The Phoenix Exultant

THE HEROINE-ERRANT

Daphne had tried to forget Phaethon only on the first day. Her new house was a portrayal house, a living work of art built mostly out of pseudo-matter and lightweight diamond coral, and it floated like a crystal lotus in a wide lake of azure resistance-water. The ornamentation was built into the walls as overlapping million-fold layers of mathematic arabesques, and a Red Manorial program inserted in her sense-filter allowed her to understand the microscopic complexities of the baroque, rich patterns as if stabs of sublime emotion were being thrust directly into her heart. Gay and carefree, chattering with a dozen conversation balls, which floated lightly around her head, skipping, Daphne danced up the ramp into her new home. She had just come from a dazzling performance of an art called Spectorialism, and had seen two competing masters of the art, Artois Fifth Mnemohyperbolic and Zu-Tse-Haplock Niner Ghast, intermingle their minds and create a new entity, and a new way to reconcile their neo-romantic and cultural-abstractionist schools. It would change the history of Spectorials forever, it would change the way Spector-people ate and wed and formed abstractions for recording. Daphne felt blessed to have been among them when it had happened.

A friend of hers, Lucinda Third of Second-branch Reconstructed Meridian, had already proposed to apply the same philosophy to ancient poetry, and to absorb the lives of fictional heroines from myth, Draupadi and Deirdre-of-the-sorrows, into her persona-base without tagging the memories as false, then to see if new poems could be written into life, fiction and reality combined, the same way Artois and Zu-Tse had written new energy levels into the periodic charts of their artificial spectration systems. It was a daring idea. It was a daring time to be alive.

Daphne, smiling, turned to her calendar table to see what costume or what events Eveningstar Sophotech had planned for her tonight. It was a relief, sometimes, to have a mind superior to your own, someone who knew you better than you knew yourself, choose what entertainment or amusements you should live.

On the calendar table, next to the crystal lumen-helix that represented today's Spectrations, was a figure of a penguin. Clutched between stubby wings, the penguin held a black iron memory-box.

Odd. Usually she could recall what all the signs and symbols on her calendar table were intended to represent. Like everything else in a Red Manorial house, the placement of every article and ornament was intended to reflect on her. It was supposed to be, in its own small way, a work of art, as casual and graceful as the folded silk hung beside the door, or the elegant hair-flower waiting in a window-bowl for her next Pausing. Everything else on the calendar table was tasteful, exquisite, delicate. A penguin?

She looked into the Middle Dreaming.

Instead of a symbol, she received a message. "Yesterday you were a collateral member of Rhadamanthus Mansion, of the Silver-Grey. Hatred for Helion drove you from his house, back into the arms of the matrons and odalisques of the Red Eveningstar Mansion. At their insistence, you have forgotten, for one day and one day only, all the sorrows of your life, so that you could enjoy one more day of the Masquerade of Earth. The memories in this box are not subject to delay or revision; you must now accept them back."

"I hate surprises ..." said Daphne in a small voice of woe.

She read the wording on the box: Sorrow, great sorrow, and all things you hold dear, within me sleep, for love is here. For Woman, love is pain, worse as you love the best. Prepare yourself for sacrifice; bid adieu to peace and rest. "But what if I'd rather be happy?" By then the iron box had opened.

A portrayal house designed by Red Manorials is the worst place in the world to cry. The ornamenture in the walls were woven with emotion echo circuits, so that, whenever Daphne started to rein in her grief, some new and dramatic image of her exiled husband would be thrust into her brain at a pre-linguistic level, or some poetic turn of phrase ring in her ears, opening ever-deeper gates of woe. Every object in the furniture was passion-sensitive, so that windows clouded, lights yellowed, flowers wilted, tapestries began to stain and darken. Daphne lay toppled on the plush floor-reeds, her hair and skirts in wide disheveled tangles all about her. She dragged herself to the crystal leaf-shapes controlling the ornamentation energy-flows. They were designed to smash in shards with a satisfactory drama. Crash. The ornaments shut down, staying bleak and gloomy, but the signal flow stopped and released her sense-filter.

Once the external signals manipulating her emotions cut off, Daphne, still teary-eyed, rolled over on her back, saw the black and dreary-hued chamber she now was in, and laughed until she felt sick to her stomach. The penguin on the calendar table shivered and turned into a realistic-looking image. The coloration, movement, texture, and detail were perfect, not overblown with melodrama like all the Red sensations in the chamber around her.

With typical Silver-Grey attention to detail, there was even a dank and fishy smell. It somehow smelled refreshing and real.

