The Hyperion Cantos 4-Book Bundle (113 page)

Sad King Billy croaks a syllable which, after an endless moment, Silenus recognizes as “More!”

Silenus screams in agony, writhes in a palsied spasm of mindless physical response, but when he stops, dangling in exhaustion, the pain not lessened but driven from the motor areas of his brain by fatigue toxins, he allows the voice within him to shout and whisper its song:

The small circle of silence widens to include several nearby branches, a handful of thorns carrying their clusters of human beings in extremis.

Silenus stares up at Sad King Billy and sees his betrayed lord open his sad eyes. For the first time in more than two centuries, patron and poet look upon one another. Silenus delivers the message that has brought him here, hung him here. “My lord, I’m sorry.”

Before Billy can respond, before the chorus of screaming drowns out
any response, the air
changes
, the sense of frozen time
stirs
, and the tree
shakes
, as if the entire thing has dropped a meter. Silenus screams with the others as the branch shakes and the impaling thorn tears at his insides, rends his flesh anew.

Silenus opens his eyes and sees that the sky is real, the desert real, the Tombs glowing, the wind blowing, and time begun again. There is no lessening of torment, but clarity has returned.

Martin Silenus laughs through tears. “Look, Mom!” he shouts, giggling, the steel spear still protruding a meter beyond his shattered chest, “I can see the whole town from up here!”

“M. Severn? Are you all right?”

Panting, on my hands and knees, I turned toward the voice. Opening my eyes was painful, but no pain could compare to what I had just experienced.

“Are you all right, sir?”

No one was near me in the garden. The voice came from a micro-remote that buzzed half a meter from my face, probably one of the security people somewhere in Government House.

“Yes,” I managed, getting to my feet and brushing gravel from my knees. “I’m fine. A sudden … pain.”

“Medical help can be there in two minutes, sir. Your biomonitor reports no organic difficulty, but we can—”

“No, no,” I said. “I’m fine. Leave it be. And leave
me
alone.”

The remote fluttered like a nervous hummingbird. “Yes, sir. Just call if you need anything. The garden and grounds monitor will respond.”

“Go away,” I said.

I went out of the gardens, through the main hall of Government House—all checkpoints and security guards now—and out across the landscaped acres of Deer Park.

The dock area was quiet, the River Tethys more still than I had ever seen it. “What’s happening?” I asked one of the security people on the pier.

The guard accessed my comlog, confirmed my executive override pip and CEO clearance, but still did not hurry to answer. “The portals’ve been turned off for TC
²
,” he drawled. “Bypassed.”

“Bypassed? You mean the river doesn’t flow through Tau Ceti Center anymore?”

“Right.” He flipped his visor down as a small boat approached, flipped it up when he identified the two security people in it.

“Can I get out that way?” I pointed upriver to where the tall portals showed an opaque curtain of gray.

The guard shrugged. “Yeah. But you won’t be allowed back that way.”

“That’s all right. Can I take that small boat?”

The guard whispered into his bead mike and nodded. “Go ahead.”

I stepped gingerly into the small craft, sat on the rear bench and held onto the gunwales until the rocking subsided, touched the power diskey and said, “Start.”

The electric jets hummed, the small launch untied itself and pointed its nose into the river, and I pointed the way upstream.

I had never heard of part of River Tethys being cordoned off, but the farcaster curtain was now definitely a one-way and semipermeable membrane. The boat hummed through, and I shrugged off the tingling sensation and looked around.

I was in one of the great canal cities—Ardmen or Pamolo, perhaps—on Renaissance Vector. The Tethys here was a main street from which many tributaries flowed. Ordinarily, the only river traffic here would be the tourist gondolas on the outer lanes and the yachts and go-everywheres of the very rich in the pass-through center lanes. Today it was a madhouse.

Boats of every size and description clogged the center channels, boats headed in both directions. Houseboats were piled high with belongings, smaller craft were so heavily laden that it looked like the smallest wave or wake would capsize them. Hundreds of ornamental junks from Tsingtao-Hsishuang Panna and million-mark river condobarges from Fuji vied for their share of the river; I guessed that few of these residential boats had ever left their tie-ups before. Amidst the riot of wood and plasteel and Perspex, go-everywheres moved by like silver eggs, their containment fields set to full reflection.

