Chapter 16 The third part enters the fifteenth chapter of the west

Isaac shut his mouth without being able to say anything more, and fell into a sleep from which he could not wake.Those in the fourth year continued to care for him, but there was nothing they could do about his condition.His vital signs are stable and he does not appear to be in immediate danger. Su Lian sat with him in Isaac's room, and the distant sunlight outside the window shone on the desert, passing the shadow over the alkaline sand bit by bit over time.Two days passed.One morning the sky was covered with soot-black clouds and thunder and lightning.There are occasional storms at this time of year that bring a little rain to the mountains.When the sun went down, the wind stopped and the rain stopped, and the sky returned to a clear blue.The air smelled fresh and pungent.The boy is still asleep.

On the wasteland to the west, the slender plants bloomed under the nourishment of the brief rain.Perhaps something else was blooming in the wilderness, too.Like Isaac's rose with eyes. Although Su Lian was calm on the surface, she was terrified in her heart. # The kid spoke in Ash's voice. ☆ She wondered if this was the trembling before God mentioned in religious books.Hypothetical intelligent beings weren't gods (if she knew what that simple yet super-elastic word meant), but they possessed godlike powers and were just as enigmatic.She didn't believe they had conscious minds, and even thought the term 'them' was a misnomer, a crude anthropomorphism.When they manifest, the natural human reaction is to cower and hide.This is the instinctive reaction of rabbits to foxes and foxes to hunters.

Twice in a lifetime, Su Lian thought, this is my special burden, to witness it twice in a lifetime. Isaac lay on the bed, his chest rising and falling in rhythm with his breathing.Su Lian sat on the chair beside the bed and took a nap from time to time.She often dreams, dreams are more shocking and deeper than when she was a child.In the dream, she was in a different desert, where the horizon was closer and the sky was a dark blue that penetrated people's hearts.The desert has rocks, sand, and many brightly colored tubes or thin plants.Like a madman's hallucinations come true.And of course this boy.Not Isaac.Another, first.Even weaker than Isaac, with darker skin, but like Isaac, the eyes are weird and full of golden highlights.He collapsed to the ground from exhaustion.Su Lian was with a group of adults, and she was the first to dare to walk past.

The boy opened his eyes.He couldn't move because his legs, arms and torso were all bound by soft vines.Strange plants pinned him there, some piercing him. He must be dead.With the body pierced like this, who could survive? But he opened his eyes.He opened his eyes and said softly: Su Lian ☆ She woke up in the chair next to Isaac's bed, sweating in the dry heat.Mrs. Rebuka had entered the room and was watching her. We have a meeting in the saloon.Mrs. Rebuka said, We want you to come, Ms. Moy. OK, I'll go. Has his condition changed? No.Su Lian said. But she thought to herself: the time has not come yet.

☆ It's not a coma, it's just sleep, a very deep sleep, and it lasts for days.That night, Isaac woke up, and when he woke up, he was alone in the room. He feels very different. Be more alert than usual: not just awake, but more awake than ever.His eyesight seemed sharper and more focused.He felt he could count the particles of dust in the air if he wanted to, even if the room was lit only by the light by the bedside. He wants to go west.It felt like something was attracting him there.As far as I know, there is no word to describe such a thing.A presence, rising up, and it needs him, and he needs it, an urgency similar to love or desire.

But he wasn't leaving the paddock, not tonight.Isaac's first, purely intuitive wanderings were fruitless, save for the discovery of the rose.At least until he regained his strength, there was no reason to go again.But he had to get himself out of the cramped room, to smell the air, and let his skin breathe. He got up, put on his clothes, and went downstairs.After passing through the large central room, the door was not closed tightly, and the serious voices of adults came from behind the door.He went out into the yard.There were guards at the gate in the distance, probably to prevent him from roaming around again.But tonight the guards are on the other side, in the walled garden.

He walked into the bushes and walked along the stone path laid by the gardener.The air is cool tonight and the garden is in bloom.The cacti that bloom at night are blooming, even under the dim moonlight, they can be seen very brightly. The falling dust was washed into the soil by the rain, and there were small things moving there. Isaac put his palm on a small patch of bare ground.The soil is warm and retains the residual temperature during the day. The stars are shining in the sky.Isaac stared for a long time.They were symbols, half-understood; letters, forming words, and forming sentences that he could almost (but not quite) understand.

