The Rise of Endymion.

by Dan Simmons.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

The author would like to thank the following people: Kevin Kelly for his account of the evolution of a-life from 80-byte critters in his book Out of Control; Out of Control; Jean-Daniel Breque and Monique Labailly for their personal guided tour through the catacombs of Paris; Jeff Orr, cybercowboy Jean-Daniel Breque and Monique Labailly for their personal guided tour through the catacombs of Paris; Jeff Orr, cybercowboy extraordinaire extraordinaire, for boldly going into cybers.p.a.ce to retrieve the forty-some pages of this tale kidnapped by the TechnoCore; and my editor, Tom Dupree, for his patience, enthusiasm, and shared good taste for loving Mystery Science Theater 3000 Mystery Science Theater 3000.

We are not stuff that abides, but patterns that perpetuate themselves.-Norbert Wiener, Cybernetics, or Control and Communication in the Animal and the MachineThe universal nature out of the universal substance, as if it were wax, now moulds the figure of a horse, and when it has broken this up, it uses the material for a tree, next for a man, next for something else; and each of these things subsists for a very short time. But it is no hardship for the vessel to be broken up, just as there was none in its being fastened together.-Marcus Aurelius, MeditationsBut here is the finger of G.o.d, a flash of the will that can, Existent behind all laws, that made them and, lo, they are!

And I know not if, save in this, such gift be allowed to man, That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth sound, but a star.-Robert Browning, Abt VoglerIf what I have said should not be plain enough, as I fear it may not be, I will but [sic] you in the place where I began in this series of thoughts-I mean, I began by seeing how man was formed by circ.u.mstances-and what are circ.u.mstances?-but touchstones of his heart-? and what are touch stones?-but proovings [sic] of his heart [sic]?-and what are the proovings [sic] of his heart but fortifiers or alterers of his nature? and what is his altered nature but his soul?-and what was his soul before it came into the world and had These provings and alterations and perfectionings?-An intelligences [sic]-without Ident.i.ty-and how is this Ident.i.ty to be made? Through the medium of the Heart? And how is the heart to become this Medium but in a world of Circ.u.mstances?-There now I think what with Poetry and Theology you may thank your Stars that my pen is not very long-winded--John Keats, In a letter to his brother

Part One

1.

-he Pope is dead! Long live the Pope!"

The cry reverberated in and around the Vatican courtyard of San Damaso where the body of Pope Julius XIV had just been discovered in his papal apartments. The Holy Father had died in his sleep. Within minutes the word spread through the mismatched cl.u.s.ter of buildings still referred to as the Vatican Palace, and then moved out through the Vatican State with the speed of a circuit fire in a pure-oxygen environment. The rumor of the Pope's death burned through the Vatican's office complex, leaped through the crowded St. Anne's Gate to the Apostolic Palace and the adjacent Government Palace, found waiting ears among the faithful in the sacristy of St. Peter's Basilica to the point that the archbishop saying Ma.s.s actually turned to look over his shoulder at the unprecedented hiss and whispering of the congregation, and then moved out of the Basilica with the departing worshipers into the larger crowds of St. Peter's Square where eighty to a hundred thousand tourists and visiting Pax functionaries received the rumor like a critical ma.s.s of plutonium being slammed inward to full fission.

Once out through the main vehicle gate of the Arch of Bells, the news accelerated to the speed of electrons, then leaped to the speed of light, and finally hurtled out and away from the planet Pacem at Hawking-drive velocities thousands of times faster than light. Closer, just beyond the ancient walls of the Vatican, phones and comlogs chimed throughout the hulking, sweating Castel Sant'Angelo where the offices of the Holy Office of the Inquisition were buried deep in the mountain of stone originally built to be Hadrian's mausoleum. All that morning there was the rattle of beads and rustle of starched ca.s.socks as Vatican functionaries rushed back to their offices to monitor their encrypted net lines and to wait for memos from above. Personal communicators rang, chimed, and vibrated in the uniforms and implants of thousands of Pax administrators, military commanders, politicians, and Mercantilus officials. Within thirty minutes of the discovery of the Pope's lifeless body, news organizations around the world of Pacem were cued to the story: they readied their robotic holocams, brought their full panoply of in-system relay sats on-line, sent their best human reporters to the Vatican press office, and waited. In an interstellar society where the Church ruled all but absolutely, news awaited not only independent confirmation but official permission to exist.

