Chapter 36 The Sixth Order of Time Chapter Thirty-five

When it is all over, that is to say, when the great shining forest is gone and only a few limp and rapidly decaying flower stalks remain; After the desert basin began to sleep again for 10,000 years, Liz returned to Port Magellan. The sky is clear.Fifty or sixty ships are moored at the port, but not as many as before; it can also be said that there are not as many as in the future, that is, there is no re-establishment of the oil industry, and there are as many after the recovery of the tourism industry. She stayed in a hotel.The Department of Genetic Security seems to have lost interest in Duvaly since her fourth year bombed the bioreactor in Kubrick's tomb.Still, her name might be on someone's list, so she rented a room under a false name while she figured out how to go about rearranging her life.Finally, a week after arriving (not on a trawler, as she had imagined, but by bus with forty or fifty other refugees from Rub Al Khali), she mustered up the courage to With the remaining courage, call Brian.Gately.

After an exclamation of surprise and disbelief from him, she agrees to meet him at a venue they both agree on: Harley's.It was about a warm afternoon, and the reserved seats overlooked the entire hill, stretching from the white city to the bay. Liz arrived early and used the spare time to think about what to say to him, but her mind couldn't concentrate.The waiter distracted her with ice water and bread.The waiter's name tag read Mahmood, so she asked Tyrell if he was still working in the restaurant.She remembered Tyrell, the night of the first dust fall on August 34th, and she brought Turk here to see Sulian.Moai's photo.Don't do it, Tyrell is back in the United States, Mahmoud said.After the strange thing fell from the sky, many people left Port Magellan.Everything remained the same, Liz thought, and yes, everything was different again.After Mahmood left the table, she saw Brian walk through the door.He hesitated for a moment, then smiled.She nodded.

He came over and sat down at the table.Brian.Gately, no longer from Genetic Safety.It was one of the first things he told her when she called.I don't work for them anymore.He said, as if serious about proving his sincerity.I quit my job.But did not say why. What a coincidence you found me, he said, and I won't be living in the apartment next week.At present, all my possessions are four packed luggage and a ticket to go home. Are you going back to America? There is no reason to stay here anymore.Let me tell you a secret, Liz.I hate this city, and I hate this whole planet. Because he is no longer working in the Department of Genetic Safety, he can't help her.But he couldn't hurt her anymore.As a threat, he's more or less useless.So the only question left was, would she be willing to tell him what had happened in the desert?Because he wants to ask.She was sure he would ask.

☆ hold on.Su Lian.Moai told her so, and Lise did, even when it seemed like the whole world was falling beneath her.The bright fluorescent balls around fell from the imaginary intelligent creature tree, and were sucked into the central vortex of the temporary arch.The wind becomes a gale, and the gale becomes a hurricane.She pressed against a concrete pillar tightly, and was too frightened to cry out.She only vaguely felt Su Lian.Moai huddled under the same stone platform not far away. The wind kept blowing, she was awake for a while, and unconscious for a while, but she was able to hold on all the time.She also woke up again and again, but it didn't seem like waking up from a nightmare, but rather like entering a nightmare.Is the night over?Is it a day or a night?

After all, the wind stopped, the wind reduced to a breeze, and the world returned to normal.Su Lian.Moai called her name: Liz.Adams!Are you hurt? There could be a thousand answers to this question, but she couldn't tell. ☆ She must have slept for some time.The uncanny arch to the west was gone, and with it, most of the Dark Forest.All that remains are dilapidated buildings, rough foundations, cracked and crumbling pavements, and the stumps of supposedly intelligent trees.Here is the desert again, Liz thought.And the excruciating pain of muscle cramps, and endless, deep mourning. A few days later, she and Su Lian.Moai sat by the side of a desolate road, starved and emaciated, and in rags.Not far away were a dozen weary men and women, mostly men.Those who escaped crisis in the cracks of abandoned buildings or destroyed oil facilities.They were waiting for a bus that aid workers said would arrive at any moment, bound for a recovery area on the northeast coast.But Liz and Sulian plan to slip away before that, maybe in Bastee.They were going to make their way over the mountains.

She turned to Su Lian, who was sitting with her chin resting on her hands.are you thirsty just tired.Said the Martian woman.Lise felt that her old voice was torturing the E string of a violin like an unresined bow.I'm thinking of Dr. Duval. Avran.Duvally.died.can never be redeemed.how is he? He was wrong about many things.But he may be right about hypothetical intelligent beings.The Martian woman's expression became even sadder.I believe that hypothetical intelligent beings are not consciously acting, that is, not conscious entities.Only process.Evolving needles, always knitting.

