It was a small room and almost bare except for an ornate bronze pot holding fresh flowers, some sprigs of green on a low dais, and a beautiful statue—once gold—of a life-size woman in robes that appeared to be made of gold. The woman was fat-cheeked and of pleasant demeanor—a sort of female Buddha—and she looked to be wearing a gilded crown of leaves and had an oddly Christian halo of hammered gold behind her head.
A. Bettik pulled off his helmet and said, “The air is good. Air pressure more than adequate.”
Aenea and I folded back our skinsuit cowls. It was a pleasure to breathe regularly.
There were incense tapers and a box of matches at the statue’s foot. Aenea went to one knee and used a match to light one of the tapers. The smell of incense was very strong.
“This is the Princess of the Azure Clouds,” she said, smiling up at the smiling gold face. “The goddess of the dawn. By lighting this, I’ve just made an offering for the birth of grandchildren.”
I started to smile and then froze. She has a child. My beloved has already had a child. My throat tightened and I looked away, but Aenea walked over and took my arm.
“Shall we eat lunch?” she said.
I had forgotten about our brown bag lunch. It would have been difficult to eat it through our helmets and osmosis masks.
We sat in the dim light, in the windowless room, amid the floating smoke and scent of incense, and ate the sandwiches packed by the monks.
“Where now?” I said as Aenea began recycling the inner lock.
“I have heard that there is a precipice on the eastern edge of the summit called Suicide Cliff,” said A. Bettik. “It used to be a place for serious sacrifice. Jumping from it is said to provide instant communion with the Jade Emperor and to insure that your offering request is honored. If you really want to guarantee grandchildren, you might jump from there.”
I stared at the android. I was never sure if he had a sense of humor or simply a skewed personality.
Aenea laughed. “Let’s walk to the Temple of the Jade Emperor first,” she said. “See if anyone’s home.”
Outside, I was struck first by the isolation of the skinsuit and the airless clarity of everything. The osmosis mask had gone almost opaque because of the unfiltered ferocity of the midday sun at this altitude. Shadows were harsh.
We were about fifty meters from the summit and the temple when a form stepped out of the blackness of shadow behind a boulder and blocked our way. I thought Shrike and foolishly clenched my hands into fists before I saw what it was.
A very tall man stood before us, dressed in lance-slashed, vacuum combat armor. Standard Pax Fleet Marine and Swiss Guard issue. I could see his face through the impact-proof visor —his skin was black, his features strong, and his short-cropped hair was white. There were fresh and livid scars on his dark face. His eyes were not friendly. He was carrying a Marine-class, multipurpose assault rifle, and now he raised it and leveled it at us. His transmission was on the skinsuit band.
“Stop!”
We stopped.
The giant did not seem to know what to do next. The Pax finally have us, was my first thought.
Aenea took a step forward. “Sergeant Gregorius?” came her voice on the skinsuit band.
The man cocked his head but did not lower the weapon. I had no doubt that the rifle would work perfectly in hard vacuum—either flechette cloud, energy lance, charged particle beam, solid slug, or hyper-k. The muzzle was aimed at my beloved’s face.
“How do you know my …” began the giant and then seemed to rock backward. “You’re her. The one. The girl we sought for so long, across so many systems. Aenea.”
“Yes,” said Aenea. “Are there others who survived?”
“Three,” said the man she had called Gregorius. He gestured to his right and I could just make out a black scar on black rock, with blackened remnants of something that might have been a starship escape bulb.
“Is Father Captain de Soya among them?” said Aenea.
I remembered the name. I remembered de Soya’s voice on the dropship radio when he had found us and saved us from Nemes and then let us go on God’s Grove almost ten of his and Aenea’s years ago.
“Aye,” said Sergeant Gregorius, “the captain’s alive, but just barely. He was burned bad on the poor old Raphael. He’d be atoms with her, if he hadn’t passed out an’ given me the opportunity to drag him to a lifeboat. The other two are hurt, but the father-captain’s dyin’.” He lowered the rifle and leaned on it wearily. “Dyin’ the true death … we have no resurrection crèche and the darlin’ father-captain made me promise to slag him to atoms when he went, rather than let him be resurrected a mindless idiot.”
