Chapter 33 Chapter nine

Terena narrowed her eyes slightly. "You still have our advance salary of one million marks," she said, "and with one word we can confiscate all the rooms in your house, except the damned raft you use as a latrine. You can sit Up there, wait until the sea fills you with shit." I laughed one last time. "That's a fully furnished clearing unit," I said, "and I sold the house yesterday. The prepaid balance should be in my account by now." Terena patted the plastic handle of the death stick. "You know, Hyperline has bought the rights to The Dying Earth. We'll just have to ask someone else to write the book."

I nodded: "They can take as much as they want." My former editor finally realized I was serious and her tone changed.I feel that if I stay, it will be beneficial to her and nothing harmful. "Listen," she said, "I'm sure we can work it out, Martin. I told the director the other day that you're getting so little upfront that Superline should let you come up with your own story..." "Tyrena, Tyrene, Tyrene," I sighed, "bye." I teleported to Restoration Arrow, and then to Miserly, where I boarded a gyroscope for a three-week journey to Asquith, to the overcrowded kingdom of Billina, the Sad King.

Sketch of Sad King Billy: His Royal Highness William XXII, Supreme King of Windsor in Exile, looks a bit like a wax figure on a hot stove.His long hair flowed limply over his languid shoulders like a stream, and the wrinkles on his brow trickled into the tributaries of the wrinkles around the basset-hound eyes, and then flowed southward beyond the wrinkle line. , to the labyrinth of the neck and jaw.It is said that King Billy will remind anthropologists of the Wangyou doll in Kinshasa, remind Zen spiritualists of the compassionate Buddha after Taiqin Temple was burned, and make media historians rush to their files to check ancient times. A photograph of a graphic film actor named Charles Laughton.But these associations mean nothing to me; I look at King Billy and think of my long-dead mentor, Mr. Balthazar, after a week of debauchery.

Sad King Billy's reputation for melancholy and pessimism is probably overblown.He laughs a lot; it's just that he's a little too far back, and his distinctive laugh makes most people think he's crying. His appearance is innate and cannot be changed, but His Highness, his entire personality reminds one of a "Jester" or a "victim".What he wears, if you can use the word "wear," is something bordering on gibberish, and he so defiantly defies the aesthetic and color sense of his robot servants that some days he deliberately makes himself out of step with his surroundings.His appearance was not limited to the chaos of clothing - King William was forever in a state of nakedness, buttons open, velvet cape tattered, magnetic, attracting debris from the ground; his left sleeve There are two trims, and the right sleeve—in reverse—seems dipped in jelly.

Understand. Still, Sad King Billy has a savvy and a passion for art and literature unrivaled since the days of the true Renaissance in the Old Old Lands. In some ways, Billy King was a fat kid with a face always in the candy store window.Your Highness loves and appreciates beautiful music, but he doesn't know how to create it himself.He was a connoisseur of ballet and all things beautiful, but he was also a wooden man.Billy King, a serial character who fell on his ass, and a comic book character with awkwardness.He was an avid reader, invariably accurate critic of poetry, and supporter of polemics, and his shyness, mixed with a stuttering of speech, prevented him from displaying his poetic talents to others.

King Billy, a lifelong bachelor, now turning sixty, lives in this crumbling palace, in a kingdom of two thousand square miles, as if it were another of his disheveled royal garments. cloak.There are many interesting facts: there is a famous oil painter who is a guest of King Billy. He found that His Highness walked with his hands twisted behind his back, his head bowed, one foot on the garden path, and the other foot in the mud. Obviously thinking about something.The painter greets his master.Sad King Billy raised his head, blinked his eyes, and looked around, as if he just woke up after a long nap. "Excuse me," His Highness said to the dazed painter, "can you—you—can you sue—tell me, am I walking towards the palace, or away from the palace—the palace— The palace?" "My lord, you are heading for the palace," said the painter. "Oh, it's--it's--very good," sighed the King, "then I shall have a good meal."

