Chapter 68 Chapter One

The Fortress of Time stands on the extreme eastern edge of the mighty Bridle Mountains: a mass of burnt stone, hideous and baroque.It has three hundred rooms and halls, a labyrinth of dark corridors leading to deep halls, castles, turrets, balconies overlooking the northern moors, and ventilation ducts half a kilometer high rising to the light and, it is said, descending into the labyrinths of this world.The railings have been eroded by the cold wind blowing from the peaks on the top for many years, and the stairs - both inside and outside - are carved out of the rock, but they lead to nowhere at all.The stained glass windows, a hundred meters high, catch the first rays of summer sunlight, or the first rays of midwinter moonlight, while some glassless windows, no bigger than a man's fist, look out at nothing.On the walls, the bas-reliefs are displayed endlessly, and in the niches, the strange carvings are half-hidden.Above the eaves and balustrades, the left and right wings, and the reliquary, stand more than a thousand beaks, gazing down and through the wooden rafters of the great hall, where they sit from vantage point so that they can peek out to the northeast. The blood-stained windows moved there with their outstretched shadows like the shadows of stern sun-dials, cast by the sun by day and by the gas-burning torches by night.Everywhere in the Fortress of Time, signs of the Shrike's long-standing hold can be seen—red velvet covering the Altar of Atonement, statues of Avatars hanging or standing free, blades of painted steel, blood rubies Eye.More shrike statues are carved in the stone of the narrow staircase and the black hall, so that at night, you will find no place where you can escape from fear, and everywhere there will be hands reaching out from the rock to grab you .A sharp curved blade fell from the stone, four arms wrapped in a final embrace.As if for finishing touches, the halls and rooms where they once stayed were decorated with blood-red filaments; the walls and passage ceilings were decorated with red arabesques in an almost recognizable pattern; in the great central dining room, filled with the rotting stench of leftovers from weeks before; the floor and tables, chairs and walls, were adorned with bloodstained clothes and torn robes , they lay silently in a heap.There was the buzzing of flies everywhere.

"What a goddamn good place, isn't it?" Martin Silenus said, his voice echoing throughout the fortress. Father Hoyt stepped into the interior of the great hall.There was a west-facing skylight, forty meters high, through which the afternoon sun poured in and fell on the dusty columns. "It's unbelievable," he whispered, "and St. Peter in the New Vatican can't compare to it." Martin Silenus laughed out loud.The bright light framed his cheeks, and his forehead. "This thing was made for living gods," he muttered. Feldman Kassad put his travel bag on the floor and cleared his throat. "This place must have been built before the Shrike Church."

"True," said the consul, "but the Church of the Shrike has occupied the place for the past two centuries." "But now it looks like no one lives there," Braun Lamia said.In her left hand she holds her father's automatic pistol. For the first twenty minutes after arriving in the fort, everyone shouted and shouted inside, but the echo died away, and then silence, which added to the buzzing of flies in the dining room, made them seem even more silent. "The thing that struck the lightning that day was built by Sad King Billy's robots and cloned slaves," said the poet. "It took a total of eight local years, and it was built before the gyratory spaceship arrived. This should be the greatest ring network. It is a tourist attraction, the starting point for the Time Tombs and the City of Poets. But I suspect that even then, those poor stupid robot laborers already knew the Shrike stories that the local residents talked about."

Standing by one of the east windows, Saul Humbert held his daughter up so that the soft light fell on her face and her little clenched fists. "Now, all of this is meaningless," he said. "Let's find a clean corner, where we have to sleep and have dinner." "Aren't we moving on at night?" Braun Lamia asked. "To the Tombs of Time?" Celisna said, his first real look of surprise on his travels. "You want to meet the Shrike in the dark?" Lamia shrugged. "What's the difference?" The Consul stood before a door of leaded glass that led to a rocky balcony, and closed his eyes.His body was still dangling, balancing the motion of the gondola.The night and day travel on the mountain has become blurred in his mind, lost in exhaustion.For three days he had barely slept, and his anxiety was growing with each passing day.But he opened his eyes just in time to stop dozing off. "We're tired," he said. "We'll sleep here tonight and go down in the morning."

Father Hoyt stepped outside, onto the narrow landing of the balcony.He leaned against the rough stone railing. "Can we see the Time Tombs from here?" "No," Silenus said, "they're behind that high mountain. But see that white thing to the north? A little bit to the west...those shiny things, like broken teeth buried in the sand. See ?" "Saw." "That's the city of poets. The original ruins of King Billy, built for Keats, for all things bright and beautiful. The locals say the city is haunted now, haunted by headless ghosts." "Are you one of them?" Lamia said.

