian governments of primitive and unenlightened ages had practiced throughout all time. A time now long past …

  Daphne said, “Volunteer? To go into danger? Me? Of course not. Don’t be silly. I thought you were deluded. I thought Gannis made up your enemy invaders just to trick you. I certainly would not have volunteered to get my poor Sunset killed! I loved that horse. Volunteer for that? What kind of monster do you think I am?”

  “Then what happened during those missing days?”

  “Mostly, I wandered around looking for you. And I wished I lived in the days when there were roads. So there I was on my horse, plodding through the green hills of India, where the Uncomposed Cerebellines live, separate from their gardens and rice-ponds. And I turned into something like the myth of the Asteroid Miner’s Wife, moving from little community to little community, searching for her husband’s misplaced mail-body-bag. Except in my case, instead of hunting down frightened Couriers of the Reunited Nations Extraterrestrial Postal Service, I was the one who had to flee and hide, so as not to come to the attention of the Hortators. And I didn’t have a flame-cannon. But aside from that, I was just like her. You would have been surprised. The rumor got started that I was about to be exiled, so no one was willing to talk to me (you know how Uncomposed Cerebellines are) and everyone pretended they couldn’t see me, (even when they could) and every time I rode into some small hamlet or real-market or constructionary, everyone seemed to know who I was, and they left out little gifts or food or trinkets on their watch-stoops, or hanging in slate-cases from their garden posts. Just like the Sandmen in the story leaving out flame-slugs and air-bottles for the Asteroid Miner’s Wife, you see? And they pretended that animals or fairies were coming and taking the little gifts away. Actually, it was all rather sweet. A lot of people left me money, time coins, or antimatter grams. That part was really funny. Because we’re rich. I told you that part already, didn’t I?”

  “Yes. I think you’ve told me everything,” said Phaethon. Something in her voice, in her little story, was making his anger ebb. Was she doing that on purpose … ? But no. It could not be on purpose. No woman could be that calculating.

  Phaethon turned back toward Atkins, and was about to begin remonstrating with him again, when Daphne added: “Oh, no! I forgot to tell you the one important part! I met one of Aurelian Sophotech’s projections in the Taj Mahal.”

  “You were looking for me in the Taj Mahal … ?”

  “Oh, no. I was looking for you in India. But I went to see the Taj Mahal just because I was in India anyway, you know, and why miss the opportunity … ? His image was dressed like Ganesha, wearing an elephant head, one broken tusk dipped in scrivener’s ink, and riding on the back of a mouse. It was really cute-looking; I’ll show you my memories after we get back home.”

  Phaethon darted a dark look at Atkins. “Yes. That’s quite right. Our exile is going to be rescinded, correct? Atkins is a witness that all these events are real. Perhaps this time he will not hide the truth.”

  A twitch of annoyance touched the edge of Atkins’ mouth. “Sir, you seem to think I set policy. I just obey orders. I can’t even pass wind without the regulation book says so, OK? I didn’t make the set-up you got yourself into.”

  “Very convenient to have someone else in charge of your conscience, then, is it?”

  “You might know more about that than I would, sir. Ask your mansion that runs your life for you.”

  Phaethon was outraged. “I beg your pardon … ?!”

  Daphne said in a smooth and carefree voice, “Oh, darling! Did I tell you that Aurelian had a message for you … ? It’s the most important thing in your life, so if you two king stallions are done kicking at each other, maybe I can clue you in … ?”

  Phaethon said to Atkins, “You, sir, are a jackass. I think you owe me some
sort of apology. Otherwise …” But then he could think of no legitimate threat, so he stood there, grimacing and feeling foolish.

  To his infinite surprise, Atkins stepped forward, extended his hand, and said, “I’m sorry.”

  “What?”

  “I’m sorry. Shake. I didn’t set the policy, and I did not know the extent of the Silent Oecumene penetration into our mentality, and so the Parliament couldn’t make any of the knowledge public.”

  “Then it is the Silent Oecumene?”

  “Their technology, without a doubt. Whether it is really them, I don’t know. Unless they found some way of climbing up out of a black hole.”

