La Edad De Oro (95 page)

Had they not been creatures of pure logic, Phaethon would have felt that Kes and his people, out of gratitude for the many services Phaethon’s engineering firm had done the Invariants in times past, would urge a lenient sentence. But did the Invariants think gratitude was rational? Phaethon did not know.

The middle group of benches were occupied by Warlock neuroforms, the least conformist, and hence the least powerful, of the factions among the Hortators. The Warlock Schola had arranged themselves on the benches according to a symbolic pattern; group-mind and shared consciousness schools, the so-called Covens, were in the rear; individualist and emotion-linked schools were in the middle; and the so-called Possessed Ones, who had several split personalities occupying one brain, were in the front. Some Possessed Ones had brought a separate body for each aspect or partial. Phaethon could not guess how the Warlocks would vote, or even if they would vote; their minds were too strange. None here were pictured as Englishmen. Hindu princes, Chinese Mandarins, nude Australian shaman, and Red Indians from the New World formed a tapestry of color in their section.

The final group of pews, taking up the rest of the right wall, were basics. Captains of the major efforts, arts, and noo-sophic movements all had seats: educationalists and influential pedagogues, performancers from Lunar Farside, recalculators, redactors, mediums, downloads from the Demeter Overmind, and Historians from the Museum of Thought were here. Epheseus Vanwinkle from the Mathuselean Scholum had (once again) interrupted his eon-long cryosleep, his so-called Voyage to the Infinite Future, to be present at this meeting.

Famous mystagogues, avatars of anthropo-constructs, and emancipated partials were also seated in this section, forming the Parliament of Ghosts, which tried to represent the interests of beings who could not speak for themselves, people held in computer memory, unborn children, simulated characters, disbanded Compositions, and the like.

In front of all these, the first row of the basic section was occupied by Gannis of Jupiter, with twenty sub-Gannises, semi-Gannises and demi-Gannises gathered around him, a score of twins. They were dressed as French aristocrats, in pigeon blue coats, ruffles, finery, and lace. Even frozen in time, Gannis still wore a smug expression; he knew he (since he was both a Hortator and a Peer) was one of the most influential voices in the College, and the one who would be the most personally pleased to see Phaethon fall.

There was little prospect of mercy from the right side of the chamber.

He turned to the left. Phaethon was amused to see the manor-borns, perhaps more aware of Helion’s utter realism than the others, had seated themselves facing the eastern windows, so that the late-afternoon sun would not be in their faces. Here were archons and subalterns from many famous mansions. Perhaps he could find some support among manor-borns like himself.

The Gold Manorials, of course, outnumbered the others. The Mansions of Gold included many members of the Parliament and the Shadow Parliament, political theorists, policy counselors, and so on. Long before the simulation or extrapolation technology was used for entertainment, it had been used by the early Gold School for predicting outcomes of political-economic policy decisions and of major data movements in worldwide memory space.

In the front row, the High Archon Tsychandri-Manyu Tawne of Tawne House himself was present, depicted in stately ducal robes of red and gold. Almost every politician of the Shadow Parliament throughout the Golden Oecumene had, at one time or another, borrowed memory templates, skills, or advice from the Manyu mind-complex Tsychandri had started. Tsychandri was one of the founders of the Hortation Movement, and the most influential voice here. But, oddly, he was not the idealist he urged all others to be; his decisions were matters of practical and political (some said cynical) calculation.

And the political currents were running strongly against Phaethon here. It was clear that Tsychandri-Manyu would urge permanent exile, and perhaps public humiliations or denunciations atop that; the other Gold Mansions would follow his lead.

Seated nearby were archonesses from Eveningstar, Phosphorous, and Meridian Houses of the Red Mansion School. Their Edwardian dresses gleamed with scarlet and rose and crimson silk, and they were frozen in their poses, leaning to whisper to each other behind their elegant fans. Phaethon knew the Reds had emotional reasons to dislike him, and, creatures of great passion, the Red Queens and Countesses would indulge their emotions.

