Chapter 31 29

The night the consul left, Saul.Wen Chaobo is full of hope.They are finally making a difference.Or at least try to.Sol doesn't believe that the frozen fugue cabin on the consul's ship is the way to save Rachel. The medical experts of the Little Renaissance once pointed out that this approach is extremely dangerous, but there is a way. No matter what the way is, it is always a good thing.And Saul felt that they had been inactive long enough, waiting to be entertained by the Thorn God, like condemned criminals waiting to be guillotined. The interior of the Sphinx looked too menacing that night, so Sol took their things out and set them on the wide porch of the mound while he and Dohey tried to use their knapsacks as pillows to keep them safe. Mustyn and Brown slept comfortably under their blankets and cloaks.Brown's medical controller continued to show no brain activity, but her body rested comfortably.Mustin tossed and turned with a high fever.

What do you think is the problem with this templar?Du Hei asked: What is the disease? Possibly just hunger and cold, Saul said: after being kidnapped from the sailboat, he found himself wandering the Barrens and the Valley of Time, eating snow for water and no food at all. Du Hei nodded, and checked the Bajun medical patch they stuck on the inside of Mastine's arm. From the sensor monitor, it can be seen that the intravenous drip is dripping steadily.But it looks like there is another problem.The Jesuit said: It's like madness. There was an almost telepathic connection between the Templars and their treeship, Thor said: Seeing the Yggdrasil destroyed must have driven Mastermind the Tree a little crazy, especially if he Know it is necessary.

Dou Hei nodded, and continued to wipe the templar's smooth forehead with a sponge.It was past midnight now and the wind picked up.Rolled up the vermilion dust, hovered over the wings and rough edges of the sphinx, making a sound like a moan.All the time tombs glowed brightly, then dimmed again, first one time tomb, then another, in no apparent order, and now and then the tide came, causing the two men to gasp and hold on to the stone. , but the feeling of déjà vu and dizziness passed away at once.Nor could they leave, for Braun was connected to the sphinx by cables fastened to her skull.

When the sky was about to dawn, the clouds parted and the sky became very clear, and the clustered stars were almost blindingly bright.For a while, the only telltale sign that the Grand Fleet was fighting there were the occasional contrails, like a trail of diamonds drawn across the night sky.But then the sparks from the distant explosion began to light up again, and in less than an hour, the light of the tombstone was blocked by the strong light above. Who do you think will win?Father Duhet asked.Two men sat with their backs against the stone wall of the sphinx.The face was turned to the part of the sky exposed between the tokizuka's forward-bending legs.

Saul touched Rachel's back, she was sleeping on his stomach, her little butt was curled up under the thin blanket.According to others, it seemed that Wanxingwang was destined to encounter a terrible battle. So you believe the predictions of the AI ​​Advisory Board? Thor shrugged his shoulders in the dark.I don't really understand the accuracy of politics or intelligence in terms of predictions.I'm just a small scholar in a small academy in a backward world.But I think something terrible is going to happen to us, like a wild beast going to Bethlehem to be born into the world. Du Hei smiled slightly.Yeats' sentence, he said, and the smile faded from his face.I guess that place is now New Bethlehem.He looked down at the glowing Tombs of Time in the valley.I have spent my life teaching Teilhard theories of ultimate evolution.What we don't think we have is this, human folly in the sky, and a horrible antichrist waiting to inherit everything else.

Do you think the Demon God of Thorn is that false Christ? Father Douhet rested his elbows on his raised knees and clasped his hands.If not, we're all in big trouble.He smiled coldly.Not so long ago, if I had discovered the Antichrist, I would have been glad if some anti-divine force would have weakened my fading faith in any form of divinity. What now?Saul asked calmly. Du Hei stretched out his fingers.I too was crucified. Saul thought about Rainer.Hoyt tells the story of Doohet, the old Jesuit who nailed himself to a Tesla tree and survived years of pain and rebirth, unwilling to succumb to the cruciform DNA parasite, but now It was still buried deep in his chest.

