by Dan Simmons
A bearded Ouster whom the Consul had heard introduced as Spokesman Hullcare Amnion stepped forward to the inner circle. “The device was useless. It did nothing. ”
The Consul turned, opened his mouth, and closed it without speaking.
“A test,” said Freeman Ghenga.
The Consul’s voice was almost inaudible. “But the Tombs … opened.”
“We knew when they would open,” said Coredwell Minmun. “The decay rate of the anti-entropic fields was known to us. The device was a test.”
“A test,” repeated the Consul. “I killed those four people for nothing. A test.”
“Your wife and child died at Ouster hands,” said Freeman Ghenga. “The Hegemony raped your world of Maui-Covenant. Your actions were predictable within certain parameters. Gladstone counted on this. So did we. But we had to know those parameters.”
The Consul stood, took three steps, and kept his back turned to the others. “Wasted.”
“What was that?” asked Freeman Ghenga. The tall woman’s bare scalp glowed in the starlight and the reflected sunlight from a passing cornet farm.
The Consul was laughing softly. “Everything wasted. Even my betrayals. Nothing real. Wasted.”
Spokesman Coredwell Minmun stood and arranged his robes. “This Tribunal has passed sentence,” he said. The other sixteen Ousters nodded.
The Consul turned. There was something like eagerness on his tired face. “Do it, then. For God’s sake get it over with.”
Spokesman Freeman Ghenga stood and faced the Consul. “You are condemned to live. You are condemned to repair some of the damage you have done. ”
The Consul staggered as if struck in the face. “No, you can’t … you must … ”
“You are condemned to enter the age of chaos which approaches,” said Spokesman Hullcare Amnion. “Condemned to help us find fusion between the separated families of humankind.”
The Consul raised his arms as if trying to defend himself from physical blows. “I can’t … won’t … guilty … ”
Freeman Ghenga took three strides, grasped the Consul by the front of his formal bolo jacket, and shook him unceremoniously. “You are guilty. And that is precisely why you must help ameliorate the chaos which is to come. You helped free the Shrike. Now you must return to see that it is caged once again. Then the long reconciliation must begin.”
The Consul had been released, but his shoulders were still shaking. At that moment, the mountain rotated into sunlight, and tears sparkled in the Consul’s eyes. “No,” he whispered.
Freeman Ghenga smoothed his rumpled jacket and moved her long fingers to the diplomat’s shoulders. “We have our own prophets. The Templars will join us in the reseeding of the galaxy. Slowly, those who had lived in the lie called the Hegemony will climb out of the ruins of their Core-dependent worlds and join us in true exploration … exploration of the universe and of that greater realm which is inside each of us.”
The Consul had not seemed to have heard. He turned away brusquely. “The Core will destroy you,” he said, not facing any of them. “Just as it has destroyed the Hegemony.”
“Do you forget that your homeworld was founded on a solemn covenant of life?” said Coredwell Minmun.
The Consul turned toward the Ouster.
“Such a covenant governs our lives and actions,” said Minmun. “Not merely to preserve a few species from Old Earth, but to find unity in diversity. To spread the seed of humankind to all worlds, diverse environments, while treating as sacred the diversity of life we find elsewhere.”
Freeman Ghenga’s face was bright in the sun. “The Core offered unity in unwitting subservience,” she said softly. “Safety in stagnation. Where are the revolutions in human thought and culture and action since the Hegira?”
“Terraformed into pale clones of Old Earth,” answered Coredwell Minmun. “Our new age of human expansion will terraform nothing. We will revel in hardships and welcome strangeness. We will not make the universe adapt … we shall adapt.”
Spokesman Hullcare Amnion gestured toward the stars. “If humankind survives this test, our future lies in the dark distances between as well as on the sunlit worlds.”
The Consul sighed. “I have friends on Hyperion,” he said. “May I return to help them?”
“You may,” said Freeman Ghenga.
“And confront the Shrike?” said the Consul.
“You will,” said Coredwell Minmun.
“And survive to see this age of chaos?” said the Consul.
