the Seven Councils would have to meet in secret ... the Church of Aenea would be consulted ... or ... " Obviously the Ouster was in pain at the thought of millions or billions of his fellow Ousters leaving the forest ring forever, freecasting away to human-Aenean s.p.a.ce or elsewhere. Their universe would never be the same. "But the three of us do not have the right to reject it for everyone."
"But we hesitate to ask ... " began the True Voice of the Tree Reta Kasteen.
Ces Ambre shook her head and motioned to Dr. Samel. The medic handed the Templar a small quant.i.ty of blood in a shockproof vial. "We drew it just a while ago," said the doctor.
"You must decide," said Ces Ambre. "That is always the way. That is always the curse."
Chief Branchman Keel Redt stared at the vial for a long moment before he took it in his still-shaking hands and carefully set it away in a secure pouch on his Ouster forcefield armor. "It will be interesting to see what happens," said the Ouster.
Dem Lia smiled. "That"s an ancient Old Earth curse, you know. Chinese. "May you live in interesting times." "
Saigyo morphed the airlock and the Ouster diplomats were gone, sailing back to the forest ring with the hundreds of thousands of other beings of light, tacking against the solar wind, following magnetic lines of force like vessels of light carried by swift currents.
"If you all don"t mind," said Ces Ambre, smiling, "I"m going to return to my deep-sleep creche and turn in. It"s been a long couple of days."
The originally awakened nine waited until the Helix had successfully translated into Hawking s.p.a.ce before returning to deep sleep. When they were still in the G8 system, accelerating up and away from the ecliptic and the beautiful forest ring which now eclipsed the small, white sun, Oam Rai pointed to the stern window, and said, "Look at that."
The Ousters had turned out to say good-bye. Several billion wings of pure energy caught the sunlight.
A day into Hawking s.p.a.ce while conferring with the AI"s was enough to establish that the ship was in perfect form, the spin arms and deep-sleep pods functioning as they should, that they had returned to course, and that all was well. One by one, they returned to their creches -- first Den Soa and her mates, then the others. Finally only Dem Lia remained awake, sitting up in her creche in the seconds before it was to be closed.
"Saigyo," she said, and it was obvious from her voice that it was a summons.
The short, fat, Buddhist monk appeared.
"Did you know that Ces Ambre was Aenean, Saigyo?"
"No, Dem Lia."
"How could you not? The ship has complete genetic and med profiles on every one of us. You must have known."
"No, Dem Lia, I a.s.sure you that Citizen Ces Ambre"s med profiles were within normal Spectrum Helix limits. There was no sign of post-humanity Aenean DNA.
Nor clues in her psych profiles."
Dem Lia frowned at the hologram for a moment. Then she said, "Forged bio records then? Ces Ambre or her mother could have done that."
"Yes, Dem Lia."
Still propped on one elbow, Dem Lia said, "To your knowledge -- to any of the AIs" knowledge -- are there other Aeneans aboard the Helix, Saigyo?"
"To our knowledge, no," said the plump monk, his face earnest.
Dem Lia smiled. "Aenea taught that evolution had a direction and determination," she said softly, more to herself than to the listening AI. "She spoke of a day when all the universe would be green with life. Diversity, she taught, is one of evolution"s best strategies."
Saigyo nodded and said nothing.
Dem Lia lay back on her pillow. "We thought the Aeneans so generous in helping us preserve our culture -- this ship -- the distant colony. I bet the Aeneans have helped a thousand small cultures cast off from human s.p.a.ce into the unknown. They want the diversity -- the Ousters, the others. They want many of us to pa.s.s up their gift of G.o.dhood."
She looked at the AI, but the Buddhist monk"s face showed only his usual slight smile. "Good night, Saigyo. Take good care of the ship while we sleep." She pulled the top of the creche shut and the unit began cycling her into deep cryogenic sleep.
"Yes, Dem Lia," said the monk to the now-sleeping woman.
