Phaethon, searching for the courthouse, looking into the Middle Dreaming. The symbolic meanings of the floral colors, tree and leaf, shape and placement, came flooding into his brain. The experience was overwhelming, since the architect had woven multiple overlapping layers of symbolism, each part reflecting the whole, throughout the entire garden.
It was doubtful whether any brain (before the invention of sophotechnology) could actually envision and enact a scheme where each part or group of parts could contain its own symbol-message while maintaining integrity taken as a whole; but Ao Nisibus, the designer, certainly made it seem as if he had. (All the more amazing, since Ao Nisibus had not had a Cerebelline neuroform.)
The gardens and lawns of the opposite side of the cylinder shone viridescently in the light of long windows, which, like canals filled with stars, ran along the walls parallel to the cylinder's axis. The blue Earth, huge and dazzling, was rising through windows spinward of him. Sunlight slanted up through windows in the floor below, striping the gardens opposite with alternating bands of light green and dark green. Phaethon started to see a pattern in all this. His attention was absorbed.
Overhead, the Founder's Monument and reflecting pool formed signs of Masonic import. Rose gardens, for passion, were hedged about with virtuous lilies; and two walkways, lined with euphrasy and rue, truth and repentance, came together in a cross (for noble sacrifice); but the actual intersection was a carriage circle (representing the world). In the
center of the circle was a hillock, shaped like a burial howe, dotted with forget-me-nots. There was a meaning here, a message, a warning, telling Phaethon something about the nature of true memory, ultimate reality, and the universe....
An automatic safety routine in Phaethon's sense-filter had to interrupt him from going into a beauty trance. He blinked and remembered to concentrate on looking for the court house. There: a walkway lined with a balanced number of majestic oaks and somber ash trees led to a glade. On three sides of the glade were boxwood hedges trimmed into complex labyrinths. In the glade, a circle of olive trees guarded a dark, clear pool. The symbolism would not have been more obvious had he seen blindfolded goddesses armed with swords and balance scales.
Phaethon slanted down through the air and landed lightly on the grass. Closer now, he could see the bottom of the pool was transparent crystal; the pool seemed dark only because there was a large unlit chamber buried beneath.
A slab of rock near the pool must have been made of para-matter, for a man dressed in blue-and-silver chameleon cloth slid up through the solid stone and stepped onto the grass. He wore a braided demicape, and a helmet of blue steel. In one white glove he held upright a pike taller than his helmet plumes. Phaethon recognized the man.
'Atkins! A pleasure to see you again. I swear you are the only man in the Golden Qecumene who can wear a getup like that'?Phaethon was looking at his garters and knee socks? 'without looking ridiculous.'
'Good afternoon, sir.' The face was as calm and expressionless as ever; the tone was impersonal, brisk, polite. 'I'm Atkins Secundus, his partial.' 'Emancipated?'
'No. We're still considered one person. I don't really make that much on soldier's pay, so I've sent out my partial copy here for other work. This one here is the bailiff and master-at-arms of the Court. The rule of posse comitatus prohibits the military from doing police functions, so I have to maintain
a separate identity, and have any memories related to military security matters cut out.'
Phaethon looked at him with new interest. The two of them might have something in common. 'Doesn't it bother you to have holes and gaps in your memory?'
Atkins did not smile, but the lines to either side of his mouth deepened. 'Well, sir, that depends. A serviceman has to assume the higher-ups know what they are doing, even when they don't. If they monkeyed with my brain, I'm sure it was for a good reason.' 'But what if it wasn't?'
Atkins did not shrug, but a quirk of his eyebrow conveyed the same emotion. 'I didn't make the rules. I do whatever it takes. Someone has to. It might be different for civilians.' His good humor faded and his tone became, somehow, even more brisk and serious: 'But for the moment, I'm going to have to ask you to disable your armor circuits. No weapons allowed in the courthouse.'
Phaethon had to get Rhadamanthus to find and insert the meaning of the word 'weapon' into his brain. Phaethon was amazed and disgusted. 'You have got to be kidding! You don't actually think that I am capable of?'
Atkins gave Phaethon a thoughtful, disinterested look. 'It's none of my business what you are capable of, sir. I just enforce the rules.'
But Phaethon saw the calculating, professional look in Atkins's eye. Perhaps it was a look of distrust. Perhaps Atkins was taking the measure of a potential enemy. The stare was offensive.
Rhadamanthus poked Phaethon on the knee with his beak, and whispered: 'Hsst! It's an old tradition. No one goes armed into Court.'
'Well, I cannot counter tradition,' muttered Phaethon. He doffed his helmet and let Atkins insert a disabling probe into the black suit layer. Thought-group after thought-group of the armor-mind went dark; anything even remotely capable of energy manipulation was locked, even simple action-reflex
routines. Phaethon swallowed his pride; he did not know if he had a right to be offended.
Because, whatever Phaethon had done in the past, Atkins knew it and Phaethon did not.
Phaethon asked him.
Atkins squinted. 'Sir, I'm not sure it's my place to say. I'm on duty right now. The bailiff of the Curia isn't supposed to be the one to help you break a legal contract, even if it is a stupid one. Why not just let the matter rest?'
THE CURIA
The two of them stepped onto the rock surface. The rock let Phaethon ooze through only slowly and reluctantly, as microscopic and molecule-sized organizations hidden in the para-matter passed through his flesh and armor, probing for secret weapons. The Crysadmantium supermetal defeated the probe attempts; the organizations had to flow in and out through Phaethon's neckpiece to scrub the interior. It was not uncomfortable, but it was undignified.