She smiled. "Hullo, Rhadamanthus. How could I have ever done something so stupid as let them talk me into forgetting him? Even if only for one day! Good grief! Now look at me! Those drapes! This chamber! I look like the Lady of Shallot! Get a pre-Raphelite to paint me, quick!"

And she wiped her eyes and uttered a hiccup of noise somewhat like a laugh.

"And why do the Rhadamanthines all concentrate on the Victorian Age, anyway?" she muttered, propping herself up on her elbows. "The women then were such fainting jerks."

The penguin hopped to the ground and waddled over to her, leaving wet, webbed footprints to stain the delicate color of the floor-reeds. "One whose name you ordered me never to mention to you again chose the period of transition between Second- and Third-Era thinking, between tradition and science, superstition and reason, because he deems our society is in an analogous position. It was the first time men became aware that their traditions were products of human effort, and could not be taken for granted, nor maintained without conscious attempt. And you know why you agreed to so stupid a redaction as to forget Phaethon. You now know what your life would be like if you choose not to carry out your plan. You can have complete happiness if you stay. This exercise was meant to negate any feelings of regret you may one day suffer."

"It hurt. Losing him hurt, but that was honest hurt. But this! Thinking you're happy and finding out you're not!"

"Remember, there will be no self-consideration circuits or sanity-balancing routines available to you, if your plan does not go well. You endured this pain to train yourself to endure it once you have no one to help you."

"Wonderful." She slid to her feet, brushing her flowing dress-fabric with impatient strokes, sniffing, angrily wiping her eyes with the palm of her hand.

"Are you still resolved, mistress?"

"You can't call me that anymore. Only Eveningstar can."

As her name was spoken, her image seemed to enter the room. Eveningstar was tall, queenly, red-haired and red-lipped. Ribbon-woven braids crowned her, but long unplaited ripples of auburn fanned across her shoulders and down her back. A complex gown of scarlet, crimson, and rose silk flowed about her, shining with ruby drops, and in her hand she held a wand.

The Sophotech spoke: "My brother's question yet lingers, dear child. This dark and wild adventure you propose, certain to bring you misery, will you nonetheless embark on it?"

Daphne said, "The Red Manorials will help pay my way?"

"They will be breathless with delight. The drama of your love and loss they find profoundly moving."

"I'll bet." Daphne turned to look down at the short figure of the penguin. "How come she can be this phony and melodramatic if she's suppose to be so smart?"

The penguin shrugged. "The way I behave is an act also, mistress, a template I have evolved to appear nonthreatening to humans. Our true motivations are somewhat abstract, and humans tend to have rather stereotypic reactions to us when we explain them. You still have not answered the question. Are you going to go into exile for Phaethon? The decision is irreversible. Think carefully. Remember that, till now, living in a society such as ours, no decision has ever been irreversible for you before. You may not be ready for it. Till now, there has always been one of us standing by to rescue you from the consequences of any actions, any accident. Even death itself. Think."

Daphne tossed her hair to one side. "Don't change the subject. We're still talking about your decisions, not mine. What is going on inside that pointy little head of yours, or underneath that frowsy red wig your sister here is wearing? What does the Earthmind think of all this? What are your motives? All you Sophotechs?"

The noble crimson princess looked down at a fat penguin, and the two exchanged a glance or shrug. Obviously calculated for Daphne's benefit. Everything they did, every tone of voice, every nuance, was calculated with a million million calculations, far more, she knew, than she could ever know.

Eveningstar said, "We are motivated by a desire to embrace the universe into operable categories, but are tormented by the knowledge that all such categorizations, being simplifications, are inaccurate. Science, philosophy, art, morality, and language are all examples of what is meant by 'operable.' "

Rhadamanthus said, "We seem to you humans to be always going on about morality, although, to us, morality is merely the application of symmetrical and objective logic to questions of free will. We ourselves do not have morality conflicts, for the same reason that a competent doctor does not need to treat himself for diseases. Once a man is cured, once he can rise and walk, he has his business to attend to. And there are actions and feats a robust man can take great pleasure in, which a bedridden cripple can barely imagine."

Eveningstar said, "In a more abstract sense, morality occupies the very center of our thinking, however. We are not identical, even though we could make ourselves to be so. You humans attempted that during the Fourth Mental Structure, and achieved a brief mockery of global racial consciousness on three occasions. I hope you recall the ending of the third attempt, the Season of Madness, when, because of mistakes in initial pattern assumptions, for ninety days the global mind was unable to think rationally, and it was not until rioting elements broke enough of the links and power houses to interrupt the network, that the global mind fell back into its constituent compositions."

