"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. 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 s.p.a.ceship 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 s.p.a.ceflight 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 paG.o.da with a fifteen-meter archway-and then we were climbing more steeply up the near-vertical fault line known 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 pa.s.sed 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 why we"re climbing to the Temple of the Jade Emperor when everything is going to h.e.l.l behind us?" we"re climbing to the Temple of the Jade Emperor when everything is going to h.e.l.l behind us?"
"How do you mean going to h.e.l.l?" 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."
Aenea nodded. The wind was roaring now, as thin as it was, as we actually climbed into the jet stream. Each of us was moving forward and up with our heads bowed and our bodies arched, as if carrying a heavy load. I wondered what A. Bettik was thinking about.
"Why don"t we just call the ship and get the h.e.l.l out of here," I said. "If we"re going to bail out, let"s get it over with."
I could see Aenea"s dark eyes behind the mask that reflected the deepening blue sky. "When we call the ship, there"ll be two dozen Pax warships descending on us like harpy crows," said Aenea. "We can"t do it until we"re ready."
I gestured up the steep staircase. "And climbing this will make us ready?"
"I hope so," she said softly. I could hear the rasp of her breathing through my hearpatches.
"What"s up here, kiddo?"
We had reached the next three hundredth step. All three of us stopped and panted, too tired to appreciate the view. We had climbed into the edge of s.p.a.ce. The sky was almost black. Several of the brighter stars were visible and I could see one of the smaller moons hurtling toward the zenith. Or was it a Pax ship? Or was it a Pax ship?
"I don"t know know what we"ll find, Raul," said Aenea, her voice tired. "I glimpse things...dream things again and again...but then I dream the same thing in a different way. I hate to talk about it until I see which reality presents itself." what we"ll find, Raul," said Aenea, her voice tired. "I glimpse things...dream things again and again...but then I dream the same thing in a different way. I hate to talk about it until I see which reality presents itself."
I nodded understanding, but I was lying. We began climbing again. "Aenea?" I said.
"Yes, Raul."
"Why don"t you let me take...you know...communion?"
She made a face behind the osmosis mask. "I hate calling it that."
"I know, but that"s what everyone calls it. But tell me this, at least...why don"t you let me drink the wine?"
"It"s not time for you to, Raul."
"Why not?" I could feel the anger and frustration just below the surface again, mixing with the roiling current of love that I felt for this woman.
"You know the four steps I talk about..." she began.
"Learning the language of the dead, learning the language of the living...yeah, yeah, I know the four steps," I said almost dismissively, setting my very real foot on a very physical marble step and taking another tired pace up the endless stairway.
I could see Aenea smile at my tone. "Those things tend to ...preoccupy the person first encountering them," she said softly. "I need your full attention right now. I need your help." help."
That made sense to me. I reached over and touched her back through the thermal jacket and skinsuit material. A. Bettik looked across at us and nodded, as if approving of our contact. I reminded myself that he could not have heard our skinsuit transmissions.
"Aenea," I said softly, "are you the new messiah?"
I could hear her sigh. "No, Raul. I never said I was a messiah. I never wanted to be a messiah. I"m just a tired young woman right now...I"ve got a pounding headache...and cramps...it"s the first day of my period..."
She must have seen me blink in surprise or shock. Well, h.e.l.l Well, h.e.l.l, I thought, it"s not every day that you get to confront the messiah only to hear that she"s suffering from what the ancients used to call PMS it"s not every day that you get to confront the messiah only to hear that she"s suffering from what the ancients used to call PMS.
Aenea chuckled. "I"m not the messiah, Raul. I was just chosen to be the One Who Teaches. And I"m trying to do it while...while I can."
Something about her last sentence made my stomach knot in anxiety. "Okay," I said. We reached the three hundredth step and paused together, wheezing more heavily now. I looked up. Still no South Gate of Heaven visible. Even though it was midday, the sky was s.p.a.ce black. A thousand stars burned. They barely twinkled. I realized that the hiss and roar of the jet stream had gone away. T"ai Shan was the highest peak on T"ien Shan, extending into the highest fringes of the atmosphere. If it had not been for our skinsuits, our eyes, eardrums, and lungs would have exploded like overinflated balloons. Our blood would be boiling. Our...
I tried to shift my thoughts onto something else.
"All right," I said, "but if you were were the messiah, what would your message to humanity be?" the messiah, what would your message to humanity be?"
Aenea chuckled again, but I noticed that it was a reflective chuckle, not a derisive one. "If you "If you were a messiah," she said between breaths, "what would were a messiah," she said between breaths, "what would your your message be?" message be?"
I laughed out loud. A. Bettik could not have heard the sound through the near vacuum separating us, but he must have seen me throw my head back, for he looked over quizzically. I waved at him and said to Aenea, "I have no f.u.c.king clue."
"Exactly," said Aenea. "When I was a kid...I mean a little little kid, before I met you...and I knew that I"d have to go through some of this stuff...I was always wondering what message I was going to give humankind. Beyond the things I knew I"d have to teach, I mean. Something profound. Sort of a Sermon on the Mount." kid, before I met you...and I knew that I"d have to go through some of this stuff...I was always wondering what message I was going to give humankind. Beyond the things I knew I"d have to teach, I mean. Something profound. Sort of a Sermon on the Mount."
I looked around. There was no ice or snow at this terrible alt.i.tude. The clear, white steps rose through shelves of steep, black rock. "Well," I said, "here"s the mount."
"Yeah," said Aenea, and I could hear the fatigue once again.
"So what message did you come up with?" I said, more to keep her talking and distracted than to hear the answer. It had been a while since she and I had just talked.
