Chapter 6 Chapter Six

Glenn Troppel and his weeping wife spent the night running through fields of corn stubble and neither got much sleep. The soil in the ground was still frozen, hard as iron.A new sun has been lit, but it will be months before the soil warms up.Troppel lay on the ground, his hands and feet were frozen, and he lost consciousness.As he kept tossing and turning, he was still thinking about something, as if in a dream. "Say I'm a wolf, then I'll be a wolf." He said to himself over and over again, "I'll be a wolf, I'll take revenge on them, I'll..." His mind always has to run away from the slant.What is he going to do, what is that "what"?What can he do now?Migration, that's the way--to another city.With Gala, of course, he thought.Go to a place where no one treats him like a wolf, and start a new life.

What do you do next?Striving to live the life of a sheep, which he has been working on for many years.There was another problem, and that was where to find the city where no one knew him?After surrendering to the pyramid and submitting to its unclear rule, human beings have been living a migratory life, which is determined by the size of the sun's heat.When the newborn sun just rises, the light and heat are sufficient, and the dividing line of the permafrost retreats northward.In North America, the dividing line of the permafrost zone roughly coincides with the Mason-Dixon line①.And when the sun fades, the permafrost invades south again.Correspondingly, human beings, like migratory birds, follow the changes of seasons and go north and south, migrating long distances.Before long, all the Wheelings had to move north again.How can Troppel guarantee that no Wellington will show up where he is going?Of course he can't guarantee it.

[①The dividing line between Maryland and Pennsylvania in the United States, that is, the dividing line between the southern states and the northern states in the past. ——Translator's Note. 】 Well, give up the idea of ​​migration.Is there any other way?He could—with Gala, of course—get away from civilization, live a hermit life on the fringes of civilization.Fortunately, both of them are good at looting ancient warehouses, where some food and other supplies can still be found. But even wolves are pack by nature.That night, he discovered that because he finally broke with the mainstream society and felt lonely and fearful, he almost wanted to cry with his wife many times.

At dawn, Troppel got up.Gala was still asleep, she was restless, turning over from time to time, and Troppel woke her up. "We've got to go," he said gruffly. "Those fellows might dare to come after me, and I don't want them to find them." Gala rolled over without a sound.They rolled up the blanket—Gara had brought it—and tied it up, ate some of what she had brought with her, wrapped it up, slung it over their shoulders, and started on their way again.They both had the advantage of going faster, faster than anyone who might pursue them.Still, Troppel looked back nervously from time to time to see if anyone was following him.

They kept running northeast, only to realize at noon that they had made a mistake and that a river blocked their way.This was originally a small river, but due to the sudden warming of the climate and the melting of the polar ice caps, the seawater rose and flooded the coast, and went up the river into the interior, causing the inland river to swell so much that even such a small river could not be waded.Now they had to weave westward until they found a bridge or boat upriver. "That's all right now, we can stop and eat something," Tropel said, resignedly, but trying to be as calm as possible.

They slumped to the ground.As the sun rose and the earth became warmer, Troppel felt more and more drowsy, drowsy, and almost unable to support... Suddenly he straightened up and looked around aggressively. lookout.His wife lay motionless next to him, eyes open, staring at the sky in a daze.Troppel sighed, stretched himself, and said to himself: Take a break, just for a while.He took a bite and chewed something, and slowly lay down... When he was found, he was still soundly asleep. While still soundly asleep, Tropel heard a faint sound above his head, like the flapping of the wings of an iron bird.

He woke up suddenly, jumped up and looked, the situation in front of him frightened him into panic: above his head, under the blue sky, something flew across the sky, against the background of white clouds, it was black and shiny - it was a helicopter!The people on the plane were looking out the porthole, looking at him on the ground. That's right, a helicopter. But where is the helicopter now?It couldn't fly even if it had - there was no fuel supply, and besides, there was no one who could pilot it.This is impossible!However, in fact, it was there, and there were people watching him up there.The mysterious thing hovered and landed slowly, landing beside him.

The strong wind from the propeller hit Troppel, and he turned and ran.But it was useless, the other three were all strong and energetic, and he couldn't run even if he wanted to.He stopped, and instinctively hunched over in a fighting stance.But the other party didn't want to fight. They laughed, and one of them said kindly: "Overslept, young man. Get on the plane and we'll take you home." Troppel stood still on the spot with his body arched, half-clasping his hands, and asked, "Send me—" "Yes, I will take you home." The man nodded and said, "Tropel, do you know where you belong? If you don't send you back to Wheeling, that place will make you uneasy and frightened."

