Melio took a ragged breath and nodded in return. “Sol,” he said, his voice thick, “you and Sarai need to understand that we did everything we could. The team was on Hyperion for almost three standard years. We would have stayed if the university hadn’t cut our funds. There was nothing …”
“We know,” said Sol. “We appreciated the fatline messages.”
“I spent months alone in the Sphinx myself,” said Melio. “According to the instruments, it was just an inert pile of stones, but sometimes I thought I felt … something.…” He shook his head again. “I failed her, Sol.”
“No,” said Sol and gripped the younger man’s shoulder through the wool coat. “But I have a question. We’ve been in touch with our senators … even talked to the Science Council directors … but no one can explain to me why the Hegemony hasn’t spent more time and money investigating the phenomena on Hyperion. It seems to me that they should have invested that world into the Web long ago, if only for its scientific potential. How can they ignore an enigma like the Tombs?”
“I know what you mean, Sol. Even the early cutoff of our funds was suspicious. It’s as if the Hegemony had a policy to keep Hyperion at arm’s length.”
“Do you think …” began Sol but at that moment Rachel approached them in the autumn twilight. Her hands were thrust deep in her red jacket, her hair was cut short in the decades-old style of adolescents everywhere, and her full cheeks were flushed with the cold. Rachel was teetering on the brink of childhood and young adulthood; her long legs in jeans, sports shoes, and bulky jacket might have been the silhouette of a boy.
She grinned at them. “Hi, Dad.” Stepping closer in the dim light, she nodded at Melio shyly. “Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt your conversation.”
Sol took a breath. “That’s all right, kiddo. Rachel, this is Dr. Arundez from Reichs University on Freeholm. Dr. Arundez, my daughter Rachel.”
“Pleased to meet you,” said Rachel, beaming in earnest now. “Wow, Reichs. I’ve read their catalogues. I’d love to go there someday.”
Melio nodded rigidly. Sol could see the stiffness in his shoulders and torso. “Do you …” began Melio. “That is, what would you like to study there?”
Sol thought the pain in the man’s voice must be audible to Rachel but she only shrugged and laughed. “Oh, jeez, everything. Old Mr. Eikhardt—he’s the paleontology/archaeology tute in the advanced class I take up at the Ed Center—he says they have a great classics and ancient artifacts department.”
“They do,” managed Melio.
Rachel glanced shyly from her father to the stranger, apparently sensing the tension there but not knowing the source. “Well, I’m just interrupting your conversation more here. I’ve got to get in and get to bed. I guess I’ve had this strange virus … sort of like meningitis, Mom says, only it must make me sort of goofy. Anyway, nice to meet you, Dr. Arundez. I hope I’ll see you at Reichs someday.”
“I hope that too,” said Melio, staring at her so intensely in the gloom that Sol had the feeling he was trying to memorize everything about the instant.
“Okay, well …” said Rachel and stepped back, her rubber-soled shoes squeaking on the sidewalk, “good night, then. See you in the morning, Dad.”
“Good night, Rachel.”
She paused at the doorway. The gaslight on the lawn made her look much younger than thirteen. “ ’Later, alligators.”
“ ’While, crocodile,” said Sol and heard Melio whisper it in unison.
They stood awhile in silence, feeling the night settle on the small town. A boy on a bicycle rode by, leaves crackling under his wheels, spokes gleaming in the pools of light under the old streetlamps. “Come in the house,” Sol said to the silent man. “Sarai will be very pleased to see you. Rachel will be asleep.”
“Not now,” said Melio. He was a shadow there, his hands still in his pockets. “I need to … it was a mistake, Sol.” He started to turn away, looked back. “I’ll phone when I get to Freeholm,” he said. “We’ll get another expedition put together.”
Sol nodded. Three years transit, he thought. If they left tonight she would be … not quite ten before they arrive. “Good,” he said.
Melio paused, raised a hand in farewell, and walked away along the curb, ignoring the leaves that crunched underfoot.
Sol never saw him in person again.
* * *
The largest Church of the Shrike in the Web was on Lusus and Sol farcast there a few weeks before Rachel’s tenth birthday. The building itself was not much larger than an Old Earth cathedral, but it seemed gigantic with its effect of flying buttresses in search of a church, twisted upper stories, and support walls of stained glass. Sol’s mood was low and the brutal Lusian gravity did nothing to lighten it. Despite his appointment with the bishop, Sol had to wait more than five hours before he was allowed into the inner sanctum. He spent most of the time staring at the slowly rotating twenty-meter, steel and polychrome sculpture which might have been of the legendary Shrike … and might have been an abstract homage to every edged weapon ever invented. What interested Sol the most were the two red orbs floating within the nightmare space which might have been a skull.
“M. Weintraub?”
“Your Excellency,” said Sol. He noticed that the acolytes, exorcists, lectors, and ostiaries who had kept him company during the long wait had prostrated themselves on the dark tiles at the high priest’s entry. Sol managed a formal bow.
“Please, please, do come in, M. Weintraub,” said the priest. He indicated the doorway to the Shrike sanctuary with a sweep of his robed arm.
Sol passed through, found himself in a dark and echoing place not too dissimilar from the setting of his recurrent dream, and took a seat where the bishop indicated. As the cleric moved to his own place at what looked like a small throne behind an intricately carved but thoroughly modern desk, Sol noticed that the high priest was a native Lusian, gone to fat and heavy in the jowls, but formidable in the way all Lusus residents seemed to be. His robe was striking in its redness … a bright, arterial red, flowing more like a contained liquid than like silk or velvet, trimmed in onyx ermine. The bishop wore a large ring on each finger and they alternated red and black, producing a disturbing effect in Sol.
“Your Excellency,” began Sol, “I apologize in advance for any breach in church protocol which I have committed … or may commit. I confess I know little about the Church of the Shrike, but what I do know has brought me here. Please forgive me if I inadvertently display my ignorance by my clumsy use of titles or terms.”
The bishop wiggled his fingers at Sol. Red and black stones flashed in the weak light. “Titles are unimportant, M. Weintraub. Addressing us as ‘Your Excellency’ is quite acceptable for a nonbeliever. We must advise you, however, that the formal name of our modest group is the Church of the Final Atonement and the entity whom the world so blithely calls … the Shrike … we refer to … if we take His name at all … as the Lord of Pain or, more commonly, the Avatar. Please proceed with the important query you said you had for us.”
Sol bowed slightly. “Your Excellency, I am a teacher …”
“Excuse us for interrupting, M. Weintraub, but you are much more than a teacher. You are a scholar. We are very familiar with your writings on moral hermeneutics. The reasoning therein is flawed but quite challenging. We use it regularly in our courses in doctrinal apologetics. Please proceed.”