QE3-QW-Ch35-38-未校对

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

In the cramped cargo bay, the Puppets clung to the reorganized crates before their final entry into Venusian orbit. Rosalie motioned Jimbo to back up a bit. Several troopers had scooched closer, inhaling the divinity of His Holiness Lester. A peaceful glow of meaning had settled onto all of them, a wondering disbelief at the size and beauty and rightness of the cosmos.

To care for His Holiness, they’d unsealed the bulletproof glass, revealing the old shrivelled body inside, releasing the stale, concentrated smell of him. The Numen flinched from the soft, eager hands as they washed him. Doug led the process and today Erin got to climb into the War Cage with Lester. She nearly vibrated with excitement. She’d been the best good boy. The feeling of contentment ran deep in them all. They knew where they were. They knew what would happen. It was all part of a hallowed destiny they couldn’t apprehend because of its vast wonderity.

All cargo tankers entering Venusian orbit were dosed with sterilizing x-rays, for contagions, to scan the interior of the tankers, and to prevent smuggling. The bathing of His Holiness Lester was like their last supper, the final picnic, the end of peace before they girded themselves for their final battle. The Numen had created the Puppets to replace the Numen in jobs too dangerous for fragile divinities, so additional pigments already permeated their bodies. The pigments absorbed many kinds of hard radiation and their DNA repair systems were aggressive, but they would still probably all take fatal doses, even the War Numen. They would begin to die, but the automated customs systems would probably not register their small sizes as biologicals and the radiation shielding in their pods would further camouflage their outlines. They might live long enough to finish their quest.

Robbie hadn’t been the best good boy, but he’d tried hard. Rosalie chose a spot close to the War Cage for him because he was young and after this everything would be harder. They’d tied him to a strut and he wriggled in his bonds, smelling at the air, urging on Erin and Doug.

“Make him smile,” he said with a barely controlled shiver.

Erin sponged the wrinkled face and papery eyelids of the dying Numen, her expression revealing a distant, disbelieving reverence in the experience. His Holiness Lester was over seventy years old; most Numen didn’t survive past fifty. There was something prodigious and holy in this Numen’s endurance. Doug smiled indulgently and dabbed his fingertip in red paint and smeared a smile onto Lester’s slack lips and cheeks. Jimbo scooched closer, not to the Numen precisely, but to Rosalie. He trembled, staring, inhaling heavily through his mouth. He hugged Rosalie’s waist tightly.

“He’s smiling,” he said breathlessly.

As Jimbo squirmed against her, she noticed his badge was red. They were all feeling the Numen now anyway, before they went into their life shells, so colors wouldn’t matter for a while, but his was supposed to be yellow. She didn’t want to spoil this moment, her moment of communion with the Numen. But she turned and did a quick count, finally spotting one of the troopers who should have been wearing a red badge, but hers was yellow.

Rosalie took the whip from her belt and hit Jimbo with the coils. He let go and floated back. She had everyone’s attention except the Numen’s. This was the harder part now. In the glow of divinity, some messages penetrated deeper, some shallower. Priests learned how to pitch their voices to the right tones, to match the recordings of the pre-Fall Numen in all the television shows and movies.

“You!” she accused, as if she were the Puppets and she the betrayed. “You!” She stabbed her finger at Jimbo. Deep in the embrace of divinity, all of the Numen cowered back.

“You stole a different badge color,” she said coldly.

She wasn’t wearing her stilts nor her holy Numen clothing, but the Numen was present. Rosalie stood like one of the overseers of old, the herders and movers of the divine servants. Jimbo bolted towards Jane Mulligan-16, to give back her badge. Mulligan-16 flinched away from the bad boy and the badge floated, spinning in the zero-g. He pushed it awkwardly and it bounced off Mulligan-16’s forehead.

在狭窄的货舱里，“傀儡 ”们紧紧抓住重组后的板条箱，准备最后进入金星轨道。罗莎莉示意金博往后退一点。几名士兵靠近了一些，吸着莱斯特教皇的神力。所有人都沉浸在一片祥和的光芒之中，对宇宙的巨大、美丽和正确性感到不可思议。

为了照顾莱斯特教皇，他们揭开了防弹玻璃的封条，露出了里面干瘪陈旧的躯体，释放出他身上陈旧而浓郁的气味。当他们用柔软而热切的双手为他清洗时，努曼人退缩了。在道格的带领下，艾琳今天和莱斯特一起爬进了 “战争牢笼”。她兴奋得几乎要跳起来。她是最棒的好孩子。满足感深深地烙印在他们心中。他们知道自己身在何处。他们知道会发生什么 这是神圣命运的一部分，他们无法理解，因为它太奇妙了。

所有进入金星轨道的油轮都被投放了消毒 X 射线，以防止传染病，扫描油轮内部，防止走私。莱斯特教皇的沐浴就像是他们最后的晚餐、最后的野餐、和平的终结，然后他们才整装待发，准备最后的战斗。努曼人创造了傀儡来代替努曼人从事对脆弱的神灵来说过于危险的工作，因此他们的身体里已经渗透了额外的颜料。这些颜料能吸收多种硬辐射，它们的 DNA 修复系统也很强悍，但它们仍有可能全部摄入致命剂量，即使是战争努曼人也不例外。它们会开始死亡，但自动海关系统可能不会将它们的小体型登记为生物，而且它们舱内的辐射屏蔽会进一步伪装它们的轮廓。他们也许能活得足够长的时间来完成任务。

罗比不是个好孩子，但他很努力。罗莎莉为他选了一个靠近战争囚笼的地方 因为他还小，在这之后一切都会变得更难 他们把他绑在一根柱子上，他在束缚中扭动着，闻着空气中的味道，催促着艾琳和道格。

“让他笑一笑，"他颤抖着说。

艾琳用海绵擦拭着奄奄一息的努曼人布满皱纹的脸和纸糊的眼皮，她的表情透露出一种遥远的、难以置信的崇敬之情。莱斯特教皇已经七十多岁了，大多数努曼人都活不过五十岁。这位努曼人的忍耐力是惊人的，也是神圣的。道格溺爱地笑了笑，用指尖沾上红色颜料，在莱斯特松弛的嘴唇和脸颊上抹了一个微笑。金博凑近了些，准确地说，不是凑近努曼人，而是凑近罗莎莉。他颤抖着，瞪大眼睛，用嘴重重地吸了一口气。他紧紧搂住罗莎莉的腰。

“他气喘吁吁地说："他在笑。

当金博在她身上扭动时，她注意到他的徽章是红色的。无论如何，在进入生命之壳之前，他们现在都感受到了努曼人的气息，所以颜色在一段时间内并不重要，但他的徽章应该是黄色的。她不想破坏这个时刻，她与努曼人交流的时刻。但她还是转过身，快速地数了一下，终于发现其中一个士兵应该佩戴红色徽章，但她的却是黄色的。

罗莎莉从腰带上抽出鞭子，用线圈抽打金博。他松开了手，飘了回来。除了努曼人，她吸引了所有人的注意力。这是最困难的部分了。在神性的光辉下，有些信息渗透得更深，有些则更浅。祭司们学会了如何将自己的声音调到正确的音调，以匹配所有电视节目和电影中堕落前努曼人的录音。

“你！"她指责道，仿佛她就是傀儡，而她是被背叛者。“你！” 她用手指着金博。在神性的怀抱中，所有的努曼人都退缩了。

“你偷了不同颜色的徽章。"她冷冷地说。

她没有穿高跷，也没有穿神圣的努曼人服装，但努曼人就在眼前。罗莎莉站在那里，就像古代的监工，神仆的放牧者和搬运工。吉博奔向简-穆里根-16，要把她的徽章还给她。穆里根-16 闪开了这个坏小子，徽章飘了起来，在零重力中旋转。他笨拙地一推，徽章弹到了穆里根-16 的额头上。

“The Numen is very mad!” Rosalie said in her most booming voice. The Numen stayed still, too holy to uncurl from his fetal position. “The Numen is communicating with me,” Rosalie said, “and asking me whether I think everyone’s color should be reset to green.”

Low moans of despair sounded. Someone shrieked “Bad boy, Jimbo!”

Rosalie moved along the rail with just her toes, raising her arms, making herself look bigger.

“Do I need the airlock, Jimbo?” she demanded. “Do you want to be like Jeffey?”

In his panic, in the sudden turn from divine joy to divine anger, Jimbo had let go of the rail and now rotated slowly in the air. He was shaking his head, breathing hard with his mouth, smelling.

“I don’t want to, Jimbo,” Rosalie said, “but Lester can order me to do anything. He can tell me anything he wants.”

They gasped. “No, no, no, please,” Jimbo whispered.

“Take him into his pod now,” Rosalie said. “That is what the Numen wants.”

“No!” Jimbo shrieked.

The punishment was severe. They had to enter their pods in about ten minutes, but Jimbo would miss ten minutes of the presence of divinity, miss the washing and caring of the Numen, maybe right before he died. But she needed to be severe. This mission, soaked in such holy consequence, needed them all to be the Good Boy all the time because they were marching into the dark, carrying a fragile candle.

Jimbo wriggled and resisted as fearful hands grabbed and punched him. He cried and screamed “no, no, no!” Rosalie’s hands shook. She didn’t like being the parent. She hadn’t asked to be the responsible one, who loved and disciplined the Puppets, taking a role that should have been the Numen’s, but for the Fall. She hadn’t wanted to decide for the Numen; she ached, like all the Puppets did, for the gods to be the way they were before. And she was young, very young in the hard journey of a priest. It was a hard thing to be a parent, deciding for others. But maybe, if they succeeded, if they brought back Del Casal, they really would enter a new age, a new generation and era of gods walking among the faithful, taking back the roles that the Puppets had shouldered for them. Strong, nimble hands shoved a screaming Jimbo into his safety pod. They strapped him tight and closed him in. Jimbo beat at the inside of his pod, blunt distant sounds.

Rosalie felt a kind of dazed satisfaction. In the presence of divinity, the cosmos could make strange bridges between past and present and future; moments of the Edenic past could live in the present. She felt like one of those moments of the past had reached out to them. Thick in the scent of the War Numen, something deep and important visited them today like the fingers of fate brushed them.

And weird images slithered into her thoughts, waking dreams laying a surreal transparency over the cold hardness of the cargo bay. A keening pried its way into her thoughts, a high-pitched vibration accompanying the unreal colors dyeing her soul. The blunt thudding of Jimbo’s fists inside his pod receded.

“I’m lost,” Rosalie intoned in the voice of sermon. The troopers, and even Doug, froze, listening. “I float, adrift in a world that isn’t mine, carrying a tiny light against the absence.”

Except it wasn’t the absence. She’d endured that many times, but she didn’t have other words for this vision of some other cosmos. The Puppets huddled in place, tasting the air, trying to see what she saw, recognizing the touch of divinity in this moment. They whispered about her supposedly oracular visions when they didn’t think she could hear them. Some averted their eyes. She wasn’t quoting any part of the Puppet Bible. She ranged beyond scripture. She’d experienced abstract visions like this for years, with a sense of strange space and shape, but clearer now, more tactile and cold. What were the Numen trying to tell her? What part of divinity was this? She shivered. Doug came close, recording with his service band.

“The world is transparent, not real,” she said. “I’m alone. I’m a ghost. Trapped.”

Nearby Puppets started moaning. “Stop it, stop it, stop it, no,” Joey whimpered, covering his head with his arms.

Rosalie couldn’t. The vision strengthened. The fog of that other world made this one seem indistinct, as if the other Puppets existed behind a veil, even Doug, right beside her. But the world had expanded. Doug seemed bigger. No. Not bigger exactly. He had more depth. She could see parts of him that weren’t the meat parts of him. She squinted to see Joey and pushed off the wall, coming close. She laid her hands on Joey’s head. The touch felt removed from her, only half of an experience. Rosalie’s hands shook. Her visions had never intruded so deeply into her world.

