Fénix Exultante (67 page)

“A noetic exam would tell that. But I turned the whole matter over to the constabulary once it was clear there were no Oecumenical security interests involved. A Sophotech named Harrier took over the case. I don’t know where it stands now.”

“But there is no invasion? No secret group of aliens, no evil Sophotech hunting for my husband?”

Atkins looked at her horse, looked up at her, and then turned and looked off at the lake on the horizon. “No, ma’am. Not that I can tell. Or, if they are here, they’re too smart for my out-of-date equipment to find them. And I hate to say it, but no one is going to raise the taxes to give me better equipment just because your husband is deluded. But I hope you find him, ma’am. I really do.”

“Oh, I’ll find him,” Daphne said. “I know how he thinks!”

And she kicked with her spurs and went galloping off in a fine display of horsemanship. Atkins, in his back kimono, stood in the shadows of the door, watching her depart, his face utterly expressionless.

At that point, the record in Daphne’s ring ended.

Phaethon opened his faceplate and turned toward where Daphne was on the cot. Ironjoy, whose eyes were not like basic human eyes, had no lighting fixtures in here; the only light came from two beeswax candles (which Phaethon had asked Daughter-of-the-Sea to make for him) which stood in pools of their own wax atop the windowsills.

In that subtle and living yellow light, Daphne looked unself-conciously luxurious, leaning on one elbow, her other hand draped casually across the full curve of her hip, watching him without a hint of tension, placid as a waiting cat.

The windows behind her were mute, and added nothing to the cold, moonlit scene outside. The wall behind her was barren and inanimate steel. The cot, like something out of the Dark Ages, was a flat, dry inanimate cloth surface, not a reactive sleeping pool. The lights here were primitive candles, dumb things, and did not shift position or hue deliberately to display her to advantage. Yet even in the midst of this gross poverty, she had an aura of elegance to her, of richness.

How did she look so comfortable, so perfect? Was it that she had been raised among primitivists and must have (Phaethon winced at the thought) slept on such cots as a girl? Or was this a Warlock discipline, some glamour or mind-trick she had learned as a witch? Or some careful art she had mastered from the odalisques and concubines and hedonists of Red Eveningstar Mansion, the ability to look fine in the midst of coarseness?

At first, she had been leafing through some document shining in the surface of his child slate. But later she had given up the pretense of being interested in any other thing and simply watched him as he reviewed her story, her eyes half-lidded. The birds in the golden tapestries to either side of him twittered under her lidded stare.

As his eyes traveled slowly up and down her form, she smiled a slow smile, raising her chin slightly, and uttering a soft note in her throat, a sigh of pleasure, as if his gaze were warm sunlight.

Phaethon had to remind himself that this was not his wife.

With a brusque gesture, Phaethon took her librarian’s ring off his gauntlet finger and tossed it lightly across to the couch. “You’ve edited out the most important thoughts. Why break off at this point? Merely to have some sort of dramatic pause? What was your plan from the beginning? What was in the memory casket Eveningstar gave you? What was the golden machine Aurelian gave you?”

He nodded toward where her knapsack lay on the floor. Its flap was open. One corner of the golden circuit-box Aurelian had given her was visible in the candlelight, shining.

Phaethon’s voice took on an angrier note: “And… why the hell didn’t Rhadamanthus say something at my inquest hearing? Why in the world did his models of me think I would have authorized his stupid decision not to speak? That’s insane! He could have saved me from all this…!”

He waved his hand around the small, shadow-crowded cabin, a gesture encompassing all the poverty, rudeness, cruelty, and coarseness this whole environment implied.

He drew a breath, controlled his tone of voice, and said: “And why the hell did Atkins lie? I am not self-deluded, and this is not a fantasy. Or perhaps I was deluded in one respect; I had been expecting Atkins to support me. I had been expecting honesty.”

Daphne had caught the ring, smiled at it, and slipped it with a graceful gesture back onto her left ring finger. “Lie? How could anyone lie, these days? Noetic examination is too easy.”

Phaethon shook his head, looking baffled and exasperated. “How is any of this possible, these days?”

