Chapter 45 third quarter

Richard couldn't remember how long he had been in this dark cell.Since they took his bag, he has no way of knowing the time.His schedule is the same, repeating the same content day after day. Richard slept in the corner, and as soon as he woke up from his nap or long nap, two birds came into his room and handed him a managua.He knew the birds came in through the locked door at the end of the corridor.They wouldn't give him food if he tried to sleep close to the door.This, Richard soon understood. Every other day another pair of birds came into his prison to clean up his litter.His clothes had covered the stench.Richard knew he was dirty, but was unable to communicate with his captors that he wanted to take a bath.

At first Richard was very excited: the two birds finally flew close to look at the symbols displayed on the computer, and tried to take Richard's computer.Richard quickly programmed the computer to repeat.An hour later, the largest aiyun bird he had ever seen flew back with the two chicks.The big bird had gray feathers and three shiny cherry-red collars.They grabbed Richard in their paws, flew him across the river, paused in the desert, and after some chattering, they took him into the air again. It was a thrilling flight.Richard witnessed the whole picture of this residential area, and couldn't help but think of the scene when he was floating in a hot air balloon over the south of France.They stopped on the brown cylinder below the bright luminary and joined a number of birds.

One of the birds shows its companion a computer that is still on display. Richard followed them into a wide vertical passage leading to the interior of the sphere. For the first 15 hours, Richard was taken around by Ai Yunniao.Meet this group of birds in a moment, and that group in a moment.He thought it was the master introducing him to all the residents of the Aiyunniao Kingdom.He estimated that there were 700 birds in total. After being shown in the meeting hall of the Evan Bird Kingdom, Richard was led into a small room.In the first week, Ai Yunniao, who only had three collars, and another assistant who also had three collars watched him day and night.During that time, Richard still had access to his computer and the contents of his bag.Once the observation period was over, they took all his belongings and transferred him to this prison.

"That would have been three months ago, within a week," thought Richard, as he went about his daily routine of walking.The corridor outside his cell was about 200 meters long, and he would usually walk eight times back and forth between the outer stone wall and the end of the corridor. "During this period, their leader did not come once. That observation period must be my trial... Did I commit any crime? Is it why I was imprisoned here?" Richard's shoes and clothes are torn.Fortunately, the temperature is suitable, so you don't have to worry about catching a cold.He estimated that the temperature in the living area of ​​Ai Yunniao remained at 26°C.Richard hated being so naked, and it was amused to think of the humility he had displayed during the observation period.

He was already tired of eating managua every day, but fortunately, this food was still nutritious.The juice in the middle of the melon is very fresh, and the tender flesh of the melon is also delicious.But Richard longed for a change. He said to himself countless times, "Even if it's synthetic food." In this solitary life, Richard's greatest challenge was keeping his head clear and his mind sharp.He's always been doing math problems in his head, but has recently worried that his advancing age is reducing his sharp thinking and memory.He passed the time and honed his memory by recalling the experiences of his life.

There was a gap in his memory, and Richard knew it was the period of his coma in Rama 2, on the way from Earth to Nord.It is difficult to fully recover the memory of that period, but he was surprised to find that eating managua brought back memories of the time he spent with the iyunniao. Once, after eating a managua, Richard immediately recalled a meeting attended by many Aiyun birds.He remembered a fire burning in a domed structure, and all the iyunbirds wailed together when the fire died down.Richard was confused at the time, but can't remember exactly. "Where did that happen? Before being caught by the octospider?"

As usual, the thought of his experience with the octospider gave him a terrible headache. It was the last lap walk of the day, Richard continued.Suddenly, he saw the prison door open ahead. "It's the door that's going to drive me crazy." He moved closer, the door still open. Richard passed two lights and entered an open storage room on the right.There were eight or nine managuas neatly arranged on storage shelves. "Haha, I finally got it. They have expanded my range of activities. From now on, I am allowed to carry my own food. If there is another bathroom..."

He continued to walk forward, and there was indeed a small room with water flowing inside.Richard drank plenty of water and rinsed his dirty face.He wanted to take a bath, but his strong curiosity drove him to know how much his territory had expanded. There is an intersection at the end of the corridor outside the cell leading to both sides.It might be a test of his wits, he thought, and Richard threw his outer shirt on the intersection and walked to the right, where the lights were brighter. After walking 20 meters, a pair of Aiyun birds came towards him from a distance.He heard them "cuckoo" as if they were discussing something.Richard stopped only 5 meters away from them. The two birds glanced at him, greeted him with a different tone, and continued down the corridor.

