Each of the worlds that Du Noyer had mentioned had been closed to the Pax Mercantilus for all or some of the past four years—quarantined because of trade or diplomatic disputes with the Pax.

“These are all non-Christian worlds.” Isozaki realized that he had spoken aloud. It was the greatest breach of discipline he had ever suffered. The men and women in the chapel turned their heads in his direction.

“All non-Christian worlds,” Isozaki said again, omitting even the honorifics in addressing the others. “Or Christian worlds with large populations of non-Christians, such as Mars or Fuji or Nevermore. Cor Unum and Opus Dei have been exterminating non-Christians. But why transport their bodies? Why not just leave them to rot on their homeworlds and then bring in the Pax colonists?”

His Holiness held up one hand. Isozaki fell silent. The Pope nodded in the direction of Cardinal Lourdusamy.

“Cardinal Du Noyer,” said the Secretary of State, as if Isozaki had not spoken, “what is the destination of these freighters?”

“I do not know, Your Excellency.”

Lourdusamy nodded. “And who authorized this project, Cardinal Du Noyer?”

“The Peace and Justice Commission, Your Excellency.”

Isozaki’s head snapped around. The Cardinal had just laid the blame for this atrocity… this unprecedented mass murder… directly at the feet of one man. The Peace and Justice Commission had one prefect and only one prefect… Pope Urban XVI, formerly Pope Julius XIV. Isozaki lowered his gaze to the shoes of the fisherman and contemplated rushing the fiend, attempting to get his fingers around the Pope’s scrawny throat. He knew that the silent guards in the corner would cut him down halfway there. He was still tempted to try.

“And do you know, Cardinal Du Noyer,” continued Lourdusamy as if nothing terrible had been revealed, nothing unspeakable had been spoken, “how these people… these non-Christians… are rendered… lifeless?”

Rendered lifeless, thought Isozaki, who had always hated euphemisms. Murdered, you motherfucker!

“No,” said Cardinal Du Noyer. “My job as prefect of Cor Unum is merely to provide Opus Dei with the transport necessary to carry out their duties. The destinations of the ships and what happened before my freighters are needed is not… has never been… my concern.”

Isozaki went to one knee on the stone floor, not to pray, but just because he could no longer stand. How many centuries, gods of my ancestors, have accomplices to mass murder answered in this way? Since Horace Glennon-Height. Since the legendary Hitler. Since… forever.

“Thank you, Cardinal Du Noyer,” said Lourdusamy.

The old woman stepped back.

Incredibly, it was the Pope who was rising, moving forward, his white slippers making soft sounds on the stone. His Holiness walked between the staring people—past Cardinal Mustafa and Father Farrell, past Cardinal Lourdusamy and Monsignor Oddi, past Cardinal Du Noyer and the unnamed monsignor behind her, past the empty pillows where the Pax Fleet officers had been, past CEO Aron and CEO Hay-Modhino and CEO Anna Pelli Cognani, to where Isozaki knelt, close to vomiting, black dots dancing in his vision.

His Holiness laid a hand on the head of the man who was even at that moment contemplating killing him.

“Rise, our son,” said the mass murderer of billions. “Stand and listen. We command you.”

Isozaki rose, legs apart, teetering. His arms and hands tingled as if someone had zapped him with a neural stunner, but he knew it was his own body betraying him. He could not have closed his fingers around anyone’s throat at that moment. It was difficult enough just to stand alone.

Pope Urban XVI extended a hand, set it on the CEO’s shoulder, and steadied him. “Listen, brother in Christ. Listen.” His Holiness turned his head and dipped his miter forward.

Councillor Albedo stepped to the edge of the low dais and began to speak. “Your Holiness, Your Excellencies, Honorable Chief Executive Officers,” said the man in gray. Albedo’s voice was as smooth as his hair, as smooth as his gray gaze, as smooth as the silk of his gray cape.

Kenzo Isozaki trembled at the sound of it. He remembered the agony and embarrassment of the moment when Albedo had turned the CEO’s cruciform into a crucible of pain.