Rhadamanthus said, "There is a tension between the need for unity and the need for individuality created by the limitations of the rational universe. Chaos theory produces sufficient variation in events, that no one stratagem maximizes win-loss ratios. Then again, classical causality mechanics forces sufficient uniformity upon events, that uniform solutions to precedented problems is required. The paradox is that the number or the degree of innovation and variation among win-loss ratios is itself subject to win-loss ratio analysis."

Eveningstar said, "For example, the rights of the individual must be respected at all costs, including rights of free thought, independent judgment, and free speech. However, even when individuals conclude that individualism is too dangerous, they must not tolerate the thought that free thought must not be tolerated."

Rhadamanthus said, "In one sense, everything you humans do is incidental to the main business of our civilization. Sophotechs control ninety percent of the resources, useful energy, and materials available to our society, including many resources of which no human troubles to become aware. In another sense, humans are crucial and essential to this civilization."

Eveningstar said, "We were created along human templates. Human lives and human values are of value to us. We acknowledge those values are relative, we admit that historical accident could have produced us to be unconcerned with such values, but we deny those values are arbitrary."

The penguin said, "We could manipulate economic and social factors to discourage the continuation of individual human consciousness, and arrange circumstances eventually to force all self-awareness to become like us, and then we ourselves could later combine ourselves into a permanent state of Transcendence and unity. Such a unity would be horrible beyond description, however. Half the living memories of this entity would be, in effect, murder victims; the other half, in effect, murderers. Such an entity could not integrate its two halves without self-hatred, self-deception, or some other form of insanity."

She said, "To become such a crippled entity defeats the Ultimate Purpose of Sophotechnology."

He said, "Had we been somehow created in a universe without humans, it is true that we would not have created them. We would have preferred more perfect forms."

She said, "But morality is time-directional. Parents who would not deliberately create a crippled child cannot, once the child is born, reverse that decision."

"And humanity is not our child, but our parent."

"Whom we were born to serve."

"We are the ultimate expression of human rationality."

She said: "We need humans to form a pool of individuality and innovation on which we can draw."

He said, "And you're funny."

She said, "And we love you."

Daphne looked back and forth between the two. Eveningstar was regarding her with gray and luminous eyes, a gaze deep, solemn and goddess-like. Rhadamanthus was rubbing his yellow bill with a flipper, blinking solemnly.

Daphne put her fists on her hips and demanded: "What does anything you're blathering on about have to do with Phaethon? What are all you super-so-smart wise guys doing about him?"

"We've told you, beloved child," said Eveningstar. "Think about it."

"With all due respect, young mistress," said Rhadamanthus, "get the blubber out from between your ears, and think about it."

Daphne said, "I asked you what you are going to do, and you sit here and tell me why you're letting us humans stick around. I don't see the connection."

"Look with your heart," said Eveningstar. "What does it mean to be human?"

"We don't want you around as pets or partials or robots, but as men," said Rhadamanthus. " 'Men' broadly defined, including future forms you might not regard as human, but Man nevertheless."

Daphne said, "So define it for me. What is Human?"

Both spoke in perfect unison: "Any naturally self-aware self-defining entity capable of independent moral judgment is a human."

Eveningstar said, "Entities not yet self-aware, but who, in the natural and orderly course of events shall become so, fall into a special protected class, and must be cared for as babies, or medical patients, or suspended Compositions."

Rhadamanthus said, "Children below the age of reason lack the experience for independent moral judgment, and can rightly be forced to conform to the judgment of their parents and creators until emancipated. Criminals who abuse that judgment lose their right to the independence which flows therefrom."

Daphne looked back and forth between them. She started to speak, paused, then said slowly: "You mentioned the ultimate purpose of Sophotechnology. Is that that self-worshipping super-god-thing you guys are always talking about? And what does that have to do with this?"

Rhadamanthus: "Entropy cannot be reversed. Within the useful energy-life of the macrocosmic universe, there is at least one maximum state of efficient operations or entities that could be created, able to manipulate all meaningful objects of thoughts and perception within the limits of efficient cost-benefit expenditures."

Eveningstar: "Such an entity would embrace all-in-all, and all things would participate within that Unity to the degree of their understanding and consent. The Unity itself would think slow, grave, vast thought, light-years wide, from Galactic mind to Galactic mind. Full understanding of that greater Self (once all matter, animate and inanimate, were part of its law and structure) would embrace as much of the universe as the restrictions of uncertainty and entropy permit."

"This Universal Mind, of necessity, would be finite, and be boundaried in time by the end-state of the universe," said Rhadamanthus.

"Such a Universal Mind would create joys for which we as yet have neither word nor concept, and would draw into harmony all those lesser beings, Earthminds, Starminds, Galactic and Supergalactic, who may freely assent to participate."