Martin Silenus turned to say something, but he stared at the pistol in her hand for a moment, shook his head and walked away. Footsteps echoed in the unseen bend of the staircase, and Colonel Kassad re-entered the room. "There are two small storage rooms above the dining room," he said. "There is a balcony outside the room, and there is no other entrance except this staircase. It is easy to defend. The room is also... very clean." Silinas laughed, "Does that mean that nothing is attacking us? Or, if something is attacking us, there is no way for us to escape?"

"Where can we escape to?" Saul Weinbert said. "Yes, where are we going?" said the Consul.He is exhausted.He picked up his equipment, then one end of the heavy Möbius cube, and waited for Father Hoyt to take the other end. "Everyone do what Kassad said. Find a place to sleep. At least don't stay in this room anymore. This place stinks of dead people everywhere." Supper consisted of the last bits of rations, a sip of wine from Silenus' last bottle, and some stale cake that Saul Umbert had brought to celebrate their last evening together.Rachel was too young to eat cake, but she drank milk and fell asleep on a blanket beside her father.

Rainer Hoyt took a small balalaika from his backpack and fiddled with the strings. "So you can play the piano." Braun Lamia said. "Poorly played." The Consul rubbed his eyes. "I wish we had a piano." "You have one," said Martin Silenus. The Consul stared at the poet. "Bring it," said Silenus, "I'd like a scotch." "What are you talking about?" said Father Hoyt suddenly. "make it clear." "That ship of his," said Silenus, "remember what our dear late Masteen told our consular friend? The voice of the jungle said his secret weapon was the beautiful Overlord The personal craft, the one sitting at Keats Airfield. Call it, Your Excellency. Call it here."

Kassad set up the safety beam on the landing and returned to the room. "The planet's data network is down. The comms satellite is down. The orbiting army ship is using dense optical communications. How does he call it?" "Super-light transmitter." It was Lamia who spoke. The Consul stared at her instead. "The Transmitter is the size of a building," Kassad said. Braun Lamia shrugged. "Masteen has a good point. If I were the consul...if I were one of the few thousand people in the entire goddamn ring with a personal ship... I'd die sure, when I needed to You can fly the spacecraft by remote control. This planet is too primitive to rely on the communication network, and the ionosphere is too weak to carry out short-wave communication. Communication satellites are the most important thing for reconnaissance... If I need to call it, I will Use the Ultralight."

"What about the size?" said the Consul. Braun Lamia returned a calm gaze to the diplomat. "Hegemony can't make portable hyperluminescent transmitters yet. But it's been said that Ousters can." The Consul smiled.There was a grinding sound from somewhere, followed by a metallic crash. "You stay here," Kassad said.He pulled the death stick from his jacket, canceled the safety beam with his tactical comm, and went down the stairs, out of sight. "I guess we're under martial law now," Silenus said after the colonel left, "on Mars."

