La Edad De Oro (66 page)

There were also moderate payments to one of the Cerebelline Life-Mother houses, a daughter of Wheel-of-Life named the Maiden; a very large number of extrapolations, ecological formulae, and bioengineering routines, equipment, and expertise had been purchased.

And biological material. Phaethon had bought so many metric tons of viral and recombinant bodies that the number was beyond belief. It was enough material to wipe out the biosphere of Earth and replace it with new forms. Had Phaethon been gathering an army? Was his black-and-gold armor actually “armor” in the old sense of the word, like the responders of ancient Warlocks, a system to deflect enemy weapons? The idea was insane.

There were also legal and advisory fees, in large amounts. For smaller matters, Phaethon got his legal advice from the Rhadamanthus Law-mind for free. But here were expenditures showing that Phaethon had approached the Westmind Sophotech, and purchased an extraordinarily expensive advisory, aesthetic, and publicist Mind-set, equipped it with personality-extrapolation programs of the Hortators. The advisory-mind was named Monomarchos.

This was significant. One did not create an attorney, equip him with billions of seconds of intelligence, and give him the ability to anticipate the thoughts and actions of the Hortators, unless one were being called before the Synod for an Inquiry.

A Synod was not a trial; nor did the Hortators possess real legal authority. They were not the Curia. But they did possess social and moral authority. In the modern day, the only way to discourage acts that where socially unacceptable, yet not directly harmful to others, was by means of Hortatory. Hortators could not punish, not directly. The Sophotechs would interfere if men used force or coercion against each other except in self-defense. But men could organize censures, complaints, protests, and, in more extreme cases, boycotts and shunnings. Many business efforts put clauses in all their standard contracts forbidding them from doing business with or selling goods to those whom the Hortators had boycotted, including important food, energy, and communication interests.

The Curia and Parliament, of course, could do nothing to interfere. Contracts were private matters, and could not be dissolved by the interference of the government; and, as long as subscription to the Hortators was not compelled by physical force, it could not be forbidden.

Phaethon realized that here was his first solid clue. Whatever he had done to rouse the Hortators to conduct an Inquiry against him, that was the act that had lost him his memory. It was safe to conclude that Phaethon had agreed to the amnesia to avoid a worse penalty, such as a public denouncement, or a shunning.

But Phaethon had not been called before the Curia. He had not been accused of crime. That, at least, was a relief.

There was no more to be learned here. Phaethon touched the yellow disk icon to reestablish network contact with Rhadamanthus.

And there he was, frozen in the scene in the Rhadamanthus memory chamber, every detail perfectly in place. The sunlight was slanting in through the windows, glittering on memory-caskets and cabinets. Dust motes hung in the sunbeam, motionless. His wife was there, a picture, looking lovely.

When Phaethon took a deep breath, the same sensations in his brain that could have been caused by a tension in his abdomen and a straightening of his spine were created, including a subconscious signal of gathering courage.

“I’m ready. Resume.”

Perhaps Daphne had also used the opportunity to think; she seemed more composed. “My dearest, I owe you an explanation; but in return, you owe me that you must use your most honest and rigorous sense of justice you can muster.” She had stepped close to him and was staring up into his eyes.

He touched her on the shoulder and pushed her slightly away. “First I have a few questions which I insist you answer.”

Daphne’s red lips compressed. The responder studs on her Warlock costume fluttered angrily, as if she were deflecting a Bellipotent nanoweapon, or painful poison. “Very well! Ask!”

“I just want to know how you thought you could get away with this? The holes in my memory are so large that I could not have lived for very long without noticing. Yet they concern many things which are matters of public record. Expenditures of antimatter, energy, computer time. Interplanetary flights. I can go look into the space traffic control records to find where I went or what I did. Hortator’s inquires are matters of public record. It will only take me a little time to piece this together. So what was the point of all this?”

Daphne said simply, “But I don’t know.”

Phaethon frowned and turned to look at Rhadamanthus.

Rhadamanthus said, “I cannot do a Noetic reading without the express consent of the subject.”

Daphne said, “I do not know why this was done to you, or what is in the box. I swear it.”

