Chapter 4 third chapter

Six adults and one child were in the rough, and the campfire looked insignificant in the looming darkness.Above the head and in the distance, the peaks of the valley are undulating like walls, and nearer, the tombs wrapped in the darkness of the valley, their huge shapes seem to be like the ghosts of lizards in ancient times, slowly creeping closer . Braun Lamia's body was tired and aching, and his mood was restless.Saul Winterberg's baby cries tormented her to death.She knew that the others were also very sleepy; no one had slept more than a few hours for the past three nights, and the day was drawing to a close with fear haunting everyone.She added the last log to the fire.

"We've scoured all the firewood," snapped Martin Silenus.The firelight illuminates the poet's seductive face from below. "I know," said Braun Lamia, too tired to be angry, and there was no energy in her voice.The firewood was recovered from a hoard brought by a pilgrimage party many years ago.According to tradition, the night before the pilgrims will face the Shrike, they will camp at a fixed place, and their three small tents are located in that place.The camp was very close to the Tomb of Time called the Sphinx, a black wing-like drape that obscured part of the sky.

"We can use the lantern when the firewood runs out," said the consul.The diplomat looked even more exhausted than the others.The flickering lights cast red hues on his brooding features.He had been dressed in diplomatic finery that day, but now the cloak and cocked hat looked as dirty and wilted as the consul himself. Colonel Kassad returned to the fire and slid the night vision goggles onto the top of his helmet.Kassad was fully armed in combat gear, the only thing not covered by the reactive color-changing polymer material was his face, which seemed to be drifting in the air two meters above the ground. "Nothing unusual," he said, "no movement. No heat trails. No sound except wind." Kassad leaned his army assault rifle against the rock while he sat next to the others, holding tight. The fiber activation of the armor had diminished and was now a dull black, as illegible as before.

"Do you think the Shrike will be here tonight?" Father Hoyt asked.Wrapping himself in his black cloak, the priest looked like Colonel Kassad, who had become one with the night.The thin guy's voice sounded tense. Kassad leaned forward and poked the fire with his baton. "There's no way of knowing. I'll keep watch at night, just in case." Suddenly, a burst of colored light burst out from the star-studded night sky, and orange and bright red flowers bloomed silently, obliterating the stars, and the six people looked up at the sky at the same time. "It hasn't been like this for the last few hours," Saul Winterberg said, rocking his baby.Rachel had stopped crying and was trying to grab at her father's short beard.Winterberg kissed her little hand.

"They're testing the Overlord's defenses again," Kassad said.A few sparks rose from the poked fire, and the ashes floated to the sky, as if they were going to melt into the brighter flames there. "Who won?" Lamia asked, referring to the tyrannical silent aerial battle that filled the sky all night before and most of this day. "Who the hell cares?" Martin Silenus said.He was rummaging in the pockets of his fur coat, as if hiding a full bottle of wine.But he didn't come up with anything. "Who the hell cares," he muttered again. "I care," the consul said wearily, "if the Ousters break through the lines, they'll destroy all of Hyperion before we find the Shrike."

Silenas smiled mockingly. "Oh, that's awful, isn't it? Hanging out before we've sought death? Killed before the appointed time, exterminated quickly and painlessly, but not forever. A Shrike writhing in a thorn tree? Oh! The thought, it's a horrible idea." "Shut up," Braun Lamia said, her voice still deadpan, but this time threatening.She looked at the consul. "So where is the Shrike? Why can't we find it?" The diplomat stared into the fire. "I don't know. How could I possibly know?" "Perhaps the Shrike is gone," said Father Hoyt. "Perhaps after you destroyed the anti-entropy field, it was released forever. Perhaps its curse has gone elsewhere."

The Consul shook his head and said nothing. "No," said Saul Winterberg.His baby fell asleep on his shoulder. "He's going to be here. I can feel it." Braun Lamia nodded. "Me too. It's waiting." She'd pulled a few rations out of her backpack earlier, and now she pulled the heat tab back to distribute the food to the others. "I know the twisted nature of the world is anticlimactic," Silenas said, "but this is fucking ridiculous. Everyone is well dressed and can't find a place to die." Braun Lamia glared at him, but said nothing.They ate in silence for a while.The flames in the sky dissipated, and the dense stars reappeared, but the ashes still rose, as if they were looking for a way out.

