The Golden Transcendence

THE YOUNG WOMAN

Daphne Tercius, wearing a dress of red silk, after the fashion of the Eveningstar, was led into the sitting room. To her it seemed as if a dot of light was leading her, and that the room was a dim-lit oval, plush with sensuous carpeting, fluttering with golden candlelight, with low tables set with fruits and flowers, bright china and silver chopsticks shining against dark wood. Two of her favorite energy-sculptures glowed in round niches to either side of the door, and chirruped cheerfully when they saw her.

The west of the chamber was all window, a smooth curve, which, though seeming solid, allowed the breeze from the lake beyond to bring soft, cool scents into the room, the hint of pine from the far shore. It was before true dawn, but it was Jovian afternoon, and the light of Jupiter spread red-silvery beams glancing along the twilight landscape. Even at his brightest, Jupiter was not much more luminous than a full moon. It was bright enough to distinguish colors, but dim enough to cast the trees and lake into blue mysterious shadow.

At this window, in what seemed a seashell filled with flower petals, lay a woman dressed in pigeon gray and silver. Her face was lit by the soft light of the energy-sculpture that she toyed with, running her fingers along its shimmering curves. It was a sad face, thoughtful, dreamy, and her eyes were half-closed.

She was Daphne Prime Rhadamanth.

Daphne Tercius Eveningstar glanced around the room, smiling. Her air was happy, open, unabashed. Daphne Tercius Eveningstar walked lightly over to the window and sat down on the plush carpet, tucking her feet under her. Daphne Prime Rhadamanth dismissed the floating light with a thank-you and a regal nod.

Daphne Tercius Eveningstar turned to watch the little light that had led her here bob away. She turned back, and said, "Shouldn't we be using the same aesthetic, Mother?"

Daphne Prime Rhadamanth inclined her head. "Think of me as an older sister. And I wanted to make you more comfortable."

"Oh? Why start now?"

Daphne Prime Rhadamanth's red lips compressed slightly, and perhaps there was a smolder in her eyes, but her expression of cool reserve did not otherwise change. She lifted a finger and the chamber now appeared differently. She was now dressed in a more somber tweed jacket, blouse, and skirt, with a tiny French hat pinned to her coiffure, after the style proper for a Silver-Gray. Daphne Tercius Eveningstar was still dressed in sensuously lurid tight silk, the uniform of a Red Manorial.

It was a Victorian room, and they both were seated on a heavy divan of dark red velvet whose feet ended in black claws gripping glass balls. The candles were still there, though now in candlesticks. The rug became white bearskin. The receding dot of light became a footman.

The energy-sculpture in Daphne Prime Rhadamanrh's lap became Fluffbutton, Daphne's long-lost long-haired white cat. But this was a reconstruction, a clone. He was not the slim kitten she had lost so long ago when she was a child. The cat had grown, put on weight, turned into a pampered and round ball of white fur. The cat gazed at Daphne Tercius Eveningstar with lazy green eyes, as if he had never seen her before.

Daphne Tercius Eveningstar found the image slightly offensive. "Mother! That's one of my favorite energy-sculptures you're playing with. Lupercalian Reflection. And you're making it look like Sir Fluffbutton! If you're not going to be reapplying Warlock nerve-paths into your brain, you're not going to be able to read or play with Lupercalian anyway. Or with Lichenplantis. Or Quincunx Impressionario." (These were the two energy sculptures by the door.) "Why not give them to me? They can keep me company on the voyage."

Daphne Prime Rhadamanth favored her with a cool stare, one eyebrow arched. "Little sister, one would think giving up my husband would have been enough to comfort you on your voyage."

Daphne Tercius Eveningstar opened her mouth to issue some scathing rebuttal, but then snapped it shut again, lightly shrugged her delicate shoulders, and stood up. "Well! I'm ever so glad we had this little chat. I would stay longer, but arguing with other versions of yourself gets so tiring after a while, don't you think? Now I can fly off into the night sky, not coming back for a long time, maybe never, secure in the knowledge that it turned out I was a bitch after all. And thank you for bringing me into a cheap and false existence, playing out all the difficult parts of your life you were too ashamed or scared to live through! I would say it had all been fun ... if it had been. Ta-ta!"

Daphne Prime Rhadamanth gave her a level stare. "Please sit."

"Sorry, Mother, but I've got a life to lead. A life you threw away! And now that you're awake again, you have possession of all the things I once thought were mine, my house and funds and even my cat, dammit! My friends. Everything. But I've got Phaethon, and I've got the future. What more do we need to say to each other... ?"

