Chapter 52 Chapter Fourteen

But the conversation continued. Thor couldn't help thinking about how an ethical system - which is not as indomitable as religion, which survives all the spurning of evil human beings - could have originated from God ordering a man to kill his own child.As for the fact that the order was reversed at the last moment, it didn't matter to Saul.It was just an order to test loyalty, and it meant nothing to him.In fact, he thought it was Abraham's obedience, making him the father of all the tribes of Israel, that was really what drove Saul into rage. After fifty-five years of devoting his life and work to a system of ethics, Saul Winterberg has come to a simple and unshakable conclusion: that any allegiance to gods or ideas or universal principles is as good as it is to the innocent To demand obedience in every way, even abandoning the minimum morality, is evil.

——Then give a definition of "innocent"?There was a slightly amused and slightly disgruntled voice, and Sol felt that the debate between himself and God had begun again. —Children are innocent, Thor thought.Take Isaac for example.So is Rachel. ——Just because you are a child, does it mean you are "innocent"? --yes. —Then under no circumstances should pure blood be shed for a greater cause? — Yes, Thor thought.Not under any circumstances. — But I think "innocent" is not limited to children. ——Sol hesitated for a moment, feeling that this seemed to be a trap, and wanted to wait and see how far this subconscious conversation would go.He can't imagine.No, he thought, "innocent" includes not only children but other people as well.

— Like Rachel?When she was twenty-four?Innocent people should not be sacrificed no matter what age? --right. —Perhaps this was part of the lesson Abraham had to learn before he became the paternal father of the well-being of the peoples of the earth. — What course?Sol thought. what course?But the voice in his heart gradually faded away, and now only the chirping of the night bird outside and the soft breathing of his wife beside him remained. Rachel could read at the age of five.Sol doesn't quite remember when she learned to read—like she's always been able to since she was born. "At four," Salai said, "it was early summer... just three months after her fourth birthday. We were having a cookout on the hill behind college when Rachel was looking at her picture book when suddenly she said : 'I heard a voice in my head.'”

Sol remembered it all at once. He also remembered the joy that Rachel's preternatural ability to learn new skills had brought him and Sally at that age.He remembered because they were now facing the inversion of that process. "Dad," said Rachel, lying on the floor of his study, carefully coloring the slides, "how long has it been since Mom's birthday?" "Mommy's birthday is on Monday," Saul said, thinking about what he had just studied.Sarai's birthday hadn't come yet, but it had passed in Rachel's memory. "Of course I know. But how long has it been?"

"Today is Thursday," Saul said.He was reading a lengthy Talmud treatise on "obedience." "Of course I do. I mean how many days have passed?" Saul put the hard copy down. "Do you know the days of the week?" Barna's Realm still uses the old calendar. "Of course," Rachel said, "Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday..." "You've already said it's Saturday once." "Yes. But how many days is that?" "Do you count from Monday to Thursday?" Rachel frowned, her lips moved.She tried again, counting and counting her fingers this time. "Four days?"

"Good answer," said Thor, "and do you know what ten minus four is, boy?" "What do you mean minus?" Saul forced himself to look at the paper in his hand again. "It's nothing," he said, "you'll learn it when you go to school." "When we go home tomorrow?" "yes." One morning, while Rachel was out playing with the other kids, accompanied by Judy—she was too young to go back to school—Sarai said, "Sol, we've got to take her to Hyperion. " Sol stared at her. "What did you say?" "You heard me clearly. We can't wait until she's too young to walk...or talk. Also, we can't be young," Sarai burst out with a bleak wry smile, "It sounds like Weird, isn't it? But we can't. The effects of Paulson's therapy wear off completely within a year or two."

"Sarai, have you forgotten? The doctor said Rachel couldn't stand the freezing slumber. No one has ever traveled beyond light in a state of hibernation. The Hawking effect can drive people crazy...maybe more bad." "That's okay," Salai said, "Rachel's going to come back to Hyperion anyway." "What the hell are you talking about?" Saul said, a little annoyed. Sara held his hand tightly. "Do you think you're the only one having that dream?" "Dream?" Thor finally said. She sighed and sat by the white desk.The morning light is like a yellow spotlight, covering the plants on the windowsill. "The dark place," she said, "the red light overhead. The voice. Tell us... tell us to take... to Hyperion. To offer her as a... burnt offering."

