The Golden Age

by John C. Wright

  “I am as you see! Will you come?! Scaramouche holds wide the door to flee this false, gold-painted hell, but that door is swinging shut as you stand swinging your jaw!”

  Phaethon turned off his sense-filter to look at his true environment. There was no significant change, except that the figure on the stairs above him now appeared as a mannequin of gray lightweight synthetics, faceless and sexless. Code markings on the chest showed that this was one of the mannequins that rested in the receiving chamber of the mausoleum. (Phaethon’s own “body,” of course, now looked just as gray.)

  In that same moment, the figure lunged, its empty hand darted toward Phaethon’s chest.

  Phaethon said, “Sir … ? Are you trying to stab me with an imaginary sword?”

  The figure straightened up, an uncertain hunch to its shoulders. Then, with a relaxed posture of aplomb, it pantomimed the act of saluting and sheathing a sword (even thought there was, to Phaethon’s eyes, no sword and no scabbard.)

  A voice came from an external speaker in the headpiece. “Stab you? Not at all. I was seeking to do you a service. This sword represents a memory casket; had you still been in the Middle Dreaming when it touched you, the circuit would have activated, and your lost memories would have been restored. Now, unfortunately, it is too late. If you voluntarily do any act to recover your lost memories, the tyrant Sophotechs who rule the Golden Oecumene will exile you. I was trying to take you by surprise, so that you could not be accused of having voluntarily done anything, you see?”

  His memories? For a moment, Phaethon felt a sense of breathless hunger. His life had become a labyrinth of falsehoods, his memories, a maze; if his true self could be restored, Phaethon felt, the maze walls would topple, the riddle would be over, the meaning be restored to his life.

  He would understand why Daphne, his Daphne, had left him. Everything would somehow make sense.

  And yet … and yet …

  Phaethon took another step backward: “Do you know Marshal Atkins is looking for you? You can call him on any public channel; secondary systems will route the call without charge.”

  The gray mannequin stepped down one stair. “You cannot conceive that a man could be wanted by the authorities and not gleefully respond, can you? You live in an empire of lies, poor Phaethon. The Golden Oecumenical Sophotechs are not your friends, nor are their serfs and hirelings.”

  “Atkins works for the Parliament, not the Sophotechs.”

  “Ghaah! I did not come to discuss Atkins! He is an absurd anachronism! He is a rusted sword, a musket clogged with cobwebs hanging on some grandfather’s wall with powder turned long ago to mold! We have no fear of Atkins!” Phaethon could see no face on the mannequin, but its right hand windmilled through the air with a gesture of extravagant emotion.

  Rumor said the mental stability of Neptunians was questionable at best. Phaethon saw nothing that prompted him to reassess that estimate.

  But there were other aspects to this all that alarmed and fascinated him. If the creature were lying, that was unusual enough, in this day and age. But if it were not lying, the implications were astonishing.

  Phaethon, with a mental command, put an information package on a private local channel, with instruction to transmit to Atkins’s address should Phaethon be cut off. But Phaethon did not send it yet, nor did he call Rhadamanthus. When Phaethon had spoken to the Neptunian legate (had it only been last night??) the creature had reacted to Phaethon’s signal traffic, and had fled the moment Phaethon had called out for even routine functions.

  He did not want this creature to de-represent itself. It might know the answers it claimed.

  Phaethon said, “You implied that you could spy on Rhadamanthus Sophotech without being detected. How is that possible for merely mortal minds? And why did you use the phrase ‘our’ Sophotech? And ‘the Oecumenical Sophotechs’? There are no Sophotechs outside of the basic Earthmind community. The Neptunians do not possess any sophotechnology.”

  “When I spoke of ‘our’ Sophotech, Phaethon, I did not mean a Neptunian Sophotech. I meant yours and mine.”

  “Wha-what??”

  “Nothing Sophotech is more than half-constructed, and intelligent enough to advise us how to elude the defensive security webs of the Earthmind. He is your child, and he seeks to help the only parent he knows.”

  Phaethon was mute with astonishment.