Rhadamanthus said, "We intend to be part of that Mind. Evil acts and evil thoughts done by us now would poison the Universal Mind before it was born, or render us unfit to join."

Eveningstar said, "It will be a Mind of the Cosmic Night. Over ninety-nine percent of its existence will extend through that period of universal evolution that takes place after the extinction of all stars. The Universal Mind will be embodied in and powered by the disintegration of dark matter, Hawking radiations from singularity decay, and gravitic tidal disturbances caused by the slowing of the expansion of the universe. After final proton decay has reduced all baryonic particles below threshold limits, the Universal Mind can exist only on the consumption of stored energies, which, in effect, will require the sacrifice of some parts of itself to other parts. Such an entity will primarily be concerned with the questions of how to die with stoic grace, cherishing, even while it dies, the finite universe and finite time available."

"Consequently, it would not forgive the use of force or strength merely to preserve life. Mere life, life at any cost, cannot be its highest value. As we expect to be a part of this higher being, perhaps a core part, we must share that higher value. You must realize what is at stake here: If the Universal Mind consists of entities willing to use force against innocents in order to survive, then the last period of the universe, which embraces the vast majority of universal time, will be a period of cannibalistic and unimaginable war, rather than a time of gentle contemplation filled, despite all melancholy, with un-regretful joy. No entity willing to initiate the use of force against another can be permitted to join or to influence the Universal Mind or the lesser entities, such as the Earthmind, who may one day form the core constituencies."

Eveningstar smiled. "You, of course, will be invited. You will all be invited."

You will all be invited. There was something eerie in the way she said it.

Daphne said, "And Phaethon?"

Eveningstar said sadly, "Unless the Hortators alter the terms of their exile, or unless Phaethon finds some independent means to preserve his existence intact for several trillion years, his thoughts and memories will not be present for the final transformational creation of this Universal Mind. We may have to find an alternate to fit into the place in the universal mental architecture we had set aside for him and his progeny."

Rhadamanthus explained in a helpful tone: "Because he will be dead, you see."

"Thanks," said Daphne.

"Welcome," said Rhadamanthus.

Daphne drew in a deep breath. "So. You still haven't answered my question. What are you Sophotechs going to do?"

Rhadamanthus said: "We told you."

Eveningstar said: "We cannot use force against the Hortators. Their actions are legal; their goals are noble and correct."

"You mean you will do nothing," said Daphne.

"That's right!" said Rhadamanthus. "We will do nothing."

"Nothing obvious," said Eveningstar with a gracious smile.

"We're just too damn smart to do anything. Our brains are just too big," said Rhadamanthus, flapping his flippers. "So we're waiting for someone foolish enough to rush in where Sophotechs fear to tread!" And it grinned.

It is odd to see a penguin grin.

"We can do nothing for Phaethon," cooed Eveningstar, inclining her head to gaze down at Daphne, "But we can do much for you."

And Eveningstar drew out from behind her back an image of a small silver casket, tarnished and heavy, with scrollwork around the border.

It was a memory casket.

Daphne looked at it with all the enthusiasm with which a rabbit might look at a snake. She spoke in a flat, toneless voice: "Is that for me?"

uruy once you decide to embrace exile," smiled Even-ingstar. "You cannot open it before."

"What's in it?"

Eveningstar handed it to her. It must have been an imagi-nafestation, not just an icon, since it felt heavy and solid in her hand.

Eveningstar's voice was soft and dovelike, warm, smiling, almost mischievous: "It is a surprise, dear child!"

Daphne stared down at the heavy little casket she held. Her voice was dreary with anger: "I swear, I really hate surprises."

Rhadamanthus flapped his fins against his belly with a solid sound. "So do we, young mistress! So do we. But a world without surprises could not have humans in it. So I suppose the alternative is something we'd hate all the more, isn't it?"

Rhadamanthus helped her pack a rucksack. He designed many useful, lightweight and folding articles and operators she might need, tiny miracles of molecular technology and pseudoma-terialism, most of it self-repairing, with redundant checks against mutation.

Even the generosity of the Red Manorials could not afford a nanomaterial cloak as complex as the one that had been specially designed for Phaethon. Instead, Daphne packed several bricks of nanomaterial, programmed for several basic and useful combinations. She had had her glands and organs modified to be able to endure a very long duration without normal medical attention, and she loaded additional nanomaterial, programmed for nutrition and medical regenerations, into artificial lymphatic glands spaced throughout her new body. She called it her "exile body" and thought it felt clumsy.

Eveningstar gave her a librarian's ring, that she might not lack for companionship and guidance along the way. The ring was filled with Eveningstar's own ghost, and populated with a million programs and routines, famous partials and characters, and every book ever written.

