The Golden Age

by John C. Wright

  The green cone replied: “My learned colleague is mistaken. Phaethon is in violation if and only if he deliberately opens the forbidden memory files himself. If a Court order compels him to open those files, there is no deliberate act on his part—”

  The cube on the left interrupted: “This is not a debating society. The counselors will address their remarks to the bench.”

  Gannis turned toward the black cubes: “Your Lordships, may I present argument for denying the Respondent’s motion?”

  The central cube radiated: “The Court will entertain your remarks.”

  “The motion is without grounds at this stage of the proceedings. The only question presently before the Court is the identity of the Respondent, who claims to be Phaethon Prime Rhadamanthus. And, even were this the proper time to raise that issue, the proper relief for a complaint of surprise would be to grant the Respondent more time to prepare. Naturally my client would raise no opposition to any additional postponements the Court may deem necessary for a fully equitable result.”

  The cube on the right spoke in a voice heavy with irony: “Considering the history of this case, the Court is not surprised that the learned counselor raises no opposition to additional postponements. Nonetheless, the argument is well taken. The matter of Phaethon’s memory, except insofar as it touches and concerns the question of his identity, is not a question presently before the Court. The Respondent’s motion is denied.”

  Phaethon whispered: “What the hell is going on here, Rhadamanthus? Who is this ‘Respondent’? Me? What are they here to decide … ?”

  The cube on the left exclaimed: “We must have order in the Court! What is all this whispering and commotion? The traditional forms and practices of law must be observed!”

  The green cone brightened slightly: “But, Your Lordships, tradition is just what is not being observed here. Tradition requires that equity, as well as law, determine the outcome of Your Lordships’ actions. Surely my client cannot be without remedy, as his memory loss hinders his and my ability to protect his interests with full and zealous effort! I am ready to download a precis of the 66,505 cases on the point of defendants suffering from memory redaction, and their rights and obligations under the law.”

  A certain section of the floor mosaic flowed with light, as strands of interlocking case law were reviewed. Rhadamanthus continued: “In all such cases the Court took steps to ensure that an equitable result was reached.”

  “The point is well taken. This Court will inform the Respondent of any pertinent details which bear on this case. In so doing, the Court does not indemnify the Respondent from further and future civil actions for breach of contract; the determinations of whatever Court shall sit on that issue are beyond our authority.”

  Gannis was scowling. The green cone seemed to wiggle smugly. Phaethon was convinced that, deep down, those motions were still somehow penguinlike.

  Phaethon said, “Your Lordships, how is this going to work? Am I suppose to ask you questions which Your Lordships will answer, or will the memories be made available to me in an edited form, or how?”

  The central cube said: “Submit your motion in the proper form, and we shall answer.”

  Phaethon nudged the side of the green cone with his foot, and hissed: “Quick, what is the proper form … ?”

  Gannis stepped forward and spoke up: “Your Lordships! I have another motion which I ask to make at this time. I submit that the Respondent’s attorney has no standing to appear before this Court. The Rhadamanthus Law-mind is a property of my client, Helion, who must use that same database for his legal matters. This creates a clear conflict of interest. Rhadamanthus cannot serve on both sides of the same case.”

  The green cone said: “Your Lordships, I have built a ‘Chinese Wall’ to block off those sections of my mind and memory to prevent any such impropriety …”

  Gannis was not finished: “ … and I further object that Rhadamanthus is himself the res of the case, as the contract controlling his ownership is a real and valuable property of the estate. Even assuming, arguendo, that Phaethon shall be the heir, since we all know what he plans to do with the money (should he prevail), and since we all know he is not going to be around for long, I submit that my client nonetheless has a contingent remainder interest in the estate, and the Respondent must be estopped from employing Rhadamanthus under the doctrine of waste!”

  Phaethon said impatiently: “Your Lordships! Can’t we have this ceremony take place in some language I understand?!”

  “Order. The penalties for contempt of Court may include any punishment the Court deems fit, provided they are not cruel and unusual.”

  “But I do not understand what is going on!”

  “It is not the business of this Court to educate you. Rhadamanthus, have you any argument to make as to why we should not grant the claimant’s motion … ? If not, we sustain the objection. The bailiff will take Rhadamanthus off-line.”

  And, just like that, Rhadamanthus was gone. Phaethon stood by himself on the dark floor.

  Gannis smiled with wide self-satisfaction.

  2.

  Phaethon was as alone as he had been in the grim little room where he had found his armor. No sense-filter was operating; there were no aids nor augments running in his memory. And while, theoretically, Silver-Gray protocol forbade the use of emotion-control programs, Phaethon tended to use some small glandular and parasympathetic regulators. But now, with that support gone, it was almost like being drunk. Despair and frustration raged within his brain, and he had no automatic way to turn those emotions off.

  Phaethon took a deep breath, righting for calmness. Everyone in the ancient world used to control themselves naturally, organically, without any cybernetic assistance. If they could do it, he could do it!

  The middle cube radiated: “The Court will now proceed to the examination. Does the Respondent wish to modify or amend any prior pleadings to this Court?”