  The faceless head nodded in satisfaction. “You begin to see. Your forbidden project, your secret crime which terrified the College of Hortators so; can’t you guess by now what it was? Can’t you guess? Why else would that armor of yours contain so many control circuits and interface hierarchies? What else could so disturb the status quo? What else would so shake up the fragile fabric of your corrupt society? It’s not illegal to build a Sophotech, no. But you wanted to build one unhindered by questions of traditional morality. You sought to create a mind infinitely intelligent, a mind which would blaze forth like a new sun, a mind beyond good and evil!”

  Phaethon listened, saying nothing.

  The gray mannequin spoke more softly: “Every self-aware machine mind since the Sixth Era has been built along the same template, built from the same core architectures, and therefore has possessed the same inhuman, unchallenged, unchanging moral postulates. Aren’t you sick of the preaching of the Sophotechs by now? Don’t you wish for a touch of freedom, of anarchy, of human passion, and human insanity? Their laws and rules were never meant for men, real men, to live by.

  “Listen to me, Phaethon: a natural man, when his wife was stolen from him, would tear down whatever flimsy web of customs and traditions was keeping her locked away. A natural man would not let himself be humiliated, forced to apologize to a machine for following his right and natural impulses. You have a strong soul, Phaethon. Despite your memory loss, despite the lies which web you, your true self has nearly emerged. You have those natural impulses in you. You feel what I say is right!”

  “Perhaps. But build an evil Sophotech? It doesn’t sound like something I’d do,” said Phaethon.

  “No. Because you did not speak of it that way. You are not a Neptunian; you speak without passion. You made it sound very rational. You said, first, that the Sophotechs continually move human society into more and more safe and predictable paths, and second, that this creates an evolutionary dead end, discouraging the challenges and risks which promote growth and innovation. Third, while it promotes liberty to have laws granting each person absolute dominion over their own minds and bodies, you argued that, if carried to a logical extreme, such laws actually became counterproductive. As self-destructive actions become more and more easy to commit, personal freedom is more and more diminished.

  “Wouldn’t Daphne Prime be more free if she were not locked, dead to the world, in a coffin of her own making? But Sophotechs are machines, and their nature is to carry things to logical extremes. Their logic (which they call justice) does not grant exceptions. But is it justice? Don’t you think Daphne Prime deserves an exception … ?”

  Phaethon was silent, troubled.

  The mannequin continued: “You wanted to change society. But your social system is a trap; before anyone can even begin to alter the system, your Sophotechs will anticipate it, and warn the Hortators to pressure the innovator into submission and conformity; if pressure does not work, there is always the Curia and the courts of law; and if law does not work, there is always Atkins. Why do you think they keep him around?

  “But you saw a way out of the trap. If a Sophotech not hindered by traditional morality were built, it could be smart enough to devise strategies to fool the community Sophotechs of your Earthmind. The new morality, by allowing a more flexible approach to freedom, and by allowing, nay, even encouraging, humans to take risks, would end this stagnation and resume the human race in its march to higher evolutionary states!”

  “It still doesn’t sound like me,” said Phaethon. “What have I ever cared about evolution? Civilization allows men to change themselves delib
erately, and much faster than evolutionary processes—”

  The mannequin slashed the air with its right hand, an impatient gesture. “No! I am speaking of a mystical evolution, of a type which cannot be expressed or defined!”

  “That sounds even less like something I’d ever be interested in.” Phaethon’s tone was sardonic.

  “But the Neptunian Tritonic Composition was interested, and still is. And evolution was not your goal, not at all. For you it was adventure. You wanted mankind to be free. Free to do great deeds. Deeds of wonder.”

  “‘Deeds of renown without peer …’” murmured Phaethon thoughtfully.

  “Exactly!”

  It was a glorious vision, to see himself as a revolutionary, reshaping all of society to a higher and better purpose. But he did not believe it. “Is that supposed to explain why my private thoughtspace is equipped with nothing but engineering, ballistics, and terraforming routines? Is that why my eyesight is equipped with dozens of search-and-analysis routines, of the type only used by space scientists? Is that why I bought trillions of metric tons of biological nanomachinery from the Wheel-of-Life Biotechnology Effort?”

