by Dan Simmons
Cognani paused by the lift door. “I see the fourth,” she said. “The Core has its own imperative to find the girl first. But …”
Isozaki lowered his hand. “We must presume that the child has her own goals in this game, mustn’t we? And whoever or whatever has introduced her as a playing piece … well, that must be our sixth player.”
“Or one of the other five,” said Cognani, smiling. She also enjoyed a high-stakes game.
Isozaki nodded and turned his chair to watch the next sunrise above the curving-away band of the Torus Mercantilus. He did not turn back when the lift door closed and Anna Pelli Cognani departed.
Above the altar, Jesus Christ, his face stern and unrelenting, divided men into camps of the good and the bad—the rewarded and the damned. There was no third group.
Cardinal Lourdusamy sat in his canopied stall inside the Sistine Chapel and looked at Michelangelo’s fresco of the Last Judgment. Lourdusamy had always thought that this Christ was a bullying, authoritarian, merciless figure—perhaps an icon perfectly suited to oversee this choice of a new Vicar of Christ.
The little chapel was crowded with the eighty-three canopied stalls seating the eighty-three cardinals present in the flesh. An empty space allowed for activation of the holos representing the missing thirty-seven cardinals—one holo of a canopied stall at a time.
This was the first morning after the cardinals had been “nailed up” in the Vatican Palace. Lourdusamy had slept and eaten well—his bedroom a cot in his Vatican office, his repast a simple meal cooked by the nuns of the Vatican guest house: simple food and a cheap white wine served in the glorious Borgia Apartments. Now all were gathered in the Sistine Chapel, their stall-thrones in place, their canopies raised. Lourdusamy knew that this splendid sight had been missing from the Conclave for many centuries—ever since the number of cardinals had grown too large to accommodate the stalls in the small chapel, sometime pre-Hegira, the nineteenth or twentieth century A.D., he thought—but the Church had grown so small by the end of the Fall of the Farcasters that the forty-some cardinals could once again easily fit. Pope Julius had kept the number small—never more than 120 cardinals, despite the growth of the Pax. And with almost forty of them unable to travel in time to the Conclave, the Sistine Chapel could hold the stalls of those cardinals permanently based on Pacem.
The moment had come. All of the cardinal-electors in the chapel stood as one. In the empty space near the Scrutineers’ table near the altar, the holos of the thirty-seven absent cardinal-electors shimmered into existence. Because the space was small, the holos were small—little more than doll-sized human figures in doll-sized wooden stalls—all of them floating in midair like ghosts of Conclave-electors past. Lourdusamy smiled, as he always did, at how appropriate the reduced size of these absent electors seemed.
Pope Julius had always been elected by acclamation. One of the three cardinals acting as Scrutineers raised his hand: the Holy Spirit may have been prepared to move these men and women, but some coordination was required. When the Scrutineer’s hand dropped, the eighty-three cardinals and thirty-seven holos were to speak as one.
“Eligo Father Lenar Hoyt!” cried Cardinal Lourdusamy and saw Cardinal Mustafa shouting the same words from beneath the canopy of his stall.
The Scrutineer in front of the altar paused. The acclamation had been loud and clear, but obviously not unanimous. This was a new wrinkle. For 270 years, the acclamation had been immediate.
Lourdusamy was careful not to smile or look around. He knew which of the newer cardinals had not cried out Pope Julius’s name for reelection. He knew the wealth it had taken to bribe these men and women. He knew the terrible risk they were running and would almost certainly suffer for. Lourdusamy knew all this because he had helped to orchestrate it.
After a moment of consultation among the Scrutineers, the one who had called for acclamation now said, “We shall proceed by Scrutiny.”
There was excited talk among the cardinals as the ballots were prepared and handed out. This had never happened before in the lifetime of most of these princes of the Church. Immediately the acclamation holos of the missing cardinal-electors had become irrelevant. Although a few of the absent cardinals had prepared their interactive chips for scrutiny, most had not bothered.
