by Dan Simmons
“Dangerous to the Pax …,” repeats de Soya. He does not understand.
“His Holiness has foreseen this danger,” rumbles Cardinal Lourdusamy. “Almost three centuries ago Our Lord saw fit to reveal to His Holiness the threat this poor child represents, and the Holy Father has now moved to deal with this danger.”
“I don’t understand,” confesses Father Captain de Soya. The holo is off, but he can still see the innocent face of the child in his mind. “How can this little girl be a danger … then or now?”
Cardinal Lourdusamy squeezes de Soya’s forearm. “As an agent of the TechnoCore, she will be a virus introduced into the Body of Christ. It has been revealed to His Holiness that the girl will have powers … powers that are not human. One of these powers is the power to persuade the faithful to leave the light of God’s teachings, to abandon salvation for service to the Evil One.”
De Soya nods, although he does not understand. His forearm aches from the pressure of Lourdusamy’s powerful hand. “What do you wish of me, Your Excellency?”
Admiral Marusyn answers in a loud voice that shocks de Soya after all of the soft tones and whispering. “As of this moment,” snaps Marusyn, “you are detached from your Fleet assignment, Father Captain de Soya. As of this moment, you are assigned to find and return this child … this girl … to the Vatican.”
The Cardinal seems to catch a glint of anxiety in de Soya’s eyes. “My son,” he says, his deep voice soothing now, “are you afraid the child might be harmed?”
“Yes, Your Excellency.” De Soya wonders if this admission will disqualify him from service.
Lourdusamy’s touch lightens, becomes a friendlier grip. “Be assured, my son, that no one in the Holy See … no one in the Pax … has any intention of harming this little girl. Indeed, the Holy Father has instructed us … has instructed you … to make it your second-highest priority that no harm shall come to her.”
“Your first priority,” says the Admiral, “is to return her here … to Pacem. To Pax Command here in the Vatican.”
De Soya nods and swallows. The question foremost in his mind is Why me? Aloud, he says, “Yes, sir. I understand.”
“You will receive a papal-authority diskey,” continues the Admiral. “You may requisition any materials, help, liaison, or personnel it is in the power of local Pax authorities to provide. Do you have any questions about that?”
“No, sir.” De Soya’s voice is firm, but his mind is reeling. A papal-authority diskey would give him more power than that bestowed on Pax planetary governors.
“You will translate to Hyperion system this very day,” continues Admiral Marusyn in the same brisk, no-nonsense voice of command. “Captain Wu?”
The Pax military aide steps forward and hands de Soya a red action portfolio disk. The father-captain nods, but his mind is screaming, To Hyperion system this day … The archangel courier ship! To die again. The pain. No, sweet Jesus, dear Lord. Let this cup pass from me!
“You will have command of our newest and most advanced courier ship, Captain,” Marusyn is saying. “It is similar to the one which brought you to Pacem system, except that it can hold six passengers, it is armed to the level of your former torchship, and it has an automated resurrection system.”
“Yes, sir,” says de Soya. An automated resurrection system? he thinks. Is the sacrament to be administered by a machine?
Cardinal Lourdusamy pats his arm again. “The robot system is regrettable, my son. But the ship may carry you to places where the Pax and the Church do not exist. We cannot deny you resurrection simply because you are beyond the reach of God’s servants. Be assured, my son, that the Holy Father himself has blessed this resurrection equipment and ordained it with the same sacramental imperative a true Resurrection Mass would offer.”
“Thank you, Your Excellency,” de Soya mumbles. “But I do not understand … places beyond the Church … Did you not say that I was to travel to Hyperion? I have never been there, but I thought that this world was a member of …”
“It belongs to the Pax,” interrupts the Admiral. “But if you are unsuccessful in capturing …” He pauses. “In rescuing this child … if for some unforeseen reason you must follow her to other worlds, other systems … we thought it best that the ship have an automated resurrection creche for you.”
De Soya bows his head in obedience and confusion.