“You must,” said Hullcare Amnion.
The Consul sighed again and moved aside with the others as, above them, a great butterfly with wings of solar cells and glistening skin impervious to hard vacuum or harder radiation lowered itself toward the Stonehenge circle and opened its belly to receive the Consul.
In the Government House infirmary on Tau Ceti Center, Father Paul Duré slept a shallow and medically induced sleep, dreaming of flames and the death of worlds.
Except for the brief visit by CEO Gladstone and an even briefer visit by Bishop Edouard, Duré had been alone all day, drifting in and out of a pain-filled haze. The doctors here had asked for twelve more hours before their patient should be moved, and the College of Cardinals on Pacem had agreed, wishing the patient well and making ready for the ceremonies—still twenty-four hours away—in which Jesuit priest Paul Duré of Villefranche-sur-Saône would become Pope Teilhard I, the 487th Bishop of Rome, direct successor of the disciple Peter.
Still healing, flesh reweaving itself with the guidance of a million RNA directors, nerves similarly regenerating, thanks to the miracle of modern medicine—but not so miraculous, Duré thought, that it keeps me from itching almost to death—the Jesuit lay abed and thought about Hyperion and the Shrike and his long life and the confused state of affairs in God’s universe. Eventually Duré slept and dreamed of God’s Grove burning while the Templar True Voice of the Worldtree pushed him through the portal, and of his mother and of a woman named Semfa, now dead, but formerly a worker on Perecebo Plantation in the outback of the Outback in fiberplastic country east of Port Romance.
And in these dreams, primarily sad, Duré suddenly was aware of another presence there, not of another dream presence, but of another dreamer.
Duré was walking with someone. The air was cool, and the sky was a heart-rending blue. They had just come around a bend in a road, and now a lake became visible before them, its shores lined with graceful trees, mountains framing it from behind, a line of low clouds adding drama and scale to the scene, and a single island seeming to float far out on the mirror-still waters.
“Lake Windermere,” said Duré’s companion.
The Jesuit turned slowly, his heart pounding with anxious anticipation. Whatever he expected, the sight of his companion did not inspire awe.
A short young man walked next to Duré. He wore an archaic jacket with leather buttons and a broad leather belt, sturdy shoes, an old fur cap, a battered knapsack, oddly tailored and frequently patched trousers, and carried a great plaid thrown over one shoulder and a solid walking stick in his right hand. Duré stopped walking, and the other man paused as if welcoming a break.
“The Fells of Furness and the Cumbrian Mountains,” said the young man, using his stick to gesture beyond the lake.
Duré saw the auburn locks curling out from under the odd cap, noted the large hazel eyes and the man’s short stature, and knew that he had to be dreaming even as he thought I’m not dreaming!
“Who … ” began Duré, feeling fear surge in him as his heart pounded.
“John,” said his companion, and the quiet reasonableness of that voice set some of Duré’s fear aside. “I believe we’ll be able to stay in Bowness tonight. Brown tells me that there’s a wonderful inn there hard on the lake.”
Duré nodded. He had absolutely no idea what the man was talking about.
The short young man leaned forward and grasped Duré’s forearm in a gentle but persistent grip. “There
will be one who comes after me,” said John. “Neither alpha nor the omega but essential for us to find the way.”
Duré nodded stupidly. A breeze rippled the lake and brought the smell of fresh vegetation from the foothills beyond.
“That one will be born far away,” said John. “Farther away than our race has known for centuries. Your job will be the same as mine now—to prepare the way. You will not live to see the day of that person’s teaching, but your successor will.”
“Yes,” said Paul Duré and found that there was no saliva whatsoever in his mouth.
The young man doffed his cap, tucked it in his belt, and stooped to pick up a rounded stone. He threw it far out onto the lake. Ripples spread in slow progression. “Damn,” said John, “I was trying to skip it.” He looked at Duré. “You have to leave the infirmary and get back to Pacem at once. Do you understand?”
Duré blinked. The statement did not seem to belong in the dream. “Why?”