Two hours and ten minutes after the discovery of Pope Julius XIV's body, the Church confirmed his death via an announcement through the office of the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Lourdusamy. Within seconds, the recorded announcement was tightcast to every radio and holovision on the teeming world of Pacem. With its population of one and a half billion souls, all bora-again Christians carrying the cruciform, most employed by the Vatican or the huge civilian, military, or mercantile bureaucracy of the Pax state, the planet Pacem paused to listen with some interest. Even before the formal announcement, a dozen of the new archangel-cla.s.s starships had left their orbital bases and translated across the small human sphere of the galaxy arm, their near-instantaneous drives instantly killing their crews but carrying their message of the Pope's death secure in computers and coded transponders for the sixty-some most important archdiocese worlds and star systems. These archangel courier ships would carry a few of the voting cardinals back to Pacem in time for the election, but most of the electors would choose to remain on their homeworlds-foregoing death even with its sure promise of resurrection-sending instead their encrypted, interactive holo wafers with their eligo eligo for the next Supreme Pontiff. for the next Supreme Pontiff.

Another eighty-five Hawking-cla.s.s Pax ships, mostly high-acceleration torchships, made ready to spin up to relativistic velocities and then into jump configurations, their voyage time to be measured in days to months, their relative time-debt ranging from weeks to years. These ships would wait in Pacem s.p.a.ce the fifteen to twenty standard days until the election of the new Pope and then bring the word to the 130-some less critical Pax systems where archbishops tended to billions more of the faithful. Those archdiocese worlds, in turn, would be charged with sending the word of the Pope's death, resurrection, and reelection on to lesser systems, distant worlds, and to the myriad colonies in the Outback. A final fleet of more than two hundred unmanned courier drones was taken out of storage at the huge Pax asteroid base in Pacem System, their message chips waiting only for the official announcement of Pope Julius's rebirth and reelection before being accelerated into Hawking s.p.a.ce to carry the news to elements of the Pax Fleet engaged in patrol or combat with the Ousters along the so-called Great Wall defensive sphere far beyond the boundaries of Pax s.p.a.ce.

Pope Julius had died eight times before. The Pontiffs heart was weak, and he would allow no repair of it-either by surgery or nanoplasty. It was his contention that a pope should live his natural life span and-upon his death-that a new pope should be elected. The fact that this same Pope had been reelected eight times did not dissuade him from his opinion. Even now, as Pope Julius's body was being readied for a formal evening of lying in state before being carried to the private resurrection chapel behind St. Peter's, cardinals and their surrogates were making preparations for the election.

The Sistine Chapel was closed to tourists and made ready for the voting that would occur in less than three weeks. Ancient, canopied stalls were brought in for the eighty-three cardinals who would be present in the flesh while holographic projectors and interactive datumplane connections were set in place for the cardinals who would vote by proxy. The table for the Scrutineers was set in front of the Chapel's high altar. Small cards, needles, thread, a receptacle, a plate, linen cloths, and other objects were carefully placed on the table of the Scrutineers and then covered with a larger linen cloth. The table for the Infirmarii and the Revisors was set to one side of the altar. The main doors of the Sistine Chapel were closed, bolted, and sealed. Swiss Guard commandos in full battle armor and state-of-the-art energy weapons took their place outside the Chapel doors and at the blastproof portals of St. Peter's papal resurrection annex.

Following ancient protocol, the election was scheduled to occur in no fewer than fifteen days and no more than twenty. Those cardinals who made their permanent home on Pacem or within three weeks' time-debt travel canceled their regular agendas and prepared for the enclave. Everything else was in readiness.