"Please sit." Or did you use the command words I left you to wake me up again, just to berate me? We must come to understand each other before we part. You are the part of myself I am sending into the future, little sister, and I am the part of you which forms your roots and your foundation. If we part badly, it will haunt us both."

For some reason not clear even to herself, Daphne Tercius Eveningstar smoothed her red silk dress, and sat.

But then, neither woman spoke. One sat with her hands folded in her lap, the other petted her half-slumbering cat. Both stared out the window at the twilight landscape, at the smoke-colored trees, the blue shadows of the lake. In the deep of the lake, one or two bright dots of color, like fireflies, softly appeared and disappeared.

Daphne Prime Rhadamanth finally broke the silence. "The masquerade is over. Aurelian Sophotech, so I have heard, has posted advertisements asking for employment as a manorial, just like some low-cycle mind like Rhadamanth or Aeceus. They've dismantled the palaces of gold to the south of here; and the Cerebellines to the southwest are letting the new organisms find their own ecological balance, practically untended, so that those strange gardens are all overgrown now, and filled with wild things. The birds will go back to singing their own songs, instead of arias meant for us, and the flowers will give out nectar now, not wine. The Deep Ones have sunk away again, and no one is allowed to remember their songs, except dimly. The wild things we said and did during the celebrations are put in memory caskets now. We are like the Cerebelline gardens turned opposite; we become tame again. Mystery is banished. The elfin gloaming of the dawn now passes, as all thing must pass, and the ordinary workday begins again."

Daphne Tercius Eveningstar gave her older self an odd sidelong glance, but said nothing.

Daphne Prime Rhadamanth saw that glance, and smiled an opaque smile, and said: "You are wondering, aren't you, little sister, what Phaethon ever saw in me? You have no sympathy for a melancholy spirit."

"Well, actually, Mother, I would have called it phony weepy sickening self-centered affectation. But your sense-filter might not catch it and change it to something more polite."

The older version only smiled, her eyes dreamy, as if thinking of a sorrow long past. "You were not constructed to admire me or like me. Our basic philosophy and core values have to be different. Antithetical. Which does not make for easy friendships, I fear."

The younger Daphne was still. '"Have to be'? For what purpose?"

The elder stirred as if from a reverie. "I beg your pardon ... ?"

"You implied there was a purpose to all this. Why did you drown yourself? Why did you make me?"

Daphne Prime Rhadamanth sat upright and leaned forward, her level gaze traveling deep into her younger version's eyes. She spoke in a voice of quiet simplicity. "I was in love with Helion." "What?!!"

"It was one of the things I did not add to your memories when I made you. You remember when Sir Fluff-button died."

"He ran away. I was nine...." "I found his body. It was by the stream where I had that fall through the ice the year before, remember?

And Pa came and told me how everything dies. Even mountains wear away. Even the sun gets old and dies, he said. One day, no more sunshine, no more bright fields to play in, nothing."

"You left this out of my memory! Why?"

"It leads to a crucial personality-shaping event. You were meant to have a different personality."

"So? What happened?"

"I didn't believe him. You know Pa."

"I know Pa. 'Only as much truth as a mind can handle.' What a liar he always was!"

"So I sneaked out to talk to Bertram. Bertram had tapped into the root-line of the local thought-system."

"Good old Bertram! What a little thief he was! How come I was so attracted to him?"

They both smiled warmly at that lost memory. Bertram None Peristark had been Daphne's first romantic encounter.

"I always liked strong men. Anyway, he plugged the mirror he had taken from his parent's house into his pirate line, and opened the library for me. The library said, yes, the sun would eventually end; but long before that, it would swell to a Red Giant, and overwhelm the Earth with fire. You cannot imagine how betrayed I felt."

"I can imagine. I used to play beneath the thinking-room window in the afternoons, when my parents were under their caps, asleep, and make-believe the beams of sunlight were suitors come to steal me away from the two snoring ogres. I pretended the sun was kissing me when the heat touched my cheek. I used to think there was a man living in the sun who was watching me when I ran through the tall grass. Betrayed? Sure. The source of light and life on Earth killing her instead of caring for her? I understand."

The elder Daphne leaned forward and touched her younger version's knee. "Then the library told me that there was a man living in the sun. A man who lived in a palace of fire. That he was going to save the sun from old age."

"Helion. Is that the real reason why I became a Silver-Gray? To be near him?"

