The Urth of the New Sun

by Gene Wolfe

Hierodules had landed a man and woman on the grounds of the House Absolute.

And so it is a "shaggy God" Adam and Eve story after all

it was simple enough to guess who my priest’s forebears had been—the sailors routed by my memories had paid for their defeat with their pasts, just as I would have lost the future of my descendants had my own past been defeated.

Eata?