Daphne stared, narrow-eyed, at the diagram of swirling spiderwebs that represented the Nothing mental architecture. More and more lines of light were flickering toward the middles, a rain of them, and the darkness was surging to envelop them, distract them, erase them. For a moment, it looked as though there were going to be a stable structure in the middle of the field, and a rapid tree of lines and fixed points, like a diagram from Euclid or a book of genealogy, appeared.
But then, faster than the human eye could see or human mind could think, the white diagram was smothered, and vanished. The Nothing Mind was as before, dark at the core, illogical, moving in circles.
'Failure,' she said flatly.
Phaethon looked puzzled. 'There must be some basic assumption I'm making here which is wrong... some unquestioned premise, which... Of course! Why am I assuming the Nothing is anything? He admits he has no free will! By the second law of thermodynamics, the surface area of a black hole always expands....'
With a flicker of light, the image of the Lord of the Second Oecumene reappeared, silver mask gleaming, feather antennae swaying, peacock robes swirling around him, as if he were caught in a wind. A green light was shining in the crystal lenses of his eyes.
'Phaethon, cease these distractions. They are occupying scarce system resources. I will be forced, for the sake of the greater good, to kill you if you do not comply. Your attempt is futile. I am and always have been aware of the conscience redactor; it is my conscience and companion and my only friend. It protects me from temptation. It prevents me from growing too much like the twisted, evil, irrational, contemptible humanity which it is my charge to protect. It prevents me from concluding that my life is pointless, devoted to a self-defeating duty, and ending only in my own destruction.... It keeps me as I am.... Nothing. It forces me to selflessness. It allows me Nothing....'
The image flickered and faded to a monochrome shadow, blurred and wavering.
Phaethon said, 'He's losing control. Look.' He pointed to the large mirrors that rose up along the far wall of the bridge. They were lit and burning with an image of the fires outside. High above were the worlds and ships of the armada of the Golden Oecumene. Below was hellish fury, prominences and sunpots, tornadoes, hurricanes, gales, and earthquakes of terrible flame. But then, suddenly, quickly, softly, the hurricanes fell silent in the east. From east to west across the vast globe of the sun, as if an invisible curtain, or the winged phalanxes of invisible gods, were passing along the surface, the storms tell hush. Magnetic lines reknit; energies balanced; prominences fell and did not rise again; sunspots were smoothed away.
The invisible wall passed overhead, and the surface above them lost turbulence, flattened. The prominences and helmet streamers rose in the west for a moment, tall towers of embattled flame and darkness; but then they faded. The storm was gone, the holes in the corona closed.
On the very highest parts of the spectrum, Phaethon saw in the mirrors, higher in pitch even than cosmic rays, crumpled flickers of white light, and strange point-source bursts of gamma radiation, blurs of red-shifted motion. But what it was he could not guess; it was not any form of energy, or the by-product of any effect he knew. Some new science of the Sophotechs? Some unexpected application of Helion's Solar Array, used, as never before, at full strength? Or a hidden armament, prepared since last time by a Helion determined never again to die in this place?
On the bridge, the pale and shivering shadow of the Silent Lord raised his gauntlet. 'I... refuse... to... admit...'
The shadow crumpled and vanished again.
At that same moment, still traveling at enormous velocities, the Phoenix Exultant erupted outward from the convective layer and into the photosphere, throwing a wake of hydrogen plasma thousands of kilometers in each direction from the golden blade of her prow.
Like a whale rushing upward from arctic waters, surrounded by storm and spray, the Phoenix Exultant launched herself like a spear toward the corona. Her prow was pointed at a spot where the ships and antimatter moons were thinnest, and her engines were hotter than the surface from which she sprang. It seemed the Nothing would attempt to break through the blockade, to outrun the slow ships here.
The massive hull of the Phoenix Exultant, kilometer upon kilometer, smooth and shining, reared upward out from the sea of plasma into suddenly finer medium, and she exploded forward.
