She took a deep breath. “But as for knowing whether it will be a boy or girl, or what we name the baby … I have no clue, my darling. I have chosen not to look into this time, our time, but just to live it with you day to day. I am as blind to this future as you are.”
Ilifted my arms across her chest and pulled her back tightly against me.
There came an embarrassed cough and we looked up to realize that A. Bettik was still standing next to the hawking mat.
“Old friend,” said Aenea, gripping his hand while I still held her tight. “What words are there?”
The android shook his head, but then said, “Have you ever read your father’s sonnet To Homer,’ M. Aenea?”
My dear girl thought, frowned, and said, “I think I have, but I don’t remember it.”
“Perhaps part of it is relevant to M. Endymion’s query about the future of Father de Soya’s Church,” said the blue man. “And to other things as well. May I?”
“Please,” said Aenea. I could feel through the strong muscles in her back against me, and through the squeezing of her hand on my right thigh, that she was as eager as I to get away and find a camping spot. I hoped that A. Bettik’s recital would be short. The android quoted:
“Aye, on the shores of darkness there is light,
And precipices show untrodden green;
There is a budding morrow in midnight;
There is triple sight in blindness keen …”
“Thank you,” said Aenea. “Thank you, dear friend.” She freed herself enough to kiss the android a final time.
“Hey,” I said, attempting the whine of an excluded child.
She kissed me a longer time. A much longer time. A very deep time.
We waved a final good-bye, I tapped the flight threads, and the centuries-old mat rose fifty meters, flew over the errant city slab and stone tower a final time, circled the Consul’s ebony spaceship, and carried us away westward. Already trusting the North Star as our guide, softly discussing a likely looking campsite on high ground some kilometers west, we passed over the old poet’s grave where the Shrike still stood silent guard, flew out over the river where the ripples and whirlpools caught the last glows of sunset, and gained altitude as we gazed down on the lush meadows and enticing forests of our new playground, our ancient world … our new world … our first and future and finest world.
About the Author
DAN SIMMONS, a full-time public school teacher until 1987, is one of the few writers who consistently work across genres, producing novels descibed as science fiction, horror, fantasy, and mainstream fiction, while winning major awards in all these fields. His first novel, Song of Kali, won the World Fantasy Award; his first science fiction novel, Hyperion, won the Hugo Award. His other novels and short fiction have been honored with numerous awards, including nine Locus Awards, four Bram Stoker Awards, the French Prix Cosmos 2000, the British SF Association Award, and the Theodore Sturgeon Award. In 1995, Wabash College presented Simmons with an honorary doctorate in humane letters for his work in fiction and education. He lives in Colorado along the Front Range of the Rockies.
Dan Simmons, The Rise of Endymion
(Series: Hyperion Cantos # 4)
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