"Dan Simmons - The rise of Endymion" - читать интересную книгу автора (Simmons Dan)

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 space
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 space.
Pope Julius had died eight times before. The Pontiff's 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 mass 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 bass rumble that could rise to a God-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


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