My mind was completely wrapped up in the hazy dreams of Braun Lamia.So for the first time since the last time I dreamed of them, I tried to reorganize this messy dream. The pilgrims descended into the valley before dawn, singing along the way.The bright light of the battlefield a billion kilometers above their heads cast their shadows in front of them.All day long, they have been probing the truth of the Time Tombs.Every minute, they look forward to death.A few hours later, as the sun rose, the cold of the high desert was replaced by heat, and their fear and joy gradually faded. In the long days, there was no other sound except the sound of sand rubbing, the occasional scream, and the constant, almost subconscious moaning of the wind blowing around the rocks and tombs.Both Kassad and the Consul brought a tool to measure the strength of the anti-entropy field, but Lamia was the first to discover that it was unnecessary, because when the tide of time ebbs or flows, people will feel a slight Nausea, accompanied by a lingering sense of hallucinatory memory.

The building closest to the entrance of the valley is the Sphinx; then there is the Emerald Tomb, as long as it is reflected in the morning light and evening mist, the wall of the building will become transparent; further inward, less than 100 meters deep, There stands the tomb called the obelisk; then the pilgrimage road leads to the gradually widening dry river bed, and the largest tomb among them, the crystal monolith in the center, will appear in front of you, without any mechanism on its surface Or the entrance, whose flat top is level with the top of the valley's walls; further on are three tombs, whose entrances can still be discerned now only because the weather-beaten path ends here; and at last—the valley Nearly a kilometer deeper—sat the legendary Shrike Temple, its sharp edges and flared peaks reminiscent of the spikes of the monster that was said to haunt the valley.

For a whole day, they walked through the mausoleums. No one dared to act alone. The whole team would hesitate a little in front of the artificial ruins that should be entered, and then walked into them.Sol Winterberg was almost overwhelmed with emotion when he saw and entered the Sphinx, where his daughter contracted Merlin's disease twenty-six years earlier.The equipment installed by her university group is still placed on the tripod outside the tomb, although it is not known whether they are still functional and whether they are still performing their monitoring tasks.The corridors inside the Sphinx are now as narrow and convoluted as Rachel's comlog entries show, and the strings of fluorescent balls and light bulbs left behind by the many research teams are now exhausted and no longer available. Shine again.They probed the place with handheld torches and Kassad's night-vision goggles.There was no sign of the house Rachel had been in, no way of knowing how the walls closed in on her, how the disease befell her.What is in front of me is only the remnants of the once strong tide of time receding.But there was no sign of the Shrike.

