by Dan Simmons
“Carry him to the Sphinx,” said Sol.
At that moment, as if choreographed by the setting sun, the time tides flowed over them like a tidal wave of nausea and déjà vu. All three men fell to their knees. Rachel awoke and cried with the vigor of the newly born and terrified.
“Make for the valley entrance,” gasped the Consul, standing with Het Masteen draped over his shoulder. “Got to … get out … the valley.”
The three men moved toward the mouth of the valley, past the first tomb, the Sphinx, but the time tides became worse, blowing against them like a terrible wind of vertigo. Thirty meters beyond and they could climb no more. They fell to hands and knees, Het Masteen rolling across the hard-packed trail. Rachel had ceased wailing and writhed in discomfort.
“Back,” gasped Paul Duré. “Back down the valley. It was … better … below.”
They retraced their steps, staggering along the trail like three drunkards, each carrying a burden too precious to be dropped. Below the Sphinx they rested a moment, backs to a boulder, while the very fabric of space and time seemed to shift and buckle around them. It was as if the world had been the surface of a flag and someone had unfurled it with an angry snap. Reality seemed to billow and fold, then plunge farther away, folding back like a wave cresting above them. The Consul left the Templar lying against the rock and fell to all fours, panting, fingers clinging to the soil in panic.
“The Möbius cube,” said the Templar, stirring, his eyes still closed. “We must have the Möbius cube.”
“Damn,” managed the Consul. He shook Het Masteen roughly. “Why do we need it? Masteen, why do we need it?” The Templar’s head bobbed back and forth limply. He was unconscious once again.
“I’ll get it,” said Duré. The priest looked ancient and ill, his face and lips pale.
The Consul nodded, lifted Het Masteen over his shoulder, helped Sol gain his feet, and staggered away down the valley, feeling the riptides of anti-entropic fields lessen as they moved farther away from the Sphinx.
Father Duré had climbed the trail, climbed the long stairway, and staggered to the entrance of the Sphinx, clinging to the rough stones there the way a sailor would cling to a thrown line in rough seas. The Sphinx seemed to totter above him, first tilting thirty degrees one way, then fifty the other. Duré knew that it was only the violence of the time tides distorting his senses, but it was enough to make him kneel and vomit on the stone.
The tides paused a moment, like a violent surf resting between terrible wave assaults, and Duré found his feet, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and stumbled into the dark tomb.
He had not brought a flashlight; stumbling, he felt his way along the corridor, appalled by the twin fantasies of touching something slick and cool in the darkness or of stumbling into the room where he was reborn and finding his own corpse there, still moldering from the grave. Duré screamed, but the sound was lost in the tornado roar of his own pulse as the time tides returned in force.
The sleeping room was dark, that terrible dark which means the total absence of light, but Duré’s eyes adjusted, and he realized that the Möbius cube itself was glowing slightly, telltales winking.
He stumbled across the cluttered room and grabbed the cube, lifting the heavy thing with a sudden burst of adrenaline. The Consul’s summary tapes had mentioned this artifact—Masteen’s mysterious luggage during the pilgrimage—as well as the fact that it was believed to hold an erg, one of the alien forcefield creatures used to power a Templar treeship. Duré had no idea why the erg was important now, but he clutched the box to his chest as he struggled back down the corridor, outside and down the steps, deeper into the valley.
“Here!” called the Consul from the first Cave Tomb at the base of the cliff wall. “It’s better here.”
Duré staggered up the trail, almost dropping the cube in his confusion and sudden draining of energy; the Consul helped him the last thirty steps into the tomb.
It was better inside. Duré could feel the ebb and flow of time tides just beyond the cave entrance, but back in the rear of the cave, glow-globes revealing elaborate carvings in their cold light, it was almost normal. The priest collapsed next to Sol Weintraub and set the Möbius cube near the silent but staring form of Het Masteen.
“He just awakened as you approached,” whispered Sol. The baby’s eyes were very wide and very dark in the weak light.
The Consul dropped down next to the Templar. “Why do we need the cube? Masteen, why do we need it?”