“Never mind,” said John. “Just do it. Wait for nothing, If you don’t leave at once, there will be no chance later.”
Duré turned in confusion, as if he could walk back to his hospital bed. He looked over his shoulder at the short, thin young man standing on the pebbly shore. “What about you?”
John picked up a second stone, threw it, and shook his head when the rock skipped only once before disappearing beneath the mirrored surface. “I’m happy here for now,” he said, more to himself than to Duré. “I really was happy on this trip.” He seemed to shake himself out of his reverie and lifted his head to smile at Duré. “Go on. Move your ass, Your Holiness.”
Shocked, amused, irritated, Duré opened his mouth to retort and found himself lying in bed in the Government House infirmary. The medics had lowered the lighting so that he could sleep. Monitor beads clung to his skin.
Duré lay there a minute, suffering the itching and discomfort from healing third-degree burns and thinking about the dream, thinking that it was only a dream, that he could go back to sleep for a few hours before Monsignor—Bishop Edouard and the others arrived to escort him back. Duré closed his eyes and remembered the masculine but gentle face, the hazel eyes, the archaic dialect.
Father Paul Duré of the Society of Jesus sat up, struggled to his feet, found his clothes gone and nothing but his paper hospital pajamas to wear, wrapped a blanket around him, and shuffled off in bare feet before medics could respond to the tattletale sensors.
There had been a medics-only farcaster at the far end of the hall. If that failed to get him home, he would find another.
Leigh Hunt carried Keats’s body out of the shadow of the building into the sunlight of the Piazza di Spagna and expected to find the Shrike waiting for him. Instead, there was a horse. Hunt wasn’t an expert at recognizing horses, since the species was extinct in his time, but this one appeared to be the same one which had brought them to Rome. It helped in the identification that the horse was attached to the same small cart—Keats had called it a vettura—which they had ridden in earlier.
Hunt set the body on the carriage seat, folding the layers of linen around it carefully, and walked alongside with one hand still touching the shroud as the carriage began moving slowly. In his final hours, Keats had asked to be buried in the Protestant Cemetery near the Aurelian Wall and the Pyramid of Caius Cestius. Hunt vaguely remembered that they had passed through the Aurelian Wall during their bizarre voyage here, but he could not have found it again if his life—or Keats’s burial—depended on it. At any rate, the horse seemed to know the way.
Hunt trudged alongside the slowly moving carriage, aware of the beautiful spring-morning quality to the air and an underlying smell as of rotting vegetation. Could Keats’s body be decomposing already? Hunt knew little about the details of death; he wanted to learn no more. He swatted at the horse’s rump to hurry the beast up, but the animal stopped, turned slowly to give Hunt a reproachful look, and resumed his plodding pace.
It was more a glint of light glimpsed out of the corner of his eye than any sound that tipped Hunt off, but when he turned quickly, the Shrike was there—ten or fifteen meters behind and matching the pace of the horse with a solemn but somehow comical march, thorned and barbed knees high with each step. Sunlight flashed on carapace, metal tooth, and blade.
Hunt’s first impulse was to abandon the carriage and run, but a sense of duty and a deeper sense of being lost stifled that urge. Where could he run but back to the Piazza di Spagna—and the Shrike blocked the only return.
Accepting the creature as a mourner in this insane procession, Hunt turned his back on the monster and continued walking alongside the carriage, one hand firm on his friend’s ankle, through the shroud.
All during the walk, Hunt was alert for any sign of a farcaster portal, some sign of technology beyond the nineteenth century, or another human being. There was none. The illusion that he was walking through an abandoned Rome in the spring-like weather of February, A.D. 1821 was perfect. The horse climbed a hill a block from the Spanish Steps, made several other turns on broad avenues and narrow lanes, and passed within sight of the curved and crumbling ruin which Hunt recognized as the Colosseum.