Then he said: “But I am convinced of the reality of dishonesty, immorality, and filth; it took me only three days among the Afloats to convince me of that. Even the best among them was a woman who raised her children entirely in simulation, entirely safe and cut off from the rest of the world, but carefully structured their brains to keep them retarded, children forever, so they would never be adult enough to have the right, nor smart enough to conceive of the possibility, of escaping her smothering love and waking to the real world. The second best purveyed child pornography and addictive ritual cannibal-murder dreams. The third bought up ancient works of art, priceless portraits and famous sculpture, just so he could publicly destroy them, burning books and bombing archaeological digs. The worst stored lethal war-viruses and old atomic warheads on his property, in the most unsafe containment the law allowed, never attacking anyone, never setting off his weapons, but always hoping, in his thoughts, for an accident. None of this was strictly illegal, mind you!”

The words came out in a harsh rush, as if a reservoir of disgust for the Afloats (and perhaps for his whole situation) had been building up in him for quite some time, and was eager for a place into which to discharge.

He finished in a quiet, steady tone: “But my distaste for the Hortators has certainly ebbed. We need them, or something like them. Am I seen as such a horrible creature as that? Is that what Atkins thinks I am?”

She said, “Accept that Atkins is telling the truth. Some of your thoughts and memories are false. You haven’t even asked me why I’m here or what I know! I have a way to save you.”

Phaethon shook himself from his reverie, and darted a stern glance at her. “What about all the thoughts missing from your ring? Why did you break off your story?”

Daphne sighed. Apparently Phaethon would ask questions in his own way, or not at all. She said simply: “I broke off because I haven’t made any entries recently. I haven’t had the time. I was busy looking for you.”

“Looking…? Why not just ask a Sophotech? They must have known where I was.”

“Oh, brilliant. Why not just ask Nebuchadnezzar? Maybe then Neo-Orpheus and Emphyrio and Socrates and I would come skipping down the Rainbow Road to your address, singing chim-chime songs, with bells tied to our shoes, and our elbows linked together, just like the Three Vivamancers at the end of the Children’s Opera. But somehow I think the Hortators would have found it easier to stop me if I had done that, don’t you think? There is such a thing as being subtle, you know.”

“So how did you find me?”

Now her smile returned. “I picked up the trail at Kisumu, of course. Everyone knew it was you who had ruined the overture of the Deep Ones’ great-song. But that vulture-cyborg man (the one who thinks he is Bellipotent Composition, your friend…?) didn’t have any records in the Middle Dreaming. Rhadamanthus could not, at first, find out where he was, or where he had taken you.”

“Rhadamanthus was helping you?”

“I wasn’t exiled, not officially, not really, until the moment I spoke to you.”

“Oh. Of course.”

“But, anyway, if I hadn’t figured out that you had been taken to Ceylon, even Rhadamanthus could not have found you.”

“Could not? I thought the Sophotechs tracked the movements of everyone?”

“But they still play by the rules, and they don’t let themselves know what they’re not supposed to know. On the other hand, they’re smart about manipulating rules. Once we knew you were in Ceylon, we found Bellipotent’s entry record, and, from that, Rhadamanthus’ lawmind was able to find more records. There was some legal loophole he used to force the air-traffic control sub-Sophotechs to give up Bellipotent’s passenger manifest. Some legal fine-print rule; I didn’t try to understand it.”

A clue fell into place. “That was you? Bellipotent called me when you raided his records. But why did you give a masquerade name? Why did you log on as me?”

Now she laughed, tossing her head. “Darling! And you call yourself a Silver-Grey! Guardian of ancient tradition! I logged on as myself. I am Mrs. Phaethon Rhadamanth, your wife. That was the name I used.”

He said nothing, but the quiet, level, sad glance in his eyes held the message: but you are not my wife.

She swung her feet to the floor and sat on the edge of the cot. Her hands gripped the cot edge to either side of her. She was leaning forward, her shoulders hunched in a half-shrug, her head tilted up. The posture somehow looked both submissive and defiant. She said: “And don’t tell me I’m not! I remember our marriage ceremony and I remember our marriage night and I know where you keep your toss-files and why you don’t like eggs! And don’t tell me my memories are false! You have false memories, too, and you haven’t corrected yours!”

He said, “Please do not force me to be cruel, miss.”

Interrupting: “How dare you call me ‘miss’!”

