Fénix Exultante (61 page)

“Then the Hortators have won, haven’t they?” whispered Phaethon.

The constable-wasp said, “As to that, sir, I should not venture any personal opinions while in the course of my official duties. But, unofficially, I should warn you against being so quick to take matters so violently into your own hands. Isn’t that what got you here in the first place? Good-bye for now. We may be back in the morning, if any of your victims wishes to lodge a complaint.”

And then the swarm of constables, which had been constantly overhead ever since Phaethon had arrived, they were also gone.

Below, Phaethon stood facing the mirrors. He attempted Semris and Antisemris first; but their seneschals had been programmed to reject his calls unanswered and unacknowledged.

Then he called Unmoiqhotep, the Cacophile who had so praised him and so adored Phaethon outside the Curia House in the ring-city, just after his hearing. Antisemris (who was also a Cacophile) might help Phaethon if Unmoiqhotep asked.

Phaethon tricked his way past Unmoiqhotep’s seneschal by hiding his identity in masquerade. (No Hortator warning appeared to warn Unmoiqhotep’s house to reject the call because the Hortators were not able to penetrate the masquerade.) The house accepted to pay for the charges of the call when he announced he wanted to speak “about Phaethon.” But when Unmoiqhotep’s partial came on-line, the creature reviled Phaethon in no uncertain terms as a fool and a traitor.

“Why do you call him a traitor?” Phaethon asked. (He was getting particularly sick of having that charge leveled against him.)

The partial, like his master, was a bloated fungus, cone-shaped, drooping with nonstandard claws and tentacles. “Phaethon betrayed us! He has failed! We who represent the shining future, we who soar to exulted heights, we who take as implacable foes the dross of the older generation (the already-dead generation, as I like to call them), we have no time in our all-important crusade to trifle with failures! Phaethon has no money now! There is nothing he can do for us!”

Do for us? This reminded Phaethon of the beggar phrase the poor Afloats used to greet any newcomers. How odd to hear it come from the mouths of wealthy men’s sons.

Phaethon said: “But there is something you can do for him. If Phaethon had money enough to rent an orbital communications laser, he could contact the Neptunians. They may be willing to hire him as a pilot for the Phoenix Exultant. Instead of being dismantled for scrap, the starship could be sent out to the stars, there to create new worlds.”

The image of the Cacophile flopped its tendrils first one way, then the other. “What has that to do with us? Phaethon wants to fly to the stars. He wants to make worlds. I want to find a new wire-point to jolt my pleasure centers, maybe with an overload pornographic pseudomnesia to give it background. Are his dreams any better than mine?”

Phaethon reminded himself that he was here begging for money. He attempted to remain polite. “With all due respect, sir, may I point out that if you help him now, Phaethon, when he achieves his dream, can create such worlds as will be pleasing to you, and your lifelong dream of escaping from the domination of the elder generation will be achieved as well. But if you, instead, burn your brain cells with a wire-point, this serves neither you, nor him.”

The partial dripped liquid from three orifices. “But what does all your blather and bother do for us right now? Right this instant? Phaethon is no longer in fashion among us now. After he is dead, perhaps then we will exalt him as a martyr, slain by the cruelty of the elder generation. Yes! There is something for us! But Phaethon alive, still striving after his sick, insane dream? Still hoping to accomplish it? No, oh no. He would be our worst enemy if he succeeded at his attempt, against such odds. Isn’t it obvious why? Because he would make the rest of us look so bad.”

Phaethon felt mildly sick with astonishment. The Cacophiles had no intention of ever “escaping” from the “domination” of the older generation. All their moral posturing was merely excuse to disguise their lust to own what they had not earned. To fly to other worlds, and there make lives and civilizations for themselves, would require the kind of work and effort which the Cacophiles disdained.

And what about their alleged gratitude for Phaethon, the high honor and esteem in which they had promised to hold him? But gratitude and honor required hard work as well.

Phaethon signed off with polite words.

That left Notor-Kotok. But the squat little cylindrical cyberform was of as little help.

