Chapter 41 third chapter

Sometime later, the consul called them from below, and they went down to eat. The galley was very cramped, and there was no dining table, so they went to the great cabin aft and used it as their lounge.They lined up three boxes together to form a table for the time being.Four lanterns hung from the low beams, and the lounge was lit by them.Hite?Masteen opened a window on the bed and let in the breeze. The Consul had set out a tray of sandwiches piled high on top of the trunk, and now he was back, holding a thick white mug and coffee.He poured coffee while the others ate. "It's delicious," Feldman?Kassad said, "Where did you get the roast beef?"

"The fridge is well stocked. There's another big fridge in the dining room aft." "Refrigerator?" Hett?Masteen asked. "No. It's double insulated." Sniffing his nose, Martin Silenus took the knife from the sandwich plate and sliced ​​a large dollop of wasabi and horseradish on top of his sandwich.He took a bite, tears welling up in his eyes. "How long does it usually take to cross?" Lamia asked the consul. The Consul stared at the circle of hot coffee in his cup, and he looked up. "Sorry, what did you say?" "Across the Sea of ​​Grass. How long?"

"It will take one night and half a day to reach the mountains," said the consul, "if the wind is right." "So...how long does it take to cross the mountains?" Father Hoyt asked. "Less than a day," said the Consul. "If the trolley still works," Kassad added. The Consul sipped his hot coffee and grimaced. "Hopefully it still moves. Otherwise..." "What else? Lamia asked." "Otherwise," Colonel Kassad said, walking to the open window, hands behind his hips, "we'll be stuck there, with no village in front of us, no store in back, six hundred kilometers from the Time Tomb, The cities in the south are a thousand kilometers away."

The Consul shook his head. "No," he said, "the priest of the temple, or anyone else, who supports the pilgrimage anyway, will surely notice that we have taken this long road. They will determine all the routes we take." Braun?Lamia crossed her arms and frowned. "Treat us as... sacrifices?" Martin Silenus laughed and took out his bottle: "Who are these people, are they all going to sacrifice? The sacrificial calf, crying to heaven, Where are you taking it, mystic priest? Garlands of flowers adorn its smooth waist. From which small town by the river and the sea,

Or which quiet Fortress mountain village, Here are these people, on this godly morning? O town, thy streets are ever quiet; never come back a soul Tell someone why you are so lonely. " Braun?Lamia reached under her coat and took out a cutting laser, which was about the size of her slack.She held it, pointed it at the poet's head, and said, "You vile rotten shit. If you say another word... I swear... I'll burn you to a pile of cinders." It was suddenly very quiet, save for a rumbling background sound - the moaning of ships.The Consul walked up to Martin Silenus.Colonel Kassad took two steps and came behind Lamia.

The poet took a swig of his wine and laughed at the brunette.His mouth was wet. "Oh, build your death ship," he whispered, "Oh, build it!" Lamia's pale fingers held the laser.The Consul leaned closer to Silenas, not knowing what to do, imagining the lashing beams melting his eyes.Kassad leaned toward Lamia like a shivering two-meter shadow. "Ma'am," said Saul Winterberg, sitting on a box with his back against the far wall, "shall I remind you that there is a child here?" Lamia looked to the right.Winterburo took a deep drawer from the ship's scullery, put it on the bed, and fashioned a cradle.He had just bathed the baby, and walked in silently, just in time to hear the poet's reading.Now, he is gently lowering the baby into its soft nest.

"Sorry," Braun?Lamia said, putting down the small laser, "It's just this guy, it makes me so... angry." Winterberg nodded, shaking the drawer slightly.It seemed that the gentle rocking of the wind-powered transport, combined with the incessant rumble of the large wheels, had lulled the child to sleep. "We're all tired and nervous," the scholar said. "Maybe we should find an overnight room and get a good night's sleep." The woman sighed, and clipped the weapon back on her belt. "I'm not going to sleep," she said. "It's all so... queer."

The others nodded in agreement.Martin Silenus was sitting on the wide ledge under the stern window.Now, lifting his leg, and taking a sip of his wine, he said to Winterberg, "Old man, tell your story." "Yes," said Father Hoyt.He looked exhausted, dead, but his feverish eyes were burning. "Tell us. Before we get there, we've got to hear the story and take a moment to think about it." Winterberg scratched his bald head. "It's a boring story," he said. "I've never been to Hyperion before. There's no confrontation with monsters, no acts of heroism in my story. It's just a man with no notes using his own take on an epic adventure." The idea of ​​telling a story to a class of students."

