by Dan Simmons
“Melio,” whispered Sol.
“Whatever. It just doesn’t help, Dad. By the time I can even begin to absorb it, I’m so worn out that I have to sleep. Then … well, you know what happens then.”
“What …” began Sol and had to clear his throat. “What do you want us to do, little one?”
Rachel looked him in the eye and smiled. It was the same smile she had gifted him with since her fifth week of life. “Don’t tell me, Dad,” she said firmly. “Don’t let me tell me. It just hurts. I mean, I didn’t live those times …” She paused and touched her forehead. “You know what I mean, Dad. The Rachel who went to another planet and fell in love and got hurt … that was a different Rachel! I shouldn’t have to suffer her pain.” She was crying now. “Do you understand? Do you?”
“Yes,” said Sol. He opened his arms and felt her warmth and tears against his chest. “Yes, I understand.”
Fatline messages from Hyperion came frequently the next year but they were all negative. The nature and source of the anti-entropic fields had not been found. No unusual time-tide activity had been measured around the Sphinx. Experiments with laboratory animals in and around the tidal regions had resulted in sudden death for some animals, but the Merlin sickness had not been replicated. Melio ended every message with “My love to Rachel.”
Sol and Sarai used money loaned from Reichs University to receive limited Poulsen treatments in Bussard City. They were already too old for the process to extend their lives for another century, but it restored the look of a couple approaching fifty standard rather than seventy. They studied old family photos and found that it was not too difficult to dress the way they had a decade and a half before.
Sixteen-year-old Rachel tripped down the stairs with her comlog tuned to the college radio station. “Can I have rice cereal?”
“Don’t you have it every morning?” smiled Sarai.
“Yes,” grinned Rachel. “I just thought we might be out or something. I heard the phone. Was that Niki?”
“No,” said Sol.
“Damn,” said Rachel and glanced at them. “Sorry. But she promised she’d call as soon as the standardized scores came in. Three weeks since tutorials. You’d think I’d have heard something.”
“Don’t worry,” said Sarai. She brought the coffeepot to the table, started to pour Rachel a cup, poured it for herself. “Don’t worry, honey. I promise you that your scores will be good enough to get you into any school you want.”
“Mom,” sighed Rachel. “You don’t know. It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there.” She frowned. “Have you seen my math ansible? My room was all messed around. I couldn’t find anything.”
Sol cleared his throat. “No classes today, kiddo.”
Rachel stared. “No classes? On a Tuesday? Six weeks from graduation? What’s up?”
“You’ve been sick,” Sarai said firmly. “You can stay home one day. Just today.”
Rachel’s frown deepened. “Sick? I don’t feel sick. Just sort of weird. Like things aren’t … aren’t right somehow. Like why’s the couch moved around in the media room? And where’s Chips? I called and called but he didn’t come.”
Sol touched his daughter’s wrist. “You’ve been sick for a while,” he said. “The doctor said you might wake up with a few gaps. Let’s talk while we walk over to the campus. Want to?”
Rachel brightened. “Skip classes and go to the college? Sure.” She faked a look of consternation. “As long as we don’t run into Roger Sherman. He’s taking freshman calculus up there and he’s such a pain.”
“We won’t see Roger,” said Sol. “Ready to go?”
“Almost.” Rachel leaned over and gave her mother a huge hug. “ ’Later, alligator.”
“ ’While, crocodile,” said Sarai.
“Okay,” grinned Rachel, her long hair bouncing. “I’m ready.”
The constant trips to Bussard City had required the purchase of an EMV and on a cool day in autumn Sol took the slowest route, far below the traffic lanes, enjoying the sight and smell of the harvested fields below. More than a few men and women working in the fields waved to him.
Bussard had grown impressively since Sol’s childhood, but the synagogue was still there on the edge of one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city. The temple was old, Sol felt old, even the yarmulke he put on as he entered seemed ancient, worn thin by decades of use, but the rabbi was young. Sol realized that the man was at least forty—his hair was thinning on either side of the dark skullcap—but to Sol’s eyes he was little more than a boy. Sol was relieved when the younger man suggested that they finish their conversation in the park across the street.
