The Hyperion Cantos 4-Book Bundle (121 page)

if (real)

means anything

Both were jealous gods

not beyond passion

not into cooperative play

Our UI spans galaxies

uses quasars for energy sources

the way you might

have a light snack

Our UI sees everything that is

and was

and will be

and tells us selected bits

so that

we may tell you

and in so doing

look a bit like UIs ourselves

Never underestimate/Ummon says/

the power of a few beads

and trinkets

and bits of glass

over avaricious natives]

[This other UI

has been there longer

evolving quite mindlessly/

an accident

using human minds for circuitry

the same way we had connived

with our deceptive All Thing

and our vampire dataspheres

but not deliberately/

almost reluctantly/

like self-replicating cells

which never wished to replicate

but have no choice in the matter

This other UI

had no choice

He is humankind-made/generated/forged

but no human volition accompanied his birth

He is a cosmic accident

As with our most deliberately consummated

Ultimate Intelligence/

this pretender finds time

no barrier

He visits the human past

now meddling/

now watching/

now not interfering/

now interfering with a will

which approaches pure perversity

but which actually

is pure naïveté

Recently

he has been quiescent

Millennia of your slow-time

have passed since your own UI

has made his shy advances

like some lonely choir boy

at his first dance]