The final group of pews, taking up the rest of the right wall, were basics. Captains of the major efforts, arts, and noo-sophic movements all had seats: educationalists and influential pedagogues, performancers from Lunar Farside, recalculators, redactors, mediums, downloads from the De-
meter Overmind, and Historians from the Museum of Thought were here. Epheseus Vanwinkle from the Mathuse-lean Scholum had (once again) interrupted his eon-long cryos-leep, his so-called Voyage to the Infinite Future, to be present at this meeting.
Famous mystagogues, avatars of anthropo-constructs, and emancipated partials were also seated in this section, forming the Parliament of Ghosts, which tried to represent the interests of beings who could not speak for themselves, people held in computer memory, unborn children, simulated characters, disbanded Compositions, and the like.
In front of all these, the first row of the basic section was occupied by Gannis of Jupiter, with twenty sub-Gannises, semi-Gannises and demi-Gannises gathered around him, a score of twins. They were dressed as French aristocrats, in pigeon blue coats, ruffles, finery, and lace. Even frozen in time, Gannis still wore a smug expression; he knew he (since he was both a Hortator and a Peer) was one of the most influential voices in the College, and the one who would be the most personally pleased to see Phaethon fall.
There was little prospect of mercy from the right side of the chamber.
He turned to the left. Phaethon was amused to see the manor-borns, perhaps more aware of Helion's utter realism than the others, had seated themselves facing the eastern windows, so that the late-afternoon sun would not be in their faces. Here were archons and subalterns from many famous mansions. Perhaps he could find some support among manor-borns like himself.
The Gold Manorials, of course, outnumbered the others. The Mansions of Gold included many members of the Parliament and the Shadow Parliament, political theorists, policy counselors, and so on. Long before the simulation or extrapolation technology was used for entertainment, it had been used by the early Gold School for predicting outcomes of political-economic policy decisions and of major data movements in worldwide memory space.
In the front row, the High Archon Tsychandri-Manyu
Tawne of Tawne House himself was present, depicted in stately ducal robes of red and gold. Almost every politician of the Shadow Parliament throughout the Golden Oecumene had, at one time or another, borrowed memory templates, skills, or advice from the Manyu mind-complex Tsychandri had started. Tsychandri was one of the founders of the Hor-tation Movement, and the most influential voice here. But, oddly, he was not the idealist he urged all others to be; his decisions were matters of practical and political (some said cynical) calculation.
And the political currents were running strongly against Phaethon here. It was clear that Tsychandri-Manyu would urge permanent exile, and perhaps public humiliations or denunciations atop that; the other Gold Mansions would follow his lead.
Seated nearby were archonesses from Eveningstar, Phosphorous, and Meridian Houses of the Red Mansion School. Their Edwardian dresses gleamed with scarlet and rose and crimson silk, and they were frozen in their poses, leaning to whisper to each other behind their elegant fans. Phaethon knew the Reds had emotional reasons to dislike him, and, creatures of great passion, the Red Queens and Countesses would indulge their emotions.
Hasantrian Hecaton Heo of Pallid House of the Whites had descended from transcendental thoughtspace and resumed human psychology in order to attend. Tau Continuous Nimvala of Albion House, also a White, had broken her seventy years of silence and come not as a partial but with her entire mind present. Both were represented as Victorian Ministers, of the High and Low Church respectively. The Pallids were pure intellectuals; the Albions allowed emotion, but only pride, disdain, arrogance, and the other emotions that urged men to disregard emotion. The Whites could be relied upon to be fair. Scientists and engineers, they might favor Phaethon's case.
The construct known as Ynought Subwon from New Centurion House was the only representative of the Dark-Grays, who, by long tradition, disapproved of Hortation. Dark Grays
were more ascetic than Silver-Grays. A spartan and laconic people, they believed in laws rather than in orations. Dark-Grays often served as Constables or Procurators for the Curia. Phaethon knew nothing about Ynought.
Viridimagus Solitarie (or a reconstruction of him) was present as a representative of the defunct Green Scholum, all the more noticeable because he had no mansion but was projecting himself through a rented public intellect, an ordinary-looking man in dark trousers and a long emerald coat. He stood out, because he was the only plain-dressed man on this side of the chamber. The Green School had been the primi-tivists (if such a thing could be imagined) among the manor-born. If Viridimagus continued that tradition, he would surely disapprove of any innovations, would call star colonization an abomination, and urge a harsh sentence.
A throng of Black Manorials, from Darksplatter House, Grue House, Inyourface House, and Out House, and a dozen other Petty Houses and part-mansions of the Black School crowded the higher bench at the back of the chamber. They were dressed in splendid clothing, black tuxedoes and sable velvet gowns, but had all disfigured themselves with diseases or birth defects common to the Victorian era. Their most famous member was Asmodius Bohost Clamour of Clamour House, who had represented himself in a grotesquely obese body, at least four hundred pounds mass. His black coat was the size of a tent, and jeweled buttons strained along the circumference of a vast globular waistcoat. Asmodius Bohost would urge public humiliation, and the Feast of Insults, or the punishment known as Excrementation, but not exile. The Black Mansions loved mockery and confrontation, and never voted for exile, which (because it required them to ignore their victims) caused them agonies of boredom.
In the front row, the Silver-Grays were represented by Agamemnon XIV of Minos House, Nausicaa Burner-of-Ships from Aeceus House, and, of course, Helion of Rhadamanthus
House.
Even Helion was frozen in the time stop. Phaethon had been hoping to catch his father's eye, and maybe find a smile
or look of encouragement there; but Helion, true to his character, had not granted himself an exception to the strict protocol that formed the dreamscape rules here.
And that was the body of the College of Hortators. In disgust, Phaethon shut off the game-theory routine he was running. He did not need an advanced intellectual savant process to guess the outcome here. By his count, two manorials of the White School might vote for leniency; and Helion might, but only if he wished to scuttle his hopes for a Peerage and ruin his own future. Ironically, Phaethon could expect his greatest support (if it could be called that) from the Black Manorials, who would vote to keep Phaethon out of exile so that they could mock and torment him.
As for the others, possibly Kes Satrick Kes would support him. Maybe. The Warlocks might do anything. Everyone else in the chamber either disliked him mildly or hated him thoroughly.
What made the matter all the more confusing and unpredictable was the way in which the Hortators' votes were weighed. Nebuchednezzar was designed to estimate the social influence each Hortator would have by estimating how each and every member of the Golden Oecumene would react to that Hortator's particular urging. (Nebuchednezzar had memory space enough to know every mind of every citizen throughout the entire solar system quite intimately.) Thus, the same Hortator might have different voting weight with different issues, or at different times. Kes Satrick Kes, for example, represented a constituency whom he could always and predictably influence, on every issue; on the other hand, Asmodius Bohost's voting weight changed daily, even hourly. When it came to political opinions, Asmodius Bohost was ignored by his constituency, but, on matters of fashion, his vote would have much greater weight, since all the Black Manorials took their cue from him.