Du Hei lowered his face looking up at the sky, no one would welcome a pious priest.He said softly: Nor can pain and sacrifice be worth anything, only pain; pain and darkness, and then pain again. Thor's hand on the baby's back stopped.And does that make you lose your faith? Dooey looked at Saul.On the contrary, it makes me feel that faith is the most important thing.Pain and darkness have been our lot since the fall of man.But there must be some hope that we can rise to a higher level, so that our minds can evolve to a better level, not in a universe that is only indifferent. Saul nodded slowly. During Rachel's long struggle against Merlin's disease, I once had a dream and my wife Sari had the same dream. It was that I would sacrifice my only daughter.

Well, Dohet said: I heard the Consul's summary on disk. Then you know my reaction, Saul said: First of all, Abraham's way of obedience cannot be followed, even if there is a God who requires obedience.Second, we have sacrificed to that God for countless generations and the suffering that should be paid should cease. But you still came here, Du Hei said and compared with the valley, Shizuka and Heiye with his hands. I am here, Saul agreed: but not to beg for something servilely, but to see how these powerful forces react to my decision.He touched his daughter's back again, Lei Qiu is only a day and a half old now, and every second is getting smaller and smaller, if such a cruel thing is done by Jing Demon God, I want to face him, even if He is your Antichrist as well.If there is a God, and he did this, I'd likewise contempt him.

Maybe we've all expressed too much contempt already.Du Hei said in a deep voice. Thor raised his head and saw a dozen bright light spots turned into light waves and shock waves formed by plasma explosions in space.I wish we had the skills to stand up to God on an equal footing.He said in a low, tense voice: Confront him face to face.Fight back for all injustices to humanity.Let him change his smug arrogance, or send him to hell. Father Du Hei raised an eyebrow, then smiled.I know your anger, the priest gently stroked Rachel's head.Let's get some sleep before sunrise, shall we?

Saul nodded and lay down next to his child, pulling the blanket up over his face.He heard Du Hei say something softly, maybe it was a gentle good night, or maybe he was praying. Sol touched his daughter, closed his eyes, and fell asleep. Jing Demon God did not come that night.The next morning, when the sun shone on the southwestern cliffs and the top of the crystal monolith, it did not appear.Thor awoke as the sunlight slowly entered the valley to find Doohy sleeping next to him, with Mastine and Braun still unconscious.Rachel was swaying, making the hungry cry of a newborn baby, and Sol took a packet from the last remaining milk to feed her, took out the heating belt, and waited for the milk to warm to human body temperature.In the night a chill settled over the valley, and frost covered the steps of the Sphinx.