Every catacomb has its moments of terror, of hope and foreboding, but when the dusty empty chamber is seen, it's what tourists and Shrike pilgrims have seen for centuries. Normally, that premonition will gradually fade within an hour or more. Finally the day passed in disappointment and weariness, the shadows cast by the cliffs of the valley to the east across the tombs and valley, like a curtain drawn down to announce the end of an unsuccessful show.The heat of the day had disappeared, and the cold of the high desert quickly returned, accompanied by a gust of wind that carried snowflakes and the breath of the high Bridle Mountains twenty kilometers to the west.Kassad proposed camping.The Consul pointed out to them the place of camp where Shrike pilgrims would normally wait on the eve of their visit to the creature they were visiting.On the flat ground near the Sphinx, there are traces of littering by some research groups and pilgrims, which makes Saul Winterberg a little happy. He imagines that his daughter once camped here.The rest didn't object either. Now, in the sheer darkness, with the last log blazing, I feel the six of them drawing closer...not just to the warmth of the fire, but to each other...they are on board the suspended cruise ship Benares The journey upstream, plus the time spent crossing the Sea of ​​Grass to the Fortress of Time, the fragile but tangible connection woven by that shared experience drove them closer together.Not only that, but I felt a sense of solidarity that was more obvious than an emotional bond; it took me a while to discover the bond, but I quickly realized that it was based on the team's micro-network of shared data and sensory webs.On a planet where primitive, territorial data transfers were torn apart by the prospect of war, the squad linked comlogs and biomonitors, shared information, and looked after each other as best they could. Although the login barrier is obvious and solid, it didn't take much effort for me to slide past it, delve into it, and get down to get bounded but infinite clues-pulse, skin temperature, brain wave activity, access requests, data details. Aims—these allow me to gain insight into what each pilgrim thinks, feels, and does.Kassad, Hoyt, and Lamia and her implants, the flow of their minds is the easiest to feel.At that moment, Braun Lamia was reflecting on whether finding the Shrike had been a mistake; something was whispering in her ear, just below the surface, but it was determined to let her hear it.She felt as if she had overlooked some clue that was important enough for her to work out... what? Braun Lamia has always despised esoteric talk; that's why she left a life of comfort and leisure to become a private eye.What mysterious statement?She had come so close to solving the murder of her Cyber ​​client...and her lover...and had come to Hyperion to fulfill his last wish.But she also realized that this nagging suspicion had little to do with the Shrike.What the hell is that? Lamia shook her head and fiddled with the dying fire.She was physically strong, growing under Lusus's 1.3 times gravity, and became stronger through training, but she hadn't slept in the past few days, so she was very tired.She was only vaguely aware that someone was speaking. "...take a shower and get something to eat," Martin Silenus said, "and maybe use your communication sheet and hyperlink to see who wins the battle." The Consul shook his head. "Not yet. The spaceship can only be activated in an emergency." Silenas gestured, pointing to the night, the Sphinx, and the rising wind. "Do you think this is an emergency?" Braun Lamia realized they were talking about having the Consul bring his spaceship over from Keats. "Are you sure by emergency you mean you're out of alcohol?" she asked. Silena glared at her. "You'll die if we drink?" "It doesn't count," said the Consul.He rubbed his eyes, and Lamia remembered that he, too, was a big drinker.But he refused to bring the boat here. "Let's wait until we have to." "How about a teleporter?" Kassad asked. The Consul nodded, and took out the ancient comlog from the small backpack.The instrument had been used by his grandmother Sealy, a family heirloom left by her grandparents.The Consul touched the display. "I can use it to send radio waves, but not receive messages." Sol Winterberg placed his sleeping child at the entrance of the nearest tent.Now he turned to the fire. "The last time you sent a message, was when we arrived at the Fortress of Time?" "yes." Martin Silenus' tone was full of sarcasm. "So are we supposed to believe... in the hands of a self-proclaimed traitor?" "Yes." The Consul's voice was exhausted. Kassad's thin face floated in the dark.His body, legs and arms seem to be painted with a layer of black shadow on the already black background, which is faintly recognizable. "But we can summon the ship if we need to?" "yes." Father Hoyt drew his cloak tighter to keep it from flying wildly in the rising wind.Grains of sand scratched at the fleece and tent fabric. "Aren't you afraid that the port authorities or the military department will tow the spaceship away, or change its settings?" he asked the consul. "Not afraid." The consul's head moved slightly, as if he was too tired to complete a shaking of his head. "My pass card was issued by Mr. Yueshi himself. Moreover, the governor is also my friend... used to be my friend." The rest of them had met the overlord governor who had