Chapter 29 Chapter Twenty Eight

"I can't go," said the Consul. Het Masteen remained unconscious, and the Consul and Saul carried him from the Crypt into the Sphinx, while Father Durey tended Brawne Lamia.It was almost midnight, and the valley reflected light in the light of the tombs.The arc of the sphinx's wings cut across the cliff face, leaving them a small patch of sky visible.Braun lay motionless, the loathsome thread twisting into the darkness of the tomb. Saul patted the Consul on the shoulder. "We've discussed it. You should go—" The Consul shook his head, caressing the ancient Huo Ying flying carpet lazily. "It might carry two. You and Dooley can go to where the Benares is anchored."

Thor gently rocked his daughter, resting her little head in one hand. "Rachel only has two days to live. Besides, we have to stay here." The Consul looked around.His eyes gleamed with pain. "This is where I should be, too. The Shrike..." Du Lei leaned over.The light from the mound behind him painted his high forehead and sharp cheekbones. "My child, if you stay here, it will be suicide. And if you can do your best to bring back the spaceship for Ms. Lamia and the saints, you will be doing others a big favor." The Consul rubbed his cheek, he was exhausted. "You can't sit on a flying carpet, Father."

Du Lei smiled. "I always feel that I am destined to meet my destiny here, no matter how it ends up. I will wait for your return." The Consul shook his head again, but walked over anyway, sat cross-legged on the flying carpet, and pulled the heavy duffel bag.He counted the supply packs and water bottles Thor had packed for him. "Too much. You should save yourself some more." Du Lei smiled lightly. "Thanks to Ms Lamia, we had enough food and water to last four days. After that, even if we needed to fast, it wasn't the first time for me." "But what if Silenas and Kassad come back?"

"They can drink our water," Thor said, "and if the others come back, we can go to the fort again and get some food." The Consul sighed. "Okay." He skillfully touched the flight control wire device, and the two-meter-long flying carpet stiffened up, rising ten centimeters above the rock.It is impossible, if not sure, to detect any fluctuations between the magnetic fields with the naked eye. "You're starving for oxygen when you go over a mountain," Saul said. The Consul lifted the breath mask from the backpack. Saul handed him Lamia's automatic.

"I can not……" "It's useless against the Shrike," Saul said, "but it's a different matter whether you get to Keats or not." The Consul nodded and put the weapon in his backpack.He shook hands with the priest, and then with the old scholar.Rachel's tiny fingers brushed his forearm. "Good luck," Dooley said, "God be with you." The Consul nodded, knocked on the flying device, leaned forward, and rode the Huoying Flying Carpet up five meters, swayed a few times, and then flew higher and farther, as if he was traveling on something invisible in the air. on track.

The Consul turned to the right, flew towards the mouth of the valley, flew over the dunes there at an altitude of ten meters, then turned to the left and flew towards the barren land.He just looked back.There are four figures on the top steps of the Sphinx, two standing and two falling, looking really small.He couldn't make out the baby in Thor's arms. According to the results of the discussion, the Consul flew westward on the Hawk Flying Carpet, flying over the City of Poets in the hope of finding Ma Silinas.Intuition told him that the irritable poet might have made a detour to that side.The battle flames in the sky were slightly less, and when the Consul flew over the collapsed spiers and city domes at a height of twenty meters, he had to look for those shadows that were not occupied by starlight.There is no shadow of a poet.If Lamia and Silenas had taken this road, their footprints in the sand would have been wiped away by the night wind, which was now blowing the Consul's thinning hair, lifting his clothes and making a crackling noise. The sound of crackling.

At this altitude, it feels very cold to sit on the flying carpet.The Consul felt a tremor and a vibration as the Eagle Flying Carpet groped its way through the unstable force field lines.With the unpredictable magnetic field of Hyperion on one side and the old electromagnetic flight control wire on the other, he knew that the flying carpet would most likely roll down the sky before he reached the capital, Keats. The Consul called out Martin Silenus's name a few times, but there was no response except for a flock of pigeons huffing from their nests in the battered dome of a stormy strip mall.He shook his head, turned and flew south towards the Bridle Mountains.

From his grandfather Mei Run, the Consul learned about the history of Huo Ying's flying carpet.It was once one of the toys handmade by Vladimir Sholokhov, a renowned lepidopteran entomologist and electromagnetic system engineer on the Internet. This flying carpet may be the one he gave to his niece at the time. .Sholokhov's devotion to the young girl was already legendary, and her abandonment of the gift of the flying carpet made the legend even more icing on the cake. People liked the idea, but some planets have sensible traffic regulations, so on those planets, the Hawk Carpet was quickly outlawed.Even so, they still show up on colonized planets.It was this flying carpet that led to the meeting of the Consul's grandfather and grandmother in Maui.

