Chapter 42 40

It was mid-morning when Hunter woke me.He brought breakfast on a tray with a look of fear in his dark eyes. I asked him: Where did you get these foods? There is a small restaurant in the front room downstairs, where the food is still hot, but no one is there. I nodded.Signona.Angeletti's snack shop, I said: she is not a good cook.I remembered that Dr. Clark was very worried about my diet. He thought the consumption was in my stomach, and he only gave me bread and milk, and occasionally fish, so that I was always hungry.It's amazing how many suffering humans cling to their guts, bed sores, or poor eating until they face their end.

I looked up at Hunter again.What's wrong? Graystone's assistant had gone to the window and seemed to be looking intently at the view of the square below.I can hear Bernini's damn fountain.While you're sleeping, I'm going to go out for a walk, Hunter said slowly: Just in case I meet someone outside or nearby, or have a phone or a portal or something. Of course, I said. I just got out of that He turned around, licking his lips, there's something out there, Sylvellen, just out on the street, under that staircase.I'm not sure, but I think it's Thorn Demon God.I said.

Hunter nodded.Did you see it? No, but I'm not surprised. That's scary, Sylvellen, it makes me feel uncomfortable.Here you can catch a glimpse of the monster in the shadows on the other side of the stairs. I started to get up, but a sharp cough and the feeling of phlegm churning in my chest and throat made me lie back on the pillow again.I know what that thing looks like, Hunter.Don't worry, it's not for you.My voice sounded more confident than I felt. Is it for you? I don't think so, I gasp: I guess it's here just to make sure I don't find a way to leave and die somewhere else.

Hunter returned to the bed, you will not die, Sylvelen. I didn't speak. He sat in the straight-backed chair beside the bed and picked up a cup of tea that was already a little cold.What will happen to me if you die? I have no idea.I'll be honest: if I die, I don't know what happened to me. A seriously ill person has a solipsism that absorbs one's full attention, like a black hole that sucks in everything that unfortunately falls within range.The day passed slowly, and I noticed very clearly the movement of the sunlight on the rough walls, the feel of the sheets under my palms, the sickening heat rising inside me, burning away in the furnace of my mind All, most importantly, is the pain.Not all the pain I have now, for the tightness in the throat or the burning in the chest is bearable no matter how many hours or days, and is greeted almost like meeting a nasty old friend in a strange city; I feel What I saw was the pain of others, the pain of everyone else, and that pain hit my head like the sound of slabs cracking, like hammers beating on an anvil, and there was no escape.

My brain takes the noise and turns it into verse.This cosmic pain flows in all day and all night, coming and going in the corridors of my feverish brain, becoming verses, images, images of verses, a complex and endless dance of words, calm like a flute solo at one moment, and then again at another. Sharp and piercing, high-pitched and chaotic, like dozens of bands playing at the same time, but they are all poems, always poems. Near sunset, I awoke from my half-sleep and interrupted Kassad's attempt to save Saul and Braun.In the dream of fighting against the Thorn Demon God for the life of Lamia, he found Hunter sitting in front of the window, his long face turned earthy red by the afterglow of the setting sun.

Is that monster still there?I asked, my voice cutting like a file on stone. Hunter startled, then turned to me with an apologetic smile and a blush of embarrassment I had never seen on that dour face.I don't know, I haven't seen it in a while, I think it's still there.He looked at me, are you okay? Dying, I saw the pain it caused Hunter, and immediately regretted having uttered such a self-indulgent indiscretion, however true it may have been.It doesn't matter, I said almost happily: I have encountered this before, it doesn't feel like I'm about to die, I'm actually a personality deep in the intellectual core; what's dying is this body, John.Keats' model, a twenty-seven-year-old phantom made of blood, flesh, and borrowed stuff.