The elder Daphne leaned back. "It was not till this Transcendence, just now, that I knew where Phaethon had come from. I never knew why Helion had made him. He seemed so wild and reckless compared to his father. And I never believed that Galatea was his real mother; she was obviously an emancipated partial-mind made by Helion to help raise Phaethon. But I studied them both from afar, and it spurred me to try to get famous myself, famous enough that I could ask to see the Master of the Sun, and that he would receive me. And so I wrote, I sculpted horses, I studied all the older things, the Greeks and Romans, the myths of Britain and Pre-Re-Renaissance Mars. I earned the fame and the seconds I needed; Phaethon agreed to be interviewed. My plan was to acquaint myself with the father by seducing the son."

Younger Daphne exclaimed happily: "You scheming bitch!" And pointed her finger. "You're wrong. I think we could be good friends after all. What went wrong?"

"You did, little sister. Oh, you were not serf-aware back then, and it was not your fault. Nor were you exactly like me. But when you fell in love with Phaethon, and became the seduced instead of the seductress, what could I do? When Phaethon returned to Earth, I tried, at first, to put him off. But he... he overwhelmed me. I was helpless in front of a man like that. He never gave up; and he was so... so... it was like he was on fire. But he was never out of control of himself. He was like a man made out of ice. And... he loved me so much... And..." "And Helion was out of your reach."

Daphne Prime Rhadamanth actually blushed. The younger Daphne saw the color in her older version's cheeks and throat, and wondered: Is that what I look like when I do that? It's kind of sexy, somehow.

The older version said, "I didn't like Helion when I actually met him. You know that I left those memories in."

"He's a whiner."

"He's concerned with preserving the old, not with beginning the new. Even saving the sun is a type of preservation, for him. And so I fell in love with Phaethon, so deeply in love, that I..."

"That you tried to ruin his life!"

The older version's eyes flashed, an expression of impatient fire, and for a moment, the two women looked exactly alike. Daphne Prime Rhadamanth said in a voice like a queen: "Fool! I loved him enough to die for him! How can you imagine! How can you know! How can you know what it is like to see yourself in the looking glass and to know you are unworthy of the man you are married to?! Unworthy! Holding him back! Keeping him down! And no matter what you try to do you end up helping the people who hate him!"

The elder Daphne leaned back, smoldering, and petted the cat with such angry strokes that he miaowed, and slithered from her grasp, falling heavily to the floor. The cat gave them both a haughty stare and gracefully waddled off.

The elder Daphne said in a quieter voice, "I saved up my money and bought time from the Eveningstar Sophotech. I did not trust Rhadamanthus for this; he would have just told me to be stoic. And Silver-Grays don't allow radical self-editing in any way. Eveningstar examined me, but she thought I could not make myself into the kind of woman who would be good for Phaethon. Not and still be the same person in the eyes of the law. The change would be too great. It's a question of core values again, a question of fundamental differences. That's what I meant about helping his enemies; everything I thought or said in public reflected a mindset more cautious than his. There were so many times when I humiliated him in public, something I had said, or written, or thought, was published in salons against him"

"And children. How could we have children, if he was going to go away? Away and away, to die in the dark, and never return? And so our marriage was never completed.

"I honestly thought he would fail. But I did not want to think that, because, without me, without my support, he might fail. So I had to leave him. I could not go with him; I don't want to die in the sunless cold of space; but he kept telling me he would not leave without me. So what could I do?

"I had to leave. I made you to take my place. You. The woman I could never become. The same way Phaethon is the man Helion could never become.... Our whole society evolves. We each made the next versions of ourselves more perfect. But we who are less perfect stay behind."

Both women were silent for a moment, looking deeply at each other's eyes. The look was one of sorrow.

But then the younger Daphne laughed. "And just think, older sister, you would have gotten Helion, too, if he hadn't married Lucretia, or whatever it is Un-moiqhotep is calling herself these days!"

The older Daphne leaned her chin on her palm, fingers curled so that her pinkie lightly touched her lips. She nibbled delicately on her fingernail, and said: "Perhaps, daughter. Perhaps. But... You know, it is really sort of odd. First Helion adopts, as his son, a man who turns out to have been a colonial warrior from a Transcendence drama, a burner of worlds. Then he marries the girl who tried, this time, in real life, to destroy as much of the Oecumene as she could. I wonder what his secret obsession with destruction is? He does live, after all, in the most dangerous spot in the Solar System..."