Rhadamanthus said, “Her words accurately reflect her thoughts. She is not lying. What she intends to say next is also not a lie.”

She said, “Part of the agreement must have been for me to forget also. Whatever it is you did, I am not laughing at you behind your back, or fooling you, or leading you around by the nose. I do not know what it was.”

“Then how did you know to—”

Without a word she drew a memory casket of her own from the pocket of her long coat. It was small and silver, the size of a thimble-box. Letters written in her spidery, flowing, hand-script read:

“ ‘This file contains material concerning the one you call your husband, which you and he have mutually agreed to forget.

“ ‘I. If you are reading these words, it means Phaethon has taken steps to recover his forbidden memories. If he should do so, he will leave the Golden Oecumene, perhaps forever.

“ 2. Phaethon is penniless, and lives at Rhadamanthus House only at Helion’s behest, and only for so long as he should not recover his lost memories.

“ ‘3. He has done nothing criminal, but the shame and anxiety springing from his plans were more than you or he could bear. You well know why you agree with the reasons for the amnesia, and the benefit you enjoy.

“ ‘4. Your amnesia is contingent on his. If he should ever read the forbidden file, this file will automatically open.

“ ‘5. You are not allowed, otherwise, to open this file. Honest relations with Phaethon require that you not keep secrets from him.’ ”

Phaethon handed the casket back. Perhaps he was ashamed of his suspicions. She returned the casket to her pocket.

“By why did you—”

She interrupted, “Can we go somewhere else and talk? I find this chamber oppressive.” Daphne hugged herself, staring at the floor, and shivered.

Phaethon put his casket down where he had found it. He removed the key and tossed it with a casual gesture to where Rhadamanthus stood in the doorway.

Turning his back to the casket, he put one arm around his wife and led her down the stairs.

They ordered Rhadamanthus to serve them tea in the garden. Phaethon changed to period costume; a stiff collar, a long black frock coat. Daphne wore an Edwardian tea dress of burgundy, which flattered her complexion, and a narrow-brimmed straw skimmer with a complex bow dangling down the back. Phaethon forgave the mild anachronism, to see how fine she looked.

They sipped from cups of eggshell china; they nibbled cakes from silver trays. Phaethon secretly suspected that the simulated taste of tea and scones were better than the originals tasted.

Daphne said, “I think everyone has forgotten whatever your shame is. That’s the way these things have to go. You would not have agreed to forget unless everyone else, likewise, put the unpleasantness from their minds. Notice how enraged you were at just the thought that I might be hiding the truth from you. Is there any other way we could all live together, undying, forever, unless everyone could put old conflicts utterly and finally behind us?”

“Define ‘everyone.’ ”

She shrugged. “The more civilized sections of society, of course.”

“Meaning, not including Primitivist Schools who do not indulge in brain redactions or any neurotechnology. Not Atkins the soldier, who has to keep his brain free from all contaminants. Not including the Neptunians, who are outcasts and scoundrels. And not including one other fellow I saw at the ecoperformance. He was dressed like me. Only his helmet was different.”

“Who was he?”

“I don’t know. He was in masquerade.”

“What was his costume?”

“He was disguised as part of the Bellipotent Composition, end of the Fourth Era.”

“I know who is behind that. The Bellipotent costume was put together by the Black Mansion School. They’re all anarchists and disrupters and shock-artists. They’re trying to offend Ao Aoen and the other nonstandard neuroforms.”

“And offend me? Their costume equated me with Caine, the character from Byron’s play who invents murder, and with the Bellipotent Composition, who reinvented war.”

She shook her head. “I cannot guess what it means. No other polite person will get his joke either; we’ve all forgotten whatever it was. The Hortators should not have let him get near you.”

Phaethon’s mind leaped to another thought. “Meaning that the Hortators are monitoring my actions. I’m not surprised. But, during the masquerade, with the location and identification circuits disenabled, I got lost in the crowds, and saw things I wasn’t supposed to see.”

“Well! So there’s your explanation. The mystery is solved!” exclaimed Daphne brightly. “Can we talk about something more pleasant now?”