Hunter came and sat on the edge of my bed.I was surprised to find that he had changed the sheets during the day, replacing my blood-stained one with one of his own.Since your personality is an AI in the intelligence core, he said: Then you must be able to connect to the data circle. I shook my head, too tired to argue. When Philomel kidnapped you, we found your whereabouts only through your connection with the data circle.he insisted.You don't need to communicate with Greystone in person, just leave a message so security can find it. No, I panted: Intellectual Core doesn't want that.

Are they blocking you now?Is it holding you back? Not yet, but they will.Panting, I split the sentence into paragraphs, like putting a fragile egg back in its nest.Suddenly I remembered a letter I had written to dear Fanny after a bad coughing up of blood, about a year before the illness took my life.I wrote on the letter: □□□ If I were to die, I said to myself: I leave no monumental work behind me There is nothing my friends can be proud of in my memory But I have loved the beauty of all things, and if I could have Given enough time, I'll make myself worth remembering. Those words now strike me as unworthy, so self-centered and stupidly naive but I still believe them desperately.If I had the time, the months I spent pretending to be a visual artist at Hope Star, and the days Graystone wasted in the halls of Government House, should be devoted to writing

How would you know if you hadn't tried it?Hunter asked. What?I asked, and the force of the two notes alone caused me to cough again, and this attack did not subside until I spat half-coagulated bloody phlegm into the washbasin Hunter had hastily fetched.I lay on my back, trying to see his face clearly.It was getting darker in the cramped room, neither of us turned on the lamp.The sound of water from the fountain outside was loud. What did you say?I asked again, trying to resist the involvement of sleep and dreams.what have you tried? Trying to leave a message via the datasphere, he said softly: Connect with someone else.

What message should we leave, Rye?I asked, and this was the first time I called his name. Where we are, how the Intellectual Core has kidnapped us, whatever. Well, I said and closed my eyes.I'll give it a try, I don't think they'll let me do it, but I promise I will. I felt Hunter take my hand, and though weariness took over, the sudden contact brought tears to my eyes. I'll try it, I'll definitely try it before I succumb to dreams or die. Feldman.Colonel Kassad uttered the battle cry of a domineering army, rushed over from the sandstorm to intercept the Jing Demon God, and prevented him from crossing the last thirty meters, and was close to squatting on the Bulang.Saul next to Lamia.Wen Chaobo.