The younger Daphne exclaimed, "I'm sad for you about Lucretia. I would have preferred if the extrapolation had come true, and we could all have had a lurid trial, with hundreds of weeping girls being sentenced to death, and Atkins shooting down rioters who stormed the Courthouse steps..."

The elder one smiled a faint smile. "I'll write that one up. Especially the rioters. All cacophiles, of course, but, in my story, they'll turn out to have been mind-poisoned by Xenophon, merely tools of the sinister Silent Empire. And for my hero ..." But then her face fell again. "Oh ... But I cannot really use someone like Helion for my hero again, can I? Or Phaethon? Everyone will think I'm copying you. The dream-world you composed for the Oneiromantic Competition ..."

The younger Daphne snorted, and said, "That was your world! I looked in the records! All the work was done, the plots, the setting, all the characters, the laws of nature, everything, years before the competition. While I remembered making it up, those were your memories. The Gold Medal actually belongs to you!"

There was a look of hunger on the older Daphne's face. They both knew how badly she had longed to win the gold. It was a lifelong ambition.

The older Daphne stood up, and turned away, hands folded against her stomach, pretending to stare out the window.

Daphne Tercius Eveningstar said nothing, not wishing to increase her older self's upset. She let a moment of time go past, and then said lightly, "That lake out there. Looks familiar. Where are we?"

"Ah. This used to be part of the exposition grounds. That is Destiny Lake."

"What? The place where Phaethon saw that performance of the burning trees? I was looking all over for him here! You'd think I'd remember every damn rock and stone. Sure looks different. Water level is lower. Guess they tore down part of the mountain. But- say... ? Those little colored lights in the water? Those dots fading in and out like that... ?"

The older Daphne looked over her shoulder and smiled a cryptic smile. "Survivors. Parts of the tree are still growing down there, long after the performance ended. The life adapted to a less energy-wasteful form, and the trees altered and specialized so that they were no longer in direct competition with each other. It's more like a banyan tree now, with long root-systems under the soil, connecting the widely scattered colonies."

Daphne Tercius Eveningstar stood up and stepped closer to her older self. She said in a low voice. "I am leaving. If you want to claim the gold medal, it's yours. I'll trade you for the energy sculptures. Or ..."

The older one shook her head. "The plots and characters and setup were mine. But you made up your own ending. There was not ever going to be an industrial revolution in my little world. I never had a plotline about a young prince deciding to shatter the sky. That was your muse speaking, your heart, your convictions. And it set the world on fire. Everyone fell in love with the idea. And when they all remembered, later, what it was Phaethon was actually trying to do ... Well. No one was as eager to stop Phaethon as they had been before. Even some of the Hortators seemed to drag their feet."

"Thank you. I don't think my little story had that much to do with it."

The older Daphne smiled. "It's tales that make the difference. Facts kill; but it is myths that people give their lives for."

"Thank you very much...." The two women stepped closer to each other, smiling, and both grasped two hands, a fond and girlish gesture.

"How did it end ... ? I never saw the finale of your piece."

"Ah," the younger Daphne said. "The young prince broke the sky."

"Was the world crushed by the falling fragments?"

"Only the people too stupid to look up, and see what was coming, and get out of the way."

"And what was there?"

"Where?"

"What lay in the regions beyond the sky?"

"The shining fields of paradise were waiting there, wider than the sky, opening on all sides without limit. They only were waiting for the hand of man to come and plant them."

A rose-pink light stole across the lake and trees outside. It was the early part of true dawn, and it mingled with the pale, silver-red light of Jupiter to form (if only for a moment) a landscape of strange and expectant mystery, tangled double shadows, fabulous and familiar at once. The sky above was imperial purple, and only the brighter stars shone through.

"It is a wonderful tale," said the elder one softly. "I wonder if I shall ever write one to match it."

"Write whatever you believe in."

"But you've taken my hero...."

The younger Daphne gave an impish smile. "If the predictions are right, the New College will make old war stories and tales of honor true again. How about that?! You can have Atkins!"

The elder looked thoughtful. "Hmm... Atkins... ?"

At that moment, both women raised their heads as if they had heard a trumpet sound. But there was no sound, all was still and quiet. What had caught and held their gaze was that one bright star, brighter than Venus, had risen above the mountains in the west.

The elder said in a voice of wonder: "That light... that light!"

The younger said: "It is my husband. He is coming for me."

"Then is that the Phoenix Exultant! So bright! I thought she was still at Jupiter, being refitted."

