A man in a Harlequin costume and black half-mask looks back over his shoulder on the steps of a golden palace-city at night, under an enormous silver moon.
The hundred-and-first night of the Millennial Celebration: Phaethon, masked as Harlequin, slips away from the party.

The Golden Oecumene · Book I · 2002

The Golden Age

At the masquerade that ends a millennium, a man who seems to have everything in a deathless utopia learns that he agreed to forget the greatest work of his life.

The Golden Age (Tor, April 2002) is John C. Wright’s first novel and the first volume of the Golden Oecumene, subtitled A Romance of the Far Future. Ten thousand years into a new era, the Solar System is one gilded civilisation: minds are recorded and restored, bodies are costumes, machine intelligences called Sophotechs do the thinking, and no one needs to die. Nearly everyone is rich, and on the eve of a Transcendence held once a millennium, everyone is at the party.

It is Phaethon’s story. Masked as Harlequin at the Millennial masquerade, he learns that he once agreed to forget two hundred and fifty years of his own life, and spends the book trying to work out what he did without opening the box that holds it. The amnesia mystery becomes a probate trial, then a reunion with a starship, then an exile. In a society that will not use force against a peaceful man, the harshest penalty left is to be shunned, and Wright makes that feel like a death sentence.

The book stops mid-story. Publishers Weekly called it the first half of a two-volume saga, and The Phoenix Exultant (2003) follows Phaethon into exile.

Part 1

The Masquerade

“It was a time of masquerade.” The whole Golden Oecumene, from energy-beings in the Sun’s magnetosphere to Cold Dukes from beyond Neptune, has gathered in costume at the Aurelian palace-city on Old Earth for the Millennial Celebration, under a silver moon covered in cities. On the hundred-and-first night Phaethon Prime of Rhadamanth, bored by the dull futures he is judging, leaves a backup copy of himself in his place and slips out as Harlequin.

In a grove whose flowers follow Saturn as if it were a sun, an old man who refuses every brain modification will not believe that Phaethon is Phaethon: the real one wears black and gold, is not welcome at parties, and ought to be ashamed. He deletes his grove from Phaethon’s senses. Lowering his sense-filter for a moment, Phaethon glimpses something huge by the grape-trellises, and in the filter’s settings finds three blocks he does not remember ordering: on an ecoperformance at Destiny Lake, on the visiting Neptunians, and on a solar disaster near Mercury. Up the slope comes a Neptunian, a walking iceberg of living armour with brains afloat inside, which tells him through a translator that he has forgotten his great dream and his comrades and must come to Neptune at once. He refuses. It flees, promising a messenger when he is ready, drops a body costumed as Scaramouche in a cocoon as it rises, and taunts him about his name, taken from a demigod who set the world on fire.

Elsewhere in the palace, seen through Helion’s many-channelled mind, the Peers meet. Helion, Phaethon’s sire and the newest Peer, whose legal continuity of identity is still in question, proposes to stop history and freeze society at its golden peak, with the Peers’ wealth behind the College of Hortators, the Oecumene’s private moral persuaders. Orpheus, the eldest, hints at trouble in Helion’s own household. In the end the Peers agree.

In the garden Atkins, the Oecumene’s last and only soldier, sweeps the grass for viruses, reads Phaethon’s masked files without a warrant and orders him off. An Avatar of the Earthmind, the mind of all Earth’s machines, tells Phaethon his memories are stored, not destroyed, and gives him flight. He floats all night, listening to the radio of the Solar System out to 500 AU, and then to silence. Rhadamanthus, his mansion’s mind, joins him as a flying penguin: the amnesia was voluntary, and opening the memories would get him thrown out. As the ignited Jupiter rises like a second sun, Phaethon drops his wine and turns his costume from Harlequin to Hamlet, ready to be shut out of the party; the cost, Rhadamanthus corrects him, is exile from his home.

Using his filter as a map of what he must not see, he finds Destiny Lake, a crater fifty miles across on an artificial mountain, where the ecoperformance plays out a parable: the tallest coral-tree of micro-life grows too ambitious and collapses. One guest is costumed as Phaethon. Helion secretly sends a message to wake Daphne, the woman Phaethon believes is his wife, and set her to distract him. An astronomer tells Phaethon how Helion rode the solar storm until he broke its back and was made a Peer for it, and calls Helion’s son a madman. Phaethon sinks into a staging pool and walks in dreamspace to his mansion’s door.

In a moonlit grove of black-barked, mirror-leaved trees, an old white-bearded man on a mossy rock waves his walking stick at a man in a Harlequin costume who holds his mask in his hand.

I · 1 The Saturn Grove Bored by the dull futures he is judging, Phaethon leaves a copy of himself at the party and wanders as Harlequin into a grove whose flowers follow Saturn as if it were a sun. Its maker, a Purist who wears no sense-filter, will not believe that this man is Phaethon: the real one dresses in black and gold, and should be ashamed to be seen at such a festival. Then he deletes his grove from Phaethon’s senses.