I queried the datasphere: Renaissance Vector was a second-wave world, one hundred and seven hours from invasion. I thought it odd that Fuji refugees were crowding the waterways here since that world had more than two hundred hours until the axe fell, but then I realized that except for the removal of TC
²
from the waterway, the river still flowed through its usual series of worlds. Refugees from Fuji had taken the river from Tsingtao, thirty-three hours from the Ousters, through Deneb Drei at a hundred forty-seven hours, through Renaissance Vector
toward Parsimony or Grass, both unthreatened at this time. I shook my head, found a relatively sane tributary street from which to watch the madness, and wondered when the authorities would reroute the river so that
all
threatened worlds flowed to sanctuary.

Can they do that?
I wondered, the TechnoCore had installed River Tethys as a gift to the Hegemony during its PentaCentennial. But surely Gladstone or someone had thought to ask the Core to aid in the evacuation.
Had they?
I wondered.
Would
the Core help? I knew that Gladstone was convinced that elements of the Core were intent upon eliminating the human species—this war had been her Hobson’s choice given that alternative. What a simple way for the antihuman Core elements to carry out their program—merely refuse to evacuate the billions threatened by the Ousters!

I had been smiling, however grimly, but that smile faded as I realized that the TechnoCore also maintained and controlled the farcaster grid that I depended on to get out of the threatened territories.

I had tied up the launch at the base of a stone stairway that descended into the brackish waters. I noticed green moss growing on the lowest stones. The stone steps themselves—possibly brought from Old Earth, since some of the classical cities were shipped via farcaster in the early years after the Big Mistake—were worn with age, and I could see a fine tracery of cracks connecting sparkling flecks there, looking like a schematic of the Worldweb.

It was very warm, and the air was too thick, too heavy. Renaissance Vector’s sun hung low above the gabled towers. The light was too red and too syrupy for my eyes. Noise from the Tethys was deafening even here, a hundred meters down the equivalent of an alley. Pigeons whirled in agitation between dark walls and overhanging eaves.

What can I do?
Everyone seemed to be acting as the world slouched toward destruction, and the best I could do was wander aimlessly.

That’s your job. You’re an
observer.

I rubbed my eyes. Who said that poets had to be observers? I thought of Li Po and George Wu leading their armies through China and writing some of the most sensitive verse in history while their soldiers slept. And at least Martin Silenus had led a long, eventful life, even if half the events were obscene and the other half wasted.

At the thought of Martin Silenus, I groaned aloud.

Is the child, Rachel, hanging from that tree of thorns even now?

For a second I pondered that, wondering if such a fate were preferable to the quick extinction of Merlin’s sickness.

No
.

I closed my eyes, concentrated on thinking of nothing at all, hoping that I could make some contact with Sol, discover something about the fate of the child.

The small boat rocked gently from distant wakes. Somewhere above me, the pigeons fluttered to a ledge and cooed to one another.

“I don’t care how difficult it is!” shouts Meina Gladstone. “I want
all
of the fleet in Vega System to defend Heaven’s Gate.
Then
shift the necessary elements to God’s Grove and the other threatened worlds. The only advantage we
have
right now is mobility!”

Admiral Singh’s face is dark with frustration. “Too dangerous, M. Executive! If we move the fleet directly to Vega space, it runs a terrible risk of being cut off there. They will certainly attempt to destroy the singularity sphere that connects that system to the Web.”

“
Protect
it!” snaps Gladstone. “That’s what all the expensive warships are for.”

Singh looks to Morpurgo or the other brass for help. No one speaks. The group is in the executive complex War Room. The walls are heavy with holos and flowing columns of data. No one is watching the wall.

“It is taking all our resources to protect the singularity sphere in Hyperion space,” says Admiral Singh, his voice low, words carefully spaced. “Retreating under fire, especially under the onslaught of the entire Swarm there, is very difficult. Should
that
sphere be destroyed, our fleet would be eighteen months time-debt from the Web. The war would be lost before they could return.”

