lieutenant.'
'That's not good. It means we have to trace the line of command up to the next level, or take steps to ensure that the higher-ups come out of hiding,' said Atkins. 'The enemy is going to be suspicious when they do not hear back from their lieutenants. So we need some sort of lure or bait that we know for sure the enemy will not be able to resist.'
Phaethon did not like the way Atkins was looking at him.
Phaethon said, 'You have simply got to be kidding me.'
'As soon as we can get you inducted, and download some Basic Training routines into you, we'll be ready to go.'
'It will never happen,' said Phaethon, drawing himself erect. 'I may cooperate freely with you, as one free man with another, but I shall not place myself under the orders of any other man.'
Harrier said, 'Perhaps Marshal Atkins is too polite actually to remind you that he is blackmailing you. If you do not sign up, you get put on trial for treason. Jjf you do sign up, you have access to the Military Noumenal Immortality Circuit, which is not controlled by Orpheus or the Hortators.'
Atkins looked askance at Harrier. 'Actually, I was going to appeal to his sense of duty and patriotism, and point out what a bad idea a split command was.'
Phaethon folded his arms over his chest, and sighed. All he was aware of was fatigue. He was tired in his body, tired in his mind, tired in his soul. He was tired of being manipulated, forced, or coerced. He thought there was some error, some obvious oversight in Atkins's blackmail scheme, but Phaethon 's tired brain could not bring it to the surface.
Phaethon turned a thoughtful glance upon Daphne, who was staring out at the horizon, smiling as if half in a dream.
His voice woke her. 'Daphne!'
She stirred, and turned luminous eyes on him. 'Mm? Yes? What do you need, lover?'
'I am really tired, and my brain is acting stupid, and I haven't got a microscopic fragment of an idea of what to do.'
She looked mildly amused. 'Was there something you wanted me to do about all that, lover?'
He spread his hands as if to show their emptiness. 'You're here to rescue me. I've run out of ideas. So rescue me.'
There was a note of irony in his voice, as if he were challenging her, testing her. Daphne smiled very broadly, as if she were very pleased.
To Phaethon she said, 'Listen to your little wife now, darling, and take notes, because I may give you a quiz on this later. Ready? Atkins is trying to. drive his mule (that's you, darling) with a carrot and a lash. The lash is the charge of treason. The carrot is the noumenal immortality circuit. But his carrot is no good.'
She leaned forward, eyes glittering with delight, and said, 'If you had just listened to me before, you would have known that Aurelian Sophotech told me in the Taj Mahal that that noetic reader you are carrying can also be configured not just to read, but to record. It has nearly infinite storage capacity, remember? Noetic reading and noumenal storage are just two aspects of the same technology, remember? You would need a Sophotech actually to operate it during the storage-recording process, just like any other noumenal immortality circuit, and Aurelian says he can provide that service to you. All you have to do is log on to the mentality, call up the Aurelian Mansion as your sense-filter provider, and he can make you a back copy of yourself right now.'
Phaethon said, 'But Orpheus holds the patent on this technology! Aurelian cannot just steal it!'
'Orpheus did not design this machinery. It's not his design. It does the same thing, but so what? The guy with the patent on the steam engine for trains could not stop the guys who made the internal combustion engine for the motorcar.'
'But Aurelian will be ostracized if he helps me!'
Daphne smiled even more broadly. 'You know, I said the same thing to him at the Taj Mahal. You know what he said to me?'
'What?'
'He just smiled, and said, 'Let them try.' And you know what? He had that look you get on your face, that same look, when you say things like that.'
He squinted at her sidelong, querulous. 'What look do you mean?'
'You'll get it on your face in a moment. Because I've taken the carrot out of Atkins's hand, but you have to disarm him of his lash. Remember what you were told? You are supposed to remain true to your character at all times. And your character is a very, very pig-headed one. Do what you always do.'
Phaethon looked blank.
Daphne rolled her eyes with impatience. 'Oh, come on! Just tell the military to go jump on a pogo stick, just the same way you've told the Hortators, your father, Ao Aoen, Eleemosynary, the other Peers, Ironjoy, the Silent One monsters, and everyone else who has tried to impede you.'
Then, with another smile, she added, 'He cannot push you around, lover. Atkins may have more testosterone than you, but you've got more brains.'
Phaethon nodded, looking thoughtful. 'Or, at least, I have one skill he cannot do without. Nor can he arrest me in secret, because even he cannot break the laws; nor can he afford to have my arrest be made known.'
With great dignity, Phaethon turned toward Atkins. 'Marshal Atkins! In reference to your implication that the military powers, the Parliament, and the Courts of Oecumene law will punish me for treason and execute me should I not submit to your blackmail, I have but this to say: Let them try.'
At that same moment, the quick equatorial dawn sent a ray of light from the east to touch upon Phaethon, glinting from his unbreakable armor, showing the unbreakable spirit in his expression.
Daphne nodded happily. 'Yup. That look. Just like that.' Daphne raised her hand quickly and recorded the image into her ring.
MERCURY EQUILATERAL STATION
Phaethon hovered in midair above the deck of the thought-shop. Ironjoy stood on the burnt decks, still damaged from the explosions, looking back and forth. No expression showed on his immobile features. The- deck was deserted.
Phaethon was able to maintain his position aloft because the levitation array, which had been lowered from orbit to a position over India was near enough for the flying-harness he had constructed inside his armor to grapple and use.
Ironjoy said, 'I do not consider our contract to have been carried out in a satisfactory fashion. Specifically, you promised to return my shop intact (I note that it has been pulverized by heavy energy discharges) and my people unharmed (I note that they are absent.) I suspect that you have come into some money, or have made some other arrangement to depart. I conclude that, should I choose to sue you in a court of law for the breach of this contract, and insist on the specific performance of the terms on which we agreed, your plans to depart would be hindered considerably. I have recently learned to have great respect for the power of Oecumene law to compel obedience.'
Phaethon had to be careful of his money. Old-Woman-of-the-Sea, as it turned out, owned a cargo canister, one of hundreds she used to own, back when she had been making regular launches to Venus. Notor-Kotok had bought the use of an orbital railgun from a deviant willing to defy the Hortators. Phaethon could adjust his body to withstand the immense launch pressure that would otherwise make the cargo canister utterly unfit for shipping a human body; he could adjust his brain to sleep throughout the long fall toward the sun. Since the planned orbit was sunward, 'all downhill' as old spacers liked to say, the fuel cost (almost all of which would be spent at the initial boost) would be inexpensive.
Inexpensive by space-shipping standards, that is. Phaethon's income from his flying-suit patent was not enormous, and his pay from the Neptunians (which mostly consisted of buying the rest of his debt back from Vafnir,