The Masters of Ceremonies moved among the stalls, distributing voting cards—three to each cardinal-elector. The Scrutineers moved among the forest of stalls to make sure that each of the cardinals had a pen. When all was in readiness, the Cardinal Deacon among the Scrutineers raised his hand again, this time to signify the moment of voting.
Lourdusamy looked at his ballot. On the upper left, the words “Eligo in Summum Pontificem” appeared in print. There was room for one name beneath it. Simon Augustino Cardinal Lourdusamy wrote in Lenar Hoyt and folded the card and held it up so that it could be seen. Within a minute, all eighty-three of the cardinals were holding a card aloft, as were half a dozen of the interactive holos.
The Scrutineer began calling the cardinals forward in order of precedence. Cardinal Lourdusamy went first, leaving his stall and walking to the Scrutineers’ table next to the altar beneath the gaze of the terrible Christ of the fresco. Genuflecting and then kneeling at the altar, Lourdusamy bowed his head in silent prayer. Rising, he said aloud, “I call to witness Christ the Lord who will be my judge, that my vote is given to the one who before God I consider should be elected.” Lourdusamy solemnly set his folded card on the silver plate that sat atop the vote receptacle. Lifting the plate, he dropped his vote into the receptacle. The Cardinal Deacon among the Scrutineers nodded; Lourdusamy bowed toward the altar and returned to his stall.
Cardinal Mustafa, the Grand Inquisitor, moved majestically toward the altar to cast the second vote.
It was more than an hour later that the votes were tallied. The first Scrutineer shook the receptacle to mix the votes. The second Scrutineer counted them—including the six votes copied from the interactive holos—depositing each in a second receptacle. The count equaled the number of voting cardinals in the Conclave. The Scrutiny proceeded.
The first Scrutineer unfolded a card, wrote down the name on it, and passed the card to the second Scrutineer, who made a note and passed it to the third and final Scrutineer. This man—Cardinal Couesnongle as it turned out—said the name aloud before making a note of it.
In each of the stalls, a cardinal jotted the name on a ’scriber pad provided by the Scrutineers. At the end of the Conclave, the ’scribers would be scrambled, their files deleted so that no record of the voting would remain.
And so the voting proceeded. For Lourdusamy as for the rest of the living cardinals present, the only suspense was whether the dissident cardinal-electors from the Acclamation would actually put someone else’s name into play.
As each card was read, the last Scrutineer ran a threaded needle through the word “Eligo” and slid the card down the thread. When all of the ballots had been read aloud, knots were tied in each end of the thread.
The winning candidate was admitted to the Chapel. Standing before the altar in a simple black cassock, the man looked humble and a bit overwhelmed.
Standing before him, the senior Deacon Cardinal said, “Do you accept your canonical election as Supreme Pontiff?”
“I do so accept it,” said the priest.
At this point, a stall was brought out and set behind the priest. The Cardinal Deacon raised his hands and intoned, “Thus accepting your canonical election, this gathering does—in the sight of God Almighty—acknowledge you as Bishop of the Church of Rome, true Pope, and Head of the College of Bishops. May God advise you well as He grants you full and absolute power over the Church of Jesus Christ.”
“Amen,” said Cardinal Lourdusamy and pulled the cord that lowered the canopy over his stall. All eighty-three physical canopies and thirty-seven holographic ones lowered at the same time, until only the new Pope’s remained raised. The priest—now pontiff—sat back in the seat beneath the papal
canopy.
“What name do you choose as Supreme Pontiff?” asked the Deacon Cardinal.
“I choose the name Urban the Sixteenth,” said the seated priest.
There was a murmuring and hum from the cardinals’ stalls. The Cardinal Deacon held out his hand and he and the other Scrutineers led the priest from the Chapel. The murmuring and whispering rose in volume.
Cardinal Mustafa leaned out of his stall and said to Lourdusamy, “He must be thinking of Urban the Second. Urban the Fifteenth was a sniveling little coward in the twenty-ninth century who did little but read detective novels and write love letters to his former mistress.”
“Urban the Second,” mused Lourdusamy. “Yes, of course.”
