Warlocks themselves, they recognized this meaning of the blood-gift for what it was: a pledge of loyalty from Ao Aoen.
The Wolf-minds crawled on all fours and howled toward the cities on the moon; the branch of their order on the moon cried out at the blue Earth motionless in the high pressurized windows of the Lunar cities. They celebrated the offer of Ao Aoen.
During the Month of Self-Reacquaintance (which the Black Manorials jokingly called Getting Used to Being Stupid Again), Ao Aoen and the Warlocks of the Wolf-mind School had already unleashed onto a thousand channels ten thousand dreams, poems, spells, and thought formulations; the theme in each poem, whether obvious or hidden, was the same: war was coming.
The Lacedaimonians of the Dark-Gray Manor woke in their coffins in their manor houses. They encountered the dreams of the wolves, and posted several of the brief, grim slogans or sayings for which their house was famed. The intention was clear: the Dark-Gray publicly supported Ao Aeon's reform movement to restore the military to its place of proper respect in the public eye. Temer Lacedaimon of the Dark-Gray issued a fractal recursive haiku, of the type that generated additional meaning when subjected to additional levels of analysis. The surface meaning of the poem was clear, however: Atkins was praised as the savior of the Oecumene. The Dark-Gray cherished and applauded the killings he had done as utterly justified. Meanwhile, Warlocks and Wolves applauded the Dark-Gray, heaped disbelief, scorn, and outrage on any persons who dared say otherwise.
Ao Aoen announced that the Wolves would throw Atkins a ticker-tape parade, as some of the very earliest motion pictures depicted. New Chicago was chosen as the site, and ticker tape mingled with the falling snow.
During this parade, others (most noticeably the Harmonious Composition, and the non-Invariants of the Lotos-Eaters School) protested, and indulged in loud and dramatic displays of disfavor, flying hundred-kilometer-long banners from low orbit, buying dream-time beneath the parade, in order to sway public opinion against Atkins, and against the war in general. These protesters argued along the public channels that any future that glorified the profession of arms would coarsen the sensibilities of the public, and reintroduce into moral debate the dangerous notion of ends justifying means.
Many critics published the opinions that the solemn fasts and re-sequencings normally held during this month had been marred by the acrimony of these debates.
In truth, the devastenings had not been completely harmonious. Both sides remembered that the Transcendence had affirmed their positions, and not then-opponents.
Nebuchadnezzar Sophotech remained in Transcendence longer than did the less complex computer personalities of Socrates of Athens Sixty-sixth Partial Historical Extrapolation Dependent Machine-mind, and Emphyrio of Ambroy One Partial Fictional Extrapolation (Status-in-review) Semi-independent When Neo-Orpheus (whose habit was to abolish his body during Transcendency periods) came, dripping, out of the bioreconstruction tub, into the plain, unadorned palace of black stone where he dwelled, instantiations of both these Hortators were awaiting him, and Nebuchadnezzar was nowhere around to advise them.
Socrates was seated on the plain black stairs before the blank door of Orpheus Palace, drawing circles and right triangles in the snow that had gathered in the courtyard and smiling to himself. Bean juice from a meal (either a real meal or an unusually good repro) still stained the philosopher's beard.
Emphyrio was wearing a black shipsuit with an energy-cloak of silvery solar-cell tissue. He stood with his arms crossed and his legs spread, his head held high, a grim light in his eye. He examined the blank and windowless walls of Orpheus Palace with the expression of a poliocratist thinking how to knock down or storm the walls of a castle. Snowy gusts tossed the cloak behind him.
Neo-Orpheus, as was his habit when masquerades were over, went nude, and merely adjusted his body against the change in temperature when he stepped out of doors.
They spoke in rapid electronic pulses, mind-to-mind. The niceties of speaking aloud and slowly, after the fashion of his ancestors, had been left behind with the other frivolities of the late masquerade.
Neo-Orpheus did not header his information packages with normal address-response codes. He expected everyone to whom he spoke to know who and what he was. In the protocols of electronic mind-speech, this was a brusque, perhaps even a rude, conceit. But he was, or he had been, after all, Orpheus, the man who granted immortality to man.
Brusquely, then: "What's wrong? Why do you come in person?"
Socrates answered without looking up: "The press and clamor of many busy folk along the land lines, still filled with post-Transcendence business, precludes us from sending through messengers our burden. Like donkeys laden, we come, carrying what few fragments of the dream we still recall from our voyage to the higher realm of forms."
Neo-Orpheus said, "The Recollections were done in a more haphazard fashion than ever has been before: the gathered totality was distraught. Much was lost. What do you recall?"
There was a pause as circuits in the high black walls absorbed the memory load from the two Hortators. Without a Sophotech, it could not be indexed or absorbed by Neo-Orpheus, without further slow-rate exchanges needed to orient him to the subject matter. It was the way memory works: nothing comes to mind until one is reminded. So the "speech" of the three Hortators continued.
Socrates turned, and looked up at him, still smiling slightly. "Tell me: How does a man serve the city best? Should he aspire after high offices, and gain the power to reward his friends and punish his enemies? Every man, even those who have not reflected on it, will say this is the best way to serve. Or should he serve as the city deems best, or as he deems best, or in some other way?"
Neo-Orpheus was not slow on the uptake. "The prediction is that I will receive a vote of no confidence? The Hortators are kicking me out." He did not express this as a question. He, too, recalled many of the extrapolations from the Transcendence.
The memories in the wall circuits filled in details. He remembered the predictions of public disdain, the loss of his constituency, the loss of subscribers, of funding. And with all minds touching in the supreme moment, those people who had been part of that prediction had also affirmed what they saw, making it a promise to each other.
Emphyrio said in a voice like iron: "All of us."
Neo-Orpheus showed no expression.
Neo-Orpheus stirred, shook himself, said in cold tones: "Foolishness! Without us, men will destroy themselves. We will all turn into machines."
Socrates said, "And yet I saw a promise that the institution of the College might not yet be abolished. Phaethon will speak on behalf of the College of Hortators. The sights he saw at Talaimannar, among the many who do not control their appetites, who act without virtue, taught him how wrong it is to attempt the escape of reality. The ugly thoughts of the Nothing Sophotech are known to everyone now."
Neo-Orpheus said, "Phaethon? He will speak out on our behalf?"
Emphyrio said, "Not ours."
Neo-Orpheus looked up at the black, blank walls. The knowledge seeped into him. "A New College, then. With a new mandate. Dark-Gray Manorials, I assume. Fans of Atkins. We frowned on self-destruction, addiction, and perversion. They will frown on disloyalty. Nonconformity. The ugly future Helion predicted to the Conclave of Peers comes to pass, but not as he predicted it."
Neo-Orpheus looked at Emphyrio. "Well, I suppose I should congratulate you on your emancipation."
"You are premature," said Emphyrio. "My case is still pending."
Socrates chimed in, "And neither of us have happy experiences with trials."