floating blood-liquids drifting in the micro-gravity, and he wondered what powers the Silent Ones truly commanded.
He was staring at the last message from Xenophon. It was written in dragon-signs of frozen blood and internal fluids from Xenophon's vanished body.
The signs said only: 'The Golden Oecumene must be destroyed.'
THE YOUNG WOMAN
Daphne Tercius, wearing a dress of red silk, after the fashion of the Eveningstar, was led into the sitting room. To her it seemed as if a dot of light was leading her, and that the room was a dim-lit oval, plush with sensuous carpeting, fluttering with golden candlelight, with low tables set with fruits and flowers, bright china and silver chopsticks shining against dark wood. Two of her favorite energy-sculptures glowed in round niches to either side of the door, and chirruped cheerfully when they saw her.
The west of the chamber was all window, a smooth curve, which, though seeming solid, allowed the breeze from the lake beyond to bring soft, cool scents into the room, the hint of pine from the far shore. It was before true dawn, but it was Jovian afternoon, and the light of Jupiter spread red-silvery beams glancing along the twilight landscape. Even at his brightest, Jupiter was not much more luminous than a full moon. It was bright enough to distinguish colors, but dim enough to cast the trees and lake into blue mysterious shadow.
At this window, in what seemed a seashell filled with flower petals, lay a woman dressed in pigeon gray and silver. Her face was lit by the soft light of the energy-sculpture that she toyed with, running her fingers along its shimmering curves. It was a sad face, thoughtful, dreamy, and her eyes were half-closed.
She was Daphne Prime Rhadamanth.
Daphne Tercius Eveningstar glanced around the room, smiling. Her air was happy, open, unabashed. Daphne Tercius Eveningstar walked lightly over to the window and sat down on the plush carpet, tucking her feet under her. Daphne Prime Rhadamanth dismissed the floating light with a thank-you and a regal nod.
Daphne Tercius Eveningstar turned to watch the little light that had led her here bob away. She turned back, and said, 'Shouldn't we be using the same aesthetic, Mother?'
Daphne Prime Rhadamanth inclined her head. 'Think of me as an older sister. And I wanted to make you more comfortable.'
'Oh? Why start now?'
Daphne Prime Rhadamanth's red lips compressed slightly, and perhaps there was a smolder in her eyes, but her expression of cool reserve did not otherwise change. She lifted a finger and the chamber now appeared differently. She was now dressed in a more somber tweed jacket, blouse, and skirt, with a tiny French hat pinned to her coiffure, after the style proper for a Silver-Gray. Daphne Tercius Eveningstar was still dressed in sensuously lurid tight silk, the uniform of a Red Manorial.
It was a Victorian room, and they both were seated on a heavy divan of dark red velvet whose feet ended in black claws gripping glass balls. The candles were still there, though now in candlesticks. The rug became white bearskin. The receding dot of light became a footman.
The energy-sculpture in Daphne Prime Rhadamanrh's lap became Fluffbutton, Daphne's long-lost long-haired white cat. But this was a reconstruction, a clone. He was not the slim kitten she had lost so long ago when she was a child. The cat had grown, put on weight, turned into a pampered and round ball of white fur. The cat gazed at Daphne Tercius Eveningstar with lazy green eyes, as if he had never seen her before.
Daphne Tercius Eveningstar found the image slightly offensive. 'Mother! That's one of my favorite energy- sculptures you're playing with. Lupercalian Reflection. And you're making it look like Sir Fluffbutton! If you're not going to be reapplying Warlock nerve-paths into your brain, you're not going to be able to read or play with Lupercalian anyway. Or with Lichenplantis. Or Quincunx Impressionario.' (These were the two energy sculptures by the door.) 'Why not give them to me? They can keep me company on the voyage.'
Daphne Prime Rhadamanth favored her with a cool stare, one eyebrow arched. 'Little sister, one would think giving up my husband would have been enough to comfort you on your voyage.'
Daphne Tercius Eveningstar opened her mouth to issue some scathing rebuttal, but then snapped it shut again, lightly shrugged her delicate shoulders, and stood up. 'Well! I'm ever so glad we had this little chat. I would stay longer, but arguing with other versions of yourself gets so tiring after a while, don't you think? Now I can fly off into the night sky, not coming back for a long time, maybe never, secure in the knowledge that it turned out I was a bitch after all. And thank you for bringing me into a cheap and false existence, playing out all the difficult parts of your life you were too ashamed or scared to live through! I would say it had all been fun ... if it had been. Ta- ta!'
Daphne Prime Rhadamanth gave her a level stare. 'Please sit.'
'Sorry, Mother, but I've got a life to lead. A life you threw away! And now that you're awake again, you have possession of all the things I once thought were mine, my house and funds and even my cat, dammit! My friends. Everything. But I've got Phaethon, and I've got the future. What more do we need to say to each other... ?'
'Please sit.' Or did you use the command words I left you to wake me up again, just to berate me? We must come to understand each other before we part. You are the part of myself I am sending into the future, little sister, and I am the part of you which forms your roots and your foundation. If we part badly, it will haunt us both.'
For some reason not clear even to herself, Daphne Tercius Eveningstar smoothed her red silk dress, and sat.
But then, neither woman spoke. One sat with her hands folded in her lap, the other petted her half- slumbering cat. Both stared out the window at the twilight landscape, at the smoke-colored trees, the blue shadows of the lake. In the deep of the lake, one or two bright dots of color, like fireflies, softly appeared and disappeared.
Daphne Prime Rhadamanth finally broke the silence. 'The masquerade is over. Aurelian Sophotech, so I have heard, has posted advertisements asking for employment as a manorial, just like some low-cycle mind like Rhadamanth or Aeceus. They've dismantled the palaces of gold to the south of here; and the Cerebellines to the southwest are letting the new organisms find their own ecological balance, practically untended, so that those strange gardens are all overgrown now, and filled with wild things. The birds will go back to singing their own songs, instead of arias meant for us, and the flowers will give out nectar now, not wine. The Deep Ones have sunk away again, and no one is allowed to remember their songs, except dimly. The wild things we said and did during the celebrations are put in memory caskets now. We are like the Cerebelline gardens turned opposite; we become tame again. Mystery is banished. The elfin gloaming of the dawn now passes, as all thing must pass, and the ordinary workday begins again.'
Daphne Tercius Eveningstar gave her older self an odd sidelong glance, but said nothing.
Daphne Prime Rhadamanth saw that glance, and smiled an opaque smile, and said: 'You are wondering, aren't you, little sister, what Phaethon ever saw in me? You have no sympathy for a melancholy spirit.'
'Well, actually, Mother, I would have called it phony weepy sickening self-centered affectation. But your sense-filter might not catch it and change it to something more polite.'
The older version only smiled, her eyes dreamy, as if thinking of a sorrow long past. 'You were not constructed to admire me or like me. Our basic philosophy and core values have to be different. Antithetical. Which does not make for easy friendships, I fear.'
The younger Daphne was still. ''Have to be'? For what purpose?'
The elder stirred as if from a reverie. 'I beg your pardon ... ?'
'You implied there was a purpose to all this. Why did you drown yourself? Why did you make me?'
Daphne Prime Rhadamanth sat upright and leaned forward, her level gaze traveling deep into her younger version's eyes. She spoke in a voice of quiet simplicity. 'I was in love with Helion.' 'What?!!'
'It was one of the things I did not add to your memories when I made you. You remember when Sir Fluff- button died.'
'He ran away. I was nine....' 'I found his body. It was by the stream where I had that fall through the ice the
