The Hyperion Cantos 4-Book Bundle

by Dan Simmons

  Resurrection of a single person was and remains impossible for the Core.

  That is, it was impossible unless they further ravaged the Void Which Binds—that transtemporal, interstellar medium for the memory and emotions of all sentient races.

  Which the Core did without a backward glance. It is the Void Which Binds that records the individual wave-front personalities of those humans wearing cruciforms … the cruciform itself is little more than a Core-spawned nanotech data-transfer device.

  But every time a person is resurrected, parts of thousands of personalities—human and otherwise—are erased from the more permanent record that is the Void Which Binds. Those of you who have taken communion with me, who have learned the language of the dead and of the living, who have attempted to hear the music of the spheres and have pondered the potential of taking that first step through the Void Which Binds, you understand the terrible savagery this vandalism represents. It must stop. I must stop it.

  (Aenea closes her eyes for a long moment, then opens them again and continues.)

  But this is not the only evil of the cruciform.

  I say again, the Core AI entities are parasites. They cannot stop themselves from being parasites. Besides providing control of humanity via the Church—and, if all else fails, by administering pain to individuals via the cruciforms—there is another reason the AIs have offered humanity resurrection via these cruciform parasites.

  With the Fall of the Farcasters, the use of trillions of human neurons in the Core’s ultimate datasphere-connected Ultimate Intelligence effort was interrupted. Without the ruse of the far-casters by which to attach themselves like leeches on human brains, to steal the very life energy of neurons and holistic wave fronts from their human hosts, to hook billions of human minds into parallel computing devices, the Ultimate Intelligence project had to stop. With the cruciforms, this parasitism on the human brain has been resumed.

  But it is now more complex than mere dataspace connections of billions of human minds in parallel for the Core’s purposes. Centuries ago—as far back as the twentieth century A.D.—human researchers dealing with similar neural networks comprised of pre-AI silicon intelligences discovered that the best way to make a neural network creative was to kill it. In those dying seconds—even in the last nanoseconds of a sentient or near-sentient conscience’s existence—the linear, essentially binary processes of neural net computing jumped barriers, became wildly creative in the near-death liberation from off-on, binary-based processing.

  War-game computer simulations as far back as the late twentieth century showed that dying neural nets made unexpected but highly creative decisions: a primitive, presentient AI controlling a battered seagoing fleet in a simulated war game, for instance, suddenly sank its own damaged ships so that the remnants of its fleet could escape. Such was the genius of dying, nonlinear, neural-net creativity.

  The Core has always lacked such creativity. Essentially, it has the linear, serial architecture of the serial CPUs from which it evolved, coupled with the obsessive, noncreative mentality of the ultimate parasite.

  But with the cruciform, that great neural-networked Core computing device which is the Christian-cruciformed part of the human race has found a source for almost unlimited creativity. All they need for a creativity catalyst is the death of large parts of the neural net. And humans provide that in abundance.

  The Core AIs hover like vampires, waiting to feed off the dying human brains, sucking the marrow of creativity from humankind’s mental bones. And when the deaths fall below the needed level or when their Core-computing demand for creative solutions rises … they orchestrate a few million more deaths.

  Odd accidents occur. Humans’ health is not what it was a few centuries ago. Death from cancer, heart disease, and the like are on the rise. And there are more clever forms of arranged mortality. Even with the Pax imposition of peace within the human interstellar empire, the incidents of violent death are on the rise. New forms of death are introduced. The archangel starships are such a beginning. Death is a cheap commodity for the born-again Christian. But it is a rich source of orchestrated creativity for the Core.

  And thus the cruciform. And thus … I believe … at least one reason to eliminate the things from the human body and the human soul. (When Aenea quits speaking, there is a long silence. Leaves on the treeship whisper in the breeze of circulating air. None of the hundreds of humans or hominids on the many platforms, branches, bridges, or stairways seem to blink, so intense are their gazes as they stare at my friend. Finally a single, strong voice speaks …)

  FATHER CAPTAIN DE SOYA: I still wear the collar and carry the vows of a Catholic priest. Is there no hope for my Church … not the Church of the Pax, held under TechnoCore control and the conceit of greedy men and women … but the Church of Jesus Christ and the hundreds of millions who followed His word?

