Chapter 15 Chapter Fourteen

"Have you slept yet?" Lee Hunter asked me as we walked up to the treetop teleportation reception area. "Slept." "I hope, what you had was a good dream, right?" Hunter said, for a person like me who dared to sleep when the dignitaries of the government were working hard, there was no sarcasm in his tone to hide his sarcasm. bias. "Not a particularly good dream," I said, looking around at the wide staircase leading to the dining floor in front of me. In the Ring, every town in every province in every country on every continent seems to boast four-star restaurants; true gourmands abound, tastes honed by two hundred planetary delicacies, but the treetops, Even in this Huanwang, where cooks are flocking to and the catering industry is flourishing, it can still be unique.

The treetops sit on a planet of giant sequoias, occupying the highest pinnacle of the few that exist, with acres of upper branches half a mile above the ground.Hunter and I climbed a flight of stairs, four meters wide here, hidden among the huge branches as wide as the street, their leaves were the size of the sail of a ship, and the trunk - illuminated by the spotlight, could only be seen from the leaves. Glimpses through the cracks - steeper and more majestic than most mountain fronts.On the upper level of the treetops there are gazebos where twenty dining platforms are seated according to ascending order of rank, privilege, wealth and power.Especially power.In this society, it is almost commonplace to have billions of dollars of wealth. Although a meal in the treetops costs up to a thousand marks, there are still millions of people who are able to pay, and the final decision on status and treatment is power—this will always be Timeless currency.

Evening gatherings are held on the uppermost deck, a curved platform of weir wood (for Muir wood is not allowed to be trampled on), from which a darkening lemon sky can be seen, and an endless expanse of slightly dwarf treetops stretches far into the distance. On the horizon, the saint's treehouse and chapel cast a soft orange-red light, filtering through the distant walls of green, burnt tea and amber foliage.There were about sixty people at the banquet; I recognized Senator Korschev, his white hair glistening in the Japanese lantern, and Counselor Alberto, General Morpurgo, Marshal Singer, Pro. President Ten Denzier-Hiatt-Amin, the spokesperson of the global affairs Gibbons, and more than a dozen members of parliament from those powerful ring planets, such as Tianlongxing 7, Tianjin Sibing, Beidao, Rich Saturn, Metakoser, Mauiyo, Hebron, Xindi, Ixion, etc., and a group of lower-status politicians.Performance artist Spencer Reynolds was there, too, in a gorgeous maroon velvet formal jacket, but I didn't meet any artists.I did see Tyrena Greenwing on the other side of the crowded deck; the publisher-turned-philanthropist in a gown of a thousand petals of skinny leather, The dark blue hair is coiled high and shaped into waves, but the dress is an original style sewn by hand. The makeup on the face is eye-catching, but it is thousands of miles away. Compared with fifty or sixty years ago, Her looks are indeed not as good as before.I made my way toward her in the crowded hall, where guests wandered about on the penultimate deck, scouring the countless bars there, waiting for an order from the host to dine.

"Joseph, my God," Green Wing Yifei exclaimed as I squeezed the last few yards, "how did you get invited to such a dreary party?" I smiled and handed her a glass of champagne.This lonely queen mother who is in charge of literary fashion only knows me because she went to Hope Star to participate in a week-long art festival a year ago, and at that time I happened to be friends with some famous masters of the ring network, such as Sam De Brevi III, Myron of Havel, and Lismay Cooper.Tyrena is a dinosaur that refuses to go extinct — her wrists, hands, and neck would be bluish from repeated Paulson sessions, and she spent decades Take short interstellar cruise jumps, or unbelievably expensive frozen slumbers at spas that are so upscale that few people even know their names; I have held it firmly in my hands for more than three centuries, and I still have no intention of letting go.Every time she wakes up from a twenty-year long sleep, her wealth has doubled, and her legend index has also expanded rapidly.

"Do you still live on that dreary asteroid I visited last year?" she asked. "That's Hope," I began, knowing that she knew exactly where every major artist's residence on that insignificant planet was located. "No, on the surface, it can be said that I have already migrated to the heart of the whale." Green Wing Yifei made a grimace.I had the vague feeling that maybe eight or ten bystanders were watching me intently, wondering who this impertinent young man had entered her inner orbit. "That would be too miserable for you," Terena said, "to live on a planet full of traders and government bureaucrats. I hope they will let you go!"

