Endymion (Hyperion Cantos, #3)

by Dan Simmons

On hundreds of worlds the Church administers to the faithful and the Pax advises. But, of course, if you are a Christian who wishes to be born again, you will not ignore the advice of the Pax or the whispers of the Church, will you?’ I shrugged again. The influence of the Church had been a constant of life as long as I had been alive. There was nothing strange about it to me.

After hours of talk I was sent to bed to sleep until three AM. Of course, I did not; I always have had trouble sleeping the night before a trip, and this night I did not sleep at all.

Happens to me all the time!

‘They are designed to,’ replied the ship. ‘All except boredom, of course. That is a peculiarly human phenomenon, and I do not believe that a cure has been found.’

For Father imagination and truth were the same thing. He once wrote, “the Imagination may be compared to Adam’s dream – he awoke and found it truth.”

Keats

The universe is indifferent to our fates. This was the crushing burden that the character took with him as he struggled through the surf toward survival or extinction. The universe just does not give a shit.

The steering oar was not really needed in the central current. I lashed it in place, took off my shirt, folded it on top of my pack, and took the port push-pole from the obviously exhausted girl. She looked at me with dark eyes but did not complain. A. Bettik had collapsed the microtent and shaken out most of the accumulated sand. Now he sat near me as the current moved us around a wide bend and into an even deeper tropical rain forest. He was wearing the loose shirt and ragged shorts of yellow linen I had seen him in on Hebron and Mare Infinitus. The broad-brimmed straw hat was at his feet. Surprisingly, Aenea moved to the front of the raft to sit near the motionless Shrike as we drifted deeper into the heavy jungle.

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