Later, Richard met three more birds who communicated with him in the same way.As he walked, he thought, "What's going to happen here? Don't I have to stay in prison anymore?" When passing the first room, Richard saw 4 Aiyun birds sitting in it, passing a shiny stick back and forth, and "grumbling" from time to time.Richard continued to walk forward and stopped in front of a large conference hall.He was amazed to see that two Recchi were climbing up the table, but the six Aiyun birds were studying them silently and intently. Twenty iyun birds sat around a table in the conference hall, staring at the paper-like documents on the table.One iyun bird held a stick in its paw and pointed at the file.The stuff on paper is weird and completely incomprehensible.Richard believed they were looking at a map.

Richard moved closer to the table to get a better look, and the ivan standing in front of him backed away friendly.Richard knew from the body language of their conversation that one of them was about him.He shook his head and said to himself, "I don't know what this is." "I don't understand why I'm given so much freedom," Richard thought as he sat in his room eating managua. The door of the prison has been opened for him for six weeks, and the conditions in the cell have also improved significantly: two new lanterns have been installed on the wall, a layer of what he thinks is hay has been laid on the sleeping place, and there are still boxes of straw from time to time. A container full of fresh water was placed in his cell.

Richard was sure something big was going to happen, just not in a few hours or a day or two. The next morning, two Aiyun birds woke him up from his sleep and began to teach him the language of Aiyun birds.They start with the simplest, like Managua, water, Richard himself. They point to objects and make clear sounds slowly and repeatedly. Richard struggled to understand some vocabulary, but when he tried to make these sounds himself, he encountered a big trouble: he didn't talk to Aiyun bird-like physiological structure. Richard thought he would learn more after this, but instead he had more and more questions.He learns their language and knowledge, can walk freely in their living area, occasionally sits among them, and eats managua with them.Why all this?They, especially the look in their leader's eyes when he looked at him, were full of anticipation, longing for some kind of answer. "What answer should I give them?" Richard was puzzled. As far as he knows, Ai Yunniao has no written language.Because he has neither seen the book nor seen what Ai Yunniao wrote.Richard has occasionally seen some strange map-like research documents, but never seen them create anything like that, not even a label on the document...it's a mystery. Richard met Ricky two or three times a week.At one point, the two Lackeys stayed in his room for hours, moving around so constantly that Richard couldn't study them carefully.Richard tried to grab one of the ryckies with his hands and was immediately shocked and had to put it down immediately. The scenes experienced in Aiyun Bird Cave kept flashing in Richard's mind.He was furious, not knowing what his captors had planned for him.He kept recalling everything he had experienced in their kingdom, trying to find out. There was a place in the Aiyunniu area that Richard could not and could not go to, because he could not fly.Once he pointed at the darkness, and Ai Yunniao who accompanied him immediately shook his head.Most of Ai Yun's creatures have learned the simple body language of Richard shaking his head for "no" and nodding for "yes". "There must be other information stored somewhere else." Richard thought, "I must have missed some clues. I want to draw a detailed map myself, and I must not ignore important links." Richard created the map of Ai Yun's residential area in three dimensions, but knew he was missing something: the vertical passages of brown spheres, including walking paths and flying paths.As he programmed the complex map into the computer, he said to himself, "Why are you so confused? 70% of the cylinder is not included on this map." Richard took his computer graphics to an iyun bird leader and asked it to allow him to look at the rest of the place. Something important happened that day, and Ai Yunniao was shuttling back and forth in the aisle, screaming "cuckoo" incessantly.He also saw thirty or forty largest Aiyun birds lined up in a square team and flew to the outside of the cylinder. Finally a leader with three collars noticed Richard.It looks in amazement at its own home on the computer screen, where different geometric shapes represent all the details.Unfortunately, Richard was unable to express his desire to see the rest of the cylinder. The leader called some colleagues to look at Richard's computer with him.They "coo-coo" to express their gratitude to Richard.At this time, an Aiyun bird came in to report important news, and Richard had to leave the room. Depressed, Richard returns to his cell, lying on a haystack thinking about his family in New Eden. "Maybe I should go back." While he was thinking about how to get Ai Yunniao's permission, a visitor came in. Richard had never seen this bird before: it wore a collar of four blue diamonds around its neck; its fur was black with some white hairs mixed in; its eyes were clear and sad. When the iyun bird saw Richard stand up, he began to speak slowly. Richard understood a little, and one of the important messages repeated was "follow me". Three respectful Aiyunniao stood outside the cell, walking behind Richard and the leader.They left Richard's cell and entered the Managua storage room across a log bridge over a vertical passage. There were gaps in the back wall of one storage room that Richard hadn't noticed before.They walked toward the gaps, and the wall immediately slid sideways of its own accord.A large elevator appeared in front of their eyes, and the leader of Ai Yunniao greeted Richard to go in. Richard took a step forward, and the leader of the iyun bird stood outside with three assistants and said "goodbye" to him.They formed a circle and bowed to Richard.Richard did his best to imitate their "goodbye" cry, and hunched back into the elevator.The wall in front of him closed instantly.