“I have not, at this time, money or currency enough to rent an orbital communications laser, or any device of similar function, capable of reaching that Neptunian station (to the best of my knowledge) presently nearest, nor of reaching any other relay or service able to convey a message thereto. This statement is based on an estimation that the money involved would be ‘enormous,’ and by enormous, I mean, sufficient to buy separately each part and service which the ‘legitimate’ services (by which I mean those who adhere to Hortator standards) presently appear to have decided not to traffick with us, as we are now.”

(Phaethon hated speaking to Invariants, or to people, like Notor, who followed Invariant speech conventions. He dearly wished he had his sense-filter back again, so that he could program it to edit out all the cautious disclaimers and lawyerly redundancy with which Invariants peppered their speech.)

Phaethon said: “Could some of your deviants be willing to lend me money on credit? I cannot raise any capital now that my workforce is under arrest.”

In a complex speech, Notor explained something Phaethon already knew. Most deviants are deviant because they are poor. Most poor are poor because they lack the self-discipline necessary to forgo immediate gratification. They were not the kind of people able to lend money and wait for a return.

Phaethon asked: “What if the return on investment is not simply immense, but infinite?” “Define your terms.”

“Infinite means infinite. It does not matter how much money I need to borrow, or what the rate of interest is. I will gladly promise to repay one hundred times what I borrow, or one thousand. Have you forgotten the Silent Oecumene? If any of their energy-producing structures are still intact, or can be restored, then I can make Cygnus X-l my first port of call. From their singularity fountainheads, whatever amount of energy I need to repay my creditors can be gathered.”

“I am receiving a signal from other sections of my brain-work. Wait. We calculate that no one will be willing to risk any money on your venture, no matter what the rate of return. Several deviant money houses, those who I might have suspected would lend to you nonetheless, have already been purchased, within the last few seconds, by Nebuchednezzar Sophotech…”

Someone was listening in on this channel, perhaps, or Nebuchednezzar was alert enough to calculate Phaethon’s next maneuver, and, at lightning speed, had already moved to thwart him.

Notor explained: “Also, my service provider, who maintains these connections I presently use to speak with you, has signaled me and told me that, unless I no longer speak with you, the Eleemosynary Composition will dump shares of communications stock to artificially drive down the prices, and ruin his business. He is not willing to risk it, and threatens to suspend service if I do not eschew you.

“The other Afloats whom I am tasked to attempt to protect, may be relocated,” continued Notor. “I anticipate that I will require my service provider’s communication lines if I am to continue that protection; therefore, if, in fact, maintaining my connections with you, and continuing that protection, are mutually exclusive, I must place a higher priority on the latter.”

“Can we still communicate by letter?” asked Phaethon with little hope.

“Who would carry it? Who would translate it from your written format? I cannot read your archaic Silver-Grey letters and signs.”

“Then I am defeated?”

“You terminology is inexact. ‘Defeat’ as a concept, refers to a complex of emotion-energy reactions created by a mind interpreting the universe. But the universe, by definition, must always be more complex than the information-parts or thoughts one uses to encode that complexity. ‘Defeat’ is not a fact, it is an assessment of facts, and may be subject to interpretation.”

Perhaps that was meant to cheer him.

The signal shut off, with an icon showing that further service would be discontinued. The mirrors went black, and would not light up again.

Phaethon walked slowly back up on deck. He stood at the prow with one foot on the rail, leaning on his knee and staring out across the water. What options still were open to him? Had he been defeated at every turn?

And yet things were not as bad as they had been even two days ago, when he had been choking at the bottom of the sea. Now, he had allies. Weak ones, perhaps, like Antisemris, or ones with whom he could not speak, like Notor-Kotok, or like the distant Neptunians. But he also had a dream, and it was a strong dream. Strong enough, perhaps, to make up for the weaknesses of his allies.

The offer Phaethon had made to Notor-Kotok was one manifestation of the strength of that dream. The endless energy supplies of the singularity at Cygnus X-l, as well as the wealth of multiple worlds yet to be born, would tempt investment and support from among those disenfranchised or dissatisfied with the present Oecumene. Immortality had not changed the laws of economics, but it had created a situation where men now could contemplate, as economically feasible, long voyages, long projects, and plans patient beyond all measure of time for their fruition. Somewhere would be men willing to invest in Phaethon’s dream, willing to trust that millennia or billennia from now, Phaethon could amply reward their faith in him. Somewhere, somehow, he would find people who would support him.