Aenea nodded. “Can you take me to him? I need to talk to him.”
Gregorius shouldered the heavy weapon and looked suspiciously at A. Bettik and me. “And these two …”
“This is my dear friend,” said Aenea, touching A. Bettik’s arm. She took my hand. “And this is my beloved.”
The giant only nodded at this, turned, and led the way up the final stretch of slope to the summit to the Temple of the Jade Emperor.
Part Three
22
n Hyperion, several hundred light-years toward galactic center from the events and the people on T’ien Shan, a forgotten old man rose out of the dreamless sleep of long-term cryogenic fugue and slowly became aware of his surroundings. His surroundings were a no-touch suspension bed, a gaggle of life-support modules encircling him and nuzzling him like so many feeding raptors, and uncountable tubes, wires, and umbilicals finishing their work of feeding him, detoxifying his blood, stimulating his kidneys, carrying antibiotics to fight infection, monitoring his life signs, and generally invading his body and dignity in order to revive him and keep him alive.
“Ah, fuck,” rasped the old man. “Waking up is a fucking, goddamn, dung-eating, corpse-buggering, shit storm of a nightmare for the terminally old. I’d pay a million marks if I could just get out of bed and go piss.”
“And good morning to you, M. Silenus,” said the female android monitoring the old poet’s life signs on the floating biomonitor. “You seem to be in good spirits today.”
“Bugger all blue-skinned wenches,” mumbled Martin Silenus. “Where are my teeth?”
“You haven’t grown them back yet, M. Silenus,” said the android. She was named A. Raddik and was a little over three centuries old … less than one-third the age of the ancient human mummy floating in the suspension bed.
“No need to,” mumbled the old man. “Won’t fucking be awake long enough. How long was I under?”
“Two years, three months, eight days,” said A. Raddik.
Martin Silenus peered up at the open sky above his tower. The canvas roof on this highest level of his stone turret had been rolled back. Deep lapis blue. The low light of early morning or late evening. The shimmer and flit of radiant gossamers not yet illuminating their fragile half-meter butterfly wings.
“What season?” managed Silenus.
“Late spring,” said the female android. Other blue-skinned servants of the old poet moved in and out of the circular room, bent on obscure errands. Only A. Raddik monitored the last stages of the poet’s revival from fugue.
“How long since they left?” He did not have to specify who the “they” were. A. Raddik knew that the old poet meant not only Raul Endymion, the last visitor to their abandoned university city, but the girl Aenea—whom Silenus had known three centuries earlier—and whom he still hoped to see again someday.
“Nine years, eight months, one week, one day,” said A. Raddik. “All Earth standard, of course.”
“Hggrhh,” grunted the old poet. He continued peering at the sky. The sunlight was filtered through canvas rolled to the east, pouring light onto the south wall of the stone turret while not striking him directly, but the brightness still brought tears to his ancient eyes. “I’ve become a thing of darkness,” he mumbled. “Like Dracula. Rising from my fucking grave ever
y few years to check on the world of the living.”
“Yes, M. Silenus,” agreed A. Raddik, changing several settings on the control panel.
“Shut up, wench,” said the poet.
“Yes, M. Silenus.”
The old man moaned. “How long until I can get into my hoverchair, Raddik?”
The hairless android pursed her lips. “Two more days, M. Silenus. Perhaps two and a half.”
“Aw, hell and damn,” muttered Martin Silenus. “Recovery gets slower each time. One of these times, I won’t wake at all … the fugue machinery won’t bring me back.”
“Yes, M. Silenus,” agreed the android. “Each cold sleep is harder on your system. The resuscitation and life-support equipment is quite old. It is true that you will not survive many more awakenings.”