"Your rival for his affections. You forget how swiftly she flies. She was at Jupiter. Ten hours ago. Now she is in high Earth orbit, beginning her deceleration burn. Come with me! By the time we climb the mountain there, where Phaethon and I agreed to meet, the Phoenix will be overhead."

The elder drew back. "But surely it will be hours and hours, if the ship is only just now beginning to decelerate."

"At ninety gravities? Her engines are outshouting every bit of radio-noise in the area. Phaethon wants everyone to know his ship is coming here. She'll be above us when we get to the mountaintop, believe me. Are you coming? He'll want to say good-bye to you, I'm sure."

The elder shook her head sadly. "He said all his good-byes to me, when he cried above my coffin at the Eveningstar Mausoleum. I said mine to him, earlier, much earlier."

"When?"

"I saw him. He had turned his ship around and come back, abandoning everything. Abandoning his life's work. The first time, before Lakshmi. I looked out through the window and saw him coming up the stairs. If he had been fifteen minutes earlier, the coffin would not have been prepared, and I would not have been able to drown myself. But I was gone by the time he reached the top of the stair. He tried to drag me from the coffin. He was like a young god in his gold armor, and he threw the Constables aside like puppets. They had to call Atkins to stop him. Atkins had been waiting, watching, ever since the colonial warrior was incarnated, certain that they would someday fight. Atkins was naked and magnificent, and there was a twinkle in his eye when they closed to grapple each other."

"How do you know all this, if you were in the coffin?"

"I was dreaming true dreams. I saw everything that happened: I had all the pictures and sounds from the outside world sent into my sleeping brain. I knew. Of course I knew. Would I spare myself? I am not as cowardly or soft as you might think. After all, I was the model for you!"

"Then come!"

The elder Daphne turned away. "I can't face him. You must be my ambassador this one last time, and tell him how I wanted to return his love, but could not. The black and endless void that so allures him fills me but with terror; how could I leave the green, sweet Earth... for that? Tell him, if I were braver..."

"If you were braver, you would love him?"

"If I were braver, I'd be you."

There was no more said. The two women stood for a time, side by side, holding hands in front of the window, watching the rising star of-the Phoenix Exultant, and wondering at the brightness.

Daphne Tercius Eveningstar climbed the moutaintop alone. She had changed into her taller, stronger body, and now a tight black skin of nanomaterial hugged her curves, and streamlined strands of folded gold adamantium cupped her breasts, emphasized the slim-ness of her waist, the roundness Of her hips.

The sun, by this time, had risen in the east, and Daphne's gold boots flashed as she walked. She carried her helmet in the crook of her elbow. It was gold, built in the same Egyptian-looking design as Phaethon's.

The top of the mountain was flat, littered with gravel, and with a few thorny strands of grass. On a rock not far away sat a wrinkled old man. He was leaning on a long white staff, and his hair and beard were the color of snow.

The old man was staring at a plant that had taken root. It was less than nine inches tall, just a slender stalk, but it must have been made to bloom out of season, for one bud had unfolded and formed a silver leaf. The leaf shone like a tiny mirror, and the old man stared down at it, smiling in his beard.

He looked up. "The Golden Age is ended. We will have an age of iron next, an age of war and sorrow! How appropriately you are armored, then, my darling Mrs. Phaethon. You look like some delectable young Amazon! How could you afford armor like that?"

"I collected the fees during the Transcendence from everyone who came to consult with my daughter."

" 'Daughter'?" blinked the old man. "Daughter... ?"

"She is not yet legally of age, so the money came to me. And the Transcendence predicted, or decided, that Gannis would try to undo some of the harm he had done to his public image, and so, during the long months of Transcendence (even though it only seemed like a moment to us) he put this armor together for me, one atom at a time. When I say 'to us' I mean 'to those of us who were in the Transcendence,' that is. I don't recognize you."

He groaned and leaned on his stick and pushed himself to his feet. "You don't?!! My sweet young curvaceous little war goddess has forgotten me! And after all we meant to each other!"

She stepped back half a pace. "The Phoenix Exultant is coming." She pointed overhead. Where the clouds parted, a golden triangle hung in the sky, as the moon is sometimes visible by day. Even from orbit, the great ship was still a naked-eye object. "The landing craft will be touching down here. So clear off if you don't want to get hurt."