The outlying world of Asquith was among the conquests of General Horace Glennongarh's rebellion.But Asquith will not be in much danger, with the overlord army—the space fleet of the military department backing it up.But the royal ruler of Monaco in exile called me over anyway, and his wax figure seemed even more molten than before. "Martin," said His Highness, "did you hear-listen-hear about the Fomalhaut battle-battle?" "I heard," I said, "it's nothing to worry about. Fomalhaut is exactly what Glennon High wants to attack...a tiny place with only a few thousand colonists, but it's rich in minerals and far from the The Ring has at least—how much? Twenty standard months of time debt."

"Twenty-three," said Sad King Billy, "and you think--you think I--we're not--danger, don't you?" "No, no," I said, "I mean, it only takes three weeks and a time debt of less than a year for the overlord to send troops here from the ring network in real time, which is much faster than the general's roundabout from Fomalhaut to this place." Much sooner." "Maybe," Billy King mused, leaning on a globe, but the globe began to spin under his weight, and Billy King jumped upright, "No—but, little—to be careful, I still Going to start our escape—the escape."

I squinted, surprised.Although Billy had been nagging for almost two years about relocating the kingdom in exile, I never thought he'd see it through. "So-so-too...the ship is ready at Parvati," he said. "Asquith agreed to give-to-to...to provide us with transports to the Ring." "But what about the palace?" I said. "What about the library? What about the farm and the land?" "Donate, of course," said Billy King, "but the library stuff will go with us." I sat on the arm of the horsehair sofa and rubbed my face.In the ten years I've been in the kingdom, I've gone from being Billy's janitor to mentor, confidant, friend, but I've never pretended to understand this chaotic mystery.When I first arrived here, he summoned me immediately. "Are you—you—are you willing—willing—willing—to join—the talented team in our small harmonious community?" He asked me at that time.

"Yes, Your Highness." "Would you—would—would you ever write—write—write a book like The Dying-Dying Earth?" "I won't write if I can bear it, Your Highness." "Look, I've read-read-read," said the little man, "and it's very-very-interesting." "Thank you for your compliment, my lord." "Huh-huh-huh, Mr. Silenus. Someone apparently cut--cut-thumbed it, and left the worst parts, which is a terrific misinterpretation, and that's why I I feel—feel—interesting.” I laughed.I was surprised that I suddenly found myself going to love Sad King Billy.

"But-but-but the Psalter," he sighed, "the-the-that book, perhaps the best poem-poetry-poetry that the Web has published in the last two centuries How you got it through that mediocre editor and got it published I'll never know. I bought two thousand copies for my King-King-Kingdom." I looked down slightly, and for the first time since my post-stroke days twenty years ago, I couldn't find the right words. "Would you ever write a poem-poem-poem like the Psalms?" "I came here just to try it out, Your Highness." "You're welcome, then," said Sad King Billy. "You can live in the west wing of the castle. It's right next to my office. My door is always open for you." Now, I glanced at the tightly closed gate, at the little prince whose eyes—even when smiling—looked like they were on the verge of tears. "Hyperion?" I asked.He makes many references to this primitive colonial world. "Yeah. The robot seedship has been there for years, Ma-Ma-Martin. Like a trailblazer." I raised my eyebrows in surprise.Billy King's wealth does not come from the kingdom's assets, but from large investments in the ring economy.Even so, if he had been secretly carrying out the re-immigration plan for so many years, the huge cost must be staggering. "Martin, do you—you—do you remember why the original colonists named the star-star-star... world Hyperion?" "Of course. Before the exile, these colonists were residents of a moon of Saturn. They couldn't live without the supplies of the earth, so they migrated to this remote place and named the planet after their moon." King Billy smiled sadly. "Do you know why the name has-has-benefited what we've been striving for?" It took me ten seconds to figure out the connection. "Keats," I said. A few years ago, Billy King and I had a long discussion about the essence of poetry. At the end of the discussion, Billy asked me who was the purest poet who ever lived.