After several minutes, the Scrutineers returned with the priest—now the Pope dressed in pure white—a white-caped cassock, a white zuchetto or skullcap, a pectoral cross, and a white fascia sash. Cardinal Lourdusamy went to his knees on the stone floor of the Chapel, as did all the other cardinals real and holographic, as the new Pontiff gave his first benediction.
Then the Scrutineers and the attending cardinals went to the stove to burn the votes now tethered on black thread, adding enough bianco chemical to make sure that the sfumata would indeed be white smoke.
The cardinals filed out of the Sistine Chapel and walked the ancient paths and corridors to St. Peter’s, where the senior Cardinal Deacon went alone onto the balcony to announce the name of the new Pontiff to the waiting multitudes.
Among the five hundred thousand waiting individuals in the multitude squeezed into, out of, and around St. Peter’s Square that morning was Father Captain Federico de Soya. He had been released from his de facto imprisonment at the Legionaries rectory only hours before. He was to report to Pax Fleet’s spaceport later that afternoon for shuttle to his new command. Walking through the Vatican, de Soya had followed the crowds—then had been engulfed by them—as men, women, and children had flowed like a great river toward the Square.
A great cheer had gone up when the puffs of white smoke first became visible from the stovepipe. The impossibly thick throng beneath the balcony, of St. Peter’s somehow became thicker as tens of thousands more flowed around the colonnades and past the statuary. Hundreds of Swiss Guard troopers held the crowd back from the entrance to the Basilica and away from private areas.
When the Senior Deacon emerged and announced that the new Pope was to be called His Holiness Urban the XVI, a great gasp went up from the crowd. De Soya found himself gaping in surprise and shock. Everyone had expected Julius XV. The thought of anyone else as Pope was … well, unthinkable.
Then the new Pontiff stepped onto the balcony and the gasps turned to cheers that went on and on and on.
It was Pope Julius—the familiar face, the high forehead, the sad eyes. Father Lenar Hoyt, the savior of the Church, had once again been elected. His Holiness raised his hand in the familiar benediction and waited for the crowd to stop cheering so that he could speak, but the crowd would not stop cheering. The roar rose from half a million throats and went on and on.
Why Urban XVI? wondered Father Captain de Soya. He had read and studied enough history of the Church in his years as a Jesuit. Quickly he thumbed back through his mental notes on the Urban popes … most were forgettable or worse. Why …
“Damn,” Father Captain de Soya said aloud, the soft curse lost under the continuing roar of the faithful filling St. Peter’s Square. “Damn,” he said again.
Even before the crowd quieted enough for the new-old Pontiff to speak, to explain his choice of names, to announce what de Soya knew had to be announced, the father-captain understood. And his heart sank with that understanding.
Urban II had served from A.D. 1088 to 1099. At the synod the Pope had called in Clermont in … November, in the year 1095, de Soya thought … Urban II had made his call for holy war against the Muslims in the Near East, for the rescue of Byzantium, and for the liberation of all eastern Christian holy places from Muslim domination. That call had led to the First Crusade … the first of many bloody campaigns.
The crowd finally quieted. Pope Urban XVI began to speak, the familiar but newly energized voice rising and falling over the heads of the half-million faithful listening in person and the billions listening via live broadcast.
Father Captain de Soya turned away even before the new Pope began to speak. He pushed and elbowed his way back through the unmoving crowd, trying to escape the suddenly claustrophobic confines of St. Peter’s Square.
It was no use. The crowd was rapt and joyous and de Soya was trapped in the mob. The words from the new Pontiff were also joyous and impassioned. Father Captain de Soya stood, unable to escape, and bowed his head. As the crowd began cheering and crying “Deus le volt!”—God wills it—de Soya began to weep.
Crusade. Glory. A final resolution of the Ouster Problem. Death beyond imagining. Destruction beyond imagining. Father Captain de Soya squeezed his eyes shut as tightly as he could, but the vision of charged particle beams flaring against the blackness of space, of entire worlds burning, of oceans turning to steam and continents into molten rivers of lava, visions of orbital forests exploding into smoke, of charred bodies tumbling in zero-g, of fragile, winged creatures flaring and charring and expanding into ash …
De Soya wept while billions cheered.