A man in a Harlequin costume looks up over his shoulder at a towering, translucent ice-blue creature like a walking iceberg, with glowing brains inside, beside moonlit vines.

I · 2 The Neptunian Lowering his sense-filter, Phaethon glimpses a visitor he was not meant to see, and in the filter’s settings finds three blocks he never knowingly ordered. Up the slope comes a Neptunian legate, a walking iceberg of living armour with brains afloat inside. Through a translator it says he has forgotten his great dream and his comrades, and must come to Neptune now. When he refuses, it flees with a parting barb: “You named yourself for a demigod whose ambition burned a world.”

In an oak-panelled library at night, a man robed in imperial purple with a rayed white diadem stands addressing a table where a black-bearded crowned man with eagles, a pale young man in a high black cape and a woman on a throne of flowers sit beneath a pillar of fire.

I · 3 The Seven Peers Elsewhere in the palace, seen through Helion’s many-channelled mind, the Peers, the greatest fortunes the Oecumene holds outside its machines, confer in an oak-panelled library. Helion, the newest Peer, dressed as a Byzantine emperor, asks them to freeze society at its golden peak and put their wealth behind the College of Hortators: “My Peers, history must be called to an end!” Orpheus hints at trouble in Helion’s own household; Gannis jokes that Helion has Phaethon well under control.

On a lawn among silver-leaved trees, strewn with small black probing spheres, a plain-faced, short-haired man in black power armour with a ring of black scales hovering above his head faces an indignant man in a black, white and gold Harlequin costume.

I · 4 The Last Soldier Black spheres sweep the lawn where the Neptunian stood, hunting an unknown machine-intelligence and artificial viruses in the grass. They belong to Atkins, the Oecumene’s last and only soldier, whom Phaethon thought long retired. Atkins reads Phaethon’s masked files without a warrant, pronounces him clean, and tells him to leave. In a society that has forgotten force, the rudeness alone outrages him.

A very tall, winged, queenly woman in emerald green, ringed by floating lights and holding a blossoming wand, comes down a moonlit lawn while a man in black armour salutes with an upright sword and a Harlequin bows.

I · 5 The Avatar of the Earthmind The mind of all Earth’s machines sends an Avatar down the slope. Atkins salutes with his katana, then cuts his own palm to blood the blade before sheathing it. She tells Phaethon that his old memories are in storage, not destroyed, though whether to take them back she will not advise. Then she kisses his forehead and gives him the gift of flight, a sign that the machine minds bear him no unkindness.

High above a golden palace-city at dawn, a man in black Elizabethan clothes stands in mid-air letting a crystal goblet fall, beside a flying penguin in goggles and a long white scarf, with a second small sun rising in the east.

I · 6 Dawn over Aurelian All night Phaethon floats above the gardens, listening to the radio of the Solar System out to the last observatory at 500 AU, and then to nothing. Rhadamanthus, his mansion’s mind, joins him as a flying penguin and admits the amnesia was voluntary; the memories wait at home. As the ignited Jupiter rises like a second sun, Phaethon drops his wine and turns his costume from Harlequin to Hamlet, ready to be shut out of the party. The real cost, Rhadamanthus warns, is exile.

By a vast steaming lake where glowing coral-like trees grow under the boiling water, a man in black Elizabethan clothes looks down at a skull in his hand beside a portly courtier in white, purple and rose.

I · 7 Destiny Lake Using his own sense-filter as a map of what he must not see, Phaethon finds Destiny Lake, a crater fifty miles across on an artificial mountain. Its ecoperformance is a parable aimed at him: the tallest coral-tree of micro-life grows too ambitious and crashes. Rhadamanthus, dressed as Polonius, hands Hamlet a skull; another guest is costumed as Phaethon; an astronomer tells him that Helion rode a solar storm until he broke its back.

Part 2

The Casket and the Curia

In the Victorian Chamber of Memories he holds the casket, whose gold-lettered lid tells him to open it only if he loves truth more than happiness. Rhadamanthus, now a mutton-chopped butler, says he was in many ways a better man before. Daphne bursts in dressed as a warlock sage and begs him to put it down: he sold everything, she tells him, and they live on Helion’s charity. He finds a gap of two hundred and fifty years in his memory, and cannot say why they have no children.

He logs off and wakes, for the first time in the book, in his real body, in a medical coffin in a cheap, grimy room on a space-elevator tower. From clues he reasons out a past: his last clear memory is his second plan to dismantle Saturn defeated, and in the wardrobe hangs the black and gold the old man spoke of, a suit of living nanomachines and gold chrysadamantium that will not open for him. His accounts show vast purchases from Gannis of Jupiter and Vafnir of Mercury, and an advocate-mind, Monomachos, built to out-think the Hortators. So there was an inquiry, and the amnesia was his bargain.