His hand on the dirt seemed to touch something, and he looked down.When the hand was removed, the earth swelled and scum fell in all directions.Earthworms, he thought.But it's not an earthworm, not anything you've seen.It slowly wriggled out of the soil like a fat finger with knuckles.Maybe it was some kind of tree root, but it was growing too fast to be something of nature.As if feeling Isaac's temperature, it reached out towards his hand. He is not afraid.Uh, no, that's not true.A part of him was indeed afraid, almost frozen with fright.The normal part of him wants to back off, running back to the room to be safe.Yet now a new feeling transcended these parts of him, enveloping him, making him feel bold and confident.To the new Isaac, the pale green finger was not at all intimidating, not even unfamiliar.He recognized it, although he couldn't name it.

He let it touch him, green fingers slowly wrapping around his wrist.Isaac got a strange power from it, and it got a strange power from Isaac.Then he went to look at the sky where the stars were shining.At this time, each star seemed as familiar as each face. Each star had its own color and weight, and its distance and magnitude were also different. Although he knew them all, he couldn't name them.Like an animal sniffing the air, he turned west again. ☆ When Su Lian walked into the saloon, two things became apparent.One is that when she was away, they had already discussed it almost, and she was brought here to testify, not to discuss.

The second obvious thing is that there is an air of gloom, almost grief, about the place, as if these people knew that the life they had created was coming to an end.This is absolutely true.The group could no longer exist.It was created to raise Isaac, and that process is coming to an end no matter how it ends. Most of these people must have been born before the time round, Su Lian thought.Like the rest of the fourth year on Earth, a large percentage of them are from academia; there are also technicians, helping with cryo incubator maintenance; there is a mechanic, a gardener.Like the Martian 4th year people, these people also isolate themselves from the general community.They didn't look like the fourth-years Su Lian had raised, but they were fourth-years; they smelled of fourth-years, very sullen, very pompous, very pompous without knowing it.

Of course, the one who presided over the meeting was Avran.Duvally.He waved to a chair at the front of the room and asked Sulian to sit down.Before the crisis develops further, we would like you to explain a few things, Ms. Moai. Su Lian sat upright.Of course, I'm happy to help as best I can. Mrs. Rebuka sat at the head table, to Dr. Duvaly's right, and she cast her a sharp and suspicious look.I hope this is true.You know, when we took over the job of raising Isaac thirteen years ago, we faced some opposition raise him?Mrs. Rebuka, or make him? Mrs. Rebuka dismissed the criticism.It is the opposition of other members of the 4th year group.The beliefs we base ourselves on are not shared by everyone.We know we are a minority, a minority of a minority.Also know that you are doing work for the Martians elsewhere, Ms. Moai.Knowing that you will eventually find us, I am also ready to be honest with you.We respect you for your relationship to a group much older than our own. Thank you.Sulian said she didn't hide her doubts. But I hope you will be as frank with us as we are with you. Just ask if you have any questions. The procedure for making Isaac was tried before? Yes.Su Lian admits.That's right. You have some personal experience with this, is it true? This time she answered less quickly.Yes.The story of her upbringing is widely told among Earth Fourth Years. Can you share this experience with us? I don't want to talk about it, mostly for personal reasons.Because this memory is not pleasant. But still barely.said Mrs. Rebuka. Su Lian closed her eyes.She didn't want to recall these events, yet memories often came flooding her mind uninvited.But Mrs. Rebuka was right, even if Suliane hated to admit it.it's time. ☆ that boy. The boy in the desert.The boy in the Martian desert. The boy died in the dry southern province of Bakia, some distance from the biological research station where he was born and spent his life. Su Lian is the same age as the boy.She hadn't been born at Bagia Desert Station, but she couldn't remember any other homes.Her knowledge of what happened before Bakia was limited, and it all came from the stories told by the teachers: a girl and her family were swept away by the floodwaters of the Paya River and killed by someone on the inlet screen of a dam about five kilometers downstream. rescued.Both her parents were killed, and the little girl, this Suliane whom no one remembers, was