by Dan Simmons
There is no way through the flame forests today. The smoke drove me back even before I penetrated the edge of the active zone.
I returned to the village and went over the holos. There is no mistake. The miracle is real.
1530 hours—
The Three Score and Ten will return any moment. What if they know … what if they can tell by looking at me that I have been there?
I could hide.
No, there is no need to hide. God did not bring me this far and let me see what I have seen only to let me die at the hands of these poor children.
1615 hours—
The Three Score and Ten returned and went to their huts without giving me a glance.
I sit here in the doorway of my own hut and cannot keep from smiling, from laughing, and from praying. Earlier I walked to the edge of the Cleft, said Mass, and took Communion. The villagers did not bother to watch.
How soon can I leave? Supervisor Orlandi and Tuk had said that the flame forest was fully active for three local months—a hundred and twenty days—then relatively quiet for two. Tuk and I arrived here on Day 87.…
I cannot wait another hundred days to bring the news to the world … to all of the worlds.
If only a skimmer would brave the weather and flame forests and pluck me out of here. If only I could access one of the datafix sats that serve the plantations.
Anything is possible. More miracles will occur.
2350 hours—
The Three Score and Ten have gone down into the Cleft. The voices of the evening wind choir are rising all around.
How I wish I could be with them now! There, below.
I will do the next best thing. I will drop to my knees here near the cliff edge and pray while the organ notes of the planet and sky sing what I now know is a hymn to a real and present God.
Day 106:
I awoke today to a perfect morning. The sky was a deep turquoise; the sun was a sharp, blood-red stone set within. I stood outside my hut as the mists cleared, the arboreals ended their morning screech concert, and the air began to warm. Then I went in and viewed my tapes and disks.
I realize that in yesterday’s excited scribblings I mentioned nothing of what I found down the cliff. I will do so now. I have the disks, filmtapes, and comlog notes, but there is always the chance that only these personal journals will be found.
I lowered myself over the cliff edge at approximately 0730 hours yesterday morning. The Bikura were all foraging in the forest. The descent on vines had looked simple enough—they were bound around one another sufficiently to create a sort of ladder in most places—but as I swung out and began to let myself down, I could feel my heart pounding hard enough to be painful. There was a sheer three-thousand-meter drop to the rocks and river below. I kept a tight grip on at least two vines at all times and centimetered my way down, trying not to look at the abyss beneath my feet.
It took me the better part of an hour to descend the hundred and fifty meters that I am sure the Bikura can cover in ten minutes. Eventually I reached the curve of an overhang. Some vines trailed away into space but most of them curled under the sheer slab of rock toward the cliff wall thirty meters in. Here and there the vines appeared to have been braided to form crude bridges upon which the Bikura probably walked with little or no help from their hands. I crawled along these braided strands, clutching other vines for support and uttering prayers I had not said since my boyhood. I stared straight ahead as if I could forget that there was only a seemingly infinite expanse of air under those swaying, creaking strands of vegetable matter.
There was a broad ledge along the cliff wall. I allowed three meters of it to separate me from the gulf before I squeezed through the vines and dropped two and a half meters to the stone.
The ledge was about five meters wide and it terminated a short distance to the northeast where the great mass of the overhang began. I followed a path along the ledge to the southwest and had gone twenty or thirty paces before I stopped in shock. It was a path. A path worn out of solid stone. Its shiny surface had been pushed centimeters below the level of the surrounding rock. Farther on, where the path descended a curving lip of ledge to a lower, wider level, steps had been cut into the stone but even these had been worn to the point that they seemed to sag in the middle.
I sat down for a second as the impact of this simple fact struck me. Even four centuries of daily travel by the Three Score and Ten could not account for such erosion of solid rock. Someone or something had used this path long before the Bikura colonists crashed here. Someone or something had used this path for millennia.
I stood and walked on. There was little noise except for the wind blowing gently along the half-kilometer-wide Cleft. I realized that I could hear the soft sound of the river far below.
The path curved left around a section of cliff and ended. I stepped out onto a broad apron of gently descending stone and stared. I believe I made the sign of the cross without thinking.
Because this ledge ran due north and south for a hundred-meter cut of cliff, I could look due west along a thirty-kilometer slash of Cleft to open sky where the plateau ended. I realized at once that the setting sun would illuminate this slab of cliff wall under the overhang each evening. It would not have surprised me if—on the spring or autumn solstice—Hyperion’s sun would, from this vantage point, appear to set directly into the Cleft, its red sides just touching the pink-toned rock walls.
I turned left and stared at the cliff face. The worn path led across the wide ledge to doors carved into the vertical slab of stone. No, these were not merely doors, they were portals, intricately carved portals with elaborate stone casements and lintels. To either side of these twin doors spread broad windows of stained glass, rising at least twenty meters toward the overhang. I went closer and inspected the facade. Whoever had built this had done so by widening the area under the overhang, slicing a sheer, smooth wall into the granite of the plateau, and then tunneling directly into the cliff face. I ran my hand over the deeply cut folds of ornamental carving around the door. Smooth. Everything had been smoothed and worn and softened by time, even here, hidden away from most of the elements by the protective lip of overhang. How many thousands of years had this … temple … been carved into the south wall of the Cleft?