The Helix continued its great arc through Hawking s.p.a.ce. The spin arms and life pods wove their complex double helix against the flood of false colors and four-dimensional pulsations which had replaced the stars.
Inside the ship, the AI"s had turned off the containment-field gravity and the atmosphere and the lights. The ship moved on in darkness.
Then, one day, about three months after leaving the binary system, the ventilators hummed, the lights flickered on, and the containment-field gravity activated. All 684,300 of the colonists slept on.
Suddenly three figures appeared in the main walkway halfway between the command-center bridge and the access portals to the first ring of life-pod arms.
The central figure was more than three meters tall, spiked and armored, four- armed, and bound about with chrome razorwire. Its faceted eyes gleamed red. It remained motionless where it had suddenly appeared.
The figure on the left was a man in early middle age, with curly, graying hair, dark eyes, and pleasant features. He was very tan and wore a soft blue cotton shirt, green shorts, and sandals. He nodded at the woman and began walking toward the command center.
The woman was older, visibly old even despite Aenean medical techniques, and she wore a simple gown of flawless blue. She walked to the access portal, took the lift up the third spin arm, and followed the walkway down into the one-g environment of the life pod. Pausing by one of the creches, she brushed ice and condensation from the clear faceplate of the umbilically monitored sarcophagus.
"Ces Ambre," muttered Dem Loa, her fingers on the chilled plastic centimeters above her triune stepdaughter"s lined cheek. "Sleep well, my darling. Sleep well."
On the command deck, the tall man was standing among the virtual AI"s.
"Welcome, Petyr, son of Aenea and Endymion," said Saigyo with a slight bow.
"Thank you, Saigyo. How are you all?"
They told him in terms beyond language or mathematics. Petyr nodded, frowned slightly, and touched Basho"s shoulder. "There are too many conflicts in you, Basho? You wished them reconciled?"
The tall man in the coned hat and muddy clogs said, "Yes, please, Petyr."
The human squeezed the AI"s shoulder in a friendly embrace. Both closed their eyes for an instant.
When Petyr released him, the saturnine Basho smiled broadly.
"Thank you, Petyr."
The human sat on the edge of the table, and said, "Let"s see where we"re headed."
A holocube four meters by four meters appeared in front of them. The stars were recognizable. The Helix"s long voyage out from human-Aenean s.p.a.ce was traced in red. Its projected trajectory proceeded ahead in blue dashes -- blue dashes extending toward the center of the galaxy.
Petyr stood, reached into the holo cube, and touched a small star just to the right of the projected path of the Helix. Instantly that section magnified.
"This might be an interesting system to check out," said the man with a comfortable smile. "Nice G2 star. The fourth planet is about a seven-point-six on the old Solmev Scale. It would be higher, but it has evolved some very nasty viruses and some very fierce animals. Very fierce."
"Six hundred eighty-five light-years," noted Saigyo. "Plus forty-three light- years course correction. Soon."
Petyr nodded.
Lady Murasaki moved her fan in front of her painted face. Her smile was provocative. "And when we arrive, Petyr-san, will the nasty viruses somehow be gone?"
The tall man shrugged. "Most of them, my Lady. Most of them." He grinned.
"But the fierce animals will still be there." He shook hands with each of the AI"s.
"Stay safe, my friends. And keep our friends safe."
Petyr trotted back to the three-meter chrome-and-bladed nightmare in the main walkway just as Dem Loa"s soft gown swished across the carpeted deckplates to join him.
"All set?" asked Petyr.
Dem Loa nodded.
The son of Aenea and Raul Endymion set his hand against the monster standing between them, laying his palm flat next to a fifteen-centimeter curved thorn. The three disappeared without a sound.
The Helix shut off its containment-field gravity, stored its air, turned off its interior lights, and continued on in silence, making the tiniest of course corrections as it did so.
THE HYPERION CANTOS.
