by Dan Simmons
He sees the shadow first: ten meters of sharp angles, thorns, blades … legs like steel pipes with a rosette of scimitar blades at the knees and ankles. Then, through the pulse of hot light and black shadow, Hoyt sees the eyes. A hundred facets … a thousand … glowing red, a laser shone through twin rubies, above the collar of steel thorns and the quicksilver chest reflecting flame and shadow …
Brawne Lamia is firing her father’s pistol. The slap of the shots echo high and flat above the furnace rumble.
Father Lenar Hoyt swivels toward her, raises one hand. “No, don’t!” he screams. “It grants one wish! I have to make a …”
The Shrike, which was there—five meters away—is suddenly here, an arm’s length from Hoyt. Lamia quits firing. Hoyt looks up, sees his own reflection in the fire-burnished chrome of the thing’s carapace … sees something else in the Shrike’s eyes at that instant … and then it is gone, the Shrike is gone, and Hoyt lifts his hand slowly, touches his throat almost bemusedly, stares for a second at the cascade of red which is covering his hand, his chest, the cruciform, his belly …
He turns toward the doorway and sees Lamia still staring in terror and shock, not at the Shrike now, but at him, at Father Lenar Hoyt of the Society of Jesus, and in that instant he realizes that the pain is gone, and he opens his mouth to speak, but more, only more red comes out, a geyser of red. Hoyt glances down again, notices for the first time that he is naked, sees the blood dripping from his chin and chest, dripping and pouring to the now-dark floor, sees the blood pouring as if someone had upended a bucket of red paint, and then he sees nothing as he falls face first to the floor so far … so very far … below.
SIX
Diana Philomel’s body was as perfect as cosmetic science and an ARNist’s skills could make it. I lay in bed for several minutes after awakening and admired her body: turned away from me, the classic curve of back and hip and flank offering a geometry more beautiful and powerful than anything discovered by Euclid, the two dimples visible on the lower back, just above the heart-stopping widening of milk-white derriere, soft angles intersecting, the backs of full thighs somehow more sensual and solid than any aspect of male anatomy could hope to be.
Lady Diana was asleep, or seemed to be. Our clothes lay strewn across a wide expanse of green carpet. Thick light, tinged magenta and blue, flooded broad windows, through which gray and gold treetops were visible. Large sheets of drawing paper lay scattered around, beneath, and on top of our discarded clothes. I leaned to my left, lifted a sheet of paper, and saw a hasty scribble of breasts, thighs, an arm reworked in haste, and a face with no features. Doing a life study while drunk and in the process of being seduced is never a formula for quality art.
I moaned, rolled on my back, and studied the sculptured scrollwork on the ceiling twelve feet above. If the woman beside me had been Fanny, I might never want to move. As it was, I slipped out from under the covers, found my comlog, noted that it was early morning on Tau Ceti Center—fourteen hours after my appointment with the CEO—and padded off to the bathroom in search of a hangover pill.
There were several varieties of medication to choose from in Lady Diana’s drug bin. In addition to the usual aspirin and endorphins, I saw stims, tranks, Flashback tubes, orgasm derms, shunt primers, cannabis inhalers, non-recom tobacco cigarettes, and a hundred less identifiable drugs. I found a glass and forced down two Dayafters, feeling the nausea and headache fade within seconds.
Lady Diana was awake and sitting up in bed, still nude, when I emerged. I started to smile and then saw the two men by the east doorway. Neither was her husband, although both were as large and shared the same no-neck, ham-fisted, dark-jowled style that Hermund Philomel had perfected.
In the long pageant of human history, I am sure that there has been some human male who could stand, surprised and naked, in front of two fully clothed and potentially hostile strangers, rival males as it were, without cringing, without having the urge to cover his genitals and hunch over, and without feeling totally vulnerable and at a disadvantage … but I am not that male.
I hunched over, covered my groin, backed toward the bathroom, and said, “What … who … ?” I looked toward Diana Philomel for help and saw the smile there … a smile that matched the cruelty I had first seen in her eyes.
