by John Wright
"And here, with this philosophy given me by my father, the courage given me by my wife, the technique given me by the Earthmind, and this great ship I have made myself, I have the tools and abilities and equipment I need to correct the delusion and madness and destruction which the Silent Oecumene has unleashed upon our peaceful society.
"Gentlemen, believe me! This is an engineering problem, a problem of applied logic! All the eventualities have been prepared for. I do not care how much smarter than I am this Nothing Machine might be: I have closed off every other avenue available, except the one which leads to my success. This plan cannot fail!" Phaethon saw that all the men around the table were staring at him as if he was doomed. Atkins said, "And what if it is not sane?" Phaethon saw no point in trying to answer that. It seemed so obvious to him, so clear. He merely compressed his lips, shook his head, a sad look in his eye. Atkins got up, looking grim and disgusted, and left without a further word. Diomedes said to himself, aloud, "Well. We've heard Phaethon say he knows where madness and delusion come from. I wonder where overweening pride comes from?" With a gentle smile, he excused himself, and wandered away.
Helion also got up, and he muttered to Daphne on a "side channel, "Anyone who thinks he has perfectly foreseen every possible eventuality has a lot to learn about the chaos at the heart of reality. I hope his lesson won't be as painful as mine has been. There is more at stake here than just one life."
But Daphne's eyes were shining with quiet pride. She believed every word Phaethon said. She answered Helion on a public line, so that Phaethon overheard her: "How can you doubt Phaethon's ability to build a flawless plan, one which leaves those who oppose him with no choice and no chance to defeat him? Haven't I just finished explaining that this was exactly what he did to you and your Hortators, Helion? None of you know him as I do. Watch and see what he does!"
NOTHING
Atkins stood alone within one of the wide corridors of the carousel, only a few miles from the bridge. The light was dim. The curving deck underfoot was paneled in an endless checkerboard of black thought boxes, all quiet as a mausoleum now, empty of any mind. The bulkheads to either side were crisscrossed with a tapestry of crystal cables and motionless leaves of dark purple glass, a type of technology or branch of science Atkins did not recognize. The carousel through which this corridor ran was at rest, and solar gravity made the local "down" not quite at right angles to the present deck underfoot. Because the deck curved, it seemed to Atkins as if he stood on the slope of a tall hill, a concave hill, whose slope grew greater the higher one climbed. Above him, the corridor rose, becoming vertical, then curving further to become ceiling, with inverted furniture and formations hanging head-downward overhead. Far below, in the distance, at the bottom of the slope, the deck was level, and he could see the glint and glimmer of some rapid activity, silvery nanomachines and diamond-glinting microbots swarming from one bulkhead to another, looking for all the world like a little stream of water babbling. Beyond this stream, the curve of the corridor rose again, like the opposite slope of a valley, narrowing with the distance, until it was blocked from sight by the curve of the overhead.
Because it reminded him of wilderness, because the ship was so unthinkably vast, so empty, Atkins felt alone.
He drew his soul dagger and spoke to the mind it housed: "Estimate the feasibility of seizing control of this ship. What are her defenses against an orchestrated mutiny?"
The dagger said, "Sir! Seizure by what party, how armed, and when?"
"By me. Right now. Before the lunatic owner flies the ship straight down into the hands of the enemy and turns her over to him."
"Sir! The thought-box ports have been jammed open. We, or anyone else, can insert any routines or mind information we wish without any fear of hindrance. Operating time will depend upon volume of information given. However, the system controls have been physically isolated from the ship mind, and every single connection (there are roughly four trillion circuits involved) would have to be reestablished into order to affect the operation of the environmental, configu-rational, drive, and navigational controls. More time would be required to reconnect secondary drives, tertiary drives, retrorailguns, communication hierarchies, internal system monitors, detection dishes, dynamic weight distribution, and balance controls, et cetera. The time involved is significantly greater than the useful lifespan of the ship, since each connection would have to be made by hand while the ships onboard systems attempted to dismantle it, and some of the main connections are behind adamantium hull armor, which would require the staff and equipment of the Jovian Equatorial Supercollider, as well as Gannis's staff and effort, to dismantle and repair. Sir! The project is not feasible."