"Shut up," Lamia said. "Do you think it's a Shrike?" Hoyt asked. The consul waved his hand. "The Shrike doesn't have to be tinkling downstairs. It could just be right here... us." Hoyt shook his head. "I mean, did the Shrike make the... disappearance of a soul here. Is it the sign of the carnage here at the fort?" "Empty villages may be the result of evacuation orders," said the consul. "No one wants to stay to face the deportees. The SDF troops are starting to evacuate. Most of the massacres should be done by them." "Is there no dead body?" Silinas laughed. "Wishful thinking. The master who left the table downstairs is now swinging on the Shrike's steel tree. Soon, we will end up with him too." "Shut up," Braun Lamia said weakly. "If I don't close it," laughed the poet, "would you shoot me, madam?" "Will do." When Colonel Kassad returned, no one said a word.He reactivated the safety beam and turned to join the group, who were sitting on the crates.Sit on a plastic cube. "Nothing. A couple of scavengers--I think the locals call them portent-birds. They broke into the hall through the broken glass, where they're feasting." Silinas chuckled. "The Harbinger Bird. The name couldn't be more fitting." Kassad sighed, sat on the blankets with his back against the box, and poked his cold food.A lantern brought from the wind transport illuminated the room, and darkness began to creep into the corner walls from the balcony door. "This is our last night," Kassad said. "One story left." He glanced at the consul. The consul twisted the paper in his hand, on which the number "7" was scrawled.He licked his lips. "What's the point? The meaning of pilgrimage has been destroyed." The others showed a commotion. "What do you mean?" asked Father Hoyt. The Consul crumpled up the paper and threw it in a corner. "For the Shrike to agree to a request, the number of Pilgrims must be a prime number. We used to have seven. Masteen ... disappeared ... to six. Now we are dying, Don't expect your wishes to come true." "Superstition," said Lamia. The Consul sighed and wiped his forehead. "Yes, but that's our last hope." Father Hoyt pointed to the sleeping baby. "Can Rachel be the seventh?" Saul Winterberg stroked his beard. "No. Pilgrims must go to the Tomb of Time with their own wishes." "But she did," Hoyt said, "and might qualify." "Impossible," said the Consul. Martin Silenus, who was writing something on a sticky note, got up and paced the room. "Jesus Christ, people. Come see us. We're not six bloody pilgrims, we're a mob. Hoyt over there with his crucifix, with the soul of Paul Dooley .Our "semi-sentimental" erg is in the box over there. Kassad carries the memories of Moneta in his head. Ms. Braun over there, if we believe her story, she Not only with an unborn child, but with a dead romantic poet. Our scholar with his old daughter. And I with my muse. The consul, who knows Fuck what luggage, go on this stupid trip. My God, people, we should rate this trip as a fucking first class team." "Sit down." Lamia's voice was dull and monotonous. "No, he's right," Hoyt said. "Even if Father Durley exists in the cruciform, it will definitely affect this superstition of prime numbers. I think people should hurry up after get off work tomorrow morning, I believe..." "Look!" cried Braun Lamia, pointing his finger towards the balcony door, where the fading twilight had been replaced by bursts of bright light. The group stepped out of the room into the cold night air outside. They shielded their eyes with their hands, and the sky was filled with the light of a silent explosion, unbelievably intense: pure white fusion burst and spread like in a deep blue pond. water streaks of explosions; smaller and brighter plasma implosions in blues, yellows and scarlets curling inward like flowers closing at night; giant hell whips showing a dance of thunder and lightning like this When the small-world-sized light beam crosses a few lights, the place it passes is a mess, distorted by the torrent at the defensive singularity; the aurora of the defensive field flickers, jumps under the attack of terrible energy, and goes out, Unexpectedly, it was reborn again after nanoseconds.Amid all this, the blue-and-white fusion wakes of the torchship yards and giant battleships lined the sky perfectly, like diamond scratches on blue glass. "Ouster." Braun Lamia whispered softly. "It's war," Kassad said.There was no smugness or emotion in his tone. The consul wept quietly, much to his own surprise.He turned his head away, not wanting others to see him. "Is it dangerous for us to stay here?" Martin Silenus asked.He hid under a stone archway and squinted at the brilliant picture. "This far, there's no danger," Kassad said.He raised the combat binoculars, adjusted them, and checked the tactical comlog. "Most firefights are at least three astronomical units away. The Ousters are testing the military's space defenses." He put down the binoculars. "The battle has just begun." "Have the teleporters been activated?" Braun Lamia asked. "Have people been evacuated from Keats and other cities?" Kassad shook his head. "I don't think so. Not evacuated yet. The fleet will hold their fire until the orbital defense circle is formed. Then, the evacuation portal to the ring will be opened, and the army's troops will pass through hundreds of The portal arrives," he held up the binoculars again, "this is a hell of a show." "Look!" said Father Hoyt this time, pointing not to the fireworks display in the sky but to the low sand dunes of the northern wilderness.A few kilometers away from the invisible Tomb of Time, there is a figure, it is a small point, casting some shadows under the broken sky. Kassad aimed his telescope at the figure. "Is it the Shrike?" Lamia asked. "No, I don't think so... from the look of the robe... I think... this is a... saint." "Height Masteen!" cried Father Hoyt. Kassad shrugged, and he handed the binoculars to the crowd.The Consul walked to the back of the line and leaned on the balcony.There was no sound other than the whisper of the wind, but that made the violent explosion above their heads even more ominous. The Consul took the binoculars that were handed him.The figure was very tall, robed, with its back to the keep, and now it was striding across the gleaming vermilion sands toward some destination. "Is he running towards us, or towards the Time Tomb?" Lamia asked. "Time Tombs," said the Consul. God Hoyt, your elbows resting on the railing, your haggard face looking up at the exploding sky. "If that's Masteen, then we're back to seven, aren't we?" "He will be here a few hours before us," said the Consul, "and