The Hyperion Cantos 4-Book Bundle (151 page)

That first in beauty should be first in might

Receive the truth/ and let it be your balm]

—
Very pretty
, I thought to Ummon,
but do you believe it?

[Not for a moment]

—
But the Ultimates do?

[Yes]

—
And they’re ready to perish in order to make way for the Ultimate Intelligence?

[Yes]

—
There’s one problem, perhaps too obvious to mention, but I’ll mention it anyway—why fight the war if you know who won, Ummon? You say the Ultimate Intelligence exists in the future, is at war with the human deity—it even sends back tidbits from the future for you to share with the Hegemony. So the Ultimates must be triumphant. Why fight a war and go through all this?

[KWATZ!]

[I tutor you/

create the finest retrieval persona for you

imaginable/

and let you wander among humankind

in slowtime

to temper your forging/

but still you are

stillborn]

I spend a long moment thinking
.

—
There are multiple futures?

[A lesser light asked Ummon

Are there multiple futures>

Ummon answered

Does a dog have fleas>]

—
But the one in which the UI becomes ascendant is a probable one?

[Yes]

—
But there’s also a probable future in which the UI comes into existence, but is thwarted by the human deity?

[It is comforting

that even the

stillborn

can think]

—
You told Brawne that the human … consciousness—deity seems so silly—that this human Ultimate Intelligence was triune in nature?

[Intellect/

Empathy/

and the Void Which Binds]

—
The Void Which Binds? You mean
and
Planck space and Planck time? Quantum reality?