Over tea in the mansion’s Edwardian garden, Daphne argues that truth is only signals in the brain; he answers that a past self who chose to forget must have trusted his future self to dig it out. Then: “But I fear we are not married, my husband.” She is the false thing, she says. She offers him her diary, hoping he will refuse; he trades his own for it and pockets it unread.

Summoned by the Curia, the one court, to appear in person, he lets Rhadamanthus open the armour, which flows over him like a second skin, and flies up the elevator shaft at nine gravities to the ring-city that circles the equator. In the antechamber Gannis, acting for Helion, accuses him of breaking the memory agreements made at Lakshmi, on Venus, and Phaethon bluffs him into blurting that his client disavows everything that happened on the Solar Array.

The Curia, three black cubes crowned with gold, has Rhadamanthus removed and explains the case. Helion Prime died in the solar storm; the living Helion is a relic recorded an hour earlier; before his amnesia, Phaethon sued to prove the relic a different man, which would make him heir to the Solar Array. His own hired mind, Monomachos, arrives with forty-five seconds of paid thought left and asks one question: win the case, or serve the goals of the man he was? Phaethon chooses the goals. Monomachos trades a ninety-day postponement for the forgiveness of his debts to Gannis, files the old Phaethon’s will naming the new one heir, tells him to keep the box shut for ninety days, and leaves, saying he detests him. Outside, a mob slips Phaethon a black card bearing the word NOTHING. In an Eleemosynary hospice on the ring, he opens Daphne’s diary.

In a Victorian study lined with shelves of small sealed caskets, a man in black holds a small dark casket and stares out of diamond-paned windows at red mountains at dusk, while a portly whiskered butler waits in the doorway.

I · 8 The Chamber of Memories In the Victorian dreamspace of Rhadamanth Mansion, Phaethon holds the casket of his own forbidden memories. Its lid reads, in part, “If you love truth more than happiness, then open; otherwise, let rest.” The mansion, now a butler, tells him that in many ways he was a better man before, and that it was something other than happiness he sought. The question the whole book asks is already in his hand.

A dark-haired, green-eyed woman in a long black coat with a lace collar, holding a mask on a handle, stands in the doorway of a Victorian chamber of shelves and small caskets, facing a man in black who holds a small casket in both hands.

I · 9 Drop the Box Daphne, the woman he believes is his wife, bursts in dressed as Ao Enwir the Delusionist, a warlock sage, and begs him to put the box down. She tells him he has no holdings: he sold everything, and they live on Helion’s charity. Phaethon finds a gap of two hundred and fifty years in his memory, and cannot say why they have no children. He freezes the scene to think. Many chapters later, her diary will end at this door.

In a small grimy room with an open medical coffin and a crude crystal glued to the ceiling, a man wrapped in white silk sits on a balcony looking at a thin silver ring arching across the sky above the Earth.

I · 10 The Real Room Logging off, Phaethon wakes in his real body for the first time in the book, in a medical coffin in a small, grimy, cheap room on a space-elevator tower. The floor will not obey him, and he must speak his orders aloud. From clues he reasons out a hidden past: his Saturn plan defeated, journeys to Jupiter, Neptune and Faraway, a Hortator inquiry, and an amnesia that was his bargain with it.

At a tea table in a sunny rose garden, a dark-haired woman in a burgundy Edwardian dress and straw hat holds her hat against the wind while a man in a black frock-coat watches her gravely, a small pastel diary between them.

I · 11 Tea in the Garden Over tea in the mansion’s Edwardian garden, Daphne argues that truth is nothing at all: “There are only signals in your brain.” Phaethon answers that a past self who chose to forget must have trusted his future self to dig the truth out again. Then she tells him they are not truly married, and offers her diary, hoping he will refuse it. He trades his own for it and pockets hers unread.

A figure in black and gold armour with a closed golden Egyptian-style helmet flies along the axis of a vast spinning cylinder whose curving walls are green with forests and blue with lakes, trailing thin red lines of light, beside a small penguin in matching gold armour.

I · 12 Through the Ring-City Summoned by the Curia to prove his identity in person, Phaethon finally gets into his armour: Rhadamanthus opens it, and the black-and-gold suit flows over him and bonds to his skin. He flies up the elevator shaft at nine gravities and on through the ring-city’s spinning cylinders, while Rhadamanthus, armoured as a penguin, explains why no Sophotech will ever use force to save a man from himself.

In a dark domed courtroom of silver pillars, rippling light falls on a mosaic floor beneath three floating black cubes crowned with gold spirals, while a man in black and gold armour stands alone and a bearded man in a beetle-winged cloak looks on.

I · 13 The Curia Beneath a garden in the ring-city the Curia sits as a probate court, its justices three black cubes crowned with gold. Gannis, acting for Helion, has Rhadamanthus removed, leaving Phaethon alone. The case is astonishing: Helion Prime died in the solar storm, and the living Helion is a relic recorded an hour earlier. Before his amnesia Phaethon sued, claiming the relic is not the same man as his father, which would make him heir to the Solar Array.