Rachel ate big mouthfuls, making the snorting and sucking sounds Saul remembered when Sally fed her more than fifty years ago.When she was done eating, Saul patted her on the back, made her hiccup, and let her lean back and forth on his shoulder, rocking gently back and forth. One and a half days left. Saul was very tired, and despite a Posen life-prolonging treatment ten years ago, he was getting older.Just when he and Shari would have been able to escape their parental responsibilities under normal circumstances, their only daughter was in graduate school, and she had come to this frontier galaxy to participate in archaeological excavations, but Rachel contracted Merlin's disease, and they had Take responsibility as a parent.Sol and Shari are getting older, they have more responsibilities and then because of a plane crash on Barnard's Star, Sol is alone and now he's really, really tired.But even so, Saul is amused to find that he never regrets taking care of his daughter, no matter what. One and a half days left. After a while, Father Duhet woke up, and the two men made breakfast with some canned food that Brown had brought back.Hite.Mastine didn't wake up, but Doohet took one of the last two medical patches and put it on for him, and the templar started his drip. Do you think that last medical patch should be given to Miss Lamia?Du Hei asked. Saul sighed and checked her monitoring equipment again, I don't think so, Paul.According to the index here, the blood sugar is high and nutritionally high, as if she just had a good meal. But how? Thor shook his head, maybe that damn thing was a life support system, and he pointed to the cable coming from where the nerve shunt used to be. So what are we going to do today? Thor looked at the sky, which had faded to the green and azure dome they had grown accustomed to in Hyperion.we wait.He said. Hite.Mustin woke up at the hottest part of the day, just before midday.The Templar sat up straight, and said: That tree! Du Hei hurried up the stairs from where he was pacing.Sol picked up Rachel who was lying in the shadow by the wall, and moved to Masteen's side.The Templar stared high above the cliff, and Thor looked there too, but saw only the sky, which was fading in color. that tree!The templar yelped again, raising a weather-beaten hand. Du Hei hugged the man, he was hallucinating.He thought he saw the Yggdrasil, his treeship. Hite.Mastine struggled under their hands, no, not the World Tree, he panted with his cracked lips: It was that tree, that tree of doom, that tree of pain! The two men looked up again, but the sky was clear, with only a few clouds blowing in from the southwest.At this moment, a wave of time swept over, Sol and the priest bowed their heads under sudden dizziness, and then it passed. Hite.Mustin tried to stand up, but the templar's eyes were still fixed on something in the distance.His skin was hot enough to burn Thor's hands. Bring the last medical patch, Saul said decisively: Injection of super painkiller and fever reducer, Doohet hurriedly arranged. Tree of Pain!Hite.Masteen reluctantly said: I should have been its truth speaker!Ergo was supposed to let it travel through time and space!The Archbishop and the Tree Speaker have chosen me!I cannot break their trust.He struggled hard under Sol's tight embrace, and then collapsed on the stone steps.I'm the real chosen one, he said softly, energy leaving him like air from a burst balloon.I must guide that tree of pain in this time of atonement.He closed his eyes. Douhey put on the last medical patch, confirmed that the monitor would show the changes in the templar's metabolism and biochemical index, and then activated the fever-reducing and pain-relieving medicine, and Sol leaned over the man in the robe. That's not a Templar word or idea.Du Hei said: He used the language of the Jing Demon God Sect.The priest met Thor's eyes, which explained some of the mysteries, especially Braun's.For unknown reasons, this Templar has been colluding with the Church of Final Reconciliation, the Church of the Thorn Demon God. Sol nodded, put his communication recorder on Mustine's wrist, and adjusted the monitor. That tree of pain must be the thorn tree in the legend of Jing Demon God.Du Hei muttered, raising his eyes to see the sky that Mastin was staring at earlier.But what does it mean that he and Ergo were chosen to guide the tree through time and space?Did he really think that he could steer the tree of the thorn demon god like a temple or a samurai?why? You'll have to ask him in his next life, Saul said wearily: he's dead. Du Hei checked the monitoring device, plus Reina.Hoyt's comm to double check, they tried shocks on medical patches, CPR, artificial respiration.All sensors show no change.Hite.Mastine, the Templar, the Word of the Tree, and the Pilgrim of the Temple of the Thorns, is really dead. They waited for an hour, deeply suspicious of everything in