The Hyperion Cantos 4-Book Bundle

by Dan Simmons

  A. Bettik led the way in, pulling up on his control bar at the last minute and dropping his legs from the stirrups of the rigging, using the kite like a parachute above him. He bounced twice on his boots and set the kite down quickly, snapping off his harness. Lhomo had shown us many times that it was important on dangerous and windy landing sites to separate yourself from the parawing quickly so that it did not drag you over some edge. And there was definitely an edge to be dragged over here.

  Aenea landed next, me a few seconds later. I had the sloppiest of the three landings, bouncing high, dropping almost straight down, twisting my ankle on the small stones, and going to my knees while the parawing struck hard on a boulder above me, bending metal and rending fabric. The kite tried to tip over backward then, pulling me over the cliff’s edge just as Lhomo had warned, but A. Bettik grabbed the left struts, Aenea seized the broken right spar a second later, and they stabilized it long enough for me to struggle out of my harness and hobble a few steps away from the wreckage, dragging my backpack with me.

  Aenea knelt on the cold, wet rocks at my feet, loosening my boot and studying my ankle. “I don’t think it’s sprained badly,” she said. “It may swell a bit, but you should be able to walk on it all right.”

  “Good,” I said stupidly, aware only of her bare hands on my bare ankle. Then I jumped a bit as she sprayed something cold from her medkit on the puffy flesh.

  They both helped me to my feet, we gathered our gear, and the three of us started arm-in-arm up the slick slope toward where the clouds glowed more brightly.

  We came up into the sunlight high on the sacred slopes of T’ai Shan. I had pulled off the skinsuit cowl and mask, but Aenea suggested that I keep the suit on. I pulled my therm jacket on over it to feel less naked, and I noticed that my friend did the same. A. Bettik was rubbing his arms and I saw that the high altitude cold had left his flesh chilled almost white.

  “Are you all right?” I asked him.

  “Fine, M. Endymion,” said the android. “Although another few minutes at that altitude …”

  I looked down at the clouds where we had folded the damaged kites and left them. “I guess we’re not getting off this hill with the parawings.”

  “Correct,” said Aenea. “Look.”

  We had come out of the boulder fields and scree slopes to grassy highlands between great cliffs, the succulent meadows crisscrossed with zygoat trails and stepping-stone paths. Glacial melt streams trickled over rocks but there were bridges made of stone slabs. A few distant herders had watched us impassively as we climbed higher. Now we had come around a switchback below the great icefields and looked up at what could only be temples of white stone set on gray ramparts. The gleaming buildings—bright beneath the blue-white expanse of ice and snow slopes that stretched up and out of sight to the blue zenith—looked like altars. What Aenea had pointed out was a great white stone set next to the trail, with this poem carved in its smooth face:

  With what can I compare the Great Peak?

  Over the surrounding provinces, its blue-green hue

  never

  dwindles from sight.

  Infused by the Shaper of Forms with the soaring power of

  divinity,

  Shaded and sunlit, its slopes divide night from day.

  Breast heaving as I climb toward the clouds,

  Eyes straining to follow birds flying home,

  Someday I shall reach its peerless summit,

  And behold all mountains in a single glance.

  —Tu Fu, T’ang Dynasty, China, Old Earth

  And so we entered Tai’an, the City of Peace. There on the slopes were the scores of temples, hundreds of shops, inns, and homes, countless small shrines, and a busy street filled with stalls, each covered by a bright canvas awning. The people here were lovely—that is a poor word, but the only proper one, I think—all with dark hair, bright eyes, gleaming teeth, healthy skin, and a pride and vigor to their carriage and step. Their clothes were silk and dyed cotton, bright but elegantly simple, and there were many, many monks in orange and red robes. The crowds would have been forgiven if they had stared—no one visits T’ai Shan during the monsoon months—but all the glances I saw were welcoming and easy. Indeed, many of the people in the street milled around, greeting Aenea by name and touching her hand or sleeve. I remembered then that she had visited the Great Peak before.