just been promoted not long after they landed; Braun Lamia felt that Theo Lane looked as if he had been forced into a major mission far beyond his own talent. Inside the business. "It's going to be windy," Saul Winterberg said.He turned to shield his child from the flying sand.Still squinting into the wind, the scholar said, "I wonder if Het Masteen is there?" "We looked everywhere," said Father Hoyt.He buried his head in the folds of his cloak, his voice sounding muffled. Martin Silenus laughed. "I'm sorry, Reverend," he said, "you're such a piece of shit." The poet stood up and walked toward the edge of the fire.The wind rustled the fur of his coat and scattered his words into the night. "There are a thousand hiding places on the cliff face. We can't find the entrance to the Crystal Monolith...but what about the saints? Also, you see the path leading to the deepest room in the Emerald Tomb The steps of the maze?" Hoyt raised his head, squinting his eyes under the blow of flying sand. "Where do you think he is? In the maze?" Silinas smiled and raised his arms.The silk of his loose jacket rippled and billowed. "How the hell am I supposed to know, Reverend? All I know is that Het Masteen might be out there now, watching us, waiting for the time to come back for his luggage." The poet looked at them. The Moebius cube in the middle of the small pile of equipment made a gesture. "Otherwise, he might as well be dead. Or worse." "Worse?" Hoyt said.The priest's face had aged considerably in the past few hours.Eyes sunk deep into mirrors of pain, and smiles turned into grins. Martin Silenus strode toward the dying fire. "Worse," he said. "He might be writhing in the Shrike's steel tree. We'll be there too, in a few—" Braun, Lamia got up suddenly and grabbed the poet's front.She lifted him off the ground and kept shaking him until his face drooped down to the same height as hers before putting him down. "If you dare say it again," she said softly, "I'll make you die an ugly death. I won't really kill you, but you'll wish you were dead." The poet showed his emperor-like smile.Lamia threw him to the ground and turned around.Kassad said, "Everyone is tired. Go back to camp. I'll take care." My dreams about Lamia were mixed with Lamia's own.It is not pleasant to participate in a woman's dream, to know a woman's mind, especially a woman who is separated from me by a gap of time and culture greater than any imaginable gender difference.In a mirror-like fashion both strange and strange, she dreamed of her dead lover—Jonnie—his pitifully small nose and extremely firm jaw, his extremely long curls hanging over his collar, his The eyes—those expressive, emotional eyes that fill the face with infinite vibrancy.Had it not been for the eyes, the face would have been as ordinary as the faces of a thousand peasants born on the outskirts of London a day's drive from the city. She dreamed of my face.It was also my voice that she heard in the dream.But the lingering sex she dreamed about—which I still remember—was not what I experienced.I tried to escape her dream and return to my own.I'd rather be a voyeur than a false memory made up of past dreams. But I can't dream my own dreams.Not yet.I wondered if my birth—rebirth from the deathbed—was merely a dream of my dead, distant twin personality. I resigned myself to not struggling to wake up, but to keep dreaming. Braun Lamia woke up quickly, tossing and turning, and some sound or movement woke her from a sweet dream.For that first long second, she didn't quite understand what was going on: in the dark of night, there was a noise - not a mechanical sound - louder than the noise in the Luthers hive where she lived; Dazed with exhaustion, but knowing she hadn't slept long before she was awakened; she was alone in a small, confined space, inside what looked like an oversized body bag. Braun Lamia lives on a planet where confined spaces mean safety from foul air, wind and animals, where most people suffer from agoraphobia when faced with the few open spaces claustrophobic, but few people know what claustrophobic means, yet she is now reacting like one: clasping her hands, seeking air, throwing back bedrolls and tent walls in a panic, trying to escape the small Small fibrous plastic cocoons, crawling, dragging themselves forward with their hands, arms, and elbows, until their palms touch the sand and the sky is above their heads. It wasn't the real sky, she realized, and suddenly she saw around and remembered where she was.sand.A gust of scraping, roaring, and whirling sandstorm swept over, full of dust and gravel, like tiny needles piercing her face painfully.The campfire was out and covered with sand.Sand had piled up on the windward sides of the three tents, their sides hunting and flapping in the wind like rifle shots.The freshly blown sand piled up into mounds that thrived around the camp.The lee of tents and gear was strewn with stripes, ridges and gullies.No one in the other tents woke up.The tent she shared with Father Hoyt was half-collapsed and nearly buried by the rising sand dunes. Hoyt. It was his disappearance that woke her up.Even in her dream, a part of her consciousness could sense the faint breathing and unreal moans of the sleeping priest as he wrestled with pain.But he had left at some point less than half an hour ago.It could have been only a few minutes ago; Braun Lamia knew that although she had seen Johnny in her sleep, she was also