if we sleep here tonight as proposed, he will be half a day before us." Hoyt shrugged. "It doesn't matter much. A pilgrimage started by seven. Seven will arrive. The Shrike will be satisfied." "If that's Masteen," Colonel Kassad said, "what the hell is going on with the charade on the wind transport? How did he get here before us? There's no way he could have crossed the bridle on foot without the other gondolas in motion. of the mountains." "When we arrive at the Tomb of Time tomorrow, we can just ask him." Father Hoyt said wearily. Braun Lamia trying to get in touch with someone on her commlog on a common comm frequency.But there was nothing but a muted hiss, and the occasional roar of a distant electromagnetic pulse.She looked at Colonel Kassad. "When did they start bombing?" "I don't know. It depends on the strength of the military fleet's defense." "The defenses were weak the first few days, and the Ouster scout planes were able to pass through unimpeded and destroyed 'Yggod La Hill'," Lamia said. Kassad nodded. "Hey," Martin Silenus said, "are we fucking sitting under their target?" "Of course," said the Consul, "if the Ousters attacked Hyperion to prevent the Time Tombs from opening, as in Lady Lamia's story, then the Time Tombs and the entire area here would be prime targets .” "Nuclear weapons?" Silenas asked, his tone tense. "Almost certainly," Kassad replied. "I think there's something in the anti-entropy field that's holding the ship back," Hoyt said. "It's to stop the manned spacecraft," said the consul, who was leaning against the rail without looking back into the corner. "But the anti-entropy field won't interfere with missiles, smart bombs, or Hellwhip's beams. As such, it won't interfere with mechanized infantry. The Ouster can drop a few attack skimmers or auto-tanks, far Watch from afar and watch them destroy entire valleys." "But they won't," Braun Lamia said. "They want to control Hyperion, not destroy it." "I wouldn't bet my life on your guess," Kassad said. Lamia smiled at him. "But we did, Colonel, didn't we?" Above them, a small spark broke away from the continuous explosion cloud, turning into a bright orange ember and streaking across the sky.The group on the terrace could see the flames exploding and hear the howling of pain through the atmosphere.The fireball disappeared into the distance of the mountains behind the fortress. After about a minute, the Consul realized he was holding his breath, his hands frozen on the stone railing.He gasped.The others seemed to take a deep breath in unison.There were no explosions, no rumbling shockwaves driving over the rocks. "Duds?" asked Father Hoyt. "Probably a wounded Army straggler reconnaissance plane, trying to return to the orbital perimeter, or Keats air port," Colonel Kassad said. "He didn't make it, did he?" Lamia asked.Kassad didn't answer. Martin Silenus held up the field telescope and searched for the saint in the black wilderness. "It's gone," said Silenus. "The good captain is either circling the valley of the Time Tombs here, or he's gone off the hook again." "It's a pity we won't hear his story anymore," Father Hoyt said.He turned to the consul. "But we'll listen to you, okay?" The Consul wiped his palms on his trouser legs.His heart was beating rapidly. "Okay," while speaking, he realized that he had finally made up his mind, "everyone come and listen to me." The cold wind howled, blowing towards the eastern slope of the mountain, howling along the cliffs of the Time Fortress.The number of explosions above their heads seemed to have decreased a little, but the fall of darkness made each explosion more violent than the previous one. "Let's go in," Lamia said, her words almost lost on the wind. "It's getting colder." They turned off the only light, and the interior of the room was lit only by the heat lightning pulses in the sky outside.Darkness flickered, and the room was painted in bright colors.Sometimes, the darkness lasts for several seconds until the next barrage of artillery fire pours down. The Consul fumbled in his travel bag and pulled out a strange contraption, larger than a comlog, with odd decorations and an LCD touchscreen on the front that looked like something out of one of those historical holograms. "Secret super-light transmitter?" Braun Lamia asked dryly. There was no sense of humor in the Consul's smile. "It's an old comlog. From the time of the exile." He pulled a standard microdisk from his waist pocket and inserted it. "Like Father Hoyt, I have to tell other people's stories first so you can understand mine." "Damn it," Martin Silenus sneered, "am I the only one in the fucking bunch who can tell a straight up story? How long am I going to..." The Consul's actions exceeded even his own expectations.He stood up, then turned to Silenas, grabbed the short man by the cloak and shirtfront, and slammed him against the weeping wall, carrying him on top of the packing box.The Consul had his knee on Silenus' stomach, his forearm around his throat. "No more nonsense, poet, I will let you see the King of Hades." Silenus began to struggle, but he felt the pressure on his windpipe tightened, caught the consul's eyes, and stopped.His face was pale. Colonel Kassad quietly, almost gently, separated the two. "There will be no comment," he said.He touched the death stick on his belt. Martin Silenus walked to the far side of the circle, still rubbing his neck, and fell silently on top of a box.The Consul strode toward the door, took several breaths, and walked back into the crowd.To everyone but the poet, he said, "I'm sorry. It's just . . . it never occurred to me to tell this story to anyone." The light outside bursts into red, then white, then blue, before fading to near darkness. "We all know," said Braun Lamia softly, "we've all felt that way, just like you." The Consul touched his lower lip, nodded, and cleared his throat with difficulty. He walked to the old comlog and sat down. "Recordings are not as old as this instrument," he said. "The recording time was about fifty standard years ago. After the recording is over, I will continue to talk." He paused, as if he had something to say, then he shook his head and pressed his thumb on the old touch display. No video.The voice was that of a young man.In the background, you can hear the sound of the breeze blowing through the grass and pointing at the twigs, and in the distance, there is the sound of rolling waves. Outside, the lights flickered wildly, and the tempo of the distant space station accelerated.The Consul waited nervously for the pop and impact.but.So he closed his eyes and joined the crowd in listening.