  “How long have you known?”

  “Known for sure? Not till the night they sent one of their agents, disguised as a Neptunian, to go talk to you. They were pretty desperate to get to you by that point, and so they took risks and got sloppy. The Neptunian left behind physical evidence, spores in the grass, nanomachines, and so on. Because of the way the data was encoded into the nanomachine fields, it seemed pretty clear they had a Sophotech. You overheard what my remotes found out about that. But as for how long it’s been since I suspected? It was since the solar storm.”

  “The one that killed my father.”

  “Right. I saw an art performance some freak from the Irem school put up on the public channels that analyzed the movements and energy-levels involved in the solar flares. It reminded me of the attack fractile patterns some of my chaos-weapons use. I mean, I know what a barrage looks like when I see one. And, after I finally got the funds to do a statistical analysis run on the flare motions from that recording (and, boy, the Parliament really did not want to give the money for that!) I saw what the target was they were firing at. Your ship.”

  “They were manipulating Helion’s array somehow to produce the effects?”

  “I don’t know how they did it. At that point, I did not even know if they had done it. No one else but me thought that the solar storm followed an attack pattern, or that it was deliberate.”

  “Why didn’t you tell anyone your suspicions?”

  Atkins looked amused. “I told my superiors, the Parliamentary standing committee on Military Oversight. Are you asking why I didn’t tell the press? I’m not allowed. And even if I were, I would hardly have told anyone. For all I knew then, the Silent Oecumene had corrupted Helion’s Pyraeus and Flammifer Sophotechs. And, if they were into the Solar mentality, why not in the Terrestrial? The fact that your ship was a target led me to believe that you were also a target, and the Parliament agreed, and I was sent to watch you during the festival. You put on a disguise and slipped out one night, and I lost track of you, and by the time I found you again, you were already talking to the Neptunian.”

  “Then—they killed my father—?”

  “And I think they meant to kill you, too, as soon as they could get you into a private enough spot. But then something changed their minds.”

  “When my lawyer tricked Gannis into canceling my debt. They thought they could possess the ship rather than destroy it.”

  “Lucky thing, too. Otherwise, that black card which Scaramouche handed you—the one they called ‘Scary,’ a polyp riding on Unmoiqhotep’s back; that was Scaramouche—would have just brain-wiped you instead of giving you pseudomnesia. And, yes, I was not really the bailiff at the courthouse. Sending me to guard the justices would be like parking a battleship in the pond behind the parish courthouse in Dorking to protect the Judge of the Assize. Yes. I was there to watch you. I was ordered to keep an eye on you every time you logged off of Rhadamanthus. These Silent Ones are deadly afraid of Sophotechs, and I knew they would approach when and only when you were not hooked to Rhadamanthus.”

  “So you waited till Daphne was coming to look for me, knowing they would come out of hiding to follow her. And your plan was just to trace the link back to their superiors once they succeeded. And you were willing to let both of us be killed to allow that to happen, weren’t you?”

  Atkins nodded glumly. “You’re right, I should have waited longer. I took a risk trying to protect the girl during the explosion, but I think that thing’s senses were confused when you opened fire on it.”

  “Confused it, did I?” Phaethon’s voice was flat.

  “Oh, don’t feel bad. It was a good try for an amateur. The target was stunned for almost a second. You made it use up a lot of its ablative shielding.”

  “Thanks,” said Phaethon without enthusiasm.

  “But you’re right. I should have held my fire. Right now, all we have is one vector of one line of communication. We have no idea how far away the destination was, nor will we know until we get a second line. And if the thing was broadcasting to a relay, that line tells us nothing. So we don’t have as many clues to go on as we would have, if it had taken your head and gone off. But it was one of those judgment calls, you know?” He smiled. “In any case, I can make out my after-action report now and still keep my zero civilian casualty rate.”

  “So you saved us to allow you to simplify your paperwork, is that it?”

  “Got to keep your priorities straight, sir. But don’t worry. We need at least a second line to trace back, in order to triangulate on where the Silent One agents are sending their messages. So we’re going to have to find another Silent One agent, or wait here till another one comes by to murder or kidnap you.”