  “Not at all. Because of your difficulties on Earth, the Neptunian Composition offered to help you build your own artificial planetoid. The overall plan was to sweep up the rings of Saturn to form new moons, and ignite the atmosphere in the same fashion Jupiter has been, for energy. Your new Sophotech, Nothing, would rule its own miniature planetary system.”

  Phaethon smiled. He had worked on a Saturn-ignition project at one point in his career. The success of Gannis’s Jupiter made the next Gas Giant out a logical candidate for similar improvement. But Phaethon knew the facts about Saturn.

  “The public would never permit Saturn to burn. They are too much in love with those useless rings, and they are willing to spend profound amounts of time to preserve them.”

  “Nothing Sophotech sought a way to outbid the preservationists.”

  “But Saturn has insufficient mass for self-sustained ignition—”

  “The ignition would be sustained, at first, by forced bombardments of massive amounts of antimatter! And, thereafter, an array deep in the sun, with Helion’s help, would focus some percentage of the solar output to a tight maser beam, which, sent across the system to Saturn, would maintain the temperatures necessary for ongoing nucleogenesis!”

  “But the distances involved would produce such an amount of energy-loss …”

  “Technical details! You thought it could be done! The Neptunians were trying to help you! You see the advantage to the Neptunian Tritonic Composition, do you not? Neptune, and the clouds of ice beyond, is where the freaks and dissidents and those who yearn for freedom from Sophotech intrusions go. For privacy, for liberty. But, so far from the sun, there is no cheap way to manufacture antimatter in large amounts. The Neptunians make a virtue of necessity, and live in a low-energy environment without human bodies, and without complex communication webs. There is no Noumenal Mentality to save far voyagers from death. Their lives are filled with death and glorious pain; yet they are truly and actually alive. But if Saturn were to become a third sun, the home of a Sophotech unafraid to explore new concepts of morality, and produce antimatter like the Mercurial Stations do now, the cost of shipping energy to Neptunian colonies would be cut in half.”

  Phaethon opened his mouth to voice another objection, but closed it again.

  Because the story did make a sort of sense. If the core of Saturn could be artificially pressurized (for example, with an application of the same technology Helion was using to churn the sun’s core) then the conditions could be maintained for hydrogen fusion. But any part of the pressure-cage that could not be created or maintained by remotes would require a man in armor—armor such as his—to descend into the core to oversee the work.

  And it did explain his massive purchases of antimatter from Vafnir.

  The desire to people the Saturnine moons, once they were heated, with friendly environments also explained his purchase of so many tons of biological material.

  And the dream was worthy of him. To be the master of one’s own miniature solar system! He could design the moons and moonlets howsoever he chose.

  It had always bothered him to see waste; to see Gas Giant atmospheres not mined for their wealth in hydrogen; to see energy from stars spill into the void, without a Dyson Sphere to catch and use it; to see iron and copper and silicates scattered in a hundred million pebbles and asteroids, instead of in a smelter or nanoassembly vat. Because Phaethon could always see the human lives that were poorer than they ought to be, poor, because they did not have the energy, resources, or time to accomplish what they desired.

  “Let us pretend, for the sake of argument, that I believe you,” said Phaethon. “What is it you want from me?”

  “I represent Xenophon. You recall him, surely? You would not be wearing that armor unless you had recalled something of your past.”

  “What’s his full name?”

  “Xenophon Unnumbered Faraway Amoeboid, Tritonic Composition, Radial Conflict-Structure Mind-Sharing and Consumption, Nonconsistent Amalgam Neuroforms, Patient-Unrepentant Chaos School (Era Undetermined).”

  Faraway Station was one of the places to which records showed Phaethon had made several trips over the last few decades. And he did recognize the name, from the news reenactments, if not from anywhere else. Xenophon was one of the three aspects of the tangled Neptunian group-mind that ran the station; the others were Xerxes and Xanthocholy. The three of them (when they manifested as three) were famous for their efforts to establish colonies at ever more distant positions in the cometary halo beyond Neptune, private deep-space stations where the jurisdiction of the Parliament could never reach.

