Chapter 11 third chapter

That's how I joined the League of Historians. The exam was sloppy.Omeyn took us into a circular room at the top of the building.The walls were inlaid with exotic woods of various colours, the floor was glistening with benches, and in the center of the room stood a man-high pillar with letters too small to be recognized.Five or six historians were lazily sitting around the pillars. They were obviously called by Omeen at the last minute. They had no interest in me, an old lookout in rags. I guarantee. I was handed the thinking helmet, and a shrill voice asked me a dozen questions, searching for my characteristic responses, asking for details about my past.I provided my personal information so that they could contact the head of the local Watchout to verify my identity, and the Watchout would remove me if I was approved.Generally speaking, watchers cannot rescind their oath, but now is an extraordinary period, and our group has been disbanded.

In less than an hour, it was all over.Omeen himself put the shawl over my shoulders. "Your bedroom is next to our suite," she said. "You have to change your Overlook Club costume, and your friends don't need to change. After the probationary period, you can receive training. At the same time, you can enter any memory bank at will. But you have to remember, to really join our team , it will take ten years or more." "I know," I said. "Your name is Tomis now," O'Meyn told me, "but not Tomis the Historian, but Tomis of the Society of Historians. There is a difference. Your old name is no longer efficient."

The prince and I were led to a hut we shared.The place is rudimentary, but equipped with toiletries, outlets for thinking helmets, other information equipment, and a food outlet. Prince Enrique walked up and down the room, touching this and that to familiarize himself with the situation of the room. Cabinets, beds, chairs, storage cabinets and other furniture popped out of the wall and retracted due to his random pressing of the mechanism.At last the prince was satisfied.He stopped pressing randomly, but prepared to release a bed.I saw a white thing slipping out of the wall.He lay comfortably on it.

"Tell me about yourself, Tomis of the Historians." "say what?" "I'm so curious. What was your previous name?" "That's irrelevant now." "You don't have to keep it secret now. Are you still mad at me?" "Old habits don't die easily," I said. "I'm twice your age, and all my life I've remembered not to tell anyone my name." "Tell me now." "Wollig," I said. After saying this, I had a strange sense of relief, the old name hanging in the air before my lips like a canary bird breaking free from its cage, slamming about the room; flying high, then turning sharply , hit the wall, and with a crisp clang, it shattered into pieces.I shivered. "Worlig," I said again. "My name used to be Wallig."

"Not anymore." "Tommies of the Society of Historians now." The two of us laughed until we had enough, and the blind prince suddenly stood up from the bed and patted my hand like a good friend.We yelled our names over and over again, like two boys who suddenly understand the power of words, and finally discover how vulnerable these words are. I started my new life at the Society of Historians. For a while, I never left the historian building.My schedule, whether it is day or night, is full.So, Paris is still very foreign to me.The prince is the same as me, although he is not as busy as me, he stays in the house all day, only going out for a walk when he is bored and furious.Sometimes the historian Omeyn accompanied him, and sometimes he accompanied Omeyn so that he would not be alone.But I know that sometimes he is unconvinced and goes out alone, trying to prove that although he cannot see, he can still handle the challenges of the city.

In addition to sleeping, I do the following things: preliminary preparations; apprentice chores; my own research work. Unexpectedly, I was much older than the other apprentices.Many of the apprentices were young men, the historians' own children; they looked at me in bewilderment, not understanding that I should be schoolmates of such an old fellow.Some apprentices are not young. They became historians halfway through "ordaining", but they are not as old as me.So during training, I rarely communicate with them. Every day, we spend part of our time learning about the techniques historians use to reconstruct history.Entering the laboratory, my eyes widened when I saw the analysis of specimens collected from the outskirts.By measuring the decay of a few atoms, monitors can determine the age of an object; a beam of multicolored light hits a mark on a silver-white wooden board, smashing it and learning its secrets; an otherwise lifeless substance , will display the events that happened in the past one by one.Wherever we go, we leave traces: particles of light reflected off our faces, locked in our surroundings by optomagnetic waves, which historians peel off, classify, and fix.In another room, on a cloud of greasy blue smoke, floated countless faces: ancient kings, regimental leaders, grand dukes, heroes.Impassive-looking technicians were poking history at the charred stuff.The damp dumps speak of historical revolutionary movements, assassinations of leaders, cultural shifts, and the disappearance of old customs.

I started to learn the techniques of working in the suburbs.Dressed in my special attire, I was ushered in front of some historians, armed with vacuum cores, who were digging through the ruins of numerous African and Asian cities.I visited the search for the remains of an underwater Old World civilization; teams of historians burrowed into translucent teardrop-shaped underwater vehicles that looked like green gel, and headed for the deep sea, sinking to the clay-covered On the former prairie, use a powerful laser to cut through the silt and girders to see the secrets buried under the water.Someone collects debris, digs up shadows, collects molecular film.The most wonderful thing is that some very heroic historians excavated a climate-regulating tower in subsea Africa. After fixing the base of this behemoth, they pulled it up from the soil with powerful pulleys. It seems to be trembling.Then they hoisted this hulking remnant of Second Age human folly aloft, while historians in expert shawls probed its underside, hoping to figure out how it had been erected in the first place.Seeing all this, I couldn't believe my eyes.

