by Dan Simmons
The others seem too tired to respond. Brawne leans against a pack, closes her eyes, and is breathing heavily within seconds. The Consul pulls his tricorne cap low over his eyes. Martin Silenus folds his arms and stares at the doorway, waiting.
Sol Weintraub fusses with a nursing pak, his cold and arthritic fingers having trouble with the heating tab. He looks in his bag and realizes that he has only ten more paks, a handful of diapers.
The baby is nursing, and Sol is nodding, almost sleeping, when a sound wakes them all.
“What?” cries Brawne, fumbling for her father’s pistol.
“Shhh!” snaps the poet, holding his hand out for silence.
From somewhere beyond the tomb comes the sound again. It is flat and final, cutting through the wind noise and sand rasp.
“Kassad’s rifle,” says Brawne Lamia.
“Or someone else’s,” whispers Martin Silenus.
They sit in silence and strain to hear. For a long moment there is no sound at all. Then, in an instant, the night erupts with noise … noise which makes each of them cringe and cover his or her ears. Rachel screams in terror, but her cries cannot be heard over the explosions and rendings beyond the tomb.
ELEVEN
I awoke just as the dropship touched down. Hyperion, I thought, still separating my thoughts from the tatters of dream.
The young lieutenant wished us luck and was the first out as the door irised open and cool, thin air replaced the pressurized thickness of the cabin atmosphere. I followed Hunt out and down a standard docking ramp, through the shield wall, and onto the tarmac.
It was night, and I had no idea what the local time was, whether the terminator had just passed this point on the planet or was just approaching, but it felt and smelled late. It was raining softly, a light drizzle perfumed with the salt scent of the sea and the fresh hint of moistened vegetation. Field lights glared around the distant perimeter, and a score of lighted towers threw halos toward the low clouds. A half dozen young men in Marine field uniforms were quickly unloading the dropship, and I could see our young lieutenant speaking briskly to an officer thirty yards to our right. The small spaceport looked like something out a history book, a colonial port from the earliest days of the Hegira. Primitive blast pits and landing squares stretched for a mile or more toward a dark bulk of hills to the north, gantries and service towers tended to a score of military shuttles and small warcraft around us, and the landing areas were ringed by modular military buildings sporting antennae arrays, violet containment fields, and a clutter of skimmers and aircraft.
I followed Hunt’s gaze and noticed a skimmer moving toward us. The blue and gold geodesic symbol of the Hegemony on one of its skirts was illuminated by its running lights; rain streaked the forward blisters and whipped away from the fans in a violent curtain of mist. The skimmer settled, a Perspex blister split and folded, and a man stepped out and hurried across the tarmac toward us.
He held out his hand to Hunt. “M. Hunt? I’m Theo Lane.”
Hunt shook the hand, nodded toward me. “Pleased to meet you, Governor-General. This is Joseph Severn.”
I shook Lane’s hand, a shock of recognition coming with the touch. I remembered Theo Lane through the déjà vu mists of the Consul’s memory, recalling the years when the young man was the Vice-Consul; also from a brief meeting a week earlier when he greeted all of the pilgrims before they departed upriver on the levitation barge Benares. He seemed older than he had appeared just six days before. But the unruly lock of hair on his forehead was the same, as were the archaic eyeglasses he wore, and the brisk, firm handshake.
“I’m pleased you could take the time to make planetfall,” Governor-General Lane said to Hunt. “I have several things I need to communicate to the CEO.”
“That’s why we’re here,” said Hunt. He squinted up at the rain. “We have about an hour. Is there somewhere we can dry off?”
The Governor-General showed a youthful smile. “The field here is a madhouse, even at 0520 hours, and the consulate is under siege. But I know a place.” He gestured toward the skimmer.
As we lifted off, I noticed the two Marine skimmers keeping pace with us but I was still surprised that the Governor-General of a Protectorate world flew his own vehicle and did not have constant bodyguards. Then I remembered what the Consul had told the other pilgrims about Theo Lane—about the young man’s efficiency and self-effacing ways—and realized that such a low profile was in keeping with the diplomat’s style.