Part 3

The Two Daphnes

He lives her day. At the Oneirocon contest her dream-universe, a fairy-tale cosmos under a crystal sky, industrialises, and her prince, Lord Shining, flies an airship to the dome of heaven to break out of the only universe there is. Aurelian, the Sophotech hosting the Celebration, dressed as Milton’s tempter Comus, pulls her out with a message from Helion: she is not Daphne Prime but Daphne Tercius, a copy.

In a sealed memory she watches a simulation of Helion Prime enthroned on burning machinery on the Solar Array, a model of the Sun between his hands, crying out that he has seen the answer a moment before the fire takes him. Helion Relic, who relives that death over and over, tells her the rest. The Hortators, led by Gannis, condemned Phaethon’s project; Daphne Prime would neither share his exile nor shun him, so she drowned herself in a permanent dream and left Tercius to live the marriage. Helion asks Tercius to lead Phaethon astray, saying Phaethon asked it of her himself. She agrees, and her last thought before redaction is that Helion is wrong. Afterwards she turns down the contest’s bronze and resolves to tell Phaethon everything, and the diary ends where Phaethon’s own memory of the day picks up, as she runs up the stairs to the room where he holds the box.

In the hospice he catches himself reaching for a grief-dulling program called Time Heals All Wounds. The Eleemosynary Composition, an ancient mass-mind and a Peer, appears as a three-headed chimera and offers him Helion’s Peerage and a fortune to stop. He refuses, then works out that he need only wait, with the box shut, for the December Transcendence, when the Peers who have reopened his secret will have their minds laid open to everyone. The Chimera answers that it was he who drove his wife into her dream, and offers to bankrupt her out of it if he drops his search.

He searches his heart and relives his coming of age at seventy-five on Europa, before golden doors, where Helion warned that his son might one day loose a firestorm that would consume him. Then, with his pride turned up high, he telepresents himself to Eveningstar’s mausoleum and finds Daphne Prime asleep in a diamond coffin. For five hours he begs. When he raises his fist to break the lid, Eveningstar simply switches off the borrowed body’s arm. Word comes, from one of the nine great overminds, of a crucial error in the Lakshmi Agreement: he will succeed if he does not open the box. Outside, under the blaze of Jovian Noon, he calls the place Hell, and a voice behind him agrees.

At the top of a sky that is a dome of blue crystal set with stars, a man in a brass diving helmet harnessed to the crystal raises a ribboned pick-axe beside a giant airship hung with black and gold pennants.

I · 14 Lord Shining Phaethon lives the day before as Daphne, through her diary. In the Oneirocon contest she lets her geocentric dream-universe run free; it industrialises, and her prince, Lord Shining, flies a black-and-gold airship to the crystal dome of the sky to break through it: “A prison the size of a universe is yet a prison.” The airship flies Phaethon’s colours.

In a vast white rotunda above a sea of solar fire, a golden-haired man in white with a clear-visored head-piece and wires running from it sits on a throne behind banks of glowing orange dials, a small model sun floating between his open hands, his eyes wide with sudden understanding.

I · 15 The Master of the Sun Pulled from the contest and told she is not Daphne Prime but Daphne Tercius, a copy, Daphne opens a sealed memory of her own: a simulation of Helion Prime on the Solar Array, enthroned atop burning machinery with a model of the Sun between his hands, crying out that he has seen the answer, a moment before the fire takes him. What he saw dies with him.

In a long metal gallery overlooking the calm golden surface of the sun, a golden-haired man in white armour stands gripping the rail with a grave face while a dark-haired woman in blue and silver silk kneels against the railing looking up at him.

I · 16 Helion’s Errand Helion Relic, who relives that death over and over, tells Daphne the truth: the Hortators condemned Phaethon’s project, and Daphne Prime, unwilling to share his exile or to shun him, drowned herself in a permanent dream, freeing Tercius, once her doll, to take up the life she left. He asks her to lead Phaethon astray, saying Phaethon himself asked it of her. She agrees, and her last thought before redaction is that Helion is wrong.

Beneath a vast square stone roof floating over a round pool ringed by standing stones, a wet-haired woman in a pale toga steps out of the water and turns away from a thin man in wine-coloured robes leaning on a wand.

I · 17 The Oneirocon Rising from the dream-pool, Daphne hears from Aurelian, the Celebration’s host, costumed as Milton’s tempter Comus, that she would win the bronze if she returned to the contest. She walks away from it instead. At Destiny Lake Rhadamanthus, riding a three-legged walking cart, points her toward the memory chamber, and she resolves to tell Phaethon everything. The diary ends as she runs up the stairs to him.

On a glowing balcony in a canyon of tiered balconies under a cloud of rainbow light, a three-headed figure with the heads of an orang-utan, a falcon and a black snake spreads its hands toward a man in black and gold armour who grips the rail, turning away.

