Templar Het Masteen. I was on the Hyperion pilgrimage with your mother, Revered One Who Teaches…

Aenea. She spoke to me of you often, True Voice of the Tree Het Masteen.

Templar Het Masteen. Then you know that the Lord of Pain… the Shrike… came to me as the pilgrims were crossing Hyperion’s Sea of Grass on the windwagon, One Who Teaches. It came to me and carried me forward in time and across space… to this time, to this place.

Aenea. Yes.

Templar Het Masteen. And in my conversations with you and with my brethren in the Brotherhood of the Muir, I have come to understand that it is my fate to serve the Muir and the cause of Life in this age, as it was prophesied centuries ago by our own seers into the Void Which Binds. But in these days, and despite the best efforts of my Brothers and other kind friends among the Ousters, I have heard of Martin Silenus’s epic poem and found an edition of the Cantos…

Aenea. That is unfortunate, True Voice of the Tree Het Masteen. My Uncle Martin wrote that to the best of his knowledge, but his knowledge was incomplete.

Templar Het Masteen. But in the Cantos, Revered One Who Teaches, it says that the pilgrims in their day… and my friend Colonel Kassad has confirmed that this was the case… that they find me on Hyperion, in the Valley of the Time Tombs, and that I die shortly after they find me…

Aenea. This is true in the context of the Cantos, but…

Templar Het Masteen (holding up one hand to silence my friend). It is not the inevitability of my return through time to the pilgrimage on Hyperion nor my inevitable death that worries me, Revered One Who Teaches. I understand that this is just one possible future for me… however probable or desirable. But what I wish to clarify is the truth of my last words according to the old poet’s Cantos. Is it true that immediately before dying I will cry out, I am the True Chosen. I must guide the Tree of Pain during the time of Atonement.

Aenea. This is what is written in the Cantos, True Voice of the Tree Het Masteen.

Templar Het Masteen (smiling under his hood). And this time is near, Revered One Who Teaches? Will you be using this Yggdrasill as the Tree of Pain for our Atonement as the prophecies attest?

Aenea. I will, True Voice of the Tree Het Masteen. I will be leaving to carry out that Atonement within standard days. I formally ask that the Yggdrasill be the instrument of our voyage and the instrument of that Atonement. I will be inviting many among us here tonight to join me on that final voyage. And I formally ask you, True Voice of the Tree Het Masteen, if you will captain the treeship Yggdrasill—forever after known as the Tree of Pain—on this voyage.

Templar Het Masteen. I formally accept your invitation and agree to captain the treeship Yggdrasill on this mission of Atonement, O Revered One Who Teaches.

(there are several minutes of silence.)

Foreman Jigme Norbu. Aenea, George and I have a question.

Aenea. Yes, Jigme.

Foreman Jigme Norbu. You have taught us about the TechnoCore’s quiet genocide on such worlds as Hebron, Qom-Riyadh, and others. Well… not genocide, exactly, because the populations have been put in a sort of sleeping death, but a terrible kidnapping.

Aenea. Yes.

Foreman Jigme Norbu. Has this happened to our beloved T’ien Shan, the Mountains of Heaven, since we left, Aenea? Have our friends and families been silenced with this Core deathwand and been carried away to some Labyrinthine world?

Aenea. Yes, Jigme, I am sad to say that it has happened. The bodies are being transported offworld even as we speak.

Kuku Se. Why? For what reason are these populations being kidnapped? The Jews, the Muslims, the Hindus, the atheists, the Marxists, and now our beautiful Buddhist world. Is the Pax intent on destroying all other faiths?

Aenea. That is the Pax and Church’s motivation, Kuku. For the TechnoCore it is a much more complicated matter. Without the cruciform parasite on these non-Christian populations, the Core cannot use these humans in its dying neural net. But by storing these billions of people in their false death, the Core can utilize their minds in its huge, parallel-processing neural network. It is a mutually beneficial deal—the Church, who carries out much of the removal work, is no longer threatened by nonbelievers—the Core, who brings the sleep death and carries out the storage in the Labyrinths, gains new circuits in its Ultimate Intelligence network.

Foreman George Tsarong. Is there no hope then? Can we do nothing to help our friends?

Ouster Navson Hamnim. Excuse me for interrupting, M. Tsarong, M. Aenea, but we should explain to our friends that when the time comes for our Ouster Swarms and Templar allies to take the offensive against the Pax, our first objective is to liberate the many Labyrinthine worlds where these populations are kept in silent storage and to attempt to revive them.

The Dorje Phamo (loudly). Revive them? How is this to happen? How can anyone revive them?

Aenea. By striking directly at the TechnoCore.

Lhomo Dondrub. And where is the TechnoCore, Aenea? Tell me and I will go there now and do battle with these AI cowards.

Aenea. The true location of the TechnoCore has been the AI’s best-kept secret since the entities left Old Earth a thousand standard years ago, Lhomo. Their actual, physical location has been hidden since then… their secrecy is their best defense against the hosts which might turn against their parasites.

Colonel Fedmahn Kassad. CEO Meina Gladstone was convinced that the Core dwelt in the interstices of the farcaster medium… like invisible spiders in an unseen web. It is the reason she authorized the deathbombing of the space-portal farcaster network… to strike at the Core. Was she wrong? Were the farcasters destroyed for nothing?

Aenea. She was wrong, Fedmahn. The physical location of the Core was not within the farcaster medium… which is the fabric of the Void Which Binds. But the destruction of the farcasters was not in vain… it deprived the Core of the parasite medium upon which they fed on human minds, while silencing part of their megasphere data network.

Lhomo Dondrub. But, Aenea, you know where the Core resides?

Aenea. I believe I do.

Lhomo Dondrub. Will you tell us so that we can attack them with our teeth and nails and bullets and plasma weapons?

Aenea. I will not say at this time, Lhomo. Not until I am certain. And the Core cannot be attacked with physical weapons, just as it cannot be entered by physical entities.

Colonel Fedmahn Kassad. So once again they are impervious to our attacks? Free from confrontation?

Aenea. No, neither impervious nor free from confrontation. If the fates allow, I will personally carry the attack to the physical Core. Indeed, that attack has already begun in ways that I hope to make clear later. And I promise you that I will confront the AI’s in their lair.

Colonel Fedmahn Kassad. M. Aenea, Brawne’s child, may I ask another question relating to my own fate and future?

Aenea. I will endeavor to answer, Colonel, while repeating my reluctance to discuss specifics of a topic as fluid as our future.

Colonel Fedmahn Kassad. Reluctant or no, child, I believe I deserve an answer to this question. I, too, have read these damned Cantos. In them, it says that I followed the apparition Moneta into the future while fighting the Shrike… trying to prevent it from slaughtering the other pilgrims. This was true… some months ago I arrived here. Moneta disappeared, but has reappeared in the younger version of this woman who calls herself Rachel Weintraub. But the Cantos also state that I will soon join in terrible battle with legions of Shrikes, will die, and will be entombed in the newly built Time Tomb called the Crystal Monolith on Hyperion, where my body travels back in time with Moneta as my companion. How can this be, M. Aenea? Have I come to the wrong time? The wrong place?