He raised his head and looked. The stars were dim here, washed out by lights and power satellites around the ring-city, the flares from nearby mining asteroids in high-earth orbit. And his eyes were not as strong as they had been, blind to all but human wavelengths. But he could still see the stars.

Cygnus X-l itself was not visible. The almanac in his head (the one artificial augment he would never erase) told him the latitude and right ascension of that body. He turned his eyes to the constellation of the Swan, and spoke aloud into the general night. “You’ve manipulated the Hortators to suppress me, strip me, revile me, exile me. But you cannot stop me, or move me one inch from my fixed purpose, unless you send someone to kill me.

“But you dare not perform a murder here in the middle of the Golden Oecumene, do you? Even in the most deserted places, there are still many eyes to see, many minds to understand, the evidence of murder.”

He paused in his soliloquy to realize that, indeed, there could be spies and monitors listening to him, watching him, including instruments sent by his enemy.

He spoke again: “Nothing Sophotech, Silent Ones, Scaramouche, or however you are called, you may exceed me greatly in power and force of intellect, and may have weapons and forces at your command beyond anything my unaided thought can understand. But you cower and hide, as if afraid, possessed by fear and hate and other ills unknown to sane and righteous men. My mind may be less than yours, but it is, at least, at peace.”

He was not expecting a reply. It was probably more likely that no one was watching him, and that his enemy had lost sight of where he was. He doubted there were any enemies within the reach of his voice.

There was, on the other hand, still one ally with whom he could speak, not far away.

He drew out the child’s slate he had, and, with a short-range plug, connected to the shop-mind and employed the old translator he had found earlier. He engaged the circuit and transcribed: “I address the Cerebelline called Daughter-of-the-Sea and send greetings and good wishes. Dear Miss, it is with grave regret that I inform you that our period of mutual business and mutual aid, so lately begun, has drawn abruptly to a close. The Hortators (or, rather, Nebuchadnezzar Sophotech, acting at their behest) have manipulated events to deprive us of the Afloat workforce. I am unable to fulfill my contract with you concerning the bird-tending, weeding, microgenesis, and other simple tasks you wished to have done…”

He went on to describe the situation in some detail. He explained his plan to introduce Neptunian forms among the Afloats, to generate capital, so that he could afford to persuade the Neptunians to hire him as pilot for the Phoenix Exultant. He knew the poverty-stricken Neptunians, without aid, probably did not have the money necessary even to ship the Phoenix Exultant from Mercury Equilateral to the outer system.

He concluded: “…Therefore the only salvation for which I can hope must come from you. Not truly an exile yourself, it is possible Antisemris and his deviant customers will treat with you, and be willing to carry messages from you to the Neptunian Duma. Only if contact with my friend Diomedes, and with the newly founded Silver-Grey houses among the Neptunians, is established and maintained, can the Phaethon Stellar Exploration Effort be resurrected. Can you carry these messages and offers to them for me?”

The slate encoded the messages as a series of chemical signals and pheromones. Phaethon drew out a few grams of his black suit-lining, and imprinted the nanomachinery substance with those signals. He threw that scrap into the water.

A moment later a small night bird (belonging to Daughter-of-the-Sea, he hoped) pecked at the scrap, swallowed it, and flew off.

Gram by gram, his nanomachinery was vanishing. He could not suppress a twinge of regret as he watched the little bird fly off.

He settled himself to wait. Daughter-of-the-Sea, a Cerebelline, did not have a unified structure of consciousness. The various parts of the mental networks that served her as cortex, midbrain, and hindbrain were scattered among three acres of bush and weed and wiring, pharmicon groves, insect swarms, and bird flocks. Not every part communicated with every other by the same medium or at the same time rates. A thought coded as electricity might take a microsecond to travel from one side of the underbrush root system to another, a thought coded chemically, or as growth geometries, might take hours, or years.