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
Yggdrasil!,' 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."
The Consul had to smile. Among all the other risks Gladstone was
taking, the old woman had to consider the possibility that he was the
spy and that she was fatlining crucial information to an Ouster agent.
Or had she given him any crucial information? The fleet movements were
detectable as soon as the ships used their Hawking drives, and if the
Consul were the spy, the CEO's revelation might be a way to scare him
off. The Consul's smile faded and he drank his Scotch.
'Sol Weintraub and Fedmahn Kassad are among the seven pilgrims chosen,'
said Gladstone.
The Consul's frown deepened. He stared at the cloud of digits
flickering like dust motes around the old woman's image. Fifteen
seconds of fatline transmission time remained.
'We need your help,' said Meina Gladstone. 'It is essential that the
secrets of the Time Tombs and Shrike be uncovered. This pilgrimage may
be our last chance. If the Ousters conquer Hyperion, their agent must
be eliminated and the Time Tombs sealed at all cost. The fate of the
Hegemony may depend upon it."
The transmission ended except for the pulse of rendezvous coordinates.
'Response?" asked the ship's computer.
Despite the tremendous energies involved, the spacecraft was capable of
placing a brief, coded squirt into the incessant babble of FTL bursts
which tied the human portions of the galaxy together.
'No,' said the Consul and went outside to lean on the balcony railing.
Night had fallen and the clouds were low. No stars were visible. The
darkness would have been absolute except for the intermittent flash of
lightning to the north and a soft phosphorescence rising from the
marshes. The Consul was suddenly very aware that he was, at that