seriously injured and could only be saved by massive biotechnological intervention. Specifically, the girl Suliane had to rebuild, and that was done with life-prolonging fourth-year therapy. Treatment has been generally successful.Her damaged body and mind were rebuilt based on her template DNA.Of course, she has no memory of her life before the accident.She gets a rebirth, like a baby to learn to understand the world again from scratch, learn language a second time, crawl for a while, and then waddle and take the first (or second) step. But this therapy has a disadvantage, which is why it is rarely used in interventional medicine.Not only did it provide her inherent longevity, it also interfered with the natural cycle of her life.During puberty, each Martian child develops deep wrinkles that distinguish Martians from Earthlings in appearance.But this situation did not happen to Su Lian.She was still (by Martian standards) genderless, hideously smooth-skinned, and an overgrown baby.When she looked in the mirror (even today), she couldn't help but think of something pink and oddly shaped, like a maggot writhing in the trunk of a rotting tree.In order to protect her and prevent her from being humiliated, those fourth-year people at the Bakia Desert Station who saved her life took her in and raised her.In the desert station, there are hundreds of parents who dote on her and love her, and the dry hills of Bagia are her playground. The only child besides her at Desert Station was a boy named Ash. They called him no other name than Ash. Ash was created to communicate with imaginary intelligent creatures, although Su Lian felt that he couldn't even communicate with the people around him.Even to Suliane (with whom he seemed to enjoy his company) he seldom said more than a few words at a time.Ash was separated from the crowd, and Su Lian could only visit him at certain designated times. But she was his friend.Sulian didn't care that the boy's nervous system might pick up invisible signals from aliens any more than Ash cared that she was pink like a stillborn fetus.Their respective uniqueness makes each other similar, so that the uniqueness becomes irrelevant. The fourth year at Bagia Desert Station encourages this friendship.They were disappointed by Ash's stubborn silence and what appeared to be his intellect.He is serious, but not curious.He sat with his eyes wide open in the classrooms designed for him by adults, and absorbed a considerable amount of knowledge, but he was indifferent to them.The sky was full of stars, and the desert was full of sand, but it didn't matter to Ash if the stars and the sand switched places.Whether he spoke to hypothetical intelligent beings, or whether they spoke to him, no one knows.On this subject he was stubbornly silent. Ash was at his liveliest when alone with Sulian.On certain days, they can leave the desert station to explore the nearby desert.They are supervised, of course, and there is always an adult within sight of them.But compared to those enclosed spaces in the desert station, this is already very wild and free.Bakia was terribly dry, but the scant spring rains sometimes pooled among the rocks, and Sulian loved the little creatures that swam in these makeshift ponds.There is a small fish that hides itself in a cyst when it dries up, hibernates like a seed, and wakes up when the rare rain falls.She loved scooping up the water that harbored many creatures with both hands, leaving Ash with a silent, amazed expression, watching the writhing little things slip out of her fingers. Ash never asked, but Sulian would pretend he did.At the station she was always taught, always encouraged to listen; and alone with Ash she became the teacher, and he the attentive and quiet listener.Often she would explain to him what she had learned that day or that week. People didn't live on Mars all the time, she told him one day when they were walking among the dusty rocks in the sun.Thousands of years, thousands of centuries ago, their ancestors came from the earth, and the earth is a planet that is relatively close to the sun.You can't see the Earth directly because hypothetical intelligent beings encase it in a light-tight membrane.But you know it's there because there's a moon around it. She mentions the hypothetical intelligent being (the Martians call it Abu Ashken, a combination of powerful and remote), at first cautiously, guessing that Ash doesn't know how to react.She knew he was partly a hypothetical intelligent being, and she didn't want to offend him.But the term didn't elicit a particular reaction, only his usual indifference.So Su Lian is free to explain, imagine, dream.Even back then, hypothetical intelligent beings had fascinated her. She told the boy: As far as common