After these activities, I am in awe of the regiment I have chosen.The historians I knew before gave me the impression that they were pompous, arrogant, supercilious, or indifferent, and I didn't like them.However, the whole is not equal to the simple addition of the parts.Basil and Eligro, who have nothing to do, are indifferent to others, and lack enthusiasm, are only isolated phenomena, while the huge collective of the Historians Association is working hard to recapture our yesterday's glory from ignorance.It is a sublime work, the only activity comparable to the early activities of man.We have lost our present and our future, and we must do our best to unearth history, which no one can take from us if we are vigilant enough.

In the days that followed, I learned more about the details of each stage of this work, from collecting dust in the field, to processing and analyzing it in the laboratory, and finally assembled and interpreted by senior historians at the top of this building.Only once did I catch sight of these great historian saints: dry old men, old enough to be my grandfathers, gray-haired heads leaning forward, thin lips murmuring, commenting, explaining history , or argue, or correct another's statement.I was whispered to me that some of these people had already had two or three regenerative operations in Jerusalem and could never do it again, so these were the last years of their great lives.

Next, we are taken to the memory bank, where the materials discovered by historians are stored, and those who are curious about history can find satisfactory answers here. When I was a lookout, I had no curiosity or interest to visit such a memory bank. Of course, I have never seen such a thing, because the historian's memory bank is not just a problem solved by three or five brains , but a huge series of memory banks composed of hundreds of brains.The room we were taken into—it was only one of dozens of similar rooms below the building, as I learned later—was rectangular in shape, very long in diameter, but not high, and contained nine boxes of brains. They formed a row, lined up word by word, and disappeared into the gray distance.Sometimes the eyes are unreliable, so I can't tell if there are ten rows or fifty rows of boxes.The white vaulted roof also makes the room feel enormous.

"Is this all the brains of previous historians?" The leader said: "Some are. But it is not necessary to only use the brains of historians to store information. The brains of many ordinary people can also be used. Even the storage capacity of an attendant's brain is much greater than you imagined. Much. We take full advantage of the memory capacity of each brain without needing extra circuit wires." Through the smooth and thick isolation layer, I looked in hard and asked, "What is recorded in this room?" "The names of the inhabitants of Africa during the Second Era, and the relevant information about everyone we have so far. In addition, due to the spare brain space, we temporarily added some information about the geography of the Old Continent and the formation of land bridges. Information." "Can this information be stored permanently?" "Yes, it's very simple. Everything here is treated electromagnetically. Our materials are all made of electrical charges that are transferred from one brain to the other via electrodes." "What if the power goes out suddenly?" I asked. "You said that there is no redundant circuit here, and there is no possibility of information loss due to accidents?" "No," said the leader quietly. "We have devices in place to ensure continuous power supply. And because human organs are used to store information, the insurance factor is higher: all brains can save data in the event of a power failure.Although it is more troublesome to restore, it is not impossible. " "During the alien invasion," I said, "did you have any trouble?" "The intruders protected us, they thought our work was very useful to them." Soon, the historians held a meeting and allowed us apprentices to visit in the balcony; the members of the historians' association in the lower balcony were all wearing shawls and looked solemn, including Eligro and Omeen.On the spiral rostrum sat Judge Kenny Schell of the Society of Historians, a stern magistrate.Sitting next to him, one could tell at a glance that he was a prominent figure among the conquerors.Kenny Shell's words were brief, and his deep, sonorous voice could not conceal the hollowness of his speech.Like administrators everywhere, he was full of platitudes. He congratulated the group on their excellent work and indirectly praised himself, then introduced the intruder. The alien stretched out his arms and almost touched the walls of the auditorium. "I am number seven," he said quietly. "The prosecutor in Paris is in charge of the Historians Association. The purpose of my coming here today is to reiterate the policy of the Provisional Government. The work of historians will not be disturbed in any way. As long as you want to understand the history of the earth, you can go to this planet to go anywhere on Earth, and to other planets. All documents are open to you, except those relating to our conquest of Earth. Judge Kenny Shell has told me that this conquest is outside the scope of your present study , that would be even better. Our Interim Government is well aware that your work is valuable. The Earth has a glorious history and we hope you will continue to work hard." "I want to turn the earth into a more attractive tourist destination," said the Roman prince next to him angrily. Commander-in-Chief No. 7 continued: "Judge Kenny Shell asked me to tell you that after the earth was conquered, it was necessary to carry out corresponding administrative changes. In the past, the dispute between you was decided by the highest court of the regiment. Judge Nichel has the final say. In order to administer it more effectively, the Historians Corps must now come under our jurisdiction. To this end, Judge Kennychel will refer cases that fall outside his purview to us." The historians below were speechless in astonishment, they couldn't sit still, and exchanged glances with each other. "Judge Kennyshell is abdicating his power!" said an apprentice next to me suddenly. "What choice does he have, idiot?" snapped another. There was commotion in the auditorium and the meeting was interrupted.Historians flocked to the corridor, gesticulating and talking, some arguing with each other, some admonishing each other.A respected old historian was startled when he saw this scene, he squatted down desperately, and sent a signal for everyone to be quiet.The commotion affected us too, forcing us to back off too.I tried to protect the prince so that he wouldn't be trampled to the ground, but we were scattered, and I didn't see him for a few minutes, and when he reappeared, he was standing next to Omeen.Omeen's face was blushing, his eyes were shining brightly, and he was talking quickly. The prince listened patiently, holding her elbow, as if seeking her support.