The wind that blows down those steps is chill, and I move back to the bed to pull a blanket around me before dragging a chair to the window and sitting there, looking out, thinking.

I remember my brother Tom during those last weeks and days, his face and body contorted with the terrible effort to breathe. I remember my mother and how pale she looked, her face almost shining in the gloom of the darkened room. My sister and I were allowed to touch her clammy hand, kiss her fevered lips, and then withdraw. I remember that once I furtively wiped my lips as I left that room, glancing sideways to see if my sister or others had seen my sinful act.

When Dr. Clark and an Italian surgeon opened Keats’s body less than thirty hours after he had died, they found, as Severn later wrote a friend, “…the worst possible Consumption—the lungs were intirely destroyed—the cells were quite gone.” Neither Dr. Clark nor the Italian surgeon could imagine how Keats had lived those last two months or more.

I think of this as I sit in the darkened room and look out on the darkened Piazza, all the while listening to the boiling in my chest and throat, feeling the pain like fire inside and the worse pain from the cries in my mind: cries from Martin Silenus on the tree, suffering for writing the poetry I had been too frail and cowardly to finish; cries from Fedmahn Kassad as he prepares to die at the claws of the Shrike; cries from the Consul as he is forced into betrayal a second time; cries from thousands of Templar throats as they bewail the death of both their world and their brother Het Masteen; cries from Brawne Lamia as she thinks of her dead lover, my twin; cries from Paul Duré as he lies fighting burns and the shock of memory, all too aware of the waiting cruciforms on his chest; cries from Sol Weintraub as he beats his fist on the earth of Hyperion, calling for his child, the infant cries of Rachel still in our ears.

“Goddamn,” I say softly, beating my fist against the stone and mortar of the window frame. “Goddamn.”

After a while, just as the first hint of paleness promises dawn, I move away from the window, find my bed, and lie down just a moment to close my eyes.

Governor-General Theo Lane awoke to the sound of music. He blinked and looked around, recognizing the nearby nutrient tank and ship’s surgery as if from a dream. Theo realized that he was wearing soft, black pajamas and had been sleeping on the surgery’s examination couch. The past twelve hours began to stitch themselves together from Theo’s patches of memory: being raised from the treatment tank, sensors being applied, the Consul and another man leaning over him, asking him questions—Theo answering just as if he were truly conscious, then sleep again, dreams of Hyperion and its cities burning. No, not dreams.

Theo sat up, felt himself almost float off the couch, found his clothes cleaned and folded neatly on a nearby shelf, and dressed quickly, hearing the music continue, now rising, now fading, but always continuing with a haunting acoustical quality which suggested that it was live and not recorded.

Theo took the short stairway to the recreation deck and stopped in surprise as he realized that the ship was open, the balcony extended, the containment field apparently off. Gravity underfoot was minimal: enough to pull Theo back to the deck but little more—probably 20 percent or less of Hyperion’s, perhaps one-sixth standard.

The ship was open. Brilliant sunlight streamed in the open door to the balcony where the Consul sat playing the antique instrument he had called a piano. Theo recognized the archaeologist, Arundez, leaning against the hull opening with a drink in his hand. The Consul was playing something very old and very complicated; his hands were a studied blur on the keyboard. Theo moved closer, started to whisper something to the smiling Arundez, and then stopped in shock to stare.

Beyond the balcony, thirty meters below, brilliant sunlight fell on a bright green lawn stretching to an horizon far too close. On that lawn, clusters of people sat and lay in relaxed postures, obviously listening to the Consul’s impromptu concert. But what people!

Theo could see tall, thin people, looking like the aesthetes of Epsilon Eridani, pale and bald in their wispy blue robes, but beside them and beyond them an amazing multitude of human types sat listening—more varieties than the Web had ever seen: humans cloaked in fur and scales; humans with bodies like bees and eyes to match, multifaceted receptors and antennae; humans as fragile and thin as wire sculptures, great black wings extending from their thin shoulders and folding around them like capes; humans apparently designed for massive-g worlds, short and stout and muscular as cape buffalo, making Lusians look fragile in comparison; humans with short bodies and long arms covered with orange fur, only their pale and sensitive faces separating them from some holo of Old Earth’s long-extinct orangutans; and other humans looking more lemur than humanoid, more aquiline or leonine or ursine or anthropoid than manlike. Yet somehow Theo knew at once that these were human beings, as shocking as their differences were. Their attentive gazes, their relaxed postures, and a hundred other subtle human attributes—down to the way a butterfly-winged mother cradled a butterfly-winged child in her arms—all gave testimony to a common humanity which Theo could not deny.

Melio Arundez turned, smiled at Theo’s expression, and whispered, “Ousters.”

Stunned, Theo Lane could do little more than shake his head and listen to the music. Ousters were barbarians, not these beautiful and sometimes ethereal creatures. Ouster captives on Bressia, not to mention the bodies of their infantry dead, had been of a uniform body sort—tall, yes, thin, yes, but decidedly more Web standard than this dizzying display of variety.

Theo shook his head again as the Consul’s piano piece rose to a crescendo and ended on a definitive note. The hundreds of beings in the field beyond applauded, the sound high and soft in the thin air, and then Theo watched as they stood, stretched, and headed different ways… some walking quickly over the disturbingly near horizon, others unfolding eight-meter wings and flying away. Still others moved toward the base of the Consul’s ship.

The Consul stood, saw Theo, and smiled. He clapped the younger man on the shoulder. “Theo, just in time. We’ll be negotiating soon.”

Theo Lane blinked. Three Ousters landed on the balcony and folded their great wings behind them. Each of the men was heavily furred and differently marked and striped, their pelts as organic and convincing as any wild creature’s.

“As delightful as always,” the closest Ouster said to the Consul. The Ouster’s face was leonine—broad nose and golden eyes framed by a ruff of tawny fur. “The last piece was Mozart’s Fantasia in D Minor, KV. 397, was it not?”

“It was,” said the Consul. “Freeman Vanz, I would like to introduce M. Theo Lane, Governor-General of the Hegemony Protectorate world of Hyperion.”

The lion gaze turned on Theo. “An honor,” said Freeman Vanz and extended a furred hand.

Theo shook it. “A pleasure to meet you, sir.” Theo wondered if he were actually still in the recovery tank, dreaming this. The sunlight on his face and the firm palm against his suggested otherwise.

Freeman Vanz turned back to the Consul. “On behalf of the Aggregate, I thank you for that concert. It has been too many years since we have heard you play, my friend.” He glanced around. “We can hold the talks here or at one of the administrative compounds, at your convenience.”

The Consul hesitated only a second. “There are three of us, Freeman Vanz. Many of you. We will join you.”

The lion head nodded and glanced skyward. “We will send a boat for your crossing.” He and the other two moved to the railing and stepped off, falling several meters before unfurling their complex wings and flying toward the horizon.