knowledge is concerned, they are among the stars. And Ash, of course, wouldn't say anything back. # They are not animals, more like machines, but they can grow and reproduce. They did things for seemingly no apparent reason they put the Earth in a slow time bubble millions of years ago, but no one knows why. Nobody ever talked to them unless you did.No one has seen them either.But bits and pieces of them will fall from the sky from time to time, and strange things will happen ☆ Fragments of them fell from the sky.This statement caused considerable consternation among Dr. Duvale's fourth-year fellows. Duvali cleared his throat and said: There is no mention of such a thing in the Mars file. no.Su Lian admits.Nor is it mentioned when we communicate directly with Earth.Even on Mars, this kind of thing is rare, about once every two or three hundred years. Mrs Rebuka said: Excuse me, what happened?I don't know. Hypothetical intelligent beings exist in an ecology, Mrs Rebuka.They flourish, thrive, die, and repeat the cycle, over and over. By hypothetical intelligent beings, I assume you mean their machines?Dr. Duvali said. There may not be a very important difference between the two.There is no evidence that their self-replicating machines are not controlled by their own network intelligence, and their own accidental evolution.Naturally, the detritus of their lives flowed through the solar system.Occasionally these remnants are captured by the gravity of an inner planet. Why didn't these things fall to the earth? Before the time spin, Earth existed in a much younger solar system.Five billion years ago, hypothetical intelligent life barely inhabited the Kuiper belt.Even if their machines entered the earth's atmosphere, they would be alone or sparsely.Reports from Earth of lingering blobs of light, or bizarre sky objects, do seem to happen from time to time, though no one is quite sure what it is.When the time gyration film appeared, it blocked the residue from penetrating and falling.Even now, the Earth is protected by a different membrane from excessive radiation from the sun.Mars, fortunately or unfortunately, did not block those things.The Martians are no strangers to this, Dr. Duvali.We have grown and evolved for thousands of years and all along we have known that hypothetical intelligent beings exist and that the solar system is actually their property. (Note: Kuiper Belt, in 1915, the American astronomer Kuiper discovered that there is a belt-shaped area between 30 and 100 astronomical units from the sun, with many ice bodies orbiting the sun.) Is the dust that falls on us the same phenomenon?said Mrs. Rebuka.Her voice was hoarse, with a hostile eagerness. possible.So do those things that grow in the desert.It is natural to speculate that this solar system has also been inhabited by hypothetical intelligent beings for countless centuries.The annual meteor shower is not like the simple remnants of ancient meteorites, but more likely their debris.Fallout is nothing but a particularly dense drop, perhaps the result of a recent molt.It's like we're passing through a cloud made of Made of their discarded cells.Dr. Duvali said. It is a kind of cell, which is shed, maybe discarded, but it is not necessarily lifeless or completely dead.Part of the metabolism remains.Hence the rose with the eyes and other growths that are stunted and die soon. Your countrymen must have studied the remains. oh yes.In fact we even bred them.Much of our biotechnology comes from studying them.Even longevity cures have reasons for postulating intelligent beings.Most of our medicines use some elements of imaginary intelligent biotechnology, so we simulate the environment of the outer solar system and cultivate them at low temperature. I think that boy from Mars is the same as Isaac The treatments they receive are more closely related to the raw materials of hypothetical intelligent biological devices.I guess you think it's some kind of purely human-made potion?Another example of amazing Martian biotechnology?In a sense yes, but it's not just that, it's something inhuman, inherently out of control. And Van Novin brought the seeds to Earth. If the Earth civilization discovered by Van Novin is as ancient and wise as we Martians have always thought, I believe he will frankly explain its origin.Unfortunately, however, he found that things were quite different.He told Jason many of our secrets.Lawton, and Jason.Lawton recklessly used himself to conduct experiments, and passed on these secrets to the so-called trusted people. As a result, those people were not very cautious at all. Su Lian felt the surprise in the room.Van Noven and Jason.The names of these two people, Lawton, are mentioned with respect when they are mentioned among the fourth-year people