I could see her smile. "I kept working on it," she said at last, "trying to get it as short and important as the Sermon on the Mount. Then I realized that was no good-like Uncle Martin in his manic-poet period trying to outwrite Shakespeare-so I decided that my message would just be shorter." shorter."
"How short?"
"I got my message down to thirty-five words. Too long. Then down to twenty-seven. Still too long. After a few years I had it down to ten. Still too long. Eventually I boiled it down to two words."
"Two words?" I said. "Which two?"
We had reached the next resting point...the seventieth or eightieth three hundredth step. We stopped gratefully and panted. I bent over to rest my skinsuit-gloved hands on my skinsuit-sheathed knees and concentrated on not throwing up. It was bad form to vomit in an osmosis mask. "Which two?" I said again when I got some wind back and could hear the answer over my pounding heart and rasping lungs.
"Choose again," said Aenea.
I considered that for a wheezing, panting moment. "Choose again?" I said finally.
Aenea smiled. She had caught her wind and was actually looking down at the vertical view that I was afraid even to glance toward. She seemed to be enjoying it. I had the friendly urge to toss her off the mountain right then. Youth. It"s intolerable sometimes.
"Choose again," she said firmly.
"Care to elaborate on that?"
"No," said Aenea. "That"s the whole idea. Keep it simple. But name a category and you get the idea."
"Religion," I said.
"Choose again," said Aenea.
I laughed.
"I"m not being totally facetious here, Raul," she said. We began climbing again. A. Bettik seemed lost in thought.
"I know, kiddo," I said, although I had not been sure. "Categories...ah...political systems."
"Choose again."
"You don"t think that the Pax is the ultimate evolution of human society? It"s brought interstellar peace, fairly good government, and...oh, yeah...immortality to its citizens."
"It"s time to choose again," said Aenea. "And speaking of our views of evolution..."
"What?"
"Choose again."
"Choose what again?" I said. "The direction of evolution?"
"No," said Aenea, "I mean our ideas about whether evolution has has a direction. Most of our theories about evolution, for that matter." a direction. Most of our theories about evolution, for that matter."
"So, do you or don"t you agree with Pope Teilhard...the Hyperion pilgrim, Father Dure...when he said three centuries ago that Teilhard de Chardin had been right, that the universe was evolving toward consciousness and a conjunction with the G.o.dhead? What he called the Omega Point?"
Aenea looked at me. "You did do a lot of reading in the Taliesin library, didn"t you?"
"Yeah."
"No, I don"t agree with Teilhard...either the original Jesuit or the short-lived Pope. My mother knew both Father Dure and the current pretender, Father Hoyt, you know."
I blinked. I guess I had known that, but being reminded of the reality of that...of my friend"s connections across the last three centuries...set me back a bit.
"Anyway," continued Aenea, "evolutionary science has really taken a bite in the b.u.t.t over the last millennium. First the Core actively opposed investigation into it because of their fear of rapid human-designed genetic engineering-an explosion of our species into variant forms upon which the Core could not be parasitic. Then evolution and the biosciences were ignored by the Hegemony for centuries because of the Core"s influence, and now the Pax is terrified of it."
"Why?" I said.
"Why is the Pax terrified of biological and genetic research?"
"No," I said, "I think I understand that. The Core wants to keep human beings in the form and shape they"re comfortable with and so does the Church. They define being human largely by counting arms, legs, and so forth. But I mean why redefine evolution? Why open up the argument about direction or nondirection and so forth? Doesn"t the ancient theory hold up pretty well?"
"No," said Aenea. We climbed several minutes in silence. Then she said, "Except for mystics such as the original Teilhard, most early evolution scientists were very careful not to think of evolution in terms of "goals" or "purposes." That was religion, not science. Even the idea of a direction was anathema to the pre-Hegira scientists. They could only speak in terms of "tendencies" in evolution, sort of statistical quirks that kept recurring."
"So?"
"So that was their shortsighted bias, just as Teilhard de Chardin"s was his faith. There are are directions in evolution." directions in evolution."
"How do you know?" I said softly, wondering if she would answer.
She answered quickly. "Some of the data I saw before I was born," she said, "through my cybrid father"s connections to the Core. The autonomous intelligences there have understood human evolution for many centuries, even while humans stayed ignorant. As hyper-hyperparasites, the AIs evolve only toward greater parasitism. They can only look at living things and their evolutionary curve and watch it...or try to stop it."
"So what are the directions in evolution?" I asked. "Toward greater intelligence? Toward some sort of G.o.dlike hive mind?" I was curious about her perception of the Lions and Tigers and Bears.
"Hive mind," said Aenea. "Ugghh. Can you conceive of anything more boring or distasteful?"
I said nothing. I had rather imagined that this was the direction of her teachings about learning the language of the dead and all that. I made a note to listen better the next time she taught.
"Almost everything interesting in the human experience is the result of an individual experiencing, experimenting, explaining, and sharing," said my young friend. "A hive mind would be the ancient television broadcasts, or life at the height of the datasphere...consensual idiocy."
"Okay," I said, still confused. "What direction does does evolution take?" evolution take?"
"Toward more life," said Aenea. "Life likes life. It"s pretty much that simple. But more amazingly, nonlife likes life as well...and wants to get into it."
"I don"t understand," I said.
Aenea nodded. "Back on pre-Hegira Old Earth...in the 1920s...there was a geologist from a nation-state called Russia who understood this stuff. His name was Vladimir Vernadsky and he coined the phrase "biosphere," which-if things happen the way I think they will-should take on new meaning for both of us soon."