Het Masteen’s gaze did not falter; he did not blink. “Our ally,” he whispered. “Our only ally against the Lord of Pain.” The syllables were etched with the distinctive dialect of the Templar world.
“How is it our ally?” demanded Sol, grabbing the man’s robe in both his fists. “How do we use it? When?”
The Templar’s gaze was set on something in the infinite distance. “We vied for the honor,” he whispered, voice hoarse. “The True Voice of the Sequoia Sempervirens was the first to contact the Keats retrieval cybrid … but I was one honored by the light of the Muir. It was the Yggdrasill, my Yggdrasill, which was offered in atonement for our sins against the Muir.” The Templar closed his eyes. A slight smile looked incongruous on his stern-featured face.
The Consul looked at Duré and Sol. “That sounds more like Shrike Cult terminology than Templar dogma.”
“Perhaps it is both,” whispered Duré. “There have been stranger coalitions in the history of theology.”
Sol lifted his palm to the Templar’s forehead. The tall man was burning up with fever. Sol rummaged through their only medpak in search of a pain derm or feverpatch. Finding one, he hesitated. “I don’t know if Templars are within standard med norms. I don’t want some allergy to kill him.”
The Consul took the feverpatch and applied it to the Templar’s frail upper arm. “They’re within the norm.” He leaned closer. “Masteen, what happened on the wind wagon?”
The Templar’s eyes opened but remained unfocused. “Windwagon?”
“I don’t understand,” whispered Father Duré.
Sol took him aside. “Masteen never told his tale on the pilgrimage out,” he whispered. “He disappeared during our first night out on the windwagon. Blood was left behind—plenty of blood—as well as his luggage and the Mobius cube. But no Masteen.”
“What happened on the windwagon?” the Consul whispered again. He shook the Templar slightly to get his attention. “Think, True Voice of the Tree Het Masteen!”
The tall man’s face changed, his eyes coming into focus, the vaguely Asiatic features settling into familiar, stern lines. “I released the elemental from his confinement … ”
“The erg,” Sol whispered to the baffled priest.
“… and bound him with the mind discipline I had learned in the High Branches. But then, without warning, the Lord of Pain came unto us.”
“The Shrike,” Sol whispered, more to himself than to the priest.
“Was it your blood spilled there?” the Consul asked the Templar.
“Blood?” Masteen drew his hood forward to hide his confusion. “No, it was not my blood. The Lord of Pain had a … celebrant … in his grasp. The man fought. Attempted to escape the atonement spikes … ”
“What about the erg?” pressed the Consul. “The elemental. What did you expect it to do for you? … to protect you from the Shrike?”
The Templar frowned and raised a trembling hand to his brow. “It … was not ready. I was not ready. I returned it to its confinement. The Lord of Pain touched me on the shoulder. I was … pleased … that my atonement should be within the same hour as the sacrifice of my treeship.”
Sol leaned closer to Duré. “The treeship Yggdrasill was destroyed in orbit that same evening,” he whispered.
Het Masteen closed his eyes. “Tired,” he whispered, his voice fading.
The Consul shook him again. “How did you get here? Masteen, how did you get here from the Sea of Grass?”
&nb
sp; “I awoke among the Tombs,” whispered the Templar without opening his eyes. “Awoke among the Tombs. Tired. Must sleep.”
“Let him rest,” said Father Duré.
The Consul nodded and lowered the robed man to a sleeping position.
“Nothing makes sense,” whispered Sol as the three men and an infant sat in the dim light and felt the time tides ebb and flow outside.
“We lose a pilgrim, we gain one,” muttered the Consul. “It’s as if some bizarre game were being played.”
An hour later, they had heard the shots echo down the valley.
Sol and the Consul crouched by the silent form of Brawne Lamia.
“We’d need a laser to cut that thing off,” said Sol. “With Kassad gone, so are our weapons.”
The Consul touched the young woman’s wrist. “Cutting it off might kill her.”
“According to the biomonitor, she’s already dead.”
The Consul shook his head. “No. Something else is going on. That thing may be tapping into the Keats cybrid persona she’s been carrying. Perhaps when it’s finished, it’ll give us Brawne back.”