“Oh, shut up,” growled Martin Silenus. “You are a morbid, gloomy old bitch.”
“Yes, M. Silenus.”
“How long have you been with me, Raddik?”
“Two hundred forty-one years, eleven months, nineteen days,” said the android. “Standard.”
“And you still haven’t learned to make a decent cup of coffee.”
“No, M. Silenus.”
“But you have put a pot on, correct?”
“Yes, M. Silenus. As per your standing instructions.”
“Fucking aye,” said the poet.
“But you will not be able to ingest liquids orally for at least another twelve hours, M. Silenus,” said A. Raddik.
“Arrrggghhh!” said the poet.
“Yes, M. Silenus.”
After several minutes in which it looked like the old man had drifted back to sleep, Martin Silenus said, “Any word from the boy or child?”
“No, sir,” said A. Raddik. “But then, of course, we only have access to the in-system Pax com network these days. And most of their new encrypting is quite good.”
“Any gossip about them?”
“None that we are sure of, M. Silenus,” said the android. “Things are very troubled for the Pax … revolution in many systems, problems with their Outback Crusade against the Ousters, a constant movement of warships and troopships within the Pax boundaries … and there is talk of the viral contagion, highly coded and circumspect.”
“The contagion,” repeated Martin Silenus and smiled a toothless smile. “The child, I would guess.”
“Quite possibly, M. Silenus,” said A. Raddik, “although it is quite possible that there is a real viral plague on those worlds where …”
“No,” said the poet, shaking his head almost violently. “It’s Aenea. And her teachings. Spreading like the Beijing Flu. You don’t remember the Beijing Flu, do you, Raddik?”
“No, sir,” said the female, finishing her check of the readouts and setting the module to auto. “That was before my time. It was before anyone’s time. Anyone but you, sir.”
Normally there would have been some obscene outburst from the poet, but now he merely nodded. “I know. I’m a freak of nature. Pay your two bits and come into the sideshow … see the oldest man in the galaxy … see the mummy that walks and talks … sort of … see the disgusting thing that refuses to die. Bizarre, aren’t I, A. Raddik?”
“Yes, M. Silenus.”
The poet grunted. “Well, don’t get your hopes up, blue thing. I’m not going to croak until I hear from Raul and Aenea. I have to finish the Cantos and I don’t know the ending until they create it for me. How do I know what I think until I see what they do?”
“Precisely, M. Silenus.”
“Don’t humor me, blue woman.”
“Yes, M. Silenus.”
“The boy … Raul … asked me what his orders were almost ten years ago. I told him … save the child, Aenea … topple the Pax … destroy the Church’s power … and bring the Earth back from wherever the fuck it went. He said he’d do it. Of course, he was stinking drunk with me at the time.”
“Yes, M. Silenus.”
“Well?” said the poet.
“Well what, sir?” said A. Raddik.
“Well, any sign of him having done any of the things he’s promised, Raddik?”
“We know from the Pax transmissions nine years and eight months ago that he and the Consul’s ship escaped Hyperion,” said the android. “We can hope that the child Aenea is still safe and well.”
“Yes, yes,” muttered Silenus, waving his hand feebly, “but is the Pax toppled?”
“Not that we can notice, M. Silenus,” said Raddik. “There were the mild troubles I mentioned earlier, and offworld, born-again tourism here on Hyperion is down a bit, but …”
“And the sodding Church is still in the zombie business?” demanded the poet, his thin voice stronger now.
“The Church remains ascendant,” said A. Raddik. “More of the moor people and the mountain people accept the cruciform every year.”
“Bugger all,” said the poet. “And I don’t suppose that Earth has returned to its proper place.”
“We have not heard of that improbability occurring,” said A. Raddik. “Of course, as I mentioned, our electronic eavesdropping is restricted to in-system transmissions these days, and since the Consul’s ship left with M. Endymion and M. Aenea almost ten years ago, our decryption capabilities have not been …”
“All right, all right,” said the old man, sounding terribly tired again. “Get me into my hoverchair.”