4
It has been my experience that late-night departures and farewells are the hardest on the spirit.
The military was especially good at beginning major voyages in the middle of the night. During my time in the Hyperion Home Guard, it seemed that all important troop movements began in the wee hours. I began to associate that odd blend of fear and excitement, dread and anticipation, with predawn darkness and the smell of lateness. Aenea had said that I would be leaving that night of her announcement to the Fellowship, but it took time to load the kayak, for me to pack my gear and decide what to leave behind forever, and to close up my tent and work area in the compound, so we weren’t airborne in the dropship until after two A.M. and it was almost sunrise before we reached our destination.
I admit that I felt rushed and ordered about by the girl’s preemptive announcement. Many people had come to look to Aenea for leadership and advice during the four years we spent at Taliesin West, but I wasn’t one of those people. I was thirty-two years old. Aenea was sixteen. It was my job to watch out for her, to protect her, and—if it came to that—to tell her what to do and when to do it. I didn’t like this turn of events one bit.
I’d assumed that A. Bettik would be flying with us to wherever I was supposed to shove off, but Aenea said that the android would be staying behind at the compound, so I wasted another twenty minutes tracking him down and saying goodbye.
“M. Aenea says that we will meet up again in due course,” said the blue man, “so I am confident that we shall, M. Endymion.”
“Raul,” I said for the five hundredth time. “Call me Raul.”
“Of course,” said A. Bettik with that slight smile that suggested insubordination.
“Fuck it,” I said eloquently and stuck out my hand. A. Bettik shook it. I had the urge then to hug our old traveling companion, but I knew that it would embarrass him. Androids were not literally programmed to be stiff and subservient—they were, after all, living, organic beings, not machines—but between RNA-training and long practice, they were hopelessly formal creatures. At least this one was.
And then we were away, Aenea and I, taxiing the dropship out of its hangar into the desert night and lifting off with as little noise as possible. I had said good-bye to as many of the other Fellowship apprentices and workers as I had found, but the hour was late and the people were scattered to their dorm cubbies, tents, and apprentice shelters. I hoped that I would run into some of them again—especially some of the construction crewmen and women with whom I’d worked for four years—but I had little real belief that I would.
The dropship could have flown itself to our destination—just a series of coordi
nates Aenea had given it—but I left the controls on semimanual so I could pretend I had something to do during the flight. I knew from the coordinates that we would be traveling about fifteen hundred klicks. Somewhere along the Mississippi River, Aenea had said. The dropship could have done that distance in ten suborbital minutes, but we had been conserving its dwindling energy and fuel reserves, so once we had extended the wings to maximum, we kept our velocity subsonic, our altitude set at a comfortable ten thousand meters, and avoided morphing the ship again until landing. We ordered the Consul’s starship’s persona—which I’d long ago loaded from my comlog into the dropship’s AI core—to keep quiet unless it had something important to tell us, and then we settled back in the red instrument glow to talk and watch the dark continent pass beneath us.
“Kiddo,” I said, “why this galloping hurry?”
Aenea made the self-conscious, throwing-away gesture I had first seen her use almost five years earlier. “It seemed important to get things going.” Her voice was soft, almost lifeless, drained of the vitality and energy that had moved the entire Fellowship to her will. Perhaps I was the only living person who could identify the tone, but she sounded close to tears.
“It can’t be that important,” I said. “To make me leave in the middle of the night …”
Aenea shook her head and looked out the dark windscreen for a moment. I realized that she was crying. When she finally turned back, the glow from the instruments made her eyes look very moist and red. “If you don’t leave tonight, I’ll lose my nerve and ask you not to go. If you don’t go, I’ll lose my nerve again and stay on Earth … never go back.”
I had the urge to take her hand then, but I kept my big paw on the omnicontroller instead. “Hey,” I said, “we can go back together. This doesn’t make any sense for me to go off one way and you another.”
“Yes it does,” said Aenea so quietly that I had to lean to my right to hear her.