Phaethon nodded, and said, “I think this amnesia must have been inflicted only briefly before the masquerade began. Something the primitivist old man I met said, implied that I should not have been invited. I conclude that I agreed to this amnesia in order to be allowed to come. Also, enough people have retained the memory of my past to smirk and stare and gossip, at least enough to lead me to suspect that something was in the air.”

“Is it my imagination, or is this the same topic we were just on?”

“The main problem is how to find someone who knows what I did, and to approach them, preferably in costume, so that the Hortators won’t see and make a fuss. Art displays should be posted on the aesthetic index for stock purchases. If one of us tracks down the old man with the Saturn-trees, the other can find out which Cerebelline was holding the eco-performance at Destiny Lake.”

“Darling, you’re speaking as if I would help you in this quest. But I won’t.”

Phaethon leaned back in his chair, staring at her, saying nothing.

She said, “It’s nothing but a quest for self-destruction.”

“It’s a quest for truth.”

“Truth! There is no such thing. There are only signals in your brain. Everything: sensations, memory, love, hate, abstract philosophy, gross physical lusts. It’s nothing. Strong signals and weak signals. Those signals can be reproduced, recorded, faked. Whatever condition of thought, or pleasure, or belief you wish to achieve by discovering this mystery, could be reproduced in your brain by a proper application of such signals, and there would be no way whatsoever you could discover the difference. Everything would seem as real to you now as all of this.” A circle of her hand indicated the scenery around them; the sunlight in the garden, the scent of grass and roses, the shining leaves, the drone of bees, the twittering of larks.

“Except it would not be the truth.”

“That thought itself is nothing but another signal,” she said sulkily, pouting over her teacup.

“Daphne, you don’t really believe that. You would not live the life you lead if you did. You would just go off and drown yourself in some dream drama, never to emerge. Besides, I think I can discover the basics of what happened to me without actually violating the letter of whatever agreement I made.”

She put down her teacup so that it smacked against the saucer, slopping tea over the side. But her voice was calm and smooth: “Why pursue this? Why not be content with the life you have?”

“It’s too easy to be content. Where’s the glory in that? I’d rather do something hard.”

“I respectfully disagree. It is quite easy to be a stubborn fool, darling. Look at how many of them there are in the world.”

Phaethon spread his hands and smiled slightly. “Well, as long as I can go about being a stubborn fool with a certain amount of grace and intelligence, maybe I can do a good job of it. Don’t you see how important this is? How much of my life is missing?”

Daphne tried not to look impatient. “Sweetheart, what standard are you using to measure importance? Length of time? The Bellipotent Composition ruled the Eastern Hemisphere for far longer than you’ve been alive. And they produced nothing but ninety generations of evil and pain. I would not trade one second of your life for their entire hegemony. So why do you spend even one second of your life on something which can only make you miserable? Darling, listen to me. You have no real mystery, no puzzle worth solving. If those memories were ones you did not want, what does it matter how much time they occupied? Has it never occurred to you that, back when you made this choice, you knew what you were doing?”

“Actually, that’s the part which puzzles me the most…” Phaethon thoughtfully sipped his tea.

Daphne leaned forward, her green eyes bright.

“You then must have foreseen this present. You, then, knew that you, now, would suffer the pain of curiosity. You then decided the pain of knowledge was the worse of two evils. Can’t you just trust that that decision was correct? Can’t you accept anyone’s judgment without question? Not even your own? You know now that you back then knew more!”

Phaethon smiled half a smile. “Let me understand your argument. You want me to take on faith that I have always had the strength of character to never to take things on faith. But if I give in to your argument, don’t I show, by that example, that such faith is misplaced? My past self might have been, for all I know, convinced by an argument not unlike this one.”

“Very cleverly worded!” she blazed. “You may just be clever enough to talk yourself into exile and disgrace!”

Phaethon gazed, absorbed, at the fire of her eyes, the way her red lips parted as she drew a sharp breath, the flare of her nostrils, the flush in her cheeks. Then she subsided, and lowered her gaze to stare moodily to one side. Phaethon studied the curve of her neck, the perfection of her profile, and the delicate lashes, long and black, which almost brushed her cheeks. What had he done to acquire this vivid and fascinating woman?