“Trust,” said a voice below them, and Brawne shifted to look down toward the floor.

The young woman whom Brawne had recognized as Moneta in Kassad’s tomb stood far below.

“Help!” cried Brawne.

“Trust,” said Moneta and disappeared. The Shrike had not been distracted. It lowered its hands and stepped forward as if walking on solid stone rather than air.

“Shit,” whispered Brawne.

“Ditto,” rasped Martin Silenus. “Out of the frying pan back into the fucking fire.”

“Shut up,” said Brawne. Then, as if to herself, “Trust what? Who?”

“Trust the fucking Shrike to kill us or stick us both on the fucking tree,” gasped Silenus. He managed to move enough to clutch Brawne’s arm. “Better dead than back on the tree, Brawne.”

Brawne touched his hand briefly and stood, facing the Shrike across five meters of air.

Trust? Brawne held her foot out, felt around on emptiness, closed her eyes for a second, and opened them as her foot seemed to touch a solid step. She opened her eyes.

Nothing was under her foot except air.

Trust? Brawne put her weight on her forward foot and stepped out, teetering a moment before bringing her other foot down.

She and the Shrike stood facing each other ten meters above the stone floor. The creature seemed to grin at her as it opened its arms.

Its carapace glowed dully in the dim light. Its red eyes were very bright.

Trust? Feeling the adrenaline rush, Brawne stepped forward on the invisible steps, gaining height as she moved into the Shrike’s embrace.

She felt the fingerblades slicing through fabric and skin as the thing began to hug her to it, toward the curved blade growing out of its metal chest, toward the open jaws and rows of steel teeth. But while still standing firmly on thin air, Brawne leaned forward and set her uninjured hand flat against the Shrike’s chest, feeling the coldness of the carapace but also feeling a rush of warmth as energy rushed from her, out of her, through her.

The blades stopped cutting before they cut anything but skin. The Shrike froze as if the flow of temporal energy surrounding them had turned to a lump of amber.

Brawne set her hand on the thing’s broad chest and pushed.

The Shrike froze completely in place, became brittle, the gleam of metal fading to be replaced by the transparent glow of crystal, the bright sheen of glass.

Brawne stood on air being embraced by a three-meter glass sculpture of the Shrike. In its chest, where a heart might be, something that looked like a large, black moth fluttered and beat sooty wings against the glass.

Brawne took a deep breath and pushed again. The Shrike slid backward on the invisible platform she shared with it, teetered, and fell.

Brawne ducked under the encircling arms, hearing and feeling her jacket tearing as still-sharp fingerblades caught in the material and ripped as the thing tumbled, and then she was teetering herself, flailing her good arm for balance as the glass Shrike turned one and a half times in midair, struck the floor, and shattered into a thousand jagged shards.

Brawne pivoted, fell to her knees on the invisible catwalk, and crawled back toward Martin Silenus.

In the last half meter, her confidence failed her, the invisible support simply ceased to be, and she fell heavily, twisting her ankle as she hit the edge of the stone tier and managing to keep from falling off only by grabbing Silenus’s knee.

Cursing from the pain in her shoulder, broken wrist, twisted ankle, and lacerated palms and knees, she pulled herself to safety next to him.

“There’s obviously been some weird shit going on since I left,” Martin Silenus said hoarsely. “Can we go now, or do you plan to walk on water as an encore?”

“Shut up,” Brawne said shakily. The two syllables sounded almost affectionate.

She rested a while and then found that the easiest way to get the still-weak poet down the steps and across the glass-strewn floor of the Shrike Palace was to use the fireman’s carry. They were at the entrance when he pounded unceremoniously on her back and said, “What about King Billy and the others?”

“Later,” panted Brawne and stepped out into the predawn light.

She had hobbled down two-thirds of the valley with Silenus draped over her shoulders like so much limp laundry when the poet said, “Brawne, are you still pregnant?”

“Yes,” she said, praying that that was still true after the day’s exertions.

“You want me to carry you?”

“Shut up,” she said and followed the path down and around the Jade Tomb.

“Look,” said Martin Silenus, twisting to point even as he hung almost upside down over her shoulder.

In the glowing light of morning, Brawne could see that the Consul’s ebony spacecraft now sat on the high ground at the entrance to the valley. But that was not what the poet was pointing toward.

Sol Weintraub stood silhouetted in the glare of the Sphinx’s entrance.

His arms were raised.

Someone or something was emerging from the glare.

Sol saw her first. A figure walking amidst the torrent of light and liquid time flowing from the Sphinx. A woman, he saw, as she was silhouetted against the brilliant portal. A woman carrying something.

A woman carrying an infant.

His daughter Rachel emerged—Rachel as he had last seen her as a healthy young adult leaving to do her doctoral work on some world called Hyperion, Rachel in her mid-twenties, perhaps even a bit older now—but Rachel, no doubt about that, Rachel with her copperish-brown hair still short and falling across her forehead, her cheeks flushed as they always were as with some new enthusiasm, her smile soft, almost tremulous now, and her eyes—those enormous green eyes with specks of brown just visible—those eyes fixed on Sol.

Rachel was carrying Rachel. The infant squirmed with its face against the young woman’s shoulder, tiny hands clenching and unclenching as it tried to decide whether to start crying again or not.

Sol stood stunned. He tried to speak, failed, and tried again.

“Rachel.”

“Father,” said the young woman and stepped forward, putting her free arm around the scholar while she turned slightly to keep the baby from being crushed between them.

Sol kissed his grown daughter, hugged her, smelled the clean scent of her hair, felt the firm reality of her, and then lifted the infant to his own neck and shoulder, feeling the shudders pass through the Newborn as she took a breath before crying. The Rachel he had brought to Hyperion was safe in his hands, small, red face wrinkled as she tried to focus her randomly wandering eyes on her father’s face. Sol cupped her tiny head in his palm and lifted her closer, inspecting that small face for a second before turning toward the young woman.

“Is she…”

“She’s aging normally,” said his daughter. She was wearing something part gown, part robe, made of soft brown material. Sol shook his head, looked at her, saw her smiling, and noticed the same small dimple below and to the left of her mouth that was visible on the infant he held.

He shook his head again. “How… how is this possible?”

“It’s not for very long,” said Rachel.

Sol leaned forward and kissed his grown daughter’s cheek again. He realized that he was crying, but he would not release either hand to wipe away the tears. His grown Rachel did so for him, touching his cheek gently with the back of her hand.

There was a noise below them on the steps, and Sol looked over his shoulder to see the three men from the ship standing there, red faced from running, and Brawne Lamia helping the poet Silenus to a seat on the white slab of railing stone.

The Consul and Theo Lane looked up at them.

“Rachel…” whispered Melio Arundez, his eyes filling.

“Rachel?” said Martin Silenus, frowning and glancing at Brawne Lamia.

Brawne was staring with her mouth half open. “Moneta,” she said, pointing, then lowering her hand as she realized she was pointing. “You’re Moneta. Kassad’s… Moneta.”