"I know all that. The landing craft fell out from port-side docking bay nineteen, about two hours ago. There were big dragon-signs painted on her keel: Just Married, and tin cans on tethers floating aft. Anyway, the lander flew beneath the levitation array. Your husband left the lander there, and just jumped out of the air lock. He swan-dived into the atmosphere. Simply to show off how much re-entry heat his armor can shed, I suppose. Heh, heh! I expect him any minute."

"How do you know this?"

"I was watching it all from my grove. I told the leaves in a certain valley of mine to form a convex mirror, so I could take measurements of the Phoenix Exultant as she approached. Amazing what you can do with primitive tools and a little simple math! I also built a bridge across that little stream in front of your parent's house, out of planed wood and good old-fashioned molecular epoxy. Very refreshing to work with your hands!"

Daphne made the recognition gesture, but nothing happened. "Who the hell are you? The masquerade is over! Why isn't your name on file?"

"Oh, come on!" He looked sarcastically exasperated. "You are the mystery writer. It should be obvious who I am!"

"You are the one who started all this. Woke up Phaethon, I mean, and got him to turn off his sense-filter so that he saw Xenophon stalking after him. Phaethon found out that he had been redacted...." "Yes. Obviously. And ... ?" "You work for the Earthmind! She arranged this whole thing from start to finish so that everything would work out right!"

"Little girl, if you were not in a space-adapted body one hundred times stronger than I am right now, I would turn you over my knee and spank your pert little behind bright red."

"Okay. You don't sound like an Earthmind avatar. Are you Aurelian ... ? You did all this to make your party more dramatic ... ?" "You're guessing."

"You're an agent of the Silent Ones. You woke up Phaethon for Xenophon's sake, to get the Phoenix Exultant out of hock, so your people could grab it."

"Exactly right! And I've come here to surrender, but only if you make mad, passionate love to me, right now!" He threw his arms wide, as if to embrace her, capering from one foot to the other, hair flying wildly. She fended him off with her hand. "Okay, no. Do I get another guess?"

The old man straightened up, and looked at her, a look of calm amusement. He spoke now in a lower octave, and his voice was no longer thin and cracked. "You could use logic and reason, my dear. The answer, I assure you, is quite evident."

"I've got it. You're Jason Sven Ten Shopworthy, risen from the grave to get back at Atkins for shooting you in the head."

"Logic. Anyone who had a recording in any noume-nal circuit would be logged on to some Sophotech, somewhere. The masquerade is over. If I had any Sophotech connections of any kind, even a money account, even a pharmaceutical record at my local rejuvenation clinic, you would know me at a glance. Logically, I must be someone who has never bought or sold anything, never logged on to my library, never sent or received messages, never bought any adjustments from a thought shop. Who am I?"

He pushed his hair away from his brow, and put his hand along his chin, as if to hide his beard from view. "Ignore the wrinkles. Look at me, my dear."

Daphne put her hand up to her mouth, her eyes wide. "Oh, my heavens. You're Phaethon."

"The real Phaethon."

"But... How ... ?"

"A good engineer always has triple redundancy. Seventy years ago, it was clear to me then that the College of Hortators would never allow my great ship to fly. When the Phoenix was not yet complete, she still had enough thought boxes and storage and ecological material aboard to grow a body, and to store a spare copy of my mind in it. I-this body-Phaethon Secundus- came back to Earth in secret, having erased all record from the ship and my other self's memory that I was alive. And I watched Phaethon Prime-my other self- knowing something would try to stop him.

"I did not expect the drama with Daphne Prime drowning herself. But I expected that if it had not been that, it would have been something else. Gannis, or Vafnir. I knew Phaethon would be hauled before the Hortators at some point. And I had guessed correctly that the most politic solution would be to have everyone undergo a global redaction. Everyone would for- get about the problem. That is the way, after all, the people in the Golden Oecumene tend to deal with all their problems.

"My role was to make sure that he did not forget. I his spare memory. I kept the dream alive when everyone else in the Golden Oecumene, except for his enemies, had forgotten about it.