“努曼人疯了！” 罗莎莉用她最洪亮的声音说道。努曼人一动不动，圣洁得无法从胎儿的姿势中挣脱出来。“罗莎莉说："努曼人在和我交流，问我是否认为每个人的颜色都应该重设为绿色。”

低沉的绝望呻吟声响起。有人尖叫道："坏小子，神保！”

罗莎莉只用脚尖沿着栏杆移动，举起手臂，让自己看起来更高大。

“我需要气闸吗，神保？"她问道。“你想和杰斐一样吗？”

在慌乱中，在从神圣的喜悦到神圣的愤怒的突然转变中，神保放开了栏杆，现在在空中慢慢地旋转着。他摇着头，用嘴使劲地呼吸着，闻着味道。

“我不想这样，神保，“罗莎莉说，”但莱斯特可以命令我做任何事。他想告诉我什么都可以。”

他们喘着粗气。“不，不，不，求你了，"神保低声说。

“现在就把他带进他的吊舱，"罗莎莉说。“这就是努曼人想要的。”

“不！” 吉伯尖叫起来。

惩罚是严厉的。他们必须在十分钟内进入自己的吊舱，但吉姆波将错过十分钟的神性存在，错过努曼人的洗涤和关怀，也许就在他死之前。但她需要严谨。这次任务浸透着神圣的后果，需要他们一直做个好孩子，因为他们正背负着脆弱的蜡烛向黑暗进军。

吉博扭动着身体，反抗着，恐惧的手抓着他，打着他。他哭喊着 "不，不，不！” 罗莎莉的手在颤抖。她不喜欢当家长。她并没有要求自己成为一个负责任的人，爱护和管教傀儡，承担起本该属于努曼人的角色，但为了堕落。她并不想为努曼人做决定；她和所有傀儡一样，渴望诸神回到从前的样子。她还年轻，在牧师的艰辛旅程中还非常年轻。为人父母，为人做主，是一件艰难的事情。但也许，如果他们成功了，如果他们带回了德尔-卡萨尔，他们就真的会进入一个新时代，一个新的世代，一个新的时代，众神行走在信徒中间，夺回傀儡们为他们承担的角色。一双有力而灵活的手把尖叫着的金博塞进了安全舱。他们把他绑得紧紧的，把他关在里面。吉伯拍打着安全舱的内部，发出钝钝的遥远的声音。

罗莎莉感到一种茫然的满足。在神性面前，宇宙可以在过去、现在和未来之间架起奇特的桥梁；伊甸园的过去可以活在现在。她感觉过去的某个时刻已经向他们伸出了手。在战争沼泽的浓郁气息中，一些深刻而重要的东西今天拜访了他们，就像命运的手指拂过他们。

诡异的画面滑入她的思绪，醒来的梦境在货舱的冷硬上铺上了一层超现实的透明。一声尖锐的叫声闯入了她的思绪，高亢的振动伴随着虚幻的色彩染红了她的灵魂。金博拳头在吊舱内钝钝的咚咚声渐渐远去。

“我迷路了，"罗莎莉用布道的声音说道。士兵们，甚至道格，都愣住了，静静地听着。“我漂浮着，漂泊在一个不属于我的世界里，带着一束微弱的光，对抗着缺失。”

但这并不是缺席。她已经忍受过很多次了，但她没有别的词来形容这种对另一个宇宙的憧憬。傀儡们蜷缩在原地，品尝着空气，试图看到她所看到的一切，在这一刻，他们感受到了神性的气息。他们窃窃私语，谈论她所谓的神谕幻象，但他们认为她听不见。有些人则转移了视线。她并没有引用《木偶圣经》的任何部分。她的范围超越了圣经。多年来，她一直经历着这样的抽象幻觉，感觉到奇异的空间和形状，但现在更清晰了，更有触觉，也更冰冷。努曼人想告诉她什么？这是神性的哪一部分？她不禁打了个寒颤。道格走过来，用他的服务带记录着。

“她说："世界是透明的，不是真实的。“我是孤独的。我是幽灵。被困住了。”

附近的木偶开始呻吟 “停下，停下，停下，不，"乔伊呜咽着，用胳膊捂住头。

罗莎莉做不到。幻象增强了。另一个世界的迷雾让这个世界看起来模糊不清，仿佛其他傀儡就存在于面纱之后，甚至道格就在她身边。但是世界扩大了。道格看起来更大了。不，确切地说，不是更大。他更有深度了。她能看到他身上不是肉的部分。她眯起眼睛看乔伊，然后推开墙，靠近乔伊。她把手放在乔伊的头上。这种触感与她的感觉相去甚远，只有一半的体验。罗莎莉的手在颤抖。她的幻觉从未如此深入地侵入她的世界。

“You’re safe in this world, Joey,” Rosalie said. “This is not your journey.”

Rosalie pushed away to float to the Numen. Lester’s thin eyelids slitted open. At her approach, he squeezed them shut and pulled blankets over his naked wrinkled body. She rested in front of him, smelling deeply, then breathed through her mouth, filling herself with the holy spirit. The thin transparent world without shape, with too much shape, holding only a vague fear and hopelessness left her. Her nearness to the Numen brought a familiar elation that banished misgivings. Doug came close.

“His Holiness banished my vision,” she said.

“If His Holiness banished it, was it profane?” Doug said with a queasy expression. She didn’t blame him. He was the junior priest on a mission of destiny and now his superior saw possibly profane visions? What would she do in his shoes? Convene a heresy trial? Court judges were all bishops and they had no bishops. Could he somehow prod the War Numen to take up the role of divine assessment? If she couldn’t lead them, could he? Rosalie had never been sure she could do it herself. She breathed of Lester more deeply and the world seemed to solidify further, to make sense, even if she couldn’t grasp the subtlety of its logic.

“I think I saw a deeper absence,” she said. Jill, Marigold, and Reggie heard her and started crying. “It’s a faint vision of a world that might be.” Lester shrank from her stroking touch and close-sniffing nose. He made it right. Lester made everything right. “I don’t think it’s a world that has to be,” she said to Doug. “It’s only our world if we don’t succeed.”

“We’ll do it,” Sammy said. “We’ll do it!” Others repeated, pumping their fists.

Rosalie caressed Lester’s flaky cheek. He didn’t understand how special he was. He didn’t understand that he didn’t have to be afraid anymore. He was their candle. He would light their way through the darkness. He was an island of divinity, a raft they clung to with all their hearts, hoping they had the strength to save all their people. Through him, they would rekindle light and wonder in the world.

“I love you,” Rosalie whispered to him. Lester trembled and pulled the blanket to completely cover himself.

“Strap His Holiness Lester safely,” she said. “Add the radiation shielding. Then take your good pills and get into your pods.”

“你在这个世界上很安全 乔伊" 罗莎莉说 “这不是你的旅程”

罗莎莉推开他，飘向努门。莱斯特薄薄的眼皮微微睁开。见她走近，他挤紧眼皮，拉过毯子盖在赤裸的皱巴巴的身体上。她在他面前休息，深深地闻了闻，然后用嘴呼吸，让自己充满圣灵。那个没有形状、形状太多、只有模糊的恐惧和无望的单薄透明的世界离开了她。她与努曼人的接近带来了一种熟悉的欣喜，这种欣喜驱散了疑虑。道格走近了。

“她说："教皇陛下驱逐了我的幻象。

“如果教皇驱逐了它，那它是亵渎神明的吗？” 道格带着不安的表情说。她没有责怪他。他是执行命运使命的初级牧师，而现在他的上司却看到了可能是亵渎的幻象？如果是她，她会怎么做？召开异端审判？法庭法官都是主教，而他们没有主教。他能以某种方式促使战争努曼人承担起神圣评估的角色吗？如果她不能领导他们，他能吗？罗莎莉从未确信她自己能做到这一点。她更深地呼吸着莱斯特的气息，世界似乎进一步凝固了，变得有意义了，即使她无法理解其中的微妙逻辑。

“我想我看到了更深的缺失，"她说。吉尔、玛丽戈德和雷吉听到了她的话，开始哭泣。“这是对一个可能存在的世界的微弱幻想” 莱斯特被她抚摸的手和近距离嗅闻的鼻子吓得缩了回去。他做对了 莱斯特让一切都变好了 她对道格说："我不认为这是一个必须是的世界。” “如果我们不成功，这只是我们的世界”

“我们会成功的" 萨米说 “我们会成功的！” 其他人挥舞着拳头重复着。

罗莎莉抚摸着莱斯特薄薄的脸颊。他不知道自己有多特别。他不明白他再也不用害怕了。他是他们的蜡烛。他会照亮他们穿越黑暗的道路。他是一座神圣的岛屿，是他们全心全意依附的筏子，希望他们有力量拯救所有的人。通过他，他们将重新点燃世界的光明和奇迹。

“我爱你，"罗莎莉轻声对他说。莱斯特颤抖着，拉过毯子将自己完全盖住。

“把莱斯特教皇绑好，"她说。“加上辐射屏蔽。然后吃好药，进入你们的吊舱。”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

By character, the Homo quantus lack aggressive qualities that are sought in even the most peaceful of military units. They are pensive and retiring, disliking sudden movements or loud sounds. They neither enjoy nor seem particularly good at tactics or strategy, on the naval battlefield nor in the economic state space of corporate warfare. These results seem to have discouraged the Banks, despite the stupendous cognitive advances in the Homo quantus. Even those Homo quantus who cannot access their fugue state possess capacious memories, exabytes in the eighth and ninth generation, with some assessments suggesting zettabytes of memory capacity by generation twelve. Paired with abilities to analyze and process data quantities in the hundreds of petaflops and possibly exaflop range, everything but temperament seemed to have fallen in the Homo quantus Project’s favor. The Banks however entirely missed the point in what they’d created in the Homo quantus.

New gene sets may face the same environments as baseline humanity and perform no better than their forebears. But novel genotypes are gateways into new environments and ecosystems. Increased social cooperation had some minor immediate survival impacts for the first hominins, but found its full impacts as a gateway to agriculture, architecture and chemistry. The Banks invest on a variety of scales, from seconds to centuries, but in the Homo quantus, they created novel benefits they could not understand because the full impacts will be felt on the scale of millennia.

Scarecrow Musings on the Garret Notes

F-Division

从性格上看，量子智人缺乏攻击性，即使是最和平的军事单位也不例外。他们沉默寡言，不喜欢突然的动作或响亮的声音。无论是在海战战场上，还是在企业战争的经济状态空间中，他们既不喜欢也不擅长战术或战略。尽管量子智人在认知方面取得了巨大进步，但这些结果似乎让银行家们望而却步。即使是那些无法进入迷幻状态的量子智人，也拥有庞大的记忆容量，在第八代和第九代就已经达到了艾字节（exabytes），而根据一些评估，到第十二代时，他们的记忆容量将达到兆字节（zettabytes）。再加上分析和处理数据的能力达到数百 petaflops，甚至可能达到 exaflops 的范围，除了性情之外，其他一切似乎都对智人项目有利。然而，班克斯完全忽略了他们在量子智人中创造的重点。

新的基因组可能会面临与基线人类相同的环境，表现也不会比他们的祖先更好。但新的基因型是进入新环境和生态系统的大门。社会合作的加强对第一批智人的生存产生了一些微小的直接影响，但作为农业、建筑和化学的门户，却产生了全面的影响。银行的投资规模多种多样，从几秒钟到几个世纪不等，但在量子智人身上，他们创造了自己无法理解的新利益，因为他们将在千年的规模上感受到全面的影响。

稻草人对加勒特笔记的思考

F 师

Three orderlies in white and green medical uniforms moved Belisarius from his small room. He managed to peek through some of the glass doors and recognized four other Homo quantus. They brought him to a room off the floor of the central pit. His last room had been equipped like a low-care unit. This one was an operating theatre. The ultraviolet sterilizing light shut off as they entered.

The world pressed at him, but not in a way he could measure. He couldn’t feel his magnetosomes. He couldn’t feel his electroplaques. They felt like numb feet, like the quantum objectivity he couldn’t feel in his mind. He’d long resented the Homo quantus part of him, a feeling that had sharpened with the tragedies that had followed him, but being severed from the quantum objectivity was alienating. The world felt insubstantial. What had they done to him?

Del Casal limped in shortly, accompanied by a thick-muscled and blond-bearded nurse. Swollen bruises yellowed Del Casal’s cheeks at the back of his jaw, like he’d had dental surgery. The nurse didn’t appear to be paying much attention to Belisarius. Del Casal scowled.

“Your minder?” Belisarius said in Anglo-Spanish, which strictly speaking wasn’t politic within the Congregate. A bit of Del Casal’s old arrogance showed and he glanced meaningfully at the man.