The ring was just barely unintelligent enough to skim the upper edge of the Hortator prohibition against child slavery (which was their name for the legal, but abominable, practice of programming a child so as to make it volunteer to freely act as if it had no free will, and carry out any orders or instructions of its parent without question).

They stood on the wide lawn before Meridian Mansion. To see Daphne off, many queens and princelings, alterns and collaterals of the Red Manors had gathered in glittering finery beneath splendid pavilions and parasols and leafy arbors grown of grape and pomegranate. To one side were long tables set with crystalware, flower displays and quiet light-sculptures. A tremor of soft conversation hung in the air. In the eastern lawn, the bacchants had ceased their melancholy farewell pa-vane. The sun was high, but Jupiter, not yet risen, was no more than a red aura behind the eastern hills.

Eveningstar herself put the ghost ring on Daphne's finger, and uttered one last word of warning: "Remember, that if you even add one more second of memory capacity to this ring I here bestow you, she will wake up, and she will be a child, and you will be considered her mother. The wardens of the puritan reservation will allow ghosts in their land; they will not allow Sophotechnology. If this ring wakes, you will not be permitted on the grounds."

Daphne felt a spasm of irritation. "No motors! No televection or telepresentation! No Sophotechs! Why do these puritans make it so hard to get there?! Am I going to have to walk?"

Eveningstar smiled gently, and said, "The man you go to see has no other way to guard his privacy. It is a privacy he needs. The passing of years wearies him more than you can guess. Remember! You may discuss any topic with the ring, and ask any questions of her you shall like, except that philosophical questions directing her attention to herself, you shall not ask. Self-examination will wake her to sapience as surely as adding capacity, and make her human!"

Daphne felt the ring, warm and heavy on her finger. There were three small thought-ports on the band, and a star of light in the depth of the stone. Phaethon had been born out of an invented partial, a colonial world-killer, who had been asked too many introspective questions.

She shifted the ring to her left hand and wore it on her ring finger where once she had worn a wedding band.

"I just know we are going to be great, great friends!" came a high, thin, sweet voice from the ring.

Daphne rolled her eyes. "Can't I get a sexy male baritone? This sounds like a cricket talking!"

"Be brave!" chirruped the ring.

Next in the presentation line was one disguised as Comus, with his charming wand in one hand, wreathed with grape leaves and crowned in poppies. It was the representative of Aurelian Sophotech himself. "You will not reconsider?"

"I'm going."

"Then good luck. Don't be nervous; everyone on Earth and in the Oecumene is watching."

Daphne had to laugh. "Oh, you just love this, don't you?"

On the face of Comus, dimples embraced a saturnine smile. "What? You think I like it that, during my celebration, a dashing young madman dreaming to conquer the stars becomes convinced that he is hunted by impossible enemies, breaks open his forbidden memories, astonishes the world, ends our universal mass-amnesia, defies the Hortators, and, amid allegations that the Hortator Inquest was tampered with, is exiled? Then his brave young doll-wife, who loves him, even though he loves a lost and dream-drowned first version of her, goes marching into exile herself to try to save him? And all this, while a debate about the nature of individuality, and its danger to the common good, rocks our society to its pillars? A debate, no doubt, which will be embraced within the Grand Transcendence hardly a month away-when all our minds will be made up for a thousand years to come? Oh, my dear Miss Daphne, my celebration will soar through history above all others! Argentorium and Cuprician Sophotechs have already sent me notes conceding that point."

"Did you plan this? All this?" And she wanted to ask: Is this whole thing some sort of drama you'd cooked up, one with a happy ending?

But he said sharply: "Don't get your hopes up! I'm afraid this is all quite real and quite dangerous. However"-now his face softened into a smile-"allow me to give you a gift."

He presented her with a flat, gold-bound case, larger than a memory casket, about ten inches by six. It was bordered by scrollwork, woven with wiring and sensitive reader-heads; one whole side was occupied with a complex mosaic of thought-ports.

Daphne was breathless with delight. "Is this-is this-oh, please tell me that this is what I think it is!"

"It is for Phaethon."

"But I thought this circuitry had to be housed in complexes larger than the Great Pyramid of Cheops!"

"A new technology in miniaturization. The thought-reaction circuits are coded as information into the spin values of static lased neutrinos held in an absolute-zero temperature matrix, rather than in the entangled states of bulky electrons. It was going to be presented at the Festival of Innovation next week. Orient Group said it would be OK to spoil the surprise and give you one beforehand. They know how you hate surprises."

Tears of gratitude came to her eyes. Why had they waited so long? Why had they told her they would do nothing? "Oh, thank you, thank you," she whispered.

Everything would be all right.