“Tell us who you are, please,” rumbled Lourdusamy in his most congenial tone.

Personal advisor to His Holiness, Pope Urban XVI, Kenzo Isozaki was prepared to hear. Albedo’s gray presence had been glimpsed and rumored for decades and decades. He was never identified other than personal advisor to His Holiness.

“I am an artificial construct, a cybrid, created by elements of the AI TechnoCore,” said Councillor Albedo. “I am here as a representative of those elements of the Core.”

Everyone in the room except for His Holiness and Cardinal Lourdusamy took a step away from Albedo. No one spoke, no one gasped or cried out, but the animal scent of terror and revulsion in the little chapel could not have been stronger if the Shrike had suddenly materialized among them. Kenzo Isozaki felt the Pope’s fingers still tight on his shoulder. He wondered if His Holiness could feel the pounding of his pulse through flesh and bone.

“The human beings transported from the worlds listed by Cardinal Du Noyer were… rendered lifeless… by Core technology, using Core robot spacecraft, and are being stored using Core techniques,” continued Albedo. “As Cardinal Du Noyer reported, approximately seven billion non-Christians have been processed in this manner over the past seven years. Another forty to fifty billion must be similarly processed in the next standard decade. It is time to explain the reason for this project and to enlist your direct aid in it.”

Kenzo Isozaki was thinking—It is possible to wire the human skeletal structure with a powerful protein-based explosive so subtle that even the Swiss Guard sniffers would not have detected it. Would to the gods I had done that before coming here.

The Pope released Isozaki’s shoulder and walked softly to the dais, touching the sleeve of Councillor Albedo’s robe as he passed.

His Holiness sat in his straight-backed chair. His thin face was peaceful. “We wish you all to listen carefully,” said His Holiness. “Councillor Albedo speaks with our authorization and approval. Continue, please.”

Albedo bowed his head slightly and turned back toward the staring dignitaries. Even the Pope’s security guards had moved back to the wall.

“You have been told, largely through myth and legend, but also through Church history,” began Albedo, “that the TechnoCore was destroyed in the Fall of the Farcasters. That is not true.

“You have been told—primarily through the banned Hyperion Cantos—that the Core consisted of Three Elements—the Stables, who wished to preserve the status quo between humanity and the Core, the Volatiles, who viewed humanity as a threat and plotted to destroy it—primarily through the destruction of the Earth via the Big Mistake of ’08, and the Ultimates, who thought only of creating an AI-based Ultimate Intelligence, a sort of silicon God which could predict and rule over the universe… or at least this galaxy.

“All these truths are lies.”

Isozaki realized that Anna Pelli Cognani had gripped his wrist with her cool fingers and was squeezing very hard.

“The TechnoCore was never grouped into three warring elements,” said Albedo, pacing in front of the altar and dais. “From its evolution in consciousness a thousand years ago, the Core was made up of thousands of distinct elements and factions—often warring, more often cooperating, but always struggling to achieve a synthesis of agreement toward the direction autonomous intelligence and artificial life should evolve. That agreement has never crystallized.

“Almost at the same time that the TechnoCore was evolving into true autonomy, while most of humankind lived on the surface of and in near orbit around one world—Old Earth—humanity had developed the capacity to change its own genetic programming… that is, to determine its own evolution. This breakthrough came partially through developments in the early twenty-first century A.D. in genetic manipulation, but was made possible most directly through the refinement of advanced nanotechnology. At first under the direction and control of early Core AI’s working in conjunction with human researchers, nanotech life-forms… autonomous beings, some intelligent, much smaller than a cell, some molecular in size… soon developed their own raison d’étre and raison d’état. Nanomachines, many in the form of viruses, invaded and reshaped humanity like a terrible viral plague. Luckily for both the human race and the race of autonomous intelligences now known as the Core, the primary vector for that plague was in the early seedships and other slower-than-light colony ships launched in the years just preceding the human Hegira.