The stained glass was neither glass nor plastic but some thick, translucent substance that seemed as hard as the surrounding stone to the touch. Nor was the window a composite of panels; the colors swirled, shaded, melded, and blended into one another like oil on water.
I removed my flashlight from the pack, touched one of the doors, and hesitated as the tall portal swung inward with frictionless ease.
I entered the vestibule—there is no other word for it—crossed the silent ten-meter space, and paused in front of another wall made from the same stained-glass material that even now glowed behind me, filling the vestibule with thick light of a hundred subtle hues. I realized instantly that at the sunset hour the direct rays of the sun would fill this room with incredibly deep shafts of color, would strike the stained-glass wall in front of me, and would illuminate whatever lay beyond.
I found the single door, outlined by thin, dark metal set into the stained-glass stone, and I passed through it.
On Pacem we have—as best we could from ancient photos and holos—rebuilt the basilica of St. Peter’s exactly as it stood in the ancient Vatican. Almost seven hundred feet long and four hundred and fifty feet wide, the church can hold fifty thousand worshipers when His Holiness says Mass. We have never had more than five thousand faithful there even when the Council of Bishops of All the Worlds is in assembly every forty-three years. In the central apse near our copy of Bernini’s Throne of St. Peter, the great dome rises more than a hundred and thirty meters above the floor of the altar. It is an impressive space.
This space was larger.
In the dim light I used the beams of my flashlight to ascertain that I was in a single great room—a giant hall hollowed out of solid sto
ne. I estimated that the smooth walls rose to a ceiling that must be only a few meters beneath the surface of the crag where the Bikura had set their huts. There was no ornamentation here, no furniture, no sign of any concession to form or function except for the object that sat squarely in the center of this huge, echoing cave of a room.
Centered in the great hall was an altar—a five-meter-square slab of stone left when the rest was hollowed out—and from this altar rose a cross.
Four meters high, three meters wide, carved in the old style of the elaborate crucifixes of Old Earth, the cross faced the stained-glass wall as if awaiting the sun and the explosion of light that would ignite the inlaid diamonds, sapphires, blood crystals, lapis beads, queen’s tears, onyxes, and other precious stones that I could make out in the light of the flashlight as I approached.
I knelt and prayed. Shutting off the flashlight, I waited several minutes before my eyes could discern the cross in the dim, smoky light. This was, without a doubt, the cruciform of which the Bikura spoke. And it had been set here a minimum of many thousands of years ago—perhaps tens of thousands—long before mankind first left Old Earth. Almost certainly before Christ taught in Galilee.
I prayed.
Today I sit out in the sunlight after reviewing the holodisks. I have confirmed what I barely noticed during my return up the cliff after discovering what I now think of as “the basilica.” On the ledge outside the basilica there are steps descending farther into the Cleft. Although not as worn as the path leading to the basilica, they are equally intriguing. God alone knows what other wonders wait below.
I must let the worlds know of this find!
The irony of my being the one to discover this is not lost on me. If it had not been for Armaghast and my exile, this discovery might have waited more centuries. The Church might have died before this revelation could have brought new life to it.
But I have found it.
One way or the other, I will leave or get my message out.
Day 107:
I am a prisoner.
This morning I was bathing in my usual place near where the stream drops over the cliff edge when I heard a sound and looked up to see the Bikura I call Del staring at me with wide eyes. I called a greeting but the little Bikura turned and ran. It was perplexing. They rarely hurry. Then I realized that even though I had been wearing trousers at the time, I had undoubtedly violated their nudity taboo by allowing Del to see me naked from the waist up.
I smiled, shook my head, finished dressing, and returned to the village. If I had known what awaited me there, I would not have been amused.
The entire Three Score and Ten stood watching as I approached. I stopped a dozen paces from Al. “Good afternoon,” I said.
Alpha pointed and half a dozen of the Bikura lunged toward me, seized my arms and legs, and pinned me to the ground. Beta stepped forward and removed a sharp-edged stone from his or her robes. As I struggled in vain to pull free, Beta cut my clothes down the front and pulled apart the shreds until I was all but naked.
I ceased struggling as the mob pressed forward. They stared at my pale, white body and murmured to themselves. I could feel my heart pounding. “I am sorry if I have offended your laws,” I began, “but there is no reason …”
“Silence,” said Alpha and spoke to the tall Bikura with the scar on his palm—the one I call Zed. “He is not of the cruciform.”
Zed nodded.
“Let me explain,” I began again, but Alpha silenced me with a backhanded slap that left my lip bleeding and my ears ringing. There had been no more sense of hostility in his action than I would have shown in silencing a comlog by throwing a switch.
“What are we to do with him?” asked Alpha.
“Those who do not follow the cross must die the true death,” said Beta and the crowd shifted forward. Many had sharpened stones in their hands. “Those not of the cruciform must die the true death,” said Beta and her voice held the tone of complacent finality common to oft-repeated formulae and religious litanies.