of the earth.However, they are human beings after all, prone to doubt, fear, greed, and making hasty decisions that they regret later. Dr. Duvali finally spoke: But, you can still tell us These are fourth year things!Su Lian was taken aback by the ferocity of her tone.You do not understand.This is not Zuri.She couldn't quite translate the word and all its subtle meanings.It is wrong and inappropriate for unreformed people to know this.The unreformed man doesn't want to know, these things are for the very old to worry about; once they accept the burden of longevity, accept it too.But I'd love to tell you that before you start this project, Dr. Duvaly, if you haven't hidden yourself that well. However, the people she spoke to were born in the noisy forests of the earth, even if their fourth year is different, they cannot be expected to understand.The last period of life, those select decades, are to them nothing but years to breathe.All fourth years on Mars are formally cut off from other people.When entering the fourth year (except under exceptional circumstances, as Sulian did), it has become a tradition to be restrained and agree to the secluded life that comes with it.The Fourth Year of Earth has attempted to re-establish some of these traditions, and the group has even retreated to a desert-like sanctuary.But the difference is that they do not understand its burden, they are not ready to receive this divine knowledge. Paradoxically, they lacked the extreme dryness of monastic life in the fourth year of Mars.That's why Sulian hated the fourth-year guys who raised her.Martian 4th year people behave as if they are walking through invisible corridors in some ancient maze.They trade joy for a dusty majesty.But even that is better than the chaotic recklessness of Earth.In the fourth year of the earth, all the sins of mankind are unnecessarily prolonged. Perhaps sensing her excitement, Dr. Duvali said: But what about the baby?Please tell us what happened to Ash, Ms. Moey. ☆ What happened to Ash was as simple as it was terrifying.It begins with the wreckage of hypothetical intelligent beings falling from the outer solar system. This incident was not entirely unexpected.Astronomers on Mars have tracked the movement of the dust cloud for days.People here are excited about what's to come.Sulian was allowed to climb the stairs to a high buttress at Bagia Desert Station to watch the fiery falling dust.The desert station had served as a fort during the last war five hundred years ago. It had never happened in either of Sulian's lives.She wasn't the only one climbing up the wall to watch.Bakia Station faces away from the ridge of the Omer Mountains, and most of the wreckage will fall on the dry southern plains.The plain stretched out under the starlight, looking mysterious.That night, the sky was full of shooting stars like lines of fire, and Su Lian watched the performance intently until the annoying drowsiness hit her.Her caregiver put a hand on her back and sent her back to sleep. Ash climbed up the parapet, too, and watched the wreckage fall, glowing green and gold, but showed no reaction. Back on the bed, Su Lian found that the drowsiness had disappeared.She lay awake for a long time, thinking about what she had seen, and about the piled-up remains of Abu Ashken's device.To think of those things that ate ice and rock, were born and died in eons of solitude away from the sun, their remnants burning as they fell through the atmosphere.Quite a few remnants of it survived, beginning an incomplete new life.History books describe this strange growth with bizarre mechanical features, and the temperature and (for them) corrosive air on this planet are not suitable for them to survive.is this real?If so, can she see it with her own eyes?Astronomers say the material will fall not far from Bagia Station.Su Lian is so fascinated by imaginary intelligent creatures, she really wants to see a living sample with her own eyes. Ash apparently did too. The next morning, the atmosphere at the station was quite exciting.Ash was emotional and cried for the first time since infancy.His carers found him banging his head against the south wall of his bedroom.Some invisible influence shattered his usual complacency. Su Lian wanted to see him, especially after hearing the news, but she was turned down for several days.They had a doctor examine Ash.The boy's fever rose and fell, and he fell asleep and woke up again.Whenever he woke up, he asked others to let him go outside. He had given up eating, and Suliane could hardly recognize him when she was allowed into the room.Ash had been a stocky, round-faced man who looked small; now he was gaunt and thin, and his eyes, with their strange golden spots, were set deep in his thin skull. She asked