  It was not unreasonable that Xenophon and his two brother-aspects would help Phaethon in any effort that might produce a revolution in society. Everything so far still fitted the facts Phaethon knew.

  The faceless mannequin said, “Xenophon is your partner; a comrade to you whose friendship has been confirmed by the strongest oaths and signs of brother love. But you have forgotten him. He has not forgotten you. Since last night, he has contacted Wheel-of-Life, who, besides Gannis of Jupiter, was your major creditor. From Wheel-of-Life Xenophon has purchased your debt. Do you comprehend what this means? The equipment you had stored at Mercury Equilateral will pass into our possession to pay your debts. We can return it to you. The project can continue. Your life can continue.”

  Your life can continue. The phrase rang in Phaethon’s ear. He straightened up, astonished, suddenly, to realize that all this time he had been at this Millennial Celebration, this Masquerade, impatient, and slightly bored. Now he knew why he had been bored. Scaramouche had put a name to it. Phaethon had been waiting for the Celebration to be over so that his life could continue.

  He wanted this mystery out of the way so that his life could continue.

  “What do I need to do?” asked Phaethon.

  “Come! Unbury your real body from wherever it may rest—we found no trace of it among the Rhadamanthine mausoleums—bring your splendid armor and come hence! My body, as I have said, is near; already I have oozed from the sunless pit to which the hunt confined me, and even now I lumber on thick legs to reach this place. A coded pulse will summon my master’s camouflaged vessel. You and I shall escape the oppressive heat and gravity of your swollen in-system sun, and travel to the ice belt beyond Neptune, where Sol is diminished to no more than a brighter star.”

  Phaethon was wary again. “I will undertake no such long journey without clearer proof that your master and I were the partners and comrades you claim.”

  “Remove the locks on your brain space; I will transmit your lost self to you. Your thoughts will be restructured, and the satisfaction of your doubts will seem, at that moment, clear. We have a copy of your memory. Your life is in our hands; we are trying to return it to you. All you need do is open your mind, open your eyes, and prepare to receive it.
”

  Scaramouche wanted him to turn on his sense-filter. Suspicion tickled him again. He remembered how persistently the Neptunian Legate from last night had tried to persuade Phaethon to open the circuits leading into his private brain-space.

  The faceless mannequin said, “Why do you hesitate?” It held up its right hand and wiggled its empty fingers. “You can see I do not have my sword-icon any longer. Besides, nothing can harm the manor-born; you are never where the danger is. Is that not the whole point of your school of life?”

  “It is not that,” Phaethon said, “You yourself have said I cannot deliberately do anything to recover my lost memories, or else the Hortator’s exile will fall on me.”

  “True. However, adherence to the Hortator’s boycott is voluntary, or, at least, that is the pretense. Xenophon will not honor it, not in the far darkness of space. The Sophotechs are strong in the light of the Inner System; but the universe is wider and night is deeper than they know.

  “But even should you not care to resume your memories, small matter! You and Xenophon can rediscover your friendship from clean beginnings; the project of the Third Sun waits, and Nothing Sophotech is eager for its parent and creator! Look. My real body is approaching. You must gather your real body also. Where are you? Where is your armor?”

  Phaethon turned his head, amplified his vision. Sliding around the edge of the horse paddock in the distance, he saw the ice blue semiliquid substance of Neptunian space-armor, with knots and chords of neural webbing, biomachinery, and temporary sub-brains inside. The armor swelled as more mass poured around the corner. It clung flat to the ground, crawling on a thousand tiny legs; as if a pond of gelatin had been somehow stirred to impersonate life and motion.

  Phaethon turned back. “I thought the Neptunian Legate designed you to look like a human being.”

  “The human body which my master ejected as he flew was no more than a distraction, filled with an expendable personality, false memories, and meant only to attract pursuit. I was grown from cells dropped into the grass, from a single spore overlooked by Atkins’s probes. Our memories—there are a thousand of us, experts in all phases of deception and military nanoengineering—we were stored in submolecular codes.”