They sat on a park bench. Sol was surprised to find himself still carrying the yarmulke, passing the cloth from hand to hand. The day smelled of burning leaves and the previous night’s rain.
“I don’t quite understand, M. Weintraub,” said the rabbi. “Is it the dream you’re disturbed about or the fact that your daughter has become ill since you began the dream?”
Sol raised his head to feel the sunlight on his face. “Neither, exactly,” he said. “I just can’t help but feel that the two are connected somehow.”
The rabbi ran a finger over his lower lip. “How old is your daughter?”
“Thirteen,” said Sol after an imperceptible pause.
“And is the illness … serious? Life threatening?”
“Not life threatening,” said Sol. “Not yet.”
The rabbi folded his arms across an ample belly. “You don’t believe … may I call you Sol?”
“Of course.”
“Sol, you don’t believe that by having this dream … that somehow you’ve caused your little girl’s illness. Do you?”
“No,” said Sol and sat a moment, wondering deep within if he was telling the truth. “No, Rabbi, I don’t think …”
“Call me Mort, Sol.”
“All right, Mort. I didn’t come because I believe that I—or the dream—am causing Rachel’s illness. But I believe my subconscious might be trying to tell me something.”
Mort rocked back and forth slightly. “Perhaps a neuro-specialist or psychologist could help you more there, Sol. I’m not sure what I …”
“I’m interested in the story of Abraham,” interrupted Sol. “I mean, I’ve had some experience with different ethical systems, but it’s hard for me to understand one which began with the order to a father to slay his son.”
“No, no, no!” cried the rabbi, waving oddly childlike fingers in front of him. “When the time came, God stayed Abraham’s hand. He would not have allowed a human sacrifice in His name. It was the obedience to the will of the Lord that …”
“Yes,” said Sol. “Obedience. But it says, ‘Then Abraham put forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.’ God must have looked into his soul and seen that Abraham was ready to slay Isaac. A mere show of obedience without inner commitment would not have appeased the God of Genesis. What would have happened if Abraham had loved his son more than he loved God?”
Mort drummed his fingers on his knee a moment and then reached out to grasp Sol’s upper arm. “Sol, I can see you’re upset about your daughter’s illness. Don’t get it mixed up with a document written eight thousand years ago. Tell me more about your little girl. I mean, children don’t die of diseases anymore. Not in the Web.”
Sol rose, smiled, and stepped back to free his arm. “I’d like to talk more, Mort. I want to. But I have to get back. I have a class this evening.”
“Will you come to temple this Sabbath?” asked the rabbi, extending stubby fingers for a final human contact.
Sol dropped the yarmulke into the younger man’s hands. “Perhaps one of these days, Mort. One of these days I will.”
Later the same autumn Sol looked out the window of his study to see the dark figure of a man standing under the bare elm in front of the house. The media, thought Sol, his heart sinking. For a decade he had been dreading the day the secret got out, knowing it woul
d mean the end of their simple life in Crawford. He walked out into the evening chill. “Melio!” he said when he saw the tall man’s face.
The archaeologist stood with his hands in the pockets of his long blue coat. Despite the ten standard years since their last contact, Arundez had aged but little—Sol guessed that he was still in his late twenties. But the younger man’s heavily tanned face was lined with worry. “Sol,” he said and extended his hand almost shyly.
Sol shook his hand warmly. “I didn’t know you were back. Come into the house.”
“No.” The archaeologist took a half step back. “I’ve been out here for an hour, Sol. I didn’t have the courage to come to the door.”
Sol started to speak but then merely nodded. He put his hands in his own pockets against the chill. The first stars were becoming visible above the dark gables of the house. “Rachel’s not home right now,” he said at last. “She went to the library. She … she thinks she has a history paper due.”