him what was the matter, and did not expect to answer, but he said unexpectedly: I want to see them. What?who?Who do you want to see? Abu Ashken. The boy's timid voice made the word even weirder.Su Lian felt a chill creeping from the bottom of her spine to her forehead. What do you mean by going to see them? to the desert.Ash said. There is nothing there. Yes, there is something.Abu Ashken. Then he started crying and Su Lian had to leave the room.The nurse caring for Esh followed her into the hallway and said: He has been clamoring to get out of here for days.But this is the first mention of Abu Ashken. are they really there?These hypothetical intelligent beings, Abu Ashken, or at least remnants of them?Su Liann asked her caregiver this question.The caregiver was a frail elderly man who was an astronomer before turning into the fourth year.He said, yes, there was some activity on the south side.Also show her a group of aerial photography photos taken a few days ago. This is a wasteland, full of sand, dust and rocks, not much different from the wasteland outside the gate of Bagia Station.But sitting on a large sloping ground was a large group of things that were too weird to describe.To Sulian, these were oddly incomplete half-finished products: brightly colored tubes, silver hexagonal mirrors, spheres divided into compartments.These things are still connected, like a certain part of the body of a huge, weird insect. This must be where he wants to go.Su Lian said. may be.But we can't let him go.The risk was too great, he might get hurt. He's already hurt here.He looks like he's dying! Her teacher shrugged.It's not up to you or me to decide. Maybe.But Su Lian was afraid for Ash.He wasn't exactly a friend, but he was the only one.He shouldn't be forced to be imprisoned, and Su Lian really wanted to let him go.She imagined what to do, how to sneak into the room and sneak him out, but the corridor where Bakia was standing was always full of people coming and going, and Ash was always guarded. Besides, she was not allowed to see him very often.Her life felt empty without him quietly by his side.Sometimes she would walk across the room and cringe when she heard him cry. The sunny days passed as if they never ended, and the situation remained unchanged.Her teacher said that outside in the wasteland, Abu Ashken's growths had bloomed and started to wither because they were not adapted to the environment.Ash's restlessness, however, was growing. ☆ Dr Duvally said: "Are these growths dangerous? not dangerous.They are short-lived. Su Lian thought, like a greenhouse flower, transplanted into the wrong climate and soil. ☆ The last time she saw Ash alive was a day later. This morning Sulian was outside, in the place where they used to walk together.Her caregivers kept a distance from her and knew she was upset and wanted to be alone. It was another sunny day.Rocks cast deep shadows on the sand.Sulian walked around the gate, her mind empty, trying not to think about Ash.Just then she saw him, stepping in the shadow of a large rock, facing south, standing there like a mirage.Su Lian was taken aback. It's just unbelievable.Sulian looks back at her caregiver (also an older fourth year).He had stopped, resting in the shadow of the south wall of Bagia Station.The old man didn't see Ash, and Su Lian kept quiet, so as not to show his feet. She deliberately approached slowly, trying to avoid being too hasty and attracting the attention of the old man.Ash looked up at her from his hiding place, sad. She bent down, pretending to examine a shale or a scurrying sand beetle, and whispered: How did you get out? Do not tell anyone.Ash begged her. No, of course I won't.but how do you No one saw it.I stole a robe.He said, holding up a large desert white robe, and raised those two sleeves.I climbed up the north buttress, which was connected to the rock wall, and I climbed down. But what are you doing here?It will be dark in a few hours. I am doing what has to be done. You need food and water. I can do without. no.Su Liann always takes water with her whenever she leaves the desert station, and she insists on handing him the water bottle she carries with her, and giving him a compressed meal bar that she left for herself. They'll find out I'm missing.Ash said, don't tell them you saw me. Suliane had never had so many conversations with Ash, and compared to usual, it was almost endless.She said: "I would, I mean, I wouldn't say it.I won't tell anyone. Thank you, Sulian. Another amazing new thing.It was the first time he had said her name, and probably the first time anyone's.It wasn't Ash that stepped on the sand in front of her eyes, it was Ash plus something else. Abu Ashken.Su Lian thought. A hypothetical intelligent being inside his body, looking