Dan Simmons - The Hyperion Cantos Info

The Shrike is coming back through the door. I have perhaps three of your seconds.

“I am an envoy,” I said, my voice steady only because my lungs had been bred for vacuum. “My people wish to know: are you a god, or a machine?” Dan Simmons - The Hyperion Cantos

He smiled. It was a terrible expression. “I am the one who could have stopped it. I chose not to.” The Shrike is coming back through the door