Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos, #1)

by Dan Simmons

“Will there be war?” asked Father Hoyt. His voice seemed as fatigued as his expression. When no one volunteered a response, the priest turned to his right as if retroactively directing the question to the Consul. The Consul sighed. The crew clones had served wine; he wished it had been whiskey. “Who knows what the Ousters will do?” he said. “They no longer appear to be motivated by human logic.” Martin Silenus laughed loudly, spilling his wine as he gestured. “As if we fucking humans were ever motivated by human logic!” He took a deep drink, wiped his mouth, and laughed again.

does anyone here know why he or she was chosen by the Shrike Church and the All Thing to go on this voyage?” No one spoke. “I thought not,” said Weintraub. “Even more fascinating, is anyone here a member or follower of the Church of the Shrike? I, for one, am a Jew, and however confused my religious notions have become these days, they do not include the worship of an organic killing machine.” Weintraub raised heavy eyebrows and looked around the table.

Martin Silenus made an expansive gesture. “I was baptized a Lutheran,” he said. “A subset which no longer exists. I helped create Zen Gnosticism before any of your parents were born. I have been a Catholic, a revelationist, a neo-Marxist, an interface zealot, a Bound Shaker, a satanist, a bishop in the Church of Jake’s Nada, and a dues-paying subscriber to the Assured Reincarnation Institute. Now, I am happy to say, I am a simple pagan.” He smiled at everyone. “To a pagan,” he concluded, “the Shrike is a most acceptable deity.”

Weintraub scratched his nose. “It is a mystery,” he said, “and to tell the truth, I am intrigued by mysteries even if this is to be my last week of enjoying them. I would welcome some glimmer of understanding but, failing that, working on the puzzle will suffice.” “I agree,” said Het Masteen with no emotion. “It had not occurred to me, but I see the wisdom of telling our tales before we confront the Shrike.” “But what’s to keep us from lying?” asked Brawne Lamia. “Nothing.” Martin Silenus grinned. “That’s the beauty of it.”

“We should put it to a vote,” said the Consul. He was thinking about Meina Gladstone’s contention that one of the group was an Ouster agent. Would hearing the stories be a way of revealing the spy? The Consul smiled at the thought of an agent so stupid. “Who decided that we are a happy little democracy?” Colonel Kassad asked dryly. “We had better be,” said the Consul. “To reach our individual goals, this group needs to reach the Shrike regions together. We require some means of making decisions.” “We could appoint a leader,” said Kassad. “Piss on that,” the poet said in a pleasant tone.

By the monastic calendar on Pacem, it is the seventeenth day of Thomasmonth in the Year of Our Lord 2732. By Hegemony Standard, it is October 12, 589 P.C. By Hyperion reckoning, or so I am told by the wizened little clerk in the old hotel where I am staying, it is the twenty-third day of Lycius (the last of their seven forty-day months), either 426 A.D.C. (after dropship crash!) or the hundred and twenty-eighth year of the reign of Sad King Billy, who has not reigned for at least a hundred of those years.

The Bikura nearest to me on the left stepped closer, grasped my forearm with a touch of cool, strong fingers, and spoke a soft sentence that my comlog translated as, “Come. It is time to go to the houses and sleep.” It was midafternoon. Wondering if the comlog had translated the word “sleep” properly or if it might be an idiom or metaphor for “die,” I nodded and followed them toward the village at the edge of the Cleft.

I have set up the full medical lab but to no avail; the Three Score and Ten will not let me examine them, will not let me take blood samples, even though I have repeatedly shown them that it is painless, will not let me scan them with the diagnostic equipment—will not, in short, cooperate in any way. They do not argue. They do not explain. They simply turn away and go about their nonbusiness.

“Which I plan to do,” said the King. “While you expire from playing goat to the kingdom’s ewes.” “Is that an attempt at a metaphor?” “Not in the least,” said King Billy. “Merely an observation.” “I haven’t forced my attentions on a ewe since my boyhood days on the farm,” I said. “I promised my mother in song that I wouldn’t indulge in sheep fucking again without asking her permission.” While King Billy looked on mournfully, I sang a few bars of an ancient ditty called “There’ll Never Be Another Ewe.”