“Not for another two days, at least, I am afraid,” repeated the android, her voice gentle.
“Piss up a rope,” said the ancient figure floating amid tubes and sensor wires. “Can you wheel me over to a window, Raddik? Please? I want to look at the spring chalma trees and the ruins of this old city.”
“Yes, M. Silenus,” said the android, sincerely pleased to be doing something for the old man besides keeping his body working.
Martin Silenus watched out the window for one full hour, fighting the tides of reawakening pain and the terrible sleepy urge to return to fugue state. It was morning light. His audio implants relayed the birdsong to him. The old poet thought of his adopted young niece, the child who had decided to call herself Aenea … he thought of his dear friend, Brawne Lamia, Aenea’s mother … how they had been enemies for so long, had hated each other during parts of that last great Shrike Pilgrimage so long ago … about the stories they had told one another and the things they had seen …the Shrike in the Valley of the Time Tombs, its red eyes blazing … the scholar … what was his name? … Sol … Sol and his little swaddled brat aging backward to nothing … and the soldier … Kassad … that was it … Colonel Kassad. The old poet had never given a shit about the military … idiots, all of them … but Kassad had told an interesting tale, lived an interesting life … the other priest, Lenar Hoyt, had been a prig and an asshole, but the first one … the one with the sad eyes and the leather journal … Paul Duré … there had been a man worth writing about …
Martin Silenus drifted back to sleep with the light of morning flooding in on him, illuminating his countless wrinkles and translucent, parchment flesh, his blue veins visible and pulsing weakly in the rich light. He did not dream … but part of his poet’s mind was already outlining the next sections of his never-finished Cantos.
• ••
SERGEANT GREGORIUS HAD NOT BEEN EXAGGERATING. Father Captain de Soya had been terribly battered and burned in the last battle of his ship, the Raphael and was near death.
The sergeant had led A. Bettik, Aenea, and me into the temple. The structure was as strange as this encounter—outside there was a large, blank stone tablet, a smooth-faced monolith—Aenea mentioned briefly that it had been brought from Old Earth, had stood outside the original Temple of the Jade Emperor, and had never been inscribed during its thousands of years on the pilgrims’ trail—while inside the sealed and pressurized courtyard of the echoing temple itself, a stone railing ran around a boulder that was actually the summit of T’ai Shan, the sacred Great Peak of the Middle Kingdom. There were small sleeping and eating rooms
for pilgrims in the back of the huge temple, and it was in one of these that we found Father Captain de Soya and the other two survivors. Besides Gregorius and the dying de Soya, there were two other men—Carel Shan, a Weapons Systems Officer, now terribly burned and unconscious, and Hoagan Liebler, introduced by Sergeant Gregorius as the “former” Executive Officer of the Raphael. Liebler was the least injured of the four—his left forearm had been broken and was in a sling, but he had no burns or other impact bruises—but there was something quiet and withdrawn about the thin man, as if he were in shock or mulling something over.
Aenea’s attention went immediately to Captain Federico de Soya.
The priest-captain was on one of the uncomfortable pilgrim cots, either stripped to the waist by Gregorius or he had lost all of his upper uniform in the blast and reentry. His trousers were shredded. His feet were bare. The only place on his body where he had not been terribly burned was the parasite cruciform on his chest—it was a healthy, sickening pink. De Soya’s hair had been burned away and his face was splashed with liquid metal burns and radiation slashes, but I could see that he had been a striking man, mostly because of his liquid, troubled brown eyes, not dulled even by the pain that must be overwhelming him at this moment. Someone had applied burn cream, temporary dermheal, and liquid disinfectant all over the visible portions of the dying priest-captain’s body—and started a standard lifeboat medkit IV drip—but this would have little effect on the outcome. I had seen combat burns like this before, not all from starship encounters. Three friends of mine during the Iceshelf fighting had died within hours when we had not been able to medevac them out. Their screams had been horrible to the point of unendurable.