“I follow the cross!” I cried out as the crowd tugged me to my feet. I grabbed at the crucifix that hung around my neck and struggled against the pressure of many arms. Finally I managed to lift the little cross over my head.
Alpha held up his hand and the crowd paused. In the sudden silence I could hear the river three kilometers below in the Cleft. “He does carry a cross,” said Alpha.
Del pressed forward. “But he is not of the cruciform! I saw. It was not as we thought. He is not of the cruciform!” There was murder in his voice.
I cursed myself for being careless and stupid. The future of the Church depended upon my survival and I had thrown both away by beguiling myself into believing that the Bikura were dull, harmless children.
“Those who do not follow the cross must die the true death,” repeated Beta. It was a final sentencing.
Stones were being raised by seventy hands when I shouted, knowing that it was either my last chance or my final condemnation. “I have been down the cliff and worshiped at your altar! I follow the cross!”
Alpha and the mob hesitated. I could see that they were wrestling with this new thought. It was not easy for them.
“I follow the cross and wish to be of the cruciform,” I said as calmly as I could. “I have been to your altar.”
“Those who do not follow the cross must die the true death,” called Gamma.
“But he follows the cross,” said Alpha. “He has prayed in the room.”
“This cannot be,” said Zed. “The Three Score and Ten pray there and he is not of the Three Score and Ten.”
“We knew before this that he is not of the Three Score and Ten,” said Alpha, frowning slightly as he dealt with the concept of past tense.
“He is not of the cruciform,” said Delta-two.
“Those who are not of the cruciform must die the true death,” said Beta.
“He follows the cross,” said Alpha. “Can he not then become of the cruciform?”
An outcry arose. In the general babble and shuffle of forms I pulled against restraining hands but their grips remained firm.
“He is not of the Three Score and Ten and is not of the cruciform,” said Beta, sounding more puzzled than hostile now. “How is it that he should not die the true death? We must take the stones and open his throat so that the blood flows until his heart stops. He is not of the cruciform.”
“He follows the cross,” said Alpha. “Can he not become of the cruciform?”
This time silence followed the question.
“He follows the cross and has prayed at the room of the cruciform,” said Alpha. “He must not die the true death.”
“All die the true death,” said a Bikura whom I did not recognize. My arms were aching from the strain of holding the crucifix above my head. “Except the Three Score and Ten,” finished the anonymous Bikura.
“Because they followed the cross, prayed at the room, and became of the cruciform,” said Alpha. “Must he not then become of the cruciform?”
I stood there gripping the cold metal of the small cross and awaited their verdict. I was afraid to die—I felt afraid—but the larger part of my mind seemed almost detached. My greatest regret was that I would not be able to send out the news of the basilica to an unbelieving universe.
“Come, we will talk of this,” Beta said to the group and they pulled me with them as they trod silently back to the village.
They have imprisoned me here in my hut. There was no chance to try for the hunting maser; several of them held me down while they emptied the hut of most of my possessions. They took my clothing, leaving me only one of their rough-woven robes to cover myself with.
The longer I sit here the more angry and anxious I become. They have taken my comlog, imager, disks, chips … everything. I have a single, unopened crate of medical diagnostic equipment left up at the old site, but that cannot help me document the miracle in the Cleft. If they destroy the things they have taken—and then
destroy me—there will be no record of the basilica.
If I had a weapon I could kill the guards and
oh dear God what am I thinking? Edouard, what am I to do?
And even if I survive this—make my way back to Keats—arrange travel back to the Web—who would believe me?—after nine years’ absence from Pacem because of the quantum-leap time-debt—just an old man returning with the same lies he was exiled for—
Oh, dear God, if they destroy the data, let them destroy me as well.
Day 110:
After three days they have decided my fate.
Zed and the one I think of as Theta-Prime came to get me shortly after midday. I blinked as they led me out into the light. The Three Score and Ten stood in a wide semicircle near the cliff edge. I fully expected to be thrown over that edge. Then I noticed the bonfire.
I had assumed that the Bikura were so primitive that they had lost the art of making and using fire. They did not warm themselves with fire and their huts were always dark. I had never seen them cook a meal, not even the rare corpse of an arboreal they devoured. But now the fire was burning strongly and they were the only ones who could have started it. I looked to see what fueled the flames.
They were burning my clothes, my comlog, my field notes, the tape cassettes, video chips, data disks, the imager … everything that had held information. I screamed at them, tried to throw myself at the fire, and called them names I had not used since the street days of my childhood. They ignored me.
Finally Alpha came close. “You will become of the cruciform,” he said softly.
I did not care. They led me back to my hut where I wept for an hour. There is no guard at the door. A minute ago I stood at the doorway and considered running for the flame forests. Then I thought of a much shorter but no less fatal run to the Cleft.
I did nothing.
The sun will be setting in a short time. Already the winds are rising. Soon. Soon.
Day 112:
Has it been only two days? It has been forever.
It did not come off this morning. It did not come off.