Hasantrian Hecaton Heo of Pallid House of the Whites had descended from transcendental thoughtspace and resumed human psychology in order to attend. Tau Continuous Nimvala of Albion House, also a White, had broken her seventy years of silence and come not as a partial but with her entire mind present. Both were represented as Victorian Ministers, of the High and Low Church respectively. The Pallids were pure intellectuals; the Albions allowed emotion, but only pride, disdain, arrogance, and the other emotions that urged men to disregard emotion. The Whites could be relied upon to be fair. Scientists and engineers, they might favor Phaethon’s case.

The construct known as Ynought Subwon from New Centurion House was the only representative of the Dark-Grays, who, by long tradition, disapproved of Hortation. Dark Grays were more ascetic than Silver-Grays. A spartan and laconic people, they believed in laws rather than in orations. Dark-Grays often served as Constables or Procurators for the Curia. Phaethon knew nothing about Ynought.

Viridimagus Solitarie (or a reconstruction of him) was present as a representative of the defunct Green Scholum, all the more noticeable because he had no mansion but was projecting himself through a rented public intellect, an ordinary-looking man in dark trousers and a long emerald coat. He stood out, because he was the only plain-dressed man on this side of the chamber. The Green School had been the primitivists (if such a thing could be imagined) among the manor-born. If Viridimagus continued that tradition, he would surely disapprove of any innovations, would call star colonization an abomination, and urge a harsh sentence.

A throng of Black Manorials, from Darksplatter House, Grue House, Inyourface House, and Out House, and a dozen other Petty Houses and part-mansions of the Black School crowded the higher bench at the back of the chamber. They were dressed in splendid clothing, black tuxedoes and sable velvet gowns, but had all disfigured themselves with diseases or birth defects common to the Victorian era. Their most famous member was Asmodius Bohost Clamour of Clamour House, who had represented himself in a grotesquely obese body, at least four hundred pounds mass. His black coat was the size of a tent, and jeweled buttons strained along the circumference of a vast globular waistcoat. Asmodius Bohost would urge public humiliation, and the Feast of Insults, or the punishment known as Excrementation, but not exile. The Black Mansions loved mockery and confrontation, and never voted for exile, which (because it required them to ignore their victims) caused them agonies of boredom.

In the front row, the Silver-Grays were represented by Agamemnon XIV of Minos House, Nausicaa Burner-of-Ships from Aeceus House, and, of course, Helion of Rhadamanthus House.

Even Helion was frozen in the time stop. Phaethon had been hoping to catch his father’s eye, and maybe find a smile or look of encouragement there; but Helion, true to his character, had not granted himself an exception to the strict protocol that formed the dreamscape rules here.

And that was the body of the College of Hortators. In disgust, Phaethon shut off the game-theory routine he was running. He did not need an advanced intellectual savant process to guess the outcome here. By his count, two manorials of the White School might vote for leniency; and Helion might, but only if he wished to scuttle his hopes for a Peerage and ruin his own future. Ironically, Phaethon could expect his greatest support (if it could be called that) from the Black Manorials, who would vote to keep Phaethon out of exile so that they could mock and torment him.

As for the others, possibly Kes Satrick Kes would support him. Maybe. The Warlocks might do anything. Everyone else in the chamber either disliked him mildly or hated him thoroughly.

What made the matter all the more confusing and unpredictable was the way in which the Hortators’ votes were weighed. Nebuchednezzar was designed to estimate the social influence each Hortator would have by estimating how each and every member of the Golden Oecumene would react to that Hortator’s particular urging. (Nebuchednezzar had memory space enough to know every mind of every citizen throughout the entire solar system quite intimately.) Thus, the same Hortator might have different voting weight with different issues, or at different times. Kes Satrick Kes, for example, represented a constituency whom he could always and predictably influence, on every issue; on the other hand, Asmodius Bohost’s voting weight changed daily, even hourly. When it came to political opinions, Asmodius Bohost was ignored by his constituency, but, on matters of fashion, his vote would have much greater weight, since all the Black Manorials took their cue from him.

Phaethon turned his eyes forward.

Facing him across the expanse of the chamber, on a dais, seated on a throne beneath a canopy, was Nebuchednezzar Sophotech, represented as the Speaker of the Parliament, in brilliant robes of scarlet trimmed with ermine, wearing a sash and medallion of office, and with a long white wig draping his head and shoulders, with the jeweled mace of office across his knees.

