The Hyperion Cantos 4-Book Bundle (248 page)

The man shifted out of his chrome-silver form and a second later the female he had carried did the same. The woman who emerged from the quicksilver looked like a twin of the short-haired woman in the shipsuit.

“Where is the bitch child?” asked the rescued female. She had once been known as Rhadamanth Nemes.

“Gone,” said the man who rescued her. He and his male sibling could be her brothers or male clones. “They made the final farcaster.”

Rhadamanth Nemes grimaced slightly. She was flexing her fingers and moving her arms as if recovering from cramps in her limbs. “At least I killed the damned android.”

“No,” said the other woman, her twin. She had no name. “They left in the
Raphael
’s dropship. The android lost an arm, but the autosurgeon kept him alive.”

Nemes nodded and looked back at the rocky hillside where lava still ran. The glow from the fire showed the glistening web of the monofilament over the river. Behind them, the forest burned. “That was not … pleasant … in there. I couldn’t move with the full force of the ship’s lance burning down on me, and then I could not phase-shift with the rock around me. It took immense concentration to power down and still maintain an active phase-shift interface. How long was I buried there?”

“Four Earth years,” said the man who had not spoken until now.

Rhadamanth Nemes raised a thin eyebrow, more in question than surprise. “Yet the Core knew where I was …”

“The Core knew where you were,” said the other woman. Her voice and facial expressions were identical to those of the rescued woman. “And the Core knew that you had failed.”

Nemes smiled very thinly. “So the four years were a punishment.”

“A reminder,” said the man who had pulled her from the rock.

Rhadamanth Nemes took two steps, as if testing her balance. Her voice was flat. “So why have you come for me now?”

“The girl,” said the other woman. “She is coming back. We are to resume your mission.”

Nemes nodded.

The man who rescued her set his hand on her thin shoulder. “And please consider,” he said, “that four years entombed in fire and stone will be nothing to what you may expect if you fail again.”

Nemes stared at him for a long moment without answering. Then, turning away from the lava and flames in a precisely choreographed motion, matching stride for stride, all four of them moved in perfect unison toward the dropship.

On the desert world of Madrededios, on the high plateau called the Llano Estacado because of the atmosphere generator pylons crisscrossing the desert in neat ten-kilometer grid intervals, Father Federico de Soya prepared for early morning Mass.

The little desert town of Nuevo Atlan held fewer than three hundred residents—mostly Pax boxite miners waiting to die before traveling home, mixed with a few of the converted
Mariaists who scratched out livings as corgor herders in the toxic wastelands—and Father de Soya knew precisely how many would be in chapel for early Mass: four—old M. Sanchez, the ancient widow who was rumored to have murdered her husband in a dust storm sixty-two years before, the Perell twins who—for unknown reasons—preferred the old run-down church to the spotless and air-conditioned company chapel on the mining reservation, and the mysterious old man with the radiation-scarred face who knelt in the rearmost pew and never took Communion.

There was a dust storm blowing—there was always a dust storm blowing—and Father de Soya had to run the last thirty meters from his adobe parish house to the church sacristy, a transparent fiberplastic hood over his head and shoulders to protect his cassock and biretta, his breviary tucked deep in his cassock pocket to keep it clean. It did not work. Every evening when he removed his cassock or hung his biretta on a hook, the sand fell out in a red cascade, like dried blood from a broken hourglass. And every morning when he opened his breviary, sand gritted between the pages and soiled his fingers.

“Good morning, Father,” said Pablo as the priest hurried into the sacristy and slid the cracked weather seals around the door frame.

“Good morning, Pablo, my most faithful altar boy,” said Father de Soya. Actually, the priest silently corrected himself, Pablo was his
only
altar boy. A simple child—simple in the ancient sense of the word as mentally slow as well as in the sense of being honest, sincere, loyal, and friendly—Pablo was there to help de Soya serve Mass every weekday morning at 0630 hours and twice on Sunday—although only the same four people came to the early morning Sunday Mass and half a dozen of the boxite miners to the later Mass.

The boy nodded his head and grinned again, the smile disappearing for a moment as he pulled on his clean, starched surplice over his altar-boy robes.