Liz doesn't care about it at the moment, but it's important to Su Lian, and Su Lian has always been good to her, so she said: Well, isn't it?What happened here, you said it was planned in advance? Not planned.There has never been anything like a galactic council deciding to erect a temporary gate in the middle of Equatoria.I guess it developed over millions of years and is an unforeseeable consequence, like every evolutionary act. So Duvali was wrong. But only in the most superficial sense.She said Isaac had explained it to her at the dilapidated mall.Millions of highly evolved self-replicating machines collect and revise information specific to a space in space.This information is regularly sent here for compilation.The Temporary Arch pushed this information ten thousand years in the future, while at the same time a similar body of ancient information was released into the present to reabsorb and restore what was lost due to disorder.It's not a negative memory, it's the act of remembering.An organism remembers in order to survive, or to improve its behaviour.

This is the case with the memory of hypothetical intelligent beings, well, I get it.But But if the network can remember, there must be some will, at least a basic sense of knowing that one is separate from the rest of nature.In other words, the whole is exactly what Dr. Duvaly imagined it to be, a transcendent being, so vast that even a detailed record of a human life is but a tiny fraction of the tiniest component. A detailed record of a human life.For example, Ash's.for example And that hints at something else, perhaps even scarier.Take Jason.According to Lawton, because he is remembered by a network of hypothetical intelligent beings, he has achieved a kind of existence beyond death.Maybe a negative presence, but there's a deep meaning nonetheless.What shall we think of it, Miss Adams, when this fact is known?In the simplest terms, there is a god, and this god can make people immortal, and this immortality can be facilitated by drugs.That is Jason.The drug Roden took, the drug that connected him to a hypothetical intelligent being before killing him.Su Lian.Moy said.

Lise said: But if it's fatal Physically lethal, but if one is remembered, if one goes directly from death into the heart of a very real God People will be very tempted. More than tempting.They'll call it the fifth year.Pay attention to what I say.They would call it the fifth year, not adulthood after adulthood, but rebirth after death.They're going to look forward to it, they're going to fight for it, they're going to create their Ministry of Mental Safety and what does that end up making us?I dare not think too much. The Martian woman closed her eyes, as if she did not want to see this unbearable vision of the future.

Lise still wanted to know what Su Lian had to say about hypothetical intelligent beings.If they can remember, they must be a being with some kind of consciousness, that is to say with some kind of mind.The mind is made up of millions and millions of unconscious parts, but isn't every mind the same?Like, her own mind? The afternoon sun was relentless.Liz took a big sip of the bottled water distributed by the rescuers.She adjusted the brim of her hat, which was also issued by them.She said: If it has memory, what else?Does that mean it also has, say, compassion, or imagination? Su Lian thought about this question for a while, then she smiled slightly.Her old lips were chapped and bleeding in places.This must hurt, Liz thought.I have no idea.Maybe we have our own roles to play.I am referring to the role of species.The intervention of hypothetical intelligent creatures makes some things unpredictable.Wouldn't you say this is an imaginary act?

