The Pilgrims continue their journey on the Benares until they reach the deserted city of Edge, only to find their windwagon, which is meant to carry them on the next leg of their journey across the Sea of Grass, has either never arrived or left without them. Just as they begin to debate an un-crewed windwagon finally shows up.
Sol Weintraub is the next to tell his story to the group as they cross the grass sea.
Sol and his wife Sarai live in a small college town, surrounded by cornfields, Sol is a teacher at Nightenhelser College on Barnard’s World, and Sarai is a music critic. They had always wanted to be parents, and five years into their marriage, their daughter, Rachel, is born.
Rachel is an adventurous and inquisitive child, who shows interest in archeology from an early age. When she grows up, she decides to major in the subject at Nightenhelser College. Her career path leads her to travel to Hyperion, which appeals to her because it has the second-most non-human artifacts and “hasn’t become a tourist attraction yet.”
After 5 years (4 of which Rachel has spent in transit to Hyperion), Sol has a dream where a voice tells him multiple times that he must travel to Hyperion and offer his daughter as a burnt offering. This will become a recurring dream, in which Sol defies this command.
While on Hyperion, Rachel and her team study a structure called The Sphinx. One night when she is alone in the basement of the structure, the time-tide alarm sounds and all the lights go off. In the darkness, Rachel is grabbed by something sharp and cold, and falls unconscious.
Rachel is in a comatose state when she is rescued. Sol and his wife rush to the Web World of Renaissance Vector incurring 5 months time debt, Rachel is just waking up from the coma she has been in for the past 17 weeks.
The doctor informs Sol and Sarai that while in the Sphinx, Rachel was caught in a large time tide and has contracted an “aging disease.” Doctors and experts do not understand much about this other than the fact that she is aging backwards. They call this Merlin sickness.
Rachel also finds that every day that she wakes up, she loses a day of her memory before the accident and everything since. For a few years, she begins each day listening to a recording of herself explaining what has happened to her and filling in the gaps of her memory.
Meanwhile, Sol begins studying Hyperion and the Shrike. He also becomes fixated on the story of Abraham being commanded by God to sacrifice his son, Sol rebukes the idea of a God who would demand such a form of obedience.
Eventually, as Rachel loses more and more of her memories, she decides that it is too painful for her to re-process the information of what has happened to her each day. She asks her dad to just let her forget.
Years later, Melio Arundez, who was Rachel’s colleague and boyfriend while she was in Hyperion, arrives at Sol’s house and informs him that despite all the additional years he’s spent at the Sphinx since Rachel’s accident, he has not found any answers, but after seeing Rachel, who is now a teen, he tells Sol that he’s going back.
Sol’s ongoing search for a cure for Rachel brings him to a church of the Shrike on Lusus, and when he informs the priest that she contracted the disease in a structure called the Sphinx, the priest immediately jumps up and tells him to leave, cryptically declaring that Rachel is both the most blessed and cursed of individuals and that she has been chosen by the Avatar (another name for the Shrike) “to atone in a way that all sinners and nonbelievers must one day suffer.” Sol is forcibly kicked out of the church and not allowed to return.
A few more years pass, and Sol’s family is hounded by media attention over Rachel’s condition. To escape this, Sol takes an offer to relocate to Kibbutz K’far Shalom on Hebron, a place that offers his family sanctuary in the form of a supportive community for Rachel, who is now a young child, waking up each day confused and disoriented.
After living on Hebron for a few years, around the time Rachel is 5 years old, Sarai tells Sol that they must take Rachel back to Hyperion after revealing to him that she also has been having the same recurring dream as Sol. In her dreams, however, Sol is with her, and her interpretation of the dream is that Sol and Sarai are meant to offer themselves as a burnt offering to cure Rachel.
Sol disagrees with her and instead convinces her to take a week-long vacation to their hometown in Barnard’s World for the sake of her mental health. Shortly after she leaves, Sol is informed that she has been in a tragic EMV accident and died. Sol is overcome with grief.
Years pass and Rachel is now a baby. Sol, realizing time is running out for her, petitions the Shrike to become a pilgrim and even goes on TV as a last-ditch effort to get public pressure to allow him to go. Eventually they are able to make the 6 week trip to Hyperion.
After the story ends, the Pilgrims look to the sky and see that the tree ship Yggdrasill has been destroyed, probably by the Ousters.