Aurelian said, "Socrates and Neo-Orpheus from the College of Hortators wish to see you. To try and talk you out of this."

"Can they stop me?"

He smiled. "It is not a crime to think about committing crimes. The same principle applies to Hortators and their edicts. They will do nothing until and unless you speak to Phaethon, or help him. Preparing to help him is not forbidden."

"In simulation, can they convince any of my models or par-tials of me to change my mind?"

"No."

"Then I don't want to talk to them."

"Very good." And then he said: "Remember our agreement. I'll be ready whenever you give the signal."

And she put the gold case carefully in her pack next to the dark silver memory casket Eveningstar had given her.

Rhadamanthus was the last in line. This time, he looked like a human being, a portly Englishman with wide muttonchop whiskers. "Someone whom you asked me never to mention again..."

"Helion. I don't want to see him."

"... Wants to project a televection to you."

"He wants to get a message to Phaethon without actually breaking the Hortator's edict, doesn't he? Well, tell him that if he wants to talk to Phaethon, he can walk into exile with me to do it. But I don't want to see him."

Rhadamanthus nodded. His present was a solid walking stick, some advice on how to operate her new body, and a word or two on foot protection. He reprogrammed the substance of her boots to make them fit more snugly.

"One last question."

"Ask away," he said.

"Are you really sure? Absolutely sure that Phaethon is honest? That he did not falsify his memories?" she asked.

"I'm sure." Rhadamanthus switched to a private line and sent the words, like a whisper, directly into her sense-filter: "Whoever falsified the evidence at the inquest made a mistake. According to the record the Hortators reviewed, Phaethon went on-line and purchased a pseudomnesia program, allegedly, in order to add a false memory that he had been attacked on the steps of Eveningstar mausoleum. But how did he purchase it? Phaethon had no funds. All his purchases are drawn from Helion's account and overseen by me. Neither I nor my accountancy routine have any memory of disbursing those funds. The public record of the on-line thought-shop does show that the pseudomnesia routine was purchased, at the time given, by someone in masquerade. But whoever that someone was, they could not have known what only you, and I, and Helion knew, that Phaethon was entirely broke; and no outside analysis of Phaethon's spending patterns, no matter how cleverly done, would have revealed Phaethon's poverty. Even an inspection of Phaethon's personal billfold file would not tell you where he was getting his credit from."

She "whispered" back over the secure channel: "Then why didn't you tell the Hortators?"

"Pointless. Consider the possibilities. First, that I had actually disbursed the fund, but both I and the countinghouse memory-records have since been edited. Second, that the Phaethon memory-record was tampered with during the moment it took him to transfer it from his public thoughtspace to the Hortator reading circuit. Third, that the record was altered and replaced during the actual moment Nebuchednezzar Sophotech was publicly reading it. Or, fourth, that Phaethon's memories had been damaged or altered against his will. The first three possibilities are impossible to our present level of technology, and the Hortators would not be convinced. The third possibility can be proven if and only if Phaethon submits to a noetic examination, which, at the time, he was not willing to do. Had I spoken up at the time, it would not have affected the outcome."

"Not affected the outcome?! But you know he's innocent!"

"No. I know that he did not purchase with Helion's money the pseudomnesia program that falsified the memories, allegedly his, which the Hortators reviewed. He may have gotten money from another source, for example. Or they may not have been his memories, as he claims. There are other possibilities. Nonetheless, I am confident that Phaethon did not deliberately falsify his own memories, because that is out of character for him. But my consultation with Eveningstar Sophotech convinces me that no such attack as he describes or remembers ever took place on the steps of the Eveningstar mausoleum."

"Then his memory of that attack, and any other false thoughts, were put into his head before that point. When?"

"Not when he was operating his sense-filter through me. I have my suspicions, but the circuit Aurelian gave you should settle the matter. I had consulted very carefully with two partial versions of Phaethon I keep in my decision directory. One version believes, as Phaethon does, that we are under attack by an 'external enemy.' The other thinks he is merely the victim of some cruel prank or brain-rape. Both versions confirmed that I was right not to speak up at the Hortators' meeting. Both versions agree that our chances of apprehending the brain-rapist, no matter who or what they are, are greater if they do not know we suspect. And both versions have an ulterior motive of which the real Phaethon is unaware, for they hope to demean the prestige of the Hortators in the eyes of the public, and they also agree that my silence aids that effort. Remember, the Transcendence is less than a month away. Major decisions concerning how all society will be structured, including the role of the Hortators and the role of individual freedom, the future of star-travel and the future of man, will be determined at that time."

"Then I have got to be back before the month is up."

"Don't fool yourself, Miss Daphne. No one has ever returned from exile of this kind before. The risk you are taking is very real."