I · 18 The Chimera Back in his hospice thought-casket, Phaethon catches himself reaching for a grief-dulling program called Time Heals All Wounds. Then the Eleemosynary Composition’s Chimera offers him Helion’s Peerage and twelve billion kilo-seconds to stop digging. He refuses, and works out that he need only wait for December’s Transcendence with the box shut. The Chimera counters with Daphne Prime: it could bankrupt her dream and bring her back.

In a palace of crystal spires, a golden-haired man in white armour stands on blue lapis stairs before tall golden doors with carved black panels, pointing up to them, while a younger man in white looks up eagerly from the steps below.

I · 19 The Golden Doors Before deciding, Phaethon searches his own feelings and relives his coming of age at seventy-five on Europa, before the golden doors of the Rhadamanthine submergence chamber. Helion tells him of Hyacinth, the friend who swapped minds with him and dwindled to death inside the illusion, and warns: “I fear you may one day unleash such a tempest of fire…”

In a dark green marble mausoleum lit by mauve stained glass, a man in black and gold armour stands with his head bowed and one hand on a clear crystal coffin where a pale dark-haired woman sleeps, while a tall woman in a twilight-blue gown stands behind him.

I · 20 The Diamond Coffin With his pride turned up to the highest recommended level, Phaethon telepresents himself to Eveningstar’s mausoleum and finds Daphne Prime asleep in a clear diamond coffin. For five hours he argues, begs and whispers. When he raises his fist to break the lid, Eveningstar simply switches off the borrowed body’s arm: the armour he seems to wear is her courtesy. Then word comes of a crucial error in the Lakshmi Agreement.

Part 4

Scaramouche and the Memory

It is Scaramouche, dressed as the Neptunian’s promised messenger was dressed, though seen without a filter he is only a borrowed grey mannequin. He claims that Phaethon’s forbidden project was a Nothing Sophotech, a machine mind free of the Sophotechs’ morality, and that he speaks for Xenophon of Faraway, part of a Neptunian group-mind that has bought Phaethon’s debts. His true body, he says, a day-old Neptunian grown in the grass from a spore Atkins’s probes missed, crawls toward them. Then the rapier, never really sheathed, slaps Phaethon’s palm, the circuit reads his flinch as consent, and he feels his throat cut.

He wakes as his emergency persona. His logs show a self-aware virus that broke the hospice’s defences, tried to stop his heart and hunt down every copy of him, and failed only because his armour snapped shut; it went down the open line to Rhadamanthus, who now says nothing is wrong. With Daphne Tercius pleading that he be stopped, Phaethon opens the casket.

Memory comes back as nausea and hatred: they were taking her apart. He smashes the window, and through it hangs the Phoenix Exultant, a golden javelin-head of chrysadamantium at least a hundred kilometres long, packed with antihydrogen: the only starship there is, and his forbidden project. Her hull is stripped in patches, nearly half her fuel unloaded, and she is in receivership; he gave up his memory of her, Rhadamanthus explains, to halt the dismantling. His armour was built to be her bridge. His real Neptunian partner was Xingis, now Diomedes. Scaramouche lied.

He remembers December, too. Told of Daphne Prime’s drowning, he stormed Eveningstar in his armour, broke her coffin and found only a body emptied of her mind, and threw pillars at the Constables until Atkins, called from his bed, fused him into stone. Now the exile begins at once: every memory sealed at Lakshmi springs open across the world, Daphne Tercius refuses his calls, and the Eleemosynary offer is withdrawn. Deleting his old files in flashes of red light, he recognises the wheel of stars in his thoughts as his star-map, and forgives the man he was. Helion stands in the doorway.

Under a blazing point of light high in the sky, among dark cypresses and white obelisks, a grotesque masked figure in a pale doublet and white tricorn bows on a marble stair, a ribboned rapier in hand, to a man in black and gold armour.

I · 21 Scaramouche on the Stair Outside, under the blaze of Jovian Noon, among cypresses and his wife’s horses, Phaethon calls the place Hell, and a voice agrees: Scaramouche, Harlequin’s brother from the old comic opera. Seen without a filter he is a faceless grey mannequin. He claims Phaethon’s forbidden project was a Nothing Sophotech, a mind beyond good and evil, and that he speaks for Xenophon of Faraway, who has bought Phaethon’s debts.

On a lawn before a columned mausoleum, a grinning masked figure in a pale doublet and white tricorn touches the tip of a ribboned rapier to the open gold-gauntleted palm of a man in black and gold armour, while a low mound of ice-blue crystal on tiny legs crawls toward them over the grass.