“He’s a real nurse,” Del Casal replied in Anglo-Spanish. “We’re all minded here.” Del Casal gave a few instructions in French and the man moved around the small room, preparing instruments.

“You really messed this one up, Arjona,” Del Casal said mildly. “The most hunted man in civilization tries to sneak into the most guarded security operation in civilization.” Del Casal shook his head. “I would have run far away from here if I could.”

“What have they done to my brain? I can’t feel my magnetosomes. Or anything.”

Del Casal limped around him, checking on readings.

“We missed you when we were passing out the shares of the haul,” Belisarius said.

Del Casal put down his pad and regarded him with blood-shot eyes.

“I jumped ship when I saw the plan heading full speed towards a wall.”

“But we did it,” Belisarius said.

“You started a war that’s getting us all killed. Your people. You. The Union. Me. That’s all you did.”

“No one could have known that the Union would have lasted this long. I thought they would get the fight they wanted and get wiped out, along with all information about us.”

Del Casal shook his head, turning away as he wiped his eye. The nurse applied alcohol to Belisarius’ arm.

“What’s this?” Belisarius said.

“I’ve been trying my damnedest to do what they want,” Del Casal said as the nurse put the needle into Belisarius’ arm. “They want their captive Homo quantus to work. I had all the notes from the Garret, but not a single working Homo quantus.”

“What did they break in me?” Belisarius whispered, looking from the needle to Del Casal who wouldn’t meet his eyes. “What did you do?”

A figure appeared beyond the glass doors, the lieutenant-colonel. The doors slid open. Del Casal’s muscles tightened very slightly. Belisarius only noticed it because he’d spent so much time watching other players in casinos. She tossed a pad onto Belisarius’ lap.

“Trash,” she said. “You gave me trash. I’ve sent the other three Homo quantus to be surgically altered. Pilots it is.”

“I gave you the answers I have! I gave you the truth!” he lied. “You didn’t understand it.”

She might believe him. It might not matter. The scope of what he’d offered was too small. Her questions revealed her suspicions about his deepest secrets. And now Sofía, Carlos and César were gone, to be mutilated by Congregate doctors and chewed up by the war. Like Martín, Ana Teresa, Edmer.

“Your people didn’t understand it,” she said. “You have some pretty sharp minds among the Homo quantus. They found all sorts of ‘flaws in the reasoning, conclusions and assumptions,’ end quote. Let’s return to my questions.”

“What did you do to me?” Belisarius said. His words sounded slurred and his thoughts fuzzy. “I can’t feel my magnetosomes. Did you break me?”

He heard a rising panic in his voice. He resented some of his Homo quantus nature, but it was still who he was. He reconciled himself to being a person built at someone else’ instructions, down to his instincts and wants being determined by corporate interests. Good or bad, he inhabited this set of wants and needs, the burning need to know, to understand, as all Homo quantus did. But his magnetosomes were his principal means of navigating and querying the world. The loss bit at places selfish and irrational; he’d come here to save his people. Of course there were costs.

三名身穿白色和绿色医疗服的勤务兵把贝利撒留斯从他的小房间里搬了出来。他设法透过几扇玻璃门，认出了另外四个智人。他们把他带到中央坑道地板外的一个房间。他上一个房间的设备就像一个低护理单元。这间是手术室。紫外线消毒灯随着他们的进入而关闭。

世界在向他逼近，但不是以他可以测量的方式。他感觉不到自己的磁小体。他感觉不到他的电斑。它们就像麻木的双脚，就像他在头脑中感觉不到的量子客观性。长期以来，他一直对自己的量子智人部分心存怨恨，这种感觉随着他遭遇的悲剧而变得更加强烈，但与量子客观性的割裂让他感到疏远。这个世界让人感到虚无缥缈。他们对他做了什么？

德尔-卡萨尔一瘸一拐地走了进来，随行的还有一位身材魁梧、留着金色胡须的护士。德尔-卡萨尔下巴后部的脸颊上有肿胀的瘀伤，像是做了牙科手术。护士似乎没怎么注意贝利萨留斯。德尔-卡萨尔皱了皱眉头。

“你的看护？贝利撒留斯用盎格鲁-西班牙语说道，严格来说，这在公会内部是不讲政治的。德尔-卡萨尔露出了一点往日的傲慢，他意味深长地瞥了那人一眼。

“他是个真正的护士，"德尔-卡萨尔用盎格鲁西班牙语回答道。“我们在这里都是有思想的。” 德尔-卡萨尔用法语吩咐了几句，那人就在小房间里走来走去，准备器械。

“你真的搞砸了，阿尔霍纳。"德尔-卡萨尔温和地说。“人类文明中被追捕次数最多的人，却试图潜入人类文明中戒备最森严的安保行动。” 德尔-卡萨尔摇了摇头。“如果可以，我早就跑得远远的了。”

“他们对我的大脑做了什么？我感觉不到我的磁小体了。什么都感觉不到了。”

德尔-卡萨尔一瘸一拐地绕过他，检查读数。

“贝利撒留斯说："我们在分发运输份额时错过了你。

德尔-卡萨尔放下记事本，用布满血丝的眼睛看着他。

“当我看到计划全速冲向一堵墙时，我就跳船了。”

“但我们做到了，"贝利撒留斯说。

“是你挑起了一场战争，害得我们都死了。你的人民。你的人民。联盟。我 这就是你所做的一切。”

“没人知道联盟会坚持这么久 我以为他们会得到他们想要的战斗，然后被消灭，连同所有关于我们的信息。”

德尔-卡萨尔摇了摇头，一边擦眼睛一边转过身去。护士在贝利撒留斯的手臂上涂上了酒精。

“这是什么？” 贝利撒留斯说。

“我一直在尽力按照他们的要求去做。"当护士把针头扎进贝利撒留斯的手臂时，德尔-卡萨尔说。“他们想让被俘虏的智人发挥作用。我有加勒特的所有笔记，但没有一个能用的智人量子。”

“他们在我身上打碎了什么？” 贝利萨留斯低声问道，目光从针头转向德尔-卡萨尔，后者不愿与他对视。“你做了什么？”

一个身影出现在玻璃门外，是中校。门被推开了。德尔-卡萨尔的肌肉微微收紧。贝利萨留斯之所以注意到这一点，是因为他在赌场里观察其他玩家的时间太长了。她把一张便笺扔到贝利撒留斯的腿上。

“垃圾，"她说。“你给我的是垃圾。我已经把另外三个智人送去做手术了。那就是飞行员了。”

“我给了你我有的答案！我给了你真相！"他撒了谎。“你不明白”

她可能会相信他。这也许并不重要。他所提供的范围太小了。她的问题暴露了她对他内心深处秘密的怀疑。现在索菲娅、卡洛斯和塞萨尔都走了，被公理会的医生肢解，被战争吞噬。就像马丁、安娜-特雷莎、埃德莫一样。

“她说："你们的人不明白。“你们智人中有一些头脑非常敏锐的人。他们发现了各种'推理、结论和假设中的缺陷'，引述完毕。让我们回到我的问题上来。”

“你对我做了什么？” 贝利撒留斯说。他的话听起来含糊不清，思绪也很模糊。“我感觉不到我的磁体了。你把我弄坏了？”

他听出了自己声音中不断升腾的恐慌。他憎恨自己的智人本性，但这仍然是他的本性。他承认自己是一个按照别人的指示制造出来的人，他的本能和愿望都是由企业利益决定的。无论好坏，他都和所有量子智人一样，有着这样那样的愿望和需求，有着迫切的求知欲和理解力。但是，他的磁小体是他导航和查询世界的主要手段。这种失落既自私又不合理；他来这里是为了拯救他的族人。当然，这也是有代价的。

Del Casal moved the covers, exposing some wiring emerging from under the bandaging on Belisarius’ chest. The lieutenant-colonel smiled. Belisarius’ perceptions seemed to liquify. Sound muffled. Some things became sharp and clear, while others fell out of focus. Was his brain processing things incorrectly or were his ocular augments damaged, focusing at random distances and wavelengths? Del Casal limped closer.

“Your brain is a highly-engineered tool with unique pathways,” the doctor said. “Your thoughts can activate parts of your brain, parts of your body, with exquisite precision, according to very intentional neural plans. And I have the blueprints. That made it very easy to rewire you, Arjona. Enjoy the hell you’ve made for us.”

The doctor shuffled away. The lieutenant-colonel smirked, pulling at something on the sheets that tugged in his chest. He found fine wires emerging from swollen skin on his chest.

“Your Homo quantus family taught us how to turn on and off your consciousness, how your brain is partitioned, how to connect the parts, how to switch pieces on. That told us where to read your thoughts,” the lieutenant-colonel said sweetly.

She didn’t look like she was bluffing. Limited thought reading was possible. That’s how some augmentation worked. Sensors fed into the human brain, translating into something neurons could process. By the same token, chips in the brain had to translate neural signals into semiconductor potentials. These were simple, straightforward connections and processes. True thought and memory reading would be complex, limited and take enormous processing power.

“Thought reading can do some damage if we get it wrong,” she said. “First, tell me everything you know about the Union break out of the Puppet Axis. Second, tell me everything you know about any rumors or truth to a time travel device. Third, tell me everything about your plan for disguising yourself and handing yourself over to Congregate custody.”

The world blurred and came in and out of focus. His brain was accustomed to summoning and sorting facts and knowledge; used to processing some questions in the background while other tasks occupied his attention and the bulk of his mental processing. The cables from his chest lit as the screens on the walls came to life, displaying cascades of luminous data. He didn’t recognize it, but they were reading his thoughts?

The sheer volume of information on the screens gave him some hope. His brain, the brains of every Homo quantus, had to be able to hold and retrieve far more information in a day than the human brain would normally hold in a lifetime. The Homo quantus stored information more densely, using nested sets of compression algorithms and indexing systems. Every element of that was different from the way baseline human memory worked, or computer storage. Even with months and years, even with access to all the Garret research files, even with access to Homo quantus with brains built like his, the Congregate might not figure out how to read something so alien.

The data on the wall screens, incomprehensible, unfiltered, moved in and out of dizzy focus. The drug they’d injected melted bits of reality, patch by patch. The glass doors sounded and he bonelessly turned his head, blinking to make sense of the shapeless figure who entered. No face. A bag of metal mesh over the head, tied at the neck under a painted mouth and a pair of small, roving camera lens eyes. The metal weave material in the gloves seemed overlong in the fingers. The gloves folded clumsily at fingertips as they took the cable from the lieutenant-colonel, fitting it into raw wires sprouting from between sleeves and glove.

Belisarius’ perceptions weren’t working. False positives everywhere. His brain knew that. He tried to engage the normal batteries of error correction and verification algorithms, but his brain limped within a drugged haze. The chips Del Casal had wired into his body could turn on and off parts of him. As if remote controlled, they engaged his recall, accessing all kinds of memory, all flavours of knowledge, all kinds of encryption.

The hulking figure neared, machine joints and movements whirring. Belisarius couldn’t feel anything with his magnetosomes, making the machine feel dubious and ghostly rather than monstrous. False positives and false negatives. He couldn’t think. The crude painted face loomed over him, and camera lens eyes focused as Belisarius’ consciousness finally failed.