"Make alternate suggestions." "Sir, yes, sir. Suggestion one: Mine the antimatter fuel cells to destroy all internal decks and quarters. Confront the pilot and threaten to destroy the ship unless he turns control of his armor over to you. This threat is not viable as it would destroy the workings of the vessel to be seized.
"Suggestion two: Threaten Daphne. Again, not a viable strategy, as there is a portable noetic reader aboard, easily capable of transmitting her noumenal brain information to any thought box aboard. Since none of the thought boxes are in operation at the moment, the number of hiding places for such backup copies in the case of Daphne's death far exceeds any search capacity. Of course, if you had the armor which contains the ship-mind hierarchy, you could find this hiding place easily, but that assumption defeats the purpose of the exercise.
"Suggestion three: Seize Phaethon in his armor, carry him to Jupiter, and have Gannis and his staff dismantle the armor with their supercollider. It should only take forty-two hours to dismantle the thinnest part of the armor plate beneath the supercollider's main beam, assuming Phaethon does not open the armor voluntarily, and does not move, resist, or struggle. "Suggestion four..." "Stop making suggestions." "Aye aye, sir."
"What about sabotaging the ship so that she cannot leave her present port, or disabling her to render her unable to tolerate the temperatures and pressures of the radiative layer of the sun?"
"Feasible. A sufficient charge of antimatter stolen from the fuel cells and delivered against the valves and back-pressure cylinders of any of the drive shafts would prevent the proper seal integrity needed for the ship to survive further descent, while not exposing the decks or internal structures to the solar plasma presently in the outside environment. The stealth remotes still aboard are in and among the ghost-particle array in the fuel bays, and could perform the theft and demolition in twenty minutes. Alternate suggestion: Have the stealth remotes destroy the ghost-particle array. Phaethon must rely upon the discharges of this array to pinpoint the position of the enemy vessel, or to use the array to form a scanning beam of some particle capable of penetrating the dense plasma of the solar core. With this array disabled, he will not be able to find the enemy. The stealth remotes could accomplish this sabotage within .05 second after your written order was recorded."
"Would he be able to repair the ghost-particle equipment?"
"Yes."
Atkins looked disappointed.
The knife continued: "Phaethon would have to make a voyage of ten thousand light-years to Cygnus X-l to find archeological records or reports on the technology involved. I strongly suspect such archeological evidence is available. This would enable him to repair the equipment. I estimate the voyage will take seventy years ship time and ten thousand years Earth time, one way."
Atkins looked up and down the corridor. Translucent indigo leaves glittered like glass. Endless black thought boxes stretched to the antihorizon overhead. Away underfoot, busy nanomachines gleamed and flowed like water.
She was a magnificent ship, truly. She should not be allowed to fall into the hands of the enemy, and grant the enemy its victory.
He had heard Phaethon's insane plan, based on the insane idea that moral codes were some sort of law of nature. The whole plan was based on the faith that any sufficiently logical
mind would reach the same conclusions about matters not of scientific fact, but about what was right and wrong.
Atkins knew that what was right and wrong was not written in stone. What was right and wrong were matters of policy, of expediency, of strategy. They were the tactics one used to win the struggle against the evils in life, against blind stupidity and relentless danger. Especially when everyone else was blind, and no one else cared to see the danger.
And tactics had to be flexible.
"Very well. Do it."
Daphne found Phaethon on the shining bridge, in his captain's chair. A fabric of white nanomaterial was draped around the shoulders of his gold-black armor, over one arm, and plugged into the floor. This cloak was making last-minute adjustments to the control hierarchies in the armor, and checking for any traces left behind in the now-vacant ship mind.
Phaethon was not wearing his helmet. He sat, leaning his chin on his hand, watching an image in an energy mirror, a faint smile of concentration on his lips.
Daphne spoke as she approached the throne, her voice echoing across the wide space: "Diomedes decided not to come. He's betrayed your trust in him."