I raised my glass to toast her. "I want to ask you, too," I said, "were you formerly Martin Silenus's editor?" The lonely queen mother put down her wine glass and stared at me coldly.For a split second, I imagined what it would be like if Meina Gladstone and this woman engaged in a focused mind duel; I shivered and waited for her answer. "My dear child," she said, "the past is very old-fashioned. How can such a handsome young mind of yours dwell on such trifles?" "I'm interested in Silenus," I said, "in his poetry. I'm just curious if you have any connection with him."

"Joseph, Joseph, Joseph," muttered Lady Greenwing, "poor Silenus has not been heard from for decades. Well, the poor thing must be old." I failed to point out to Terena that when she was Silenus's editor the poet was much younger than she was. "It's odd that you're bringing him up," she went on. "The company I used to work for, Hyperline, recently let the news out that they were considering publishing some of Martin's work. I don't know if they've been in touch with his residence. .” "His Dying Earth series?" I asked, thinking of the Nostalgic Lands volume that had been a hit all those years ago.

"No, strange to say. I'm sure they're going to publish his Psalter," Terena said.She smiled, and pulled a hidden hashish from a slim ebony cigarette case, and a squire hurried forward to light it. "What an odd choice," she said, "considering that the Psalms hadn't been read while poor Martin was alive. Well, I always thought there was nothing that would matter to an artist's career." Help, except for their petty death and retirement." She laughed—a high-pitched tinny sound that sounded like metal rasping rock.Half the people around her laughed in agreement.

"You'd better make sure that Silenas is really dead," I said, "the whole Psalter will read much more smoothly." Terena Greenwing looked at me with a strange look, the bell of the dinner came through the moving leaves, and Spencer Reynolds made a gesture to the honorable lady with a wave of his arm. A gentleman's move.People began to climb the last stair that seemed to lead to the stars, and I drank my drink, left the empty glass on the railing, and hurried forward to join the crowd. Shortly after we were seated, the CEO and her retinue arrived, and Gladstone made a brief speech, perhaps her twentieth speech of the day, not counting her speeches to the House and the Web this morning .The original intention of the dinner tonight was to recognize the fundraising efforts for the Armaghast Relief Fund, but Pleasant Stone's speech quickly shifted to the war and the need to be active and effective in it, while people around the Web Leaders promote unity.

As she spoke, I looked over the railing to the view outside.The lemon sky had dissolved into a dull saffron, and soon faded into the brightly colored dusk of the tropics, as if a heavy blue curtain hung over the sky.There are six small moons in Shenlin, and five of them are clearly visible from this altitude.As I watched the stars disappear, four were racing across the sky.The air was rich in oxygen, almost intoxicating, and had a strong scent of wet grass that reminded me of my early morning sojourn in Hyperion.But Shenlin does not allow electromagnetic vehicles, skimmers, or any kind of flying tools—so there has never been any petrochemical exhaust or fusion cell wake polluting the sky here—and there are no cities or traffic arteries here, under the light of electric lights , the stars look almost as bright as those Japanese lanterns and fluorescent balls hanging from the branches and pillars.

