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 final 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 farcaster 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 th
e 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 … entities, 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?
AENEA: Yes, Colonel. Parts of your persona … but only parts of it … will be incorporated into the living construct called the Shrike.
COLONEL FEDMAHN KASSAD: (laughing)
But I can also live to beat it in battle?
AENEA: Yes.
COLONEL FEDMAHN KASSAD: (laughing harder now, the laughter sounding sincere and unforced)
By God … by the will of Allah … if the universe has any soul, it is the soul of irony. I kill mine enemy, I eat his heart, and the enemy becomes me … and I become him. (There are several more minutes of silence. I see that the tree-ship Yggdrasill has turned around and that we are approaching the great curve of the Biosphere Startree again.)
RACHEL WEINTRAUB: Friend Aenea, Beloved Teacher, in the years I have listened to you teach and learned from you, one great mystery has haunted me.
AENEA: What is that, Rachel?
RACHEL WEINTRAUB: Through the Void Which Binds, you have heard the voices of the Others … the sentient races beyond our space and time whose memories and personalities resonate in the Void medium. Through communion with your blood, some of us have learned to hear the whispers of the echoes of those voices … of the Lions and Tigers and Bears, as some call them.
AENEA: You are one of my best students, Rachel. You will someday hear these voices clearly. Just as you will learn to hear the music of the spheres and to take that first step.
RACHEL WEINTRAUB: (shaking her head)
That is not my question, friend Aenea. The mystery to me has been the presence in human space of an Observer or Observers sent by those … Others … those Lions and Tigers and Bears … to study humankind and report back to these distant races. Is the presence of this Observer … or these Observers … a literal fact?
AENEA: It is.
RACHEL WEINTRAUB: And they were able to take on the form of human or Ouster or Templar?
AENEA: The Observer or Observers are not shapeshifters, Rachel. They chose to come among us in some sort of mortal form, that is true … much as my father was mortal but cybrid born.
RACHEL WEINTRAUB: And this Observer or these Observers have been watching us for centuries?
AENEA: Yes.
RACHEL WEINTRAUB: Is that Observer … or one of these Observers … with us here today, on this treeship, or at this table?
AENEA: (hesitates)
Rachel, it is best that I say nothing more at this time. There are those who would kill such an Observer in an instant to protect the Pax or to defend what they think it means to be “human.” Even saying that such an Observer exists puts that entity at great risk. I am sorry … I promise you that this … this mystery … will be solved in the not-too-distant future and the Observer or Observers’ identity revealed. Not by me, but by the Observer or Observers themselves.
TEMPLAR TRUE VOICE OF THE STARTREE KET ROSTEEN: Brothers in the Muir, respected Ouster allies, honored human guests, beloved sentient friends, Revered One Who Teaches … we shall finish this discussion at another time and in another place. I take it as a consensus of those among us that M. Aenea’s request for the treeship Yggdrasill to depart for Pax space in three standard days is agreed to … and that, with luck and courage, thus shall be fulfilled the ancient Templar prophecies of the Tree of Pain and the time of Atonement for all children of Old Earth.
Now we will finish our meal and speak of other things. This formal meeting is adjourned, and what remains of our short voyage must be friendly conversation, good food, and the sacrament of real coffee grown from beans harvested ori Old Earth … our common home … the good Earth.
This meeting is adjourned. I have spoken.
LATER THAT EVENING, IN THE WARM LIGHT OF OUR private cubby, Aenea and I made love, spoke of personal things, and had a late, second supper of wine and zygoat cheese and fresh bread.
Aenea had gone off to the kitchen cubby for a moment and returned with two crystal bulbs of wine. Offerin
g me one, she said, “Here, Raul, my beloved … take this and drink.”
“Thanks,” I said without thinking and started to raise the bulb to my lips. Then I froze. “Is this … did you …”
“Yes,” said Aenea. “It is the communion that I have delayed so long for you. Now it is yours if you choose to drink. But you do not have to do this, my love. It will not change the way I feel about you if you choose not to.”
Still looking into her eyes, I drained the wine in the bulb. It tasted only of wine.
Aenea was weeping. She turned her head away, but I had already seen the tears in her lovely, dark eyes. I swept her up in my arms and we floated together in the warm womb light.
“Kiddo?” I whispered. “What’s wrong?” My heart ached as I wondered if she was thinking of the other man in her past, her marriage, the child … The wine had made me dizzy and a bit sick. Or perhaps it was not the wine.
She shook her head. “I love you, Raul.”
“I love you, Aenea.”
She kissed my neck and clung to me. “For what you have just done, for me, in my name, you will be hunted and persecuted …”
I forced a chuckle. “Hey, kiddo, I’ve been hunted and persecuted since the day we rode the hawking mat out of the Valley of the Time Tombs together. Nothing new there. I’d miss it if the Pax quit chasing us.”
She did not smile. I felt her tears against my throat and chest as she clung more tightly. “You will be the first among all those who follow me, Raul. You will be the leader in the decades and decades of struggle to come. You will be respected and hated, obeyed and despised … they will want to make a god of you, my darling.”
“Bullshit,” I whispered into my friend’s hair. “You know I’m no leader, kiddo. I haven’t done anything except follow in all the years we’ve known each other. Hell … I spend most of my time just trying to catch up.”
Aenea raised her face to mine. “You were my Chosen One before I was born, Raul Endymion. When I fall, you will continue on for us. Both of us must live through you …”
I put my heavy finger against her lips. I kissed the tears from her cheeks and lashes. “No talking of falling or living without the other,” I commanded her. “My plan is simple … to stay with you forever … through everything … to share everything. What happens to you, happens to me, kiddo. I love you, Aenea.” We floated in the warm air together. I was cradling her in my arms.