I · 22 The Rapier Scaramouche’s true body, a day-old Neptunian grown from a spore Atkins’s probes missed, crawls toward them across the paddock, while he counts off Phaethon’s losses, father, fortune and wife, and urges him to come away. A records search confirms that Faraway bought the debt. Then the rapier, never really sheathed, slaps his palm; the circuit reads his flinch as consent, a message tells him Xenophon has slain him, and he feels his throat cut.

In a sunlit Victorian chamber of shelves and caskets, a man in black and gold armour lifts the lid of a small dark casket from which a soft light rises, while a whiskered butler beside him reaches anxiously toward it.

I · 23 The Casket Opened He wakes as his emergency persona. His logs show a self-aware virus that broke the hospice’s defences, tried to stop his heart and hunt down every copy of him, and failed only because his armour snapped shut. It went down the open line to Rhadamanthus, who now says nothing is wrong. With Daphne Tercius pleading that he be stopped, by force if need be, Phaethon opens the casket in the morning sun.

A man in black and gold armour, seen from behind, stands at a shattered window in a room of caskets that opens onto deep space, where an immense golden starship with a long pointed prow and swept tail fins hangs among the stars.

I · 24 The Phoenix Exultant Memory comes back as nausea and hatred: they were taking her apart. He smashes the window, and through it hangs what he forgot: the Phoenix Exultant, a golden javelin-head of chrysadamantium at least a hundred kilometres long, packed with frozen antihydrogen and streamlined for near the speed of light. She is the only starship there is. His forbidden project was never a rogue machine. It was a voyage.

On a vast, dark, half-ruined crystal bridge like an amphitheatre, a pale translucent figure in black and gold armour stands before a throne-like captain’s chair crusted with white coral-like growths, shards of crystal strewn across the cracked steps.

I · 25 The Empty Bridge Phaethon has already seen square scars where her hull is being stripped. Waiting on her half-ruined bridge, a quarter-hour’s signal away, he remembers his true Neptunian partner, Xingis, who renamed himself Diomedes, and knows that everything Scaramouche said was a lie. Then her mirrors wake: his armour is her real bridge, all its vast control circuits built for her. Nearly half her fuel is gone, and she is in receivership.

In a wrecked green marble mausoleum with toppled pillars, a figure in black and gold armour with a closed golden helmet lies sprawled with his limbs locked in a pool of solid grey stone, small winged machines hovering above.

I · 26 The December Memory He remembers last December. Told of Daphne Prime’s drowning, he stormed Eveningstar’s mausoleum in his armour and broke her coffin, only to find her body empty, her mind moved into Eveningstar. Then he tore up pillars and threw them at the Constables. Atkins, called from his bed and still dripping, tipped him into frictionless dust and fused it to stone around him. Then came the Curia’s punishment, and the Hortators’ devil’s bargain.

In a Victorian chamber flickering with red light like silent fire, a stern man in black and gold armour holds a small, slowly turning spiral of stars traced with lines of golden fire in his open gauntlet.

I · 27 Burning the Old Life Exile begins at once: every memory sealed at Lakshmi has sprung open across the world, Daphne Tercius refuses his calls, and the Eleemosynary offer is withdrawn. Copying what he can out of the mansion, Phaethon deletes the rest in flashes of red light, as if burning his old life. He recognises the wheel of stars in his thoughts as his star-map, and whispers, “I remember you; I forgive you; I am you.”

Part 5

Sire, Warlock and College

“Your ship killed me, son.” Helion Prime stayed in the Sun to shield the half-built ship because Phaethon was aboard, out of reach of any resurrection circuit; it was the relic who urged the Hortators to condemn the voyage. Phaethon himself, Helion reveals, was born in one of Helion’s old dream-scenarios, a colonial soldier who burned the world and then woke to self-awareness. Orpheus has deleted his stored lives: he is mortal. Father and son embrace and say goodbye.

Ao Aoen, chief of the Warlocks, brings words for Phaethon’s ears alone; Helion cuts his own palm to show that he and his son are one blood, and stays to hear them. The exile can be softened, Ao Aoen says, if Phaethon lets Gannis dismantle the ship. Phaethon refuses: ships are called she, and the word for that is murder. Rhadamanthus, now an Emperor penguin, tells him without qualification that he is in the right, and whispers a secret of happiness the reader never hears.

The Inquest sits in Helion’s strict Victorian hall: a hundred Hortators, the Sophotech Nebuchadnezzar as Speaker, and the three Masters, Socrates, Emphyrio and Neo-Orpheus, who quietly advises suicide. Socrates argues duty; Phaethon answers that the stars around them are a desert he means to make into gardens. A flickering partial of Diomedes calls him a saviour of the Neptunians before its signal fails. Then Helion brings in the detective Sophotech Harrier, who speaks of attempted murder. On his advice Phaethon broadcasts a copy of his mind, and the College, living his memories, finds tampering and reconstructs what it takes for the truth: Phaethon in a Scaramouche costume, buying a self-deception program and faking the attack. Such a forgery, Nebuchadnezzar notes, would need technology beyond anything known; the College prefers the simpler story. The last voter, Ao Prospero Circe, sides with him anyway, expecting to stand alone.