“Get him. Quickly!” demanded my erstwhile lover.
I made it to the bathroom and was reaching for the manual switch to dilate the door closed when the closer of the two men reached me, grabbed me, thrust me back into the bedroom, and threw me to his partner. Both men were from Lusus or an equally high-g world, or else they subsisted exclusively on a diet of steroids and Samson cells, for they tossed me back and forth with no effort. It didn’t matter how large they were. Except for my brief career as a school-yard fighter, my life … the memories of my life … offered few instances of violence and even fewer instances where I emerged from a scuffle the victor. One glance at the two men amusing themselves at my expense and I knew that these were the type one read about and did not quite believe in—individuals who could break bones, flatten noses, or crack kneecaps with no more compunction than I would feel about tossing away a defective stylus.
“Quickly!” Diana hissed again.
I canvased the datasphere, the house’s memory, Diana’s comlog umbilical, the two goons’ tenuous connection to the information universe … and although I now knew where I was: the Philomel country estate, six hundred kilometers from the capital of Pirre in the agricultural belt of terraformed Renaissance Minor … and precisely who the goons were: Debin Farms and Hemmit Gorma, plant security personnel for the Heaven’s Gate Scrubbers Union … I had no idea why one was sitting on me, his knee in the small of my back, while the other crushed my comlog under his heel and slipped an osmosis cuff over my wrist, up my arm …
I heard the hiss and relaxed.
“Who are you?”
“Joseph Severn.”
“Is that your real name?”
“No.” I felt the effects of the truthtalk and knew that I could confound it merely by going away, stepping back into the datasphere or retreating fully to the Core. But that would mean leaving my body to the mercy of whoever was asking the questions. I stayed there. My eyes were closed but I recognized the next voice.
“Who are you?” asked Diana Philomel.
I sighed. it was a difficult question to answer honestly. “John Keats,” I said at last. Their silence told me that the name meant nothing to them. Why should it? I asked myself. I once predicted that it would be a name “writ in water.” Although I couldn’t move or open my eyes, I found no trouble in canvasing the datasphere, following their access vectors. The poet’s name was among eight hundred John Keatses on the list offered to them by the public file, but they didn’t seem too interested in someone nine hundred years dead.
“Who do you work for?” It was Hermund Philomel’s voice. For some reason I was mildly surprised.
“No one.”
The faint Doppler of voices changed as they talked amongst themselves. “Can he be resisting the drug?”
“No one can resist it,” said Diana. “They can die when it’s administered, but they can’t resist it.”
“Then what’s going on?” asked Hermund. “Why would Gladstone bring a nobody into the Council on the eve of war?”
“He can hear you, you know,” said another man’s voice—one of the goons.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Diana. “He’s not going to live after the interrogation anyway.” Her voice came again, directed toward me. “Why did the CEO invite you to the Council … John?”
“Not sure. To hear about the pilgrims, probably.”
“What pilgrims, John?”
“The Shrike Pilgrims.”
Someone else made a noise. “Hush,” said Diana Philomel. To me she said, “Are those the Shrike Pilgrims on Hyperion, John?”
“Yes.”
“Is there a pilgrimage underway now?”
“Yes.”
“I dream them.”
There was a disgusted sound. Hermund said, “He’s crazy. Even under truthtalk he doesn’t know who he is, now he’s giving us this. Let’s get it over with and—”
“Shut up,” said Lady Diana. “Gladstone’s not crazy. She invited him, remember? John, what do you mean you dream them?”
“I dream the first Keats retrieval persona’s impressions,” I said. My voice was thick, as if I were talking in my sleep. “He hardwired himself into one of the pilgrims when they murdered his body, and now he roams their microsphere. Somehow his perceptions are my dreams. Perhaps my actions are his dreams, I don’t know.”
“Insane,” said Hermund.
“No, no,” said Lady Diana. Her voice was strained, almost shocked. “John, are you a cybrid?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, Christ and Allah,” said Lady Diana.