“But we expect you to find the child on Hyperion,” continues Admiral Marusyn. “When you arrive on that world, you will introduce yourself and show your papal diskey to Groundforce Commander Barnes-Avne. The Commander is in charge of the Swiss Guard Brigade that has been prepositioned on Hyperion, and upon your arrival you will be in effective command of those troops.”
De Soya blinks. Command of a Swiss Guard Brigade? I am a Fleet torchship captain! I wouldn’t know a groundforce maneuver from a cavalry charge!
Admiral Marusyn chuckles. “We understand that this is a bit out of your regular line of duty, Father Captain de Soya, but be assured that your command status is necessary. Commander Barnes-Avne will continue day-to-day command of ground-forces, but it is imperative that all resources be bent to the rescue of this child.”
De Soya clears his throat. “What will happen to … You say that we do not know her name? The child, I mean.”
“Before she disappeared,” rumbles Cardinal Lourdusamy, “she called herself Aenea. And as for what will happen to her … again, I reassure you, my son, our intentions are to prevent her from infecting the Body of Christ in the Pax from her virus, but we will do so without harming her. Indeed, our mission … your mission … is to save the child’s immortal soul. The Holy Father himself will see to that.”
Something in the Cardinal’s voice makes de Soya realize that the conference is over. The father-captain stands, sensing the resurrection displacement shifting inside him like vertigo. I must die again within the day! Still joyous, he nonetheless feels like weeping.
Admiral Marusyn is also standing. “Father Captain de Soya, your reassignment to this mission is effective until the child is delivered unto me, here at the Vatican military liaison office.”
“Within weeks, we are sure,” rumbles Cardinal Lourdusamy, still seated.
“This is a great and terrible responsibility,” says the Admiral. “You must use every ounce of your faith and your abilities to carry out His Holiness’s expressed wish to bring this child safely to the Vatican—before the destructive virus of her programmed treachery is spread among our Brothers and Sisters in Christ. We know that you will not let us down, Father Captain de Soya.”
“Thank you, sir,” says de Soya, and thinks again, Why me? He kneels to kiss the Cardinal’s ring and rises to find that the Admiral has stepped back in the darkness of the bower where the other shadowy figures have not stirred.
Monsignor Lucas Oddi and Pax Captain Marget Wu move to either side of de Soya and act as escorts as they turn to leave the garden. It is then, his mind still lurching in confusion and shock, his heart pounding with eagerness and terror at the important service set before him, that Father Captain de Soya glances back just as a rising dropship’s plasma tail lights the dome of St. Peter’s, the rooftops of the Vatican, and the garden with its pulse of blue flame. For an instant the figures within the arched shadow of the bower are clearly visible, illuminated by the strobe of blue plasma light. Admiral Marusyn is there, already turned away from de Soya, as are two standing Swiss Guard officers in combat armor, their flechette weapons raised at port arms. But it is the seated figure illuminated for that instant who will haunt de Soya’s dreams and thoughts for years to come.
Seated there on the garden bench, his sad eyes locked firmly on de Soya’s retreating form, his high brow and mournful countenance painted briefly but indelibly in blue plasma glow, is His Holiness, Pope Julius XIV, the Holy Father to more than six hundred billion faithful Catholics, the de facto ruler of four hundred billion more scattered souls in the far-flung Pax, and the man who has just launched Fe
derico de Soya on his fateful voyage.
10
It was the morning after our banquet, and we were in the spaceship again. That is, the android A. Bettik and I were in the ship, having walked there the convenient way, through the tunnel connecting the two towers; Martin Silenus was present as a hologram. It was a strange holographic image, since the old poet chose to have the transmitter of the ship’s computer represent him as a younger version of himself—an ancient satyr, still, but one who stood on his own legs and had hair on his sharp-eared head. I looked at the poet with his maroon cape, full-sleeved blouse, balloon trousers, and floppy beret, and realized what a dandy he must have been when those clothes had been in fashion. I was looking at Martin Silenus as he must have appeared when he had returned to Hyperion as a pilgrim three centuries earlier.