德尔-卡萨尔挪开被子，露出贝利撒留斯胸前绷带下的一些电线。中校笑了。贝利撒留斯的知觉似乎液化了。声音变得低沉。有些东西变得清晰明了，有些却失去了焦点。是他的大脑处理不当，还是他的眼球增强器损坏了，对焦的距离和波长都出现了偏差？德尔-卡萨尔一瘸一拐地走近他。

“医生说："你的大脑是一个高度精密的工具，具有独特的通路。“你的思想可以根据非常有意图的神经计划，精确地激活你大脑的一部分、身体的一部分。而我拥有这些蓝图。这让重新连接你变得非常容易，阿尔霍纳。好好享受你为我们制造的地狱吧。”

医生走开了。中校冷笑着，拉扯着床单上的一些东西，胸口被扯得生疼。他发现自己胸前肿胀的皮肤上出现了细线。

“你的智人家族教会了我们如何开启和关闭你的意识，你的大脑是如何分区的，如何连接各个部分，如何开启各个部分。这告诉了我们从哪里读取你的思想。"中校甜甜地说。

她看起来不像是在虚张声势。有限认为读取是可能的。有些增强系统就是这样工作的。传感器输入人脑，转化为神经元可以处理的信息。同样，大脑中的芯片必须将神经信号转化为半导体电位。这些都是简单、直接的连接和过程。真正的思维和记忆读取将是复杂的、有限的，并且需要巨大的处理能力。

“她说："如果我们弄错了，思维阅读会造成一些损害。“首先，告诉我你所知道的关于联盟冲出傀儡轴心的一切。第二，告诉我你所知道的关于时间旅行装置的所有传闻或真相。第三，告诉我关于你伪装自己并把自己交给公会监管的所有计划。”

世界模糊了，焦点忽隐忽现。他的大脑习惯于召唤和整理事实和知识；习惯于在其他任务占据他的注意力和大部分精神处理时，在后台处理一些问题。他胸前的电缆亮了起来，墙上的屏幕也活了起来，显示出一串串发光的数据。他并不认识它，但它们正在读取他的思想？

屏幕上的大量信息给了他一些希望。他的大脑，每一个量子智人的大脑，一天所能储存和检索的信息量远远超过人类大脑一生所能储存的信息量。量子智人使用嵌套的压缩算法和索引系统，更加密集地存储信息。其中的每一个元素都不同于人类记忆或计算机存储的工作方式。即使日积月累，即使查阅了所有的加勒特研究档案，即使接触到和他一样拥有大脑的量子智人，公会也不一定能弄明白如何读取如此外来的东西。

墙上屏幕上的数据，难以理解，未经过滤，在令人晕眩的聚焦中进进出出。他们注射的药物将现实的碎片一块一块地融化。玻璃门的声音响起，他无力地转过头，眨了眨眼睛，想看清走进来的那个无影无踪的身影。没有脸。头上套着一个金属网袋，脖子上绑着一张涂了油漆的嘴和一双转动着的照相机镜头小眼睛。手套上的金属编织材料在手指上显得过长。当他们从中校手中接过电缆时，手套在指尖笨拙地折叠着，将它装进从袖子和手套之间窜出的原始电线中。

贝利撒留斯的感知失灵了。到处都是假信号。他的大脑知道这一点。他试图启动正常的纠错和验证算法，但大脑在药物的迷雾中一筹莫展。德尔-卡萨尔在他体内植入的芯片可以开启或关闭他的部分功能。这些芯片就像遥控器一样，可以调用他的记忆、各种知识和各种加密方式。

庞大的身影越来越近，机器关节和动作呼呼作响。贝利萨留斯的磁小体感觉不到任何东西，这让他觉得这台机器很可疑，像幽灵一样，而不是怪物。假阳性和假阴性。他无法思考。贝利撒留斯的意识终于崩溃了，那张粗糙的油漆脸在他眼前晃来晃去，摄像机镜头的目光也聚焦在他身上。

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Rosalie barfed into the bag again. She thought she’d finished, but her nose-bleed restarted too. Three medics crawled around His Holiness Lester. The scent of him permeated the bay, giving the waking, suffering Puppets a feeling of drowsy rightness. Lester barely lived. The Numen were not hardened against radiation. That was a core mystery of the divine. Why hadn’t the Numen been made more durable when the Puppets were being created? Puppet theologians theorized endlessly about that question.

One of the sergeants approached. Hibernation drugs and radiation sickness still fuzzed Rosalie’s vision, so she didn’t recognize Erin until she came close. Her bristly hair was matted on one side where her helmet must have been pressing during orbital insertion.

“Four dead, ma’am,” she said. “Timmy, Ralph, Michelle and Louis. Michelle was a machine gunner. I’m giving her equipment to Robbie. He’ll have to do.”

Rosalie held onto Erin’s shoulder. “Help me put on the stilts.”

Erin did more than that. She fussed with the laces and straps, so that despite her aches, Rosalie could put on the baggy Numen shirt and roll the sleeves up until her hands were visible. Doug came over. His lips were red; many of the Puppets bled from the gums.

“His Holiness is alive,” Doug said. “Eight sieverts got into the War Cage.”

They’d only been able to pile on so much shielding. Anything more or denser and the scanning AIs would have flagged the unpenetrated spots for secondary inspection. Rosalie’s radiation meter had measured over twelve sieverts of ionizing radiation, even after the shielding had blocked much of it. Ten sieverts was almost certain death for humans and Numen.

She cleared her throat and said “Bring Timmy, Louis, Michelle, and Ralphie. They’ve quested far, but have far yet to go.”

A few gasps among the Puppets interrupted some soft, mournful crying. Lloyd, Norma, Jill and Fred, gray-faced and weak, brought the four dead Puppets to the War Cage. They stroked slack cheeks, straightened brittle hair, decorated them with ribbons. Rosalie had been waiting for this moment, the first losses, the first blood, to invoke the quest stories.

Rosalie went to the War Cage and brushed her fingers along the slack skin of his Holiness’ cheek. She signalled Doug to move into the cage and behind him. Rosalie raised her arms, standing on her stilts, with the scent of Numen diffusing into the cold bay.

“When old Dennis Creston commanded Teddy Creston-13, his most trusted servant, to recover the relics of his son,” Rosalie said, catching their eyes on the pause, the open-mouthed expectation, “that was a good day.”

“Yes, a very good day,” Jill said.

“Sometimes fate is hard to see,” Rosalie continued. “We don’t know where we’re going. We fetch water. We fix things. We count the minutes to the next time we’ll see a Numen while the world seems to wind down.”

Freddy wiped at his eyes and then hugged two of the dead Puppets under his arms, like a last encouragement.

“But when old Dennis Creston told Teddy to go get his boy, he painted meaning onto the darkness,” Rosalie said. “He revealed the hand of fate.”

Doug nodded vigorously.

“Teddy gathered to him three trusted Puppets who understood the moment,” Rosalie said.

Robbie sobbed.

“A Numen had died,” Rosalie said, as a few more Puppets began to cry softly. “Ronald Creston. Only thirty years old. Divine. Godly. Unique in all the universe. Irreplaceable. And old Dennis Creston told Teddy, his most trusted servant, to go bring his son’s body home.”

She felt like her words hammered her own heart. The Puppets couldn’t look at her anymore.

“Teddy’s three trusted companions didn’t survive,” she said. “They gave themselves for the recovery of something greater than themselves, for something divine, something his Holiness Old Dennis Creston wanted. They walked into the absence at the call of fate and they were joyous.”

With wide open mouth, Jimbo inhaled the divinity of Lester and puddles of trembling tears collected around his eyes in the micro-gravity.

罗莎莉又吐到了袋子里。她以为自己吐完了，但鼻血又重新流了出来。三个医护人员围着莱斯特教皇爬来爬去。他的气味弥漫了整个海湾，让清醒而痛苦的傀儡们有一种昏昏欲睡的正确感。莱斯特勉强活了下来。努曼人无法抵御辐射。这是神性的核心奥秘。为什么在创造傀儡的时候，Numen 没有变得更耐用呢？傀儡神学家们对这个问题进行了无休止的理论探讨。

一名军士走了过来。冬眠药物和辐射病仍然模糊着罗莎莉的视线，所以她直到艾琳走近才认出她来。她刚硬的头发有一边已经枯黄，头盔一定是在插入轨道时压到了那里。

“死了四个人，女士，"她说。“提米、拉尔夫、米歇尔和路易斯。米歇尔是机枪手。我把她的装备给了罗比。他必须这样做。”

罗莎莉扶着艾琳的肩膀。“帮我穿上高跷”

艾琳做的不止这些 她煞有介事地弄着鞋带和带子，这样，尽管罗莎莉疼痛难忍，她还是可以穿上宽松的努曼衬衫，把袖子卷起来，直到能看到自己的手。道格走了过来。他的嘴唇发红；许多傀儡的牙龈都在流血。

“教皇还活着，"道格说。“八个西弗特进入了战争牢笼。”

他们只能叠加这么多屏蔽。再多或再密集一些，扫描人工智能就会把未穿透的地方标记出来进行二次检查。罗莎莉的辐射测量仪测得的电离辐射超过了 12 西弗特，即使屏蔽已经阻挡了大部分辐射。十西弗对于人类和努曼人来说几乎是必死无疑。

她清了清嗓子说："带上提米、路易斯、米歇尔和拉尔菲。他们已经探索了很远，但还有很远的路要走。”

傀儡们的几声喘息打断了几声轻柔哀婉的哭泣。劳埃德、诺玛、吉尔和弗雷德灰头土脸、虚弱不堪地把四个死去的傀儡带到了战笼。他们抚摸着松弛的脸颊，理了理脆弱的头发，用丝带为他们装饰。罗莎莉一直在等待着这一刻，等待着第一批损失，等待着第一批鲜血，等待着唤起探险故事的那一刻。

罗莎莉走到 “战争牢笼 ”前，用手指拂过教皇松弛的脸颊。她示意道格走进笼子，走到他身后。罗莎莉举起双臂，站在高跷上，Numen 的气味弥漫在寒冷的海湾中。

“当老丹尼斯-克雷斯顿命令他最信任的仆人泰迪-克雷斯顿-13 去找回他儿子的遗物时，“罗莎莉说，她捕捉到了他们停顿的目光，张大嘴巴的期待，”那是个好日子。”

“是的，非常好的一天。"吉尔说。

“有时候命运是很难预料的，"罗莎莉接着说。“我们不知道要去哪里。我们打水。我们修理东西。我们数着时间，等待下一次见到努曼人，而世界却似乎在风平浪静。”

弗雷迪擦了擦眼睛，然后把两个死去的傀儡搂在腋下，像是最后的鼓励。

“但当老丹尼斯-克雷斯顿让泰迪去找他的儿子时，他在黑暗中描绘了意义。"罗莎莉说。“他揭示了命运之手。”

道格用力地点了点头。

“罗莎莉说："泰迪召集了三个值得信赖的傀儡，他们都明白此时此刻的意义。

罗比泣不成声。

“一个努曼人死了，"罗莎莉说，这时又有几个傀儡开始轻声哭泣。“罗纳德-克雷斯顿。只有三十岁。神圣的。神性。全宇宙独一无二。无可取代 老丹尼斯-克雷斯顿告诉泰迪，他最信任的仆人，去把他儿子的遗体带回家。”

她觉得自己的话敲击着自己的心。傀儡们再也不敢看她了。

“泰迪最信任的三个同伴没能活下来，"她说。“他们为找回比自己更伟大的东西献出了自己，为神圣的东西献出了自己，为老丹尼斯-克雷斯顿教皇想要的东西献出了自己。他们在命运的召唤下走进了缺席的世界，他们是快乐的。”

金博张大嘴巴，吸入了莱斯特的神性，在微重力的作用下，一滩滩颤抖的泪水汇聚在他的眼眶周围。

“Teddy quested and returned,” Rosalie said. “He brought Ronald Creston home before he himself succumbed to the cost of his quest. He died happy at the feet of a grieving divinity.”

A loud sob came from the shadows at the back of the cargo hold.

“We’ve been given a quest,” she said, her voice taking on a deeper resonance as she felt the words in her, what Teddy Creston-13 must have felt, “a much larger one and more dangerous. The arrow of time follows the decay of the world. Every year, less Numen are born. Their numbers dwindle. And we don’t know how to stop it. The absence crowds against shrinking candlelight. It threatens to end divinity.”

Norma wept full-throatedly and Reggie hugged her.

“We don’t know how to keep the divinities alive. We don’t know how to make more of them. But one man does, a man like the creator of the first Numen. Only one such man lived and then died. Since then, the world has been winding down from the Edenic Age he made. But now there’s another. A new man has made more Numen. He can turn back the clock of the cosmos, and return us to an earlier age.”

Some sniffled loudly, but they looked up one by one, as if seeing if the hope she offered were true.

“We quest for a new age.”

“We quest for a new age!” Lloyd squealed.

“Today, we lay to rest Michelle, Timmy, Louis, and Ralphie, who, like the companions of Teddy, laid down their lives for the Numen. They finished in this life but their worship will not end. The Numen who have passed need new servants. Michelle and Timmy and Louis and Ralphie will attend the Numen who have passed, while we honor them and carry on in this world. Many of us may already be dying from the radiation. Many of us certainly will follow them, but we will bring home the man who will rekindle the Edenic age. Today, we are all Teddy.”

Jimbo whispered to himself in a trembling voice. “I’m Teddy. I’m fucking Teddy.”

Rosalie guided the Numen’s unresisting hand to touch Michelle’s beribboned forehead.

“You are a good servant,” she said in a gruff voice, imitating a Numen of old. “You accompanied Teddy. Serve my fathers and my mothers in the next life.”

Freddie wept louder as Rosalie repeated the rites with the other three and committed them to the Numen of old, wherever they were in the cosmos.

“泰迪去而复返，"罗莎莉说。“他把罗纳德-克雷斯顿带回了家，然后自己也因追求的代价而屈服。他在悲痛欲绝的神灵脚下幸福地死去。”

货舱后部的阴影中传来一阵响亮的抽泣声。

“我们被赋予了一个使命，“她说，她的声音变得更加低沉，因为她感受到了她的话语，泰迪-克里斯顿-13 一定也感受到了，”一个更大、更危险的使命。时间之箭追随着世界的衰败。每年出生的努曼人越来越少。他们的数量在减少。而我们却不知道如何阻止这一切。缺失的烛光在不断缩小 它威胁着神性的终结。”

诺玛哭得很伤心，雷吉拥抱了她。

“我们不知道如何让神性继续存在。我们不知道如何创造更多的神灵。但有一个人知道，他就是第一个努曼人的创造者。只有一个这样的人活了下来，然后死了。从那时起，世界就从他创造的伊甸园时代走向衰落。但现在又出现了一个。一个新人创造了更多的 Numen。他能让宇宙的时钟倒转，让我们回到更早的时代。”

有些人大声抽泣，但他们一个个抬起头，似乎在看她带来的希望是否是真的。

“我们追求新时代”

“我们追求新时代！” 劳埃德尖叫起来。

“今天，我们让米歇尔、提米、路易斯和拉尔菲安息，他们和泰迪的同伴们一样，为努曼人献出了生命。他们的生命结束了，但他们的崇拜不会结束。逝去的努曼人需要新的仆人。米歇尔和提米、路易斯和拉尔菲将陪伴逝去的努曼人，而我们将纪念他们，并在这个世界上继续生活下去。我们中的许多人可能已经死于辐射。我们中的许多人肯定会追随他们而去，但我们会把重新点燃伊甸园时代的人带回家。今天，我们都是泰迪"。

金博用颤抖的声音低声自语道。“我是泰迪 我是他妈的泰迪

罗莎莉引导努曼人毫无反抗之力的手，抚摸着米歇尔镶有贝雷帽的额头。

“你是个好仆人，"她用粗鲁的声音说，模仿着以前的努曼人。“你陪伴着泰迪。来世侍奉我的父亲和母亲吧。”

弗莱迪哭得更大声了，罗莎莉重复着其他三个人的仪式，并把他们交给了古老的努曼人，无论他们在宇宙的哪个角落。

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Belisarius’ syrupy thoughts followed themselves in nonsensical loops. Humming clouded vision. Taste prickled like the brush of gauze on skin. Smell brightened. Sweat pasted sheets to hot skin. And then, sense of place vanished. Bodiless, he floated in foggy grayness, behind a pane of glass, in a suit. He wasn’t anywhere. The patterns of entanglement confused him. Then, he was on the Mutapa, months ago, feeling the powerful electromagnetic fields of the warship around him, back around the Stubbs pulsar. But the time felt wrong in a dreamy way; he felt forward in time, not backwards, because the stars had changed. And without a discreet break, he felt himself really existing under the sullen orange glow lighting Nyanga, in the past. He didn’t want to be here again. He didn’t want to feel this again. He struggled, pushing against the sponginess holding him. He heard crying. Was he crying?

He blinked in sight of soft lamps, surrounded by the hum of processors, the gentle glow of holographic displays switched to dim red. A figure hunched over him, whispering.

“Arjona. I can’t take it anymore. Arjona.”

Hard hands shook him, disturbing the silt in his mind. Del Casal’s tear-streaked face neared in the gloom. They were alone, in the surgical room. Wires led from his body to banks of thought reading equipment, dim screens scrolling through terabytes of encrypted compressed memories every second.

“I’ll pay you anything to get me out of here, Arjona.”

The gummy synaesthesia loosened its hold. The gloom clarified, but he was still strapped down. Del Casal gripped his hospital gown, weeping over his chest.

“What did you...” Belisarius’ throat was raw, like he’d been screaming. He tried swallowing. “What did you do to me?”

“We don’t have a lot of time,” Del Casal said.

Del Casal worked at the restraints on Belisarius’ wrists, but they resisted his efforts.

“What’s wrong with my brain? What did you do to me?”

Belisarius’ words seemed to penetrate the doctor’s frantic terror.

“Keep your voice down,” Del Casal whispered. “The centrifuges. I’ve got them all spinning. White noise for the microphones, but it’s not much. The lights are dimmed for the cameras. The processors are going to be slower for a bit. I have them computing genomic problems.”

Was Del Casal an idiot? Belisarius made out the centrifuge noise and trusted that Del Casal thought the other measures were in place. Maybe they were, but they wouldn’t fool any decently secure facility that had backup cameras, multispectrum sensors and listening bugs.

“Tell me what you did,” Belisarius whispered, “or I’m not helping you.”

Some of Del Casal’s old prickliness briefly emerged from his twitchiness.

“I added some wiring to your brain, in places where small, steady microcurrents can depolarize major neuronal pathways, to interrupt signalling. Like the inputs from your magnetosomes and the neurons leading to the conscious control areas. Some cognition. You’re not broken, but I inserted some off switches.”

“Then how am I supposed to help you?”

“I don’t know,” Del Casal said right beside his ear. “You have to get us out. You know how.”

Del Casal’s fingers felt cool. Was Belisarius still feverish? He’d had the same fever for months and almost didn’t notice the low ache anymore.

“Did you shut everything in me off?” Belisarius said.

Del Casal yanked on Belisarius’ restraints, as if somebody would come in any second. Or this was orchestrated? They might have drugged Del Casal with something to make him paranoid to see what Belisarius would do. Or say. From what he saw on the screens, they couldn’t decrypt his thoughts yet.

“You shut off all my Homo quantus changes?” Belisarius said.

Del Casal momentarily gave up and wept over Belisarius’ chest.

“Antonio. Antonio! We have to keep moving. Tell me if you shut off everything in my head. Can I reach the fugue?”

The doctor’s eyes darted to shadowed parts of the room where nothing moved.

“Antonio, focus. We’re both stuck here.”

“Your brain is all jumbled,” Del Casal said. “The parts that should be active during the fugue are on all the time. You’re broken, but I didn’t do that.”

On all the time. Then the quantum intellect was still operating in his brain, but he was cut off from it. Temporarily? Permanently?

贝利撒留斯如饴的思绪在无意义的循环中追随着自己。嗡嗡声遮蔽了视线。味觉像纱布擦在皮肤上一样刺痛。嗅觉明亮起来。汗水将床单贴在滚烫的皮肤上。然后，位置感消失了。身无寸缕的他漂浮在灰蒙蒙的雾气中，在一扇玻璃后面，穿着西装。他不知道自己身在何处。纠缠的模式让他感到困惑。然后，他来到了几个月前的穆塔帕号上，感受着周围战舰强大的电磁场，回到了斯塔布斯脉冲星周围。但时间的感觉错得像做梦一样；他觉得时间向前了，而不是向后，因为星体发生了变化。不经意间，他感觉自己真的存在于尼昂加沉闷的橙色光芒下，存在于过去。他不想再来到这里。他不想再感受这一切。他挣扎着，用力推开抱着他的海绵。他听到了哭声。他在哭吗？

他眨了眨眼睛，看到了柔和的灯光，周围是处理器的嗡嗡声，全息显示屏的柔和光芒被切换成了暗红色。一个身影伏在他身上，低声说着什么。

“阿尔霍纳。我再也受不了了。阿尔霍纳"。

坚硬的双手摇晃着他，扰乱了他脑海中的淤泥。德尔-卡萨尔满是泪水的脸在阴暗中慢慢靠近。手术室里只有他们两个人。电线从他的身体通向一排排思维读取设备，昏暗的屏幕每秒都在滚动播放着数兆字节的加密压缩记忆。

“只要你把我弄出去，我什么都愿意付，阿尔霍纳”

胶状的共感松动了。阴暗变得清晰起来，但他仍然被绑着。德尔-卡萨尔抓着病号服，捂着胸口哭泣。

“你......” 贝利撒留斯的喉咙生疼，像是一直在尖叫。他试着吞咽 “你们对我做了什么？”

“我们时间不多了。"德尔-卡萨尔说。

德尔-卡萨尔用力挣脱贝利撒留斯手腕上的束缚，但他的努力受到了阻力。

“我的大脑怎么了？你对我做了什么？

贝利撒留斯的话似乎穿透了医生疯狂的恐惧。

“小声点，"德尔卡萨尔低声说道。“离心机。我让它们都在旋转。麦克风发出白噪音，但声音不大。摄像机的灯光已经调暗。处理器会慢一点。我让他们计算基因组问题

德尔-卡萨尔是个白痴吗？贝利撒留斯听到了离心机的声音，他相信德尔-卡萨尔认为其他措施已经到位。也许是有，但它们骗不了任何有备份摄像头、多光谱传感器和listening bugs的安全设施。

“告诉我你做了什么，“贝利萨留斯低声说，”否则我不会帮你。”

德尔-卡萨尔从抽搐中短暂地恢复了一些往日的刺痛感。

“我在你的大脑中添加了一些线路，在这些地方，微小而稳定的微电流可以使主要的神经元通路去极化，从而中断信号传递。比如你的磁小体和通往意识控制区的神经元的输入。一些认知 “你没有坏掉，但我插入了一些开关”

“那我该怎么帮你？”

“我不知道。"德尔-卡萨尔就在他耳边说。“你必须把我们救出去。你知道怎么做。”

德尔-卡萨尔的手指感觉凉凉的。贝利撒留斯还在发烧吗？他已经连续几个月发烧了，几乎已经感觉不到低痛了。

“你把我的一切都关起来了吗？” 贝利撒留斯说。

德尔-卡萨尔拽了拽贝利撒留斯的束缚带，似乎随时都会有人进来。或者这是精心策划的？他们可能给德尔-卡萨尔下了药，让他疑神疑鬼，看看贝利撒留斯会做什么。或者说 从他在屏幕上看到的情况来看 他们还无法破解他的思想

“你关闭了我所有的智人变化？” 贝利撒留斯说。

德尔-卡萨尔瞬间放弃了，捂着贝利撒留斯的胸口哭了起来。

“安东尼奥 安东尼奥 我们必须继续前进。告诉我，如果你关掉我脑子里的一切。我能听到赋格曲吗？”

医生的眼睛瞟向房间的阴影部分 那里没有任何动静

“安东尼奥，集中注意力。我们都被困在这里了。”

“你的大脑一片混乱，"德尔卡萨尔说。“你的大脑一片混乱，“德尔-卡萨尔说，”在昏迷期间本该活跃的部分却一直在运转。“你的大脑坏了，但我没有那么做”

一直开着 那么量子智慧仍在他的大脑中运行，但他被切断了与它的联系。暂时的？还是永久性的？

“Why am I still here and conscious? What do they want?”
 Del Casal looked at the displays suspiciously. One of the centrifuges came to the end of its cycle and its long whining note deepened. Del Casal crouched, snuck over to it and set it for another ten minute cycle. When he returned, he stayed behind the head of the bed where Belisarius couldn’t see him.

“Antonio!” Belisarius whispered urgently. He heard wrenching sobs.

Del Casal came around. He knelt and draped his arms through the rail.

“Save me,” he whispered. “I’m all gone.”

“Antonio, they drugged you. Help me if you can. I’ll help you.”

The doctor’s expression melted in a kind of anguish.

“You can’t help me. There’s no more me. It dissolves in front of her.” Del Casal’s face slackened and his mouth opened like he was going to vomit. He gulped like a fish in air, as if grasping for an elusive taste. Or smell. Like a Puppet. A shiver tickled down Belisarius’ back.

“Who is she?” Belisarius said.