So, a network of hypothetical intelligent beings could remember, maybe even dream, and decompose humans into its dreams.But does it feel sad?Wondering about the galaxy beyond its boundaries?Did it talk to those galaxies?And do those galaxies have an answer? These are the questions her father would ask. Her shadow lay in front of her like a dark twin sister, and she squinted into the distance.That little dot in the shadeless desert might be an approaching bus. If it lives, she thought, does that mean it will die too?Does it know that it will die? Does it want to live forever? ☆ Much of what Liz witnessed (the alien forest, the eruption of the temporary arch, and the eventual collapse) was captured by drone cameras and turned back to Port Magellan.Now these images have been broadcast throughout this world, and into the more crowded world next door.News commentators have become accustomed to calling it a hypothetical intelligent event of unknown importance.She told Bryan that she was very close when it happened and that she was lucky to be alive, but declined to elaborate.Not because she didn't trust him, but because the memory was vivid but could not be expressed in words. Brian seemed to accept that, but then he asked (with every trick he could think of), Turk.What happened to Finlay.Lise closed her eyes, thinking about what she had to say. ☆ All she could think (and she couldn't mention) was his voice, coming out of the wind and the night. Out of that darkness came forth, and that darkness was illuminated by the fruit still hanging on the tree of hypothetical intelligent beings.Even as the wind roared around, blowing away more and more of the orbs, the orbs on the stem gave off a collective, seemingly unreal starlight.The ever-changing colors are reflected in Su Lian.Wrapped in a tarp over Moai's face, she climbed into the little shelter under the concrete platform.In the morning, Lise secretly promised that when the wind died down (if the wind died down), as long as people could stand up, she would dig.She's going to dig where hypothetical intelligent beings dig, and she's going to dig up Turk and Isaac and even Dr. Duvali.But for a long time after the collapse of the building, for several hours, I saw that the wind continued to intensify, blowing the trees of hypothetical intelligent beings to bend their backs, like penitents in prayer.Gusts of howling wind poured in through the gaps in the concrete platform, and Lise could hear the murmur of the siding and metal panels being swept up into the air.Shiny orbs rattled on stiff branches, or were blown down and up again by the wind.She saw (or dreamed she saw) them congregating in the air, forming a river, flowing over the now bare branches of hypothetical intelligent beings; Temporary arches. Alice.A voice behind her called, loud enough to be heard over the screaming of the startlingly noisy wind.That's Turk's voice!Surprised, she sat up and wanted to turn her head to face him.He's somewhere behind these concrete piers, stone piers that have withstood the strong winds.Turk! Don't look at me, Liz.You better not look at it. She was too frightened to look at these words, imagining that he must have been slightly or seriously injured.So she looked at the ground, which wasn't any better, because she could see it in the shadows.There must have been a clear light coming in where Turk was standing, and that light probably came from Turk.This drove her into a deeper panic, so she simply closed her eyes.Shut it tight, squeeze your fist hard, and let him talk. ☆ Alice?Brian said, are you okay? fine.she says.There was a wine glass in front of her, and Mahmood was pouring it.Pour it again.She pushed the glass away.sorry. ☆ Turk said a few things. It's something private.It's something she'll take to her grave.Those words were meant for her alone. He apologized to her in simple words for leaving her.He had no choice, he said.There was only one door left for him to go through. When she asked him where he was going, all he said was: west. ☆ He went west.She told Brian. ☆ When she finally forced herself to look up, to actually look, what she saw was not Turk but Isaac.Isaac was ragged and wounded, and one arm was folded twice, but it shone like a full moon.His skin became as bright as those memory balls, and the color changed, as if he had become one of the balls.She thought he had indeed become one of them. She understood this because Turk had explained it.Turk's body is still in the ruins, but his living memory is here, along with the shattered remains of this Isaac, dug up by the supposedly intelligent tree.And Ash was with him, and Jason.Lawton, and Anna.Rebuka. Where's Diane? Diane, he said, preferred to stay in the back. Where's Dr. Duvaly?she also asked. No.Dr. Duvale is away. Then Isaac's shiny body floated into the wind, which carried it westward. ☆ Brian was talking about your book. There are no books at all. So did you learn anything about your father? There are several pieces. I did some research myself, and you mentioned Thomas.After Jin En, I went to inquire about it.Kim is dead, Liz.He was killed during a secret investigation. Liz said nothing. The same thing may have happened to your father. possible? Well no, it did happen. Do you have proof? There is a photo.Not counted as evidence.There is no way to sue.But it's the truth, Lise, if that's what you're looking for. A photo of her father A photo of her father's body.Bryan seemed to suggest so.She doesn't want to look.I know what happened.she says. Yeah? She knows what happened to her innocent father.She also knew things that even Brian didn't know about what killed him and why.She has texted her mother in California: He is not leaving us.He was taken away.I know. Her mother also sent a text message back: Then you can go home. However, home is where I am.Liz replied.Later, as she walked by the pier in the morning mist, she knew it was true. ☆ On the way into Port Magellan, she met Su Lianne at a small country bus stop.Moai said goodbye.Liz had asked the Martian woman before if she had a problem with being alone, but she certainly didn't; she'd gotten by for decades with her wit and the benevolent generosity of a fourth year.And she still has work to do, she said.Isaac was a major setback, but there are more battles to come.Regardless of what the network of hypothetical intelligent beings really is, Su Lian.Moai still doesn't agree that there is communication between it and humans.I don't want myself or the species I'm part of to be an element in some kind of biological mass exchange.she says. where are you goingLiz asked. The Martian woman smiled and said: Maybe I'm going west.And you?How are you? Not good, of course she is not good.Lise's memory of Rube al-Kari would trigger months, if not years, of sweaty nightmares.But she shrugged and said: I will live.The words must have been sincere, for the Martian woman took her hand, gazed into the depths of her eyes, and nodded gravely. ☆ I hope it will be better between the two of us.Bryan said it was his way of acknowledging that the marriage was truly over.I wish many things could be better. It would be easier for her to thank him for everything he did or wanted to do for her.She was also less likely to blame him. They had a long lunch.It was already dusk.In the port below, the lights have also begun to flicker, from the illuminated signs along Madagascar Street to the colorful LED lights that make up the souks.How beautiful are these multilingual cities!It is as if the city is an organism, following its own diurnal rhythm, immersed in its own evolutionary imagination.Lise wondered if the city would still be here in a thousand years or in ten thousand, when Turk's ghost would come out of that makeshift arch and start another cycle. Any real understanding of the nature of hypothetical intelligent beings must take this into account.They were old when we first met them, and they are even older now. This is an introduction to her father's book. Brian shook her hand one last time, then turned and walked away.Liz sat at the table for a while longer.The cool air from the atrium was so pleasant that the stars came out.Mahmood poured coffee from a silver jug. What we cannot remember, we must rediscover. sorry what did you say? I said it was getting dark. Mahmoud laughed.It's the setting sun.As if forever. (End of the book)