Melio took a ragged breath and nodded in return. “Sol,” he said, his voice thick, “you and Sarai need to understand that we did everything we could. The team was on Hyperion for almost three standard years. We would have stayed if the university hadn’t cut our funds. There was nothing …”
“We know,” said Sol. “We appreciated the fatline messages.”
“I spent months alone in the Sphinx myself,” said Melio. “According to the instruments, it was just an inert pile of stones, but sometimes I thought I felt … something.…” He shook his head again, “I failed her, Sol.”
“No,” said Sol and gripped the younger man’s shoulder through the wool coat. “But I have a question. We’ve been in touch with our senators … even talked to the Science Council directors … but no one can explain to me why the Hegemony hasn’t spent more time and money investigating the phenomena on Hyperion. It seems to me that they should have invested that world into the Web long ago, if only for its scientific potential. How can they ignore an enigma like the Tombs?”
“I know what you mean, Sol. Even the early cutoff of our funds was suspicious. It’s as if the Hegemony had a policy to keep Hyperion at arm’s length.”
“Do you think …” began Sol but at that moment Rachel approached them in the autumn twilight. Her hands were thrust deep in her red jacket, her hair was cut short in the decades-old style of adolescents everywhere, and her full cheeks were flushed with the cold. Rachel was teetering on the brink of childhood and young adulthood; her long legs in jeans, sports shoes, and bulky jacket might have been the silhouette of a boy.
She grinned at them. “Hi, Dad.” Stepping closer in the dim light, she nodded at Melio shyly. “Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt your conversation.”
Sol took a breath. “That’s all right, kiddo. Rachel, this is Dr. Arundez from Reichs University on Freeholm. Dr. Arundez, my daughter Rachel.”
“Pleased to meet you,” said Rachel, beaming in earnest now. “Wow, Reichs. I’ve read their catalogues. I’d love to go there someday.”
Melio nodded rigidly. Sol could see the stiffness in his shoulders and torso. “Do you, …” began Melio. “That is, what would you like to study there?”
Sol thought the pain in the man’s voice must be audible to Rachel but she only shrugged and laughed. “Oh, jeez, everything. Old Mr. Eikhardt—he’s the paleontology/archaeology tute in the advanced class I take up at the Ed Center—he says they have a great classics and ancient artifacts department.”
“They do,” managed Melio.
Rachel glanced shyly from her father to the stranger, apparently sensing the tension there but not knowing the source. “Well, I’m just interrupting your conversation more here. I’ve got to get in and get to bed. I guess I’ve had this strange virus … sort of like meningitis, Mom says, only it must make me sort of goofy. Anyway, nice to meet you, Dr. Arundez. I hope I’ll see you at Reichs someday.”
“I hope that too,” said Melio, staring at her so intensely in the gloom that Sol had the feeling he was trying to memorize everything about the instant.
“Okay, well …” said Rachel and stepped back, her rubber-soled shoes squeaking on the sidewalk, “good night, then. See you in the morning, Dad.”
“Good night, Rachel.”
She paused at the doorway. The gaslight on the lawn made her look much younger than thirteen. “ ’Later, alligators.”
“ ’While, crocodile,” said Sol and heard Melio whisper it in unison.
They stood awhile in silence, feeling the night settle on the small town. A boy on a bicycle rode by, leaves crackling under his wheels, spokes gleaming in the pools of light under the old streetlamps. “Come in the house,” Sol said to the silent man. “Sarai will be very pleased to see you. Rachel will be asleep.”
“Not now,” said Melio. He was a shadow there, his hands still in his pockets. “I need to … it was a mistake, Sol.” He started to turn away, looked back. “I’ll phone when I get to Freeholm,” he said. “We’ll get another expedition put together.”
Sol nodded. Three years transit, he thought. If they left tonight she would be … not quite ten before they arrive. “Good,” he said.
Melio paused, raised a hand in farewell, and walked away along the curb, ignoring the leaves that crunched underfoot.
Sol never saw him in person again.
