to give the Neptunians clear title) would not arrive till he arrived at Mercury Equilateral. There were not many corners he could cut.
The negotiations did not take long, and were not entirely favorable to Phaethon.
Ironjoy judged Phaethon's reluctance to a nicety, or perhaps the Demeter tapestry had somehow recorded the conversations Phaethon held, less than an hour past, with Notor-Kotok and the Neptunians, and knew exactly how much currency Phaethon had to spare. Or perhaps it was merely that Ironjoy had much more practice than Phaethon did at bargaining without any Sophotechnic advice.
In the end, Ironjoy no doubt had more than enough to restore his shop to operating levels. Phaethon felt more than a qualm of distaste for himself, erecting this villain once again to be lord and master of whatever addicted and desperate unfortunates might fall into his hands.
But there was little Phaethon could do at this point.
Phaethon said, 'The files and brain-spaces that have not been destroyed are still in order, and I have cleaned and reconnected them, restored your search engines, and modified the hierarchies in your housecoat to free up several hundred operation-cycles of memory space.' And he transmitted back the codes and authorizations, turning control of the thought-shop once more to Ironjoy.
'If we have no further business, sir...' said Phaethon, preparing to leave. He had agreed with the remnant of the Bellipotent Composition to rendezvous. Bellipotent's airship could carry him back to Lake Victoria, where he could ascend the infinite tower (if he could find passage-perhaps in a masquerade disguise?) and try to reach the section of the ring-city where the Mother-of-the-Sea's cargo capsule was stored.
'But we do. One last brief thing,' said Ironjoy. 'I would thank you not to leave your messages cluttering my thought-shop holding space.'
Phaethon was distracted. 'Messages ... ?' Then he recalled that he had dumped his secretarial program, and not thought, himself, of looking for any messages since his last session with the Neptunians. 'An oversight, sir. Can you forward it to my armor's internal channel?'
'For a small fee.'
'That seems a trifle unkind, sir, considering that...'
Ironjoy jerked all four hands at the sky, an odd but alarming gesture. 'Unkind! You have ruined my thoughts and hopes and life! A pathetic life, by your manor-born standards, a cruel and thin life, but it was mine and the only one I had. The Afloats have been taken to some junkyard behind a Red pleasure-garden, with me not there to protect them from overindulgence, or to nurse the sick and aged. There is no work for them there; there is nothing for me here. Even should another flock of Afloats be dropped here, I have lost my zest for my work, my talent for forcing obedience and fear. Your vile Curia and their mind-tricks have seen to that. I have seen my life through other's eyes and recoiled in disgust...'
Now he lowered his hands, muttering: 'I would some power could grant this gift to me-never again to see myself as others see me.'
But Ironjoy, with a shrug of disgust, and without collecting any fee, now, for some reason, made the transmission-gesture, and passed the message file to Phaethon.
Phaethon was thinking: Why should I feel pity for this most wretched of men? No injustice had been done to him. All Ironjoy's ills were of his own making.
And yet. 'You could trifle with your mind, using activators and redactors from your own thought-shop, and put yourself back into the state of mind you were in before the Curia forced you to experience your victims' lives.'
'Is this some sort of test or quiz? You know I shall not do that.'
'Why not?'
Ironjoy started to turn away, but then stopped, turned, and answered the question. 'If I were now as I was then, I would gladly change my self to remain as I was then; but I am now as I am now. The me that I am now has no desire to be any other me. Isn't that the fundamental nature of the self?'
'If you judge by emotion only, perhaps. Logic suggests that certain types of personalities are more self- consistent than others; and morality decrees that certain traits and thoughts and habits are superior to others, no matter what our preferences and appetites might say.'
'What has your philosophy to do with me? You are not content to destroy my life, now you must critique it? Don't you have other business elsewhere?'
'I have business here, and with you. What will you pay as a finder's fee, if I can find three hundred workers, already trained in your methods and familiar with your work, and also find a customer, willing to pay sixty seconds per line-cycle, doing checking and format translation? The whole project should include between one-hundred twenty and one-hundred fifty subjective man-hours of work.'
Ironjoy touched his chest and tuned his speaking machine to a sarcastic tone: 'You would make me the wealthiest man on Death Row.'
'I would like twenty percent commission on net profit, paid in advance based on standard actuarial estimates, with cost adjustments to be made later, standard intervening interest rates applied to the overpayment or underpayment. In return, at my own expense, I will transport here Drusillet and a little over half of the Afloats. She is the one who sent me the message. She asked me to tell you her terms: they will not work here unless you continue to enforce the policies and rules I started, including sobriety tests, job training, full-value resale of unused memories, and a dress code. I have no idea how she did it, and I am not even sure why she did it, but she has convinced about half of the original Afloats there in that Red pleasure-junkyard you were talking about, to come back here. The people willing to hire them are the Neptunians. We need the software aboard the Phoenix Exultant reconstructed so that personalities of the Tritonic Neuroform Composition can integrate into the ship's onboard mindscape. Considering that, by your own admission, your life is destroyed if I do not help you, I think twenty percent is a small price to pay. Besides, you-as-you-are-now needs a chance to do some good work to redeem yourself.'
Phaethon did much better during this round of bargaining. He ended up with almost a third of his money restored. Ironjoy's only noticeable victory during the negotiation was that Phaethon agreed to cannibalize the communion circuitry out of his wedding ring, to allow Ironjoy the pleasure of experiencing the good he did to other people from their points of view.
Before the discussion was over, Afloats began coming down from the sky, laughing and kicking their feet. No other air service would have carried them, of course. They were all wearing flying jackets distributed by the company Rhadamanthus had started for Phaethon.
'This is a wonder! This is the beginning of new lives for us all...' said Ironjoy. But he was overcome with emotion, and so forgot to readjust his speaking machine back to a normal tone of voice, and so therefore the words came out dripping with sarcasm.
Daphne was on the road, galloping from the airship dock back toward the outskirts of the Ashore community, when she saw the gleaming gold of Phaethon in flight, and waved an eager hand to bring him down to land by her. Her new horse had been made for her by Daughter-of-the-Sea, and (despite Daphne's best efforts to explain the biogenetic details) the whim or inattention of Daughter-of-the-Sea had festooned the creature with many organs and adaptations useful only to middle-period Venereal environments.
The creature's skin shone with sleek black re-radiation stripes, and along its limber neck silver shells and clustered spots displayed infrared-echolocators, which occasionally flickered with singes of heat. The monstrosity reared and plunged as Phaethon landed in a wash of energy, spooked. Daphne, red lips compressed, gloved fingers tightly curled around the reins, brought the rearing beast under control; she did not lose her poise, despite that she sat sidesaddle (which she did to keep her feet away from the jets of gas and flame darting from the black monster's ventral scales).
Phaethon thought she made a fetching picture. How commanding, and yet how elegant and feminine she seemed! His heart expanded with warm emotion. Phaethon doffed his helmet and spoke. 'Darling,' he said, 'I want to discuss with you what our next...'
'Don't you even start to think about leaving me behind!' she snapped, drawing herself upright, eyes Blazing.
Phaethon said mildly, 'Atkins has convinced me that his plan is wise.'
'It's suicide!'
