"Dan Simmons - Hyperion (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Simmons Dan)

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PROLOGUE

The Hegemony Consul sat on the balcony of his ebony spaceship and played
Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C-sharp Minor on an ancient but
well-maintained Steinway while great, green, saurian things surged and
bellowed in the swamps below. A thunderstorm was brewing to the north.
Bruise-black clouds silhouetted a forest of giant gymnosperms while
stratocumulus towered nine kilometers high in a violent sky. Lightning
rippled along the horizon. Closer to the ship, occasional vague,
reptilian shapes would blunder into the interdiction field, cry out, and
then crash away through indigo mists. The Consul concentrated on a
difficult section of the Prelude and ignored the approach of storm and
nightfall.
The fatline receiver chimed.
The Consul stopped, fingers hovering above the keyboard, and listened.
Thunder rumbled through the heavy air. From the direction of the
gymnosperm forest there came the mournful ululation of a carrion-breed
pack. Somewhere in the darkness below, a small-brained beast trumpeted
its answering challenge and fell quiet.
The interdiction field added its sonic undertones to the sudden silence.
The fatline chimed again.
'Damn,' said the Consul and went in to answer it.
While the computer took a few seconds to convert and decode the burst of
decaying tachyons, the Consul poured himself a glass of Scotch. He
settled into the cushions of the projection pit just as the diskey
blinked green. 'Play,' he said.
'You have been chosen to return to Hyperion,' came a woman's husky
voice. Full visuals had not yet formed; the air remained empty except
for the pulse of transmission
codes which told the Consul that this fatline squirt had originated on
the Hegemony administrative world of Tau Ceti Center. The Consul did
not need the transmission coordinates to know this. The aged but still
beautiful voice of Meina Gladstone was unmistakable.
'You have been chosen to return to Hyperion as a member of the Shrike
Pilgrimage,' continued the voice.
The hell you say, thought the Consul and rose to leave the pit.
'You and six others have been selected by the Church of the Shrike and
confirmed by the All Thing,' said Meina Gladstone. 'It is in the
interest of the Hegemony that you accept."
The Consul stood motionless in the pit, his back to the flickering
transmission codes. Without turning, he raised his glass and drained
the last of the Scotch.
'The situation is very confused,' said Meina Gladstone. Her voice was
weary. 'The consulate and Home Rule Council fatlined us three standard
weeks ago with the news that the Time Tombs showed signs of opening. The
anti-entropic fields around them were expanding rapidly and the Shrike
has begun ranging as far south as the Bridle Range."
The Consul turned and dropped into the cushions. A hoio had formed of