In front of Nebuchednezzar, on lower chairs before the dais, facing Phaethon, were three more figures, the Master Hortators, one from history, one from reality, one from fiction.

On the left was Socrates, who stood for the Noble Lie on which all society is based, a cup of hemlock resting on the arm of his chair. Opposite him, was Emphyrio, who stood for the Truth, he whose voice calmed the anger of monsters sent to destroy him. His book of truth was in his lap. A bloodstained executioner’s brain spike rested on the chair arm near his fingers. In the center, to balance these two opposites, was Neo-Orpheus the Apostate, pale skinned and sunken eyed, garbed in somber colors. He held, as if it were a scepter, the flail meant to separate the wheat from the chaff, true from untrue.

Neo-Orpheus was the 128th iteration of Orpheus Avernus, the cofounder of the College; but, unlike the other emanations of the mind of Orpheus, he was one who refused to accept the reimposition of his original template. He became legally independent from the original Orpheus, downloaded into a physical body, and rejected the Aeonite School; but he later accepted employment as the emissary and factotum of the original Orpheus. It was rumored that the real success of Orpheus, and also his Peerage, were due to the original and creative work of Neo-Orpheus the Apostate; and that the original Orpheus was just a figurehead.

Their gazes met. With a shock, Phaethon realized that Neo-Orpheus was not time-frozen. The pale-faced Master was sitting still, patiently sitting and watching him, his eyes burning like sullen coals.

Phaethon straightened. Perhaps he should not have been surprised. Neo-Orpheus had so much prestige that he could ignore any and every social convention, and override Helion’s protocols blithely.

Neo-Orpheus spoke. His voice was thin and cold, as if a sheet of ice were speaking: “Phaethon has miscounted. The White Manorials dismiss his vision of star travel as madness, prompted by emotion; and the Black Manorials know Phaethon’s reputation for stoic indifference would rob their sadism of all zest. The Warlocks will be persuaded by Peer Ao Aoen that, since the sun is in Leo, and since Pluto, if it still existed, would have been in syzygy with Earth at this time, the omens decree the harshest of penalties. The exile will be permanent.”

Phaethon realized that, with Orphic wealth at his command, Neo-Orpheus could have hired the entire Boreal Overmind to run a prediction program, and guess Phaethon’s every thought with near-telepathic accuracy. But why was Neo-Orpheus bothering?

“What it is you want of me, Master Hortator?”

Neo-Orpheus spoke without inflection: “Commit suicide. This will save us all from embarrassment and mild discomfort. We offer for your use a number of memory and thought alterations, to make the process pleasant, even ecstatic, and to replace your values with a philosophy that not only does not object to the self-destruction but actively approves of it. We can then redact you from the memories of all people whom we can influence or intimidate; your existence would sink into myth and be forgotten.”

“Why in the world would I acceded to so foolish and wicked a request?”

“The good of society requires it.”

The perfect shamelessness and impertinence of the comment left Phaethon speechless for a moment. Phaethon said curtly, “Your good be damned, sir, if it requires the destruction of men like me.”

Neo-Orpheus looked nonplused, as if the answer meant nothing to him. He said, “But it need not seem like destruction. The belief that you have accomplished your mission, complete with full memories and simulated sensations of many successful voyages in your starship, can be inserted into your brain before and during your death. You will be satisfied.”

Phaethon spoke ironically: “I make this counteroffer: Let everyone else everywhere alter all of their brains to adopt the belief and the knowledge that I am in the right. Let them admit their guilt and folly for daring to oppose the destiny I represent. Let them erase all knowledge and record that the College of Hortators have ever existed. Then I will be satisfied.”

Neo-Orpheus’s eyes glittered. His voice was sharp: “Suicide would have been less painful for you. While the Sophotechs forbid us from acting directly against you, we can still encompass your death.”

Phaethon stared at the cold pale face without fear. He raised a fist: “I most solemnly assure you, sir, that should the College of Hortators dare oppose me, or attempt to flee from the future I bring, it is they who shall be forgotten and destroyed?”

Too late, he remembered that making a fist was the signal, in this program, to resume the time count.