"It's better this way," said Martin Silenus. "We need hypnotics." Sol Winterberg sighed, adjusted his glasses, and nodded.There were a few streaks of black in his beard, but most of it was gray.He lowered the lantern to the child's bed, then went to a chair in the middle of the room and sat down. The Consul extinguished the other lanterns and poured coffee for those who wanted it.Saul Winterberg spoke slowly, with careful precision in his words, and before long his soft cadences were mingled with the soft rumble of the wind-carrier, and the slow high chant.The ship continued to move north.

Scholar's story: How bitter is the river of forgetfulness Before Rachel was born, Saul Winterberg and his wife Sally lived a very happy life; and the arrival of their daughter made everything perfect. Sarai was twenty-seven when she became pregnant, Sol twenty-nine.Neither of them considered Paulson's physical therapy because neither of them could afford it, and without it they could expect to live another fifty years in good health. The couple are both native residents of Bana's Domain and have never left the old planet.Bana is one of the oldest and most unremarkable members of Bannerlord.It joined the Ring, but it didn't make much difference to Thor and Sarai whether it belonged to the Ring or not, since they couldn't afford frequent teleportation travel anyway, and they didn't really want to go anywhere else.Saul recently celebrated his tenth year on the faculty of Naitten Hessel College, where he teaches history and classical studies and devotes himself to the study of ethical evolution.Naito Hessel is not a big place, and the number of students is less than 3,000, but its academic reputation spread far and wide, attracting young students from all over the ring network.The student's biggest complaint was that Natto Hessel and the surrounding Clover community were little islands of civilization in a sea of ​​corn.That's true; the surface distance between this college and the capital Bassad is a full three thousand kilometers, and the land that has been suitably transformed during this period has all been used for farming.That piece of corn field connected with soybean field connected with corn field connected with wheat field connected with corn field connected with rice field connected with corn field was flat and monotonous. Don’t expect a mountain peak or a forest in the middle to break this situation, even a hill would No.The radical poet Samud?Brevit taught at Natten Hessel College for a short time until he was dismissed after the outbreak of the Glennon High Rebellion. When he teleported to Renaissance Arrow, he told his friends that it was located in South New Jersey, the domain of Barna Clover County makes up the eighth largest wilderness in the world, like the tiniest bump on the ass of the universe.

The Winterbergs liked the place.Clover, a town of 25,000, was probably recreated on the model of a nineteenth-century mid-American city.The streets are wide, lined with long vaults of elms and oaks (Bana was once the second extrasolar earth colony, hundreds of years before Hawking-driven inventions and exiles, when the kind of ships were are giants).Clover's homes also reflect styles from early Victorian to Canadian Revival, but they all appear to be white houses standing far out on manicured lawns. The style of the college belongs to the Georgian era. The oval-shaped public square is surrounded by a circle of buildings with red bricks and white columns.Sol's office is on the third floor of Pletcher Hall, the oldest building on the campus. In winter, you can see the bare branches from the window gridding the public space into complex geometric shapes.Saul liked the smell of chalk dust and old wood in this place. It hadn't changed since the first day he came here, and every day he climbed the stairs to his office, he enjoyed the step out of his feet. This is the precious gift left by the twenty students of Naito Hessel. Salai, who was born on a farm between Barsad and Clover, earned a doctorate in music theory the year before Saul's.She had always been a lively and cheerful young woman, and though her appearance was not beautiful by most standards, her personality more than made up for it, and it remained so throughout her life .Sarai once went to the Alien Tianjin Sibing for two years to study at the University of New Lyon, but she was very homesick there: the sun there always went down suddenly, and the rolling hills were like a jagged sickle handle. The sun cuts into slices, and she longs to see the hours-long sunset in her hometown. The huge star of Bana hangs on the horizon like a huge red balloon tethered to the surface, and the sky seems to freeze, gradually cooling down until evening. .She misses the relentless flatness of her hometown—her room is on the third floor, under a steep gable wall, looking out from there—a little girl can see the approaching storm through fifty kilometers of rice-studded farmland, It is like a blue-black curtain, the center of which is brightly illuminated by lightning.Sarai also misses her family.