  Aenea pointed out the great slab of white rock that covered a hillside above the City of Peace. On the polished face of that slab had been carved what she explained was the Diamond Sutra in huge Chinese characters: one of the principle works of Buddhist philosophy, she explained, it reminded the monk and passerby of the ultimate nature of reality as symbolized in the empty expanse of blue sky overhead. Aenea also pointed out the First Heavenly Gate at the edge of the city—a gigantic stone archway under a red pagoda roof with the first of the twenty-seven thousand steps starting up toward the Jade Summit.

  Incredibly, we had been expected. In the great gompa at the center of the City of Peace, more than twelve hundred red-robed monks sat cross-legged in patient files, waiting for Aenea. The resident lama greeted Aenea with a low bow—she helped him to his feet and hugged the old man—and then A. Bettik and I were sitting at one side of the low, cushioned dais while Aenea briefly addressed the waiting multitude.

  “I said last spring that I would return at this time,” she said softly, her voice perfectly clear in the great marble space, “and it pleases my heart to see you all again. For those of you who took communion with me during my last visit, I know that you have discovered the truth of learning the language of the dead, of learning the language of the living, and—for some of you—of hearing the music of the spheres, and—soon, I promise you—of taking that first step.

  “This day is a sad day in many ways, but our future is bright with optimism and change. I am honored that you have allowed me to be your teacher. I am honored that we have shared in our exploration of a universe that is rich beyond imagining.” She paused and looked at A. Bettik and me. “These are my companions … my friend A. Bettik and my beloved, Raul Endymion. They have shared all hardships of my longest life’s voyage with me, and they will share in today’s pilgrimage. When we leave you, we will pass this day through the three Heavenly Gates, enter the Mouth of the Dragon, and—Buddha and the fates of chaos willing—shall visit the Princess of Azure Clouds and see the Temple of the Jade Emperor this day.”

  Aenea paused again and looked at the shaven heads and bright, dark eyes. These were not religious fanatics, I saw, not mindless servants or self-punishing ascetics, but were, instead, row upon row of intelligent, questioning, alert young men and women. I say “young,” but among the fresh and youthful faces were many with gray beards and subtle wrinkles.

  “My dear friend the Lama tells me that there are more now who wish to share in communion with the Void Which Binds this day,” said Aenea.

  About one hundred of the monks in the front rows went to their knees.

  Aenea nodded. “So it shall be,” she said softly. The Lama brought flagons of wine and many simple bronze cups. Before filling the cups or lancing her finger for the drops of blood, Aenea said, “But before you partake of this communion, I must remind you that this is a physical change, not a spiritual one. Your individual quest for God or Enlightenment must remain just that … your individual quest. This moment of change will not bring satori or salvation. It will bring only … change.”

  My young friend held up one finger, the finger she was about to prick to draw blood. “In the cells of my blood are unique DNA and RNA arrangements along with certain viral agents which will invade your body, starting through the digestive lining of your stomachs and ending in every cell of your body. These invasive viruses are somatic … that is, they shall be passed along to your children.

  “I have taught your teachers and they have taught you that these physical changes will allow you—after some training—to touch the Void Which Binds more directly, thus learni
ng the language of the dead and of the living. Eventually, with much more experience and training, it may be possible for you to hear the music of the spheres and take a true step elsewhere.” She raised the finger higher. “This is not metaphysics, my dear friends. This is a mutant viral agent. Be warned that you will never be able to wear the cruciform of the Pax, nor will your children nor their children’s children. This basic change in the soul of your genes and chromosomes will ban you from that form of physical longevity forever.

  “This communion will not offer you immortality, my dear friends. It insures that death will be our common end. I say again—I do not offer you eternal life or instant satori. If these are the things you seek most dearly, you must find them in your own religious searchings. I offer you only a deepening of the human experience of life and a connection to others—human or not—who have shared that commitment to living. There is no shame if you change your mind now. But there is duty, discomfort, and great danger to those who partake of this communion and, in so doing, become teachers themselves of the Void Which Binds, as well as fellow carriers of this new virus of human choice.”