Gladstone nods tersely. “I’m not asking you to risk that singularity sphere until all elements of the fleet have translated, Admiral … I’ve already agreed to let them have Hyperion
before
we get all our ships out … but I insist that we do not surrender worlds of the Web without a fight.”

General Morpurgo stands. The Lusian looks exhausted already. “CEO, we’re planning a fight. But it makes much more sense to begin our defense at Hebron or Renaissance Vector. Not only do we gain almost five days to prepare our defenses, but—”

“But we lose nine worlds!” interrupts Gladstone. “
Billions
of Hegemony citizens. Human beings. Heaven’s Gate would be a terrible loss, but God’s Grove is a cultural and ecological treasure. Irreplaceable.”

“CEO,” says Allan Imoto, Minister of Defense, “there is evidence
coming in that the Templars have been in collusion with the so-called Church of the Shrike for many years. Much of the funding for Shrike Cult programs has come from—”

Gladstone flicks her hand to silence the man. “I don’t
care
about that. The thought of losing God’s Grove is untenable. If we can’t defend Vega and Heaven’s Gate, we draw the line at the Templar planet. That’s final.”

Singh looks as if he has been weighted with invisible chains as he attempts an ironic smile. “That gains us less than an hour, CEO.”

“It’s final,” repeats Gladstone. “Leigh, what’s the status of the riots on Lusus?”

Hunt clears his throat. His demeanor is as hangdog and unhurried as ever. “ML Executive, at least five Hives are now involved. Hundreds of millions of marks in property have been destroyed. FORCE:ground troops have been translated from Freeholm and appear to have contained the worst of the looting and demonstrations, but there is no estimate of when farcaster service can be restored to those Hives. There is no doubt that the Church of the Shrike is responsible. The initial riot in Bergstrom Hive began with a demonstration of Cult fanatics, and the Bishop broke into HTV programming until he was cut off by—”

Gladstone lowers her head. “So he’s finally surfaced. Is he on Lusus now?”

“We don’t know, M. Executive,” replies Hunt. “Transit Authority people are trying to trace him and his top acolytes.”

Gladstone swivels toward a young man I do not recognize for a moment. It is Commander William Ajunta Lee, the hero of the battle for Maui-Covenant. When last heard of, the young man had been transferred to the Outback for daring to speak his mind in front of his superiors. Now the epaulettes of his FORCE:sea uniform carry the gold and emerald of a rear admiral’s insignia.

“What about fighting for each world?” Gladstone asks him, ignoring her own edict that the decision was final.

“I believe it’s a mistake, CEO,” says Lee. “All nine Swarms are committed to the attack. The only one we won’t have to worry about for three years—assuming we can extricate our forces—is the Swarm now attacking Hyperion. If we concentrate our fleet—even half our fleet—to meet the menace to God’s Grove, the odds are almost one hundred percent that we will not be able to shift those forces to defend the eight other first-wave worlds.”

Gladstone rubs her lower lip. “What do you recommend?”

Rear Admiral Lee takes a breath. “I recommend we cut our losses, blow the singularity spheres in those nine systems, and prepare to attack the second-wave Swarms
before
they reach inhabited star systems.”

Commotion erupts around the table. Senator Feldstein from Barnard’s World is on her feet, shouting something.

Gladstone waits for the storm to subside. “Carry the fight to them, you mean? Counterattack the Swarms themselves, not wait to fight a defensive battle?”

“Yes, M. Executive.”

Gladstone points at Admiral Singh. “Can it be done? Can we plan, prepare, and launch such offensive strikes by”—she consults the data-stream on the wall above her—“ninety-four standard hours from now?”

Singh pulls himself to attention. “Possible? Ah … perhaps, CEO, but the political repercussions of losing nine worlds from the Web … ah … the logistical difficulties of—”

“But it’s possible?” presses Gladstone.

“Ah … yes, M. Executive. But if—”