The sun rose as we lifted off from the spaceport and banked toward town. Low clouds glowed brilliantly as they were lighted from below, the hills to the north sparkled a bright green, violet, and russet, and the strip of sky below the clouds to the east was that heart-stopping green and lapis which I remembered from my dreams. Hyperion, I thought, and felt a thick tension and excitement catch in my throat.
I leaned my head against the rain-streaked canopy and realized that some of the vertigo and confusion I felt at that moment came from a thinning of the background contact with the datasphere. The connection was still there, carried primarily on microwave and fatline channels now, but more tenuous than I had ever experienced—if the datasphere had been the sea in which I swam, I was now in shallow water indeed, perhaps a tidal pool would be a better metaphor, and the water grew even shallower as we left the envelope of the spaceport and its crude microsphere. I forced myself to pay attention to what Hunt and Governor-General Lane were discussing.
“You can see the shacks and hovels,” said Lane, banking slightly so we had a better view of the hills and valleys separating the spaceport from the suburbs of the capital.
Shacks and hovels were too-polite terms for the miserable collection of fiberplastic panels, patches of canvas, heaps of packing crates, and shards of flowfoam that covered the hills and deep canyons. What obviously had once been a scenic seven- or eight-mile drive from the city to the spaceport through wooded hills now showed land stripped of all trees for firewood and shelter, meadows beaten to barren mudflats by the press of feet, and a city of seven or eight hundred thousand refugees sprawled over every flat piece of land in sight. Smoke from thousands of breakfast fires floated toward the clouds, and I could see movement everywhere, children running in bare feet, women carrying water from streams that must be terribly polluted, men squatting in open fields and waiting in line at makeshift privies. I noted that high razorwire fences and violet containment field barriers had been set along both sides of the highway, and military checkpoints were visible every half mile. Long lines of FORCE camouflaged ground vehicles and skimmers moved both directions along the highway and low-level flyways.
“… most of the refugees are indigenies,” Governor-General Lane was saying, “although there are thousands of displaced landowners from the southern cities and the large fiberplastic plantations on Aquila.”
“Are they here because they think the Ousters will invade?” asked Hunt.
Theo Lane glanced at Gladstone’s aide. “Originally there was panic at the thought of the Time Tombs opening,” he said. “People were convinced that the Shrike was coming for them.”
“Was it?” I asked.
The young man shifted in his seat to look back at me. “The Third Legion of the Self-Defense Force went north seven months ago,” he said. “It didn’t come back.”
“You said at first they were fleeing the Shrike,” said Hunt. “Why did the others come?”
“They’re waiting for the evacuation,” said Lane. “Everyone knows what the Ousters … and the Hegemony troops … did to Bressia. They don’t want to be here when that happens to Hyperion.”
“You’re aware that FORCE considers evacuation an absolute last resort?” said Hunt.
“Yes. But we’re not announcing that to the refugees. There have been terrible riots already. The Shrike Temple has been destroyed … a mob laid siege, and someone used shaped plasma charges stolen from the mineworks on Ursus. Last week there were attacks on the consulate and the spacepo
rt, as well as food riots in Jacktown.”
Hunt nodded and watched the city approach. The buildings were low, few over five stories, and their white and pastel walls glowed richly in the slanting rays of morning light. I looked over Hunt’s shoulder and saw the low mountain with the carved face of Sad King Billy brooding over the valley. The Hoolie River twisted through the center of the old town, straightening before it headed northwest toward the unseen Bridle Range, twisting out of sight in the weirwood marshes to the southeast, where I knew it widened to its delta along the High Mane. The city looked uncrowded and peaceful after the sad confusion of the refugee slums, but even as we began to descend toward the river, I noticed the military traffic, the tanks and APCs and GAVs at intersections and sitting in parks, their camouflage polymer deliberately deactivated so the machines would look more threatening. Then I saw the refugees in the city: makeshift tents in the squares and alleys, thousands of sleeping forms along the curbs, like so many dull-colored bundles of laundry waiting to be picked up.
“Keats had a population of two hundred thousand two years ago,” said Governor-General Lane. “Now, including the shack cities, we’re nearing three and a half million.”