He looked up from the mirror he was studying, and observed her.
She was wearing a version of Atkins's scale-mail, copied from the patterns in the bloodstains he had left on the auxiliary bridge. The chameleon circuit was tuned to a silvery gray hue, and the scale had been molded to fit her curved form, pinched in tightly at the waist. She carried a plumed helmet in the crook of her elbow. A low-slung web belt was draped around her rounded hips, flintlock dueling-pistol holsters swaying as she walked. In her other hand she held a naginata. (This was a short curve-bladed fighting staff traditionally used by the noble wives of Japanese samurai. It was hardly Victorian, British, Third Era, or Silver-Gray.)
As a decoration (or perhaps a feminine joke) she wore a cape made of the white silken sensory-web material Warlocks used in their sensual rituals. As she walked, the cape floated like rippling snow, the armor shimmered softly, jingling, sliding glints of light from thigh to thigh, and her heels clattered brightly at each footstep. The plume from her helmet bobbed behind her elbow at her motion, reaching almost to the deck.
She struck a wide-legged pose in front of Phaethon, grounding the butt of her pole-arm near her heel, raised her chin, assumed a regal expression, as fierce as a she-falcon about to fly. "Well?"
Daphne saw a look of easy and untroubled mirth in Phaethon's eye. He said, "Not coming? Diomedes is a fine fellow nonetheless. But he is, after all, a Neptunian. They don't have Sophotechs. Don't expect him to understand a plan which is founded on a faith in logic." She wondered why he looked so happy. She smiled to see a silver throne had been grown next to his gold one, draped in her heraldic colors. "What are we supposed to be? Jupiter and Juno?"
"I trust I will be truer to my wife that he was to his." He inclined his head, nodding to the right-hand throne. "Please."
She grinned and showed her dimples and hopped up into the seat, telling her pole-arm to stand upright nearby. "Nice. I could get used to this." She wiggled a bit on the seat and stretched like a kitten.
He watched her arch her back and looked at the play of light on her shapely limbs. He said, "Actually, Vulcan and Venus might be more apt."
"Not Minerva, me dressed this way?" She spent a moment tucking her hair into her helmet. "Besides, I thought he was lame."
"You must recall my sense of humor. That should count. Besides, you surely are my Venus."
She favored him with a little pout. "Well! Thanks a lot! As I recall, she cuckolded him, and slept with the war god."
Then she leaned forward. She saw a picture of Atkins in the mirror, speaking to his knife. When her eyes focused, a text of his dialogue appeared in the Middle Dreaming.
She said in shock, "What the hell does he think he's doing?"
Phaethon said softly, "The same thing Mars did to Vulcan in the myth. He's trying to steal my bride."
She looked at Phaethon in amazement. "And you're just sitting here? Haven't you done something? He's about to sabotage the expedition!"
"He has no chance of success. The weapon I intend to use against the Nothing Machine will also work against him. Watch."
"Very well. Do it."
The knife replied, "Sir, please record the order in writing, before I carry it out"
"What-?"
"Any subordinate may request an order be given in writing, and a true copy recorded and notarized under seal, in circumstances such as these, sir. Please see the Received Universal Code of Military Procedure Systems and Program Manual at-" and it recited a section and code number.
Atkins understood. The only time, really, a subordinate would ask for a notarized copy of an order would be to preserve a copy as evidence for an Inquest hearing. No subordinate would dare to make that request if the order were lawful.
Atkins had, after all, been directly ordered by Prime Minister Kshatrimanyu Han, his commander-in-chief, to cooperate with Phaethon, not to sabotage him.
He said, "You think I'm afraid of a court-martial, is that it? Don't make me laugh."
"Sir, is the Marshal-General asking me to speculate about the Marshal-General's state of mind, sir?"
"Well, I am not going to sit here and fret about my career (ha! if you can call it a career) while an idealistic fool is planning to give the enemy control of the only invulnerable warship in the Oecumene. Don't you think I'm willing to sacrifice my career to do what I know is right?"
