The chapel is finished. It is my life’s work.
Tonight, when the Bikura went down into the Cleft for their daily parody of worship, I said Mass at the altar of the newly erected chapel. I had baked the bread from chalma flour and I am sure that it must have tasted of that bland, yellow leaf, but to me the taste was exactly like that of the first Host I had partaken of during my first Holy Communion in Villefranche-sur-Saône some sixty standard years earlier.
In the morning I will do what I have planned. Everything is in readiness: my journals and the medscan wafers will be in the pouch of woven bestos fibers. That is the best I can do.
The consecrated wine was only water, but in the dim light of sunset it looked blood red and tasted of Communion wine.
The trick will be to penetrate deep enough into the flame forest. I will have to trust that there is enough incipient activity in and from the tesla trees even during the quiet periods.
Goodbye, Edouard. I doubt if you are still alive, and should you be, I see no way that we could ever be reunited, separated as we are not only by years of distance but by a much wider gulf in the form of a cross. My hope of seeing you again shall not be placed on this life but on the one to come. Strange to hear me speak like this again, is it not? I must tell you, Edouard, that after all these decades of uncertainty, and with great fear of what lies ahead, my heart and soul are nonetheless at peace.
Oh, my God,
I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee,
And I detest all my sins,
Because of the loss of heaven
And the pains of hell,
But most of all because I have offended Thee,
My God,
Who art all good
And deserving of all my love.
I firmly resolve with the help of Thy grace to confess my sins, to do penance,
And to amend my life,
Amen.
2400 hours:
The sunset comes through the open chapel window and bathes the altar, the crudely carved chalice, and me in light. The wind from the Cleft rises in the last such chorus that—with luck and God’s mercy—I will ever hear.
“That is the final entry,” said Lenar Hoyt.
When the priest quit reading, the six pilgrims at the table raised their faces toward him as if they were awakening from a common dream. The Consul glanced upward and saw that Hyperion was much closer now, filling a third of the sky, banishing the stars with its cold radiance.
“I arrived some ten weeks after I had last seen Father Duré,” continued Father Hoyt. His voice was a hoarse rasp. “More than eight years had passed on Hyperion … seven years since the last entry in Father Duré’s journal.” The priest was visibly in pain now, his face paled to a sick luminescence and filmed with perspiration.
“Within a month I found my way to Perecebo Plantation upriver from Port Romance,” he continued, forcing some strength into his voice. “My assumption was that the fiberplastic growers might tell me the truth even if they would have nothing to do with the consulate or Home Rule Authorities. I was right. The administrator at Perecebo, a man named Orlandi, remembered Father Duré, as did Orlandi’s new wife, the woman named Semfa whom Father Duré mentioned in his journals. The plantation manager had tried to mount several rescue operations onto the Plateau, but an unprecedented series of active seasons in the flame forests had made them abandon their attempts. After several years they had given up hope that Duré or their man Tuk could still be alive.
“Nonetheless, Orlandi recruited two expert bush pilots to fly a rescue expedition up the Cleft in two plantation skimmers. We stayed in the Cleft itself for as long as we could, trusting to terrain-avoidance instruments and luck to get us to Bikura country. Even with bypassing most of the flame forest that way, we lost one of the skimmers and four people to tesla activity.”
Father Hoyt paused and swayed slightly. Gripping the edge of the table to steady himself, he cleared his throat and said, “There’s little else to tell. We located the Bikura village. There were seventy of them, each as stupid and uncommunicative as Duré’s notes had suggested. I managed to ascertain from them that Father Duré had died while trying to penetrate the flame forest. The bestos pouch had survived and in it we found his journals and medical data.” Hoyt looked at the others a second and then glanced down. “We persuaded them to show us where Father Duré had died,” he said. “They … ah … they had not buried him. His remains were badly burned and decomposed but complete enough to show us that the intensity of the tesla charges had destroyed the … the cruciform … as well as his body.
“Father Duré had died the true death. We returned the remains to the Perecebo Plantation where he was buried following a full funeral Mass.” Hoyt took a deep breath. “Over my strong objections, M. Orlandi destroyed the Bikura village and a section of the Cleft wall with shaped nuclear charges he had brought from the plantation. I do not believe that any of the Bikura could have survived. As far as we could tell, the entrance to the labyrinth and the so-called basilica also must have been destroyed in the landslide.
“I had sustained several injuries during the expedition and thus had to remain at the plantation for several months before returning to the northern continent and booking passage to Pacem. No one knows of these journals or their contents except M. Orlandi, Monsignor Edouard, and whichever of his superiors Monsignor Edouard chose to tell. As far as I know, the Church has issued no declaration relating to the journals of Father Paul Duré.”
Father Hoyt had been standing and now he sat. Sweat dripped from his chin and his face was blue-white in the reflected light of Hyperion.
“Is that … all?” asked Martin Silenus.
“Yes,” managed Father Hoyt.
“Gentlemen and lady,” said Het Masteen, “it is late. I suggest that you gather your luggage and rendezvous at our friend the Consul’s ship on sphere 11 in thirty minutes or sooner. I will be using one of the tree’s dropships to join you later.”
Most of the group was assembled in less than fifteen minutes. The Templars had rigged a gangway from a work pier on the interior of the sphere to the ship’s top-tier balcony, and the Consul led the way into the lounge as crew clones stowed luggage and departed.
“A fascinating old instrument,” said Colonel Kassad as he ran one hand across the top of the Steinway. “Harpsichord?”
“Piano,” said the Consul. “Pre-Hegira. Are we all here?”
“Everyone except Hoyt,” said Brawne Lamia as she took a seat in the projection pit.
Het Masteen entered. “The Hegemony warship has granted permission for you to descend to Keats’s spaceport,” said the Captain. He glanced around. “I will send a crew member to see if M. Hoyt needs assistance.”
“No,” said the Consul. He modulated his voice. “I’d like to get him. Can you tell me the way to his quarters?”
The treeship Captain looked at the Consul for a long second and then reached into the folds of his robe. “Bon voyage,” he said, handing over a wafer. “I will see you on the planet, sometime before our midnight departure time from the Shrike’s Temple in Keats.”
The Consul bowed, “It was a pleasure traveling within the protective branches of the Tree, Het Masteen,” he said formally. Turning to the others, he gestured. “Please make yourselves comfortable in the lounge or the library on the deck below this. The ship will see to your needs and answer any questions you might have. We will depart as soon as Father Hoyt and I return.”