The status boards now showed the main drives were ready. Navigation showed no objects along the Phoenix Exultant's line of flight. Nor was this a surprise. Any acceleration would carry the great ship back along the course through which she had just been decelerating. This area, naturally, was bare of other ships or signals.
With a mental command, Phaethon had the Phoenix Exultant close all her outer hatches, bays, ports and thought ports. Phaethon had paid for every expensive artificial atom of that hull armor. He knew that there were no breaches or breaks in it, not even a pinhole to run a quantum-band antenna through. There was no form of energy, no electromagnetic frequency whatever, that could penetrate that hull. Every known type of communication was blocked.
Neoptolemous, as far as Phaethon could imagine, was trapped, and unable to communicate with any confederates outside.
Phaethon was uneasy. Was it all to be as simple as that?
He prepared a second charge of much deadlier energies in the mirrors, energies sufficient to destroy anything not encased in adamantium armor. He instructed those mirrors to flood the bridge with fire if Phaethon's thoughts showed any trauma or undue anxiety, or if communication between the ship mind and Phaethon's armor was interrupted.
A signal came from the medical stealth remotes, warning him that chances of discovery where growing with each second of delay. The little machine asked for the kill order. It almost seemed impatient.
Phaethon hesitated. What if this were not the enemy? Didn't he have an obligation to talk to it first? At least to give it a chance to surrender? The Neptunian spoke first.
A voice issued from the bridge speakers. 'This is the translator. My client issues parallel simultaneous communication on twenty-four channels, including an introductory file with appended suggestions for artistically proper methods of interrelating the contents of each communication so as to best appreciate the contrasts, similarities, and patterns of many-sided interrelationship. It is not recommended that you continue in your present neuroform, which seems to be capable only of linear-thinking formats.
'For example, in the first suggested configuration, labeled 'Mandelbrot Fractal,' your mind would be subdivided into recursively symmetrical parts, with your subconsciousness receiving information from communication files one through five, your midbrain complexes receiving file six as memory, seven as dream associations (with a separate subfile for scents, as olfactory memories are stored in different areas of your nervous syrstem), and files eight through fourteen simultaneously being experienced by a multiple-personality format, which would later integrate the responses and cross-correlations back into an artificial main self, according to a neurosymphonic pattern orchestrated through file fifteen. Thereafter-'
Phaethon sent: 'Stop. Are you the same individual, the Neptunian Legate, who first accosted me in the Saturn-tree grove on Earth? Where is Neoptolemous? Your speech pattern is entirely different from his.'
'I have not yet described the benefits of the Mandelbrot Fractal configuration for files sixteen through twenty-four; nor have I described the one hundred eighty-two other mental configurations or time systems for apprehending my client's first message. By asking a question at this time, you are attempting to enter question- and-answer dialogue without first establishing dialogue format.'
Phaeton: 'Nevertheless, pass my question along to your client. I consider the question of his identity paramount, since, if he is not Neoptolemous, then he is not an individual who has any right to be here, and I will have him thrown off the bridge.'
'My client in the meanwhile has posted four hundred twenty new communication files, ranging from topics including decision-actions trees predicting the outcome of this conversation, compliments and new forms of art relating to the appearance and aspects of this bridge, an in-depth information study of the concept of 'self-hood' as it relates to certain abstract philosophic ideals, a prospectus for the marriage and conglomeration of your identity and neural systems into his own, along with explanations of the memory benefits and a sample model of the pleasure-reward sharing cycle offered to new members.'
Phaethon allowed anger to sound in the voice he sent: 'This is not responsive to my demand. I am recording this conversation for legal purposes, and hereby make demand that, if you are not a trespasser, you immediately identify yourself, and show by what right you claim to be here. Where is Neoptolemous? Do not utter further irrelevancies.'
'My client wishes to draw your attention to certain legal documents waiting for you attention in the preliminary introduction file of his first communication grouping. These documents include various writs and titles showing his ownership of the Phoenix Exultant' 'What?'
'Please examine the file. You will find included my client's procedural claim to be thought-heir to Neoptolemous; extrapolations and legal briefs on possible outcomes of a counterclaim or challenge to his rights of ownership; a copy of Neoptolemous's internal mental constitution; voting records and internal mental decision hierarchies; and, finally, Diomedes's recorded affirmation and legal subscription to that constitution before he joined, as well as, in a postscript, noetic records scanning his brain showing that Diomedes did in fact understand the rules and possible outcomes of merging his mind with my client's, including his acknowledgment that the absorption of his lesser personality into my master's greater personality would be permissible and acceptable, and not legally grounds for a charge of murder, provided it was done according to the agreed-upon legal rules and standards, a copy of which, as I have said, has thoughtfully been provided for you to peruse. 'And, it is incumbent on me to point out that, had you accepted any of the mental-configuration formats labeled 'fractal' in the file I proffered you earlier, this information would have already automatically been sent to your midbrain emotion centers and memory, so that not only would you remember all this as if you had always recalled it but all internal mental distress, questioning, grief, and pondering as to whether or not my client truly is, essentially, Diomedes and Neoptolemous, would also have been automatically inserted into your nervous system. You would have been instantaneously run through the cycle of grief, anger, and futile challenge, and would already be experiencing a pleasant resignation to reality, and congratulating yourself on your stoicism. Would you like me to download this mental construction into your midbrain? Please open your private mental files and render the access codes.'
Phaethon felt a peculiar sensation of crawling horror. (This sensation was made peculiar by the slowness with which it happened. Phaethon's sluggish false blood reacted slowly as the threads of the retardation field surrounding him prodded molecules of adrenaline, each individually, into his bloodstream. Other parts of the field deliberately pulled his nape hairs erect.)
'You ... you are Xenophon, aren't you?'
'The question of identity is complex. The preliminary files appended to the first information burst contain the debates, records, conclusions, and extrapolated questions-and-answers surrounding this issue.'
Phaethon sent: 'The Xenophon half of Neoptole-mous consumed and absorbed the Diomedes half during the ten minutes it took you to travel down the ship axis and reach the bridge. That's why you started the trip in human form, according to Silver-Gray conventions, looking like Queen Victoria, and why you arrived looking like an amoeboid. Isn't that right?'
'I repeat my last answer. All questions as to my identity are answered. Lower your mental defenses and open the channels leading into your brain. As owner of this ship, and your new employer, I demand that all crew be examined for honesty of intentions, mental reservations, and memories related to possible acts of sabotage or ship tampering. If you fail to comply, it is I, the owner of this vessel, who will have you, the trespasser, removed.'
How should he answer? Should he blast Xenophon now? The energy mirrors were already aimed and focused. Or should he pin the monster in place with ninety gravities, and read what he could from the remains of the crushed brain slush with the portable noetic reader sitting by his left chair arm? The main drive, after all, was primed and ready.
Was there any reason to continue this absurd pretense?
At that moment, the medical stealth remotes implanted in Xenophon's body fed additional information into Phaethon's armor. There was a mass of neural tissue, a brain, with no nerve fibers linking its upper spinal control nerves to any circuits. This brain's sensory nerves were being fed through a regulator controlled by the central Xenophon brain group, and additional one-way links were running to the midbrain (seat of the emotions) and the pons (where the pain center of the brain was kept).
A configuration analysis detected no threat. This brain, after all, was utterly helpless. Whoever was in the brain had no more control over their own emotions than a raving drunk, had no muscles or circuits to manipulate, and could only see and feel whatever things or whatever pains as the master brains would choose to impose.
And so the simple-minded stealth remotes had, until now, ignored this extra brain mass. A higher-level