He continued: “…I am quite fond of you, and I esteem your friendship, but, nonetheless…”

She rolled her eyes. “Sometimes you sound so pompous! You get that from Helion, you know. Remember the time you and I reincarnated in that subterranean kingdom? After you got out of the rebirthing cells, you lurked around for days, because you could not control your noses, and you didn’t want anyone to see you in public, with seven nostrils twitching every which-way. It was so funny! But it was pomposity. You didn’t want your feelings hurt. Or how about on our second honeymoon at Niagara? We put on navicular bodies and made love while going over the falls. You were afraid then, too! Well, now you’re afraid of my feelings for you. Don’t be.”

He said nothing.

She said in a soft, cold voice: “I know why we never had children, too.”

He spoke abruptly, interrupting before she could continue: “You have parts of my wife’s memories, yes!” Then, more softly: “And I am very fond of you, yes. Very fond, how could I not be? But… you are not my wife.”

She shrugged a little, and smiled a supremely confident smile. Her teeth were white in the soft shadows of the candlelight. “If we had not been meant for each other, I would not have been able to find you. You uploaded a dream last night. That was my dream. I wrote it. I kept a counter to see how many people were dreaming my dream, and who they were. When Hamlet’s name came up, I knew to search Ceylon for you. I know you; I remember you. I remember us. I can remember what we mean to each other. Can’t you?”

Phaethon was getting upset. “You have most of her memories, yes, I grant you. But you don’t know why she left me, damn it. You don’t remember drowning yourself, smothering your soul in false memories just to kill off your memory of me. You don’t know why she did that!”

She glanced at the knapsack, and then quickly back again. It was a guilty, furtive movement. Her face was troubled.

Phaethon eyes widened. A note of anger was in his voice: “You do know—!”

He took a stride across the room toward the knapsack. He snatched it up.

She said, “No, I…” And jumped to her feet, a nervous, quick movement. All composure and grace was gone.

He ripped the flap of the knapsack open. “She told you, didn’t she? She told you, and she did not tell me.” He yanked out the silver memory casket. He tilted it toward the window. Dim candlelight traced letters in the surface.

A graceful and feminine handscript on the casket lid read:

To be delivered to my emancipated partial self before the event of her permanent and irreversible death, cryo-sequestration, exile, radical redaction, or any other final withdrawal from organized civilization.

Emergency wakeup, memory reset, and sanity-restoration code.

Limited power of attorney.

This document overrides all prior Eveningstar instructions.

(Sealed) Daphne Prime Semi-Rhadamanthus Self-Embraced, Constructed Indep-Cortex (Emotion-sharing, limited club), Base Neuroform (with lateral connections), Silver-Grey Manorial Schola, Era 7004 (Pre-Compression).

Phaethon’s knuckles were white on the silver lid. “She gave you the password. Not me. I begged Eveningstar to tell. I begged and begged. She’ll tell you, not me. You can bring her back to life. Not me. For you, she’ll come alive again. But never, not ever, for me…”

His knuckles were white on the lid, but the casket would not open for him. Suddenly exhausted, he leaned against the wall. He feet began to slide, scratching against the floorboards with a raucous noise. He did not try to catch himself, nor did he unhand the casket. Instead, he collapsed and sat down heavily, his back against the wall, his legs sprawled out carelessly. He bowed his head over the casket in his lap.

Once or twice his shoulders shook, but he made no noise. There was something very dull and hollow in his eyes.

Daphne stepped over to him, her hand reaching out, as if she were about to give comfort. But then she paused, stepped back, and said: “That casket is useless by itself. Even if the old version of me should wake, she will not leave her life and go into exile to be with you here. You must prove yourself correct, expose the fraud that has been perpetrated upon the Hortators, restore the honor of your name, and return from exile. It’s the other case in my knapsack you want. The gold tablet. Haven’t you figured out by now what that must be? I endured everything I have endured, all this pain and trouble, just to bring it to you.”

Curiosity, in Phaethon, was even stronger than grief. He drew his head up. “What is it?” His voice was dull and low.

She gestured toward where he had dropped the knapsack, an elegant flip of the wrist, like a mensal hostess displaying some particularly delectable dessert. “You’re the engineer, Lover. You’ll recognize it.”