I found no muse on Hyperion during those first years. For many, the expansion of distance because of limited transportation--EMVs were unreliable, skimmers scarce--and the contraction of artificial consciousness due to absence of datasphere, no access to the All Thing, and only one fatline transmitter--all led to a renewal of creative energies, a new realization of what it meant to be human and an artist. Or so I heard. No muse appeared. My verse continued to be technically proficient and dead as Huck Finn's cat. I decided to kill myself.