“I missed so much before,” Del Casal said, a tear running on his face. “There’s so much I didn’t see. How could I have been blind for so long?”

“Antonio, focus. Part of the awe effect in the Puppets amplifies pattern recognition. You’re filled with false positives right now. You see meaning and revelation in everything. It’s all false positives.”

“How do you know?”

“Homo quantus pattern recognition is dialed higher too. The false positives are tempting, but they’re all mirage. I struggle to tamp down signals in the data that aren’t there. It’s hard, but it’s possible.”

Del Casal shook his head. “This is more real than anything I’ve ever felt. My life...” He seemed to stumble over some feeling that overwhelmed him. “Everything that came before is so hollow, so empty.”

Belisarius shook the bed in his restraints, trying to get Del Casal’s meandering attention.

“The awe effect is a very sophisticated hallucinogenic experience, Antonio. Take the science you lived with before and deconstruct what you’re feeling. It’s possible to see this in another way.”

“You think I’m not trying?” he whined, regarding Belisarius with angry, red-rimmed eyes. “But I’m small and this is so big. I can’t escape it anywhere. It’s in every thought. Every feeling.” Fat tears fell now. “You killed Gander. I was there.”

Belisarius stilled. He’d understood that Del Casal had gotten cold feet and bailed on the con, that he hadn’t even gone to meet them later for his cut. At the time Belisarius hadn’t thought through everything. He’d thought maybe Del Casal had run afoul of the the Puppets. But... I was there.

“I couldn’t know what I had made then,” Del Casal said. “I didn’t have the capacity to... see what he was, that he was genuinely divine. But now I know. I saw the reactions of the Puppets. I can imagine now what it would have been like to breathe him, to bask in his presence, to feel his divinity. He was angry. So angry with me because I was with the Puppets and he was strapped to the table.”

Belisarius felt faint.

“When did you go to the Puppets?” Belisarius said.

“His last words were to me and I couldn’t even know their holiness at the time. He cursed me, Arjona. A divinity laid a curse on me! He said Enjoy hell. You can have my spot. But I didn’t take his spot. I entered the world he touched, the world he walked, that he himself couldn’t feel. I made divinity, but I couldn’t feel it and neither could he. Can you imagine so much blindness? But now I know and it hurts so much.”

Del Casal sobbed hopelessly.

“I’m not made to be powerless,” Del Casal said pleadingly. He focused on Belisarius, patting his arm, then clinging to his hand. “Do you know what it is to be nothing? Worthless? I stop being me. I stop being me. I just want and want and want to... It’s so big. So vast. I’m connected to a whole world you can’t see Arjona. I’m lost on the waves. I’m just dust. Please take me away from here before I’m gone. Take me back to the Puppets. I can make more Numen.”

Del Casal’s fingernails clawed at Belisarius’ arm as his head jerked up, eyes wide, mouth open, panting.

“Help me, Arjona,” he whimpered. “She’s here and my heart isn’t big enough to hold all of her.”

Del Casal looked to the doorway in open-mouthed wonder. The whirring of stiff machine articulation sounded, step by step, in the dark hallway. Del Casal’s chin rose as if the inhaled scent wafted above him.

The pale lieutenant-colonel appeared first in the shadows of the doorway, in her dark uniform. A breath of delight caught in Del Casal’s throat, but he moved away, behind the bed. A lumpy, looming shape well over two meters stopped behind her. With access to his magnetosomes, Belisarius might have perceived more of the Scarecrow, the press and hum of its electronic thinking, the flexing of articulators and hydraulics.

“为什么我还在这里，而且还有意识？他们想干什么？”

 德尔卡萨尔狐疑地看着显示屏。其中一台离心机的工作周期即将结束，它发出的长长的呜呜声越来越响。德尔-卡萨尔蹲下身子，悄悄走到离心机旁，将它调到另一个十分钟的周期。回来时，他躲在床头贝利撒留看不到的地方。

“安东尼奥！” 贝利撒留斯急切地低声喊道。他听到了撕心裂肺的啜泣声。

德尔-卡萨尔走了过来。他跪在地上，双臂穿过栏杆。

“救救我，"他低声说 “我什么都没了”

“安东尼奥，他们给你下药了。帮帮我吧 我会帮你的

医生的表情在痛苦中融化了

“你帮不了我 已经没有我了。它在她面前消失了。” 德尔-卡萨尔的脸松弛下来，嘴巴张开，像是要呕吐。他像鱼一样大口大口地呼吸着空气，仿佛在寻找一种难以捉摸的味道。或气味。就像一个木偶。贝利撒留的背脊痒痒的，一阵颤抖。

“她是谁？” 贝利撒留斯说。

“我以前错过了太多。"德尔卡萨尔说，脸上流着泪。“有太多的事情我没有看到。我怎么会失明这么久？”

“安东尼奥，集中注意力。傀儡的部分敬畏效应会放大模式识别。你现在满脑子都是假象。你看到了一切事物的意义和启示。这都是假象。”

“你怎么知道？”

“量子智人的模式识别能力也提高了。假阳性很诱人，但都是海市蜃楼。我努力压制数据中不存在的信号。这很难，但有可能。”

德尔卡萨尔摇了摇头。“这比我曾经感受过的任何事情都要真实。我的生活......” 他似乎被某种感觉压得喘不过气来。“之前的一切都如此空洞，如此虚无。”

贝利撒留斯摇晃着束缚着他的床，试图引起德尔-卡萨尔的注意。

“敬畏效应是一种非常复杂的致幻体验，安东尼奥。用你以前生活过的科学来解构你的感受。我们可以用另一种方式来看待这个问题。”

“你以为我没在努力吗？"他抱怨着，用愤怒的红眼睛看着贝利萨留斯。“但我是个小人物，而这一切是如此之大。我在任何地方都无法逃避它。它存在于我的每一个想法。每一种感觉。” 肥大的泪珠落了下来。“你杀了甘德 我当时在场”

贝利撒留斯沉默了 他知道德尔-卡萨尔临阵脱逃了，他甚至没有去找他们要他的那份钱。当时贝利撒留还没有想清楚。他以为戴尔-卡萨尔和 “傀儡 ”有过节 但是... 我当时在场

“我不知道自己当时做了什么" 戴尔-卡萨尔说 “我没有能力......看到他是什么，他是真正的神。但现在我知道了。我看到了傀儡们的反应。我现在可以想象呼吸他的气息、沐浴他的存在、感受他的神性会是什么样子。他很生气。因为我和傀儡们在一起 而他却被绑在桌子上”

贝利撒瑞斯感到一阵晕眩

“你什么时候去傀儡团的？” 贝利撒留斯说

“他的遗言是对我说的，当时我根本不知道他们的神圣。他诅咒了我，阿尔霍纳。一位神灵对我下了诅咒！他说，享受地狱吧。你可以占我的位置 但我没有得到他的位置。我进入了他接触过的世界，他走过的世界，而他自己却感觉不到。我创造了神性，但我感觉不到，他也感觉不到。你能想象如此盲目吗？但现在我知道了，这让我痛不欲生"。

德尔卡萨尔绝望地啜泣着。

“我不是无能为力的人。"德尔-卡萨尔恳求地说。他专注地看着贝利萨留斯，拍拍他的胳膊，然后紧紧抓住他的手。“你知道一无所有是什么感觉吗？一文不值？我不再是我。我不再是我。我只是想要、想要、想要...... 它是如此之大。如此广阔 我与你看不见的世界相连 阿霍纳 我迷失在海浪中 我只是尘埃 请在我消失之前带我离开这里 带我回到傀儡们身边 我可以制造更多的 Numen。”

德尔-卡萨尔的指甲抓着贝利撒留斯的手臂，他的头猛地抬起来，眼睛瞪得大大的，张着嘴，气喘吁吁。

“帮帮我，阿尔霍纳，"他呜咽着说。“她在这里，我的心不够大，容不下她的全部。”

德尔-卡萨尔张大嘴巴惊奇地望着门口。僵硬的机器衔接的呼呼声，一步一步地在黑暗的走廊里响起。德尔-卡萨尔的下巴抬了起来，仿佛吸入的香气在他头顶飘荡。

脸色苍白的中校穿着深色制服，首先出现在门口的阴影里。德尔-卡萨尔的喉咙里憋着一股喜悦的气息，但他还是移开了，躲到了床后面。一个身高超过两米的庞大身影停在了她的身后。如果贝利撒留斯能使用磁小体，他也许能感知到稻草人的更多信息，电子思维的按压声和嗡嗡声，关节和液压装置的弯曲声。

The woman approached in catlike silence, the Scarecrow following with soft mechanical sounds. The lights began to brighten and the centrifuges all began to whine down by themselves, as if some drama had finished. Two small camera lenses hummed as they focused on Belisarius from the loose metal weave of the sack of the Scarecrow’s head. A black smudge of paint suggested a nose over a clumsily painted black mouth. The way the Scarecrow stood and watched made the immobile mouth suggest a leer.

The metal weave of the shirt hung shapelessly over an undefined torso, but the sleeve rose a bit from the top of the glove when the arm extended, revealing shiny metal wiring in mockery of straw. What was that for? The shadow beneath the mesh cloth held many pieces of things, wires, maybe a gun barrel and electronic jacks. A wire shot out, like a grappling cable, plugging into the rails of the bed frame. Strange, faint images, ghosts of pasts, started manifesting in Belisarius’ thoughts. Measurements, glimpsed flashes of places he’d been, maybe things he seen, but... maybe not. Ghostly. He still struggled with the effects of the drugs they’d injected into him, and possibly changes Del Casal had done to him.

“Come out, Antonio,” the woman said over the last low moan of the centrifuges coasting to stillness.

Del Casal came into view from behind the bed. He fidgeted, trying to stand straight, trying to face her with dignity. A lifetime of being in control propped Del Casal against what appeared to be an overwhelmingly profound biochemical religious experience.

“I really, really want those Homo quantus to work,” she said with quiet menace. “I’m already displeased and it will be worse if you don’t succeed very soon.”

Del Casal’s resolve and courage vanished, replaced by a naked rawness of self, the last undisguised core of a fearful, fervent believer. He lowered his head submissively and backed away from her with little gulps at the air.

“What you’ve done is pointless,” Belisarius said to the woman. Faint images flitted in his thoughts. The screens lit with new data. “You’re not going to get anything out of him like that.”

The woman regarded him.

“Compelling motivation may offset the slight drop in cognition,” she said.

“You still won’t get Del Casal making new Homo quantus. Undo it. You’ll get more out of him. He’s suffering.”

“He’s motivated,” she said, running a finger along the rail of his bed, creeping closer and closer to him. “Besides, the chips can be taken out, and even the neural wiring, but his biochemistry has already been changed. The original bioengineers of the Numen and Puppets were paranoid about the Puppets ever escaping their control. The addictions produced in the awe centers of the brain are permanent. He’ll never escape the withdrawals. And while I’m close, he won’t suffer.”

She smiled sweetly, everything she said turning Belisarius’ stomach. Del Casal had betrayed them and had watched Will die, but this was too great a punishment for anyone. The creation of the Puppets was an incalculable moral error. Eye for an eye justice wouldn’t fix it. In the moral gray, Belisarius had made a Numen, but it was temporary and Will was a consenting subject.

“The Scarecrow has some questions,” the woman said. “You’re extremely valuable as a model of fully functioning Homo quantus, but you’re also an interrogation target. We can’t decide which objective is more important. If the Scarecrow doesn’t get what she wants, I’ve asked my people to look at wiring you like a Puppet too.”

His brain never stopped, couldn’t stop, but the idea of wiring a Homo quantus with the complex neural and sensory changes of the Puppets momentarily didn’t compute. Both subspecies were systems of hardware and software, like computers and operating systems. The systems were incompatible. Could even Del Casal find a way to make the two natures co-exist? Rational interrogation of the cosmos itself couldn’t meld with intense spiritual belief in a physically present divinity. He might. He might try. Belisarius almost threw up.

“Wouldn’t that be funny?” she said. “ A quantum Puppet.”

The Scarecrow loomed.

“What do you know of the Epsilon Indi Scarecrow?” the hulking AI asked. Its voice crawled from the grave, accented with the suggestion of the feminine. “The Epsilon Indi Scarecrow last reported following you to a small, stable wormhole at C99312, a chondritic, bi-lobed asteroid. It reported your entry into this wormhole and followed you. The Port-Cartier found nothing at C99312.”