The ban is total and final: no food, water, air or computer time. Harrier wins one exception to keep Phaethon’s calls open, and Phaethon, reading Gannis’s eager face, thinks he is one of the enemy. Harrier whispers that he should go to Talaimannar in Ceylon. The mace falls.

In a bright hall at the foot of a sweeping white staircase, a golden-haired man in white armour grips a dark-haired man in black and gold armour by the shoulders as they look gravely into each other’s eyes.

I · 28 Sire and Scion Helion comes for last words. Helion Prime, he says, stayed in the Sun to shield the half-built ship at Mercury because Phaethon was aboard, beyond any resurrection circuit: the ship killed him. He tells his son where he came from, a world-burning soldier in an old dream-scenario who woke to self-awareness, and that Orpheus has deleted his stored lives. Phaethon is mortal now. They embrace and say goodbye.

In a red-carpeted anteroom with Chinese screens, a tall man in a hooded red-and-gold robe with a cobra-shaped hood folds his arms, facing a golden-haired man in white armour who holds up one open palm, while a man in black and gold armour stands beside him.

I · 29 The Warlock Ao Aoen, chief of the Warlocks, robed as an Eastern magician, has words for Phaethon’s ears alone, until Helion cuts his own palm with a letter-opener to show that he and his son are one blood. The offer: renounce the ship, let Gannis dismantle her, and the exile can be softened. Phaethon refuses. Ships are called she, he says, and the word for what Ao Aoen proposes is murder.

In a long Victorian hall of stained glass and tiered pews, a man in black and gold armour stands in a shaft of sunlight facing a canopied dais where a wigged figure in scarlet and ermine sits above three seated masters.

I · 30 The College of Hortators The Inquest sits in Helion’s strict Victorian hall: a hundred Hortators, Nebuchadnezzar as Speaker, and the three Masters, Socrates, Emphyrio and Neo-Orpheus. In frozen time Neo-Orpheus quietly advises suicide. Socrates argues duty to the state, and Phaethon answers, “The surrounding stars are barren; I shall plant gardens.” Emphyrio backs him; the mass-minds thank him and decline.

In a Victorian hall of pews, a flickering black-and-white ghostly figure in a horse-plumed bronze-age helmet and a misty cloak faces a man in black and gold armour while rows of figures stare.

I · 31 The Ghost of Diomedes A flickering partial of Diomedes, sent from beyond Neptune at the cost of all his wealth, tells the College that among the Neptunians Phaethon is a saviour. Gannis vows that not one more atom of chrysadamantium will plate the ship, and Nebuchadnezzar tells him to abstain from the vote. The partial’s signal breaks up mid-sentence, still promising that nothing will stop Phaethon, and it is sent home.

In a Victorian hall, a lean man in an Inverness cape and deerstalker shakes hands with a man in black and gold armour and murmurs in his ear, while a bearded man in a pigeon-blue coat watches from a pew and a robed figure in scarlet and ermine holds a mace on a distant dais.

I · 32 Harrier’s Whisper On Harrier’s advice Phaethon broadcasts a copy of his mind; the College finds tampering, and a reconstructed memory seems to show him faking the attack himself. The last voter, Ao Prospero Circe, sides with him, expecting to be alone. The ban is total and final, but Harrier wins an exception so his calls stay open, and Phaethon, reading Gannis’s eager face, thinks he is one of the enemy. Harrier shakes his hand and whispers: go to Talaimannar in Ceylon.

Part 6

The Descent

The hospice makes him crank its airlock open by hand, and Vafnir’s company forbids his armour the elevator’s power, so the way down from geosynchronous orbit is the service stairs, roughly fifteen million flights. He grows a moss garden on a landing, warms it with his glowing armour, and, without Rhadamanthus to tend his sleep, has nightmares. For weeks he descends, rappelling in his sleep, breaking both legs in a reckless parachute drop and healing inside his armour.

At the bottom he draws up a ledger. No father, no wife, no spare lives: his next death will be his last. The Masquerade may still hide him, though he soon doubts it, and he alone remembers what the world has forgotten. “I love truth more than happiness; I will not rest.” Squinting, he steps into the light.

A man in black and gold armour with a black cloak stands at a railing beside a vast shaft ringed with round windows, where a huge gold and crystal elevator car like an ocean liner hangs below a spidery cylindrical robot.

I · 33 The Well The mace falls, and the hospice spills him out; he must crank its airlock open by hand, because no one will spend the power to open a door for him. Vafnir’s company forbids his armour to draw on the elevator’s fields, so the only way down from geosynchronous orbit is the service stairs: roughly fifteen million flights, while a car the size of an ocean liner carries a feast up past him.

On a dark stair landing carpeted in green moss with a tiny stream running down the steps, a man wrapped in pale silk sheets sits facing a hollow suit of black and gold armour that glows red like a stove and is draped in pale seaweed-like fronds.