Jing Demon God stopped, turned his head almost without resistance, and his red eyes were shining.Kassad sprinted down the slope with his lance in hand. The Jing Demon God shifts shape. Kassad saw its movement as a slow blur from time, and noticed that when he looked at the Thorn Demon God, all movements in the valley stopped, and the sand and dust suspended in the air without moving. The light from the bright time tomb had a thick, embers-like feel to it, and Kassad's tights seemed to be moving with the Thorn Demon God, traveling through time as it moved. The monster's head was raised suddenly, now concentrated, and all four arms stretched out like blades from knives, and all the fingers were spread out. Kassad stopped ten meters away from that thing, activated his long gun, and fired with all his death light, hitting the sandy ground at the feet of the Thorn Demon God. The Thorn Demon God shone brightly, its shell and legs made of steel reflected a hellish light below and around it, and then the three-meter-high monster began to sink as the sand and dust sank into a pool of molten water at the bottom. Through the glass, Kassad let out a cry of triumph, and stepped forward, sweeping the death light over the Thorn Demon God and the ground, just as he had sprayed his friends with the stolen hose in the slums of Tarsis as a child. The Thorn God sank, four arms stretched out to the sand and rocks, trying to find support, sparks flew, it shifted, time flowed back like a reverse film, but Kassad moved with it, knowing that Moneta was Help him, her tights follow his tights but guide him through time and then he's shooting the monster again, the concentrated heat is greater than the surface of the sun, melting the sand below, look around rocks burn up. The Thorn Demon God, who sank into the cauldron of flames and lava, raised his head to the sky, opened his mouth and howled. Startled at hearing the noise from the thing, Kassad all but stopped firing.The Jing Demon God's scream was like the roar of a giant dragon, mixed with the explosion of nuclear rockets.Kassad's teeth ached at the shrill sound; the screams echoed from the cliffs, knocking the earth off them.Kassad turned the gun into high-speed live ammunition and fired ten thousand small arrows at the monster's face. The Thorn Demon God shifted shape, and Kassad felt the dizzying shift in his own bones and mind. He knew that it had been years since they moved. They were no longer in the valley, but on a sailboat, across the grass. ocean.Time resumed, and the Thorn Demon God leaped forward, with molten glass flowing from the metal arm, and grabbed Kassad's spear. The colonel refused to let go of his weapon, and both staggered and turned, as if jumping awkwardly. dance steps.The Thorn Demon God swung his two extra arms and a leg full of steel spikes and kicked out. Kassad jumped and dodged, while still desperately grasping his spear. They were in a small compartment, Moneta was huddled in a corner like a shadow, and there was another figure, a tall man wearing a hood, moving very slowly in the closed space Dodge the sudden swing of arms and blades.Kassad, through the mask on the tights, saw an earcup in the air throbbing and shining in the blue-violet energy field, and then flinched back under the time violence of the Thorn Demon God's organic anti-entropy field. The Thorn Demon God cut Kassad's tights, wounding his skin and muscles, and blood sprayed onto the wall.Kassad shoved the muzzle of the gun into the monster's mouth and fired.A burst of two thousand high-speed arrows hit Jing Demon God's head backwards like a spring, and at the same time smashed the monster into the opposite wall.But even as it fell, the spikes on Kassad's feet still cut Kassad's thigh, and a column of blood spiraled up and sprinkled the windows and walls of the sailboat's cabin. The Jing Demon God shifts shape. Kassad gritted his teeth, feeling the straitjacket shrink, stitching his wound shut.He glanced at Moneta, nodded, and followed the monster through time and space. Sol.Wen Chaobo and Bu Lang.Lamia looked behind them, only to feel a terrible whirlwind of light and heat swirling and disappearing there.Sol shielded the young woman with his body, and molten glass splashed around them, sizzling on the cold sand.Then the cacophony died away, the sandstorm obscured the bubbling pool where the violence had just taken place, and the wind blew Thor's cloak around them both. what is that?asked Bucky in horror. Thor shook his head, helping her to stand up in the howling wind.Time tombs are on!Thor exclaimed: Maybe something exploded. Braun staggered, then stabilized his body, touched Sol's arm, where's Rachel?she asked in the sound of the wind. Thor clenched his fists.His beard was caked with mud and sand.Jing Demon God took her away and could not enter the Sphinx.Still waiting! Braun nodded, squinting at the Sphinx, only vaguely seeing its bright outline in the wind and swirling dust. Are you okay?Saul said loudly. What? Are you okay? Brown nodded blankly, reached out and touched his head, the nerve shunt was