After sunset, the breeze picked up again, and the whole tree was now rocking slightly, and the wide platform rocked slightly like a ship on a calm sea, with weir and muir posts and buttresses slightly swollen , making a soft creaking sound.I saw lights flickering among the distant treetops, and realized that most of them came from "houses"—a few of the thousands rented out by the Saints—and they could also be connected to An interstellar mansion connected by transmitters, but only if you can afford the starting price of millions of marks to enjoy such a luxury. The saints' day-to-day operations and agency rentals in the treetops did not tarnish their reputation, they just established strict and inviolable ecological conditions for these endeavors, but they also benefited from the hundreds of millions of marks that these enterprises earned.I think of their interstellar cruiser, the Yggdrasil, a gigantic kilometer-long tree plucked from the planet's holiest forest, propelled by a Hawking-driven singularity generator, covered with the most intricate Protected by the energy shield, it also carries the maximum amount of Erg energy field.Somehow, really inexplicable, the Saints would have agreed to send the Yggdrasil on an evacuation mission, just to take a shot at the Army's anti-invasion task force. When something of great value is exposed to danger, anything can happen. The "Yggdrasil" was destroyed when it entered Hyperion orbit, and was killed by the attack of the Ousters. Or some other force is still unknown.How did the saints react?What could be the purpose that would cause them to risk the destruction of one of only four treeships in the world?Why had their treeship captain, Heit Masteen, chosen to be one of the seven Shrike Pilgrims, suddenly disappeared as the wind transport was approaching the Bridle Mountains off the coast of the Grass Coast? Damn it, the war has only started for a few days, and there are already so many doubts. Meina Gladstone concluded her remarks by directing everyone to enjoy the dinner.I clapped politely and waved for a waiter to fill my glass.The first course was a classic salad, prepared according to the imperial recipe, which I ate with gusto, realizing that I hadn't eaten anything that day other than breakfast.As I forked a sprig, I remembered Governor Theo Wren eating bacon, eggs, and kippers as the drizzle fell softly from the blue sky of Hyperion.Is that a dream? "What's your take on war, Mr. Seven?" asked performance artist Reynolds.He was on the other side of the wide dining table, facing me diagonally, but his voice was clearly audible.I raised an eyebrow at me when I saw Terena sitting there, to my right, with three people in between. "What can one think about war?" I replied, sipping my wine again.Good quality, although nothing in the Ring can compare to what I remember from French Bordeaux. "There is no judgment in war," I said, "but life and death." “On the contrary,” says Reynolds, “humanity has redefined many things since the Exile, and war is no exception, and it’s crossing the threshold of the pantheon of art.” "The Palace of Art." A woman with short chestnut hair sighed.The data network tells me that this person is Ms. Sude Scheer, the wife of MP Gabriel Fyodor Korsev, who herself has formidable political power.Ms Scheer, in a blue and gold tinsel gown, had a look of interested concentration on her face. "War is an art form, Mr. Reynolds! What a fascinating concept!" Spencer Reynolds is a little shorter than average for the ring, but he's a lot more handsome than average.His curly hair is cut short, his complexion seems to have been plated with a layer of bronze by the benevolent sunlight, and slightly painted with delicate body paint, his clothing and genetic modification are luxurious but not artificial, and his gestures show the following Sexual confidence, the kind of confidence that all men dream of, but only a very few people can achieve.His wit was radiant, his concern for others genuine and his sense of humor legendary. But I immediately found myself disliking the bastard. "Everything is an art form, Ms. Scheer, Mr. Seven," laughed Reynolds, "or will become an art form sooner or later. We used to think that war was nothing more than the imposition of politics by another means, and now we have goes beyond that argument.” "Diplomacy," said General Morpurgo, sitting to Reynolds' left. "Excuse me, what did you say, General?" "Diplomacy," he said, "and it's not 'imposing,' it's politics 'continuing.'" Spencer Reynolds stood up, bowed, and waved slightly.Sude Shell and Terena laughed softly.The image of Advisor Alberto leaned over from my left and said, "I believe, that's the famous quote." I glanced at the advisor.Above his head and two meters behind him, hovering was a portable projection device, not much bigger than radiant spider webs fluttering among the branches.It's not as perfect as the one in the government building, but it's far better than any personal hologram I've ever seen. Mo Boge nodded to the core representative. "It doesn't matter," Schell said, "the idea of ​​war as art is brilliant." After I finished my salad, a human waiter quickly removed the bowl and replaced it with a dark gray soup I don't know what it is.The soup is steaming, with a slight aroma of cinnamon and the sea, and it tastes delicious. “War is the perfect technique of an artist,” Reynolds gushed again, holding his salad plate aloft like a baton. "I don't mean