“What’s a cybrid?” said one of the goons. He had a high, almost feminine voice.
There was silence for a moment, and then Diana spoke. “Idiot. Cybrids were human remotes created by the Core. There were a few on the Advisory Council until last century, when they were outlawed.”
“Like an android or something?” said the other goon.
“Shut up,” said Hermund.
“No,” answered Diana. “Cybrids were genetically perfect, recombed from DNA going back to Old Earth. All you needed was a bone … a fragment of hair.… John, can you hear me? John?”
“Yes.”
“John, you’re a cybrid … do you know who your persona template was?”
“John Keats.”
I could hear her take a deep breath. “Who is … was … John Keats?”
“A poet.”
“When did he live, John?”
“From 1795 to 1821,” I said.
“Which reckoning, John?”
“Old Earth A.D.,” I said. “Pre-Hegira. Modern era—” Hermund’s voice broke in, agitated. “John, are you … are you in contact with the TechnoCore right now?”
“Yes.”
“Can you … are you free to communicate despite the truthtalk?”
“Yes.”
“Oh fuck,” said the goon with the high voice.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” snapped Hermund.
“Just a minute more,” said Diana. “We’ve got to know … ”
“Can we take him with us?” asked the deep-voiced goon.
“Idiot,” said Hermund. “If he’s alive and in touch with the datasphere and Core … hell, he lives in the Core, his mind’s there … then he can tip Gladstone, ExecSec, FORCE, anybody!”
“Shut up,” said Lady Diana. “We’ll kill him as soon as I’m finished. A few more questions. John?”
“Yes.”
“Why does Gladstone need to know what’s happening to the Shrike Pilgrims? Does it have something to do with the war with the Ousters?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Shit,” whispered Hermund. “Let’s go.”
“Quiet. John, where are you from?”
“I’ve lived on Esperance the last ten months.”
“And before that?”
“On Earth before that.”
“Which Earth?” demanded Hermund. “New Earth? Earth Two? Earth City? Which one?”
“Earth,” I said. Then I remembered. “Old Earth.”
“Old Earth?” said one of the goons. “This is fucked. I’m getting out of here.”
There came the frying-bacon sizzle of a weapons laser. I smelled something sweeter than frying bacon, and there was a heavy thump. Diana Philomel said, “John, are you talking about your persona template’s life on Old Earth?”
“No.”
“You—the cybrid you—were on Old Earth?”
“Yes,” I said. “I woke from death there. In the same room on the Piazza di Spagna in which I died. Severn was not there, but Dr. Clark and some of the others were … ”
“He is crazy,” said Hermund. “Old Earth’s been destroyed for more than four centuries … unless cybrids can live for more than four hundred years … ?”
“No,” snapped Lady Diana. “Shut up and let me finish this. John, why did the Core … bring you back?”
“I don’t know for sure.”
“Does it have something to do with the civil war going on between the AIs?”
“Perhaps,” I said. “Probably.” She asked interesting questions. “Which group created you? The Ultimates, Stables, or Volatiles?”
“I don’t know.”
I could hear a sigh of exasperation. “John, have you notified anyone of where you are, of what’s happening to you?”
“No,” I said. It was a sign of the lady’s less than impressive intelligence that she waited so long to pose that question.
Hermund also let out a breath. “Great,” he said. “Let’s get the hell out of here before … ”
“John,” said Diana, “do you know why Gladstone manufactured this war with the Ousters?”
“No,” I said. “Or rather, there might be many reasons. The most probable is that it is a bargaining ploy in her dealings with the Core.”
“Why?”
“Elements in the leadership ROM of the Core are afraid of Hyperion,” I said. “Hyperion is an unknown variable in a galaxy where every variable has been quantified.”
“Who is afraid, John? The Ultimates, Stables, or Volatiles? Which group of AIs is afraid of Hyperion?”
“All three,” I said.
“Shit,” whispered Hermund. “Listen … John … do the Time Tombs and the Shrike have something to do with all this?”
