Chapters 1-4 Summary

In the previous volume, a group of pilgrims set out to the world of Hyperion to attempt to puzzle out the phenomena of the Time Tombs and the mysterious being called the Shrike. Each pilgrim had an individual purpose for visiting the Time Tombs. Sol Weintraub was attempting to discover the reason why his daughter Rachel was aging backward after an incident on Hyperion 24 years earlier. The Consul, who was supposed to be the Hegemony's ambassador to the Ousters, was secretly betraying the Hegemony to avenge the abasement of his home world. Brawne Lamia sought the killers of her lover, John Keats, a cybrid who now resides in a neural shunt attached to the back of Lamia's head. Father Hoyt sought to have removed the strange parasitic lifeforms called cruciforms. Colonel Kassad wished to face the Shrike in combat and to...