"Sir, is the Marshal-General asking me to estimate the Marshal-General's ability to distinguish proper from improper conduct, or to comment upon the Marshal-General's bravery, Sir? I do not think the Marshal-General is afraid of a court-martial in and of itself, sir."
" 'In and of itself ? What the hell does that mean?"
But he knew what it meant. A court-martial as such did not awe him. But what the court-martial represented, did. It represented a human attempt to enforce and to protect those values for which soldiers lived and died: honor, courage, fortitude, obedience.
He looked at the dagger in his hand. In the pommel was imprinted the insignia of the Foederal Oecumenical Commonwealth: a sword bound into its sheath by the windings of an olive wreath. Within the circle of that wreath, a watchful eye. The motto: Semper Vigilantes. Eternal Vigilance.
The eye seemed to stare back at him remorselessly. Honor. Courage. Fortitude. Obedience.
He said aloud, "I was born in the drylands, back when Mars was still red, on the slope of Olympus Mons, and my father was killed by a warren breaker who drilled into our run for our ice. My father's two clones were my uncles, and twins. They all used the same passes and prints, because Mars, in those days, was controlled by the fiefs, who would rather be safe than be free, and they metered our water, and IQ and air, and they tried to keep track of everyone, everywhere. But we were Icemen. We lived by the pump and the pike. And we didn't bother to obey any regs we didn't like. The fiefs were Logicians, what we now call Invariants, but we just called them the Un-dead.
"The plan was that Uncle Kassad would lie down in the coffin they sent for my dad, and take a retarder, and pass himself off for dead, till he got out of monitor range in the grave stream. Then he would wake up, dissolve his way to the surface, and set off south after the warren breaker. He had his filter pike with him, folded on his chest like a spear, which he was going to use to pierce the breaker's dry suit to pump out his blood and filter the moisture, till he got a volume equal to what we had lost from our ice.
"The Sophotechs, way back then, we all thought they were gods, and no one understood them, or tried. But I was studying for a wardenship, and was a cadet, and I believed what the Sophotechs preached, so I told my uncle that he was wrong. Wrong, because the breaker came from the garden belt the Irenic Composition controlled; wrong, because the breaker probably wasn't aware of what he had done; it wasn't a man, just a part of a mass-mind, a cog in a mob. Wrong, because the Undead police had alre
ady ruled the death an accident, and paid the insurance.
'He showed me his pike, and pointed the field spike at my eye, so I could see down the bore to the extraction cell. And I sweated (even though sweat was a waste under our water laws) because I knew how quickly, if he touched the trigger, the field could suck op the moisture in the tissues of my eye, my veins, my brains. I was looking right at death.
"And Uncle Kassad, he told me that this was where right and wrong came from. It came from a weapon's mouth.
"Then he turned off his heart and lay down. And Uncle Kassim opened the floor, and we lowered Uncle Kassad to the sewage to drown.
"We only got one cast from him later, a silent picture of him in his suit, emerging safe from the disassembler pools, and heading off overland, south.
"Later, we got the liters of water, the death payment, sent by post. It was the moisture from the body of the one who had killed my father. But it was sent by the Irenic Composition, our enemies. After Kassad killed their breaker, they took and embraced him, and drained his mind into theirs.
"My half-sister once, years later, after the Commonwealth consolidations, said she saw a body which looked like my uncle, tending a tree in the plantations down south. She said he looked happy. But I never went to look.
"Maybe the Irenic Composition, back when it was still intact, thought it was as right, as justified, as Uncle Kassad thought he was, and repaid the murder of one of their human units by turning him into one, and forcing a life of hopeless bliss on him. But I never went to ask.
"But I learned, back then, that there was no such thing as right or wrong, not that anyone could agree upon; or if there was, it did not make a damn bit of difference, if someone did not have the might or wit or luck to make right things go right. My uncle Kassad told me. Right and wrong come from the mouth of a weapon."
The weapon Atkins carried spoke, and it said, "Sir? Permission to speak frankly?"
"Granted."