The mountains approached, and the Consul looked up.A ten-minute flight has completed a two-hour hike through the barren landscape.Others advised him not to stop at the Fortress of Time to find Silenas; whatever fate befell the poet, the same fate would find the Consul sooner or later, even before his journey had actually begun.He hovered contentedly above the window on the cliff face two hundred meters above the ground, where they had looked out over the valley three days earlier from a terrace at arm's length.There he shouted the poet's name. He was answered only by echoes from the dark banquet halls and corridors of the keep.The Consul tightly gripped the edge of Huo Ying's flying carpet, so close to the vertical stone wall, he felt dizzy from the height and the lack of cover.The flying carpet turned and left the fortress, raised the altitude, and climbed towards the mountain pass. The snow shone brightly under the starlight, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

He followed the cables of the cable car, which led to the pass, connecting two nine-thousand-meter-high peaks, across a vast mountain range.It was very cold at this altitude, and the Consul thanked himself for having Kassad's extra warm cloak under which he could curl up, being careful not to expose the flesh of his hands and face.The gel of the breather mask covers his face like some kind of hungry symbiote, gobbling up the meager amounts of oxygen. that's enough.Flying ten meters above the icy cables, the Consul took slow, deep breaths.Now all these pressurized trams stood there silently, and the sight of the glaciers and the mountains and the valleys hidden in shadow made the heart beat wildly.The Consul's only joy in making the journey was one last glimpse of the splendor of Hyperion, unspoiled by Shrike threats or Ouster aggression.