"Go-where?" "A place that belongs to you." Troppel understood now. He boarded the helicopter suspiciously.go home?So that there is still a family in this world that belongs to his kind; so that he is not alone, does not need to live alone, but can be with his own kind. Suddenly he remembered Gala and froze.Someone read his mind and said to him: "Missing my wife? We saw her half a mile away, and she was running back quickly in the direction of Wheeling along the way." Troppel nodded.That's better, Gala isn't a wolf anyway.Despite Troppel's attempts to turn her into a wolf, she isn't yet.

Someone closed the hatch, another grabbed the joystick, fiddled with it somehow, and the propeller whizzed overhead.The fuselage bounced off the landing gear, soared into the air, and flew into the distance. For the first time in his life, Tropel looked down on the ground beneath him. They don't fly very high, maybe two or three hundred feet.But Tropel had never flown before, and the altitude made him feel dizzy and want to vomit.They flew over the mountains of West Virginia, over frozen creeks and great rivers, over old empty towns that were unknown.Guanshan is lonely, the mountains and rivers are dilapidated, and there is no one there.

Someone told Troppel that the destination was somewhere 400 miles away.They could easily get there before dark. Sure enough, at dusk, Troppel was walking on the street of a strange city.The street lights were already on.Electricity is heat energy, and heat energy should be stored.But people here are wasting heat, he thought. Pedestrians come and go on the street, they walk, or swagger, or stride forward, swinging their hands, dragging their legs, all of which are uneconomical and reasonable, obviously consuming energy.The dogma that had been imprinted in Tropel's mind since childhood told him that walking like this was debilitating, wrong, stupid, reprehensible, because it drained too much of the body's precious energy. .But the people here don't seem to be weak at all, and they don't care about wasting heat. This place is called Princeton, and it's an ordinary city.It was distinctly different from the Wheeling, Altoona, or Garay that Troppel was familiar with.It's not like a temporary settlement, but like—yes, like a permanent city.Troppel had heard of the city of Princeton before, but unfortunately, he had never passed through it during his migration.Of course, there was no reason why he or anyone else should or should not go through this place.But there is also such a possibility that someone has made some arrangement for a certain purpose, so that they cannot pass here, which may be premeditated.Like other cities, it is sparsely populated, but not too seriously.About a fifth of the houses are still inhabited, which is high enough compared to other places. The man who accompanied him was Handel, one of those who rescued him.They talked very little during the flight, and they haven't said much now. "Let's eat first," said Handel, leading him to a food stall.The place was brightly lit and bustling, it didn't look like a food stall at all, it was like a big restaurant. Who is this Handel?Or he was a nasty, repulsive fellow, and I never saw him behave in any manner. "17 traditional etiquette", he doesn't know, or knows but doesn't use it at all.Although he was at least five years older than Tropel, he did not allow Tropel to go behind or to his left.He just eats when he eats, and he doesn't care about the rules of "one product, two meals, three rests".When Troppel gave him humility and asked him to eat the "elders' share", he laughed loudly. 【①According to Western etiquette, the elders and women should be allowed to go in front or to the right when walking together. ——Translator's Note. 】 He said to Troppel carelessly and cheerfully: "If you are full and have nothing to do, there is nothing wrong with abiding by these etiquette. You poor bastards just have nothing to do. You have no ability to do big things, no You people will die of boredom with these messy etiquettes. '17 traditional etiquette', I understand, isn't it just 17 delicate gestures that you use when you encounter subtle emotions that are inconvenient to express in words? Fuck it, Troppel, I'll just use language, and you'll learn more in the future." Troppel ate without saying a word, thinking about what Handel had said. A man came in from outside, sat down on a chair, glanced at Troppel curiously, and said, "Handel, what about the Somerville Road? It's all destroyed." Tropel asked boldly: "Did the flood destroy the road?" "Road? No. You are the man Handel is looking for, right? It's called Tropel, isn't it?" He leaned over the table and stretched out his hand, shaking Tropel's hand again and again, "We blocked the road," he explained. "We didn't want the flood to wash away the obstruction. Now we have to block it again." Handel said, "If you need it, take the tractor." The man nodded and walked away.Handel said to Troppel again: "Dinner quickly, we have been delayed too long. We have blocked that road, do you know why? Don't let the sheep in or out. Why let them in or out? ?” "sheep?" "The enemy," said Handel, "the enemy of the wolf." Handel explained it this way: Out of 10 billion people, one person in a million—and only one—is different.This person has extraordinary intelligence to keep himself alive, and we call him a wolf.In a world of 10 billion people, there are only 10,000 such people. Then disasters came, ravaging human beings, starving their stomachs, freezing their bodies, reducing