shrugged her shoulders a bit, as if trying to get away, but her hands were pinned by his embrace. 'You take me a lot for granted, mister....' she said. Her voice was breathless. 'What if I say no?'
'I offer, as my gift to the bride, my life and my ship and my future, all for you to share with me, and every star in the night sky. What is your answer?'
When she parted her lips to speak, he kissed her. Whatever words she may have wished to say were smothered into little happy moans. Perhaps he knew what her answer would be. Her straw hat fell lightly from her tilting head and fluttered to the walkway. The two ribbons of the bow were twined around each other, snarled into one.
Helion politely turned his back, and pretended to consult his pocketwatch. 'Isn't it more traditional for the man to kneel on occasions of this nature?' he inquired of no one in particular.
Diomedes of Neptune and a mannequin representing Marshal Atkins came out from a nearby railway terminal and began sliding along the surface of the walkway toward them.
Helion walked toward the two men, using a mental command to nullify the action of the surface substance of the walkway, which otherwise would have carried him forward without effort. His love of discipline required that he avoid, when he could, such artificial aids for walking.
Atkins saw what was taking place over Helion's shoulder, dug in his heel as a signal to stop the walkway. Either through politeness or embarrassment, Atkins cleared his throat, clasped his hands behind his back, and stepped to one side of Helion, turning to face him, so that he was not looking at the source of the moans, giggles, and murmurs beyond.
Atkins said to Helion, 'I've examined your records. You'll be happy to know that the previous Sophotechs working on this station were not destroyed because of catastrophic failure of the energy environment, as you thought. They committed suicide in order to stop the spread of the mental virus which had taken control of them. They were gambling that your previous version would be able to quell the storm without their aid. The good news there is that means your present system looks secure. In order to drive the Phoenix Exultant down toward the core, we need you to use your Array to create a subduction current in the plasma, large enough and fast enough-a whirlpool, actually-to suck the ship down into the location in the outer core radiative zone where the enemy is waiting. Can you do it?'
'I can bring two equatorial currents into offset collision to create a vortex whose core will have low density, creating a sunspot large enough to swallow planets whole. How far down into the opaque deep of the sun I can drive the vortex funnel, or what unprecedented storms and helmet streamers will result, remains yet to be seen. Hello, Captain Atkins. It is good to see you. How do you do? I am fine, thank you. I see the passing centuries have not altered your ... ah ... refreshingly brusque manners.'
Atkins's face was stony. 'Some of us don't think polished formalities are the most important thing in life, if you don't mind my saying so, sir. Not when there is a war on.'
Helion arched an eyebrow. 'Indeed, sir? Those niceties which make us civilized, in the opinion of many accomplished and profound thinkers, are of more importance during emergencies than otherwise. And if not to protect civilization, what justification does the mass slaughter called war ever have?'
'Don't start with me, Mr. Rhadamanth. This is an emergency.'
Diomedes, meanwhile, was leaning to look behind Helion, staring with open fascination at the display Phaethon and Daphne made. 'I have not seen non-parthenogenic bioforms before. Are they going to copulate?'
Atkins and Helion looked at him, then looked at each other. A glance of understanding passed between them.
Atkins put his hand on Diomedes's elbow, and pulled him back in front of Helion. 'Perhaps not at this time,' Atkins said, straight-faced.
'They are young and in love,' explained Helion, stepping so as to block Diomedes's view. 'So perhaps the excesses and, ah, exuberance of their, ah, greeting, can be overlooked this once.'
Diomedes craned his neck, trying to peer past Helion. 'There's nothing like that on Neptune.'
Helion murmured, 'Perhaps certain peculiarities of the Neptunian character are thereby clarified, hmm ... ?'
'It looks very old-fashioned,' said Diomedes.
Helion said, 'It is that most ancient and most precious romantic character of mankind which impels all great men to their greatness.'
Atkins said, 'It's what young men do before they go to war.'
Diomedes said, 'It is not the way Cerebellines or Compositions or Hermaphrodites or Neptunians arrange these matters. I'm not sure I see the value of it. But it looks interesting. Do all Silver-Gray get to do that? I wonder if Phaethon would mind if I helped him.'
'He'd mind.' Atkins interrupted curtly. 'Really. He'd mind.'
'Upon this occasion, I feel I must agree with Captain Atkins,' added Helion.
The two men exchanged a glance. The tension which had been in their features just a moment ago was gone. They were both very old men; Helion had been four hundred years old when noumenal immortality had been invented; Atkins, living then as an artificially preserved brain inside a battle cyborg, was rumored to be even older. They both remembered a time when things were different.
Helion almost smiled. 'I can create a vortex to pull the Phoenix Exultant down toward the outer core layers. I can do whatever else cruel necessity demands. I can send, without any outward tear, my son to battle and perhaps to death in the dark, unquiet depths of this hellish sphere, vaster than worlds, this universe of elemental fire which I have tamed. But I quite assure you that I shall know a reason why.'
Atkins said, 'I'm hoping Phaethon will brief us and catch us up to speed. He said he would.'
Helion interrupted in surprise, 'Marshal! You mean this is no plan of yours? Where are the Sophotechs? Where is the Parliament? Surely this voyage must be made under military command?'
Grim lines gathered around Atkins's mouth, and his eyes twinkled. This was his sign of extreme amusement, what other men would have shown by loud triumphant laughter. 'Well, sir, it's good to know that you have so much faith in me. But the War Mind told me we did not have the budget to prosecute the campaign in the way I wanted- besieging the sun, using the Array to stir up the core, and relying on ground-based energy systems in the meanwhile-and the simulations showed my plan might lead to the destruction and loss of one fifth of the minds in the Transcendence, and the siege would have to last until Sol turned into a Red Giant, before the density would be low enough to make a successful direct assault. The Parliament did come on-line during the five-hour trip out here from transjovial space, and offered your son a letter of Marque and Reprisal. But your son seemed to trust that every man of goodwill in the Golden Oec-umene would voluntarily combine their efforts, guided by sound Sophotechnic advice, to do whatever this struggle might demand, that strict military discipline was not required yet. And since your budget and his ship are worth more than the entire tax intake of that tiny, strangled, weak, hands- off, laissez-faire, do-nothing antiquarian society we call a government in this day and age, they did not have anything to offer him. So they're out of the loop; I'm out of the loop; no one gets a say in how or if our Golden Oecumene is going to be saved, except our hero here, the spoiled and stubborn little rich man's son. If you don't mind my saying so.'
'Not at all, Captain. You have no idea how relieved I am to learn that the important decisions of this time are being decided by someone other than the jack-booted Prussian discipline addicts and mass-minded meddling do- gooders who have made up previous governmental efforts along these lines.'
Diomedes looked back and forth between the two of them. He spoke in a voice of slow wonder: 'Do you two know each other?'
REALITY
They met in a small winter garden, a place where crystal-basined fountains sent lazy streams to wander across green lawns and past banks of tropical bushes, down into a wide ebony pond that hid a nanomachine