  Aenea waited, but none of the hundred monks moved or left. All remained kneeling, heads slightly bowed as if in contemplation.

  “So be it,” said Aenea. “I wish you all well.” And she pricked her finger, squeezing a droplet of blood into each prepared cup of wine held out by the elderly Lama.

  It took only a few minutes for the hundred monks to pass the cups down their rows, each drinking but a drop. I rose from my cushion then, determined to go to the end of the row nearest me and partake of this communion, but Aenea beckoned me to her.

  “Not yet, my dear,” she whispered in my ear, touching my shoulder.

  I was tempted to argue—why was I being excluded from this?—but instead returned to my place next to A. Bettik. I leaned over and whispered to the android, “You haven’t done this so-called communion, have you?”

  The blue man smiled. “No, M. Endymion. And I never shall.”

  I was about to ask why, but at that moment the communion ended, the twelve hundred monks rose to their feet, Aenea walked among them—chatting and touching hands—and I saw from her glance toward me over shaven heads that it was time for us to leave.

  Nemes, Scylla, and Briareus regard the Shrike across the expanse of the suspension bridge, not phase-shifting for a moment, appreciating the real-time view of their enemy.

  It’s absurd, sends Briareus. A child’s bogeyman. All spikes and thorns and teeth. How silly.

  Tell that to Gyges, responds Nemes. Ready?

  Ready, sends Scylla.

  Ready, sends Briareus.

  The three phase-shift in unison. Nemes sees the air around them go thick and heavy, light becoming a sepia syrup, and she knows that even if the Shrike now does the obvious—cutting the suspension-bridge supports—that it will make no difference: in fast time, it will take ages for the bridge to begin to fall … time enough for the trio to cross it a thousand times.

  In single file, Nemes leading, they cross it now.

  The Shrike does not change position. Its head does not move to follow them. Its red eyes gleam dully, like crimson glass reflecting the last bit of sunset.

  Something’s not right here, sends Briareus.

  Quiet, commands Nemes. Stay off the common band unless I open contact. She is less than ten meters from the Shrike now and still the thing has not reacted. Nemes continues forward through thick air until she steps onto solid stone. Her clone sister follows, taking up position on Nemes’s left. Briareus steps off the bridge and stands on Nemes’s right. They are three meters in front of the Hyperion legend. It remains quiescent.

  “Move out of the way or be destroyed.” Nemes shifts down long enough to speak to the chrome statue. “Your day is long past. The girl is ours today.” The Shrike does not respond.

  Destroy it, Nemes commands her siblings and phase shifts.

  The Shrike disappears, shifting through time.

  Nemes blinks as the temporal shock waves ripple over and through her and then surveys the frozen surroundings with the full spectrum of her vision. There are a few human beings still here at the Temple Hanging in Air, but no Shrike.

  Shift down, she commands and her siblings obey immediately. The world brightens, the air moves, and sound returns.

  “Find her,” says Nemes.

  In a full jog, Scylla moves to the Noble Eightfold Path axis of Wisdom and lopes up the staircase to the platform of Right Understanding. Briareus moves quickly to the axis of Morality and leaps to the pagoda of Right Speech. Nemes takes the third stairway, the highest, toward the high pavilions of Right Mindfulness and Right Meditation. Her radar shows people in the highest structure. She arrives in a few seconds, scanning the buildings and cliff wall for concealed rooms or hiding places. Nothing. There is a young woman in the pavilion for Right Meditation and for an instant Nemes thinks that the search is over, but although she is about the same age as Aenea, it is not her. There are a few others in the elegant pagoda—a very old woman—Nemes recognizes her as the Thunderbolt Sow from the Dalai Lama’s reception—the Dalai Lama’s Chief Crier and Head of Security, Carl Linga William Eiheji, and the boy himself—the Dalai Lama.

  “Where is she?” says Nemes. “Where is the one who calls herself Aenea?”

  Before any of the others can speak, the warrior Eiheji reaches into his cloak and hurls a dagger with lightning speed.