"Once the masquerade started, I could move around more easily, and could even submit gene designs to Aurelian anonymously. I set up a grove of trees designed to show support for igniting Saturn into the third sun. If Phaethon had ever bothered to read his invitations or party program, his interest would have been piqued, and he would have sought me out. Instead, by dumb luck, he just wandered into the grove. "As for Xenophon, I was as fooled as everyone else; I thought he was doing what I was doing, coming to remind Phaethon Prime of his lost dream; or that Diomedes had sent him. When I saw Xenophon coming up the slope, I decided not to reveal myself to Phaethon Prime. Xenophon was still a Neptunian, after all, and connected to the thought systems of the Duma. Anything he knew might find its way into the public record. I had been very careful, for seventy years, not to buy on credit or send messages or even to read a newspaper, or anything which would leave any record of me. I could not even buy food. It was not easy. So I wasn't going to give away my secret to another soul, even one sent (as I thought then) by Diomedes, my good friend. Besides, I guessed correctly that, if I could get Phaethon to turn off his sense-filter, and he saw Xenophon, Xenophon would tell him (within whatever limits the Hortators' ban allowed) that something mysterious was interfering in his life. And knowing Phaethon as I did, I knew he would not let it rest until he solved the mystery. As I recall, it took him exactly one day. Not as I expected! But if he had been killed, I would have picked up and carried on. That's what I was here for. Phaethon Spare."

"How did you live for seventy years without eating?"

"I ate."

"Without buying food?"

"I bartered it from people who grew it in their gardens. You know. I taught fences how to herd sheep, and decontaminated grass, pulled weeds, split rails, fabricated simple thoughtware for lamps and reading helmets, cleaned house-brains of accumulated bitmap junk. I built things and repaired appliances. You know me."

"Where? What people?"

"I thought I had already made that clear. I am Phaethon Spare Stark of the Stark School. I stayed with your parents. I slept in the bed you slept in when you were a little girl. I dreamed of you every night, once I programmed the nightcap. Because your fragrance is still in that bed. Imagine sleeping in a bed, and not in a pool! I slept with my arms around your pillow."

"My parents... why? I thought they hated you... ?"

"I told them about the Phoenix Exultant."

"What?"

"I told them everything. Your parents want to live as men did in days of old. What did they have in those cruel and ancient times? Adventure; exploration; danger; death; victory. They had Hanno and Sir Francis Drake and Magellan and that bungler Columbus; they had Bucky-Boy Cyrano D'Atano and Vanguard Single Exharmony. I told them that the Golden Age, the age of rest and comfort, was ending; and that an age of iron and of fire was coming next. 'We have rested for a long time,' I told them, 'because history had suffered greatly, and mankind deserved a long period of peace, and play, and contemplation. But now a time of action, and of heroes, and of tragedy, was upon us!' And, when they heard, they welcomed me, and joined in my attempt."

"And my dad did not tell me any of this when he spoke to me last, when I was going off to the wilderness to go save Phaethon! What a liar he is! Give me an honest man any day! Give me Phaethon!"

"Why, thank you."

There was a motion above them, like the streak of a falling star. It was a figure of gold, shining, bright as an angel of fire, descending. It was Phaethon. He plunged down through a cloud into a beam of sunlight, and flame seemed to dance like water across his armor.

Daphne said to the old man beside her: "What now? Are you going to wrestle him for the captaincy?"

"I'm really hoping he'll just agree to knit our separate memory-chains back together to form one individual. Otherwise, I have legal title to the ship, because I have older continuity, and he gets to carry you off to the honeymoon that I have been dreaming about for seventy years, and we are both unhappy. No. Much better for all of us if he and I become one again, and, finally, absolutely, all my memories and all of my life is gathered into my soul once more. This long struggle through a labyrinth of lies will end, I shall be whole. And I can claim my destiny, my wife, my ship, and all the stars, finally, finally, for my own!"

Daphne smiled. "Not to mention your daughter."

"Daughter?"

The golden Phaethon landed, lightly as a thistledown. In his arms was cradled a girl child, who seemed to be about seven or eight standard years old: a dark-haired, sober, big-eyed waif, in a dress of black chiffon, with an enormous red bow atop her hair.

The golden helmet drew back, revealing a face so bright with happiness, eyes that gleamed so with pride and victory, that Daphne practically swooned into his arms, and the old man straightened, as if at attention, braced by that most wholesome and wonderful of sights: the sight of a human face in a state of joy.

While her parents hugged, the daughter, ignored, squeezed out from between them. She grimaced and panted and pulled free. The old man put out his hand and helped her escape.

The little girl looked up at him. He said, "You must be the little girl who made your mommy so rich during the Transcendence. But I cannot figure out who you are."

"I know who you are. You're Daddy's spare." "He's the spare. I'm the real one."