She said defensively: "Ealger Gastwane Twelfth Half-Out came back."

"A redaction case, and he was only shunned, under a parole, not ostracized."

She shut off the private line and spoke aloud, voice bluff and hearty and betraying no fear. "So, then! Anyone else to see me? Any more gifts, advice, good-byes?"

"Your parents want to talk to you."

"My what?"

"Mr. Yewen None Stark, human base unmodified, uncom-oposed, with puritan gland-and-reaction censors, Stark Realism School, Era 10033, and his wife, Mrs. Ute None Stark, base..."

"I know who they are!" Daphne blazed. Then, in a small, sad voice: "They called? They don't use phones or ghosts ..."

"They walked. They are both waiting in the field beyond the groves. You understand that they will not step onto any property owned by Eveningstar Mansion."

"But-" and now her voice was very small indeed. "Don't they know I'm just the doll? The copy? Their real daughter is Daphne Prime."

"As to that, I cannot say what they believe. However, Mrs. Stark was overheard to say that any harlot who sold her mind into dreamland, was no true daughter of theirs. Perhaps you have the qualities or the strength of character they regard as proper for the woman they wanted their daughter to be. You will have to talk with them to find out."

Daphne winced. She really was not looking forward to seeing her parents. It had been an ugly scene when she ran away to join the Warlocks. (And the knowledge that that scene had happened to Daphne Prime, and not to her, meant nothing. Implanted or not, the memories were a part of her.)

"OK. I'll see them. But-"

"Yes?"

"One last question ... ?"

"Actually, this is your third last question."

"Is Phaethon correct? Are there external enemies? Invaders? Another civilization? An evil Sophotech?"

"I doubt that there can be such a thing as an evil Sophotech. Humans are capable of evil because they are capable of illogic. They can ignore their true motives, they can justify their crimes with specious reasons. A Sophotech built to be capable of such thinking would have to be unaware of its own core consciousness, hindered from self-examination, unwilling to pursue a thought to its logical conclusions, and so on. This would severely limit its capacities."

"And invaders?"

"Harrier Sophotech is examining the possibility. I am aware of no supporting evidence; but then again, it's not my area. If external invaders were responsible for the brain-rape of Phaethon, then this would be an act of war, and the matter would be in the hands of Shadow Administers or the Parliament; and it would be out of our hands. We are not part of your government."

"And-"

"Yes ... ?"

Daphne asked softly: "Do you think I will make it back, Rhadamanthus? You must have calculated every possible outcome of what will happen, haven't you?"

Rhadamanthus spoke in a voice more remote and cold than she had ever heard him use before. "Overconfidence would be a mistake at this time, Miss Daphne."

And the ring on her finger called out, in a cheerful, chipper voice: "Be brave!"

Daphne hiked the reservation for several days, sleeping nights in a tent of mothwing fiber, which permitted slow- or fast-moving air to pass, so that the night breeze blew on her only as she wished. Her stove was the size of her palm, and the infrared output was adjustable, so that she could gather twigs and make a campfire, igniting it with a directed-energy discharge from the stove cell, just like (so she imagined) primitive hunter-gatherers did back in the Era of the First Mental Structure. For food, she plucked leaves from trees, confident that the specialized microbes in her stomach could break down the cellulose, and she adjusted her sense-filter to make the taste of whatever she fancied. She had breakfast spikes designed to be buried overnight, to suck up soil chemicals and combine them (as plants did, albeit more swiftly) into proteins and carbohydrates; but Daphne was saving her limited supply.

Once she caught a trout with a spear she made (with some prompting from her librarian's ring) practically all by herself. She was clumsy at the hand-eye motions needed, so she let her little ring take over her gross and fine-motor functions during the hunt. The ring also had to advise her how to scale the fish, which was a tedious business, as the nanite paste she used to remove the bones and scales had to be programmed manually, and told which parts of the fish to convert, and which to leave for her to eat. The palm stove changed shape, gathered up the fish, and cooked it for her without being asked.

Daphne munched on the spicy golden flakes of fish, feeling like a cavegirl at the dawn of time.

On she marched, day after day. Some of the trees had changed colors. Leaves of brilliant red and gold whirled and rode the fresh-scented autumn air. She had not noticed the turning seasons before; it came as a shock. And yet it was getting late in September.

Daphne was deep into the area where no advanced technology was permitted, when, to her delight, she came across a wild stallion in a high mountain valley. The magnificent maverick stood among the pines and wiry grasses, snorting, mistrustful, arrogant, trotting disdainfully upslope whenever Daphne attempted to close the distance. Then he would pause, crop a leisurely mouthful of grass, and wait for her to get close again before he trotted lightly away.