The largest Church of the Shrike in the Web was on Lusus and Sol farcast there a few weeks before Rachel’s tenth birthday. The building itself was not much larger than an Old Earth cathedral, but it seemed gigantic with its effect of flying buttresses in search of a church, twisted upper stories, and support walls of stained glass. Sol’s mood was low and the brutal Lusian gravity did nothing to lighten it. Despite his appointment with the bishop, Sol had to wait more than five hours before he was allowed into the inner sanctum. He spent most of the time staring at the slowly rotating twenty-meter, steel and polychrome sculpture which might have been of the legendary Shrike … and might have been an abstract homage to every edged weapon ever invented. What interested Sol the most were the two red orbs floating within the nightmare space which might have been a skull.
“M. Weintraub?”
“Your Excellency,” said Sol. He noticed that the acolytes, exorcists, lectors, and ostiaries who had kept him company during the long wait had prostrated themselves on the dark tiles at the high priest’s entry. Sol managed a formal bow.
“Please, please, do come in, M. Weintraub,” said the priest. He indicated the doorway to the Shrike sanctuary with a sweep of his robed arm.
Sol passed through, found himself in a dark and echoing place not too dissimilar from the setting of his recurrent dream, and took a seat where the bishop indicated. As the cleric moved to his own place at what looked like a small throne behind an intricately carved but thoroughly modern desk, Sol noticed that the high priest was a native Lusian, gone to fat and heavy in the jowls, but formidable in the way all Lusus residents seemed to be. His robe was striking in its redness … a bright, arterial red, flowing more like a contained liquid than like silk or velvet, trimmed in onyx ermine. The bishop wore a large ring on each finger and they alternated red and black, producing a disturbing effect in Sol.
“Your Excellency,” began Sol, “I apologize in advance for any breach in church protocol which I have committed … or may commit. I confess I know little about the Church of the Shrike, but what I do know has brought me here. Please forgive me if I inadvertently display my ignorance by my clumsy use of titles or terms.”
The bishop wiggled his fingers at Sol. Red and black stones flashed in the weak light. “Titles are unimportant, M. Weintraub. Addressing us as ‘Your Excellency’ is quite acceptable for a nonbeliever. We must advise you, however, that the formal name of our modest group is the Church of the Final Atonement and the entity whom the world so blithely calls … the Shrike … we refer to … if we take His name at all … as the Lord of Pain or, more commonly, the Avatar. Please proceed with the important query you said you had fo
r us.”
Sol bowed slightly. “Your Excellency, I am a teacher …”
“Excuse us for interrupting, M. Weintraub, but you are much more than a teacher. You are a scholar. We are very familiar with your writings on moral hermeneutics. The reasoning therein is flawed but quite challenging. We use it regularly in our courses in doctrinal apologetics. Please proceed.”
Sol blinked. His work was almost unknown outside the most rarefied academic circles and this recognition had thrown him. In the five seconds it took him to recover, Sol found it preferable to believe that the Shrike bishop wanted to know with whom he spoke and had an excellent staff. “Your Excellency, my background is immaterial. I asked to see you because my child … my daughter … has taken ill as a possible result of research she was carrying out in an area which is of some importance to your Church. I speak, of course, of the so-called Time Tombs on the world of Hyperion.”
The bishop nodded slowly. Sol wondered if he knew about Rachel.
“You are aware, M. Weintraub, that the area you referred to … what we call the Covenant Arks … have recently been declared off limits to so-called researchers by the Home Rule Council of Hyperion?”
“Yes, Your Excellency. I have heard that. I understand that your Church was instrumental in that legislation being passed.”
The bishop showed no response to this. Far off in the incense-layered gloom, small chimes sounded.
“At any rate, Your Excellency, I hoped that some aspect of your Church’s doctrine might shed light on my daughter’s illness.”
The bishop inclined his head forward so that the single shaft of light which illuminated him gleamed on his forehead and cast his eyes into shadow. “Do you wish to receive religious instruction in the mysteries of the Church, M. Weintraub?”
Sol touched his beard with a finger. “No, Your Excellency, unless in so doing I might improve the well-being of my daughter.”