Father de Soya walked past the child, ruffling his dark hair as he did so, and opened the tall vestment chest. The morning had grown as dark as the high-desert night as the dust storm swallowed the sunrise, and the only illumination in the cold, bare room was from the fluttering sacristy lamp. De Soya genuflected, prayed earnestly for a moment, and began donning the vestments of his profession.

For two decades, as Father Captain de Soya of the Pax Fleet,
commander of torchships such as the
Balthasar
, Federico de Soya had dressed himself in uniforms where the cross and collar were the only signs of his priesthood. He had worn plaskev battle armor, spacesuits, tactical com implants, datumplane goggles, godgloves—all of the paraphernalia of a torchship captain—but none of those items touched him and moved him as much as these simple vestments of a parish priest. In the four years since Father Captain de Soya had been stripped of his rank of captain and removed from Fleet service, he had rediscovered his original vocation.

De Soya pulled on the amice that slipped over his head like a gown and fell to his ankles. The amice was white linen and immaculate despite the incessant dust storms, as was the alb that slid on next. He set the cincture around his waist, whispering a prayer as he did so. Then he raised the white stole from the vestment chest, held it reverently a moment in both hands, and then placed it around his neck, crossing the two strips of silk. Behind him, Pablo was bustling around the little room, putting away his filthy outside boots and pulling on the cheap fiberplastic running shoes his mother had told him to keep here just for Mass.

Father de Soya set his tunicle in place, the outer garment showing a T-cross in front. It was white with a subtle purple piping: he would be saying a Mass of Benediction this morning while quietly administering the sacrament of penance for the presumed widow and murderer in the front pew and the radiation-scarred cypher in the last pew.

Pablo bustled up to him. The boy was grinning and out of breath. Father de Soya set his hand on the boy’s head, trying to flatten the thatch of flyaway hair while also calming and reassuring the lad. De Soya lifted the chalice, removed his right hand from the boy’s head to hold it over the veiled cup, and said softly, “All right.” Pablo’s grin disappeared as the gravity of the moment swept over him, and then the boy led the procession of two out of the sacristy door toward the altar.

De Soya noticed at once that there were five figures in the chapel, not four. The usual worshipers were there—all kneeling and standing and then kneeling again in their usual places—but there was someone else, someone tall and silent standing in the deepest shadows where the little foyer entered the nave.

All during the Renewed Mass, the presence of the stranger pulled at Father de Soya’s consciousness, try as he might to block out all but the sacred mystery of which he was part.

“
Dominus vobiscum
,” said Father de Soya. For more than three thousand years, he believed, the Lord
had
been with them … with all of them.

“
Et cum spiritu tuo
,” said Father de Soya, and as Pablo echoed the words, the priest turned his head slightly to see if the light had illuminated the tall, thin form in the dark recess at the front of the nave. It had not.

During the Canon, Father de Soya forgot the mysterious figure and succeeded in focusing all of his attention on the Host that he raised in his blunt fingers. “
Hoc est enim corpus meum
,” the Jesuit pronounced distinctly, feeling the power of those words and praying for the ten-thousandth time that his sins of violence while a Fleet captain might be washed away by the blood and mercy of this Savior.

At the Communion rail, only the Perell twins came forward. As always. De Soya said the words and offered the Host to the young men. He resisted the urge to glance up at the figure in the shadows at the back of the church.

The Mass ended almost in darkness. The howl of wind drowned out the last prayers and responses. This little church had no electricity—it never had—and the ten flickering candles on the wall did little to pierce the gloom. Father de Soya gave the final benediction and then carried the chalice into the dark sacristy, setting it on the smaller altar there. Pablo hurried to shrug out of his surplice and pull on his storm anorak.

“See you tomorrow, Father!”

“Yes, thank you, Pablo. Don’t forget …” Too late. The boy was out the door and running for the spice mill where he worked with his father and uncles. Red dust filled the air around the faulty weather-stripped door.

Normally, Father de Soya would have been pulling off his vestments now, setting them back in the vestment chest. Later in the day, he would take them to the parish house to clean them. But this morning he stayed in the tunicle and stole, the alb and cincture and amice. For some reason he felt he needed them, much as he had needed the plaskev battle armor during boarding operations in the Coal Sack campaign.

