The Fall of Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos, #2)

by Dan Simmons

Duré’s smile was gone. “Do you hear what we’re saying? Do you hear the blasphemy in what we’re saying? I’m no candidate for the Godhead, Severn. I’ve betrayed my Church, my science, and now, by disappearing, my friends on the pilgrimage. Christ may have lost his faith for a few seconds; He did not sell it in the marketplace for the trinkets of ego and curiosity.” “Enough,” commanded Monsignor Edouard. “If the identity of this Empathy part of some future, manufactured deity is the mystery, think of the candidates just in the immediate troupe of your little Passion Play, M. Severn. The CEO, M. Gladstone, carrying the weight of the Hegemony on her shoulders. The other members of the pilgrimage … M. Silenus who, according to what you told Paul, even now suffers on the Shrike’s tree for his poetry. M. Lamia, who has risked and lost so much for love. M. Weintraub, who has suffered Abraham’s dilemma … even his daughter, who has returned to the innocence of childhood. The Consul, who—” “The Consul seems more Judas than Christ,” I said. “He betrayed both the Hegemony and the Ousters, who thought he was working for them.”