the evil valley of the Thorn Demon God, but when the monitors showed that the corpse began to decompose quickly, they buried Mastine in the path leading to the entrance of the valley for about fifty kilometers. In a shallow pit at the foot.Kassad left behind a shovel with a retractable handle that was engraved with entrenchment tools in Overlord's term.Ramia. Two men, one holding a baby, stood in the shadow of a large gravel. Du Hei said a few words before covering the shroud made of plastic fiber cloth with the soil. I don't really know Mr. Mustin, the priest said: We don't have the same beliefs.But we are walking together: Mastine, the true speaker of the tree, has spent most of his life doing what he considers to be the work of God, pursuing God's will in Muir's writings and the beauty of nature.His faith was a sincere faith, tried hard, tempered by obedience, and finally sacrificed his life. Dohey paused, squinting his eyes to look at the sky, which has turned into a harsh iron gray, Lord, please accept Your servant and welcome him into Your arms, just as You greet us, other lost seekers in the future .In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen. Rachel started crying.Saul carried her around while Doohy shoveled dirt over the plastic wrap of the human figure. They returned to the porch of the Sphinx, moving Brown gently into what little shadow remained.There was no way to shield her from the afternoon sun unless they carried her into the time mound, but neither of the men wanted to carry her into the time mound. The Consul must be halfway there by now.said the priest after taking a swig of water.His forehead was sunburned and covered with sweat. Yes, Saul said. By this time tomorrow, he should be back here.We can save Braun with the laser knife and send her to the operating room on the ship.Maybe Rachel's age reversal can be stopped with the frozen fugue cabin.And no matter what the doctor says. Um. Doohy puts the water bottle down and looks at Sol, do you believe this is what's going to happen next? Saul looked back at the man, disbelieving. Shadows stretched from the cliffs to the southwest.The heat of the day seemed to form a lump, and then dissipated a little.Clouds moved in from the south. Rachel was sleeping in the shadows by the door.Saul went to Paul who was standing there overlooking the valley.Beside Du Hei, with one hand on the priest's shoulder.What are you thinking, friend? Du Hei didn't turn around.I was thinking that if I hadn't really believed that suicide was a heinous crime, I would have let it end and given young Hoyt a chance at life.He looked at Saul and smiled a little, but could it be suicide, that this parasitic thing on my chest on his chest would grab me kicking and screaming and come back to life one day? Bringing Hoyt back into it all, Saul asked calmly: Could it be a gift for him? Du Hei did not speak for a while.Then he took Saul's upper arm, and I thought I'd go for a walk. where?Thor squinted to see the heat of the desert afternoon.Even under the low cloud cover, the valley was like a furnace. The priest gestured vaguely and went into the valley.I'll be back soon. Be careful, Saul said: Remember, if the Consul encounters a patrolling floater along the Huli River, it will most likely return this afternoon. Du Hei nodded.Went over to pick up a water bottle, gave Rachel a tender touch, and then he walked down the long steps of the Sphinx, very slowly and carefully, like a very, very old man. Thor watched him go away, smaller and smaller, twisted by the distance and the heat.Then Saul sighed and went back to sit beside his daughter. Paul.Du Hei tried his best to walk in the shadows, but even in those places, the heat was still unbearable, pressing on his shoulders like a huge shackle.He passed the Jade Tomb and followed the trail to the cliffs and obelisk to the north.The slender shadow of the time tomb drew a black line on the vermilion stone and sand at the bottom of the valley.He went further down, finding his way through the rubble that surrounded the crystal monolith.A gust of lazy wind blew the shattered crystals, passing through the cracks in the height of the time mound, Du Hei raised his head.He saw his own reflection reflected on the lower surface of the stele, and recalled that when he found the Bikura tribe high up on the Feiyu Plateau, he heard the sound of the pipe organ blown by the wind through the big gap.That seemed like a lifetime ago.That was indeed many lifetimes ago. Doohet felt the damage the cruciform rearrangement was taking on his mind and memory.That's sad like having a heart attack with no hope of recovery.Debates that had previously been child's play for him now required extraordinary concentration or were completely beyond his competence.If you can't think of appropriate words, the emotion will suddenly become intense like the tide.Several times he had to leave the other