“Yes, they have a lot to do with it.”
“How?” asked Diana.
“I don’t know. No one does.”
Hermund, or someone, hit me sharply, viciously, in the chest. “You mean the fucking Core Advisory Council hasn’t predicted the outcome of this war, these events?” Hermund growled. “Are you expecting me to believe that Gladstone and the Senate went to war without a probability prediction?”
“No,” I said. “It has been predicted for centuries.”
Diana Philomel made a noise like a child being confronted with a large mound of candy. “What has been predicted, John? Tell us everything. ”
My mouth was dry. The truthtalk serum had dried up my saliva. “It predicted the war,” I said. “The identities of the pilgrims on the Shrike Pilgrimage. The betrayal of the Hegemony Consul in activating a device that will open—has opened—the Time Tombs. The emergence of the Shrike Scourge. The outcome of the war and the Scourge … ”
“What is the outcome, John?” whispered the woman I had made love to a few hours earlier.
“The end of the Hegemony,” I said. “The destruction of the World-web.” I tried to lick my lips but my tongue was dry. “The end of the human race.”
“Oh, Jesus and Allah,” whispered Diana. “Is there any chance that the prediction could be in error?”
“No,” I said. “Or rather, only in the effect of Hyperion on the result. The other variables are accounted for.”
“Kill him,” shouted Hermund Philomel. “Kill it … so we can get out of here and inform Harbrit and the others.”
“All right,” said Lady Diana. Then, a second later. “No, not the laser, you idiot. We’ll inject the lethal dose of alcohol as planned. Here, hold the osmosis cuff so I can attach this drip.”
I felt a pressure on my right arm. A second later there were explosions, concussions, a shout. I smelled smoke and ionized air. A woman screamed.
“Get that cuff off him,” said Leigh Hunt. I could see him standing there, still wearing a conservative gray suit, surrounded by Executive Security commandos in full impact armor and chameleon polymers. A commando twice Hunt’s height nodded, shouldered his hellwhip weapon, and rushed to do Hunt’s bidding.
On one of the tactical channels, the one I had been monitoring for some time, I could see a rela
yed image of myself … naked, spread-eagled on the bed, the osmosis cuff on my arm and a rising bruise on my rib cage. Diana Philomel, her husband, and one of the goons lay unconscious but alive in the splinter and broken-glass rubble of the room. The other enforcer lay half in the doorway, the top part of his body looking the color and texture of a heavily grilled steak.
“Are you all right, M. Severn?” asked Leigh Hunt, lifting my head and setting a membrane-thin oxygen mask over my mouth and nose.
“Hrrmmmggh,” I said. “Arret.” I swam to the surface of my own senses like a diver coming up too quickly from the deeps. My head hurt. My ribs ached like hell. My eyes were not working perfectly yet, but through the tactical channel, I could see Leigh Hunt give the small twitch of thin lips that I knew passed for a smile from him.
“We’ll help you get dressed,” said Hunt. “Get you some coffee on the flight back. Then it’s back to Government House, M. Severn. You’re late for a meeting with the CEO.”
SEVEN
Space battles in movies and holies had always bored me, but watching the real thing held a certain fascination: rather like seeing live coverage of a series of traffic accidents. Actually, the production values for reality—as had doubtless been the case for centuries—were much lower than for even a moderate-budget holo-drama. Even with the tremendous energies involved, the overwhelming reaction one had to an actual battle in space was that space was so large and humanity’s fleets and ships and dreadnoughts and whatnots were so small.
Or so I thought as I sat in the Tactical Information Center, the so-called War Room, with Gladstone and her military ganders, and watched the walls become twenty-meter holes into infinity as four massive holoframes surrounded us with in-depth imagery and the speakers filled the room with fatline transmissions: radio chatter between fighters, tactical command channels rattling away, ship-to-ship messages on wideband, lasercd channels, and secure fatline, and all the shouts, screams, cries, and obscenities of battle which predate any media besides air and the human voice.