Below were stairs, leading down. The aesthetic protocol was apparently different outside than in. Atkins's quaint costume was replaced. There was no heat when Atkins's uniform changed shape; perhaps it was pseudo- matter, not nanoma-chinery. During the moment of transition, Phaethon saw what the soldier was really wearing beneath; a trim jacket set with many vertical pockets holding discharge cartridges, respond-ers, and preassembled nanoweapons.
And he had a knife and a katana hanging from his belt. Phaethon could not help but wonder at the man's anachronisms. What sort of fellow was so hypnotized by tradition that he still carried sharp pieces of metal meant for poking and lacerating other men?
The transformation took an eye-blink. Atkins now wore a stiff-collared poncho of stark white, and his pike shrank to a
baton from some period of military history Phaethon did not recognize. But he guessed the pale cloak was from the Objective Aesthetic, which dated from the late Fifth Era, long before the Consensus Aesthetic.
In that era, back before Sophotech translation routines existed, the differences in neuroforms made it difficult for the basics, Warlocks, Cerebellines, and Invariants, to understand each other's thought and speech. It had been impossible to understand each other's art. Consequently, the so-called Objective Aesthetic was heavily geometrical, nonrepresenta-tional, highly stylized; more like an iconography than an artform. Phaethon did not find it attractive.
At the bottom of the stairs was an antechamber. Here stood another man. It took Phaethon a moment to recognize him in the gloom. 'Gannis! Is that you, or one of you?'
He turned. It was indeed Gannis of the Jupiter Effort, but wearing a formal costume and wide headdress of Fifth-Era Europa. A heavy semicylindrical cloak, like the wing casings of a beetle, hung from wide shoulderboards. From those shoulders came a cluster of tassels or tentacles, carrying various thought boxes, note pages and interfacers. Multiple arms had always been a European fashion.
'A pleasure to see you, Phaethon!' There was something blank and stiff in his eye movements. Phaethon realized Gannis was using a face-expression program. He obviously had recognized Phaethon's armor. Gannis was one of Them.
Phaethon thought to himself: Good grief! Is there anyone in the Golden Oecumene who does not remember what I did except for me?
The financial records had shown many trips to Jovian space. Phaethon also felt a sense of familiarity, of comfort, as if he and Gannis were old friends or business partners.
Like a flash of intuition, certainty entered Phaethon's mind. Whatever it was Phaethon had done, Gannis had done it also. Or, at least, had helped.
'You are here to face the Curia also?' asked Phaethon politely.
'Face? I'm not sure what you mean. My group-mind is representing Helion.'
'You are his lawyer?' Why in the world would Gannis be helping Helion? Phaethon had been under the impression that the two men were business rivals, and did not really like each other. Certainly the Synnoetic School, with its direct mind-machine interfaces, its groupings and mass-minds, disagreed with the proindividualist traditions of the manorial schools, and yet competed for the same patronage, the same niche in the socioeconomy.
Gannis made an easy gesture. 'Perhaps the Hundred-mind of Jupiter thinks it would be a miscarriage of justice to allow your claim to prevail. You've obviously already broken your word about the memorial agreements we all made at Lakshmi; none of the Peerage wants to have to do business with a man who cannot be trusted.'
Lakshmi was on Venus. What had Phaethon been doing on Venus? He assumed that the amnesia agreement was made just before the Masquerade's opening ceremonies in January. Phaethon consulted an almanac routine. Venus had been in triune with Earth at that time, a good position to be used as a gravity sling for any ships bound between Earth, Mars, De-meter, or the Solar Array. Mercury had been in a nonadvan-tageous orbital position, on the far side of the sun. A footnote in the almanac indicated communications had been disrupted all across the inner system because of solar storms. It was the time of the disaster at the Solar Array. Phaethon eyed Gannis speculatively. The man had a suspicious air to him. And suspicious people had the habit of treating hypotheses as if they were certainties. They could be
bluffed.
'Am I to be trusted less than ... shall we say ... others ...?' said Phaethon, nodding ponderously. He favored Gannis with a knowing look.
'Are you saying Helion cannot be trusted with his own wealth? Or that your claim to it is better than his?'
Claim? What claim? Phaethon had no idea whatsoever what Gannis was talking about. Nonetheless, he spread his
hands and smiled smugly. 'My meaning is self-evident. Draw from it what conclusions you will.'
Gannis became red-faced with anger. Evidently his expression-program had failed, or he was deliberately showing his wrath. 'You blame the solar disaster on Helion?! That is grotesque ingratitude, sir, simply grotesque! Considering the sacrifice that version of him made for you! You are a cad, sir! You are a simple, unspotted, pure and perfect cad! Besides, my client disavows everything that happened on the Solar Array! He was not even there!' 'Not there? I thought your client was Helion ... ?' Gannis head jerked back an inch, as if he had been stung. Phaethon saw realization cross Gannis's features, a second before the expression-program snapped back into place. Gannis realized Phaethon had been fooling him.
Suddenly bland and polite, Gannis said, 'I'm sure the Curia will tell you what you have a right to know.'
'I know that you have broken the Lakshmi agreement and that I have not.'
Gannis turned his back to Phaethon. Atkins had been watching all this with that cheek-tension that served him for a smile, and a twinkle of amusement in the cool of his eyes. He now nodded at Phaethon, and said, 'Well, gentlemen! Shall we go in?' and he opened the tall antechamber doors with a gesture of his baton.
The Chamber of the Curia was austere. As Phaethon had guessed, it was done in the spartan style of the Objective Aesthetic.
Unadorned square silver pillars held up a black dome. In the center of the dome, at the highest point of the ceiling, a wide lens of crystal supported the pool overhead. Light from the world above fell through the water to form trembling nets and webs across the floor. The floor itself was inscribed with a mosaic in the data-pattern
