Dan Simmons - Hyperion

Table of Contents

Truly astonishing Iain M. Banks

Matches and perhaps even surpasses Isaac Asimov and James Blish

Washington Post

Superb. One of the finest achievements of modern science fiction

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Rich with power and passion. One of the major works of modern science fiction Locus

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A stunning tour de force Amazon.com

THE FUTURE CLASSICS SERIES

Altered Carbon
Blood Music
Evolution
Fairyland
Hyperion
Revelation Space
Schilds Ladder
The Separation

Hyperion

DAN SIMMONS

Orion

www.orionbooks.co.uk

Published by Hachette Digital 2010

Copyright Dan Simmons 1989

All rights reserved.

The right of Dan Simmons to be identified as the author
of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library.

eISBN : 978 0 5750 9996 8

This eBook produced by Jouve, France

All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Hachette Digital
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This is for Ted

Prologue

The Hegemony Consul sat on the balcony of his ebony spaceship and played Rachmaninovs Prelude in C-sharp Minor on an ancient but well-maintained Steinway while great, green, saurian things surged and bellowed in the swamps below. A thunderstorm was brewing to the north. Bruise-black clouds silhouetted a forest of giant gymnosperms while stratocumulus towered nine kilometers high in a violent sky. Lightning rippled along the horizon. Closer to the ship, occasional vague, reptilian shapes would blunder into the interdiction field, cry out, and then crash away through indigo mists. The Consul concentrated on a difficult section of the Prelude and ignored the approach of storm and nightfall.

The fatline receiver chimed.

The Consul stopped, fingers hovering above the keyboard, and listened. Thunder rumbled through the heavy air. From the direction of the gymnosperm forest there came the mournful ululation of a carrion-breed pack. Somewhere in the darkness below, a small-brained beast trumpeted its answering challenge and fell quiet. The interdiction field added its sonic undertones to the sudden silence. The fatline chimed again.

Damn, said the Consul and went in to answer it.

While the computer took a few seconds to convert and decode the burst of decaying tachyons, the Consul poured himself a glass of Scotch. He settled into the cushions of the projection pit just as the diskey blinked green. Play, he said.

You have been chosen to return to Hyperion, came a womans husky voice. Full visuals had not yet formed; the air remained empty except for the pulse of transmission codes which told the Consul that this fatline squirt had originated on the Hegemony administrative world of Tau Ceti Center. The Consul did not need the transmission coordinates to know this. The aged but still beautiful voice of Meina Gladstone was unmistakable. You have been chosen to return to Hyperion as a member of the Shrike Pilgrimage, continued the voice.

The hell you say, thought the Consul and rose to leave the pit.

You and six others have been selected by the Church of the Shrike and confirmed by the All Thing, said Meina Gladstone. It is in the interest of the Hegemony that you accept.

The Consul stood motionless in the pit, his back to the flickering transmission codes. Without turning, he raised his glass and drained the last of the Scotch.

The situation is very confused, said Meina Gladstone. Her voice was weary. The consulate and Home Rule Council fatlined us three standard weeks ago with the news that the Time Tombs showed signs of opening. The anti-entropic fields around them were expanding rapidly and the Shrike has begun ranging as far south as the Bridle Range.

The Consul turned and dropped into the cushions. A holo had formed of Meina Gladstones ancient face. Her eyes looked as tired as her voice sounded.

AFORCE:space task force was immediately dispatched from Parvati to evacuate the Hegemony citizens on Hyperion before the Time Tombs open. Their time-debt will be a little more than three Hyperion years. Meina Gladstone paused. The Consul thought he had never seen the Senate CEO look so grim. We do not know if the evacuation fleet will arrive in time, she said, but the situation is even more complicated. An Ouster migration cluster of at least four thousand... units... has been detected approaching the Hyperion system. Our evacuation task force should arrive only a short while before the Ousters.

The Consul understood Gladstones hesitation. An Ouster migration cluster might consist of ships ranging in size from single-person ramscouts to can cities and comet forts holding tens of thousands of the interstellar barbarians.

The FORCE joint chiefs believe that this is the Ousters big push, said Meina Gladstone. The ships computer had positioned the holo so that the womans sad brown eyes seemed to be staring directly at the Consul. Whether they seek to control just Hyperion for the Time Tombs or whether this is an all-out attack on the Worldweb remains to be seen. In the meantime, a full FORCE:space battle fleet complete with a farcaster construction battalion has spun up from the Camn System to join the evacuation task force, but this fleet may be recalled depending upon circumstances.

The Consul nodded and absently raised the Scotch to his lips. He frowned at the empty glass and dropped it onto the thick carpeting of the holopit. Even with no military training he understood the difficult tactical decision Gladstone and the joint chiefs were faced with. Unless a military farcaster were hurriedly constructed in the Hyperion system at staggering expense there would be no way to resist the Ouster invasion. Whatever secrets the Time Tombs might hold would go to the Hegemonys enemy. If the fleet did construct a farcaster in time and the Hegemony committed the total resources of FORCE to defending the single, distant, colonial world of Hyperion, the Worldweb ran the terrible risk of suffering an Ouster attack elsewhere on the perimeter, or in a worst-case scenario having the barbarians actually seizing the farcaster and penetrating the Web itself. The Consul tried to imagine the reality of armored Ouster troops stepping through farcaster portals into the undefended home cities on a hundred worlds.

The Consul walked through the holo of Meina Gladstone, retrieved his glass, and went to pour another Scotch.

You have been chosen to join the pilgrimage to the Shrike, said the image of the old CEO whom the press loved to compare to Lincoln or Churchill or Alvarez-Temp or whatever other pre-Hegira legend was in historical vogue at the time. The Templars are sending their treeship Yggdrasill , said Gladstone, and the evacuation task force commander has instructions to let it pass. With a three-week time-debt, you can rendezvous with the Yggdrasill before it goes quantum from the Parvati system. The six other pilgrims chosen by the Shrike Church will be aboard the treeship. Our intelligence reports suggest that at least one of the seven pilgrims is an agent of the Ousters. We do not... at this time... have any way of knowing which one it is.