Chapter 22 20

Douhet collapsed while they were dividing the last two ration packs for lunch, and Saul and the Consul carried him up the broad staircase of the Sphinx and into the shadows, the priest's face as white as ever. Same with his hair. He smiled forcedly as Thor held the water bottle to his lips, you all took my resurrection so easily.He said, wiping the corner of his mouth with a finger. The Consul leaned against the stone wall of the Sphinx.I've seen those two crucifixes on Hoyt, exactly like you have now. And I believe the story he told your story.Saul said.He handed the water to the consul.

Du Hei touched his forehead, I have been listening to the disc in the communication recorder, those stories, including mine, are all unbelievable! Do you have any doubts?asked the consul. No, the difficult thing is to make sense of those things, to find the common ground to connect with each other. Saul hugged Rachel to his chest, shook her lightly, and put one hand behind her head, must there be some connection?Besides Jing Demon God? Oh yes.Du Hei said.Some color returned to his cheeks.This pilgrimage was not an accident, nor was it your choice. There are different factors that affect who will participate in the pilgrimage, the consul said, the AI ​​Advisory Group, the Senate of the Balian, and even the Jing Demon God Church.

Du Hei shook his head, yes, but there is only one manipulative force behind this choice.my friend. Sol moved closer.God? Maybe, Du Hei said with a slight smile, but what I thought of was how mysterious the intelligence core's AI was in this series of events. The baby whimpered, and Sol found her a pacifier and tuned the comm on his wrist to a heart rate.The little baby clenched its fists and relaxed on the scholar's shoulder.Brown's story holds that the organization in the Intellectual Core wanted to overthrow the status quo and give humanity a chance to survive, while still continuing with their project of creating supreme intelligence.

The consul gestured toward the cloudless sky.Was everything that happened on our pilgrimage, even this war, created because of the internal policy of the Intellectual Core? What do we know about the intelligence core?Du Hei asked softly. Nothing, said the Consul, and threw a pebble at a carved stone to the left of the steps of the Sphinx.In truth, we know nothing. Du Hei sat up now.Wipe your face with a slightly damp cloth.Yet their goals are oddly similar to ours. what is itThor asked, still rocking the baby. Know God, said the priest, or, failing that, create Him.He squinted his eyes to see the long valley.Now the shadows had moved farther out from the southwest wall, and were beginning to touch and surround the time tombs.I've helped spread this idea in my church

I have read your treatise on St. Petersburg.Saul said: You have written brilliantly arguing for the need to evolve toward an ultimate point of divinity without falling into Socinian heresy. fall into what?asked the consul. Father Duhet smiled. Socini was an Italian heretic in the sixteenth century.He believed that for this he was excommunicated. God is a finite being who can learn and grow and become more complex like this world and this universe.And I did fall into Socini's heresy, Saul.That was my first sin. Saul kept his face, what was your last sin? Anything but pride?Du Hei said: My biggest sin is to forge the information excavated on Amagast for seven years.Trying to make a connection between the archers who have disappeared there and the original form of Christianity.That relationship doesn't exist, I fabricated the data.Ironically, the greatest sin I have committed, at least in the eyes of the church, has been the taboo of using the scientific method.In the dying days of the church, they could tolerate theological heresy but not scientific investigation.

Is Almagast like this?Thor asked, waving his arms, including valleys, time mounds, and scorching deserts. Du Hei looked around, his eyes lit up for a moment.Dust, stones, and that feeling of death is very similar.But this place is more menacing, and there's something damned and not dead here. The Consul laughed, and let's hope we were in that category too.I'm going to take that comm recorder to the mouth of the valley and try to get online with the spaceship. I am coming too.Saul said. And I.Father Du Hei stood up while speaking, only slightly shaking, and refused to let Wen Chaobo help him.

There was no response from the spaceship, and without the spaceship, there was no FTL communication with the Ousters, Starnet, or anywhere else other than Hyperion.All normal communication channels were interrupted. Will that spaceship be destroyed?Saul asked the consul. No, the message has been received by the other party, but there is no response.Graystone still quarantined the ship. Thor looked across the wasteland at the mountains shivering in the heat.A few kilometers away from here, the ruins of the city of poets stand against the sky. It doesn't matter, he said: According to the current situation, there are already too many gods who will come to rescue the crisis.