SOME FAT MEN CARRY THEIR WEIGHT LIKE A WEAKNESS, a sign of self-indulgence and sloth. Other fat men absorb ma.s.s regally, an outward sign of their growing power. Simon Augustino Cardinal Lourdusamy was of the latter category. A huge man, a veritable mountain of scarlet in his formal cardinal robes, Lourdusamy looked to be in his late fifties, standard, and had appeared thus for more than two centuries of active life and successful resurrection. Jowled, quite bald, and given to speaking in a soft ba.s.s rumble that could rise to a G.o.d-roar capable of filling St. Peter's Basilica without the use of a speaker system, Lourdusamy remained the epitome of health and vitality in the Vatican. Many in the inner circles of the Church's hierarchy credited Lourdusamy-then a young, minor functionary in the Vatican diplomatic machine-with guiding the anguished and pain-ridden ex-Hyperion pilgrim, Father Lenar Hoyt, to finding the secret that tamed the cruciform to an instrument of resurrection. They credited him as much as the newly deceased Pope with bringing the Church back from the brink of extinction.

Whatever the truth of that legend, Lourdusamy was in fine form this first day after the Holy Father's ninth death in office and five days before His Holiness's resurrection. As Cardinal-Secretary of State, president of the committee overseeing the twelve Sacred Congregations, and prefect of that most feared and misunderstood of those agencies-the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, now officially known once again after more than a thousand-year interregnum as the Holy Office of the Universal Inquisition-Lourdusamy was the most powerful human being in the Curia. At that moment, with His Holiness, Pope Julius XIV, lying in state in St. Peter's Basilica, the body awaiting removal to the resurrection annex as soon as night should fall, Simon Augustino Cardinal Lourdusamy was arguably the most powerful human being in the galaxy.

The fact was not lost on the Cardinal that morning.

"Are they here yet, Lucas?" he rumbled at the man who had been his aide and factotum for more than two hundred busy years. Monsignor Lucas Oddi was as thin, bony, aged-looking, and urgent in his movements as Cardinal Lourdusamy was huge, fleshy, ageless, and languid. Oddi's full t.i.tle as undersecretary of state for the Vatican was Subst.i.tute and Secretary of the Cypher, but he was usually known as the Subst.i.tute. "Cypher" might have been an equally apt nickname for the tall, angular Benedictine administrator, for in the twenty-two decades of smooth service he had given his master, no one-not even Lourdusamy himself-knew the man's private opinions or emotions. Father Lucas Oddi had been Lourdusamy's strong right arm for so long that the Secretary-Cardinal had long since ceased to think of him as anything but an extension of his own will.

"They have just been seated in the innermost waiting room," answered Monsignor Oddi.

Cardinal Lourdusamy nodded. For more than a thousand years-since long before the Hegira that had sent humankind fleeing the dying Earth and colonizing the stars-it had been a custom of the Vatican to hold important meetings in the waiting rooms of important officials rather than in their private offices. Secretary of State Cardinal Lourdusamy's innermost waiting room was small-no more than five meters square-and unadorned except for a round marble table with no inset com units, a single window that, if it had not been polarized to opaqueness, would have looked out onto a marvelously frescoed external loggia, and two paintings by the thirtieth-century genius Karo-tan-one showing Christ's agony in Gethsemane, the other showing Pope Julius (in his pre-papal ident.i.ty of Father Lenar Hoyt) receiving the first cruciform from a powerful but androgynous-looking archangel while Satan (in the form of the Shrike) looked on powerlessly.

The four people in the waiting room-three men and a woman-represented the Executive Council of the Pancapitalist League of Independent Catholic Transstellar Trade Organizations, more commonly known as the Pax Mercantilus. Two of the men might have been father and son-M. Helvig Aron and M. Kennet Hay-Modhino-alike even to their subtle, expensive capesuits, expensive, conservative haircuts, subtly bio-sculpted Old Earth Northeuro features, and to the even-more-subtle red pins showing their membership in the Sovereign Military Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes, and of Malta-the ancient society popularly known as the Knights of Malta. The third man was of Asian descent and wore a simple cotton robe. His name was Kenzo Isozaki and he was this day-after Simon Augustino Cardinal Lourdusamy-arguably the second most powerful human in the Pax. The final Pax Mercantilus representative, a woman in her fifties, standard, with carelessly cropped dark hair and a pinched face, wearing an inexpensive work suit of combed fiberplastic, was M. Anna Pelli Cognani, reputedly Isozaki's heir apparent and rumored for years to be the lover of the female Archbishop of Renaissance Vector.

The four rose and bowed slightly as Cardinal Lourdusamy entered and took his place at the table. Monsignor Lucas Oddi was the only bystander and he stood away from the table, his bony hands clasped in front of his ca.s.sock, the tortured eyes of Karo-tan's Christ in Gethsemane peering over his black-frocked shoulder at the small a.s.sembly.

M.'s Aron and Hay-Modhino moved forward to genuflect and kiss the Cardinal's beveled sapphire ring, but Lourdusamy waved away further protocol before Kenzo Isozaki or the woman could approach. When the four Pax Mercantilus representatives were seated once again, the Cardinal said, "We are all old friends. You know that while I represent the Holy See in this discussion during the Holy Father's temporary absence, any and all things discussed this day shall remain within these walls." Lourdusamy smiled. "And these walls, my friends, are the most secure and bugproof in the Pax."

Aron and Hay-Modhino smiled tightly. M. Isozaki's pleasant expression did not change. M. Anna Pelli Cognani's frown deepened. "Your Eminence," she said. "May I speak freely?"

Lourdusamy extended a pudgy palm. He had always distrusted people who asked to speak freely or who vowed to speak candidly or who used the expression "frankly." He said, "Of course, my dear friend. I regret that the pressing circ.u.mstances of the day allow us so little time."

Anna Pelli Cognani nodded tersely. She had understood the command to be precise. "Your Eminence," she said, "we asked for this conference so that we could speak to you not only as loyal members of His Holiness's Pancapitalist League, but as friends of the Holy See and of yourself."

Lourdusamy nodded affably. His thin lips between the jowls were curled in a slight smile. "Of course."

M. Helvig Aron cleared his throat. "Your Eminence, the Mercantilus has an understandable interest in the coming papal election."

The Cardinal waited.

"Our goal today," continued M. Hay-Modhino, "is to rea.s.sure Your Eminence;-both as Secretary of State and as a potential candidate for the papacy-that the League will continue to carry out the Vatican's policy with the utmost loyalty after the coming election."

Cardinal Lourdusamy nodded ever so slightly. He understood perfectly. Somehow the Pax Mercantilus-Isozaki's intelligence network-had sniffed out a possible insurrection in the Vatican hierarchy. Somehow they had overheard the most silent of whispers in whisperproof rooms such as this: that it had come time to replace Pope Julius with a new pontiff. And Isozaki knew that Simon Augustino Lourdusamy would be that man.

"In this sad interregnum," M. Cognani was continuing, "we felt it our duty to offer private as well as public a.s.surances that the League will continue serving the interests of the Holy See and the Holy Mother Church, just as it has for more than two standard centuries."

Cardinal Lourdusamy nodded again and waited, but nothing else was forthcoming from the four Mercantilus leaders. For a moment he allowed himself to speculate on why Isozaki had come in person. To see my reaction rather than trust the reports of his subordinates To see my reaction rather than trust the reports of his subordinates, he thought. The old man trusts his senses and insights over anyone and anything else The old man trusts his senses and insights over anyone and anything else. Lourdusamy smiled. Good policy Good policy. He let another minute of silence stretch before speaking. "My friends," he rumbled at last, "you cannot know how it warms my heart to have four such busy and important people visit this poor priest in our time of shared sorrow."

Isozaki and Cognani remained expressionless, as inert as argon, but the Cardinal could see the poorly hidden glint of antic.i.p.ation in the eyes of the other two Mercantilus men. If Lourdusamy welcomed their support at this juncture, however subtly, it put the Mercantilus on an even level with the Vatican conspirators-made the Mercantilus a welcomed conspirator and de facto co-equal to the next Pope.