“I thought that there were fewer than five million people on the planet,” said Hunt. “Including indigenies.”
“That’s accurate,” said Lane. “You see why everything’s breaking down. The other two large cities, Port Romance and Endymion, are holding most of the rest of the refugees. Fiberplastic plantations on Aquila are empty, being reclaimed by the jungle and flame forests, the farm belts along the Mane and the Nine Tails aren’t producing—or if they are, can’t get their food to market because of the breakdown of the civilian transport system.”
Hunt watched the river come closer. “What is the government doing?”
Theo Lane smiled. “You mean what am I doing? Well, the crisis has been brewing for almost three years. The first step was to dissolve the Home Rule Council and formally bring Hyperion into the Protectorate. Once I had executive powers, I moved to nationalize the remaining transit companies and dirigible lines—only the military moves by skimmer here now—and to disband the Self-Defense Force.”
“Disband it?” said Hunt. “I would think you would want to use it.”
Governor-General Lane shook his head. He touched the omni control lightly, confidently, and the skimmer spiraled down toward the center of old Keats. “They were worse than useless,” he said, “they were dangerous. I wasn’t too upset when the ‘Fighting Third’ Legion went north and just disappeared. As soon as the FORCE:ground troops and Marines landed, I disarmed the rest of the SDF thugs. They were the source of most of the looting. Here’s where we’ll get some breakfast and talk.”
The skimmer dropped in low over the river, circled a final time, and dropped lightly into the courtyard of an ancient structure made of stone and sticks and imaginatively designed windows: Cicero’s. Even before Lane identified the place to Leigh Hunt I recognized it from the pilgrims’ passage—the old restaurant/pub/inn lay in the heart of Jacktown and sprawled over four buildings on nine levels, its balconies and piers and darkened weirwood walkways overhanging the slow-moving Hoolie on one side and the narrow lanes and alleys of Jacktown on the other. Cicero’s was older than the stone face of Sad King Billy, and its dim cubicles and deep wine cellars had been the true home of the Consul during his years of exile here.
Stan Leweski met us at the courtyard door. Tall and massive, face as age darkened and cracked as the stone walls of his inn, Leweski was Cicero’s, as had been his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather before him.
“By damn!” declared the giant, clapping the Governor-General/de facto dictator of this world on his shoulders hard enough to make Theo stagger. “You get up early for a change, heh? Bring your friends to breakfast? Welcome to Cicero’s!” Stan Leweski’s huge hand swallowed Hunt’s and then mine in a welcome that left me checking fingers and joints for damage. “Or is it later—Web time—for you?” he boomed. “Maybe you like a drink or dinner!”
Leigh Hunt squinted at the pub owner. “How did you know we were from the Web?”
Leweski boomed a laugh that sent weathervanes on the roofline spinning. “Hah! Hard to deduct, yes? You come here with Theo at sunrise—you think he give everybody a ride here?—also wearing wool clothes when we got no sheeps here. You’re not FORCE people and not fiberplastic plantation big shots … I know all those! Ipso fact toto, you farcast to ships from Web, drop down here for good food. Now, you want breakfast or plenty to drink?”
Theo Lane sighed. “Give us a quiet corner, Stan. Bacon and eggs and brine kippers for me. Gentlemen?”
“Just coffee,” said Hunt.
“Yes,” I said. We were following the owner through the corridors now, up short staircases and down wrought-iron ramps, through more corridors. The place was lower, darker, smokier, and more fascinating than I remembered from my dreams. A few regulars looked up at us as we passed, but the place was far less crowded than I remembered. Obviously Lane had sent troops to throw out the last of the SDF barbarians who had been occupying the place. We passed a high, narrow window, and I verified that hypothesis by catching a glimpse of a FORCE:ground APC parked in the alley, troops lounging on and near it with obviously loaded weapons.
“Here,” said Leweski, waving us into a small porch which overhung the Hoolie and looked out onto the gabled rooftops and stone towers of Jacktown. “Dommy be here in two minutes with your breakfast and coffees.” He disappeared quickly … for a giant.