vaguely aware of the sound of the gravel grinding and the howling of the wind. The voice of wasted slipped out. Lamia stood up, covering the sandstorm with her hands.It was dark, the stars obscured by high clouds and surface storms, but a faint, electric glow filled the sky, bouncing off the surface of rocks and dunes.It was lightning, Lamia realized, filling the air with static, causing her curls to dance and twirl like Medusa's locks.Static charges crawled down the sleeves of her coat and drifted along the surface of the tent.After his eyes gradually adjusted to the light, Lamia realized that the drifting sand dunes were also glowing dimly with fire.Forty meters away to the east, the tomb called the Sphinx was crackling, and its outline was flashing rhythmically in the night.Fluctuating currents crawl along its two flared appendages, commonly called wings. Braun Lamia looked around and saw no sign of Father Hoyt. She considered whether to call for help, and then realized that it was impossible for others to hear her voice under the howling of the wind.She pondered for a while, whether the pastor just went to other tents, or to the simple toilet twenty meters away to the west, but somehow she felt that this was not the case.She looked toward the sphinx - just a glimpse - and seemed to see a human form, black cloak whirling like a pennant hanging, shoulders shrugging in the wind, the form in the static light of the tomb. clearly identifiable. A hand fell on her shoulder. Braun Lamia turned away abruptly, squatted down and entered the battle state, his left fist was stretched, and his right hand was powerful.She recognized Kassad standing there.The colonel was almost 1.5 times the height of Lamia - but less than half her width - and he bent down and whispered to Lamia as miniature lightning flashed across his lean body. "He's going that way!" The colonel pointed at the sphinx with his long, dark arm, like a scarecrow. Lamia nodded and spoke back to him loudly, her voice barely audible to herself amidst the roar of the wind. "Should we wake the others?" She had forgotten that Kassad had been on the alert.Does this person never sleep? Feldman Kassad shook his head.His visors had been pushed up to his forehead, and his helmet had twisted to form an additional hood over the rear of his armor armed to the teeth.Kassad's face looked pale against the reflection of the gear.He gestured toward the Sphinx.The multipurpose assault rifle rested firmly in the crescent of his left elbow, grenades, binocular cases, and more mysterious items dangled from the hooks and web straps of his tight armor.He pointed again at the Sphinx. Lamia leaned forward and called out, "Did the Shrike take him?" Kassad shook his head. "Can you see him?" She gestured to his night vision goggles and binoculars. "Can't see," Kassad said. "There's a sandstorm. The heat signatures are messed up." Braun Lamia turned her back to the wind, and the grains of sand hit her neck like needles from a lance.She checked the comlog, but it only told her that Hoyt was alive and moving; there was no other signal on the public band.She shifted and rejoined Kassad, their backs forming a wall in the wind. "Shall we go and find him?" she cried. Kassad shook his head. "This place has to be guarded. I've left signaling devices along the way, but..." He gestured toward the sandstorm. Braun Lamia ducked into the tent, put on her boots, and reappeared at the door with her all-weather cape and her father's automatic.A more conventional weapon, the Kiel stunner, is carried in the cloak's breast pocket. "I'll go then," she said. At first she thought the Colonel hadn't heard her.But then she saw something flicker in his gray eyes, and she knew he heard.He tapped the military comlog on his wrist. Lamia nodded, confirming that her implant and comlog were both set to wideband. "I'll be back," she said, and she began trekking toward the ever-growing sand dunes.The trouser legs of the shorts shimmered in the electrostatic charge, and the current flowed across the mottled dune surface, and the sand seemed to come to life against the silver pulse. After walking twenty meters away, the campsite was completely gone.Ten meters further forward, the Sphinx stood majestically in front of her.But there was no sign of Father Hoyt; in a sandstorm, footprints can disappear completely in less than ten seconds. The entrance to the Sphinx is wide open, as it has been since humans discovered the place.Now, it just looks like a black rectangle against the shimmering wall.According to logical analysis, if Hoyt wanted to avoid the sandstorm, he might have entered it, but something told her that it was not the pastor's destination. Braun Lamia trudged around the Sphinx, rested in its lee, wiped the sand from his face, breathed easily, and then continued on, following the A well-trodden path looms between the dunes.Ahead, the emerald tomb emits a latex-like green light in the night, its smooth curves and peaks glisten with oil, giving one an ominous foreboding. Braun Lamia squinted and looked again, and found someone or something appeared in the light for a fleeting moment.Then the shadow was fleeting again, maybe it entered the tomb, or maybe it hid in the black semicircle at the entrance. Lamia lowered her head and continued walking, the strong wind pushed her, as if urging her to rush to do something important.

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