Colonel Fedmahn Kassad(smiling). But you deflect the question somewhat, M. Aenea. May I ask you… will the Shrike be on your Tree of Pain when it leaves in three standard days’ time?
Aenea. I believe it will, Colonel Kassad.
Colonel Fedmahn Kassad. You have not told us here tonight, M. Aenea, what the Shrike is… where it truly comes from… what its role in this centuries-old and centuries-to-come game is.
Aenea. That is correct, Colonel. I have not told anyone here tonight.
Colonel Fedmahn Kassad. Have you ever told anyone, child?
Aenea. No.
Colonel Fedmahn Kassad. But you know the origin of the Shrike.
Aenea. Yes.
Colonel Fedmahn Kassad. Will you tell us, Brawne Lamia’s child?
Aenea. I would prefer not to, Colonel.
Colonel Fedmahn Kassad. But you will if asked again, will you not? At least you will answer my direct questions on the matter?
Aenea(nods silently… I see tears in her eyes).
Colonel Fedmahn Kassad. The Shrike first appears in that same far future in which I do battle with it as per the Cantos, is this not correct, M. Aenea? That future in which the Core is making its last-ditch stand against its enemies?
Aenea. Yes.
Colonel Fedmahn Kassad. And the Shrike is… will be… a construct, is it not? A created thing. A Core-created thing.
Aenea. This is accurate.
Colonel Fedmahn Kassad. It will be a strange amalgam of Core technological wizardry, Void Which Binds energy, and the cybrid-recycled personality of a real human being, won’t it, M. Aenea?
Aenea. Yes, Colonel. It will be all those things and more.
Colonel Fedmahn Kassad. And the Shrike will be created by the Core but will become a servant and Avatar of other… powers… entities, will it not?
Aenea. Yes.
Colonel Fedmahn Kassad. In truth, Aenea, would you agree that the Shrike will be a pawn of both sides… of all sides… in this war for the soul of humankind… this war that leaps back and forth across time like a four-dimensional chess game?
Aenea. Yes, Colonel… although not a pawn. A knight, perhaps.
Colonel Fedmahn Kassad. All right, a knight. And this cybrid, Void Which Binds—connected, ARN-ied, DNA-engineered, nanotech-enhanced, terribly mutated knight… it starts with the personality of a single warrior, does it not? Perhaps an opponent in this thousand-year game?
Aenea. Do you need to know this, Colonel? There is no greater hell than seeing the precise details of one’s…
Colonel Fedmahn Kassad(softly). Of one’s future? Of one’s own death? Of one’s fate? I know that, Aenea, daughter of my friend Brawne Lamia. I know that you have carried such terrible certitudes and visions with you since before you were born… since the days when your mother and I crossed the seas and mountains of Hyperion toward what we thought was our fate with the Shrike. I know that it has been very difficult for you, Aenea, my young friend… harder than any of us here could imagine. None of us could have borne up under such a burden. But still I want to know this part of my own fate. And I believe that my years of service in the cause of this battle… years past and years yet to be given… have earned me the right to an answer. Is the Shrike based on a single human warrior’s personality?
Aenea. Yes.
Colonel Fedmahn Kassad. Mine? After my death in battle, the Core elements… or some power… will incorporate my will, my soul, my persona into t… monster… and send it back in time through the Crystal Monolith?
Aenea. Yes, Colonel. Parts of your persona… but only parts of it… will be incorporated into the living construct called the Shrike.
Colonel Fedmahn Kassad(laughing). But I can also live to beat it in battle?
Aenea. Yes.
Colonel Fedmahn Kassad(laughing harder now, the laughter sounding sincere and unforced). By God… by the will of Allah… if the universe has any soul, it is the soul of irony. I kill mine enemy, I eat his heart, and the enemy becomes me… and I become him.
(There are several more minutes of silence. I see that the treeship Yggdrasill has turned around and that we are approaching the great curve of the Biosphere Startree again.)
Rachel Weintraub. Friend Aenea, Beloved Teacher, in the years I have listened to you teach and learned from you, one great mystery has haunted me.
Aenea. What is that, Rachel?
Rachel Weintraub. Through the Void Which Binds, you have heard the voices of the Others… the sentient races beyond our space and time whose memories and personalities resonate in the Void medium. Through communion with your blood, some of us have learned to hear the whispers of the echoes of those voices… of the Lions and Tigers and Bears, as some call them.
Aenea. You are one of my best students, Rachel. You will someday hear these voices clearly. Just as you will learn to hear the music of the spheres and to take that first step.
Rachel Weintraub(shaking her head). That is not my question, friend Aenea. The mystery to me has been the presence in human space of an Observer or Observers sent by those… Others… those Lions and Tigers and Bears… to study humankind and report back to these distant races. Is the presence of this Observer… or these Observers… a literal fact?
Aenea. It is.
Rachael Weintraub. And they were able to take on the form of human or Ouster or Templar?
Aenea. The Observer or Observers are not shapeshifters, Rachel. They chose to come among us in some sort of mortal form, that is true… much as my father was mortal but cybrid born.
Rachael Weintraub. And this Observer or these Observers have been watching us for centuries?
Aenea. Yes.
Rachael Weintraub. Is that Observer… or one of these Observers… with us here today, on this treeship, or at this table?
Aenea(hesitates). Rachel, it is best that I say nothing more at this time. There are those who would kill such an Observer in an instant to protect the Pax or to defend what they think it means to be “human.” Even saying that such an Observer exists puts that entity at great risk. I am sorry… I promise you that this… this mystery… will be solved in the not-too-distant future and the Observer or Observers’ identity revealed. Not by me, but by the Observer or Observers themselves.
Templar True Voice Of The Startree Ket Rosteen. Brothers in the Muir, respected Ouster allies, honored human guests, beloved sentient friends, Revered One Who Teaches… we shall finish this discussion at another time and in another place. I take it as a consensus of those among us that M. Aenea’s request for the treeship Yggdrasill to depart for Pax space in three standard days is agreed to… and that, with luck and courage, thus shall be fulfilled the ancient Templar prophecies of the Tree of Pain and the time of Atonement for all children of Old Earth. Now we will finish our meal and speak of other things. This formal meeting is adjourned, and what remains of our short voyage must be friendly conversation, good food, and the sacrament of real coffee grown from beans harvested on Old Earth… our common home… the good Earth.