Paul.Du Hei laughed, his voice was deep and sincere, but then he stopped because of coughing and took a sip of water. What's wrong?asked the consul. The so-called god who saves the crisis is also what we talked about earlier.I guess that's why each of us is here.Poor Rainer, with his god in his cruciform, Braun and the reborn poet trapped in a Sloan circuit, hoping to unravel her personal crisis.And you, Thor, are waiting for the dark god to solve your daughter's terrible problem.Intellectual cores, originally mechanically powered, wanted to build their own gods. The Consul adjusted his sunglasses.What about you, Father?

Doo Hei shook his head, I'm waiting for the biggest machine to generate its god is the universe.How much of my Teilhard-induced perception comes from the simple fact that I cannot find a living Creator in today's world.Like the AI ​​of the Sonocore, I want to build what I can't find anywhere else. Thor looked at the sky. What god was the Ouster looking for? The Consul replied: Their fascination with Hyperion is real, and they believe that it is the birthplace of a new hope for mankind. We'd better go back down there.Saul said, blocking the sun for Rachel.Brown and Martin should be back before dinner.

But they did not come back before supper, and there was no sign of them at sunset.Every hour the Consul would walk down to the mouth of the ravine, climb up a large boulder, and look into the dunes and gravel to see what was going on.There was nothing, and the Consul wished Kassad had left behind a pair of his powerful binoculars. Even before dark, bursts of light in the sky let people know that the war in space is still going on.The three men sat on the highest step of the Sphinx, watching this show of light and shadow, which slowly erupted, pure white and dark red flowers, and sudden green and orange lightning, leaving a lingering aftermath. Light.

Which side do you think won?Saul asked. The Consul didn't look up, it doesn't matter who wins, do you think we can sleep somewhere other than the Sphinx tonight?Go to another time to wait? I cannot leave the Sphinx, Saul said: You can go elsewhere. Du Hei touched the baby's cheek, she was sucking on the pacifier, her cheek wriggled under his fingers.How old is she now, Sol? Two days, almost two full days.At the present latitude, she would have been born fifteen minutes after sunset, Hyperion's local time. I went to see it one last time, and the consul said: Then we must light a fire or something, so that they can find their way back. The consul hadn't gone halfway down, when Sol suddenly stood up and pointed with his finger.He was not pointing at the mouth of the valley bathed in the afterglow of the setting sun, but pointing to the other side, pointing to the shadows in the valley. The Consul paused as two other men approached him, and the Consul reached into his pocket and pulled out the small stun prod Kassad had given him a few days earlier.With Lamia and Kassad gone, that was the only weapon they had. can you see itSaul asked in a low voice. The figure moved in the darkness beyond the twilight of the Tamazuka.It can't be Jing Demon God, because it doesn't look big enough, and it doesn't move fast enough. His movements are strangely slow, and he has to pause for a moment every time, staggering and staggering. Father Douhe looked back at Taniguchi, then turned back: Martin.Is there any way for Cylenus to get into the valley from the other side? Unless he jumped off the cliff, the Consul said softly, or made the eight-kilometer detour to the northeast.What's more, this person is too tall to be Cylenos. The figure stopped again, wobbled, and then fell down.From more than a hundred meters away, it looks like another short boulder on the valley floor. Come on, said the consul. They didn't run over.The Consul went down the steps first, with the electric shock rod stretched forward, and the set range was twenty meters. Although he knew that the effect was only minimal at this distance, Father Douhe followed closely behind him, holding Sol in his arms. child, while the scholar was looking for a small stone for a weapon. David against giants?Doohe asked, because Saul had picked up a rock the size of a fist and put it in the catapult he'd made from a length of plastic fiber strip he'd cut that afternoon from the strap that bound the pack. The scholar's sun-burned face grew even redder over the beard.Roughly the same.Come on, let Rachel leave it to me. I like holding her, and it's much better with your hands empty if a fight does happen. Saul nodded, and rushed to walk side by side with the consul, and the priest followed them two or three steps behind with the child in his arms. Fifteen meters away, it was clear that the person lying on the ground was a man. A very tall man was wearing a coarse robe with his face buried in the sand. Stay where you are, the consul said and ran over.The other two watched as he turned the man over, pocketed the taser, and unwrapped a bottle of water from his belt. Sol walked forward slowly, feeling his weariness hit like a pleasant giddiness, and Dohey followed him even more slowly. When the priest walked into the circle of light illuminated by the consul's flashlight, he saw that the hood of the lying man had been pulled back, revealing a long face with Asian features and strangely distorted features. light and torch light. A templar, said Douhet, surprised to see a disciple of Muir here. This is the Truth of the World Tree, the Consul said: that is, the first missing pilgrim, Heite.Mastine.