Lourdusamy leaned closer to the table. The Cardinal noticed that M. Kenzo Isozaki had not blinked during the entire exchange. "My friends," he continued, "as good born-again Christians"-he nodded toward M.'s Aron and Hay-Modhino -"as Knights Hospitaller, you undoubtedly know the procedure for the election of our next Pope. But let me refresh your memory. Once the cardinals and their interactive counterparts are gathered and sealed in the Sistine Chapel, there are three ways in which we can elect a pope-by acclamation, by delegation, or by scrutiny. Through acclamation, all of the cardinal electors are moved by the Holy Spirit to proclaim one person as Supreme Pontiff. We each cry eligo eligo-'I elect'-and the name of the person we unanimously select. Through delegation, we choose a few of those among us-say a dozen cardinals-to make the choice for all. Through scrutiny, the cardinal electors vote secretly until a candidate receives two-thirds majority plus one. Then the new pope is elected and the waiting billions see the sfumata sfumata-the puffs of white smoke-which means that the family of the Church once again has a Holy Father."

The four representatives of the Pax Mercantilus sat in silence. Each of them was intimately aware of the procedure for electing a pope-not only of the antiquated mechanisms, of course, but of the politicking, pressuring, deal-making, bluffing, and outright blackmail that had often accompanied the process over the centuries. And they began to understand why Cardinal Lourdusamy was emphasizing the obvious now.

"For the last nine elections," continued the huge Cardinal, his voice a heavy rumble, "the Pope has been elected by acclamation...by the direct intercession of the Holy Spirit." Lourdusamy paused for a long, thick moment. Behind him, Monsignor Oddi stood watching, as motionless as the painted Christ behind him, as unblinking as Kenzo Isozaki.

"I have no reason to believe," continued Lourdusamy at last, "that this election will be any different."

The Pax Mercantilus executives did not move. Finally M. Isozaki bowed his head ever so slightly. The message had been heard and understood. There would be no insurrection within the Vatican walls. Or if there were, Lourdusamy had it well in hand and did not need the support of the Pax Mercantilus. If the former were the case and Cardinal Lourdusamy's time had not yet come, Pope Julius would once again oversee the Church and Pax. Isozaki's group had taken a terrible risk because of the incalculable rewards and power that would be theirs if they had succeeded in allying themselves with the future Pontiff. Now they faced only the consequences of the terrible risk. A century earlier, Pope Julius had excommunicated Kenzo Isozaki's predecessor for a lesser miscalculation, revoking the sacrament of the cruciform and condemning the Mercantilus leader to a life of separation from the Catholic community-which, of course, was every man, woman, and child on Pacem and on a majority of the Pax worlds-followed by the true death.

"Now, I regret that pressing duties must take me from your kind company," rumbled the Cardinal.

Before he could rise and contrary to standard protocol for leaving the presence of a prince of the Church, M. Isozaki came forward quickly, genuflected, and kissed the Cardinal's ring. "Eminence," murmured the old Pax Mercantilus billionaire.

This time, Lourdusamy did not rise or leave until each of the powerful CEOs had come forward to show his or her respect.

AN ARCHANGEL-CLa.s.s STARSHIP TRANSLATED INTO G.o.d's Grove s.p.a.ce the day after Pope Julius's death. This was the only archangel not a.s.signed to courier duty; it was smaller than the new ships and it was called the Raphael Raphael.

Minutes after the archangel established orbit around the ash-colored world, a dropship separated and screamed into atmosphere. Two men and a woman were aboard. The three looked like siblings, united by their lean forms, pale complexions, dark, limp, short-cropped hair, hooded gazes, and thin lips. They wore unadorned shipsuits of red and black with elaborate wristband comlogs. Their presence in the dropship was a curiosity-the archangel-cla.s.s starships invariably killed human beings during their violent translation through Planck s.p.a.ce and the onboard resurrection creches usually took three days to revive the human crew.

These three were not human.