Dan Simmons Hyperion (1989) The Fall of Hyperion (1990) Endymion (1996) The Rise of Endymion (1997) The four Hyperion books cover more than thirteen centuries in time, tens of thousands of light-years in s.p.a.ce, more than three thousand pages of the reader"s time, the rise and fall of at least two major interstellar civilizations, and more ideas than the author could shake an epistemological stick at. They are, in other words, s.p.a.ce opera.
As the reviewer for the New York Times said of the last book in the series, "Yet The Rise of Endymion, like its three predecessors, is also a full-blooded action novel, replete with personal combats and battles in s.p.a.ce that are distinguished from the formulaic s.p.a.ce opera by the magnitude of what is at stake -- which is nothing less than the salvation of the human soul."
The salvation of the human soul -- in the sense of finding the essence of what makes and keeps us human -- is indeed the binding theme through all of these s.p.a.ce battles, dark ages, new societies, and the coming of a new messiah.
Hyperion introduces us to seven pilgrims crossing the WorldWeb of the Hegemony of Man on their way to the Valley of the Time Tombs on the planet Hyperion. In true Chaucerian form, six of the pilgrims (one doesn"t survive long enough) tell each other their personal stories and reasons for coming on the pilgrimage as they cross The Sea of Gra.s.s and other obstacles to reach the Shrike -- the fabled killing creature of the Time Tombs, part machine, part time- traveling G.o.d, part avenging angel, and all sharp thorns, spikes, claws, and teeth.
The idea is that one of the pilgrims will have his or her request granted by the Shrike; the others will die. Through their stories we learn of the TechnoCore -- a hidden and manipulative group of Autonomous Intelligences escaped from human control -- of the destroyed (or perhaps just kidnapped) Old Earth; of the fake war between the Hegemony and the s.p.a.ce-adapted, human-evolved Ousters; and of one Jesuit"s discovery -- and rejection -- of a cross-shaped symbiote called the cruciform which can bring about physical resurrection. The story ends with the pilgrims" arrival at the Valley of the Time Tombs.
The Fall of Hyperion picks up exactly where Hyperion left off but utilizes totally different narrative techniques and structures to pursue John Keats"s themes of individuals -- and species -- not happily surrendering their place in the scheme of things when evolution tells them it is time to go. The pilgrims from the first book find that their fates are not as simple as they had thought: the Time Tombs open, mysterious messages and messengers from the future show that the struggle for the human soul continues on for many centuries, the Shrike wreaks havoc but does not kill all, nor does it grant requests, and the complex interstellar society of the Hegemony of Man with its WorldWeb farcaster system is kicked apart like an ant hill by interstellar war -- although whether the war is between Hegemony and Ousters, or Humanity and the TechnoCore, is not clear. Of the pilgrims, one named Brawne Lamia is pregnant by her lover -- the John Keats cybrid created by the Core -- and it is rumored that her child will be The One Who Teaches, humanity"s next Messiah. Another, soldier Fedmahn Ka.s.sad, travels to the future to meet his fate in combat with the Shrike. A third, Sol Weintraub, has stopped his daughter from aging backward to nonexistence, but now has to travel with her through a Time Tomb to their own complicated part in the mosaic of the future. The fourth pilgrim, the Hegemony Consul, takes an ancient s.p.a.cecraft whose AI is inhabited with the essence of the dead John Keats cybrid and returns to explore the ruins of the Hegemony. The fifth pilgrim, a priest, dies and is reborn through the cruciform as the Jesuit whose tale he told -- now the pope of a reborn Catholic Church. The final living pilgrim -- the seven- hundred-year-old poet, Martin Silenus, who has been telling all this tale -- remains as obscene and crotchety as ever.
