whether it is a false alarm meant to spook us.'
His words made little impression on Daphne. It would be as hard for her to imagine the foundational Sophotechs being killed as it would to imagine the sun going nova. She thought the machine intelligences were able to anticipate every conceivable danger. So all she said was: 'Good! It's about time things were shaken up around here. Sugar?'
The horse twitched his ears. 'Ma'am... ? I mean, I like you and all, but, do we know each other that well... ?'
'No, silly!' She threw back her head to laugh. 'I was offering you some sugar. Here.'
'Mm. Thank you. I, ah, of course I knew what you meant. Ahem. Climb aboard. Where to?'
'To the Dream Lords' Palace! Away! And don't spare the horses!'
'Good heavens, ma'am, I hope you'll spare me somewhat.'
'I'm competing today in the Oneirocon!'
'Hoy! I didn't realize it was that important, ma'am! Watch this!' Now he reared and pawed the ground, nostrils wide, and his ears flattened. He cried 'Aha!' and began to race.
Daphne squealed with delight, and grabbed for the rail of the rocking carriage.
Some people strolling the park applauded as Daphne's wild carriage thundered by, and several posted comments on the
short-term public channel, complimenting the authenticity and grace of her steed.
On the same channel, Mr. Maestrict posted: 'Seems like everyone still likes horses, Miss Daphne. We'll never go out of style. Have you ever thought about taking up equestrianism again? Nobody designs a quarter horse like you. Look at my magnificent body!' And he tossed his mane in the wind as he charged.
It was the same thing her husband was always saying. But there was no market anymore for horses. Horsemanship, as a fad among anachronists and romantics, had dried up eighty years ago.
Daphne answered him out loud, shouting back over the noise of the wheels: 'Why, Mr. Maestrict! I like you and all, but do we know each other that well... ?'
He was embarrassed, or amused, and he put down his head and ran all the faster.
The Oneirocon was surely the simplest, most stark building in the history of Objective Aesthetic architecture. The ceiling was a perfectly square flat slab, half a mile on a side, hovering above the ground with no visible support. Beneath, open on all sides, a square floor embraced a large, perfectly round, shallow living-pool,
A later architect had modified the plan, adding a circle of dolmens, Stonehenge-like, around the pool. In case of inclement weather, the buoyant roof could sink down till it rested on the dolmens, and protective films be projected between the pillars to form temporary walls.
A high-priority segment of the Aurelian Sophotech Mind was present, represented by a mannequin disguised as Comus, with a charming wand in one hand and a glass in the other. Daphne had no idea this contest had attracted such attention.
Comus was a character from a play by Milton (linear word poet, Second Era). The son of the wine god Bacchus and the
enchantress Circe, Comus used the gifts of his divine parents to tempt men to drunken revelry, magically transforming them into brutes and beasts. Only against pure virgins did his cunning magic fail. Daphne thought it was tremendously funny that Aurelian chose this as his self-image.
All the contestants were physically present; they would only be able to use standardized memory-and-attention equipment to promulgate their simulations. The judging would be done on four grounds: internal consistency, external relevance, coherency, and popularity.
Daphne was pleased to learn that the 'relevance' ground was being given a lesser judging weight than the semifinalist judges had given it. Apparently, the Consensus Aesthetic was relaxing, allowing art for art's sake. Since Daphne's little fairy-tale world had nothing to do with real life or any modern issues, that was a relief. But it afforded a correspondingly greater weight to internal self-consistency, her weakest area. Her universe was somewhat Aristotelian in places. For example, it had an atmosphere reaching up to the crystal firmament, but a Napoleonic level of technology, such as Montgolfier's Balloon, and primitive airships, which she had included only because she thought they looked stately and romantic.
This year, popularity was to be determined by a novel method.
Participants in the dream would be under full amnesia, actually believing themselves to be the characters with which the dream weavers had peopled their universes. Their emotions and deep-structures would remain untouched. A certain amount of artificial memory, to give them the language, background, and customs, would be permitted after inspection by the judges. But they would be allowed to hear rumors and myths of the other universes, to reincarnate and emigrate. The emigration would be free and open 'voting with their feet' as Aurelian called it. Whoever attracted the most people away from his competitors would win the popularity ranking.
The contestants, in bright costumes, plumes, and gaudy skin tones, some in human bodies, others in many- headed
Harmony forms dating from the Regrouping period of the Fourth Era, stood in a circle around the living-pool, waiting for Aurelian's signal. All threw aside their garbs and stepped down, naked into the waters.
Daphne sank. Adjustments in her lungs drew oxygen from the medium. Microscopic assemblers built contacts to the nerve-interfaces she carried beneath her skin. As she drifted into the far, deep dreamspace, Daphne felt that moment of pleasant terror as her personality slipped away.
In the next moment, she was no longer Daphne, she was the Queen-Goddess of her universe. Her mind, assisted by the Sophotech interface, expanded to encompass every element and aspect of her reality, till she could count the hairs on every head of her characters; and not an invented sparrow fell but that she could work the trajectory into the destiny web of her plot.
The players came on-line. It was frightening?even the Daphne-Goddess was frightened?to see her characters come to life in the million dramas she simultaneously spun. Because, deep down, the Goddess still knew that this