  Nemes dodges it easily. Even without phase-shifting, her reactions are faster than most humans. But when Eiheji pulls a flechette pistol, Nemes shifts up, walks to the frozen man, encloses him in her shift field, and flings him out the open floor-to-ceiling window into the abyss. Of course, as soon as Eiheji leaves her field envelope, he seems to freeze in midair like some ungainly bird thrown from the nest, unable to fly but unwilling to fall.

  Nemes turns back to the boy and shifts down. Behind her, Eiheji screams and plummets out of sight.

  The Dalai Lama’s jaw drops and his lips form an O. To him and the two women present, Eiheji had simply disappeared from next to them and reappeared in midair out the open shoji doors of the pavilion, as if he had chosen to teleport to his death.

  “You can’t …” begins the old Thunderbolt Sow.

  “You are forbidden …” begins the Dalai Lama.

  “You won’t …” begins the woman whom Nemes guesses is either Rachel or Theo, Aenea’s compatriots.

  Nemes says nothing. She shifts up, walks to the boy, folds her phase field around him, lifts him, and carries him to the open door.

  Nemes! It is Briareus calling from the pavilion of Right Effort.

  What?

  Instead of verbalizing on the common band, Briareus uses the extra energy to send the full visual image. Looking frozen in the sepia air kilometers above them, fusion flame as solid as a blue pillar, a spaceship is descending.

  Shift down, commands Nemes.

  The monks and the old Lama packed us a lunch in a brown bag. They also gave A. Bettik one of the old-fashioned pressure suits of the kind I had seen only in the ancient spaceflight museum at Port Romance and tried to give two more to Aenea and me, but we showed them the skinsuits under our thermal jackets. The twelve hundred monks all turned out to wave us off through the First Heavenly Gate, and there must have been two or three thousand others pressing and craning to see us leave.

  The great stairway was empty except for the three of us, climbing easily now, A. Bettik with his clear helmet folded back like a cowl, Aenea and me with our osmosis masks turned up. Each of the steps was seven meters wide, but shallow, and the first section was easy enough, with a wide terrace step every hundred steps. The steps were heated from within, so even as we moved into the region of perpetual ice and snow midway up T’ai Shan, the stairway was clear.

  Within an hour we had reached the Second Heavenly Gate—a huge red pagoda with a fifteen-meter archway—and then we were climbing more steeply up the near-vertical fault line k
nown as the Mouth of the Dragon. Here the winds picked up, the temperature dropped precipitously, and the air became dangerously thin. We had redonned our harnesses at the Second Heavenly Gate, and now we clipped on to one of the bucky-carbon lines that ran along each side of the staircase, adjusting the pulley grip to act like a brake if we fell or were blown off the increasingly treacherous staircase. Within minutes, A. Bettik inflated his clear helmet and gave us a thumbs-up, while Aenea and I sealed our osmosis masks.

  We kept climbing toward the South Gate of Heaven still a kilometer above us, while the world fell away all around. It was the second time in a few hours that such a sight had presented itself to us, but this time we took it all in every three hundred steps as we took a break, standing and wheezing and staring out at the early afternoon light illuminating the great peaks. Tai’an, the City of Peace, was invisible now, some fifteen thousand steps and several klicks below the icefields and rock walls through which we had climbed. I realized that the skinsuit corn-threads gave us privacy once again, and said, “How you doing, kiddo?”

  “Tired,” said Aenea, but she leavened the comment with a smile from behind her clear mask.

  “Can you tell me where we’re headed?” I said.

  “The Temple of the Jade Emperor,” said my friend. “It’s on the summit.”

  “I guessed that,” I said, setting a foot down on the wide step, then raising the next foot to the next step. The stairway passed up and through a rock-and-ice overhang at this point. I knew that if I turned around to look down, that vertigo might overcome me. This was infinitely worse than the paragliding. “Can you tell me why we’re climbing to the Temple of the Jade Emperor when everything is going to hell behind us?”

  “How do you mean going to hell?” she said.

  “I mean Nemes and her ilk are probably after us. The Pax definitely is going to make its move. Things are falling apart. And we’re on pilgrimage.”