Endymion opens 274 years after the Fall of the Farcasters. Things have gone to h.e.l.l -- which is usually the case in so-called Dark Ages between empires -- but the Pax, the civil-military arm of the reinvigorated Catholic Church, now extends its dominion to most of the former worlds of the Hegemony. The Church -- and the Pax -- control its citizens through its monopoly of resurrection. Unknown to most, the Church has entered into a Faustian bargain with the now-hidden TechnoCore and utilizes the cruciform symbiotes to bring its followers back to life and into obedience. Suddenly, an eleven-year-old messiah-to-be named Aenea appears on the scene. Aenea is Brawne Lamia"s daughter, and she has fled across almost three centuries through the Time Tombs only to find the Pax authorities searching for her, and with both the Church and the Core acting on an absolute need to destroy her. The still alive, still obscene, still cranky poet, Martin Silenus, a.s.signs a young soldier and escaped murderer -- Raul Endymion -- to rescue the girl and to transport her wherever she wants to go on the now-dead Consul"s returned ship. Most of Endymion is a ma.s.sive chase across human s.p.a.ce with the Pax in close pursuit, as Raul, Aenea, and the blue android A. Bettik run for their lives and perhaps the future of humanity. Created by the Core, unleashed by the Church, is a female monstrosity named Rhadamanth Nemes who makes the killing-creature Shrike look like a Sunday-school teacher. At the end of Endymion, Raul, Aenea, and a wounded A. Bettik make it to Old Earth -- not destroyed after all, just transported to the Lesser Magellanic Clouds by aliens known only as the Lions and Tigers and Bears. Our trio settles in at Frank Lloyd Wright"s Taliesin West while young Aenea trains to be an architect.
The Rise of Endymion picks up four years after the events of Endymion.
Aenea, now sixteen, knows that she must return to Pax-dominated s.p.a.ce to cany out her role as The One Who Teaches. Raul, her protector and friend, has no wish to go. The idea of martyrdom -- especially his beloved Aenea"s martyrdom -- appalls him. Aenea sends Raul "ahead" by farcaster, but actually his few weeks of traveling allow Aenea to age five years, thanks to the miracle of time dilation and time-debt during Raul"s interstellar travels in the old Consul"s ship. When they meet again, Aenea is a woman and well along in her role of The One Who Teaches. The Pax is still after her. The Church still needs her dead. The creature Nemes has now been joined by three equally impossibly powerful and destructive siblings. And amidst all this, on the mountaintop-and-cloud world of T"ien Shan, Aenea and Raul become lovers. This makes Raul, our narrator through the two books, even less happy at the thought of his beloved"s becoming the messiah so many have predicted. Raul is not the smartest character in these books, but he is absolutely loyal, absolutely in love, and he is smart enough to know the fate of most messiahs.
The Rise of Endymion ends with tragedy, torture, death, and separation, followed -- not miraculously but inevitably -- by great enlightenment and the reunion of Raul and Aenea. The Pax has murdered her -- thus unwittingly bringing about their own downfall through Aenea"s Shared Moment, wherein every human being on every world glimpses the truth behind the Pax, the Church, the cruciform, and the parasitic TechnoCore -- but during her "absent five years"
while Raul was traveling, she had come ahead in time with the help of the Shrike to spend one year, eleven months, one week, and six hours with Raul on Old Earth. Earth has been emptied, cleansed, renewed, and returned to its proper place in the solar system by the Lions and Tigers and Bears.
Martin Silenus, the poet and constant character through all the books, dies shortly after Raul and Aenea are wed. Some of the poet"s final words were to the Consul"s ship, which has also come through a thousand years and four fat books - - "See you in h.e.l.l, Ship."
As The Rise of Endymion ends, the still-mysterious Shrike stands vigil over Martin Silenus"s grave on Old Earth; thanks to Aenea"s sacrifice, humanity has been freed to "learn the language of the dead" by tapping into the empathic fabric underlying the universe -- and also by now being able to freecast, that is, personally teleport anywhere; and Raul and Aenea fly off on their ancient hawking mat to celebrate their honeymoon on the empty, virginal Old Earth -- "
... our new playground, our ancient world ... our new world ... our first and future and finest world."
-- Dan Simmons.