Morphing wings and smoothing all surfaces into an aerodynamic sh.e.l.l, the dropship crossed the terminator into daylight at Mach 3. Beneath it turned the former Templar world of G.o.d's Grove-a ma.s.s of burn scars, ash fields, mudflows, retreating glaciers, and green sequoias struggling to reseed themselves in the shattered landscape. Slowing now to subsonic speeds, the dropship flew above the narrow band of temperate climate and viable vegetation near the planet's equator and followed a river to the stump of the former Worldtree. Eighty-three kilometers across, still a kilometer high even in its devastated form, the stump rose above the southern horizon like a black mesa. The dropship avoided the Worldstump and continued to follow the river west, continuing to descend until it landed on a boulder near the point where the river entered a narrow gorge. The two men and the woman came down the extruded stairs and reviewed the scene. It was midmorning on this part of G.o.d's Grove, the river made a rushing noise as it entered the rapids, birds and unseen arboreals chittered in the thick trees farther downriver. The air smelled of pine needles, uncla.s.sifiable alien scents, wet soil, and ash. More than two and a half centuries earlier, this world had been smashed and slashed from orbit. Those two-hundred-meter-high Templar trees that did not flee to s.p.a.ce had burned in a conflagration that continued to rage for the better part of a century, extinguished at last only by a nuclear winter.

"Careful," said one of the men as the three walked downhill to the river. "The monofilaments she webbed here should still be in place."

The thin woman nodded and removed a weapon laser from the flowfoam pak she carried. Setting the beam to widest dispersal, she fanned it over the river. Invisible filaments glowed like a spider's web in morning dew, crisscrossing the river and wrapping around boulders, submerging and reemerging from the white-frothed river.

"None where we have to work," said the woman as she shut off the laser. The three crossed a low area by the river and climbed a rocky slope. Here the granite had been melted and flowed downhill like lava during the slagging of G.o.d's Grove, but on one of the terraced rockfaces there were even more recent signs of catastrophe. Near the top of a boulder ten meters above the river, a crater had been burned into solid rock. Perfectly circular, indented half a meter below the level of the boulder, the crater was five meters across. On the southeast side, where a waterfall of molten rock had run and splattered and fountained to the river below, a natural staircase of black stone had formed. The rock filling the circular cavity on top of the boulder was darker and smoother than the rest of the stone, looking like polished onyx set in a granite crucible.

One of the men stepped into the concavity, lay full length on the smooth stone, and set his ear to the rock. A second later he rose and nodded to the other two.

"Stand back," said the woman. She touched her wristband comlog.

The three had taken five steps back when the lance of pure energy burned from s.p.a.ce. Birds and arboreals fled in loud panic through the screening trees. The air ionized and became superheated in seconds, rolling a shock wave in all directions. Branches and leaves burst into flame fifty meters from the beam's point of contact. The cone of pure brilliance exactly matched the diameter of the circular depression in the boulder, turning the smooth stone to a lake of molten fire.

The two men and the woman did not flinch. Their shipsuits smoldered in the open hearth-furnace heat, but the special fabric did not burn. Neither did their flesh.

"Time," said the woman over the roar of the energy beam and widening firestorm. The golden beam ceased to exist. Hot air rushed in at gale-force winds to fill the vacuum. The depression in the rock was a circle of bubbling lava.

One of the men went to one knee and seemed to be listening. Then he nodded to the others and phase-shifted. One second he was flesh and bone and blood and skin and hair, the next he was a chrome-silver sculpture in the form of a man. The blue sky, burning forest, and lake of molten fire reflected perfectly on his shifting silver skin. He plunged one arm into the molten pool, crouched lower, reached deeper, and then pulled back. The silver form of his hand looked as if it had melted onto the surface of another silver human form-this one a woman. The male chrome sculpture pulled the female chrome sculpture out of the hissing, spitting cauldron of lava and carried it fifty meters to a point where the gra.s.s was not burning and the stone was cool enough to hold their weight. The other man and woman followed.

The man shifted out of his chrome-silver form and a second later the female he had carried did the same. The woman who emerged from the quicksilver looked like a twin of the short-haired woman in the shipsuit.

"Where is the b.i.t.c.h child?" asked the rescued female. She had once been known as Rhadamanth Nemes.

"Gone," said the man who rescued her. He and his male sibling could be her brothers or male clones. "They made the final farcaster."

Rhadamanth Nemes grimaced slightly. She was flexing her fingers and moving her arms as if recovering from cramps in her limbs. "At least I killed the d.a.m.ned android."