  “And I suppose you are going to tell me that I have to remain mortal until that happens, won’t I? Because a Hortator reinstatement would be a public event that any remaining Silent One spies would notice, right? And so I am just supposed to wait here till I am killed just because you want me to, is that correct?”

  “I’ve got nothing to do with it, sir,” said Atkins, looking him straight in the eye. “It’s only a question of courage. Would you risk your life to save the Golden Oecumene? Would you die?”

  “Of course. That goes without saying.”

  “It goes without saying these days, sir, because you and I are the only people I’ve ever heard say it. I’m asking you to join the service. The enemy must have a starship.”

  “That is my conclusion as well. A Silent Phoenix.”

  “No ship of ours would be able to catch the thing; only yours. Which means we need to get her away from the Neptunians without alerting the Silent Ones who have infiltrated the Neptunians. And, if that means letting yourself get dumped on by the College of Hortators, and staying in this immortality-less exile, then that’s what you may be asked to do.”

  “Good grief, Marshal Atkins! Are you contemplating turning my Phoenix Exultant into a warship? A ship of peace, a ship meant for exploration, for the creation of new life? A horrid thought, sir! Unthinkable! Are you serious?!”

  “Let me ask you. Do you think the enemy could possibly have any vessel that could outrun her?”

  “Unthinkable—ah. Hm. Did you say ‘her’?”

  “Course. All ships are ‘her.’ Beautiful piece of machinery, that ship. You come up astern an enemy target at ninety-nine percent of the speed of light, target has got no time to react, won’t even see you till you’re right there. Then do a close pass, and use her drive like a stern-chaser, dose them with lethal radiation or dump some excess antimatter fuel off into their path. Or better yet, just ram her right through them. The amount of armor that beauty carries, no normal ship would even scratch her. She’s a wonder.”

  “Well. Well, I’m glad we agree on something, Marshal. But nonetheless, while I’d be perfectly willing to cooperate for any just and good cause, there is simply no possibility that I will join your military hierarchy and place myself under your orders.”

  “I can’t force you. I can’t draft you. Wish I could. But I can’t. But think about joining the service. It may be the only way to get your ship back. Not only do you get a chance to serve your Oecumene, there is a good benefits package, which I can explain, too, including free housing, medical programs, and benefits. I have my own immortality circuit, which no one controls b
ut the Warmind Sophotech group.”

  “You have your own circuit? Just for you? For one man?”

  “Those Hortators don’t tell the military what to do. Besides, our system is not a part of any public record the Silent Ones could see. Do you get what I am trying to tell you? You really do not have much choice about joining up, Phaethon.”

  Daphne said, “I’ve got something sort of really unbelievably important to say; can I interrupt at this point?”

  Phaethon said, “Please excuse us for just a moment, my dear. There is just one more matter I need to settle with Marshal Atkins.”

  Daphne muttered, “Which one of you produces more testosterone … ? Don’t worry, lover, I think he’s got you beat on that one …”

  Phaethon, with dignity, pretended not to hear. He turned to Atkins. “Let us table this discussion of my future for the moment. I’m still curious about one thing in my past. When you were following me all this time, you were also Constable Pursuivant, weren’t you? I should have realized that that must have been you. No Silent One spy would actually be trying to get me to log on to the mentality because there actually was no mind-virus waiting for me. In fact, if I had logged on just once during this whole episode, I would have found out when the false-memories were implanted. The real Silent Ones would have been trying to stop me from logging on, not encouraging me.”

  Atkins blinked in confusion. “Beg pardon? Who? Who is this Constable Pursuivant … ?”

  Phaethon said, “You mean you don’t know … ?”

  They both looked at Daphne, who looked confused, and shrugged. “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

  But a little voice on her ring finger said, “I know! He says he wants to talk to you.”

  Phaethon looked left and right. “Ah … Atkins, do you, ahh …”

  “Don’t worry, sir,” said Atkins. “I’m armed.”

  “There’s an understatement if I ever heard one,” muttered Daphne. Then she said, “OK, little one. Put him on.”