Hunt glanced at his comlog. “We have about forty-five minutes before the dropship is supposed to return with us. Let’s talk.”
Lane nodded, removed his glasses, and rubbed his eyes. I realized that he had been up all night … perhaps several nights. “Fine,” he said, setting the glasses back in place. “What does CEO Gladstone want to know?”
Hunt paused while a very short man with parchment-white skin and yellow eyes brought our coffee in deep, thick mugs and set down a platter with Lane’s food. “The CEO wants to know what you feel your priorities are,” said Hunt. “And she needs to know if you can hold out here if the fighting is prolonged.”
Lane ate for a moment before responding. He took a long sip of coffee and stared intently at Hunt. It was real coffee from the taste of it, better than most Web-grown. “First question last,” Lane said. “Define prolonged.”
“Weeks.”
“Weeks, probably. Months, no way.” The Governor-General tried the brine kippers. “You see the state of our economy. If it wasn’t for the supplies dropped in by FORCE, we’d have food riots every day instead of once a week. There are no exports with the quarantine. Half the refugees want to find the Shrike Temple priests and kill them, the other half want to convert before the Shrike finds them.”
“Have you found the priests?” asked Hunt.
“No. We’re sure they escaped the temple bombing, but the authorities can’t locate them. Rumor has it that they’ve gone north to Keep Chronos, a stone castle right above the high steppe where the Time Tombs are.”
I knew better. At least, I knew the pilgrims had not seen any Shrike Temple priests during their brief stay in the Keep. But there had been signs of a slaughter there.
“As for our priorities,” Theo Lane was saying, “the first is evacuation. The second is elimination of the Ouster threat. The third is help with the Shrike scare.”
Leigh Hunt sat back against oiled wood. Steam lifted from the heavy mug in his hands. “Evacuation is not a possibility at this time—”
“Why?” Lane fired the question like a hellwhip bolt.
“CEO Gladstone does not have the political power … at this point … to convince the Senate and All Thing that the Web can accept five million refugees—”
“Bullshit,” said the Governor-General. “There were twice that many tourists flooding Maui-Covenant its first year in the Protectorate. And that destroyed a unique planetary ecology. Put us on Armaghas
t or some desert world until the war scare is past.”
Hunt shook his head. His basset-hound eyes looked sadder than usual. “It isn’t just the logistical question,” he said. “Or the political one. It’s …”
“The Shrike,” said Lane. He broke a piece of bacon. “The Shrike is the real reason.”
“Yes. As well as fears of an Ouster infiltration of the Web.”
The Governor-General laughed. “So you’re afraid that if you set up farcaster portals here and let us out, a bunch of three-meter Ousters are going to land and get in line without anyone noticing?”
Hunt sipped his coffee. “No,” he said, “but there is a real chance of an invasion. Every farcaster portal is an opening to the Web. The Advisory Council warns against it.”
“All right,” said the younger man, his mouth half-full. “Evacuate us by ship then. Wasn’t that the reason for the original task force?”
“That was the ostensible reason,” said Hunt. “Our real goal now is to defeat the Ousters and then bring Hyperion fully into the Web.”
“And what about the Shrike threat then?”
“It will be … neutralized,” said Hunt. He paused while a small group of men and women passed by our porch.
I glanced up, started to return my attention to the table, and then snapped my head back around. The group had passed out of sight down the hallway. “Wasn’t that Melio Arundez?” I said, interrupting Governor-General Lane.
“What? Oh, Dr. Arundez. Yes. Do you know him, M. Severn?”
Leigh Hunt was glaring at me, but I ignored it. “Yes,” I said to Lane, although I had never actually met Arundez. “What is he doing on Hyperion?”
“His team landed over six local months ago with a project proposal from Reichs University on Freeholm to do additional research on the Time Tombs.”
“But the Tombs were closed to research and tourists,” I said.
“Yes. But their instruments—we allowed data to be relayed weekly through the consulate fatline transmitter—had already shown the change in the anti-entropic fields surrounding the Tombs. Reichs University knew the Tombs were opening … if that’s really what the change means … and they sent the top researchers in the Web to study it.”