  “Are you speaking to me?” asked Phaethon, trying to keep the exasperation out of his voice. “If you want to ask me something, you’re going to have to explain what’s going on!”

  The cube on the left said: “You will maintain order and decorum, or suffer penalty.”

  Gannis smiled like a shark, and said: “Perhaps the Respondent wishes to request more time to earn another fortune and hire another lawyer. We would not oppose a motion for a postponement.”

  A moment of blinding anger stabbed through Phaethon, surprising him.

  (And on the other hand, Phaethon reminded himself, the ancient world had been turbulent with war and crime and insanity, not once or twice but at all times. Maybe this self-control stuff was more difficult than it seemed.)

  Phaethon said to Gannis: “There will be no postponements.”

  He turned toward the Curia. “I meant no disrespect to Your Lordships. But you have deprived me of the attorney I was using to instruct me in your proper forms and rituals. You have agreed to tell me those things missing from my memory which I need to know to proceed in this case; yet you have not done so. Is this the fairness and justice for which the Curia is famous? I remind Your Lordships that what we do here today will be remembered not just for a century or a millennium but for all the rest of our lives. We, none of us, had better do anything for which the future will upbraid us.”

  Gannis’s smile faded as his face-program hid his expression once again.

  The cube on the right said: “Well said. We will inform you of the facts of the case. The matter is simple. You stand to—” (he used a word Phaethon did not know, some archaic legal expression) “—a very great deal of property and money, perhaps the largest estate ever passed along in human history. The result may change the social and economic relationships within the Golden Oecumene in a revolutionary fashion. Consequently, despite that these are rather routine matters, we seek to avoid even the appearance of irregularity. Therefore, the Curia exercises its right to invoke special jurisdiction, and we sit as a Probate Court, in o
rder to oversee the deposition and examination to determine your identity. This present hearing is to give you the opportunity to submit to a routine Noetic examination, and swear, under telepathic oath, that you are Phaethon Prime Rhadamanth. Do you have any questions?”

  “Yes. Who is giving me this fabulous fortune and why? If he wishes to give me this gift, why doesn’t this generous person, whoever it is, simply step forward and give it?”

  “He is dead.”

  Gannis said, “Objection! The Court’s statement is prejudicial. The finality of the death of the deceased is one of the facts at issue in this case!”

  The cube on the left said: “Overruled. We make no ruling.”

  The cube on the right said: “The death of the deceased is a matter of rebuttable presumption under these facts. He is dead until proven otherwise.”

  Phaethon said: “Your Lordships, was this man some historical figure, some Egyptian pharaoh or American president? I know that people like that from time to time established trust funds as a gift to be paid to the first person to do some great feat, fly a man-powered aircraft across the Atlantic, or something. But if this is the case, why are we in a Court of Law? Wouldn’t an archeologist or paleopsychologist be the best person to determine the original intent of this dead man?”

  “The death was recent.”

  Phaethon’s mind was momentarily blank. Recent? “Was it someone too poor to afford Noumenal Recording, or a primitivist who objected on metaphysical grounds to—”

  “Your sire, Helion, who created you, is the deceased.”

  For a moment, Phaethon believed it. For a moment, he could perfectly imagine the emptiness his life would hold if his sire were gone. Gone forever. He did not like his sire; often they argued. But there was nonetheless a bond and a love between them, like father and son, and a long history of engineering projects on which they both worked together. To picture the Rhadamanth Mansion, or even the Golden Oecumene, without the bright, brave figure of Helion as one of the society’s foremost leaders; it was impossible. It was like imagining the world were the sun did not come up. A sense of desolation crept across Phaethon’s flesh, and sank into his heart.

  But then, in the next moment, Phaethon smiled. “Oh, come now, Your Lordships! I saw Helion not two days ago. He was at the Ovations for the Silver-Gray; I saw him accept the award. We spoke before he went to Lemke’s operetta. You know the one, the clever way each auditor gets the memories of each of the characters not in order, so that they each see the same ending in nine different interpretations? It’s just the kind of funny old-fashioned thing he likes. And … and just this morning, Helion was on the by-channels. The Six Peers sent a contingent to honor him. I suppose it’s Seven Peers now. A Peerage! He has been working for that goal longer than I’ve been alive. That was this morning! You’re not going to take that away from him by pretending that he is dead! He is not dead! No one dies anymore! No one ever needs to die!”

  Phaethon’s voice had grown louder and shriller. But then, abruptly, he closed his mouth, and the muscles in his cheeks were clenched.

  There was a moment of silence in the chambers. None of the Curia upbraided him for his outburst. Gannis had turned his head away. Atkins’s grim demeanor did not change, even when a look of sympathy or pity softened his eyes.

  Phaethon stared at the floor, emotions boiling. He saw the tangled webs of law in the mosaic underfoot. Laws meant to protect the innocent. But even now, even in this day and age, there were things nothing could ward off.

  Phaethon said, “It was the solar disaster, wasn’t it?”

