Chapter 75 chapter eight

The tomb is empty. "Donald, come in!" He hurried in, his robe rustling in the vast void.The tomb is empty.There's no hibernation pod—in fact, I didn't really expect one—but there's neither a sarcophagus nor a wooden coffin.A bright bulb illuminates the white interior walls. "What the hell is this, Donnel? I thought it was Shirley's grave." "That's right, father." "Where's she buried? Under the floorboards? For God's sake." Tony stroked his eyebrows.I realized that I was talking about her mother.I also recalled that it took almost two years for him to come to terms with her death.

"Did no one tell you?" he asked. "Tell me what?" My anger and confusion receded, "I just got off the seed ship platform and they told me I had to visit Shirley's grave before the teleporter turned on, what else ?” "We carried out the cremation according to the mother's wishes. Her ashes were sprinkled from the highest platform in the family to Nanyang." "Then why...there's this...cellar again?" I looked at the place I was talking about.Tony is sensitive. He began to stroke his eyebrows again, and glanced at the door.Our view was blocked by the crowd and we spent far longer than planned.The other members of the parliament had already rushed down from the hillside and stood with the dignitaries on the bandstand.My sadness has simmered in the dark, and now it has become extremely bad-it is no exaggeration to say that it is full of claws.

"Mum left a will. And did as she said." He touched a mechanism on the interior wall, and it slid open, revealing a small alcove containing a small metal box.It has my name on it. "what?" Tony shook his head. "It's a personal item left by your mother. Only Margaret knows what it is, but she died last winter, and now no one knows." "Okay," I said, "thanks. I'll be out in a minute." Tony glanced at his atomic clock. "The ceremony will begin in eight minutes. They will activate the teleporter in twenty minutes." "I know." I said.I do know.My sixth sense knows exactly how much time is left. "I'll be out soon."

Tony hesitated for a moment, then left.I touched the mechanism with my palm, and the door closed behind him.The metal box is surprisingly heavy.I put it on the stone floor and squatted next to it.It was locked with a small palm lock, and I pressed it, and the lid clicked open, and I peeked into the box. "Well, I'm damned," I said softly.I don't know what it will be inside - maybe artifacts, some nostalgic souvenirs, commemorating the one hundred and three days we were together - maybe a dried flower, I can't tell when I gave it to her. Remember, maybe a French horn shell we found diving in Fivaron.But there are no memorials—not such a thing.

Inside the box is a small Stanjin handheld laser, one of the most powerful projectile weapons ever built.The laser's accumulator was connected by a power cord to a small fusion battery that Sealy must have assembled from her new sub.There is also an ancient communication log connected to the fusion battery, which is an antique composed of a solid internal body and a liquid crystal touch display.The battery indicator is blinking green. There are two other things in the box.One of them is a translation plate we used many years ago.The last thing really surprised me from ear to ear. "What the hell, you little vixen," I said.Everything is neatly arranged.I couldn't help laughing, "You provocative, cunning little vixen."

There lay the Hawk Flying Rug that Mike Washoe picked up for thirty marks from the Carvergne Market, carefully rolled up, the power leads properly connected.I ignored the Huoying Flying Carpet, removed the comlog, and held it high in the air.I sat cross-legged on the cold stone and pressed my thumb on the touch display.The light in the crypt faded, and suddenly Siri stood in front of me. They didn't throw me overboard when Mike died.They could have, but didn't.They didn't leave me at the discretion of the magistrate in Maui.They could have, but they chose not to.I was taken to the security department, locked up for two days, and questioned, once by Captain Singer himself.Then they put me back on the job.During the long four months of the jump back, I have been tortured, and the scene of Mike's murder is always in my mind.I know that the stupid thing I did was to help the other party murder him instead.Every day I was on duty was nothing but nightmares that made me sweat and dread, wondering if they would fire me when I got to the Ring.They could have told me the answer to this question, but no one kept their mouths shut.

They didn't fire me.I still enjoy normal physical leave within the Ring, but have been deprived of the off-board leisure leave in the Mauiyo system.Moreover, they gave me a written notice of criticism and a temporary demotion in rank.Mike's life was only worth so much—notification of criticism and demotion. Like the rest of the crew, I was granted three weeks off, but unlike them, I had no plans to return to Maui.I teleported to Hope, reenacting the classic crew mistake - trying to get home to see loved ones.I had had enough of two days in the overcrowded residential bulb, and teleported to Luthers, where I spent three days having fun on Blossom Street and Willow Lane.But my mood took a turn for the worse, and I teleported to Fuji again, spending many of my cash marks on bloody samurai duel gambling.

In the end, I had to teleport to the home galaxy station and take a two-day sightseeing flight down to the Greek Basin.I've never been to the home system, I've never been to Mars, and I'm not going back to Maui at all.But the experience of wandering the dusty, ghostly corridors of the mosque alone during my ten-day stay there sent my mind flying back to the spaceship.He also flew back to Shili. Occasionally I would leave the red stone maze of Stonehenge, clad only in a skin-like suit and mask, and stand on one of the uncountable thousands of stone balconies, looking at a pale gray cabin in the sky, its It used to be the old land.Sometimes I think of brave and foolish idealists sailing into the vast darkness in their slow and leaky boats, tending embryos and ideologies with fervent conviction and supreme care.But most of the time I don't think about anything at all.When I wasn't thinking, I just stood under the purple night sky and let Siri come to me.Beneath the "Ruler's Stone," in my head, I thought of the body of a little woman not yet sixteen, lying beside me, the moonlight streaming from the wings of Thomas the Eagle, and I It is in such memory that perfect enlightenment is touched, which even many eminent and famous pilgrims have not had the opportunity to attain.

The "Los Angeles" spun and returned to the quantum state, and I went back with her memory in my arms.Four months later, I was comfortable working shifts with construction workers, plugging in my usual stimulation simulations, and sleeping away my relaxing holidays.Then Singer came to see me. "You can go down," he said.But I didn't get it, "The whole shitty thing you've done with Washoe has turned into a fucking legend over the last eleven years," Singer said, "You and you The story of the colonial chick rolling turned out to be a cultural theme."

"Her name is Siri," I said. "Bring your gear," Singer said. "You can go to the surface for your three-week vacation. The ambassador's experts say you can do more good for the Hegemony there than here. We'll see." The world is watching us.The crowd cheered.Shirley waved her hand.We left the harbor in the yellow multihull and headed southeast towards the archipelago and her family islands.