Sol lifted his three-day-old daughter to his shoulder and looked out over the softly glowing valley. “What a madhouse. Nothing’s going as we thought. If only your damn ship were here … it would have cutting tools in case we have to free Brawne from this … this thing … and she and Masteen might have a chance for survival in the surgery.”
The Consul remained kneeling, staring at nothing. After a moment he said, “Wait here with her, please,” rose, and disappeared in the dark maw of the Sphinx’s entrance. Five minutes later, he was back with his own large travel bag. He removed a rolled rug from the bottom and unfurled it on the stone of the Sphinx’s top stair.
It was an ancient rug, a little less than two meters long and a bit more than a meter wide. The intricately woven cloth had faded over the centuries, but the monofilament flight threads still glowed like gold in the dim light. Thin leads ran from the carpet to a single power cell which the Consul now detached.
“Good God,” whispered Sol. He remembered the Consul’s tale of his grandmother Siri’s tragic love affair with Hegemony Shipman Merin Aspic. It had been a love affair that had raised a rebellion against the Hegemony and plunged Maui-Covenant into years of war. Merin Aspic had flown to Firstsite on a friend’s hawking mat.
The Consul nodded. “It belonged to Mike Osho, Grandfather Merin’s friend. Siri left it in her tomb for Merin to find. He gave it to me when I was a child—just before the Battle of the Archipelago, where he and the dream of freedom died.”
Sol ran his hand across the centuries-old artifact. “It’s a shame it can’t work here.”
The Consul glanced up. “Why can’t it?”
“Hyperion’s magnetic field is below the critical level for EM vehicles,” said Sol. “That’s why there are dirigibles and skimmers rather than EMVs, why the Benares was no longer a levitation barge.” He stopped, feeling foolish explaining this to a man who had been Hegemony Consul on Hyperion for eleven local years. “Or am I wrong?”
The Consul smiled. “You’re right that standard EMVs aren’t reliable here. Too much mass-to-lift ratio. But the hawking mat is all lift, almost no mass. I’ve tried it here when I lived in the capital. It’s not a smooth ride … but it should work with one person aboard.”
Sol glanced back down the valley, past the glowing forms of the Jade Tomb, Obelisk, and Crystal Monolith, to where the shadows of the cliff wall hid the entrance to the Cave Tombs. He wondered if Father Duré and Het Masteen were still alone … still alive. “You’re thinking of going for help?”
“Of one of us going for help. Bringing the ship back. Or at least freeing it and sending it back unmanned. We could draw lots to see who goes ”
It was Sol’s turn to smile. “Think, my friend. Duré is in no condition to travel and does not know the way in any case. I … ” Sol lifted Rachel until the top of her head touched his cheek. “The voyage might last several days. I—we—do not have several days. If something is to be done for her, we must remain here and take our chances. It is you who must go.”
The Consul sighed but did not argue.
“Besides,” said Sol, “it is your ship. If anyone can free it from Gladstone’s interdiction, you can. And you know the Governor-General well.”
The Consul looked toward the west. “I wonder if Theo is still in power.”
“Let’s go back and tell Father Duré our plan,” said Sol. “Also, I left the nursing paks in the cave, and Rachel is hungry.”
The Consul rolled the carpet, slipped it in his pack, and stared down at Brawne Lamia, at the obscene cable snaking away into darkness. “Will she be all right?”
“I’ll have Paul come back with a blanket to stay with her while you and I carry our other invalid back here. Will you leave tonight or wait until sunrise?”
The Consul rubbed his cheeks tiredly. “I don’t like the thought of crossing the mountains at night, but we can’t spare the time. I’ll leave as soon as I put some things together.”
Sol nodded and looked toward the entrance to the valley. “I wish Brawne could tell us where Silenus has gone.”
“I’ll look for him as I fly out,” said the Consul. He glanced up at the stars. “Figure thirty-six to forty hours of flying to get back to Keats. A few hours to free the ship. I should be back here within two standard days.”