pilgrims and weep alone for reasons he did not understand. other pilgrims.Now it's just Saul and the baby.If he could save these two people, Father Duhet would be willing to sacrifice his life.He didn't know if it was a sin to plan to negotiate a deal with the false Christ? He was now deep in the valley, almost close to turning to the east to form the widening dead end, where the Temple of the Thorns cast its labyrinthine shadows on the rocks.The trail bends close to the rock wall on the northwest side, and after passing through several cave mounds, Du Hei felt the cool air blowing from the first cave mound, and wanted to go in, just to recover from the intense heat, close Eyes, take a nap. He walked on. The entrance to the second mound has a more intricate pattern carved into the stone.Reminds Dohey of the ancient basilica he found in the Cleft, with its great crosses and altars worshiped by the mentally retarded Bikura.They worshiped the evil immortality of the cross, not the true chance of rebirth promised by the cross.But what difference does it make?Du Hei shook his head, trying to get rid of the fog and ridicule that covered his every thought.The road bends upward here, passing the third cave mound, which is also the shallowest and most inconspicuous of the three time mounds. In the third mound there is light. Du Hei stopped, took a deep breath, and looked back into the valley.The sphinx was clearly visible nearly a kilometer away, but he couldn't see Thor in the shadows.For a moment, Du Hei wondered if the place where they hid the day before was this third cave mound, or if one of them had left a lantern in it. Not this third cave mound.Except for the search for Kassad, no one had entered the time tomb in the past three days. Father Dohet knew he should ignore the light and go back to Saul and watch with the man and his daughter. (But Jing Demon God went to each of the others separately. Why should I refuse the summon?) Du Hei felt his face was wet, and then realized that he was crying silently and unconsciously, he roughly wiped away the tears with the back of his hand and stood there again, clenched his fists. (My wisdom is my greatest vanity. I am a learned Jesuit priest, very safe in the traditional teachings of Teilhard and Psard. Even all the theology I preach, whether it is for the church or for God The students of the Academy, and the few believers who still listen, have emphasized the mind, the great terminal point in the mind. God is a clever problem-solving program.) (Alas, there are some things beyond wisdom, Paul.) Du Hei walked into the third cave mound. Thor woke up suddenly, pretty sure someone was stalking him. He jumped up and looked around.Rachel made a soft sound, waking up from a nap at the same time as her father.Brown.Lamia was still lying motionless at the place where he had told her to lie down, the green light of the physiological detector was still on, and the index of brain activity was all red. He had slept for at least an hour; the shadows had crossed the valley floor, and only the top of the sphinx still caught light as the sun emerged from the clouds.Rays of light came obliquely from the mouth of the valley, illuminating the opposite rock wall.The wind picked up. But there was no movement in the valley. Sol picked up the crying Rachel, shook him gently, ran down the stairs, looked at the back of the Sphinx, and looked at the other time tombs. Paul!His voice echoed from the rocks.The wind moved the dust on the other side of Yuzhong, but there was no other movement.Thor still feels that something is stalking him and that he is being watched. Rachel screamed and writhed in his arms.Her voice was high, the thin cry of a newborn baby, and Sol checked his comm recorder.In another hour, she will be only a day old.He looked for the Consul's spaceship in the sky, cursed softly to himself, went back to the entrance of the Sphinx to change the baby's diaper, checked the condition of Brown, took out a bag of baby food from the bag Bao came and grabbed another cloak.After the sun goes down, the heat dissipates quickly. In half an hour when the twilight still remained, Sol quickly walked into the valley, calling Dou Hei's name, looking at the time tombs with his head, but he didn't go in.After passing the jade tomb, the place where Hoyt died, the side has already started to light up with a light green light.After passing the black obelisk, the shadow of the stele fell on the high place of the southeast cliff.Passing by the crystal monolith, the upper part was still illuminated by the last sunlight of the day, and then when the sun set behind the city of poets, it gradually darkened.Thor passed the mounds in the sudden chill of the night, calling to each cavern, feeling only the damp air against his face like cold breath from an open mouth. no respond. In the last twilight, round the bend into the valley, was the hideous-edged Thorn