"John C. Wright - Golden Age 1 - The Golden Age" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wright John C)

His full name was Phaethon Prime Rhadamanth Humodified (augment) Uncomposed,
Indepconciousness, Base Neuroformed, Silver-Gray Manorial Schola, Era 7043 (the "Reawakening").
This particular evening, the west wing of the Aurelian Palace-city had been set aside for a
Presentation of Visions by the elite of Rhadamanthus Mansion. Phaethon had been extended an invitation
to sit on the panel of dream-judges, and, eager to experience the future histories involved, had happily
accepted. Phaethon had been imagining the evening, perhaps, would be in miniature, for Rhadamanthus
House, what the High Transcendence in December would be for all mankind.
But he was disappointed. The review of one drab and uninspired extrapolation after another had
drained his patience.
Here was a future where all men were recorded as brain-information in a diamond logic crystal
occupying the core of the earth; there was one where all humanity existed in the threads of a plantlike
array of sails and panels forming a Dyson Sphere around the sun; a third promised, larger than worlds,
housings for trillions of minds and superminds, existing in the absolute cold of trans-Neptunian space --
cold was required for any truly precise subatomic engineering -- but with rails or elevators of unthinkably
dense material running across hundreds of AU, across the whole width of the solar system, and down
into the mantle of the sun, both to mine the hydrogen ash for building matter, and to tap the vast energy of
Sol, should ever matter or energy in any amount be needed by the immobile deep-space mainframes
housing the minds of mankind.
Any one of them should have been a breathtaking vision. The engineering was worked out in loving
detail. Phaethon could not name what it was he wanted, but he knew he wanted none of these futures
being offered him.
Daphne, his wife, who was only a collateral member of the House, had not been invited; and, Helion,
his sire, was present only as a partial-version, the primary having been called away to a conclave of the
Peers.
And so it was that in the center of a loud, happy throng of brightly costumed telepresences,
mannequins, and real-folk, and with a hundred high windows in the Presence Hall busy and bright with
monotonous futures, and with a thousand channels clamoring with messages, requests, and invitations for
him, Phaethon realized that he was entirely alone.
Fortunately, it was masquerade, and he was able to assign his face and his role to a backup copy of
himself. He donned the disguise of a Harlequin clown, with lace at his throat and mask on his face, and
then slipped out of a side entrance before any of Helion's lieutenants or squires-of-honor thought to stop
him.
Without a word or signal to anyone, Phaethon departed, and he walked across silent lawns and
gardens by moonlight, accompanied only by his thoughts.



-=*=-



He wandered far, to a place he had not seen before. Beyond the gardens, in an isolated dell, he
entered a grove of silver-crowned trees. He paced slowly through the grove, hands clasped behind his
back, sniffing the air and gazing up at the stars between the leaves above. In the gloom, the dark and
fine-grained bark was like black silk, and the leaves had mirror tissues, so that when the night breeze
blew, the reflections of moonlight overhead rippled like silver lake water.
It took him a moment to notice what was odd about the scene. The flowers were open, even though it
was night, and their faces were turned toward one bright planet above the horizon.
Puzzled, Phaethon paused and pointed two fingers at the nearest trunk, making the identification
gesture. Evidently the protocols of the masquerade extended to the trees as well, and no explanation of