It took twelve hours for the cable car to transport them from the south to the north shore.Although the speed of the Huoying Flying Carpet was slow, only reaching 20 kilometers per hour, it only took six hours for the Consul to fly over here.He flew above the towering peaks, the sun shining on him.He woke up suddenly and realized that he was dreaming. At this moment, Huo Ying Flying Carpet was flying towards another peak. The peak was five meters higher than his current height, and he immediately turned pale with fright.Fifty meters ahead are boulders and snowfields.He suddenly turned to the left, and felt that something in the flying device of Huoying Flying Carpet failed. He fell 30 meters downwards, and the flight control wire finally maintained his balance and stabilized.A black bird with a three-meter wingspan—some locals call it a harbinger bird—flew from its icy nest, floated in the thin air, and looked back at the Consul with bead-black eyes. The Consul gripped the edge of the flying carpet tightly, his knuckles turning white.Fortunately, he had tied the strap of the duffel bag to his belt before, otherwise the bag would have fallen into the distant glacier at his feet. There is no trace of the cable car track.The consul slept for so long for some reason that Huo Ying's flying carpet deviated from the course.Panicked for a while, he turned the flying carpet to one side and then to the other, desperately trying to find a path among the sharp-toothed peaks all around.Then he saw the golden morning sun ahead and on the slopes to the right, and the shadows across the glaciers and tundra behind and to the left, and he knew he was still on the right track.Beyond this last ridge of peaks lay the southern hills.Beyond that... The Consul tapped on the flying device and urged the Huoying Flying Carpet to rise. It seemed to hesitate a moment, but it managed to rise reluctantly until it passed the last peak of 9,000 meters above sea level. He could now see the low The low mountains gradually shrink into hills with an altitude of only 3,000 meters.The Consul descended gratefully. He found the gleaming cable car track, eight kilometers from where his flight track intersected with the Bridle Mountains.The gondola hangs silently around the west terminal.Below me, the buildings where the pilgrims rested appeared sparsely, as dilapidated as they were a few days ago.There was no sign of the wind-carrier they had left on the low pier straddling the shallows of the Sea of ​​Grass, but there was nothing there now. The Consul landed near the pier, turned off the flight control device of Huo Ying's flying carpet, and stretched his aching legs. To be on the safe side, he rolled up the flying carpet, and then found a toilet in an abandoned building near the pier.By the time the ceremony was over, the morning sun was slowly creeping over the hills, erasing the last shadows there.As far as the south and west can see, it is the territory of the Sea of ​​Grass. Its smooth table-like surface is occasionally lifted by the breeze, causing layers of ripples to brush over the green grass surface. At this time, its The tawny or dark blue stalks will be short-lived, and the movement is almost the same as that of the waves, which makes people think of whether there will be white foam or fish churning. There are no fish in the Sea of ​​Grass, but the highly poisonous grass snake there is 20 meters long. If the Consul's Huo Ying flying carpet fails in mid-air, even if he lands safely, he will not be able to survive for too long. The Consul unfolded the flying carpet, put the backpack on his back, and activated the flying carpet.He was flying relatively low now, twenty-five meters above the ground, but not so low that the poisonous big grass snake would mistake him for one of its low-flying prey.It took the pilgrims a full day in less than Hyperion time to cross the sea in a wind-powered transport, but now the wind was blowing steadily from the northeast, making the flying carpet swirl a little back and forth.The Consul made a wager that he could fly over the narrowest part of the Sea of ​​Grass in fifteen hours.He tapped the forward control device lightly, and the Huo Ying Flying Carpet accelerated. In less than twenty minutes, the mountains were left behind, and the hills were lost in the distant mist. In less than an hour, the peaks began to shrink, and the curve of the planet gradually straightened.Two hours later, the Consul saw nothing but the tallest mountain, rising from the mist like a jagged shadow, still holding a lute. Beyond that mountain peak, the sea of ​​grass stretches in every direction, unchanged except for the occasional breeze that makes a delightful ripple and ripple.It is much warmer here than in the northern plateau of the Bridle Mountains.The Consul took off his thermal cloak, then his coat, and finally his sweater.At such a high altitude, the sun shone down with astonishing heat.The Consul groped in his pack and found the three-cornered hat, which he had worn so calmly only two days before, now squashed and crumpled, and pulled it over his head for a little shade.But his forehead and balding scalp were sunburned. About four hours later, he ate his first meal of the trip, munching on bland protein bars from compressed food packets, which he dismissed as tasty fish fillets. Water has almost become the most delicious part of the meal, and the consul had to work hard to restrain his desire not to drink up all the water in the bottle at once. The sea of ​​grass beneath him extends behind and in front of him.The consul dozed off, and every time he woke up suddenly with a sense of weightlessness, his hands tightly grasping the rigid Huoying flying carpet.He realized that he should have been tethered to the flying carpet by the only rope he carried in his backpack, but he didn't want to land either—the grass had sharp edges and was taller than a person.Although he didn't see the V-shaped marks left by the poisonous big grass snake when it swam past, he couldn't be sure whether those things were just waiting for their prey to take the bait. He began to wonder lazily where the wind transporter had gone.That thing was originally fully automatic. Since the Shrike taught them to sponsor the pilgrimage trip, it is speculated that it should be an operating program compiled by them.Could that thing have any other missions?The Consul shook his head, sat up straight, and twisted his cheek.Even when recalling the wind transport, he drifted between sleep and waking.When he blurted out fifteen hours in the Time Tomb earlier, it seemed like a very short period of time.He glanced at the comlog; it's only been five hours. The consul raised the flying carpet to a height of 200 meters, carefully checked for the shadow of the big grass snake, and then manipulated the flying carpet to gradually descend, circling at a height of five meters from the grass.He carefully took out the rope, tied a knot, moved to the front of the flying carpet, wrapped it around the flying carpet a few times, leaving enough length to put his body in, and then tightened the knot. If the flying carpet accidentally fell, the noose would not only be useless, but would make things worse, but the loops of warm rope against his back gave him a sense of security, and he leaned forward , tapped the flying device again, maintained the balance of the flying carpet at a height of forty meters, and then leaned his cheek against the warm fabric.The sun seeps through his fingers, and he realizes that his bare forearm is already badly tanned. He was too tired to sit up and roll down his sleeves. A breeze blew.The Consul could hear a rustling and rustling sound coming from under him. He didn't know if it was the wind blowing or something huge sliding past. He was too tired to think about it.The Consul closed his eyes, and within thirty seconds he fell asleep. The consul dreamed of his homeland—his real homeland—the homeland on Maui. The dream was colorful: the blue sky beyond reach, the deep blue and vast waters of the South China Sea, from the edge of the shallow equatorial sea, the dark blue gradually Replaced by turquoise, the stunning green-yellow-lavender-pink of the moving islands, driven north to graze by the dolphins... extinct since the Consul's childhood overlord invaded, but they were alive in his dreams , jumped up and crossed the water surface, aroused a thousand water prisms, and the refracted colorful light danced in the mellow air. In the Consul's dream he was a child again, standing on the top floor of the treehouse on the First Family's island.Grandmother Sealy stood beside him—not the famous dame he knew, but the beautiful young woman his grandfather had met and loved.When the south wind blows, the tree sails flutter, moving the isle herds in precise formation across the blue passages in the shallow sea.On the northern horizon he could see the first islands of the Equatorial Archipelago coming, against the evening sky, green and eternal. Ciri held his shoulders and pointed west. The islets burned and sank, their keel-roots spasming in senseless agony.The Makishima dolphins disappeared, and the sky rained fire.The Consul recognized the billion-volt laser spears scorching the atmosphere and leaving gray-blue images on his retinas.The underwater explosion lit up the deep ocean, bringing thousands of fish and fragile marine life to the surface in death throes. "Why?" Grandma Heely asked, but her voice was the soft whisper of a young girl. The Consul tried to answer her, but a lump formed in his throat, and tears blurred his eyes.He wanted to grab her hand, but she was no longer there, she was gone, and he would never be able to make up for his mistakes, and the feeling was so painful that he couldn't even breathe.His throat was filled with emotion, but no sound came out.Then he realized that the smoke was burning his eyes and filling his lungs; the family island was on fire. The Consul, who was still a child, staggered into the blue-black gloom, looking blindly for someone who could hold his hand and reassure him. A hand clasped his.But that wasn't Shirley's hand.That hand pinched him extremely firmly, and the fingers were sharp knives. The Consul woke up with a start and took a deep breath. it's dark.He had slept at least seven hours.He struggled free from the rope, sat up straight, and watched the light of the comlog display. twelve hours.He has slept twelve hours. Every muscle in his body ached as he leaned forward and looked down. Huo Ying's flying carpet remained firmly at a height of forty meters, but he didn't know where he was.Low hills rolled up and down below, and some peaks were only two or three meters away from the flying carpet, barely passing by; orange willow grass and dwarf lichens were mixed together, like sponges full of holes. Somewhere in the last few hours he had crossed the southern shore of the Sea of ​​Grass, missing the small fringe harbor and Hawley River wharf where their floating pleasure boat, the Benares, was moored. The Consul didn't have a compass - a compass was useless on Hyperion - and his comlog didn't have an IDP program.He had planned to turn south and west along the Hawley River back to Keats, rather than having to deal with the slant and eddies of the river as they had done on their pilgrimage. But now, he's lost. The Consul landed the Huo Ying flying carpet on a low hill, walked to the solid ground, groaned in pain, and folded the flying carpet.He knew that the power of the flight control wire must have been consumed by at least one-third...maybe more.He wondered just how much less efficient the carpet was as it got older. The mountain peaks looked similar to the hills to the southwest of the Sea of ​​Grass, but there was no trace of the river.The comlog told the Consul that it had only been dark for an hour or two, but there was no sign of sunset in the west.The sky was gloomy and cloudy, obscuring the stars and all air combat that should have been in view. "Damn it," the Consul murmured.He walked around until nature called, finished at the edge of a small drop, and returned to the flying carpet to grab a water bottle to drink from.Think about it. He had set the flying carpet as a southwest course, so when crossing the Sea of ​​Grass, he should have arrived at the border port city, at least near it.If he just flew over the Borderlands and the Hawley River while he was asleep, then the river should be somewhere south of him, lower left.But if he'd been heading the wrong way since leaving the pilgrim camp, a few degrees to the left, the river would be somewhere to his right, winding northeast.Even if he had gone the wrong way, he would have found the sign eventually—if not all, the coast north of Mane—but it would have delayed him for a whole day. The Consul kicked a rock and folded his arms.It was hot during the day, but the air is cooler now.He shivered suddenly, and then realized that he was seriously injured by the sun.He scratched his scalp, then snapped his fingers away cursing.Which way? The wind whistled through low sage and spongy lichen.The Consul felt that he was far away from the Time Tombs and Shrike threats, but he could still detect Thor, Duray, Height Masteen, Braun, the missing Silenus, Kassad It felt like an urgent pressure on his shoulders.The Consul's joining the Pilgrims was a final act, a senseless suicide to put an end to his own suffering.The overlord's plot on Brescia killed his wife and children, and now even their memories are lost; Those Ousters who trusted him, this caused him great pain. The Consul sat on a rock, thinking of Saul and his young child waiting in the valley of the Time Tombs, and felt the self-loathing that hadn't been born fade away.He thought of Braun, the brave woman, the embodiment of energy, lying helpless, the shrike sprung from her skull sprawling like leeches. He sat up, activated the flying carpet, and rose to a height of 800 meters, so close to the top of the cloud: it seemed that he could touch it by raising his hand. Far to the left, the clouds suddenly split open, revealing a trace of rippling scales.The Hawley River is about five kilometers to the south. The Consul turned the Huoying Flying Carpet sharply to the left, feeling that the exhausted concealed field was pressing him against the Flying Carpet, but the rope tied to his body gave him a sense of security.Ten minutes later he was high above the water, swooping down to make sure it was the broad Hawley River and not some side branch. That's the Hawley River.Radiant spider webs shone in the low marshes along the coast.The tall jagged city towers built by the construction ants cast ghostly floating shadows into the sky, and the sky is not much brighter than the ground. The Consul climbed to twenty metres, drank some water from his bottle, and headed downstream at full speed. The rising sun shone upon him when he reached the village of Dukhoporin, so close to the Kara Locks that the Queen's Transport Canal swerved sharply westward to the city settlements and manes to the north.The Consul knew that it was less than 150 kilometers away from the capital - but according to the super slow calculation of Huo Ying's flying carpet, it would take seven hours to get there, which is really maddening.Traveling to this point, he expected to spot a military skimmer on patrol, or a passenger airship coming out of the Najadh bush, or even a motor speedboat he could commandeer.But apart from the occasional burning building or a butter lamp in a distant window, there is no sign of life along the banks of the Hawley River.The pier is empty and deserted, and there are no people there.The manta ray pens above the river locks are now empty, the gates open to the rapids, and the river widens downstream to twice its width, but the rows of transport barges are no longer in sight. The Consul cursed and continued flying forward. It was a beautiful morning, the sunrise lit up the low clouds, and every shrub and towering tree swayed in the slanting light from the edge of the horizon, making the Consul feel as if he hadn't seen a real of plants.Weirwoods and two-quarter oaks stand majestic on the remote bluffs, while on the floodplains gorgeous light shines on the tender green shoots of a million periscope peas thriving from the native rice fields.Sheeproots and fire ferns stretched across the banks, every twig and twisted shoot undiscovered in the clear light of sunrise. Dark clouds engulfed the sun.It started to rain.The consul buttoned up his badly frayed three-cornered hat, curled up under Kassad's extra cloak, and flew south at a hundred meters a minute. The Consul tried to remember, how much life was left for Rachel's child? Despite a long sleep the night before, the Consul's mind was still clouded by fatigue.Rachel had four more days to live when they reached the valley.And that was... four days ago. The Consul rubbed his cheek, reached for the water bottles, but found them all empty.He could have easily swooped down and filled the bottle with water, but he didn't want to waste time.Rain dripped from the brim of his hat, and he shivered with pain from the sunburn. Saul said that as long as I can go back when it gets dark, everything will be fine.Converted to Hyperion time, Rachel was born after twenty o'clock sharp.If there is no mistake in memory, if there is no mistake in calculation, she can still live until eight o'clock tonight.The Consul wiped the water from his cheeks and eyebrows.If I can get to Keats in another seven hours, take another hour or two to launch the ship, and get Theo to help...he's the governor now.I was able to convince him that it was in the Overlord's interest to refuse Pleasant Stone's order to isolate the ship.If he won't listen, just tell him she ordered me to conspire with the Ousters to betray the Web. If it's ten hours plus the fifteen-minute journey of the spaceship, there's at least an hour left before sunset.Rachel will only have a few minutes to live, but... so what?What else can we try other than sending her to a frozen stasis pod?There is no way.it's the only way.Although doctors warned that doing so could kill the child, it was Sol's last resort.But what will Braun be like by then? The consul is thirsty.He put on his cloak again, but the rain had dwindled to a drizzle, just enough to wet his lips and make him thirstier.Cursing under his breath, he began to descend slowly.Maybe hovering over the river for a while to fill up the bottle is enough time. Thirty meters away from the river, Huo Ying's flying carpet suddenly failed.At one moment it descended slowly, smooth as a carpet on a low-angled glass slope, and at another moment it lost control and tumbled and fell. This two-meter-long blanket carried a terrified man, as if someone had been lifted from a Throw it out of the windows of the ten-story building. The Consul screamed and tried to jump away, but the rope bound him to the flying carpet, the duffel rope tied to his belt entangled him with the fluttering Hawk Eagle carpet, and they fell together. Descending, tumbling, and spiraling down, the last 20 meters below, waiting is the solid surface of the Hawley River.

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