  The Court said: “The brief for the Respondent states, it is not contested, that when Helion beamed his brain information out from his body on the Solar Array to the Mercury Polar Station, the solar storms garbled the signal. Only part of his mind was recovered, enough to form a partial diary of those last events, but not enough to reconstruct his personality intact. The man whom you call Helion is actually a relic of Helion, who was recorded one hour before, as an automatic backup, when the storms first erupted from the core. The question before the Court is whether the relic has sufficient similarity to the prime version to form continuity of identity, and therefore to be considered the ‘same’ individual in the eyes of the law.”

  “So the only difference between the two versions is an hour? That’s ridiculous! The Helion who is alive now, the Helion Relic, must be indistinguishable from the original, Helion Prime!”

  Gannis said in a brash voice: “I would like the Curia to note that the opposing party admits and stipulates the continuity of identity between my client and Helion Prime.”

  The central cube radiated: “Phaethon is not under oath nor is he qualified to have such an opinion. We disregard the comment.”

  Phaethon looked back and forth between the Curia and Gannis, puzzled. “But what in the world is my claim to Helion’s fortune? Surely it is well established in the law that when a man’s body dies, his Noumenal Recording wakes up and takes over from where he left off.”

  Gannis said, “I would like the Court to note that the opposing party has just stipulated that he agrees with my client’s theory of the case!”

  “Phaethon was asking a question relating to his previous pleadings in this case which he does not recall. He is not under oath and is not testifying. We disregard the comment, and we require that you not waste the Court’s time with frivolous motions, Counselor. Is that clear?”

  Gannis muttered: “Abundantly clear, Your Lordships …”

  The central cube said to Phaethon: “In the earlier times, when the science of Noumenal Recording was not as developed as it now is, recordings were more expensive and were made less often.”

  The left cube said: “The seminal case of Kaino v. Sheshsession announced the standard. In that case, the defendant fell in love and was married for several years since his last Noumenal Recording, when he perished in a space-accident. When his relic woke from recording, the plaintiff requested that he take up the matrimonial obligations of his prior, and undergo emotional restructure to instill the missing passions into him. The standard announced was that if a reasonable Sophotech could not anticipate, based on deep-structure analysis of the prior, what the relic would do, then the relic was considered to have a different personality and be a separate individual. The changes must be basic and central to the philosophy, thought style, and core values of the personality, and not merely frivolous or surface changes.”

  The right cube said: “This holding was modified in Ao Xelepec Prime v. Kes Xelepec Secundus. In that case, a Neptunian Warlock made a Noumenal Recording, but then gave himself the brain structure of an Invariant. He then redacted a major section of his memory, woke the Warlock neuroform, and claimed that the Warlock relic was the real version of himself, and that he was no longer responsible for carrying out certain contracts and obligations he had previously made. His contention was denied, but the Noumenal Recording was emancipated as a separate and independent individual. The rule is that, if the change in personality since the last recording is so great that the relic no longer understands the thoughts or the motivations of the prior, then the relic is a separate individual in the eyes of the law. If, however, the change is within the range of what the relic might predictably undergo himself, continuity of individuality is presumed.”

  Phaethon said, “So, during that hour, the Helion who stayed behind on the station did something which the Helion here on Earth now cannot understand or appreciate?”

  “That is the claim you have put before this Court. You claim that, during that hour of emergency, Helion underwent a major epiphany or permanent change in personality. You have claimed that he is not the same man.”

  “But how would I, in any case, claim to own Helion’s property and estate?”

  “There are even older laws, laws dated from the time when death was a commonplace occurrence. Under these laws, if a man dies without a properly executed last will and testament, his estate passes to his heirs. Helion
Prime held the copyright on your gene sequence, and major sections of your personality and mind were constructed out of templates of his personality. The ancient law would regard you as his son, and therefore as his heir. Those laws have never been revoked; they still have force and effect.”

  Only at this point did Phaethon begin to realize the amount of wealth and property at stake. Helion owned the Solar Array. It was perhaps the single greatest engineering effort ever undertaken. Every person who benefited from the extension of the useful lifespan of the sun, or whose electronic or electromagnetic properties were saved from sunspot or solar flare damage, would owe Helion a debt of gratitude. And that included everyone in the entire Golden Oecumene. If everyone saved a few seconds or minutes of time-currency from their insurance premiums because of Helion’s actions, that money saved was owed to him. Spread over the billions who lived in the solar system, those few seconds per person equaled not just years but decades of computer time.

  It would be perhaps more wealth than anyone (except Orpheus Myriad Avernus) had ever controlled.

  Phaethon said, “I will submit to the examination.”

  “It is done. We hold the mental records open on our private channel for inspection by the Court. Do the counselors have any closing arguments to make before we rule on the legal sufficiency of Phaethon’s identity?”

  “Certainly!” said Gannis with some relish. “We notice the wide difference in behavior between Phaethon before and after the Lakshmi memory redactions. The way he lives and acts now is nothing like the way he lived and acted before. He goes to frivolous parties; he pursues no dangerous or socially unacceptable hobbies. Your Lordships! Observe how much time the old Phaethon spent on his one obsession! Years and centuries! He is different now. He is hardly the same person. Because (and here is the telling point) Your Lordships, the society of the Golden Oecumene would not accept him if they thought him the same as he was. He does not consider himself to be the same person.”