“Jesus,” whispered Theo. He gripped the Consul’s forearm. “Where are we?”

“The Swarm,” said the Consul, covering the Steinway’s keyboard.

He led the way inside, waited for Arundez to step back, and then brought the balcony in.

“And what are we going to negotiate?” asked Theo.

The Consul rubbed his eyes. It looked as if the man had slept little or not at all during the ten or twelve hours Theo had been healing.

“That depends upon CEO Gladstone’s next message,” said the Consul and nodded toward where the holopit misted with transmission columns. A fatline squirt was being decoded on the ship’s one-time pad at that moment.

Meina Gladstone stepped into the Government House infirmary and was escorted by waiting doctors to the recovery bay where Father Paul Duré lay. “How is he?” she asked the first doctor, the CEO’s own physician.

“Second-degree flash burns over about a third of his body,” answered Dr. Irma Androneva. “He lost his eyebrows and some hair… he didn’t have that much to start with… and there were some tertiary radiation burns on the left side of his face and body. We’ve completed the epidermal regeneration and given RNA template injections. He’s in no pain and conscious. There is the problem of the cruciform parasites on his chest, but that is of no immediate danger to the patient.”

“Tertiary radiation burns,” said Gladstone, stopping for a moment just out of earshot of the cubicle where Duré waited. “Plasma bombs?”

“Yes,” answered another doctor whom Gladstone did not recognize. “We’re certain that this man ’cast in from God’s Grove a second or two before the farcaster connection was cut.”

“All right,” said Gladstone, stopping by the floating pallet where Duré rested, “I wish to speak to the gentleman alone, please.”

The doctors glanced at one another, waved a mech nurse to its wall storage, and closed the portal to the ward room as they departed.

“Father Duré?” asked Gladstone, recognizing the priest from his holos and Severn’s descriptions during the pilgrimage. Duré’s face was red and mottled now, and it glistened from regeneration gel and spray-on painkiller. He was still a man of striking appearance.

“CEO,” whispered the priest and made as if to sit up.

Gladstone set a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Rest,” she said. “Do you feel like telling me what happened?”

Duré nodded. There were tears in the old Jesuit’s eyes. “The True Voice of the Worldtree didn’t believe that they would really attack,” he whispered, his voice raw. “Sek Hardeen thought that the Templars had some pact with the Ousters… some arrangement. But they did attack. Tactical lances, plasma devices, nuclear explosives, I think…”

“Yes,” said Gladstone, “we monitored it from the War Room. I need to know everything. Father Duré. Everything from the point when you stepped into the Cave Tomb on Hyperion.”

Paul Duré’s eyes focused on Gladstone’s face. “You know about that?”

“Yes. And about most other things to that point. But I need to know more. Much more.”

Duré closed his eyes. “The labyrinth…”

“What?”

“The labyrinth,” he said again, voice stronger. He cleared his throat and told her about his voyage through the tunnels of corpses, the transition to a FORCE ship and his meeting with Severn on Pacem.

“And you’re sure Severn was headed here? To Government House?” asked Gladstone.

“Yes. He and your aide… Hunt. Both of them intended to ’cast here.”

Gladstone nodded and carefully touched an unburned section of the priest’s shoulder. “Father, things are happening very quickly here. Severn is missing and so is Leigh Hunt. I need advice about Hyperion. Will you stay with me?”

Duré looked confused for a moment. “I need to get back. Back to Hyperion, M. Executive. Sol and the others are waiting for me.”

“I understand,” said Gladstone soothingly. “As soon as there’s a way back to Hyperion, I’ll expedite your return. Right now, however, the Web is under brutal attack. Millions are dying or in danger of dying. I need your help, Father. Can I count on you until then?”

Paul Duré sighed and lay back. “Yes, M. Executive. But I have no idea how I—”

There was a soft knock and Sedeptra Akasi entered and handed Gladstone a message flimsy. The CEO smiled. “I said that things were happening quickly, Father. Here’s another development. A message from Pacem says that the College of Cardinals has met in the Sistine Chapel…” Gladstone raised an eyebrow. “I forget, Father, is that the Sistine Chapel?”

“Yes. The Church took it apart stone by stone, fresco by fresco, and moved it to Pacem after the Big Mistake.”

Gladstone looked down at the flimsy. “…met in the Sistine Chapel and elected a new pontiff.”

“So soon?” whispered Paul Duré. He closed his eyes again. “I guess they felt they must hurry. Pacem lies—what?—only ten days in front of the Ouster invasion wave. Still, to come to a decision so quickly…”

“Are you interested in who the new Pope is?” asked Gladstone.

“Either Antonio Cardinal Guarducci or Agostino Cardinal Ruddell, I would guess,” said Duré. “None of the others would command a majority at this time.”

“No,” said Gladstone. “According to this message from Bishop Edouard of the Curia Romana…”

“Bishop Edouard! Excuse me, M. Executive, please go on.”

“According to Bishop Edouard, the College of Cardinals has elected someone below the rank of monsignor for the first time in the history of the Church. This says that the new Pope is a Jesuit priest… a certain Father Paul Duré.”

Duré sat straight up despite his burns. “What?” There was no belief in his voice.

Gladstone handed the flimsy to him.

Paul Duré stared at the paper. “This is impossible. They have never elected a pontiff below the rank of monsignor except symbolically, and that was unique… it was St. Belvedere after the Big Mistake and the Miracle of the… no, no, this is impossible.”

“Bishop Edouard has been trying to call, according to my aide,” said Gladstone. “We’ll have the call put through here at once, Father. Or should I say, Your Holiness?” There was no irony in the CEO’s voice.

Duré looked up, too stunned to speak.

“I will have the call put through,” said Gladstone. “We’ll arrange your return to Pacem as quickly as possible. Your Holiness, but I would appreciate it if you could keep in touch. I do need your advice.”

Duré nodded and looked back at the flimsy. A phone began to blink on the console above the pallet.

CEO Gladstone stepped out into the hall, told the doctors about the most recent development, contacted Security to approve the farcast clearance for Bishop Edouard or other Church officials from Pacem, and ’cast back to her room in the residential wing. Sedeptra reminded her that the council was reconvening in the War Room in eight minutes.

Gladstone nodded, saw her aide out, and stepped back to the fatline cubicle in its concealed niche in the wall. She activated sonic privacy fields and coded the transmission diskey for the Consul’s ship. Every fatline receiver in the Web, Outback, galaxy, and universe would monitor the squirt, but only the Consul’s ship could decode it. Or so she hoped.

The holo camera light winked red. “Based on the automated squirt from your ship, I am assuming that you chose to meet with the Ousters, and they have allowed you to do so,” Gladstone said into the camera. “I am also assuming that you survived the initial meeting.” Gladstone took a breath. “On behalf of the Hegemony, I have asked you to sacrifice much over the years. Now I ask you on behalf of all of humankind. You must find out the following:

“First, why are the Ousters attacking and destroying the worlds of the Web? You were convinced, Byron Lamia was convinced, and I was convinced that they wanted only Hyperion. Why have they changed this?