out through his altered eyes. A bell rang somewhere in the desert station, and Suliane's drowsy caregiver sprang to alert, calling her name.run.she said softly. But she didn't wait to see if the boy heeded her advice.She turned toward the desert station, pretended nothing had happened, and walked up to her caregiver without saying a word, as if the silence Ash had been in for years entered her throat and choked her. ☆ What does he want?Want to find something that's fallen?Maybe but then what?Duvally asked. I have no idea.I guess I'm looking for the same kind.The same instincts or programs that make replicators of hypothetical intelligent beings gather, share information, and reproduce might also work in the boy Ash.It is dangerous to get close to the fallen residue.Su Lian said. Like Isaac?asked Mrs. Rebuka. possible. Your countrymen must have asked the same question back then. Unfortunately, no answers were found. Duvali said: "You said the boy died. Yes. Tell us how he died. Su Lian thought to herself: Do I have to?Do you have to endure it again? Of course she had to suffer.Every day in the past, present and future, she has to endure. ☆ He had been away from the desert station for several hours, and by the time Su Lian's determination collapsed, it was already late at night.The thought of Ash being out there alone in the night frightened her.The anxiety and panic caused by the boy's absence gave the entire desert station an electric shock, which made her determination shaken even more.So she went to what she thought was the kindest teacher, her astronomy teacher Rogers.She said that she saw Ash this afternoon, and she cried while talking, the tears of guilt seemed to burst a dam.After Luo Qisi finally understood what she said, he ordered her to stay where she was.He immediately went to organize a search party. A group of five men and three women left the desert station at dawn. They were quite experienced in the dangers and geography of the desert.All of them sat in a truck, pulled by a big machine (there were very few big machines in the desert station, and on this resource-poor planet, big machines were a luxury).They let Sulian go with them so they could point out where she had last seen Ash.If she finds it, she can also help persuade him to return to the desert station. They had asked for finer machines, lighter-than-air clairvoyants, etc., to be sent to the nearest great city, but these would not be delivered for another day.Before that, Roches told her to rely on eyesight and intuition.Fortunately, Ash did not hide his whereabouts. It was obvious that he was going to the place where Abu Ashken's fall was most concentrated. As the party walked across the lowlands and into the basins of the southern desert, Sulian saw the fallen objects rotting firsthand.The truck was approaching a dry and crumbling mass of er, stuff, that's the only word Sullien could use to describe it.A wide-mouthed tube of pale yellow, two people high, stood high above a cluster of spheres, pyramids, and silver-white mirrors.These things all grew out of the pebble-strewn desert floor and died again.Or almost dead.A few feathery tendrils, like giant bird feathers, waved feebly among the surreal litter, or perhaps a dry breeze had moved them. The first time Sulian faced the hypothetical intelligent being was when she looked into Ash's altered eyes.Now is the second time.Although the weather was very hot, she shivered and shrank back, leaning against Rogers. Don't be afraid, there is nothing dangerous here.He said. But she wasn't afraid, not much.A different emotion took over her, a dizzying mix of panic and fascination.These were fragments of Abu Ashken, parts of something starry, sinews and bones of a god's body. As if I could feel them.she whispered. Perhaps what she felt was her own future, like a rising river, rushing towards her. ☆ 莫埃女士，杜瓦利博士嚴厲地說：那個男孩是怎麼死的？ 蘇麗安讓交誼廳裡的靜默再持續一會兒。Now it was late.萬籟俱寂。她想像自己可以聽見沙漠的風在她耳中一波波吹動。 可能是氣力耗盡吧。最後我們在一個小漥地發現他，起初看不見，一直到我們走得很近才看到。他平躺著，幾乎沒有了呼吸。他周圍 她不喜歡那幕景象。她這漫長的一生中，這幕景象始終縈繞不去。 go on.杜瓦利說。 他周圍長出了東西。他被包圍在某種假想智慧生物殘留物的矮叢中。那些東西看起來很危險，尖尖的像矛，由一種堅脆的綠色物質組成。發育得也不完整，顯然不牢固。不過仍在動仍然是活的，如果你接受這種形容的話。 它們包圍住他？芮布卡太太問，她的聲音比較溫柔了。 可能是在他睡著的時候在周圍長出來的，或者他是故意走過去的。有一些刺穿他了。她碰了碰肋骨、腹部，說明是哪些地方。 把他刺死了？ 我們找到他的時候，仍然清醒。 ☆ 蘇麗安從羅其斯身邊衝出去，想也沒想就往被外星尖刺刺穿的埃許跑過去，毫不理會那些叫她回去的驚呼聲。 這都是她的錯。她不應該幫助埃許逃出沙漠站。雖然他在那裡不快樂，但是至少還安全。此刻他卻被可怕的東西打敗了。 這些阿布阿許肯的生長物雖然怪異，她卻不特別害怕。它們圍著男孩身體長出來，像是一圈削尖的籬笆柱。蘇麗安可以聞到它們，雖然根本沒注意到，那是一種刺鼻的化學味、有硫磺和酸腐的臭味。這些生長物並不健康，身上有密密麻麻的裂口和裂縫，有些地方像是爛了一樣，變成黑色了。當她走過去時，長梗會微微移開，彷彿知道她來了。也許真的知道呢。 它們絕對是知道埃許的。有幾棵最高的生長物弓成半圓形，而用尖端刺進男孩身體。在他胸口和腹部共刺了三個地方，衣服上留下一小團一小團乾了的血漬。起初蘇麗安看不出他是死或活。 他睜開眼睛，望著她，然後竟不可思議地露出微笑。 蘇麗安，他說，我找到它了。 然後他最後一次閉上了眼睛。 ☆ 交誼廳中的靜默被一聲怯生生的敲門聲打斷。 這個團體中只有一個人沒有參加這次會議。芮布卡太太匆忙去開了門。 艾沙克站在門外，身上仍然穿著睡衣，兩個膝蓋上帶著髒污，兩手也髒了，神情抑鬱。 somebody is coming.He said.