  AENEA: Federico … Father de Soya … it is for you to answer this question. You and the faithful like you. But I can tell you that there are billions of men and women today … some who wear the cruciform, more who do not … who yearn to return to a Church which concerns itself with spiritual matters, with the teachings of Christ and the deepest matters of the heart, rather than with this obsession with false resurrection.

  TEMPLAR HET MASTEEN: Revered One Who Teaches, if I may change the subject from the cosmic and theological to the most personal and petty …

  AENEA: Nothing of which you speak could be petty, True Voice of the Tree Het Masteen.

  TEMPLAR HET MASTEEN: I was on the Hyperion pilgrimage with your mother, Revered One Who Teaches …

  AENEA: She spoke to me of you often, True Voice of the Tree Het Masteen.

  TEMPLAR HET MASTEEN: Then you know that the Lord of Pain … the Shrike … came to me as the pilgrims were crossing Hyperion’s Sea of Grass on the windwagon, One Who Teaches. It came to me and carried me forward in time and across space … to this time, to this place.

  AENEA: Yes.

  TEMPLAR HET MASTEEN: And in my conversations with you and with my brethren in the Brotherhood of the Muir, I have come to understand that it is my fate to serve the Muir and the cause of Life in this age, as it was prophesied centuries ago by our own seers into the Void Which Binds. But in these days, and despite the best efforts of my Brothers and other kind friends among the Ousters, I have heard of Martin Silenus’s epic poem and found an edition of the Cantos …

  AENEA: That is unfortunate, True Voice of the Tree Het Masteen. My Uncle Martin wrote that to the best of his knowledge, but his knowledge was incomplete.

  TEMPLAR HET MASTEEN: But in the Cantos, Revered One Who Teaches, it says that the pilgrims in their day … and my friend Colonel Kassad has confirmed that this was the case … that they find me on Hyperion, in the Valley of the Time Tombs, and that I die shortly after they find me …

  AENEA: This is true in the context of the Cantos, but …

  TEMPLAR HET MASTEEN: (holding up one hand to silence my friend)

  It is not the inevitability of my return through time to the pilgrimage on Hyperion nor my inevitable death that worries me, Revered One Who Teaches. I understand that this is just one possible future for me … however probable or desirable. But what I wish to clarify is the truth of my last words according to the old poet’s Cantos. Is it true that immediately before dying I will cry out, I am the True Chosen. I must guide the Tree of Pain during the time of Atonement.

  AENEA: This is what is written in the Cantos, True Voice of the Tree Het Masteen.

  TEMPLAR HET MASTEEN: (smiling under his hood)

  And this time is near, Revered One Who Teaches? Will you be using this Yggdrasill as the Tree of Pain for our Atonement as the prophecies attest?

  AENEA: I will, True Voice of the Tree Het Masteen. I will be leaving to carry out that Atonement within standard days. I formally ask that the Yggdrasill be the instrument of our voyage and the instrument of that Atonement. I will be inviting many among us here tonight to join me on that fin
al voyage. And I formally ask you, True Voice of the Tree Het Masteen, if you will captain the treeship Yggdrasill—forever after known as the Tree of Pain—on this voyage.

  TEMPLAR HET MASTEEN: I formally accept your invitation and agree to captain the treeship Yggdrasill on this mission of Atonement, O Revered One Who Teaches. (There are several minutes of silence.)

  FOREMAN JIGME NORBU: Aenea, George and I have a question.

  AENEA: Yes, Jigme.

  FOREMAN JIGME NORBU: You have taught us about the TechnoCore’s quiet genocide on such worlds as Hebron, Qom-Riyadh, and others. Well … not genocide, exactly, because the populations have been put in a sort of sleeping death, but a terrible kidnapping.

  AENEA: Yes.

  FOREMAN JIGME NORBU: Has this happened to our beloved T’ien Shan, the Mountains of Heaven, since we left, Aenea? Have our friends and families been silenced with this Core deathwand and been carried away to some Labyrinthine world?

  AENEA: Yes, Jigme, I am sad to say that it has happened. The bodies are being transported offworld even as we speak.

