been worn to the point that they seemed to sag in the middle.
I sat down for a second as the impact of this simple fact struck me. Even four centuries of daily travel by the Three Score and Ten could not account for such erosion of solid rock. Someone or something had used this path long before the Bikura colonists crashed here.
Someone or something had used this path for millennia.
I stood and walked on. There was little noise except for the wind blowing gently along the half-kilometer-wide Cleft. I realized that I could hear the soft sound of the river far below. The path curved left around a section of cliff and ended. onto a broad apron of gently descending stone and stared. made the sign of the cross without thinking. I stepped out I believe I Because this ledge ran due north and south for a hundred-meter cut of cliff, I could look due west along a thirty-kilometer slash of Cleft to open sky where the plateau ended. I realized at once that the setting sun would illuminate this slab of cliff wall under the overhang each evening. It would not have surprised me if -on the spring or autumn solstice- Hyperion's sun would, from this vantage point, appear to set directly into the Cleft, its red sides just touching the pinktoned rock walls.
I turned left and stared at the cliff face. The worn path led across the wide ledge to doors carved into the vertical slab of stone. No, these were not merely doors, they were portals, intricately carved portals with elaborate stone casements and lintels. To either side of these twin doors spread broad windows of stained glass, rising at least twenty meters toward the overhang. i went closer and inspected the facade.
Whoever had built this had done so by widening the area under the overhang, slicing a sheer, smooth wail into the granite of the plateau, and then tunneling directly into the cliff face. l ran my hand over the deeply cut folds of ornamental carving around the door. Smooth. Everything had been smoothed and worn and softened by time, even here, hidden away from most of the elements by the protective lip of overhang. How many thousands of years had this… temple… been carved into the south wail of the Cleft?
The stained glass was neither glass nor plastic but some thick, translucent substance that seemed as hard as the surrounding stone to the touch. Nor was the window a composite of panels; the colors swirled, shaded, melded, and blended into one another like oil on water.
I removed my flashlight from the pack, touched one of the doors, and hesitated as the tail portai swung inward with frictionless ease.
I entered the vestibule- there is no other word for it- crossed the silent ten-meter space, and paused in front of another wall made from the same stained-glass materiai that even now glowed behind me, filling the vestibule with thick light of a hundred subtle hues. 1 reaiized instantly that at the sunset hour the direct rays of the sun would fill this room with incredibly deep shafts of color, would strike the stained-glass wail in front of me, and would illuminate whatever lay beyond.
I found the single door, outlined by thin, dark metal set into the stained-glass stone, and 1 passed through it.
On Pacem we have – as best we could from ancient photos and holos-rebuilt the basilica of St Peter's exactly as it stood in the ancient Vatican. Almost seven hundred feet long and four hundred and fifty feet wide, the church can hold fifty thousand worshipers when His Holiness says Mass. We have never had more than five thousand faithful there even when the Council of Bishops of All the Worlds is in assembly every forty-three years.
In the central apse near our copy of Bernini's Throne of St Peter, the great dome rises more than a hundred and thirty meters above the floor of the altar.
It is an impressive space.
This space was larger.
In the dim light I used the beam of my flashlight to ascertain that! was in a single great room – a giant hall hollowed
I sat down for a second as the impact of this simple fact struck me. Even four centuries of daily travel by the Three Score and Ten could not account for such erosion of solid rock. Someone or something had used this path long before the Bikura colonists crashed here.
Someone or something had used this path for millennia.
I stood and walked on. There was little noise except for the wind blowing gently along the half-kilometer-wide Cleft. I realized that I could hear the soft sound of the river far below. The path curved left around a section of cliff and ended. onto a broad apron of gently descending stone and stared. made the sign of the cross without thinking. I stepped out I believe I Because this ledge ran due north and south for a hundred-meter cut of cliff, I could look due west along a thirty-kilometer slash of Cleft to open sky where the plateau ended. I realized at once that the setting sun would illuminate this slab of cliff wall under the overhang each evening. It would not have surprised me if -on the spring or autumn solstice- Hyperion's sun would, from this vantage point, appear to set directly into the Cleft, its red sides just touching the pinktoned rock walls.
I turned left and stared at the cliff face. The worn path led across the wide ledge to doors carved into the vertical slab of stone. No, these were not merely doors, they were portals, intricately carved portals with elaborate stone casements and lintels. To either side of these twin doors spread broad windows of stained glass, rising at least twenty meters toward the overhang. i went closer and inspected the facade.
Whoever had built this had done so by widening the area under the overhang, slicing a sheer, smooth wail into the granite of the plateau, and then tunneling directly into the cliff face. l ran my hand over the deeply cut folds of ornamental carving around the door. Smooth. Everything had been smoothed and worn and softened by time, even here, hidden away from most of the elements by the protective lip of overhang. How many thousands of years had this… temple… been carved into the south wail of the Cleft?
The stained glass was neither glass nor plastic but some thick, translucent substance that seemed as hard as the surrounding stone to the touch. Nor was the window a composite of panels; the colors swirled, shaded, melded, and blended into one another like oil on water.
I removed my flashlight from the pack, touched one of the doors, and hesitated as the tail portai swung inward with frictionless ease.
I entered the vestibule- there is no other word for it- crossed the silent ten-meter space, and paused in front of another wall made from the same stained-glass materiai that even now glowed behind me, filling the vestibule with thick light of a hundred subtle hues. 1 reaiized instantly that at the sunset hour the direct rays of the sun would fill this room with incredibly deep shafts of color, would strike the stained-glass wail in front of me, and would illuminate whatever lay beyond.
I found the single door, outlined by thin, dark metal set into the stained-glass stone, and 1 passed through it.
On Pacem we have – as best we could from ancient photos and holos-rebuilt the basilica of St Peter's exactly as it stood in the ancient Vatican. Almost seven hundred feet long and four hundred and fifty feet wide, the church can hold fifty thousand worshipers when His Holiness says Mass. We have never had more than five thousand faithful there even when the Council of Bishops of All the Worlds is in assembly every forty-three years.
In the central apse near our copy of Bernini's Throne of St Peter, the great dome rises more than a hundred and thirty meters above the floor of the altar.
It is an impressive space.
This space was larger.
In the dim light I used the beam of my flashlight to ascertain that! was in a single great room – a giant hall hollowed
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