those... craftsmen who have studied the so-called science of war." He smiled back at the other military officer to General Morpurgo's right, dismissing both of them from consideration. "It's those who are willing to look beyond the bureaucratic bottom line of tactics, strategy, and other useless things, and only seek the will to 'win'. Only they can truly make war in modern society-this is especially difficult to use. Use the means with ease." "The will to win beyond useless things?" said the military officer.Datanet whispered to me that he was Commander William Ajunta Lee, a naval hero who rose to prominence in the Mauijo War.He looked rather young—somewhere in his mid-fifties—and his rank suggested that his youth was due to years of interplanetary travel rather than the benefits of Paulson's physical therapy. "Of course," Reynolds laughed. "Do you think a sculptor would try to beat clay? Would a painter want to attack canvas? To put it more bluntly, would a vulture or Thomas the Eagle want to attack the sky?" "Vultures are extinct," grumbled Mopurgo. "Maybe they should have attacked the sky. Because the sky betrayed them." Reynolds turned to face me.The waiter took away the salad he had discarded, and served the fresh soup that I had almost finished eating. "Mr. Seven, you're an artist...at least a painter," he said, "help me explain to these people what I mean." "I don't know what you mean." I tapped my wine glass, waiting for the next course.The glass was filled immediately.I could hear Gladstone, Hunter, and several Relief Foundation presidents laughing loudly from the head of the table, thirty feet away from me. Spencer Reynolds was not surprised by my ignorance. "For our people to truly reach enlightenment, to move to the next level of consciousness and evolution proclaimed by our many philosophies, there must be a conscious struggle towards the heights of art in all aspects of human endeavor." Mo Boge took a long sip and snorted contemptuously. "Including these bodily functions, like eating, having sex, and defecating, I guess." "Especially a sensuality like this!" exclaimed Reynolds.He opened his hands to embrace the long table and the many delicacies on it. "What you see here is the animal need, the lowly act of converting dead organic compounds into energy, devouring other life, but the treetops have turned it into art! The essence of civilized human dance has long since replaced Primitive bestial origin of reproductive activity. Excretion must become pure poetry!" "The next time I go to take a shit, I will definitely remember your words." Moboge said. Terena Green Wing Yifei smiled and turned to the person in black and red pants on the right. "Master, your religion...Catholicism, is the early Christianity, right?...You must have some delightful ancient teachings about the evolution of human beings to a higher level?" We all turned to look at the small, silent man.He was dressed in black robes and a curious little cap.The early Christian sect now only has believers in Payson and some of the colonized planets. Monsignor Edward is the representative of this almost forgotten sect. He was among the guests only because he participated in the relief of Armaghast Plan, since the banquet started, he just tasted the soup silently and alone.He looked up now, a look of surprise on his face, the weather-beaten lines carved by decades of worry. "Ah, yes," he said, "Santia's teaching is to seek evolution." "Is the Omega point similar to our Zen spirituality's view of perfect enlightenment?" Sudey Schell asked. Monsignor Edward looked longingly at his soup, as if it was more important than the topic at hand. "In fact, it's not very similar," he said, "Santia believes that all life, different levels of organic consciousness, are part of gradual evolution, and eventually, we will gain divinity." He frowned slightly . "Over the past eight centuries, Theia's views have been revised many times, but the core idea remains the same, that is, we believe that Jesus Christ is the ultimate embodiment of consciousness on the human level." I cleared my throat. "Didn't the Jesuit Paul Duré publish an exhaustive treatise on the planet's spread on Theia Hypothesis?" Monsignor Edward leaned forward, looked at Terena and everyone around him, and then looked directly at me.There was surprise on that curious face. "Oh, yes," he said, "but I'm surprised you're so familiar with Paul Durey's writings." I looked back at this man, too. He was a friend of Dooley's, a friendship that lasted even when Dooley was exiled to Hyperion for his apostasy.I was reminded of another refugee from the New Vatican, the young Rainer Hoyt, now dead, lying in a time tomb, the cruciform nematodes carrying his and Duré's mutated DNA, Carry out their brutal resurrection campaign.How could the hatred of the cruciform go hand in hand with Theia and Dore's views on the inevitable evolution of humanity toward divinity and its blessings? Spencer Reynolds clearly felt that the conversation had been out of his control for a long time. "The point is," he said, his deep voice coming suddenly across the table, drowning out the rest of the conversation, "that war, like religion or any other effort to develop and organize human vitality at this level, It must abandon the childish preconceived notion of the thing itself - which is often manifested through a kind of blind pursuit with a 'goal' - and be fully indulged in the artistic dimension of all its works. And my