"No," said the other woman, her twin. She had no name. "They left in the Raphael's Raphael's dropship. The android lost an arm, but the autosurgeon kept him alive." dropship. The android lost an arm, but the autosurgeon kept him alive."

Nemes nodded and looked back at the rocky hillside where lava still ran. The glow from the fire showed the glistening web of the monofilament over the river. Behind them, the forest burned. "That was not...pleasant...in there. I couldn't move with the full force of the ship's lance burning down on me, and then I could not phase-shift with the rock around me. It took immense concentration to power down and still maintain an active phase-shift interface. How long was I buried there?"

"Four Earth years," said the man who had not spoken until now.

Rhadamanth Nemes raised a thin eyebrow, more in question than surprise. "Yet the Core knew where I was..."

"The Core knew where you were," said the other woman. Her voice and facial expressions were identical to those of the rescued woman. "And the Core knew that you had failed."

Nemes smiled very thinly. "So the four years were a punishment."

"A reminder," said the man who had pulled her from the rock.

Rhadamanth Nemes took two steps, as if testing her balance. Her voice was flat. "So why have you come for me now?"

"The girl," said the other woman. "She is coming back. We are to resume your mission."

Nemes nodded.

The man who rescued her set his hand on her thin shoulder. "And please consider," he said, "that four years entombed in fire and stone will be nothing to what you may expect if you fail again."

Nemes stared at him for a long moment without answering. Then, turning away from the lava and flames in a precisely ch.o.r.eographed motion, matching stride for stride, all four of them moved in perfect unison toward the dropship.

ON THE DESERT WORLD OF MADREDEDIOS, ON THE high plateau called the Llano Estacado because of the atmosphere generator pylons crisscrossing the desert in neat ten-kilometer grid intervals, Father Federico de Soya prepared for early morning Ma.s.s.

The little desert town of Nuevo Atlan held fewer than three hundred residents-mostly Pax boxite miners waiting to die before traveling home, mixed with a few of the converted Mariaisis who scratched out livings as corgor herders in the toxic wastelands-and Father de Soya knew precisely how many would be in chapel for early Ma.s.s: four-old M. Sanchez, the ancient widow who was rumored to have murdered her husband in a dust storm sixty-two years before, the Perell twins who-for unknown reasons-preferred the old run-down church to the spotless and air-conditioned company chapel on the mining reservation, and the mysterious old man with the radiation-scarred face who knelt in the rearmost pew and never took Communion.

There was a dust storm blowing-there was always a dust storm blowing-and Father de Soya had to run the last thirty meters from his adobe parish house to the church sacristy, a transparent fiberplastic hood over his head and shoulders to protect his ca.s.sock and biretta, his breviary tucked deep in his ca.s.sock pocket to keep it clean. It did not work. Every evening when he removed his ca.s.sock or hung his biretta on a hook, the sand fell out in a red cascade, like dried blood from a broken hourgla.s.s. And every morning when he opened his breviary, sand gritted between the pages and soiled his fingers.

"Good morning, Father," said Pablo as the priest hurried into the sacristy and slid the cracked weather seals around the door frame.

"Good morning, Pablo, my most faithful altar boy," said Father de Soya. Actually, the priest silently corrected himself, Pablo was his only only altar boy. A simple child-simple in the ancient sense of the word as mentally slow as well as in the sense of being honest, sincere, loyal, and friendly-Pablo was there to help de Soya serve Ma.s.s every weekday morning at 0630 hours and twice on Sunday-although only the same four people came to the early morning Sunday Ma.s.s and half a dozen of the boxite miners to the later Ma.s.s. altar boy. A simple child-simple in the ancient sense of the word as mentally slow as well as in the sense of being honest, sincere, loyal, and friendly-Pablo was there to help de Soya serve Ma.s.s every weekday morning at 0630 hours and twice on Sunday-although only the same four people came to the early morning Sunday Ma.s.s and half a dozen of the boxite miners to the later Ma.s.s.

The boy nodded his head and grinned again, the smile disappearing for a moment as he pulled on his clean, starched surplice over his altar-boy robes.

