all their prestige, will find themselves isolated, besieged on Earth, walled off from space by their own presumptions.'
Phaethon was more than astonished. 'But why should you do such a thing for me?'
'Do not be arrogant, sir. I do as my conscience commands. You are incidental. The Hortators overstepped their mandate in your case, and they ignored the warnings of Nebuchednezzar Sophotech not to pursue you. It will destroy them.'
'Destroy? A strong word to use.' (Phaethon wondered why there was a note of hope, of relish, in his own voice.)
'Have you been out of communication since you disembarked from Earth to Mercury Equilateral? I see that you have. Aurelian Sophotech has already declared against the College of Hortators.'
'What... ?'
'Aurelian Sophotech is in exile. The Grand Transcendence is only a week away. The lesser combinations have already formed; the mass-minds have begun their data-migration overtures. The Ennead is making ready; the basics are calling back all their partials and winding up their affairs. You see? If the Hortators do not back down, the policies and visions that will guide us for the next thousand years will be established by the deviants and freaks, the Afloats and Ashores of Ceylon.'
'And the Neptunians.'
'And you and I, sir.'
Phaethon's image showed a smile. 'A small transcendence, perhaps, but I shall be grateful for your company, sir.'
'Thank you. After my business here with you is done, I will be transmitting a noumenal copy of myself to Earth. I want to walk among the gardens of Aurelian, and visit the Endless Thought Libraries. No one else is there, and I will have the entire place to myself. Aurelian's reconstruction of Beethoven will be conducting a complete (if parahistorical) version of his unfinished masterpiece Eighty-first Symphony, the first since Cuprician's time, and holding a performance. I shall be the only person in the theater.'
'I am still grateful for your sacrifice, Warden Lacedemonian.'
And now Temer's smile grew broad, startlingly white against his space-dark skin. 'The gratitude is mutual. I must tell you one more thing, just privately, between you and me. When you opened your memory casket, and recalled your Phoenix Exultant, mine came open, too, and I spent a whole day, not at the Celebration as my wives and I had planned, but sitting under a noesis helmet in a oneiriatrist's closet. I had days and years of memories, spent thinking about and watching the progress on your ship. My whole life, ever since I gave up sea-farming, has been ships, Mr. Phaethon. I was a member of the Celeritolumenous Society since before you were born, since before there was a science of Celerotology. I am in love with your ship, sir. And, with the Hortators' ban still in place, I am the only man, equipped with the instruments to record the whole process, who will be able to watch the Phoenix Exultant when she soars. Please inform me when you intend your first burn, and transmit your vector and discharge area, and, considering the size of your ship, the extent of your occlusion umbra. If we have nothing further to discuss ... ? Then that will be all. Permission to disembark.'
'It was a very great pleasure speaking with you, Mr. La-cedemonia. I must confess, I possessed unkind thoughts concerning you after my passage through your section of the space-tower. Those memories will be robbed of force and replaced by the fond memories I shall have of our meeting here. Good day to you, sir.'
'And Godspeed to you and to your fine ship.' Temer's image saluted and walked away, and the mannequin, now empty, went limp.
When Phaethon gestured to accept from the second icon, the mannequin straightened to attention.
Phaethon's sense-filter conveyed an image of Atkins standing there, darkly shining in his black armor. A knife and a katana, a smart-pistol and a far-injector hung in his holsters and sheaths. The dots on his gorget showed one-way thought-ports, obviously meant to project mental viruses into systems, but unable to receive them. The ring on his finger had a black stone; the color indicating dangerous self-propagating deleters and corrupters were stored there. Phaethon was impressed with how overwhelmingly deadly the man was; it showed from every detail of his appearance; it was not something, earlier in his life, Phaethon would have been alert to notice.
Without a word of greeting, Atkins drew a memory card from his weapon belt, and held it up. 'Here are the Warmind's instructions. I have reviewed the plan and concluded that it is the best our present limited knowledge allows. The fundamental goal of this plan is to locate the enemy high command, the entity you refer to as Nothing Sophotech.'
'Why do you say, 'refer to'?'
'We don't think it's a Sophotech. The things Scaramouche said to you may have been calculated to create that impression, perhaps to dishearten any opposition. No one wants to fight a Sophotech, do they? But I insist that you agree to follow by the provisions of misplan, before I show them to you.'
It took a moment for Phaethon to understand what was being asked of him. 'How can I agree in ignorance?'
'How can you think you can be of any help to the military effort to defend the Golden Oecumene when you have steadfastly refused to join the military? The need for coordinated action, guided by a unified plan, is so obvious during emergencies of this kind, that I am amazed that the laws will not permit me to conscript you and expropriate your ship for this purpose. The laws won't let me do what I need to do to let us survive this war. Those laws might get us all killed. So what can I do now? I've complained to my superior about you, and explained that the military needs you and your ship for this plan to have any chance.'
'And the response, I assume, did not create great pleasure in you?'
Atkins looked annoyed. 'Get that smirk off your face, mister, this is not funny.'
'I intended no jest, Marshal Atkins! Nor was I smirking; this is simply my natural expression. But I cannot hide the pleasure with which I hear the news that my individual rights are still carefully respected by the Parliament and the Sophotechs, even in such times as these. And I had thought all this time that the Parliament was the main source of danger to my liberty. How strange that they should defend it.'
'Don't pick out a silverware pattern yet.'
'I beg your pardon?'
'I mean, don't fall in love with the Parliament. The Parliament would have done everything I wanted in an instant if the Sophotechs, without exception, had not advised them not to. Westmind predicted that the Curia would have overruled the Parliament in an instant, knew the Censor would censure them, and predicted that the Hortators would have them all ostracized and picking through trash in Talaimannar before the day was up, if they treated you that way. Nebuchadnezzar himself spoke up for you.'
'How ironic.'
Atkins held up the memory card. 'If he hadn't, you'd be a buck private right now, and these would be boot- camp downloads and mind-sets and orders, not suggestions.'
'What did Nebuchadnezzar say?'
'He said any civilization that could not produce men willing freely to volunteer to fight and die in her defense did not deserve to survive.' Atkins paused a moment to let that sink in. Then, in a harder voice: 'And I told him I'd rather have my civilization, my folks and my friends, survive, whether they 'deserved to' or not. There's something really screwy about a set-up where one guy like you, just on his own, gets to decide whether or not our civilization 'deserves' to survive.' Atkins held up the card, and concluded: 'Well? Do we have a deal? Are you going to follow the plan to the letter?' 'You ask me to sacrifice my ship and perhaps my life on a plan, which I am not permitted to examine? What kind of businessman do you think I am?'
'I don't give a damn what kind of businessman you are. I'm trying to find out what kind of patriot you are. If I tell you the plan, and you don't agree to follow it, and then you do something stupid and fall into enemy hands, then they'll get the plan, and I don't want that.'
'Come now, Marshal! What you ask of me is unreasonable.'
'War is unreasonable. If it were reasonable, it would be called 'peace.' The only other thing I can do is show you the plan under seal, and then have your memory of the plan redacted, allowing you only to keep the knowledge that there is a plan and that you agreed to it.'
'After I woke from the redaction, I would not know why I had agreed. I wouldn't even know whether or not the memory of agreement was true, or was a false memory planted by you for some overriding military purpose. I only just recently escaped from the labyrinth of missing memory; do you expect me to step back into that maze
