The clock to his left woke at his voice, and spoke. "How can we, who live in the coat of the fiery sun, measure the shadow of a gnomon to attest the time? It is ever forever midnight here, for the sun, to us, is ever underfoot. A pretty paradox!"
A wince of irritation twitched in his eye, but his voice was low and level. "Why do you mock me, clock?"
"Because you have forgotten the day, mighty He-lion! It is the Night Penultimate, the last night before the Transcendence, the night that was once called the Night of Lords."
The Night of Lords, on the last day before Transcendence, by tradition, was the time when each man, half-man, woman, bimorph, neutraloid, clone, and child was given, in simulation, control of all the Oecumene. Each became, in bis own mind, at least, Lord of the Oecumene for a day. Each saw all his idle wishes fulfilled. Each was allowed to act upon his private theories about what was wrong with the world, each allowed to put his theories into effect. And the consequences of his actions were played out with remorseless logic by the simulators.
The tradition was first begun during the First Transcendence, many millennia ago, under the tutelage of Lithian Sophotech. However, after repeated disillusionment, failures, and tragic results (which were played out by people who had not thought out their theories of the world very well), the Night of Lords became instead the night when the Earthmind gave gentle advice as to how to improve and make realistic some of the extrapolations so soon to be presented to the Transcendence for consideration.
In effect, the night before the Transcendence was the last trial period for all the extrapolation candidates, the preliminary weighing of possible futures before the real work of choosing a future was begun.
Helion had no need for such a preliminary. His vision of the future, sponsored by the Seven Peers, had already undergone a much more thorough review than any Penultimate Night test was likely to be.
The clock continued: "Why are you awake, alone, instead of deep in dreaming? Aurelian Sophotech promised that this Transcendence would extend further into the future and deeper into the Earthmind than any millennial attempt before has done! Together, all humanity and transhumanity as one may reach beyond the bottom of the dreaming sea; surely you will need more than a day to pass from shallow into deeper dreaming, to prepare yourself for what is next to come! Why are you still awake?"
There was no point in arguing with a clock. It was a limited intelligence device, not a true Sophotech, and had been instructed, long ago, to remind him of his appointments and engagements. In this case, with a holiday almost upon them, the clock was in a mindlessly cheerful mood: such were its orders. Pointless to grow irked.
"I envy you, moron machine. You have no self, no soul to lose."
The clock was silent. Perhaps its simple mind dimly understood Helion's grief. Or perhaps it had been given the dangerous gift of greater intelligence during the Sixth-Night, the Night of Swans, when the Earthmind bestowed wisdom and insight onto all "ugly duckling" machines, those with more potential for growth than their present circumstances allowed.
The clock said cautiously: "You are not going to kill yourself again, are you?"
"No. I have exhausted every possible variation on that scene. I have replayed my last self's final immolation so many times, it seems as if all my memory now is fire. But in that memory, I cannot recall, I cannot reconstruct, what it was I thought then which I can-not think now. What insight was it which I had then that made me laugh, though dying? What epiphany did that dead part of me understand, an understanding so deep it would have changed my life forever, had I lived? An insight now lost! And, with it, all my life..."
He sank into grim silence once again. The resolution of Phaethon's challenge to Helion's identity was merely one of many things that would be decided during the manifold complexity of the Transcendence. Since both he and the Curia, and everyone else besides, would be brought as one into the Transcendence, and be graced with greater wisdom and wholeness of thought than had occurred for a millennium, Helion had, as a courtesy to the Court, agreed to let the Transcendent Mind decide the issue.
That had been when he still had hope of reconstructing his missing memories, of finding his lost self.
But now that hope was gone. He knew the Court's decision would go against him.
Helion spoke again. "I lost but a single hour of my life. But in that hour, I lost everything. I said I saw the cure for the chaos at the heart of everything. What was that cure? What did I know? What did I become in that hour, my self which I have now lost... ?"
Silence.
The clock said in a slow and simple tone: "Does this mean you won't be going to the celebrations tomorrow?"
Helion did not answer.
The clock said, "Sir-"
"Quiet. Leave me to the torment of my thoughts...."
"But, sir, you asked me to-"
"Did I not command silence?!"
"Sir, you asked me to tell you whenever someone was approaching."
"Approaching ... ?" Helion straightened on his throne, his eyes bright and alert. Who could be here, on this last night before the Transcendence? With one segment of his mind (which he could divide to perform many parallel tasks at once) Helion sent a message to Descent Traffic Control, demanding an explanation. But the Descent Sophotech was occupied with pre-Transcendence business; only a limited partial mind was standing watch, a copy of one of He-lion's squires of honor, Leukios. He replied, "No ship is approaching, milord. She is docked." "Docked? How did a ship come to dock?" "By the normal routine. I engaged the magnetohy-drodynamic field generators to create a helmet streamer reaching up past the base corona, to create a zone of colder plasma through which the vessel could (descend. I posted a report an hour ago. Your seneschal refused to pass the message along, asserting that you had instructed all servant systems to leave you in private"
With another segment of his mind he ran an identity check. Since the Sophotechs were absent, he was not sure to whom he spoke, what type or level of mind, nor what the voice symbols were supposed to indicate, but the answer came back: "Helion, your guest is protected under the protocols of the masquerade. Identification is not available."
"Tell me where this intruder is, at least?" "That is beyond the scope of my duties." "Then switch me to your supervisor." "My supervisor is Helion of the Silver-Gray, who is the only sapient being aboard the Array at this time----"
With a third segment of mind, simultaneously, he queried his Coryphaeus, a partial mind tasked with counting and coordinating the motions of men and an-imals throughout the unmeasured vastness of Solar Ar-ray habitat space. Helion was old enough to remember the days when police minds and watchman circuits were necessary to ensure that people would not violate the property or privacy of another. His Coryphaeus also had a security submind, dating from the late Sixth Era, one of the oldest servants of the many in Helion's employ.
"Your visitor is now a hundred twenty-eight meters away from you, approaching along the main axial corridor of the command section, Golden Elder Strand Zero Center, Heliopolis Major."
"Here, in other words, within my private sanctum?"
"Yes, milord."
"Why was an intruder allowed to pass my doors? Why wasn't he stopped at the outer atrium, at the inner gate, at the command doors, or at my privacy doors?"
The Coryphaeus answered in its archaic accent: "By your instruction."
"My instruction... ? I told you all to guard my solitude."
"In the case where two orders contradict, I am to assent to the higher priority. This order is of the highest class of priority I recognize. I shall repeat the text."
Helion's own voice, blurred and faint as if from an ancient recording, came then, and the words were in an older rhythm, with words and expressions Helion had not used for four thousand years. He almost did not recognize the voice as his own, so different was it from his present way of speaking: "... I tell you, if ever when my best-loved friend should come again, whole or partial or anysomeway that be, hale him within, and let him pass. Let pass all doors and barri-cados, open firewalls, bridge delays, but bring him to me in all haste, or any who presents himself as him: he has priority higher than anything else I am doing or shall do hereafter, if only he will come again! If only he would call! Let be admitted any who come under the name of Hyacinth-Subhelion Septimus Gray. ..."