He’d long ago trained his brain and body to avoid giving the unconscious signals that accompanied deception, but he didn’t know if those reactions were still in place. He couldn’t feel much of his brain. It wasn’t just like his intellect was fuzzy and hobbled – some perceptions of the world had numbed, gone blind.

“I don’t know anything about that,” Belisarius said.

女人像猫一样悄无声息地靠近，稻草人发出轻柔的机械声紧随其后。灯光开始变亮，所有的离心机都开始呜呜地自行停机，就好像某些戏剧已经结束了。两个小型摄像机镜头发出嗡嗡声，从稻草人头上松散的金属编织袋中对准了贝利撒留斯。一抹黑色的油漆在一张涂得笨拙的黑嘴上画出了一个鼻子。稻草人站着观看的样子让人联想到那张一动不动的嘴在奸笑。

金属编织的衬衫毫无形状地悬挂在躯干上，但当手臂伸展时，袖子从手套顶端稍稍翘起，露出闪闪发光的金属线，像是在嘲笑稻草人。这是干什么用的？网布下的阴影里有许多东西，有电线，也许还有枪管和电子插孔。一根电线像抓索一样射出，插入床架的导轨。贝利撒留斯的思绪中开始浮现出奇怪而模糊的影像，那是过去的幽灵。测量结果、他去过的地方的一瞥，也许是他见过的东西，但......也许不是。幽灵一般 他仍在挣扎，因为他们给他注射的药物，还有德尔-卡萨尔可能对他做的改变，对他产生了影响。

“出来吧，安东尼奥。"女人在离心机最后一次低沉的呻吟声中说道。

德尔-卡萨尔从床后走了出来。他坐立不安，试图站直，试图体面地面对她。一生都在掌控一切的德尔-卡萨尔，面对的似乎是压倒性的深刻生化宗教体验。

“我真的非常希望那些智人能够发挥作用，"她悄声威胁道。“我已经很不高兴了，如果你不尽快成功，情况会更糟。”

德尔-卡萨尔的决心和勇气消失了，取而代之的是一种赤裸裸的原始自我，一个恐惧而狂热的信徒最后毫不掩饰的核心。他顺从地低下头，大口大口地呼吸着空气，从她身边退开。

“你所做的一切毫无意义，"贝利撒留斯对女人说。他的脑海中闪过一些模糊的画面。屏幕上亮起了新的数据。“你这样做是无法从他身上得到任何东西的。”

女人看着他。

“强烈的动机可能会抵消认知能力的轻微下降，"她说。

“你还是无法让德尔-卡萨尔制造出新的智人。撤销它。你会从他身上得到更多。他在受苦。”

“他有动力。"她说，用手指沿着他的床栏，悄悄地靠近他。“此外，芯片可以取出来，甚至神经线路也可以取出来，但他的生物化学已经被改变了。努曼人和傀儡人最初的生物工程师很担心傀儡人逃脱他们的控制。在大脑敬畏中心产生的瘾是永久性的。他永远无法摆脱这种戒断 虽然我离他很近，但他不会受苦。”

她甜甜地笑着，她说的每一句话都让贝利撒留斯反胃。德尔-卡萨尔背叛了他们，眼睁睁地看着威尔死去，但这对任何人来说都是莫大的惩罚。创造傀儡是一个无法估量的道德错误。以牙还牙是无法弥补的。在道德的灰色地带，贝利撒留斯制造了一个努曼人，但这只是暂时的，威尔也是同意的对象。

“稻草人有几个问题。"女人说。“你作为全功能智人的模型非常有价值，但你也是一个审讯目标。我们无法决定哪个目标更重要。如果稻草人没有得到她想要的东西，我已经让我的人考虑把你也像傀儡一样布线。”

他的大脑从来没有停止过，也不可能停止，但把一个智人与傀儡复杂的神经和感官变化连接起来的想法一时无法实现。这两个亚种都是硬件和软件系统，就像电脑和操作系统。这两个系统是不兼容的。就连德尔-卡萨尔也能找到让这两种性质共存的方法吗？对宇宙本身的理性思考 无法与对神灵的强烈信仰相融合 他也许可以。他可以试试。贝利撒留差点吐了出来。

“那不是很有趣吗？"她说。“量子傀儡”

稻草人出现了

“你对伊普西隆-印第稻草人了解多少？"这个笨重的人工智能问道。它的声音从坟墓里爬出来，带着女性的暗示。“伊普西隆印第稻草人 "最后一次报告说，它跟随你来到了位于 C99312 的一个稳定的小虫洞，这是一颗软玉质的双叶小行星。它报告说你进入了这个虫洞，并跟踪了你。卡蒂埃港号在 C99312 没有发现任何东西。”

很久以前，他就训练自己的大脑和身体避免发出伴随着欺骗的无意识信号，但他不知道这些反应是否还在。他的大脑感觉不到什么。这不仅仅是他的智力变得模糊和蹒跚--他对世界的某些感知已经麻木，变得盲目。

“贝利萨留斯说："我对此一无所知。

Yet the flashes of information continued to paint themselves on the screens, walls of binary data, arrays and sets of digitized information they pulled from him. But strangely, small images, immaterial and quick, came to mind, of entering the time gates with Iekanjika, his surprise at being told by Cassie and Stills what they’d faced while he’d been on Nyanga. The character of the data on the screens seemed to shift.

“Tell me about the time travel device found by the Union,” the Scarecrow said.

Despite his hardest efforts to think of something else, transparent images and minute flashes of purpled light and the warbling electromagnetic feel of the interior of the time gates came to him. He tried to calculate something, anything, to recheck previous calculations, but this other stream of translucent, ghostly memories seemed to cut a deeper path through his thoughts. What had they done to him? They’d rewired Del Casal’s neurology to make an emulated Puppet of him. They’d done something to Belisarius too, cut him off from some of his senses and his mathematical faculties.

“They hired me for my knowledge of the Puppets,” Belisarius said. “I don’t know anything about Union technology.”

The data on the displays shifted. He recognized some of the structural characteristics as belonging to information from his mind. It was a form he would understand, but that no one else would. The kind of encryption the Homo quantus used to compress memories had some documented root algorithms, making some of the first layers of compression standard. But the subsequent steps were individual. Each Homo quantus who could enter the fugue had to work in alternation with the quantum objectivity to find a set of storage and retrieval algorithms to compress memory. The algorithm itself was like an encryption key, even though it hadn’t been designed as such. The Congregate couldn’t have found out his key, could they?

“What are...” the Scarecrow’s voice, still rough and machine-accented, took on a disturbing silkiness, “...the Hortus quantus?”

The fear tickling his spine inched higher. If the Congregate war effort had captured some very old Union officers, under interrogation, some might have been able to speak of Nyanga and what the Union called the vegetable intelligences. But no one knew the name he’d given them except the Homo quantus and Iekanjika. The general was still in Bachwezi, so the only way the Congregate could have discovered his name for the aliens would be from Belisarius himself. On the displays, more data showed. Even with impaired cognitive functions, his brain could make something of the patterns, decrypting some of it to see that the data really was his.

“You think that the Hortus quantus have a different kind of intelligence,” the Scarecrow said. “Explain your perceptions of them through your quantum measurements.”

Belisarius’ heart beat harder. The Scarecrow was really reading his memories. When had she cracked an encryption that should have been unique to him? How could she have? Panic rose. Then, his laboriously constructed con man instincts kicked in.

He was the mark. He’d been conned.

The Scarecrow hadn’t cracked his encryption before entering. She’d probably had parts of it cracked, hints and guesses, but was looking for confirmation. They’d surgically cut Belisarius off from many of his senses and intellectual resources. They’d drugged him on and off for who knows how long. And they’d sent in Del Casal as a distraction. But that had been all artifice. He’d been the mark all along; his memories were the score in a vault. And with all the distraction and damage and drugs, he’d been just disoriented enough to no longer be able to hide his physical responses. The Scarecrow had examined the top level thoughts, the memories retrieved, and had used her questions and his physiological responses to break some of the algorithms that compressed his memories, maybe many.

Now the questions had stopped. And the only reason the Scarecrow would stop was because she had a working translation algorithm now, from compressed memory to legible information. It might be incomplete, but the more she read of his memories, the more inferences and translations she could establish from context. She no longer needed to question. She was reading the raw code of his memories as fast as she could process and pattern-recognize. Belisarius’ memory was vast, but it might not take her long to absorb everything. He’d seen and observed and calculated so much, including all the permanent wormholes of the Axis Mundi, including the possibilities of the time gates, including the location of the hidden Homo quantus.

然而，闪烁的信息不断出现在屏幕上，二进制数据墙、阵列和从他那里提取的数字化信息集。但奇怪的是，一些非物质的、快速的小图像浮现在他的脑海中，比如他和伊坎吉卡一起进入时空之门的情景，比如他被卡西和斯蒂尔斯告知他在尼扬加岛上时他们所面临的情况时的惊讶。屏幕上数据的特征似乎发生了变化。

“跟我说说联盟发现的时间旅行装置。"稻草人说。

尽管他竭尽全力去想别的东西，但透明的图像、微弱的紫光闪烁以及时空门内部嗡嗡作响的电磁感觉还是浮现在他眼前。他试图计算一些东西，任何东西，重新检查以前的计算，但这另一股半透明、幽灵般的记忆似乎在他的思想中划出了一条更深的道路。他们对他做了什么？他们重新连接了德尔-卡萨尔的神经系统，把他变成了一个仿真傀儡。他们还对贝利撒留斯做了手脚，切断了他的部分感官和数学能力。

“贝利撒留斯说："他们雇用我，是看中了我对傀儡的了解。“我对联盟的技术一无所知。”

显示屏上的数据发生了变化。他认出其中一些结构特征属于他头脑中的信息。这种形式他能理解，但其他人却无法理解。量子智人用来压缩记忆的加密方式有一些有据可查的基础算法，使得一些压缩的第一层成为标准。但随后的步骤都是个性化的。每个能进入赋格的量子智人都必须与量子客观性交替工作，找到一套压缩记忆的存储和检索算法。算法本身就像一把加密钥匙，尽管它并不是这样设计的。会聚者不可能发现他的密钥吧？

“什么是...... “稻草人的声音依然粗糙，带着机器的口音，但却带着一种令人不安的丝丝凉意，”......Hortus quantus？”

他脊背上的恐惧感越来越强烈。如果会战中抓获了一些非常年长的联盟军官，在审讯时，有些人可能会说起尼扬加和联盟所谓的蔬菜智能体。但除了智人和伊坎吉卡，没人知道他给他们起的名字。将军当时还在巴赫维齐，所以公会发现他给外星人起的名字的唯一途径就是贝利撒留斯本人。显示屏上显示了更多数据。即使在认知功能受损的情况下，他的大脑也能从这些模式中找出一些东西，解密出其中一些数据，发现这些数据真的是他的。

“稻草人说："你认为 Hortus quantus 拥有与众不同的智慧。“通过你的量子测量来解释你对他们的看法。”

贝利撒留斯的心跳得更厉害了。稻草人真的在读取他的记忆。她什么时候破解了本该是他独有的密码？她怎么可能破解？恐慌油然而生。然后，他费尽心机建立起来的骗子本能开始发挥作用。

他就是目标。他被骗了

稻草人在进入之前并没有破解他的密码。她可能已经破解了一部分，得到了一些暗示和猜测，但还在寻找确认。他们用手术切断了贝利撒瑞斯的感官和智力资源 他们断断续续地给他下药，不知持续了多久。他们还派德尔卡萨来分散他的注意力 但那都是假象 他一直都是目标，他的记忆就是保险库里的乐谱。在所有的干扰、伤害和药物的作用下，他已经迷失了方向，无法再隐藏自己的身体反应。稻草人检查了最高级别的思想，检索了记忆，并利用她的问题和他的生理反应破解了压缩他记忆的一些算法，也许是很多算法。

现在问题停止了。稻草人停止提问的唯一原因是，她现在有了一种有效的翻译算法，可以把压缩的记忆翻译成可读的信息。虽然可能还不完整，但她读到的他的记忆越多，她就能根据上下文做出更多的推断和翻译。她不再需要质疑。她正在以最快的速度读取他记忆中的原始代码，并进行模式识别。贝利撒留斯的记忆非常丰富，但她可能用不了多久就能全部吸收。他看过、观察过、计算过那么多东西，包括轴心蒙迪的所有永久虫洞，包括时空之门的可能性，包括隐藏的量子智人的位置。

 

Belisarius closed his eyes tight, retreating to a mental world where he’d so often sought elusive comfort, but he couldn’t feel the parts of him that ought to be there. The hiss and press of the magnetism and electrical currents present in almost any habitat was missing. Access to multi-channelled, multi-layered streams of thought, the almost audible babbling hum of other thoughts happening in the parts of his brain he hadn’t recruited to complex tasks, was absent too. And over the last months, the hot presence of something else in his mind, the quantum intellect taking up residence in part of the interior world Belisarius called self; he was numb to it as well. Del Casal had damaged him inside. He needed to stop the Scarecrow from reading any more. He needed to stop her from finding out where the Homo quantus were hiding. He needed to stop her from learning why he’d come here. But he had no tools. They’d stripped his interior world. He reached helplessly within the space of his thoughts.