  KUKU SE: Why? For what reason are these populations being kidnapped? The Jews, the Muslims, the Hindus, the atheists, the Marxists, and now our beautiful Buddhist world. Is the Pax intent on destroying all other faiths?

  AENEA: That is the Pax and Church’s motivation, Kuku. For the TechnoCore it is a much more complicated matter. Without the cruciform parasite on these non-Christian populations, the Core cannot use these humans in its dying neural net. But by storing these billions of people in their false death, the Core can utilize their minds in its huge, parallel-processing neural network. It is a mutually beneficial deal—the Church, who carries out much of the removal work, is no longer threatened by nonbelievers—the Core, who brings the sleep death and carries out the storage in the Labyrinths, gains new circuits in its Ultimate Intelligence network.

  FOREMAN GEORGE TSARONG: Is there no hope then? Can we do nothing to help our friends?

  OUSTER NAVSON HAMNIM: Excuse me for interrupting, M. Tsarong, M. Aenea, but we should explain to our friends that when the time comes for our Ouster Swarms and Templar allies to take the offensive against the Pax, our first objective is to liberate the many Labyrinthine worlds where these populations are kept in silent storage and to attempt to revive them.

  THE DORJE PHAMO: (loudly)

  Revive them? How is this to happen? How can anyone revive them?

  AENEA: By striking directly at the TechnoCore.

  LHOMO DONDRUB: And where is the TechnoCore, Aenea? Tell me and I will go there now and do battle with these AI cowards.

  AENEA: The true location of the TechnoCore has been the AIs’ best-kept secret since the entities left Old Earth a thousand standard years ago, Lhomo. Their actual, physical location has been hidden since then … their secrecy is their best defense against the hosts which might turn against their parasites.

  COLONEL FEDMAHN KASSAD: CEO Meina Gladstone was convinced that the Core dwelt in the interstices of the farcaster medium … like invisible spiders in an unseen web. It is the reason she authorized the deathbombing of the space-portal far-caster network … to strike at the Core. Was she wrong? Were the farcasters destroyed for nothing?

  AENEA: She was wrong, Fedmahn. The physical location of the Core was not within the farcaster medium … which is the fabric of the Void Which Binds. But the destruction of the farcasters was not in vain … it deprived the Core of the parasite medium upon which they fed on human minds, while silencing part of their megasphere data network.

  LHOMO DONDRUB: But, Aenea, you know where the Core resides?

  AENEA: I believe I do.

  LHOMO DONDRUB: Will you tell us so that we can attack them with our teeth and nails and bullets and plasma weapons?

  AENEA: I will not say at this time, Lhomo. Not until I am certain. And the Core cannot be attacked with physical weapons, just as it cannot be entered by physical entities.

  COLONEL FEDMAHN KASSAD: So once again they are impervious to our attacks? Free from confrontation?

  AENEA: No, neither impervious nor free from confrontation. If the fates allow, I will personally carry the attack to the physical Core. Indeed, that attack has already begun in ways that I hope to make clear later. And I promise you that I will confront the AIs in their lair.

  COLONEL FEDMAHN KASSAD: M. Aenea, Brawne’s child, may I ask another question relating to my own fate and future?

  AENEA: I will endeavor to answer, Colonel, while repeating my reluctance to discuss specifics of a topic as fluid as our future.

  COLONEL FEDMAHN KASSAD: Reluctant or no, child, I believe I deserve an answer to this question. I, too, have read these damned Cantos. In them, it says that I followed the apparition Moneta into the future while fighting the Shrike … trying to prevent it from slaughtering the other pilgrims. This was true … some months ago I arrived here. Moneta disappeared, but has reappeared in the younger version of this woman who calls herself Rachel Weintraub. But the Cantos also state that I will soon join in terrible battle with legions of Shrikes, will die, and will be entombed in the newly built Time Tomb called the Crystal Monolith on Hyperion, where my body travels back in time with Moneta as my companion. How can this be, M. Aenea? Have I come to the wrong time? The wrong place?