The tall figure, still in shadows, stood in the sacristy doorway. Father de Soya waited and watched, resisting the urge to cross himself or to hold the remaining Communion wafer up as if to shield against vampires or the Devil. Outside, the wind went from a howl to a banshee scream.

The figure took a step into the ruby light cast by the sacristy
lamp. De Soya recognized Captain Marget Wu, personal aide and liaison for Admiral Marusyn, commanding officer of Pax Fleet. For the second time that morning, de Soya corrected himself—it was Admiral Marget Wu now, the pips on her collar just visible in the red light.

“Father Captain de Soya?” said the Admiral.

The Jesuit slowly shook his head. It was only 0730 hours on this twenty-three-hour world, but already he felt tired. “Just
Father
de Soya,” he said.

“Father Captain de Soya,” repeated Admiral Wu, and this time there was no question in her voice. “You are hereby recalled to active service. You will take ten minutes to gather your belongings and then come with me. The recall is effective now.”

Federico de Soya sighed and closed his eyes. He felt like crying.
Please, dear Lord, let this cup passeth from me
. When he opened his eyes, the chalice was still on the altar and Admiral Marget Wu was still waiting.

“Yes,” he said softly, and slowly, carefully, he began removing his sacred vestments.

On the third day after the death and entombment of Pope Julius XIV, there was movement in his resurrection crèche. The slender umbilicals and subtle machine probes slid back and out of sight. The corpse on the slab at first lay inanimate except for the rise and fall of a bare chest, then visibly twitched, then moaned, and—after many long minutes—raised itself to one elbow, and eventually sat up, the richly embroidered silk and linen shroud sliding around the naked man’s waist.

For several minutes the man sat on the edge of the marble slab, his head in his shaking hands. Then he looked up as a secret panel in the resurrection chapel wall slid back with less than a hiss. A cardinal in formal red moved across the dimly lit space with a rustle of silk and a rattle of beads. Next to him walked a tall, handsome man with gray hair and gray eyes. This man was dressed in a simple but elegant one-piece suit of gray flannel. Three steps behind the Cardinal and the man in gray came two Swiss Guard troopers in medieval orange and black. They carried no weapons.

The naked man on the slab blinked as if his eyes were unaccustomed
to even the muted light in the dim chapel. Finally the eyes focused. “Lourdusamy,” said the resurrected man.

“Father Duré,” said Cardinal Lourdusamy. He was carrying an oversized silver chalice.

The naked man moved his mouth and tongue as if he had awakened with a vile taste in his mouth. He was an older man with a thin, ascetic face, sad eyes, and old scars across his newly resurrected body. On his chest, two cruciforms glowed red and tumescent. “What year is it?” he asked at last.

“The Year of Our Lord 3131,” said the Cardinal, still standing next to the seated man.

Father Paul Duré closed his eyes. “Fifty-seven years after my last resurrection. Two hundred and seventy-nine years since the Fall of the Farcasters.” He opened his eyes and looked at the Cardinal. “Two hundred and seventy years since you poisoned me, killing Pope Teilhard the First.”

Cardinal Lourdusamy rumbled a laugh. “You recover quickly from resurrection disorientation if you can do your arithmetic so well.”

Father Duré moved his gaze from the Cardinal to the tall man in gray. “Albedo. You come to witness? Or do you have to give courage to your tame Judas?”

The tall man said nothing. Cardinal Lourdusamy’s already thin lips tightened to the point of disappearance between florid jowls. “Do you have anything else to say before you return to hell, Antipope?”

“Not to you,” murmured Father Duré and closed his eyes in prayer.

The two Swiss Guard troopers seized Father Duré’s thin arms. The Jesuit did not resist. One of the troopers grabbed the resurrected man by the brow and pulled his head back, stretching the thin neck in a bow.

Cardinal Lourdusamy took a graceful half step closer. From the folds of his silken sleeve snicked a knife blade with a horn handle. While the troopers held the still passive Duré, whose Adam’s apple seemed to grow more prominent as his head was forced back, Lourdusamy swept his arm up and around in a fluid, casting-away gesture. Blood spurted from Duré’s severed carotid artery.