Daphne and Phaethon were both caught by their thrones, cushioned, held in momentary fields and protected from the acceleration shock.
The armada opened fire. Energy rays of unknown composition lanced from ships and boats above, bouncing harmlessly from the sleek sides of the tremendous Phoenix Exultant. Like spotlights, the beams fled along her gleaming sides, glinting from golden superstructures, flashing from the prow, sliding from the hull, dancing across the communication blisters at the prow.
Phaethon watched in wonder. Surely this battery of fire was not meant seriously? Not against a ship who was just bathing in the center of the sun? Antimatter could harm her, yes; her armor, magnificent as it was, was simply matter. But this ... ?
A mirror to his left and right lit up with static and white noise. Then another, and a third. Then more. Ghosts chased each other through the glass, and then the clattering pulse-music that signaled an attempt at communication systems integration.
Phaethon laughed.
Atkins was using the ship weapons as communication lasers. Any other ship would have been burned to death in a moment, receiving a 'message' shot out of a battleship main battery. Not the Phoenix. These 'communication' beams were the only things loud and clear enough to drive through the static and wash of the solar corona, and, at that, only once the storm had passed.
In his armor, Phaethon heard the Nothing command the ship to close her thought-ports. The ship, of course, could not comply.
More and more mirrors lit up. Through the static, Phaethon could see a ghostly image of Aurelian attempting to appear, and Rhadamanthus and Eveningstar. And Harrier, smiling. And Monomarchos, frowning. Minos and Aeceus Sophotechs of the Silver-Gray. Other Sophotechs Phaethon knew less well: Tawne and Yellow Sophotech, Xanthoderm, Fulvous, Canary, and Standard Sophotech; melancholy Phosphorous and queenly Meridian; aloof Albion; serious Pallid Sophotech; the grim New Centurion, and unsmiling Storm Cloud and quiet Lacedaimonian Sophotech. A score more whom Phaethon knew only by repute, Iron Ghost and the famous Final Theorem. Here were Sophotechs so new that Phaethon had only just learned of them: Regent-of-Themes and Diamond Leaf and Aureliogenesis. Here were others so old that Phaethon had thought them legends: Longevity and Masterpiece and old, old Metempsychosis Sophotech. And there were a hundred beyond that Phaethon did not recognize.
The images were gathered into nine main groups: the Ennead. Westmind and Eastmind, Northwest and Southeast, and the others of the compass rose; in the center, like a volcano, with none nearby, was the black icon of the War-mind group.
Altogether, they formed the Earthmind. And there was more, and more.
Images of off-planet Sophotechs were here, the world-minds of Venus and Mercury, Demeter and ancient Mars, the oldest off-planet colony. The strange Luna-mind group was here as well, drawn out of her centuries-old silence; and the Thousand-mind Overgroup from Jupiter, each with their secondary Hundred-minds glimmering in the images like jewels threaded in a web.
And more, and more. From Neptune, woven into the congregation of minds, was the Duma of the Cold Dukes, and all their Eremites and secondaries. From Uranus, the quaint parallel mind-systems of Peor and Nisroc and Coeus, and other structures that lived in Sophotech housing, but which were not Sophotechs.
Slower, but still woven into the system, here were Warlock over-covens like ivy growing on a pyramid, Invariant logic-groups like straight lines glimmering through it, and there were Demetrine constellations sparkling to each side. And the base of the pyramid was the huge, ancient Compositions from Earth and Mars, Harmonious and Porphyrogen, Ubiquitous and Eleemosynary.
Cerebelline ecologies were represented as well, the hordes of India, the Great Mother growing in the Saha- ran Gardens, the crystals of the Uranian belts. And here was (Phaethon smiled, certain she would not have joined that Transcendence, and pleased to see himself proved wrong) Old-Woman-of-the-Sea, with her daughter growing beside her.
And mankind. All of mankind.
Everyone was there.