When the horse and carriage stopped, Hunt roused himself from the walking doze he had drifted into and looked around. They were outside the overgrown heap of stones Hunt guessed to be the Aurelian Wall, and there was indeed a low pyramid visible, but the Protestant Cemetery—if that is what it was—seemed more pasture than cemetery. Sheep grazed in the shade of cypresses, their bells tinkling eerily in the thick, warming air, and everywhere the grass grew to knee height or taller. Hunt blinked and saw the few headstones scattered here and there, half hidden by the grass, and closer, just beyond the grazing horse’s neck, a newly excavated grave.
The Shrike remained ten meters back, among the rustling cypress branches, but Hunt saw the glow of its red eyes fixed on the grave site.
Hunt went around the horse, now munching contentedly on high grass, and approached the grave. There was no coffin. The hole was about four feet deep, and the heaped dirt beyond smelled of upturned humus and cool soil. Embedded there was a long-handled shovel, as if the grave diggers had just left. A slab of stone stood upright at the head of the grave but remained unmarked—a blank headstone. Hunt saw the glint of metal on top of the slab and rushed over to find the first modern artifact he had seen since being kidnapped to Old Earth: a small laser pen lay there—the type used by construction workers or artists to scrawl designs on the hardest alloy.
Hunt turned, holding the pen, feeling armed now although the thought of that narrow beam stopping the Shrike seemed ludicrous. He dropped the pen into the pocket of his shirt and went about the business of burying John Keats.
A few minutes later, Hunt stood near the heap of dirt, shovel in hand, staring down into the open grave at the small, sheet-wrapped bundle there, and tried to think of something to say. Hunt had been at numerous state memorial services, had even written Gladstone’s eulogies for some of them, and words had never been a problem before. But now nothing came. The only audience was the silent Shrike, still back among the shadows of the cypresses, and the sheep with their bells tinkling as they moved nervously away from the monster, ambling toward the grave like a group of tardy mourners.
Hunt thought that perhaps some of the original John Keats’s poetry would be appropriate now, but Hunt was a political manager—not a man given to reading or memorizing ancient poetry. He remembered, too late, that he had written down the snippet of verse his friend had dictated the day before, but the notebook still lay on the bureau in the apartment on the Piazza di Spagna. It had been something about becoming godlike or a god, the knowledge of too many things rushing in … or somesuch nonsense. Hunt had an excellent memory, but he couldn’t recall the first line of that archaic mishmash.
In the end, Leigh Hunt compromised with a moment of silence, his head bowed and eyes closed except for occasional peeks at the Shrike, still holding its distance, and then he sho
veled the dirt in. It took longer than he would have imagined. When he was done patting down the soil, the surface was slightly concave, as if the body had been too insignificant to form a proper mound. Sheep brushed by Hunt’s legs to graze on the high grass, daisies, and violets which grew around the grave.
Hunt might not have remembered the man’s poetry, but he had no trouble remembering the inscription Keats had asked to be set on his headstone. Hunt clicked on the pen, tested it by burning a furrow in three meters of grass and soil, and then had to stamp out the tiny fire he had started. The inscription had bothered Hunt when he first heard it—the loneliness and bitterness audible beneath Keats’s wheezing, gasping effort to speak. But Hunt did not think it was his place to argue with the man. Now he had only to inscribe it in stone, leave this place, and avoid the Shrike while trying to find a way home.
The pen sliced into stone easily enough, and Hunt had to practice on the back side of the headstone before he found the right depth of line and quality of control. Still, the effect looked ragged and homemade when Hunt finished some fifteen or twenty minutes later.
First there was the crude drawing which Keats had asked for—he had shown the aide several rough sketches, drawn on foolscap with a shaking hand—of a Greek lyre with four of its eight strings broken. Hunt was not satisfied when he was done—he was even less of an artist than a reader of poetry—but the thing was probably recognizable to anyone who knew what the hell a Greek lyre was. Then came the legend itself, written precisely as Keats had dictated it:
HERE LIES ONE
WHOSE NAME
WAS WRIT IN WATER
There was nothing else: no birth or death dates, not even the poet’s name. Hunt stood back, surveyed his work, shook his head, keyed the pen off but kept it in his hand, and started back for the city, making a wide circle around the creature in the cypresses as he did so.
