Дэн Симмонс - The Fall of Hyperion

And only blind from sheer supremacy/

One avenue was shaded from thine eyes/

Through which I wandered to eternal truth\\

And first/ as thou wast not the first of powers/

So art thou not the last/it cannot be//

Thou art not the beginning nor the end//

From Chaos and parental Darkness came

Light/ the first fruits of that intestine broil/

That sullen ferment/ which for wondrous ends

Was ripening in itself// The ripe hour came/

And with it Light/ and Light/ engendering

Upon its own producer/ forthwith touch’d

The whole enormous matter into Life\\

Upon that very hour/ our parentage/

The Heavens/ and the Earth/ were manifest//

Then thou first born/ and we the giant race/

Found ourselves ruling new and beauteous realms]

Now comes the pain of truth/ to whom tis pain//

o folly! for to bear all naked truths/

And to envisage circumstance/ all calm/

That is the top of sovereignty. Mark well!

As Heaven and Earth are fairer, fairer far

Than Chaos and blank Darkness/ though once chiefs\

And as we show beyond that Heaven and Earth

In form and shape compact and beautiful/

In will/ in action free/ companionship/

And thousand other signs of purer life\

So on our heels a fresh perfection treads/

A power more strong in beauty/ born of us

And fated to excel us/ as we pass

In glory that old Darkness// nor are we

Thereby more conquered/ than by us the rule

Of shapeless Chaos\\ Say/ doth the dull soil

Quarrel with the proud forests it hath fed/

And feedeth still/ More comely than itself

Can it deny the chiefdom of green groves

Or shall the tree be envious of the dove

Because it cooeth/ and hath snowy wings

To wander wherewithal and find its joys

We are such forest trees/ and our fair boughs

Have bred forth/ not pale solitary doves/

But eagles golden-feathered/ who do tower

Above us in their beauty/ and must reign

In right thereof. For ’tis the eternal law

That first in beauty should be first in might//

Receive the truth/ and let it be your balm]

–Very pretty , I thought to Ummon, but do you believe it?

[Not for a moment]

–But the Ultimates do?

[Yes]

–And they’re ready to perish in order to make way for the Ultimate Intelligence?

[Yes]

–There’s one problem, perhaps too obvious to mention, but I’ll mention it anyway—why fight the war if you know who won, Ummon? You say the Ultimate Intelligence exists in the future, is at war with the human deity—it even sends back tidbits from the future for you to share with the Hegemony. So the Ultimates must be triumphant. Why fight a war and go through all this?

[KWATZ!]

[I tutor you/

create the finest retrieval persona for you

imaginable/

and let you wander among humankind

in slowtime

to temper your forging/

but still you are

stillborn]

I spend a long moment thinking.

–There are multiple futures?

[A lesser light asked Ummon//

Are there multiple futures>//

Uimnon answered//

Does a dog have fleas>]

–But the one in which the UI becomes ascendant is a probable one?

[Yes]

–But there’s also a probable future in which the UI comes into existence, but is thwarted by the human deity?

[It is comforting that even the stillborn can think]

–You told Brawne that the human… consciousness—deity seems so silly—that this human Ultimate Intelligence was triune in nature?

[Intellect/

Empathy/

and the Void Which Binds]

–The Void Which Binds? You mean √Għ/c 5and √Għ/c 3 Planck space and Planck time? Quantum reality?

[Correct/

Keats/ thinking may become a habit]

–And it’s the Empathy part of this trinity who’s fied back in time to avoid the war with your UI?

[Correct]

[Our UI and your UI have

sent back

the Shrike

to find him]

–Our UI! The human UI sent the Shrike also?

[It allowed it]

[Empathy is a

foreign and useless thing/

a vermiform appendix of

the intellect\\

But the human UI smells with it/

and we use pain to

drive him out of hiding/

thus the tree]

–Tree? The Shrike’s tree of thorns?

[Of course]

[It broadcasts pain

across fatline and thin/

like a whistle in

a dog’s ear\\

Or a god’s]

I feel my own analog form waver as the truth of things strikes me.

The chaos beyond Ummon’s forcefield egg is beyond imagining now, as if the fabric of space itself were being rent by giant hands. The Core is in turmoil.

–Ummon, who is the human UI in our time? Where is that consciousness hiding, lying dormant?

[You must understand/

Keats/

our only chance

was to create a hybrid/

Son of Man/

Son of Machine\\

And make that refuge so attractive

that the fleeing Empathy

would consider no other home/

A consciousness already as near divine

as humankind has offered in thirty

generations\

an imagination which can span

space and time\\

And in so offering/

and joining/

form a bond between worlds

which might allow

that world to exist

for both]

–Who, Goddamn you, Ummon! Who is it? No more of your riddles or double-talk you formless bastard! Who?

[You have refused

this godhood twice/

Keats\\

If you refuse

a final time/

all ends here/

for time there is

no more]

[Go!

Go and die to live!

Or live a while and die