Demon Temple, dark and ominous in the dim twilight.Thor stood at the entrance, trying to figure out what those inky shadows were, steeples and rafters and pylon gates, and he called into the dark temple: only the echo answered.Rachel started crying again. Sol felt a chill on the back of his neck, and kept turning around, trying to catch his watchers by surprise, but saw only darkening shadows and rising stars above the clouds.He hurriedly walked back to the Sphinx from the valley, at first he walked very fast, and then he almost ran all the way past the Jade Tomb, when the night wind picked up and he made a sound like a child screaming. damn it!Thor gasped and cursed as he rushed to the top of the Sphinx steps. Brown.Lamia was gone, neither her body nor the metal cable. Sol cursed, hugged Rachel, and fumbled in his backpack for a flashlight. About ten meters into the middle aisle, Thor found the blanket that had been wrapped around Brown's body.Other than that, nothing.The aisles diverged and twisted, widening and narrowing, and the ceiling was so low that Sol had to crawl forward, holding the baby in his right hand, pressing her face against his.He hated being in this time zone.His heart was beating so violently that he almost thought he had a heart attack on the spot. The last walkway was so narrow that there was no way to go in, and where the cable had snaked into the stone, now there was only stone. Sol bit the flashlight in his mouth, slapped the rock hard, and pushed the stone as big as a house, as if a secret door would open and a secret passage would appear. nothing. Saul hugged Rachel tighter and started to back out, taking a few wrong turns, his heart beating even more when he thought he was lost.Then they came to an aisle he recognized, then the main one, and finally walked out. He carried the child to the bottom of the steps, away from the Sphinx.Walking to the entrance of the valley, he stopped and sat on a low rock to catch his breath.Rachel's little face was still pressed against his neck, and the baby didn't make a sound.There was no movement other than curling the little fingers against his beard. The wind was blowing from the barren land behind him.The clouds in the sky parted and closed, obscuring the starlight, so that the only source of light was the sickly glow of those time tombs.Sol was afraid that his beating heart would frighten the baby, but Rachel had been curling up against him calmly, her warmth reassuring him. Damn it, Thor whispered, he worried about Braun.Lamia, he had worried about all the pilgrims, and now they were all gone.Saul's decades of scholarly life have allowed him to generalize to a pattern in everything, like a grain of moral wheat growing on a stone of experience.But in Hyperion there are no rules, only chaos and death. Sol shook the child, looked at the barren land, and considered leaving this place immediately, walking to the dead city or Time Fort, going northwest to Litorell or going southeast to the place where the Horseshoe Mountains meet the sea .Thor lifted a trembling hand to rub his cheek; there would be no salvation in the wilderness.Leaving the valley did not save Martin.Cylenos.It was said before that the Thorn Demon God was far south of the Majiao Mountains to the city of Andymion and other southern cities in the south, and even if the monster would let them go, Hunger and Thirst would not let them go.Sol may be able to survive on plants, mice, rabbits and other small animals, as well as the melted snow water from high places, but Rachel's milk is limited, and even the supplies that Braun brought back from Fort Time are too small. not enough.Then it occurred to him that it didn't matter if there was milk or not (In less than a day, I'll be alone.) Sol stifled a groan as the thought came to him.His determination to save his child had carried him through twenty-five years, and a hundred times as many light-years.His determination to bring Rachel back to life and health was an almost palpable force, an exuberance he and Shari had shared, and he kept it alive like a priest of a great temple keeping the holy fire alive, no, God, there are rules to everything, this seemingly chaotic event platform has a moral pillar, and Saul.Wen Chaobo relied on this belief to gamble his and his daughter's lives. Sol stood up, walked slowly from the path to the Sphinx, climbed the steps, found a warming cloak and some blankets, and made a nest for the two of them on the top step.The winds of Hyperion howled, and the light of the Tokon grew brighter. Rachel was lying on his chest and stomach, her face resting on his shoulder, her little hands flexed and stretched from the real world into the baby's dreamland, and Saul heard her soft breathing as she entered the dreamland, heard her blowing a little The sound made by saliva.After a while, he also let go of the world he was holding tightly, and fell asleep with her.