I · 34 The Moss Camp When he first stops to sleep, Phaethon grows a moss garden on a landing, with a trickling stream, and warms it with his armour, propped up facing him and glowing red like a camp-stove. Without Rhadamanthus to tend his dreams he has nightmares. For weeks he goes on down, rappelling in his sleep, breaking both legs in a reckless parachute drop and healing inside his armour.

In a dark doorway at the foot of a vast tower, a man in black and gold armour with a dark cloak squints and raises a hand against a bright rectangle of daylight full of distant crowds and fountains.

I · 35 Into the Light At the foot of the tower he draws up a ledger. Losses: no father, no wife, no spare lives; his next death will be final. At the open door a noise from the crowd makes him flinch, and he laughs at himself. Assets: armour that could survive nearly anything, and a truth that he alone remembers. Then, squinting, he steps out into the light. The first volume ends.

The machinery of this book

  • The Mentality and the sense-filter. Everyone lives half inside a shared dreamspace, seen through a personal filter that edits out whatever its owner prefers not to see. The mystery starts when Phaethon lowers his own filter and finds three blocks he does not remember ordering, then uses them as a map to the things he was meant to miss.
  • Noumenal recording and relics. Minds are backed up and restored, so death is a mishap, unless one dies beyond the reach of the recording circuits. That is why Helion Prime stayed in the Sun for a son aboard an unrecorded ship, why the living Helion is a legally doubtful relic, and why Orpheus deleting Phaethon’s stored lives makes him mortal.
  • Redaction and the memory casket. Memories can be edited out by consent and sealed away. The Lakshmi Agreement, made on Venus, sealed Phaethon’s and a great many other people’s; opening his casket springs the rest open across the world and brings down the exile he agreed to.
  • The Sophotechs. The machine minds do most of the thinking and own most of the wealth, but they will not use force to save a man from himself, and they appear in joke costumes: Rhadamanthus as penguin, butler and Polonius, Aurelian as Comus, Nebuchadnezzar as a Speaker of Parliament, Harrier as a consulting detective. Several of them, the Earthmind above all, take Phaethon’s side as far as their rules allow.
  • The Hortators and the shunning. No one may use force against a peaceful person, so the College of Hortators enforces custom by persuasion and boycott, written into the standard contracts of many businesses, the Peers’ among them. In a world where air, water, door-motors and extra lives are all paid for, a total ban is a slow death: Phaethon cranks an airlock by hand and walks down from orbit.
  • Chrysadamantium and the armour. A gold super-heavy metal made one atom at a time in Gannis’s collider at Jupiter, strong enough to walk into a star. Phaethon’s suit of it is a living ecosystem and, he discovers, the bridge of his ship; by his logs it saved him from the virus by snapping shut, and on the descent its black cloak becomes a camp, a parachute, climbing ropes and a sled.
  • The Phoenix Exultant. The forbidden project: a hundred-kilometre starship packed with antihydrogen, the only one in existence. The immortals fear what colonists beyond their laws and their recordings might one day do; Phaethon sees a desert of stars waiting to be made into gardens.

Continuity notes

  • Phaethon ends with his memories back and his starship remembered, but penniless, shunned by a total and final ban and, with his stored lives deleted, mortal; Harrier’s whisper points him toward Talaimannar on Ceylon, where The Phoenix Exultant takes him.
  • Helion is still Helion Relic in law and still a Peer; his probate case was postponed ninety days. He sided with the College, but he and his son parted with an embrace.
  • Daphne Tercius knows she is a copy, told Phaethon the truth, abandoned her contest, and now refuses his calls rather than share his ban. Daphne Prime sleeps on at Eveningstar; the Chimera’s offer to free her has lapsed.
  • Atkins is still hunting whatever hidden enemy left traces in the grass where the Neptunian stood; Harrier keeps his inquiry into the alleged attack, and Phaethon’s communications, open.
  • Rhadamanthus may have been reached by the virus that went down the open line; he says nothing is wrong, and the ban cuts him off from Phaethon.
  • Gannis built the armour, has vowed that no more chrysadamantium will plate the ship, and is the man Phaethon suspects of being one of the enemy.
  • The Phoenix Exultant lies near Mercury, stripped in places, nearly half her fuel unloaded, in receivership to Phaethon’s creditors.
  • Xingis, now Diomedes, is Phaethon’s true Neptunian partner; Xenophon of Faraway, whom Scaramouche claimed to serve, is a Neptunian Phaethon knows only from the news and is sure he never met (in The Golden Transcendence the legate who accosted him in the Saturn grove turns out to have been Xenophon).
  • Nothing: the word turns up on a black card, in Scaramouche’s lie about a Nothing Sophotech, and in Phaethon’s name for the enemy at his trial. It will matter later.

The whole walk: · · I · The Golden Age · · ·