Help, he thought, as hard as he could. Help. They’re going to take all the data, not just from me, but from all the Homo quantus. There will be no more exploring. No more research. No more learning.

There was not even an echo. He was alone in his mind. The quantum intellect, which in other Homo quantus could only exist when the conscious self was extinguished, co-existed in him, in some partitioned portion of his brain. But by definition it could have no sense of self, could not feel the need for self-preservation as more than an algorithm to be measured against others.

They’ve broken me, Belisarius thought urgently, as more and more raw data from his memories scrawled through the displays, soaking into the armed and armored Scarecrow AI. Only you can save all the data here in me and the knowledge of where the Homo quantus are hiding. They’re studying worm holes. The time gates. Hyperspace. They’re going to flee across the galaxy and be safe and will continue learning if you help now.

Belisarius didn’t know if the quantum intellect could hear his thoughts, or if Del Casal’s surgeries had permanently sundered portions of his brain, but he thought please...

And then, Belisarius the conscious, self-aware being ceased to exist.

Something changed in the room. Del Casal, her Puppet, continued working frenetically. The display screens seemed to change subtly, even though it was all ones and zeroes to Bareilles. The Scarecrow stilled. Glimmers of blue and green shone eerily from unseen sources beneath the edge of the metal mesh sleeve the Scarecrow had open. The Scarecrow stepped closer to the bed.

“What is it?” Bareilles asked.

The Scarecrow leaned over the limp Homo quantus. Bareilles accessed Arjona’s vitals and asked for an analysis from the AI she carried in her service band. The initial analysis projected onto her retina, holographic text and graphs transparent before the patient. Arjona had entered a vegetative state. Higher neurological functions had stopped. He’d been here. Just moments ago. The next set of analyses appeared before she could react. The fugue. His neural activity matched the patterns in the Homo quantus records. The quantum fugue.

“Did you trigger this?” Bareilles said.

Still the Scarecrow didn’t reply. She just loomed over Arjona.

Bareilles looked at the display data on all the screens and demanded a quick statistical analysis from the more powerful AIs wired into the medical bay. Their answer was quick: white noise. The data emerging from Arjona was now white noise. It hadn’t been just seconds before.

She asked the AIs to recheck the previous data streams and the current ones. They concluded the same thing: until forty-five seconds ago, the data stream from Arjona’s recall had been decryptable with what the AIs estimated to be a climbing eighty-five percent accuracy rate. They’d retrieved about ten percent of all the data stored in the Homo quantus’ brain. After that, it had become a randomization so complete that the AIs could find no structure in it at all.

“Del Casal!” she said, startling him. “Get over here.” Bareilles transmitted the findings to the hurrying doctor. She grabbed him by the hair at the back of his head. “How did he get into the fugue? You turned him off.”

“I did,” he pleaded, gasping at her nearness.

“He’s not off,” she said.

“He shouldn’t... He shouldn’t be able,” the doctor said, closing his eyes to not look at her. “I grafted wiring that will inhibit the neural channels from his conscious mind to every relevant part of his new senses and thinking and the centers that activate the fugue. Unless he had... other routes none of the other Homo quantus knew about, he... shouldn’t be able to.”

贝利撒留斯紧闭双眼，退回到精神世界，他经常在那里寻求难以捉摸的慰藉，但他感觉不到本应存在的部分。几乎所有栖息地都存在的磁性和电流的嘶嘶声和压迫感不见了。他也无法获得多通道、多层次的思想流，也无法听到他大脑中未被用于执行复杂任务的部分所发生的其他思想的嗡嗡声。在过去的几个月里，他的头脑中出现了另一种炙热的东西，量子智慧占据了贝利撒留斯称之为自我的内部世界的一部分；他对此也麻木了。德尔-卡萨尔已经伤害了他的内心。他需要阻止稻草人再读下去。他要阻止她发现量子智人的藏身之处。他需要阻止她知道他为什么来这里 但他没有工具 他们剥夺了他的内部世界 他无助地伸手去触摸自己的思想空间。

救命，他拼命地想。救命啊 他们会拿走所有的数据 不仅仅是我的，还有所有量子智人的 再也没有探索 不再有研究 不再学习

连回声都没有了 他的脑海里只有他自己。量子智力，在其他量子智人身上，只有在意识自我消失时才能存在，在他身上，在他大脑的某个分割部分，与他共存。但顾名思义，它不可能有自我意识，不可能感觉到自我保护的必要性，而只是一种可以与他人进行比较的算法。

贝利撒留斯急切地想，他们已经把我搞垮了，越来越多的原始数据从他的记忆中潦草地通过显示屏，浸透到全副武装的稻草人人工智能中。只有你能拯救我体内的所有数据，并知道智人的藏身之处。他们在研究虫洞 时空门 超空间 如果你现在伸出援手，他们就会安全逃离银河系，并继续学习。

贝利撒留斯不知道量子智人是否能听到他的想法，也不知道德尔卡萨尔的手术是否永久地割裂了他的部分大脑，但他认为请......

然后，贝利撒瑞斯这个有意识、有自我意识的人不复存在了。

房间里发生了一些变化。她的傀儡德尔-卡萨尔继续疯狂地工作着。显示屏似乎发生了微妙的变化，尽管对巴瑞莉斯来说都是 1 和 0。稻草人静止了。在稻草人打开的金属网套边缘下，蓝色和绿色的微光从看不见的地方闪烁着。稻草人走近床边。

“这是什么？巴瑞勒斯问道。

稻草人俯身在瘫软的智人身上。巴瑞莉斯调取了阿尔琼娜的生命体征，并要求她随身携带的人工智能进行分析。初步分析结果投射到她的视网膜上，全息文字和图表在病人面前清晰可见。阿尔琼娜已进入植物人状态。高级神经功能已经停止。他一直在这里。就在刚才 在她做出反应之前，下一组分析出现了。赋格 他的神经活动与量子智人记录中的模式一致 量子赋格

“这是你触发的吗？” 巴瑞勒斯说。

稻草人还是没有回答。她只是默默地注视着阿尔琼娜。

巴里勒看了看所有屏幕上的显示数据，要求连接到医疗舱的更强大的人工智能进行快速统计分析。它们的回答很快：白噪声。从阿尔霍纳传出的数据现在成了白噪声。几秒钟前还不是这样。

她要求人工智能重新检查之前的数据流和现在的数据流。它们得出了相同的结论：直到四十五秒之前，来自阿尔霍纳的数据流一直是可解密的，人工智能估计准确率攀升至百分之八十五。他们检索到了智人大脑中存储的所有数据的百分之十左右。在此之后，它就变成了一种随机化，人工智能根本找不到任何结构。

“德尔-卡萨尔！"她说，吓了他一跳。“快过来！” 巴雷莱斯把研究结果传给了匆忙赶来的医生。她抓住他后脑勺的头发。“他是怎么进入迷幻状态的？你把他关起来了。”

“我关了。"他恳求道，因为她的靠近而喘不过气来。

“他没有关机。"她说。

“他不应该...... 他不应该能。"医生说着，闭上眼睛不去看她。“我嫁接了一些线路，这些线路会抑制从他的意识到他的新感官和思维的每一个相关部分的神经通道，以及激活赋格的中枢。除非他有......其他智人都不知道的途径，否则他......应该无法做到。”

The Scarecrow still focused on the slack-faced Arjona.

“Do you want the doctor to try to shut Arjona’s fugue down?” Bareilles asked.

“Yes,” the Scarecrow’s sepulchral voice said. “I think he’s re-encrypting everything. Stop him.”

“Hurry,” Bareilles said, shoving the doctor. He activated a series of control panels that accessed the chips and electrical signalling patches in Arjona’s brain. A neural map bloomed up. Some parts darkened with just basal activities. Others were brightly busy. Bareilles’ AIs translated some of the anatomy, but not nearly enough for her to follow the blow-by-blow.

“I don’t know if he’s destroying information or hiding it,” the Scarecrow said.

“Shut off the fugue,” Bareilles said. “It should be easy. The notes say most of them can barely achieve it.”

Del Casal activated different chips anxiously. None of them seemed to be located near the active neural centers in Arjona’s brain.

“It’s not working,” Del Casal said in Anglo-Spanish. “The parts that are supposed to tell the fugue to turn on and off aren’t activated in Arjona. Something else is making this happen.”

“Turn it off,” the Scarecrow said in a cold, gravelly tone.

“I-- I’m...” Del Casal began helplessly.

Bareilles went around the bed with brisk steps, picked up a pair of defibrillator paddles, set them against Arjona’s scalp and pressed the buttons. The Homo quantus convulsed. Del Casal, who hadn’t paid attention, spasmed with a choking sound as he fell. The data on the displays abruptly paused. The neural displays rebooted quickly. The patterns had changed. Bareilles didn’t know all the details of Homo quantus neurology, but quantum systems were very fragile. The shock would have destroyed the fugue state for now. The Scarecrow made no sign that the charge had bothered her at all; her fingers, wrapped in too-large gloves of metal mesh, lifted one of Arjona’s eyelids.

“I recovered something of my last question,” the Scarecrow said, “the location of the Homo quantus, before his attempt to either destroy or re-encrypt the memories stored in his mind.”

稻草人仍然盯着满脸倦容的阿尔霍纳。

“你想让医生尝试关闭阿尔霍纳的迷魂阵吗？” 巴雷莱斯问道。

“是的。"稻草人幽幽地说。“我认为他在重新加密一切。阻止他。”

“快点，"巴里尔斯推了医生一把。他启动了一系列控制面板，进入阿霍纳大脑中的芯片和电子信号补丁。一张神经地图浮现出来。有些部分变暗，只有基本活动。而另一些区域则十分繁忙。巴雷尔斯的人工智能翻译了一些解剖结构，但还不足以让她逐一了解。

“我不知道他是在销毁信息还是在隐藏信息，"稻草人说。

“关掉赋格曲，"巴雷莱斯说。“应该很容易。笔记上说他们中的大多数人几乎都做不到。”

德尔卡萨尔焦急地启动了不同的芯片。它们似乎都不在阿尔霍纳大脑中活跃的神经中枢附近。

“这不起作用，"德尔-卡萨尔用西班牙语说。“在阿尔霍纳的大脑中，本应告诉赋格开启和关闭的部分并没有被激活。是其他东西在作怪。”

“关掉它。"稻草人用冰冷而沙哑的语调说。

“我--我......” 德尔-卡萨尔无助地开口。

巴雷莱斯迈着轻快的步子绕过床边，拿起一对除颤器，放在阿尔霍纳的头皮上，按下按钮。智人开始抽搐。德尔-卡萨尔没有注意，他痉挛着倒下时发出了哽咽声。显示屏上的数据突然暂停。神经显示屏迅速重启。模式发生了变化。巴瑞尔斯并不了解量子智人神经学的所有细节，但量子系统非常脆弱。冲击会暂时破坏迷幻状态。稻草人没有任何迹象表明电荷对她造成了任何困扰；她的手指裹在过大的金属网手套里，抬起了阿尔琼娜的一只眼皮。

“我恢复了最后一个问题的一些内容，“稻草人说，”在智人试图摧毁或重新加密存储在他脑海中的记忆之前，我找到了智人的位置。”