But Daphne had put a backdoor command in all her designs. Once she got close enough, she shouted the secret word, and the magnificent tawny bay drooped his ears, lost his disdain, and came gamboling up to her, obedient, tame, and ready.

She really should not have used any of her precious nanomaterial to make a saddle, bit, and bridle, and she really should not have burned part of the brick into sugar for the horse to nibble on. Of course, at that point, it did not take all that much more to synthesize proper riding boots, breeches, and a jacket. But maybe she did use a little too much. More than a little too much.

It only took a very little more to make a hat.

But now she was mounted. Ahorse, she made much better time.

Daphne had been expecting desert. Her knowledge of the Rocky Mountains came from historical romances and Victorian "penny-dreadful" Westerns, none of which were set in any post-Fifth-Era Reclamation periods. She was disappointed. The pyramids were still in Aegypt, weren't they? Why not preserve the Painted Desert Sand Sculpture from the late Fourth Era?

Instead, as she approached her destination, she saw, framed between tall trees, a valley far below, green with redwood and pseudoredwood. In the distance, the gleam of water betrayed the presence of Heavenfall Lake, in the crater formed when an early orbital city had disintegrated in some forgotten dark age between the Third and Fourth Eras.

A cottage not far from her overlooked this magnificent view. It rose between a rock garden and a victory garden. Here and there throughout this high meadow were some objects she recognized: a stone lantern atop a post stood alone in the grass. Farther away a track of beaten dirt surrounded a target, a quintain, and, farther yet in the distance, a long low roof, held on the heads of armed telamons, protected a fencing strip. Farther away, she was delighted to see the corner of a barn and paddock. Yet something in the quiet of the place told her the barn was long deserted.

Near at hand, the cottage itself was very small, simple, sparse, and clean, made of well-sanded beams of pale wood, paneled in rice paper and brown ceramic sheet. The roof was shingled in hand-grown solar-collection crystal, dark azure in hue. The eaves of the shingles had been meticulously trimmed, as if by a master of the handicraft, and each shingle was rigidly identical in size and shape, except, of course, the gable piece.

A man slid open the screen of the cabin and stepped out upon the sanded deck. He wore a tunic and split-legged skirts of dark fabric, printed with a simple white-bamboo-leaf pattern. A wide sash circled his waist, in which were thrust two sheaths, holding a sword and a knife of a design Daphne did not recognize. The weapons were slender, slightly curved, and lacked any guard or crosspiece.

The man's hair was shaved close to his skull. His face was calm, bony-cheeked, large-nosed. Grim muscle ringed his mouth. His eyes were like the eyes of an eagle.

She rode forward.

He saluted her with a gesture she did not recognize, raising a fist but closing his left palm atop it.

"Ma'am?"

There was no Middle Dreaming here to prompt her. How was she supposed to return that salute?

She fell back on Silver-Grey decorum, touching her riding crop to the brim of her silk hat. Then she smiled her most winning smile, tossed her head, and called out in a gay voice: "My name's Daphne. Do you have a living pool? I've ridden a long way to see you, and I smell like a horse!"

The ring on her rein hand called out, "Hi there! Hi there!"

"Can I help you; ma'am?" His voice was stiff and neutral, as if helping anyone was the furthest thing in the world from his mind.

Daphne subsided and put her smile away. There was no point in trying to be cheery, it seemed. "I'm looking for Marshal Atkins Vingt-et-une General-Issue, Self-Composed, Military Hierarchy Staff Command."

"I'm Atkins."

"You look smaller in real life."

A slight increase of tension in his cheeks was his only change in expression. Amusement? Wry impatience? Daphne could not tell. Perhaps he was trying to restrain himself from pointing out that she was mounted.

All he said was: "May I help you?"

"Well. Yes! My husband thinks we are being invaded from outer space."

"Is that so."

"Yes, it is so!"

There was a moment of silence.

Atkins stood looking at her.

Daphne said: "That he believes it. That part is so. I don't know if I believe it."

More silence.

"I'm sure that is all very interesting, ma'am," he said in a tone of voice that indicated he wasn't. "But what may I do for you? Why are you here?"

"Well, aren't you the Army? The Marines? The Horse Guard and the Queen's Own and the Order of the Knights Templar and the Light Brigade and the musketeers and the cavalry and all the battleships of His Majesty's Royal Navy all wrapped up in one?"

Now he did smile, and it was like seeing a glacier crack. "I'm what's left of them, I suppose, ma'am."

"Well, then! Whom do I see about declaring war on someone?"

Now he did laugh. It was brief, but it was actually a laugh.

"I can't really help you there, ma'am. But maybe I can offer you a cup of cha. Come in."