what you loved. You were mistaken. There are a billion of us. We are waiting for you.
'Fly your ship to Cygnus X-l. Save the Second Oecumene. Father a million million Oecumenes more.'
Phaethon examined the blue pool of motionless Neptunian body substance. His noetic machine could not interpret the meanings of the electron flows of the cell surfaces in the creature's neurocircuitry, could not resolve them into thought. He had a subsystem in his armor correlating the Silent One's words with its brain actions, seeking patterns, in an attempt to learn how to decipher those thoughts. Even a partial deciphering would have allowed him to do something analogous to reading the face expressions of Base humaniforms, or watching the insect agitation in a Cerebelline gardener, and guess at the emotions or the honesty of his prisoner.
But there was no result yet. The Silent One was opaque. Phaethon sent: 'And what should I do with you now?'
'Keep me or kill me as you please. My mission, and the need of my life, is complete. You are now at the helm of the Phoenix Exultant, I ask only that you depart, without delay, before your Sophotechs attempt to stop you; that you travel to Cygnus X-l; that you save my people and scatter mankind among the stars. What is my life compared to that? But I think you are suspicious of me still.' 'Shouldn't I be?'
'Your disorientation is understandable. You came here expecting danger and violence from me; instead, I have handed you the crown of victory. Pause not! Wait for nothing! Do not delay, but go!'
Was it victory? Phaethon was beginning to find his suspicions hard to maintain. Supposing the story told by Xenophon and the ghost possessing him to be false, what would be the point of such falsehood? Was there a Silent Phoenix, an enemy spaceship waiting somewhere, waiting for Xenophon to lead Phaethon into an ambush? It seemed unlikely. The Phoenix Exultant could achieve 99 percent of light-speed after three days of acceleration at ninety gravities. Who could intercept such a vehicle in the vastness of deep space? And what weapon could penetrate her hull? Antimatter could breach the hull, of course, but not without destroying everything held within.
And yet if destruction of the Phoenix was Xenophon's goal, why not simply sell the vessel to Gannis for scrap? Where else could an ambuscade wait if not in deep space? Perhaps at the Silent Oecumene itself, at Cygnus X-l. It was hard to imagine a person (but not hard to imagine a machine intelligence) waiting the decades and centuries it might take to lure a victim into a trap. But what assurance would Xenophon imagine he had that Phaethon would actually go there?
Unless the story were true. Unless Xenophon, or the ghost of Ao Varmatyr, was simply so desperate, so convinced of the malice of the Golden Oecumene Sophotechs, that he had risked everything on the hope that Phaethon would be so curious, and so compassionate, and so eager for the future which Varmatyr envisioned, a future of a thousand Phoenices founding a million worlds, that Phaethon would certainly go to Cygnus X-l.
But if the story were actually true, then it was not an ambush. There would be no trap at Cygnus X-l, only a grateful population who needed rescuing, and who would have at hand the resources to create the Phoenix fleet.
Phaethon thought about it. The Silent Oecumene would have the resources, in fact, to create a fleet which would begin the long-dreamt-of and long-delayed great diaspora of man throughout the universe; a diaspora which would never end as long as the stars still burned.
The vision was a stirring one. Yet it did not touch Phaethon as deeply as he would have thought. Perhaps he was more suspicious, more conscious of his duty, than he had ever known himself to be before.
Because he did have a duty here.
Phaethon signaled to the bridge crew to change the course of the Phoenix Exultant. In the energy mirrors, stars swam dizzyingly from left to right, and the great ship's prow came about. The deck seemed to tilt as side accelerations played across the vessel.
The Silent One sent: 'What is your decision? What new course is this?'
'I am returning to the Inner System. Naturally, you will have to stand to account for your crimes. No matter what your motives, good motives do not excuse bad acts, nor ends justify means.'
The Silent One sent: 'You are deluded. I have explained the situation; if you continue in your present course, you will be betrayed by the Sophotechs. Think about what I have said! No other tale explains the facts! The Sophotechs conspire against you; your failure is part of their calculation. Don't your own suspicions, your own desires, tell you that what I say is true?'
'That only means I'd like to believe you; it doesn't mean I should.'
'The Sophotechs will ensnare you! Once you are back at port, the Phoenix Exultant will never fly again! What do you think will happen to this ship, if I, her owner, am punished, or if they change my mind or memory to make me like one of them? If I am one of them, I will not let her fly. Your courts of law, if I am punished, can cause me pain, or confinement, but they do not have the power to excuse your debts to your creditors. The Phoenix Exultant is no longer yours. What you do now will not make her yours again.
'Think of the magnitude of the decision you are about to make! On the one hand, yes, I have committed a fraud, I have deceived you and the Hortators, manipulated events, and frightened you. Small crimes! Weigh against that, on the other hand, that, if you return to port, and put yourself under the control of the Golden Oecumene Sophotechs again, their courts of law and legal tricks, this ship is dead; all the dreams of future man are dead; the thing which makes Phaethon truly what he is, is dead; and all the folk of the Second Oecumene, women, children, innocents and all, all who hoped for you, are frozen, trapped, suspended in the warped space near the hole; all my people are dead.'
Phaethon was disturbed. The Silent One was right about the ownership of the Phoenix Exultant. Unless he, Phaethon, came up with an astronomical amount of money, and that in a very short time, the period of receivership would end, and the ownership of the Phoenix would be lost to Phaethon forever.
Nevertheless, Phaethon sent: 'I would like very much to go save your people. But my likes and dislikes don't change my duty.'
'Duty?!! Let me kill myself; all needs you might have for vengeance against my one poor person will be obviated; you will be free to soar to your waiting destiny!'
'I would still have to go back and pick up Daphne. I've decided to take her with me. And I cannot leave her in exile here.'
'Daphne! Your false Daphne, the image, the mere echo, of a woman unworthy of you?! They used Daphne to snare you last time! Don't fall for the same trick twice!'
'Present some further evidence that what you say is true. I might change my mind.'
No message came back for several moments. The noetic unit showed high-speed activity in the coded brain sections, but no hint of what that activity implied. Was the Silent One calculating a response?
Then: 'Phaethon, you would not have been sent into this situation with your conscience free and your free will and memory intact Which means that there is a partial personality possessing you now, or false memories, or some other restraint or leash by which the War Mind still hopes to control you. Your actions 'eem grossly out of character. Your judgment has been rfFected. Think carefully: would the real Phaethon, Phaethon with his mind and soul intact, abandon the dream of his life, and his hopes for mankind, and all bis work, and everything, merely to catch and punish one criminal like me? Is Phaethon's notion of duty, of social obligation, so strong that it overrides all other personal considerations? You did not think so when you built this ship.'
'If my judgment has been infected or altered, what point is there in arguing further?'
'Argument might show that part of you who yet is pure how corrupt the other parts become. Answer the question: Is your behavior now in character for you?'
Phaethon was uncomfortable. Because, honestly, he did not recall exactly what it was Atkins had done to him, or had talked him into doing.
And did he trust a man like Atkins? Atkins was, and had to be, the kind of man who would do anything to prevail over his enemies, deceiving them, destroying them, killing them, by any means possible. What life did Atkins have? A life of endless bloodshed, and an endless preparation for future bloodshed. A life of suspicion, harsh discipline, ruthlessness toward others, pitilessness toward himself.
Atkins was a man of destruction. What had he ever created to compare with this great ship? What had he ever built?
For a moment, he was so glad that he was a man like himself, and not like Atkins.
And, after all, Atkins was not the sort of man one could trust.
Phaethon said, 'The noetic unit can tell if I've been tampered with.'