“Do you just want to stare at me like some fucking yokel,” said the holographic image, “or do you want to finish the fucking tour so we can get on with business?” The old man was either hung over from the previous night’s wine or had regained enough health to be in an even more vicious mood than usual.
“Lead on,” I said.
From our tunnel we had taken the ship’s lift up to the lowest air lock. A. Bettik and the poet’s holo led me through the ascending levels: the engine room with its indecipherable instruments and webs of pipes and cables; then the cold-sleep level—four cryogenic-fugue couches in their supercooled cubbies (one couch missing, I discovered, since Martin Silenus had removed it for his own purposes); then the central air-lock corridor I had entered by the day before—the “wood” walls concealing a multitude of storage lockers holding such things as spacesuits, all-terrain vehicles, skybikes, and even some archaic weapons; then the living area with its Steinway and holopit; then up the spiral staircase again to what A. Bettik called the “navigation room”—there was indeed a cubby with some electronic navigation instruments visible—but which I saw as the library with shelf after shelf of books—real books, print books—and several couches and daybeds next to windows in the ship’s hull; and finally up the stairs to the apex of the ship, which was simply a round bedroom with a single bed in the center of it.
“The Consul used to enjoy watching the weather from here while listening to music,” said Martin Silenus. “Ship?”
The arching bulkhead around the circular room went transparent, as did the bow of the ship above us. There were only the dark stones of the tower interior around us, but from above there fell a filtered light through the rotting roof of the silo. Soft music suddenly filled the room. It was a piano, unaccompanied, and the melody was ancient and haunting.
“Czerchyvik?” I guessed.
The old poet snorted. “Rachmaninoff.” The satyrish features seemed suddenly mellow in the dim light. “Can you guess who’s playing?”
I listened. The pianist was very good. I had no idea who it was.
“The Consul,” said A. Bettik. The android’s voice was very soft.
Martin Silenus grunted. “Ship … opaque.” The walls solidified. The old poet’s holo disappeared from its place by the bulkhead and flashed into existence near the spiral stairs. He kept doing that, and the effect was disconcerting. “Well, if we’re finished with the fucking tour, let’s go down to the living room and figure out how to outsmart the Pax.”
THE MAPS WERE THE OLD KIND—INK ON PAPER—and they were spread out across the top of the gleaming grand piano. The continent of Aquila spread its wings above the keyboard, and the horse head of Equus curled as a separate map above. Martin Silenus’s holo strode on powerful legs to the piano and stabbed a finger down about where the horse’s eye should be. “Here,” he said. “And here.” The massless finger made no noise against the paper. “The Pope’s got his fucking troops all the way from Chronos Keep here”—the weightless finger jabbed at a point where the Bridle Range of mountains came to their easternmost point behind the eye—“all the way down the snout. They have aircraft here, at Sad King Billy’s cursed city”—the finger pounded silently at a point only a few kilometers northwest of the Valley of the Time Tombs—“and have massed the Swiss Guard in the Valley itself.”
I looked at the map. Except for the abandoned Poet’s City and the Valley, the eastern fourth of Equus had been empty desert and out of bounds for anyone except Pax troops for more than two centuries. “How do you know the Swiss Guard troops are there?” I asked.
The satyr’s brows arched. “I have my sources,” he said.
“Do your sources tell you the units and armament?”
The holo made a noise that sounded as if the old man were going to spit on the carpet. “You don’t need to know the units,” he snapped. “Suffice it to say that there are thirty thousand soldiers between you and the Sphinx, where Aenea will step out tomorrow. Three thousand of those troops are Swiss Guard. Now, how are you going to get through them?”
I felt like laughing aloud. I doubted if the entire Home Guard of Hyperion, with air and space support, could “get through” half a dozen Swiss Guard. Their weapons, training, and defensive systems were that good. Instead of laughing, I studied the map again.
“You say that aircraft are staging out of the Poet’s City.… Do you know the type of planes?”
