The dog said, 'I'm quite sorry, sir, but to be quite blunt, you are an atrocious version of me. Half the things you thought were exaggerated mockeries of what I believe, that other half were pure Atkins. And why did you kill Ao Varmatyr? That was reprehensible! He could have been captured safely, kept alive, cured, saved. Vengeance? Wasteful notion. Besides, you should have known Diomedes was not dead. You recorded him, and most of Xenophon, into the noume-nal recorder before you spoke with the Silent One.'
The man dropped sword and knife and pressed his palms against his brow, eyes strained, as if trying to keep some terrible pressure inside his brain from exploding. The memories are still going off inside my head! Burning cities, clouds of nerve logics, a thousand ways to kill a man... You've got to stop it. Where's the noetic unit?! My life is boiling away! I'm Phaethon! I want to stay Phaethon! I don't want to turn into... into...' He was on his knees scrambling for the noetic unit.
The dog said: 'Your desire not to be Atkins is probably just an exaggeration of what you think I think about you. Its really not true. I'm sure killing is a use-ful and necessary service to perform in barbaric times, or under barbarous cicumstances like these. ...'
'Then you be Atkins! I'll transfer the mnemonic templates to you-'
'Good God, no! '
The man took up Phaethon's helmet and put it over his head, and slung the breastplate across his shoulders. The thought ports in the epaulettes opened; responder lights in the noetic unit winked on. A circuit was established between the noetic unit and the thought systems in the helm and wired under the man's skull.
The man's fingers were tapping impatiently on the casing of the noetic unit. 'Hurry ... hurry ...,' he muttered. 'I'm losing myself....'
Interruption came. A beam came from the hilt stone of the knife the man had dropped to the bloodstained and burnt deckplates. The beam touched the shoulder board and negated the circuit. The noetic unit went dark.
A voice came from the weapon: 'HALT!'
The man ripped off the helmet he wore. There were tearstains running down his bloody cheeks. His face was purple-black with emotion. Veins upon his brow stood out in sharp relief.
The man said in a voice of murderous calm: 'You cannot stop me. I am a citizen of the Golden Oec-umene; I have rights. No matter what I was before, I am a self-aware entity now, and I may do to myself whatever I please. If I want to continue being this me that I am now, that's my right. No one owns me! That rule is true for everyone in our Utopia!'
'FOR EVERYONE BUT YOU. YOU BELONG TO THE MILITARY COMMAND. YOU DO AND DIE AS YOU ARE ORDERED.'
'No!' The man shouted.
The dog said to the knife: 'I don't mind the copyright violations, if he really wants to use my template for a while... I mean, can't you just let him, ah... Don't you have other copies of him and such?'
The weapon said to the man: 'RETURN TO YOUR DUTY. RETURN TO YOUR SELF-IDENTITY.'
'But I'm a citizen of the Oecumene! I can be who I want! I am a free man!'
'YOU ALONE, MARSHAL ATKINS, ARE NOT AND CANNOT BE FREE. IT IS THE PRICE PAID SO THAT OTHERS CAN BE.'
'Daphne! They're going to make me forget that I love you! Don't let them! Daphne! Daphne!'
Weeping, the nameless man fell to his face. A moment later, looking mildly embarrassed or amused, face stern, Atkins climbed to his feet.
'Well, that operation turned out to be a clusterfoxtrot, didn't she?' he muttered.
Atkins spoke with his knife for a few minutes, making decisions and listening to rapid reports concerning the details of the cleanup procedure that the battle mind in the weapon had initiated.
Phaethon's voice came down from the mannequin dog on the upper balcony: 'Don't dismantle the ghost- particle broadcast array in the drive core!'
Atkins stared up at the dog. He said (perhaps a bit harshly, for he was not in a good mood), 'What the hell's the problem? Bad guy is dead. War's over. There might be some sort of deadman switch or delayed vendetta program running through those things. Best to dismantle them now before something else weird happens.'
'With all due respect, Marshal, the idea is unwise. Firstly, they are the only working models in existence of what amounts to a Silent Oecumene technology. Secondly-'
Atkins made a curt, dismissive gesture with his katana. 'That's enough. Thank you for your concern. But I've already decided how to handle this.'
'An interesting conceit, sir, but irrelevent, as that ghost-particle broadcast array is my property, being found on my ship, and having no other true owner. I believe the heirs and assigns of Ao Varmatyr died several centuries ago in another star system.'
'I've had a hard day, civilian. Don't try to play that legalistic hugger-mugger rights game with me. This is still a military situation; those are enemy weapons; and I'm still in charge.'
'But you just declared the war was over, my dear sir. And that legalistic 'rights game,' as you call it, is what you are sworn to protect, soldier, and it gives the only justification to your somewhat bloody existance. You are here to protect me, remember? I never did join your hierarchy, my cooperation is voluntary, and you are my guest. If, as a guest, you overstep the bounds of politeness and decent conduct, I would be within my rights to have you put off this vessel.'
Atkins lost his temper: 'You trying to butt heads with me? Come on. Let's butt heads. I am the God- damnednest Number-one Ichi-ban First-Class Heavyweight Champion Tough-as-Nails Ear-biting Eye-gouging Hard- assed Head-Butter of all Time, mister, so don't try me!'
The dog pricked its ears, looking mildly surprised.
After a quiet moment, Phaethon's voice came: 'I suspect, Marshal Atkins, that you and I are both a bit ruffled by the events here. I am, quite frankly, not used to violence, and am dismayed at how you have chosen to conduct this affair. I suspect you are still suffering from memory shock, and are half-asleep.' The dog lowered its head, and continued: 'But, unlike you, I have no excuse for my conduct. I have let emotions get the better of me, which is a vice in which a true gentleman never indulges. For that I proffer my apologies.'
Atkins drew a deep breath, and used an ancient technique to calm himself and balance his blood-chemistry levels. 'Apology accepted. You have mine. Let's say no more about it. I guess I'm a little disappointed that there wasn't any superior officer in all this, that our communication tracks did not lead to the Silent One's boss. If he had one.'
'But that is what I was attempting to tell you, Marshal. There have been periodic signals leaving this vessel ever since Xenophon came to the bridge.'
'Leaving how? The hull is made of adamantium!'
'Leaving through the drive, which was wide open and showering energy out into the universe.'
'Aimed?'
'As far as I can determine, yes. The signals were encoded as ghost particles generated by Xenophon's array of disruptors.'
'Aimed where?'
'I could not trace them.'
'That's what you were supposed to be doing, friend, while I was getting my little butt kicked.'
'I did not understand the nature of the signal until Xenophon boasted of the technology, and described it. This ghost-particle technology is not one with which I, or any one else in the Golden Oecumene, is familiar. I had to design and build new types of detection equipment while you and Xenophon were making all that noise. But the broadcasts are occurring at regular intervals. Those magnetic disruptors are still drawing power out of my fuel cells, charging for their next broadcast. There is still a piece of instruction cycling in the ship-mind's broadcast circuit, written in that Silent Oecumene encryption I cannot decode. It will be a directional broadcast, or so I guess, since there are also line actions in the navigational array. When this next broad-I cast comes-and this is the second reason why I would ask you not to dismantle my ghost-particle array-I hope to be able to track the signal to its receiver.'
'Xenophon's CO. The Nothing Sophotech.'
'And, if I am not mistaken, the Silent Phoenix, or whatever starship they used to come here.'
'You did not believe his story?'