their numbers, allowing the so-called "Savior Messiah" to reign in the terrifying sky, abducting the earth, and massacring human beings, leaving only a handful of people who are still in shock survivors.Today, the earth's population is no longer the previous 10 billion, and one-thousandth is not enough.Even if there are still 100 million people, they are shouting and running in the huge homeland left by their ancestors. Of the 100 million survivors, how many wolves are there?Still 10,000. "You figured it out, Troppel. We survived. I don't care what you call us. Sheep call us wolf, and I'd rather be called Superman. Anyway, we survived." Troppel nodded, and Mose suddenly realized: "It turns out that the trick I used to escape from the Five Precepts Prison and survive is also the way of the wolf." Handel expressed sympathy, glanced at him, and said, "You survived the sheep 30 years ago, and you used the same method. Well, come with me. Handel was going to take Troppel on a tour.They first walked into a building. From the outside, this building was no different from other ancient abandoned buildings, with the same gray stone walls and windows with broken glass, but when they looked inside, the situation was quite different.In the basements of the two lower levels, a flood of purple light shone from giant quartz lamps atop steel cones.Seeing this scene, the muscles on Tropel's face twitched in fright, and he turned around, not daring to look any further. "Totally harmless, Troppel, don't worry." Handel said calmly, "Do you know what you see? Below is a nuclear fusion reactor. The source of heat, power, everything we need. Know Does it mean anything?" He looked stern, staring at the dazzling purple light through the viewing hole. "Come with me," he said suddenly. They came to another building.It is still a gray stone wall, and the words "Palace of Fraternity of Auriel" are engraved at the entrance, which has been dilapidated.This time it was not the light that surprised Tropel, but the sound.The sound of hammering, impact, rolling, rumbling, ping-pong-pong, creaking, sharp and ear-piercing, all sounded together, all made by machine-processed metal materials. "This is a repair shop!" Handel said loudly. "Do you see those machines? Our workers, Inison, use them all salvaged from the ruins of the various factories we found. You can give Inison A metal block—any material, any shape—and a machine, he can process metal parts of any shape and material without any distortion. Drilling, cutting, planing, welding, melting, and regional melting , gluing, etc., you just tell him what to do, and he can make it. We make all the parts for 6 tractors and 41 cars in this plant. We have other plants—Farmingdale and The aircraft factory in Wichita, the munitions factory in Wilmington, etc. They don't make munitions here, and if they did, Inneson could build tanks and equip them with 105mm guns." Troppel asked, "What's a tank?" Handel glanced at him, didn't answer, just said: "Come with me." Looking at this journey, Tropel was really dizzy, and his mind was full of what he saw and heard from various visits.It's all unimaginable, it's amazing. He saw nuclear reactors, machine factories, mobile garages and hangars.Beneath the auditorium at the football stadium, he saw another food warehouse, filled with crates of coffee, canned soup, whiskey and beans.There was another storehouse, stocked no longer with food but with other things Troppel had never seen before, and they called it an arsenal.There is something inside that can be filled with ammunition, called a cannon, and there are many.There is also a guy that can also be loaded with ammunition, and then fired when the trigger is pulled, called a gun. Troppel remembered something, and said: "I saw a gun once, and it also had the iron hook for firing, but it was all rusted and couldn't be pulled." "This kind of gun can kill people. We have people here who have killed people." "kill--" "Don't make a fuss, put away your sheepish face. Criminals who harm society are different from ordinary people. What are they? Why not kill them? We like to use guns instead of bone marrow piercing for dedication. Shooting is convenient, quick and clean; Besides, we don't like drinking human bone marrow, even if it has such miraculous curative effects and great symbolic meaning. You will learn these slowly in the future." He didn't say "Follow me" again, because he had already come to a place. It's a small room, in the same building as the armory.There is a gun rack in the room with a row of guns standing on it, which is very conspicuous among the various furnishings in the house. "Sit down," Handel said, thoughtfully taking a gun from the rack, holding it in his hand, and fondling it carefully, just as Boye fondled the watch case before he died.This is the latest close-range lethal rifle for humans before the pyramid age. Within a range of 250 feet, it can fire a burst of bullets and hit a small coffee can. "Okay, let's stop here for the visit." Handel said while touching the body of the gun lightly, "I'll talk to you about something else. Troppel, you have seen all our belongings. You and the sheep After 30 years together, by now you know what they have and what we have. I see no need for you to choose, I know what you will choose.What I'm saying is, we need you. " Troppel moved in his heart, and said, "I was just about to talk about this issue." "Why not? We're not sheep, and it's not our style to be secretive. 