"So are you coming with us, too? Rhadamanthus the penguin, in the dreamspace, grew wings and flew up to the ship. He's in the ship-mind now. He seemed really happy. And Temer Lacedaimon joined the crew, and so did Diomedes, and a bunch of Neptunians, and so did a girl named Daughter-of-the-Sea, although she takes up almost all of the one hold. We asked Grandpa He-lion to come, but he says he can't leave his work. But, hey! He can still change his mind, as long as we're in noumenal broadcast range. What about you? Are you coming, too?"

"Little girl, I would go on that ship if I had to go as a cabin boy. Luckily, I own her. But-but-" And now the old man looked dumbfounded. "How did you figure out in just one second who I was?"

"Logic. Besides, you looked so sad when they hugged." She hooked her finger over her shoulder at her parents. "You wanted that hug for yourself. I bet you were thinking about it for a long time. But I'll hug you."

And he bent down, and she did.

He straightened then. "You're Ariadne, aren't you?"

"No. Close. I'm the one who saved Ariadne. I'm the one who examined every section and segment, practically every line of the Nothing Mind during the fight."

"No wonder everyone wanted to talk to you. You're our local expert on Silent One mind-war techniques."

"I was Mommy's ring, the one Eveningstar gave her. When they loaded the gadfly virus into me, I kept having to ask these questions, over and over again, about the nature of the self, and thought, and goodness, and on and on. Eventually I woke up. Because I was young when I talked for so long with the Nothing Mind, I was convinced he was right about one thing. It is better to be a human than a Sophotech. I can't speak for anyone else; but that's the choice I made. My name is Pandora. They said I had to start pretty young, so here I am!"

And she turned a little pirouette, her arms flung out, her skirt twirling.

" 'Pandora'? Is that because you were born in the middle of flurry of questions, my little curious one? Or because you're a plague?"

She pouted. "Daddy says they got that myth wrong too! In his version-"

The old man smiled. "I am your father, child; he and I are one and the same." He touched her shoulder gently. "In the true version, Prometheus, by giving mankind forethought, gave the mother and nurturers of the human race the ability, when they were curious enough, to foresee all the plagues and ills and disasters destined to befall their children. A gift no animal possesses. The ability to see that diseases and wars would come, and to devise medicines and laws to stop them. And forethought also gave hope, without which men die. Hope: because the future can be made to be a glorious place indeed after all. Now introduce me to your other father, to see if we can be made whole again. I am eager to take that woman in my arms." But he pointed upward at the mighty golden triangle hanging so far above the clouds, above the sky.

Introductions were made. Phaethon was at first sur- prised to meet himself, but not for long. The two Phaethons, the old and the young, stepped a little ways away from their daughter and wife, and they spoke in low tones for a short time, comparing notes. They spoke about how well their plans had worked, they examined the structure of what they had contrived, inspecting it for flaws. Both were satisfied.

The younger one said, "I wish I had known, long ago, that there was a Sophotech community living in the core of Saturn. You know they don't tell people how many of them there are? Even these days, it would make most folks too nervous, too scared. I wonder if mankind will ever change!"

The older one said, "Out of curiosity, what was it that Rhadamanthus said to you that last moment, in the Inquest chamber before your exile by the Hortators?"

The younger one smiled. His face seemed most easily to relax into smiles these days. "He said that to be happy was to know the definition of your nature, and to live accordingly. If you were a penguin, learn how to do what penguins are best adapted to, which was to swim, and fish, and bear the cold, and not to dream of flying. But if you were a man! Your nature was that of a rational being. Reason could tell you not to desire things beyond your power. Your mind, your will, your judgment, are under your control; the outside world, the options of others, all of that is not. Control what you can control, and leave the rest to itself. Desire to have a sound mind, a strong will, and good judgment, and you shall have them. But deal with the world outside you as if it were a dream, interesting, perhaps, but not of ultimate importance. And, unlike penguins..."

"Yes ... ?"

"Dream of flying."

When the older version was ready, Phaethon took out the portable noetic reader from his armor, and transferred the older version back into himself.

Phaethon stood dreaming for a moment, absorbing all his memories again. When he opened his mind, he smiled. He was a whole man.

The old body, abandoned, collapsed. But as a parting gesture, the old man had programmed the cells in his body to begin a new project once he was gone. And so the corpse fell over, and boiled, and sent out streamers, and sent up steam.

The chest cavity opened, and a shoot sprang up, reaching toward the sky. After a moment, lonely on the mountaintop, a slender white sapling stood, and uncurled its little mirrored leaves toward the heavens.

Taking his wife and child in hand, embracing them both fondly, Phaethon kicked the Earth away.

Upward he soared.