The poet shrugged. “Fighters. EMVs don’t work worth shit here, of course, so they’ve brought in thrust-reaction planes. Jets, I think.”
“Scram, ram, pulse, or air breathing?” I said. I was trying to sound as if I knew what I was talking about, but my military knowledge gleaned in the Home Guard had been centered on fieldstripping my weapon, cleaning my weapon, firing my weapon, marching through nasty weather without getting my weapon wet, trying to get a few hours’ sleep when I wasn’t marching, cleaning, or fieldstripping, trying not to freeze to death when I was asleep, and—upon occasion—keeping my head down so that I wouldn’t get killed by Ursus snipers.
“What the fuck does it matter what kind of planes?” growled Martin Silenus. Losing three centuries in appearance certainly had not mellowed him. “They’re fighters. We’ve clocked them at … Ship? What the fuck was the speed we clocked those last blips at?”
“Mach three,” said the ship.
“Mach three,” repeated the poet. “Fast enough to fly down here, firebomb this place to ashes, and be back to the north continent before their beers get warm.”
I looked up from the map. “I’ve been meaning to ask,” I said. “Why don’t they?”
The poet’s head turned my way. “Why don’t they what?”
“Fly down here, firebomb you to ashes, and be home before their beer is warm,” I said. “You’re a threat to them. Why do they tolerate you?”
Martin Silenus grunted. “I’m dead. They think I’m dead. How could a dead man be a threat to anyone?”
I sighed and looked back at the map. “There has to be a troopship in orbit, but I don’t suppose you know what kind of craft escorted it here?”
Surprisingly, it was the ship who replied. “The troopship is a three-hundred-thousand-ton Akira-class spinship,” came the soft voice. “It was escorted by two standard Pax-class torchships—the St. Anthony and the St. Bonaventure. There is also a C-three ship in high orbit.”
“What the fuck is a C-three ship?” grumbled the poet’s holo.
I glanced at him. How could anyone live for a thousand years and not learn such a basic thing? Poets were strange. “Command, communications, control,” I said.
“So the Pax SOB who’s in charge is up there?” asked Silenus.
I rubbed my cheek and stared at the map. “Not necessarily,” I said. “The commander of the space task force will be there, but the head of operations may be on the ground. The Pax trains its commanders for combined operations. With so many of the Swiss Guard here, someone important is in command on the ground.”
“All right,” said the poet. “How are you going to get through them and get my little friend out?”
“Excuse me,” said the ship, “but there is an additional spacecraft i
n orbit. It arrived about three weeks ago, standard, and sent a dropship to the Valley of the Time Tombs.”
“What kind of ship?” I asked.
There was the briefest hesitation. “I do not know,” said the ship. “The configuration is strange to me. Small … perhaps courier-sized … but the propulsion profile is … strange.”
“It probably is a courier,” I said to Silenus. “Poor bugger’s been stuck in cryogenic fugue for months, paying years of time-debt, just to deliver some message Pax Central forgot to give the commander before he or she left.”
The poet’s holographic hand brushed at the map again. “Stick to the subject. How do you get Aenea away from these motherhumpers?’ ‘
I stepped away from the piano. My voice held anger when I spoke. “How the hell should I know? You’re the one who’s had two and a half centuries to plan this stupid escape.” I waved my hand, indicating the ship. “I presume this thing is our ticket to outrunning the torchships.” I paused. “Ship? Can you outrun a Pax torchship to C-plus translation?” All Hawking drives provided the same pseudo-velocity above light-speed, of course, so our escape and survival, or capture and destruction, depended upon the race to that quantum point.
“Oh, yes,” said the ship immediately. “Parts of my memory are missing, but I am aware that the Consul had me modified during a visit to an Ouster colony.”
“An Ouster colony?” I repeated stupidly. My skin prickled, despite logic. I had grown up fearing another Ouster invasion. Ousters were the ultimate bogeymen.
“Yes,” said the ship with something like pride audible in its voice. “We will be able to spin up to C-plus velocities almost twenty-three percent faster than a Pax torchship of the line.”