gone.Not only was the Thorn God's dreadful cable gone, but the one that Johnny had surgically installed on her long ago when they hid in the waste hive was gone.With the shunt and the Sloan circuit removed, she had no way of getting in touch with Johnny.Brown recalled that Umon had destroyed Johnny's personality as easily as she'd killed a bug. Brown said: I'm fine.But her legs were weak, and Sol had to hold her to keep her from falling. He was yelling something, and Brown wanted to focus, to focus on the here and now.After experiencing the giant data circle, the reality seems too narrow and oppressive. Can't speak here.Thor yelled: Go back to the Sphinx. Brown shook his head.She pointed to the cliff on the north side of the valley, where the thorn demon god's huge thorn tree appeared among the flowing clouds and dust.The poet Cylenus was there.I saw him! There is nothing we can do about it!cried Thor, covering them with his cloak.The vermilion sand hit the plastic fibers like arrows hitting armor. Maybe we can, Brown cried, and she hid in his arms, feeling his warmth, and for a moment imagined that she could curl up beside him as easily as Rachel, and fall asleep.Where I see the connection is when I come out of the giant data circle!She yelled over the howling wind: "The thorn tree is connected to the Temple of the Thorn. If we can get there, try to find a way to free Selenus." Thor shook his head, can't leave the Sphinx, Rachel Brown could understand, and she touched the scholar's cheek with her hand, then moved closer, feeling his beard against her own.Tokizuka is turning on, she said: "I don't know when we'll have another chance. Tears welled up in Thor's eyes.I know.I want to help but I can't leave the sphinx in case she I understand, Brown said: Go back there.I'll go to the Temple of the Thorns and see if I can find out how it's connected to the thorn tree. Saul nodded unhappy.You said you've been in the giant datasphere, he said aloud: What did you see?What do you know?Is your Keats personality We'll talk again when I get back.cried Brown, taking a step back to get a better look at him.Sol's face was a mask of pain: the face of a bereaved father. Go back, she said firmly: I will join you at the Sphinx in an hour. Sol stroked his beard.Everyone is gone, just you and me.Brown, we shouldn't be apart We have to part for a while.cried Brown, stepping back from him, the wind blowing at her coat and trousers, see you in an hour.She walked away quickly, deeply afraid that she could not resist the urge to return to his warm embrace.The wind was stronger here, blowing straight from the mouth of the valley, and the dust hit her eyes and cheeks.Braun could approach the path only with his head down, but it was difficult to walk on the path.Only the flashes of those time mounds lit the way.Brown felt the tide tugging at her as if it were actually attacking her. After a few minutes, she vaguely noticed that she was approaching the obelisk, onto the debris-strewn path near the crystal monolith.Thor and the Sphinx had vanished behind her, and the jade mounds were only pale green lights in that nightmare of dust and wind. Brown stopped, swaying slightly under the tug of the wind and tide.The Jingmo Temple is still about half a kilometer away from the other side of the valley.Although she suddenly learned of the connection between the tree and the time mound when she left the giant data circle, what could she do when she got there?And what had that damned poet done for her?Just cursing her and driving her crazy.Why should she die for him? The wind screamed and howled in the valley, but beyond the wind Brawn thought she could hear a sharper, more human scream.She looked toward the cliffs to the north, but the dust obscured everything. Brown.Lamia leaned forward, turned up her collar around her neck, and continued walking into the wind. Mena.Greystone hadn't walked out of the FTL communication room when a message came in. She sat back in her original position and looked at the light and shadow slot very intently.The Consul's ship acknowledged her message, but with no follow-up, maybe he had changed his mind. No, the data bar floating in front of her showed that the video and audio messages came from the Boundless Ocean star system.It's William.Argenta.Admiral Lee was calling her, using the personal code she had given him. Back then, when Graystone insisted on promoting the naval colonel and assigned him to serve as the government liaison officer on the assault mission that was originally scheduled to go to Hebron, the Overlord Space Force was furious.After the massacres at the Gates of Heaven and the Valley of the Gods, the Assault Force was transferred to the Star System of the Endless Ocean: a group of seventy-four spaceships, the main ships being closely guarded by torch ships and defensive shields, the entire task force was ordered It is necessary to break through the warships of the chaotic army coming, and go straight to the center of the chaotic army as soon as possible. Li is the president's eyeliner and liaison.While his new rank