Father de Soya walked past the child, ruffling his dark hair as he did so, and opened the tall vestment chest. The morning had grown as dark as the high-desert night as the dust storm swallowed the sunrise, and the only illumination in the cold, bare room was from the fluttering sacristy lamp. De Soya genuflected, prayed earnestly for a moment, and began donning the vestments of his profession.

For two decades, as Father Captain de Soya of the Pax Fleet, commander of torchships such as the Balthasar Balthasar, Federico de Soya had dressed himself in uniforms where the cross and collar were the only signs of his priesthood. He had worn plaskev battle armor, s.p.a.cesuits, tactical com implants, datumplane goggles, G.o.dgloves-all of the paraphernalia of a torchship captain-but none of those items touched him and moved him as much as these simple vestments of a parish priest. In the four years since Father Captain de Soya had been stripped of his rank of captain and removed from Fleet service, he had rediscovered his original vocation.

De Soya pulled on the amice that slipped over his head like a gown and fell to his ankles. The amice was white linen and immaculate despite the incessant dust storms, as was the alb that slid on next. He set the cincture around his waist, whispering a prayer as he did so. Then he raised the white stole from the vestment chest, held it reverently a moment in both hands, and then placed it around his neck, crossing the two strips of silk. Behind him, Pablo was bustling around the little room, putting away his filthy outside boots and pulling on the cheap fiberplastic running shoes his mother had told him to keep here just for Ma.s.s.

Father de Soya set his tunible in place, the outer garment showing a T-cross in front. It was white with a subtle purple piping: he would be saying a Ma.s.s of Benediction this morning while quietly administering the sacrament of penance for the presumed widow and murderer in the front pew and the radiation-scarred cypher in the last pew.

Pablo bustled up to him. The boy was grinning and out of breath. Father de Soya set his hand on the boy's head, trying to flatten the thatch of flyaway hair while also calming and rea.s.suring the lad. De Soya lifted the chalice, removed his right hand from the boy's head to hold it over the veiled cup, and said softly, "All right." Pablo's grin disappeared as the gravity of the moment swept over him, and then the boy led the procession of two out of the sacristy door toward the altar.

De Soya noticed at once that there were five figures in the chapel, not four. The usual worshipers were there-all kneeling and standing and then kneeling again in their usual places-but there was someone else, someone tall and silent standing in the deepest shadows where the little foyer entered the nave.

All during the Renewed Ma.s.s, the presence of the stranger pulled at Father de Soya's consciousness, try as he might to block out all but the sacred mystery of which he was part.

"Dominus vobisc.u.m," said Father de Soya. For more than three thousand years, he believed, the Lord said Father de Soya. For more than three thousand years, he believed, the Lord had had been with them...with all of them. been with them...with all of them.

"Et c.u.m spiritu tuo," said Father de Soya, and as Pablo echoed the words, the priest turned his head slightly to see if the light had illuminated the tall, thin form in the dark recess at the front of the nave. It had not. said Father de Soya, and as Pablo echoed the words, the priest turned his head slightly to see if the light had illuminated the tall, thin form in the dark recess at the front of the nave. It had not.

During the Canon, Father de Soya forgot the mysterious figure and succeeded in focusing all of his attention on the Host that he raised in his blunt fingers. "Hoc est enim corpus meum," "Hoc est enim corpus meum," the Jesuit p.r.o.nounced distinctly, feeling the power of those words and praying for the ten-thousandth time that his sins of violence while a Fleet captain might be washed away by the blood and mercy of this Savior. the Jesuit p.r.o.nounced distinctly, feeling the power of those words and praying for the ten-thousandth time that his sins of violence while a Fleet captain might be washed away by the blood and mercy of this Savior.

At the Communion rail, only the Perell twins came forward. As always. De Soya said the words and offered the Host to the young men. He resisted the urge to glance up at the figure in the shadows at the back of the church.

The Ma.s.s ended almost in darkness. The howl of wind drowned out the last prayers and responses. This little church had no electricity-it never had-and the ten flickering candles on the wall did little to pierce the gloom. Father de Soya gave the final benediction and then carried the chalice into the dark sacristy, setting it on the smaller altar there. Pablo hurried to shrug out of his surplice and pull on his storm anorak.

"See you tomorrow, Father!"