Episode 16
Avatar of the Earthmind
Down the slope and across the moonlit lawn approached a stately figure surrounded by nine floating luminaries. She was garbed in a gown of flowing emerald green, and her golden braids were twined to hold an emerald crown in place. Hers was a face of regal beauty, kindly, dignified, smiling with sad wisdom. In one hand she held a wand of living apple-wood, adorned with apple blossoms and fruit.
Her body shape was like that of an ancient lunarian; very tall and slender, graceful with unearthly grace, and with a magnificent sweep of condor wings folded across her shoulders and down her back.
The man who looked like Atkins then did a very Atkins-like thing. He drew his ceremonial katana and saluted, holding the blade point-upright, guard level with his eyes.
Not to be outdone, Phaethon performed an elegant courtly bow, crooking his back leg and sweeping out his hands in flourishes just as Harlequin himself might have done for the queen of France.
“Hail to thee!” cried Phaethon. “If you are She, an Avatar of the Earthmind, whose unlimited omniscience sustains us all, then, for the sake of all the blessings with which infinite intelligence has showered the earth, I greet you and give you praise; or if you merely are one who honors Her by presenting yourself adorned with Her symbols, hail nonetheless! And I bow to honor the visible signs of the One thus represented.”
“I am not wholly She; only the smallest fraction of Her mind is bonded with me. For now, I am merely your fellow guest at this Celebration.” She smiled warmly, eyes twinkling, and nodded, saying: “You are true to the comic-opera character you seem, and you amuse me with your comic-opera greeting. Dear Phaethon! Earthmind has thought much on you of late, and She trusts you will be as true to your own character as you have been to the characters you have assumed.”
Phaethon signaled for identification, and then was shocked to understand that this was an Avatar of the Earthmind indeed, an emanation from the Ennead.
He had never in all his life spoken to one of the Nine Intelligences, who were the highest of the Sophotech machine-minds; but this was a representative of a Mind even more exalted, the One whom the Nine combined their mental power to sustain.
To Atkins, the Avatar said, “Please do not salute me, Mr. Atkins. I am not your superior officer. We are fellow servants in the same cause.”
The man’s left gauntlet folded back. In one perfect, well-practiced motion, he cut a painful line across his palm, bloodied the sword and sheathed the blade. He squinted, folding his left hand into a fist to prevent the little cut from seeping.
Phaethon realized that this must indeed be Atkins.
“Thank you, ma’am,” Atkins said. “Can you help me out, here? If not, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
She smiled sadly. “There’s not much I can do, Mr. Atkins. Even a very quick intelligence is helpless without information to manipulate. So I shall leave you in peace to do your work. Ah! But I do have an idea for a new science of analysis and forensics which, with your permission, I can load into your system. I have a clearance from the Parliament scenario.”
“Be my guest, ma’am.” And the black spheres began sprouting fantastic spiral shells, nautiluslike, and spinning strands of thread across the grass. The luminaries circling the Avatar now left their orbits and went to go help the black spheres at their task.
The Avatar turned to Phaethon.
“Dear son, as a courtesy to Atkins, I ask you to leave as well. You are under no legal obligation to keep quiet about what you have seen, but there is a moral obligation even deeper and more compelling. Our laws and our institutions have grown accustomed to centuries of peace and pleasure; and our civilization can sustain herself through danger only by the voluntary devotion of her citizens.”
Phaethon spoke: “I love the Golden Oecumene, and would never do anything to cause her harm!”
Atkins looked skeptical when he said that, snorted, and turned away. The Avatar said, “Do not compromise your principles, Phaethon, lest you do yourself and your world an ill.”
“What ill? Madame—please tell me what is going on—”
“Your old memories are in storage, but not destroyed. Whether you take their burden once more on yourself, I cannot advise. I may be wise, but I am not Phaethon.” The Avatar stepped forward, put her soft hands on Phaethon’s shoulders, stooped (Phaethon had not realized how tall the lunar body shape was till she stood over him), and she kissed him on the forehead.
“Will you receive this gift from me? I grant you flight. I mean this as an honor to display that the Machine Intelligences do not regard you, Phaethon, with any unkindliness. It also may remind you of old dreams you have put aside.”
“Madame—this mannequin I am in is much too heavy to fly—I would need a different …” But a buoyancy suddenly tingled in him, starting with his head where he’d been kissed, and spreading, like warm wine, into his trunk and limbs. Surprised, blinking, Phaethon thrust with a toe. Weightlessly the grass fell away from him.
He shouted in fear, but then smiled, and tried to pretend he was shouting for joy. A moment later, a freak wind blew him head over heels like a balloon. Phaethon grabbed a passing tree branch, and he was tangled in the silvery leaves, laughing.
“Quite extraordinary, Madame!” he gasped. “But—excuse me, there are several important questions about what’s happened tonight, which I—”
But when he looked over his shoulder, down at the ground, the Avatar was gone. There was only Atkins, face grim, still in his armor, pacing slowly across the grass with his black machines.
There was nothing for him here. Atkins was not going to answer any questions. And he had sneered at Phaethon’s expression of loyalty to the Golden Oecumene; whatever Phaethon’s forgotten crime had been, it had been enough to make honest men regard him as a traitor.
Phaethon let go of the branch and floated up into the night sky. The silvery Saturn-trees shimmered mirrorlike underfoot, and then were lost, one grove among the garden tapestries of shades and shadows below.