and appointment put him in command decisions, there were four Alliance Space Force commanders on the scene who were all higher in rank than him. It doesn't matter.Graystone wanted him to be there, to be able to report to her. There was a burst of fog in the light and shadow tank, and then William.Argenta.Li's resolute face filled it.President, I will report to you as ordered, Task Force 181-2 has successfully passed to 3996.One or two.binary galaxy Graystone blinked his eyes in surprise, and then remembered that it was the official code name of the G galaxy where Wuya Ocean Star is located. Most people rarely think of the geographical environment outside the Wanxingwang world. The chaotic attacking ships are still one hundred and twenty minutes away from the deadly radius of the target world.Lee reported.Graystone knew that the so-called lethal radius was about one or three astronomical units away, and within this range standard ship weapons were lethal, even with protective force fields on the ground.Boundless Ocean Star does not have a protective force field.The new admiral continued: It is estimated that he will contact the vanguard at 17:32:26, ​​Wanxing.com standard time.About twenty-five minutes from now.The task force has been configured for maximum penetration, two space hopping ships are responsible for adding new personnel or weapons before the portal is blocked in battle, and my flagship cruiser Odyssey Garden will take advantage of your special order at the earliest possible opportunity , William.Lee, it's over. The image shrinks into a small rotating white ball, and the transmission of the code is terminated. Respond?The sending and receiving computer asked. Acknowledgment of receipt.Graystone said.That's all. Graystone went into the study and saw Sidney Putta.Akashi was waiting for her, a frown of concern on his focused face. What's up? The war conference was about to resume, and the aide said: Senator Korchev is waiting to see you to discuss a matter he says is urgent. Ask him to come in and tell them I have a meeting in five minutes.Graystone sat behind her very ancient desk, resisting the urge to close her eyes.She was very tired, but her eyes were open when Korchev came in.Sit down, Gabrielo.Bless Dole. The tall Lutherian walked back and forth, why did he sit!Do you know what happened, Mena? She smiled slightly: You mean this war?The end of life as we know it?Is that it? Korchev punched the palm of the hand.No, I don't mean that, fuck it, I mean political strife.Have you looked at the Council of All Things Network? I watch it when I can. Then you know that certain senators and some fence sitters outside the Senate are calling for a vote of no confidence in you, it is inevitable, Mena, it is only a matter of time. I know, Gabriel, why don't you sit down?We have a minute or two before we go back to the Situation Room. Korchev almost slumped in his chair.I mean, shit, even my wife is busy canvassing against you, Mena. Greystone's smile grew wider.Suditi never liked me, Gabrielo, her smile disappeared.I haven't seen the outcome of the debate in those twenty minutes.How much time do you think I have? Eight hours, maybe a little less. Graystone nodded, I don't need that much time. need?What kind of nonsense are you telling?need?Who else do you think could be war president? You, said Graystone: You will be my successor without a doubt. Korchev muttered something. Maybe the war won't last that long, Graystone said, as if he was being amused. What?Oh, you mean the superweapon of the Intellectual Core.Yeah, Elpidus put a model somewhere in one of the Overlord's bases, hope someone from the Combat Council finds time to look at it, I think that's a fucking waste of time if you ask me. Graystone only felt as if a cold hand had seized her heart.Sudden death bomb device?Does Zhinu already have one available? More than one is available, but one has been loaded on a flare ship. Who authorized it, Gabriel? Mopurgo authorized the preparatory work.The tall senator sat and leaned forward.What's the matter, Mena, what's the problem?That thing can't be used without the president's approval. Graystone looked at her old colleague from the Senate.We are still far away from the Peaceful Alliance, aren't we?Gabriel? The Lutherian snorted again, but there was an expression of pain on his blunt face.This is our own fault.The former government listened to the intelligence core and used Brescia as a bait for the rebel army.After the turmoil subsided, you listened to the opinion of another part of the Intellectual Core and included Hyperion into the Ten Thousand Stars Network. Do you think it was I who sent the fleet to defend Hyperion that started the Great War? Korchev looked up, no, no, impossible.Those Ouster ships were on the road over a hundred years ago, weren't they?If only we had found out sooner.Or find a way earlier and use negotiations to get this shit out of the way. Greystone's comm recorder rang.It's time for us to go back to the meeting.She said softly: Advisor Elpidus probably wants us to see the weapon that can win the war.