latest planning—” "Then what is the goal of your church, Monsignor Edward?" Terena Greenwing Yifei asked, quietly stealing the hydrangea of ​​the topic from Reynolds, neither raising her volume nor putting Look away from the priest. "Help man understand and serve God," he said, smacking his lips loudly as he finished his soup.The little old clergyman looked across the dining table, at the projection of Advisor Argindu. "Mr. Advisor, I have heard rumors that the core of technology is pursuing a similar goal. It is a coincidence. I heard that you are trying to build your own god. Is this true?" Alberto's smile was adjusted just right, fully showing his friendliness without showing any condescension. "It's no secret that core members have been working for centuries to create artificial intelligence, at least a theoretical model, far beyond our meager intelligence." He made a disapproving gesture. "But it can hardly be regarded as creating God, Monsignor. We are more engaged in the research of this possibility. The exploration process led by Saint Theia and Father Du Lei of your church is not exactly For this?" "But you believe that it is feasible to harmoniously orchestrate your own evolution into such a high-level consciousness, don't you?" the commander asked.Lee, the naval hero, had been listening carefully. "Just as we once engineered your botched ancestors out of silicon and microchips, you want to engineer an ultimate intelligence?" Albert laughed. "I'm afraid, this matter is neither so simple nor so grand. When you call 'you', commander, please remember that I am just one personality among many intelligences. However, the diversity among us Not inferior to the humans on this planet... In fact, not even inferior to all humans in the entire ring network. The core is not a monolith, and there are many different camps in it, no matter what aspect: there are philosophies, beliefs, hypotheses —religion, if you will—as a necessary part of a diverse commune.” He clasped his hands together, delighting him as if there was a hidden joke in the remark. "Though I tend to view the search for ultimate intelligence as a hobby rather than a religion. You could compare it to, Commander, or, yes, Bishop." Everyone laughed politely, except for Reynolds who frowned unintentionally, no doubt wondering how he could regain control of the conversation. "Then how do you explain the rumor that the Inner Core has built a perfect replica of the Old Land in its quest for ultimate intelligence?" I asked, amazed at the question even to myself. Alberto's smile didn't fade in the slightest, and his friendly eyes didn't waver in any way, but in an instant, I felt something conveyed through this projection.what is that?Shock?anger?ridiculous?I have no idea.For that eternity of a second, he could have had a private communication with me through my inner umbilical cord, or along the lines we kept for ourselves in the labyrinthine datanet—that thing humans thought was just self-defeating. The invisible corridor transmits countless data.Or he can kill me and use the authority of any god in the core to control the environment around my consciousness—this is the same as the director of the research institute asking his technicians to paralyze an annoying laboratory mouse forever, Simple as hell. Up and down the table, the rest of the discussion stopped.Even Meina Gladstone and her group of super dignitaries were looking in our direction. Advisor Alberto's smile was even brighter. "What a delightfully queer gossip! Tell me, Mr. Seven, that a person... especially an organism like the kernel, which your own review refers to as 'a bunch of disembodied brains, de-circuited Out-of-control programming, spending most of their time pulling smart plush from their non-existent navels'... how could they build a 'perfect replica of the old land'?" I looked at the projection, looked through it, and realized for the first time that Alberto's dishes and food were also projections; he was also eating as we spoke. "And," he continued, clearly amused, "hasn't the rumor-monger thought of the possibility that a 'perfect replica of the Old Land' might actually be the Old Land itself? What good would it do to explore the theoretical possibilities of an advanced artificial intelligence matrix?" I did not answer, and meanwhile an uneasy silence settled over the whole central part of the table. Monsignor Edward cleared his throat. "It seems to be saying," he began, "that any society that... ah... can create an exact replica of a planet at will, especially one that has been destroyed for nearly four centuries, need not Go after God; it will be God itself." "Exactly!" Advisor Alberto laughed. "The rumors are crazy, but it sounds like a joy...it's a joy!" Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, and laughter filled the void left by the earlier silence.Spencer Reynolds begins to talk about his next project - trying to make suicides jump off bridges on twenty planets at the same time, and keep the whole world on the lookout - Terena Greenwing Stealing everyone's attention with another simple action, she embraced Monsignor Edward and invited him to the nude swimming party at her floating manor in the Infinity Sea. But I saw that Advisor Alberto was staring at me.I turned my head to see Lee Hunter and the CEO giving me curious looks, and I swiveled my chair to watch the waiters bring out the entrees on silver platters. The dishes are delicious.

---

Notes: