Chapter 7 chapter Five

I pray. Today, after rewatching the video, I sat outside in the sun.Now I've confirmed something.Yet at the time, after I discovered what I took to be the "cathedral," I barely noticed them on my way back up the cliff.On the rock ridge outside the cathedral, the trail worn by footprints snaked down, deeper and deeper into the Great Cleft.While the paths are less worn than the paths leading to the cathedral, they are just as inviting to explore.Only God knows what other miracles await down below. Must, I must let the world know about this discovery! It was I who discovered this, and the sarcasm in it didn't bother me.Without Armaghast, without my banishment, this discovery might have been centuries away.The church may have died before this new discovery gave it new life.

But I found out. Either way, I'll get the message out. One hundred and seventh day: I am a prisoner. This morning, I was bathing where I usually bathe, near the place where the stream falls off the cliff, and then I heard a sound, and I looked up, and saw the Bikura, whom I called Del, staring at I see, eyes wide open.I greeted him, but the little Bikura turned and ran.This confuses me a lot.They seldom travel in a hurry.Then it dawned on me that even though I was wearing pants, I was definitely violating their nudity taboo and letting Del see me topless. I smiled, shook my head, got dressed, and went back to the village.I wouldn't be amused if I knew what was waiting for me.

The whole Three Score and Ten stood there, watching me approach.I stopped, there were still a dozen steps away from Alpha. "Good morning," I said. Alpha waved his hand, and five or six Bikura rushed towards me, grabbed my hands and feet, and pinned me to the ground.Beta stepped forward and took a sharp stone out of his (her?) robe.I struggled in vain to get free, but Beta cut my chest to the bottom and tore the cloth strips until I was almost naked. The thugs pressed forward, and I stopped struggling.They stared at my pale body and muttered to themselves.I feel my heart beating violently. "I'm sorry I violated your laws," I began, "but there's no reason..."

"Be quiet," Alpha said, and then he looked at Bikura with the scar on his palm, the guy I called Zed, and Alpha said to him, "He's not a cruciform." Zed nodded. "Let me explain," I started again, but Alpha slapped me backhanded, leaving me speechless, my lips bleeding and my ears buzzing.His actions were less hostile than my throwing the comlog on the ground to shut him up. "What do we do with him?" Alpha said. "Those who do not follow the cross will surely die," Beta said, and the crowd stirred and approached.Many people held sharp stones in their hands, "Those who are not in the shape of a cross will have their lives and true death." Beta said, with the tone of the final words in her tone, just like the expression over and over again , like a devout litany.

"I follow the cross!" I yelled, as the crowd tugged at my feet.I grabbed the crucifix around my neck and struggled against the pressure of many arms.Finally, I finally lifted the little cross over my head. Alpha raised his hand, and the crowd stopped.In this sudden silence, I heard the sound of running water three kilometers below the big crack. "He does carry a cross," Alpha said. Del leaned forward and said, "But he's not a cruciform! I see. He's not what we think. He's not a cruciform!" The voice was murderous. I cursed myself for being so careless, so stupid.The future of the church depended on me to survive, but I took Bikura for granted as a dull, harmless child, and I just abandoned the church and myself.

"Those who do not follow the cross will surely die," Beta repeated.This is the final sentence. Seventy hands raised the stone, and I cried out.I know that my next words are either my last chance or my final condemnation: "I've been down the cliff, I've worshiped your altar! I've followed the cross!" Alpha hesitated with the mob.I understand that they are wrestling with this new idea.It is not so easy for them to understand. "I follow the cross, I hope to be a cross-shaped person," I tried my best to suppress the waves in my heart, "I have been to your altar."

"Those who do not follow the cross will surely die and die," Gamma shouted. "But he followed the cross," said Alpha, "and he prayed in the house." "Impossible," Zed said. "Three Score and Ten is praying there. He's not a Three Score and Ten." "Before that, we knew he wasn't a Three Score and Ten now," Alpha said, frowning slightly as he dealt with the concept of the past. "He's not a cruciform," Delta Two said. "People who are not in the shape of a cross will surely die and live the true death." Beta said.

"He follows the cross," said the Alpha. "Can't he be a man of the cross?" The remark sparked an outcry.I tried to shake off the hands that were clinging to me while they were scrambling and shoving each other, but they still held on to me. "He's not a Three Score and Ten, and he's not a Cruciform," Beta said, sounding less hostile now and more confused. "Why shouldn't he die? We've got to take the rock and slit his throat and let the blood flow until his heart stops. He's not a crucifix." "He follows the cross," said the Alpha. "Can't he be a man of the cross?"

This time, as the question passed, silence struck. "He follows the cross, and he has prayed in the crucifix," Alpha said. "He doesn't have to die to die." "Except for the Three Score and Ten," said a Bikura I didn't recognize.My hands kept holding the cross above my head, and my arms were sore and sore. "All die true death." The nameless Bikura ended his words. "Because they follow the cross, pray in the house, and become a crucifix," Alpha said, "can't he be a crucifix?" I stood there, clutching the cold metal of the little cross, awaiting their sentence.I'm afraid of death, I'm terrified, but a large part of my consciousness seems detached.My biggest regret is that I can't send the news of that cathedral to this non-religious universe.

"Come on, we have to talk about this." Beta said to the group, and then they pulled me back to the village with quiet steps. They shut me up in my hut.Impossible to use the hunting maser, several bikura guarded me and cleared out most of my belongings in the hut.They took my clothes and left me with a poorly woven robe, which I wrapped around my body. The longer I sit here, the more intense my anger becomes, and the more anxious I become.They took my comlog, camera, floppy disks, chips...everything.I've dropped an unopened crate containing medical diagnostic equipment on the site, but it doesn't help me document the wonders of the Rift.If they were going to destroy what they took, they would have destroyed me, and there would be no more records of the cathedral.

If I had a weapon, I could kill the guards, and... Oh God, what was I thinking?Edward, what will I do? Even if I survived this, got back to Keats, made arrangements to get back to the Web, who would believe me?Due to the time debt caused by the quantum leap, after "nine years" away from Payson, an old man who was previously exiled for lying, now just returns with the same lie, oh my God, if They destroyed the data, let them destroy me too. One hundred and tenth day: Three days later, they sealed my fate. Shortly after noon, Zed, and what I called Theta One, came to get me.They took me outside, into daylight, and I squinted to hide from the light.Three Score and Ten stood on the edge of the cliff, forming a wide semicircle.I thought with all my heart they were going to throw me off a cliff.Then I noticed the campfire. I have imagined that Bikura are too primitive, and they have lost the technology of making and using fire.You see, they never use a fire for warmth, and their huts are always dark.I have never seen them cook, and even on rare occasions when they came across the dead body of an arboreal creature, they would not burn it but gobble it up.But now, the fire is burning, who lit it?Only them.I looked over there to see what it was burnt with. They're burning my clothes, my comlogs, my field records, cassette tapes, video chips, data disks, video cameras...everything that stores information.I screamed at them, tried to jump into the fire, and I yelled at them words I hadn't used since I was a kid playing in the streets.They ignored me. Finally, Alpha approached me. "You will be a man of the cross," he said softly. I don't care at all.They took me back to my hut where I cried for an hour.There was no guard at the gate.A minute ago, I was standing at the door, thinking whether to run to the flame forest.Then, I thought about running to the big rift, which would be a shorter distance, but also more lethal. I did nothing. Soon, the sun will set.The wind has blown.soon.soon. One hundred and twelfth day: Is it only two days?That is eternity. This morning, it won't come off.It can't be taken down. The image chip from a medical scanner is right in front of me, but I still can't believe it.However, I must believe it.I am now a cruciform person. They came to me just before sunset.everyone.I didn't struggle and let them lead me to the edge of the Great Rift.They are very flexible on the vine, more flexible than I could have imagined.The extra burden of me slowed them down, but they were patient enough to show me where the easiest footholds were and where the fastest routes were. As we walked the last few meters of the cathedral, the Hyperion sun had dipped below low clouds, but could still be seen over the western edge of the wall.The night wind blew louder than I expected; it was as if we were trapped in the pipes of a great church organ.The notes started out as a low-pitched growl, so low my bones and teeth resonated sympathetically, that the low-pitched squeak faded into a piercing squeak, and then slipped effortlessly into an ultrasonic. Alpha opened the outermost door and we walked through the vestibule to the central cathedral.The Three Score and Ten formed a large circle around the altar and its tall cross.There is no litany.There is no singing.There is no ceremony.We just stood there in silence, with the wind roaring through the flute-like columns outside, echoing in this huge empty room carved into the stone, echoing, resonating, louder and louder, and finally I He hurriedly covered his ears with his hands.The flooding, horizontal rays of the sun filled the auditorium all the way, infusing deep shades of amber, gold, cyan, and then amber again, colors so thick that they made the sky blaze, and they seemed to line the Oil paint on skin.I watch the cross, see it catch the light, hold on to them, store them in its thousand jewels, as if, even after the sun goes down and the windows fade to the gray of evening, it still holds on They don't let go.It was as if the great cross had absorbed the light and was radiating it towards us, into us.Then, even the cross turned black, and the wind died down. In this sudden obscurity, Alpha said softly, "Take him." We came to a broad ledge of stone, where Beta stood, holding a bunch of torches.I watched him pass the torch to a select few and wondered if the Bikura had kept the fire for ritual purposes only.Then, Beta took the lead, and we walked down the narrow steps carved into the stone. At first I tiptoed forward, full of fear, trying to cling to the smooth rock, searching for any projection of rhizome or stone that would reassure me.The steep slope to our right was so steep and bottomless it almost seemed absurd.Climbing down the ancient stairs is worse than clinging to the vines on the cliff above.Here, on this narrow, ancient smooth stone slab, I have to look down at every step I take.To stumble and fall, at first, it seems very possible, and then, it seems that there is no way to avoid it. I had a strong urge to stop and climb back, at least to the safety of the cathedral, but the majority of the Three Score and Ten were standing on the narrow steps behind me, and they looked completely out of place. Maybe step aside and let me pass.In addition, there is something stronger in me than fear, which is an annoying curiosity: what is under the stairs?I stopped there for a long time, looking up at the lip of the great rift three hundred meters high, the clouds had disappeared, the stars were revealed, the nightly ballet of meteor trails bright against the black night sky.Then I bowed my head and began to whisper the Rosary, following the torches and following the Bikura into the perilous abyss. I couldn't believe the ladder would take us all all the way to the bottom of the Rift, but it did.At some point after midnight, I thought we would descend all the way down to the river, and I figured we wouldn't get there until noon the next day, but I was wrong again. We reached the bottom of the Great Rift shortly before sunrise.On both sides, the walls of the cliff plunge into the clouds of the nine sky, and in the middle is a gap in the sky, in which the stars are still shining.I staggered down step by step, exhausted, slowly realizing that there were no more steps, and staring upward, wondering foolishly whether the stars were still visible in daylight.I once climbed into a well, when I was a child, at Villefond-sur-Saône, but I could indeed see the stars in the well. "Here we go," Beta said.It was the first sentence I heard in a long time, and it was almost inaudible over the roar of the river.Three Score and Ten stopped and stood motionless.I suddenly knelt down and fell to one side.There's no way I'm going to go back up the stairs we've just come down.Not within a day.Not even within a week.Maybe never.I closed my eyes and wanted to fall asleep, but my nervous heart was constantly being teased.Across the floor of the ravine, I looked out.The river was wider than I expected, seventy meters at least, and the sound of the flowing water drowned out other subtle sounds; I felt that I was being tortured to death by the roar of a huge beast. I sat up and looked at a small piece of darkness on the opposite cliff wall.It was a shadow, but darker than all shadows, and more symmetrical than the jagged, mottled buttresses, fissures, and columns that dotted the cliff face.It is a square of darkness, each side is at least thirty meters long.It was a door, or hole, in the cliff face.I struggled to my feet, and looked downstream along the cliff we came down; yes, there it was.That's another entrance, Beta and the others are walking towards it now.The entrance was dimly visible under the starlight. I found an entrance to Hyperion's Labyrinth. "Did you know that Hyperion is one of the nine labyrinth worlds?" someone asked me once on the landing ship.Yes, that young pastor named Hoyt.I said of course I knew, but I didn't take it to heart.It is the bikura that interests me, not the labyrinths or their creators, but rather the pain of self-inflicted exile. There are nine worlds with mazes.Nine of the one hundred and seventy-six ring worlds, and nine of the more than two hundred colonized and protected planets.Nine of the eight thousand or more worlds that have been explored, no matter how sloppily, since the Exile. Now there are some planetary archaeological historians who devote themselves to the research of the labyrinth.But that doesn't include me.I always thought of these mazes as unhelpful subjects, vague, unreal.Now, I'm walking toward a maze with the Three Score and Ten, and the Zhanjiang is roaring, shaking, and threatening to snuff out our torches with its spray. The labyrinth was created by digging... tunneling... more than 750,000 standard years ago.The details must be exactly the same, and their origin must remain unanswered. Labyrinth planets are all terrestrial planets, at least 7.9 on the Somei scale. They always revolve around a G-type star, but they are always confined to worlds with dead geological structures. These planets are more like Mars than Old Earth.The tunnels themselves are built extremely deep, usually at least 10,000 meters, but often as deep as 30,000 meters, they are like catacombs under the planetary crust.On Liberty Star not far from the Payson Galaxy, the remote control device has explored more than 800,000 kilometers in the maze.Every tunnel in the world is a square with a side length of thirty meters. This kind of carving technology is still beyond the reach of the Overlord.I once read in an archaeological journal that Kemphotzer and Weinstein postulated a method of "melting the tunnel" to explain why the walls of the tunnel were extremely smooth and why there were no protrusions in the walls.But their theories do not explain where and why the builders and their machines devoted centuries to this apparently purposeless engineering task.Every labyrinth world, including Hyperion, has been probed and studied.But never found anything.There was no sign of excavation machinery, not a miner's rusted helmet, not even a scrap of plastic or rotting sticky wrapping paper.The researchers haven't even identified the entrance and exit tunnels.If there were traces of heavy metals or precious ores, that would well explain the purpose of this extreme effort, but there was not even a trace.No legend or artifact of the Maze Builder survives.Over the years, the mystery has interested me a little, but it has never fascinated me.until now. We entered the mouth of the tunnel.It's not a perfect square.Due to the effects of erosion and gravity, this perfect tunnel was transformed into a cavern of ruggedness that went down a hundred meters into the cliff wall.Then, just as the bottom of the tunnel became smooth, Beta stopped and extinguished the torch.The other Bikura did the same. very dark.The tunnel changed direction enough to block any starlight that might come in.I've been to caves before too.After the torches went out, I didn't expect my eyes to adjust to the near total darkness.But they can. Within thirty seconds, I began to feel a little rose-colored light, extremely faint at first, and gradually became brighter, until the cave became brighter than the canyon just now, brighter than Payson under the three moons. Still brighter.These lights come from a hundred light sources, a thousand light sources.As soon as I figured out the nature of these light sources, Bikura knelt on the ground devoutly. The walls and ceiling of the cave are decorated with numerous crosses ranging from a few millimeters to almost a meter long.Each has a rich pink glow.They were invisible in the light of the torches, but now these glowing crosses filled the tunnel with light.I walked over to a mosaic on the nearest wall.It is about thirty centimeters wide and moves with a gentle organic cycle.It was not carved in the stone, nor generated by the wall; it was definitely organic, definitely alive, like limp coral polyps.It feels warm to the touch. At this time, there was a slight soft sound, no, that was not a sound, perhaps, it was just the disturbance of the cold air.I turned around, just in time to see something enter the cave. Bikura still bowed his head and buried his eyes.And I continued to stand there.Eyes have been fixed on this thing, which is walking among the kneeling bikura. It vaguely resembles a human figure, but it is by no means human.At least three meters tall.Even when standing still, the silver exterior of this thing seems to be moving, flowing, like mercury suspended in mid-air.The reddish light of the crucifix fastened to the tunnel wall reflected off the harsh surface of the thing; There was a curved metal blade, and the light shone on it, shining.The thing walked among the kneeling Bikura, and when it spread its four long arms, its palms stretched out into the air, but its fingers clicked and clicked as if they were chrome scalpels.It's ridiculous that, faced with such a scene, what I thought of was the scene where His Majesty the Pope blessed the believers in Payson. I am convinced that I am looking at the fabled Shrike. That's when I must have moved, made a little noise, because the huge red eyes turned and stared at me, and I found myself hypnotized by the light dancing in the multi-faceted mirror: it was more than just reflection There came a blinding blood-red light that seemed to burn under the creature's prickly skull; where God placed our eyes, two terrifying gemstones seemed to be tumbling with the light. And then it moved... or, more accurately, it didn't move, it just disappeared there and reappeared here, less than a meter away from me, leaning towards me, with those strangely connected arms encircling me It was a fence of body blades and liquid silver steel.I gasped, but couldn't catch a breath, and I saw my own reflection, pale and contorted, dancing in the metal shell and flaming eyes of the thing. I admit, the emotion I felt was one bordering on excitement, not fear.Something inexplicable is happening.I have been tempered by the logic of the Jesuits and tempered by the cold bath of science, but at that moment, I understood the pious obsession of the ancients with another kind of awe: the tremor of the demon, the madness of the dervish. Dance spinning, Tarot puppet dance ceremony, erotic indulgence in séances, tongue-in-cheek speech, meditation technique of Zen spiritualism.At that moment, I was convinced that if the devil could be confirmed to exist, or to conjure Satan, then it could somehow prove that their mystical counterpart, the God of Abraham, also existed. I waited for the Shrike's embrace, embraced the imperceptible shudder of its virgin bride, and I didn't think about it, but felt it all. It's gone. There was no thunderclap, no sudden smell of sulfur, not even a scientific sound of rushing air.One second the thing was there, surrounding me with its gorgeous death spikes, and the next second, it was gone. I froze there, blinking, Alpha stood up and approached me in the darkness like Bosch's brush.He stood where the Shrike had stood, with his arms outstretched, in a pathetic imitation of the dying I had just witnessed, but Alpha's impassive Bikura face showed nothing, Indicating that he saw the creature.He made an ugly gesture with his palms outstretched, as if pointing to the labyrinth, the cave walls, and the many shining crosses embedded on the walls. "Cross," Alpha said.Three Score and Ten got up, walked a little closer, and knelt down again.Looking at their peaceful faces in the soft light, I also knelt down. "You will follow the cross all your life," Alpha said, his voice cadenced like a litany.The rest of the Bikura repeated the words in a tone that did not sound like a monotonous chant. "You will be a crucifix all your life," Alpha said, and as the others repeated the words, he reached out and plucked a small cross from the cave wall.The cross was less than twelve centimeters long, and with a slight "click" sound, it broke away from the wall.I stared at it, watching its gleam fade away.Alpha took a small strap from his robe, fastened it to the bar at the top of the crucifix, and held the crucifix above my head. "You will be the man of the cross, now and forever." "Now and forever," Bikura repeated. "Amen." I whispered. Beta motioned for me to open the robe in front of me.Alpha slowly lowered the little crucifix and hung it around my neck.I feel something cool nestled against my chest; its back is extremely flat, extremely smooth. Bikura stood up and walked towards the entrance of the cave. Obviously, they became indifferent and indifferent again.I watched them go, and then I carefully touched the cross, held it up, and examined it.The cruciform is cool, but lifeless.If it was really alive a few seconds ago, now, it no longer shows signs of life.Still, it feels more polyp than crystal or stone; there's no sticky substance to be seen on its smooth back.I thought about photochemistry, which could create luminescence.I think about natural phosphors, about bioluminescence, about the possibility that evolution has shaped these things.I wondered if their existence had anything to do with the labyrinth, if at all, and wondered how the plateau had risen and the river and canyon cut into one of the tunnels over the millennia.I thought about the cathedral and its creator, about the Bikura, about the Shrike, about myself.Finally, I stopped thinking, closed my eyes, and began to pray. I walked out of the cave, and at this moment, I felt the cross under my robe pressing against my chest, and it felt cool.It was obvious that the Three Score and Ten was ready to start the three-kilometer climb up the stairs.I looked up and saw the pale seam of morning sky between the two walls of the Great Rift. "No!" I cried, my voice almost drowned out by the roar of the river. "I want to rest. Rest!!" I collapsed, kneeling on the sand, but half a dozen bikura approached me, gently pulled me up, and dragged me toward the stairs. I did my best, God knows I did, but after two or three hours of climbing, I felt like my legs were finally giving up.I fell, slipped over rocks, and nothing could stop me plummeting 600 meters down into rocks and into the river.I remember gripping the crucifix under my thick robe, and then a dozen hands stopped my fall, lifted me, carried me on their backs.Then I don't remember anything. "By this morning. When I awoke, the light of the rising sun had poured in over the opening of the hut. I was only wearing the robe, but there was a touch that convinced me that the crucifix was still hanging around my neck with the fiber strap. On. I watched the sun come up over the forest and realized that I had lost the day and I don't know what happened, but I fell asleep while climbing the endless stairs (how can these little people carry How about I walk the straight up and down 2,500 meters?) Not only that, but the next day, I slept for a whole day, and the second night, I slept for a whole night. I look around my cabin.My comlog and other recording devices are gone.Only my medical scanner and a few other packages of anthropology software are still there, but they are useless because the rest of my gear was destroyed.I shook my head and walked to the stream to take a bath. Bikura appeared to be still asleep.Now that I had participated in their ritual and "became the cruciform," they seemed to have lost interest in me.I undressed and showered, and at this point, too, I was determined not to be interested in them.I have decided to leave here as soon as possible while I am still strong.If necessary, I will find a way out by the edge of the flame forest.If I have to, I can also go down the stairs and follow Zhanjiang.I knew better than ever that I had to take these incredible prehistoric artifacts out into the world. I tore off the heavy robe on my body and stood under the morning light. My body was pale and trembling. I touched my chest with my hands, intending to pick up the little cross. I can't take it off. It lay there as if it had become one with the flesh.I grabbed the strap and tugged and scraped and ripped until finally the strap snapped and floated away.I scratched at the cross-shaped lump on my chest, tearing and clawing.I can't take it off.It was as if my flesh itself had grown fast along the edge of the cross.Aside from the scratches of my fingernails, the crucifix and the surrounding flesh felt no pain, no sensation, just the absolute terror in my own soul that this thing was attached to me.After the first shock of panic subsided, I sat for a minute, pulled my robe hastily around me, and ran back to the village. I was without a knife, my maser, scissors, razor, anything that would help me peel off a cyst in my chest.Fingernails cut bloodstains on my chest.Then, I remembered the medical scanner.I probed my chest with the transceiver, looked at the touch display, shook my head in disbelief, and took a full body scan.After a while, I typed in and asked to see an exact copy of the scan, and I sat there for a long time without moving. Right now, I'm sitting here with a photo in my hand.Whether it is a sound wave photo or a subphase cross photo, the cross shape is very conspicuous... All over my body are these internal fibers that spread everywhere, like tiny tentacles, like roots. Numerous dense filaments radiate from the dense center of my sternum, protruding everywhere, from a large number of nerve centers, which is a nematode nightmare.Also, through this simple magnetic field scan, I know that the nematode stops in the amygdala, the basic nerve center of the two brain hemispheres.My body temperature, metabolism, and lymphocyte levels are all normal.There is no invasion of heterogeneous organizations.According to the scanner, the nematode's filaments are produced by a massive and simple metabolism.According to the scanner, the cruciform itself is made of familiar tissue... that's my own DNA. I am a cruciform person.