  AENEA: Colonel Kassad, friend and protector of my mother and the other pilgrims, be assured that all proceeds according to whatever plan there is. Uncle Martin wrote the Cantos given what revelation there was granted to him. Not all details of your life … or mine … were available to him. Indeed, he was told precious little of what was to transpire outside of his presence.

  I can say this to you, Colonel Kassad … the battle with the Shrike is true, however metaphorically rendered. One possible future is for you to die in battle with the Shrike … with many Shrike-like warriors … and to be placed in the Crystal Monolith after a hero’s funeral. But if this were to come to pass, it would be after many years and many other battles. There is work for you to do in the days, months, years, and decades yet to come. I ask you now to accompany me on the Yggdrasill when I depart in three days … that will be the first step toward these battles.

  COLONEL FEDMAHN KASSAD: (smiling)

  But you deflect the question somewhat, M. Aenea. May I ask you … will the Shrike be on your Tree of Pain when it leaves in three standard days’ time?

  AENEA: I believe it will, Colonel Kassad.

  COLONEL FEDMAHN KASSAD: You have not told us here tonight, M. Aenea, what the Shrike is … where it truly comes from … what its role in this centuries-old and centuries-to-come game is.

  AENEA: That is correct, Colonel. I have not told anyone here tonight.

  COLONEL FEDMAHN KASSAD: Have you ever told anyone, child?

  AENEA: No.

  COLONEL FEDMAHN KASSAD: But you know the origin of the Shrike.

  AENEA: Yes.

  COLONEL FEDMAHN KASSAD: Will you tell us, Brawne Lamia’s child?

  AENEA: I would prefer not to, Colonel.

  COLONEL FEDMAHN KASSAD: But you will if asked again, will you not? At least you will answer my direct questions on the matter?

  AENEA: (nods silently … I see tears in her eyes)

  COLONEL FEDMAHN KASSAD: The Shrike first appears in that same far future in which I do battle with it as per the Cantos, is this not correct, M. Aenea? That future in which the Core is making its last-ditch stand against its enemies?

  AENEA: Yes.

  COLONEL FEDMAHN KASSAD: And the Shrike is … will be … a construct, is it not? A created thing. A Core-created thing.

  AENEA: This is accurate.

  COLONEL FEDMAHN KASSAD: It will be a strange amalgam of Core technological wizardry, Void Which Binds energy, and the cybrid-recycled personality of a real human being, won’t it, M. Aenea?

  AENEA: Yes, Colonel. It will be all those things and more.

  COLONEL FEDMAHN KASSAD: And the Shrike will be created by the Core but will become a servant and Avatar of other … powers … entiti
es, will it not?

  AENEA: Yes.

  COLONEL FEDMAHN KASSAD: In truth, Aenea, would you agree that the Shrike will be a pawn of both sides … of all sides … in this war for the soul of humankind … this war that leaps back and forth across time like a four-dimensional chess game?

  AENEA: Yes, Colonel … although not a pawn. A knight, perhaps.

  COLONEL FEDMAHN KASSAD: All right, a knight. And this cybrid, Void Which Binds-connected, ARNied, DNA-engineered, nanotech-enhanced, terribly mutated knight … it starts with the personality of a single warrior, does it not? Perhaps an opponent in this thousand-year game?

  AENEA: Do you need to know this, Colonel? There is no greater hell than seeing the precise details of one’s …

  COLONEL FEDMAHN KASSAD: (softly)

  Of one’s future? Of one’s own death? Of one’s fate? I know that, Aenea, daughter of my friend Brawne Lamia. I know that you have carried such terrible certitudes and visions with you since before you were born … since the days when your mother and I crossed the seas and mountains of Hyperion toward what we thought was our fate with the Shrike. I know that it has been very difficult for you, Aenea, my young friend … harder than any of us here could imagine. None of us could have borne up under such a burden.

  But still I want to know this part of my own fate. And I believe that my years of service in the cause of this battle … years past and years yet to be given … have earned me the right to an answer.

  Is the Shrike based on a single human warrior’s personality?

  AENEA: Yes.

  COLONEL FEDMAHN KASSAD: Mine? After my death in battle, the Core elements … or some power … will incorporate my will, my soul, my persona into that … monster … and send it back in time through the Crystal Monolith?