Sol nodded, rocking the crying child. His tired but amiable expression did not conceal his doubt. He set his hand on the Consul’s shoulder. “It is right that we try, my friend. Come, let us talk to Father Duré, see if our other fellow traveler is awake, and eat a meal together. It looks as if Brawne brought enough supplies to allow us a final feast.”
TWENTY-SIX
When Brawne Lamia had been a child, her father a senator and their home relocated, however briefly, from Lusus to the wooded wonders of Tau Ceti Center’s Administrative Residential Complex, she had seen the ancient flatfilm Walt Disney animation of Peter Pan. After seeing the animation, she had read the book, and both had captured her heart.
For months, the five-standard-year-old girl had waited for Peter Pan to arrive one night and take her away. She had left notes pointing the way to her bedroom under the shingled dormer. She had left the house while her parents slept and lain on the soft grass of the Deer Park lawns, watching the milkish-gray night sky of TC2 and dreaming of the boy from Neverland who would some night soon take her away with him, flying toward the second star to the right, straight on till morning. She would be his companion, the mother to the lost boys, fellow nemesis to the evil Hook, and most of all, Peter’s new Wendy … the new child-friend to the child who would not grow old.
And now, twenty years later, Peter had finally come for her.
Lamia had felt no pain, only the sudden, icy rush of displacement as the Shrike’s steel talon penetrated the neural shunt behind her ear. Then she was away and flying.
She had moved through the datumplane and into the datasphere before. Only weeks before, her time, Lamia had ridden into the TechnoCore matrix with her favorite cyberpuke, silly BB Surbringer, to help Johnny steal back his cybrid retrieval persona. They had penetrated the periphery and stolen the persona, but an alarm had been tripped, BB had died. Lamia never wanted to enter the datasphere again.
But she was there now.
The experience was like nothing she had ever had with comlog leads or nodes before. That was like full stimsim—like being in a holodrama with full color and wraparound stereo—this was like being there.
Peter had finally come to take her away.
Lamia rose above the curve of Hyperion’s planetary limb, seeing the rudimentary channels of microwaved dataflow and tightbeamed commlink that passed for an embryonic datasphere there. She did not pause to tap into it, for she was following an orange umbilical skyward toward the real avenues and highways of datumplane.
Hyperion space had been invaded by FORCE and by the Ouster Swarm
, and both had brought the intricate folds and latticework of the datasphere with them. With new eyes, Lamia could see the thousand levels of FORCE dataflow, a turbulent green ocean of information shot through with the red veins of secured channels and the spinning violet spheres with their black phage outriders that were the FORCE AIs. This pseudopod of the great Web megadatasphere flowed out of normal space through black funnels of shipboard farcasters, along expanding wave fronts of overlapping, instantaneous ripples that Lamia recognized as continuous bursts from a score of fatline transmitters.
She paused, suddenly unsure of where to go, which avenue to take. It was as if she had been flying and her uncertainty had endangered the magic—threatening to drop her back to the ground so many miles below.
Then Peter took her hand and buoyed her up.
—Johnny!
—Hello, Brawne.
Her own body image clicked into existence at the same second she saw and felt his. It was Johnny as she had last seen him—her client and lover—Johnny of the sharp cheekbones, hazel eyes, compact nose and solid jaw. Johnny’s brownish-red curls still fell to his collar, and his face remained a study in purposeful energy. His smile still made her melt inside.
Johnny! She hugged him then, and she felt the hug, felt his strong hands on her back as they floated high above everything, felt her breasts flatten against his chest as he returned the hug with surprising strength for his small frame. They kissed, and there was no denying that that was real.
Lamia floated at arms’ length, her hands on his shoulders. Both their faces were lighted by the green and violet glow of the great datasphere ocean above them.
—Is this real? She heard her own voice and dialect in the question even though she knew she had only thought it.
—Yes. Real as any part of the datumplane matrix can be. Were on the edge of the megasphere in Hyperion space. His voice still held that elusive accent that she found so beguiling and maddening.
—What happened? With the words, she conveyed images to him of the Shrike’s appearance, the sudden, terrible invasion of the blade-finger.