Thor licked his lips, his lips were dry.His heart was beating violently. "Whose name... Whose name did you say?" Sarai looked at him strangely. "Our names. If you weren't there...with me in the dream...I don't know how to spend all these years." Thor slumped into a chair.He looked at his unfamiliar hands and forearms sagging on the table.The joints of the fingers were gradually swollen due to rheumatism; the forearm was severely bruised and covered with liver spots.Of course, it was indeed his hand.He said to her: "You never told me. Not a word..." This time Sarai's smile was no longer bitter. "I don't have to tell you! We'd both wake up in the middle of the night those days. You'd be in a cold sweat. I knew from the first time it wasn't just a dream. We gotta go, her dad. Go to Heber Lian."

Sol raised his hand.It still didn't feel like a part of him. "Why? For God's sake, why, Sally? We can't...can't give Rachel..." "Of course not, her father. Haven't you considered this at all? We have to go to Hyperion...no matter where, it's where the dream told us to go...to sacrifice ourselves." "Sacrifice ourselves," Thor repeated.He felt as if he was going to have a heart attack.His chest hurt so badly that he couldn't even breathe normally.He sat for a full minute without saying a word, knowing that if he did speak, tears would come.After another minute, he said: "How long have you been thinking about this... mate?"

"Since when do you mean we knew we had to? It's been a year. Probably longer. Just after her fifth birthday." "One year! Why don't you say anything?" "I'm waiting for you. Waiting for you to realize this. Waiting for you to fully understand." Sol shook his head.The house looked far away from him and was slightly tilted. "No. I mean, it doesn't seem like...I'll have to think about it, old man." Thor looked at his unfamiliar hand and patted Sarai's familiar hand. She nodded. Sol spent three days and three nights in the high mountains where not a single blade of grass grew, relying only on the thick leather bread and condensed water heater he brought with him.

In the past twenty years, he had thought countless times, wishing that he, as a father, could catch Rachel's disease instead; if anyone was destined to suffer, it should be the father and not the child.That's what any parent thinks -- and it's a no-brainer every time one's own child is bedridden with an injury or suffering from a high fever.Of course, this matter will not be that simple. Lying half dozed in the shade of a thin slab of rock on the hot afternoon of the third day, Sol learned that it was not going to be that simple. — Could that be Abraham's answer to God?Let yourself as a father be a sacrifice instead of Isaac? —This may be Abraham's answer.But not yours. --why? As if to have the answer to this question, Sol had a feverish hallucination of naked adults marching in single file towards the fire, passing many armed people, mothers hiding their children in piles of coats. Down.He saw men and women in scorched clothing that barely covered them, carrying dazed children out of the ashes of what had been cities.Saul knew that these visions were not dreams, but real scenes from the first and second massacres, and as he understood, he knew what the answer was before the voice in his head said it.The answer can only be what. —Parents have sacrificed themselves.Such sacrifices have long been accepted.We have long accepted it. ——Then how to do it?How to do it! Only silence answered him.Thor stood in the white-hot sun, crumbling.A black bird hovered above his head, but it could have been a hallucination.Thor shook his fist at the bronze sky. — You use the Nazis as your tools.madman.animals.You are a fucking beast. --No. The ground tipped, and Thor fell sideways onto the sharp rock.He didn't think it was any different than leaning against a rough wall.A stone the size of a fist rubbed his face with burning pain. —Abraham's correct answer was obedience, Thor thought.Ethically speaking, Abraham himself was no more than a child.In those days, people were children.The correct answer for Abraham's children would have been to transform into adults and sacrifice themselves.So, what is the correct answer for ourselves? There is no answer.It didn't spin around anymore.After a while, Sol stood up unsteadily, wiped off the blood and gravel on his cheeks, and walked towards the town in the valley below.