'Return the peach to the plum', no loss, remember it.You have got our 'peach', let's see your 'plum'. Handel said and leaned forward, "Tropel, what do you know about the pyramids?" " "Nothing," Tropel replied casually. Handel nodded and said, "Yes, nothing. But they are everywhere, and it is because of them that we are where we are today. And we don't even know what they are and why. You flee When Huiling, did you know that a sheep was saved?" "Excess?" Tropel was stunned when Handel told him what had happened to Boye. "So he didn't do spinal cord dedication after all," he said. "Perhaps worse than spinal cord sacrifice," Handel said. "We don't know. But that incident gave you a chance to escape. We learned—never mind how we learned it—that Wheeling caught a Wolf, we rushed to rescue you. But you escaped by yourself." Hearing this, Troppel was a little angry: "You guys are too fucking late!" "Oh, it's not too late, Troppel. We're never too late. If you're not smart enough to escape from the sheep, then you're not a wolf, and certainly not worth our saving. Simple as that. But What is puzzling is this 'extra'. We only know that it happened and people disappeared, but we don't know what it is. About every 5 years, the sun changes, and a new sun will appear in the sky. Who Made? Pyramids. How? We don't know. Sometimes there is a strange thing floating in the sky, which we call 'air eyes', which obviously has some kind of connection with Chaodu and Pyramid. What connection? We also have no idea." "There's a lot we don't know!" Troppel interrupted, trying to urge him to get down to business. "But you can't look at the pyramid in this way. No." Handel shook his head. "The problem is that almost everyone has never even seen it. How can they understand it?" "Almost? So you've seen it?" "Oh, of course. You know, there is a legend that there is a pyramid on top of Sakya-Mata. For us, that is not a myth, but a fact. I went to see it, and there is a pyramid. The last time we met It was when the sun changed five years ago. I presume it didn't move and stayed there." Listening to Tropel, he was amazed that someone had seen the real pyramid!He himself has always believed that the so-called pyramids are just myths, and even the objective facts that have happened, such as air eyes and transcendence, he almost attributes to myths, just like a three-year-old child who thinks that Christmas gifts are really sent by the mythical Santa Claus.But this incredible person in front of him has seen this thing. "Somebody dropped a bomb on it, and it bounced off," Handel went on, "and the pyramid was left unharmed, except for a big crater in the pass. No one could move it, hurt it. But it was clearly There's life, it's been there for hundreds of years. That's all we know about the pyramids. Do you understand?" "Understood." Handel stood up. "Troppel, that's the whole reason we're making these things!" he said, pointing around. "Guns, tanks, planes—we're going to scout further, uncover more secrets. We'll fight! " Handel's eloquent oath suddenly changed, which was noticed by the keen Troppel.No matter what he said—Troppel's subconscious told him—this aggressive, self-conscious person was also a little bit unsure.But Handel continued to talk loudly, and Troppel didn't pay much attention for a while. "Five years ago we organized an expedition to climb Sakya-Mata," he said, "but we got nothing. Before that, we organized similar expeditions several times. When the new sun rises every five years, the climate is warmer, and the walls of Sakya-Mata Peak can still be climbed.At this time, we will send an expedition team up.It's a tough job and we give it to young people, lads like you. " The cards were revealed: he had been called to attack the pyramids. There was a hint of hesitation on Troppel's face, but he quickly and skillfully concealed it.He had to keep quiet and bargain.This is a wolf versus wolf contest, and it's tough, but something has to be gained—"There will be something," Handel said loudly. Hearing this, Troppel became excited.But he immediately remembered that this was a contest between wolves and wolves, so don't get too excited too soon.Handel continued: "First of all, what you will get is your own life. You know, your life is in our hands now. What we need are real wolves, and sheep are not allowed to get in the way here." He narrowed his eyes, Staring at Troppel coldly, "Secondly, we can realize a lofty ambition - we sent the expedition team not without purpose, but with a desire, and that is to get back our earth." "Earth?" The plan is full of madness, but the person who came up with the idea is not crazy. "There will come a day, Tropel, when the world will be pitted against the pyramids. Don't count on the poor sheep, they're nothing. It's the wolf against the pyramids. The pyramids will lose. Then—" Handel's impassioned speech was really shocking and chilling.Go to war against the pyramids, against the invulnerable, almost god-like pyramids! But he himself was flushed and full of emotion.His enthusiasm was so contagious that Troppel felt his blood begin to surge.Handel's words have not been finished, and there is no need to say more, the ending is clear: the earth will be liberated from the domination of the "derailed planet" and see the light again; human beings will return to the solar system; the five-year severe cold will never return . Then wolves ruled the whole world. Handel's plans may have been extravagant, but his request could not be denied.Troppel gave in.He said to Handel: "Put away your guns, and count me in your expedition."