Chapter 14 Forward and Back
“Leave this palace. This city, this kingdom.” Morse added a joke at the end of his words, “But not leaving this planet.”
< br>Peturabo forced himself to calm down: "Are you threatening me?"
"What are you threatening with my departure? Can this actually pose a threat to you?"
>"This can't be done!"
"Then how did I coerce you? Am I going to harm your body or soul? Am I going to take something from you that you can't give? Or do you have other reasons?"
Morse knowingly distorted Perturabo's true meaning. All the boy's reactions were within the scope of his inference.
Perturabo looked away, not so much in anger as in anger. He said he was in a daze.
He is not stupid. In fact, thanks to his genius creator, Perturabo understands and analyzes things faster than nearly all life in the entire human race.
The only thing that held him back was the particularly naive part of his character.
"Morse, you are trying to hurt me. You are clearly not going to leave. You have brought your stone carvings, your tools, and you are about to stay in Lokos."
He said, with pain After swallowing the second half of the sentence, he asked Morse what kind of result he was waiting for.
"Come here, Perturabo." Morse spoke, no longer with his usual carelessness, but with a strange solemnity and solemnity. This did not make him appear unapproachable, but Extraordinarily increasing his gentleness.
Perturabo's feet were stuck to the ground, but then this inseparable state was released. He opened his legs with determination and compromise that could not be simulated by the most exquisite machine.
Very good. Morse thought to himself. Then I will stay.
He saw a smiling man reflected in Perturabo's eyes.
"I'm hurting you. I'm looking for all the holes in your mind, and you and I know it."
Morse stopped what he was doing, placed his right hand, palm up, flat on his Perturabo is within reach. The boy placed his hand on it, as if possessed, and Morse knew he was not using any supernatural means—and that was what fascinated him.
“But it’s not this time, not completely. I do have plans to leave Lokos. You should be able to see that everything Lokos can give me is of no value to me, even if Damex It would give me no joy to go into the room and kneel down now to say that he would give way to a more worthy man.”
Perturabo left for ten seconds, dragged his chair over, and passed. The height of reciprocity to find something equal.
The boy sat face to face with him, his back still straight. Morse waited for him for a moment, then continued his narrative.
Morse spoke frankly: "I am a person of extraordinary talent, but my wisdom and knowledge do not exceed the best era of mankind. However, amidst the retreating waves of the times, I just stand where I am, You should be able to understand that when you stand higher than everyone else, and much higher. Other people's retention and expectations are no longer just recognition and trust for you, but more of a responsibility and even a drag."
"If you want to shed tears for them, you must start from your mountain. The peak goes down. There is no shortage of tragic examples in the endless history of mankind."
Some harsh and vain words floated from his lips, Perturabo's eyes flashed slightly, Moir. Si knew the boy had listened and was thinking.
This is good, even if Perturabo is temporarily willing to listen to him, it is only because he, Morse, is stronger, more perfect, and more mysterious, creating an illusion in Perturabo's mind that submitting to him is not unacceptable. .
One day the supreme creator of Perturabo comes, Morse is sure that he will immediately become the only person to serve Perturabo wholeheartedly. The boys of today and the men of the future will quickly put this A "shameful" past is forgotten or even erased with a vengeance.
But he is listening now.
Morse needed nothing more.
"Are you one of the Exemplars?" asked Perturabo. "Never. I have always been unknown, unknown, just a pawn, always insignificant."
The example he gave is actually a reflection on another person, and this need not be mentioned. He was no longer relevant to him, and Perturabo had nothing to do with him after all - Morse told himself.
Perturabo fell silent, confused. Then he shook his head and threw the distracting thoughts out of his mind.
"Is it my changes that make you stay?" His voice was lowered, and the change in his voice made him look a bit like an adult.
“You asked me to confess frankly, save time, and put everything into words, and now you are the one who is creating a lot of confusion in my words.”
Saying these words made him uneasy. Perturabo realized that he was stepping into a brand new field. Mors forced him to reflect on himself again and again, using his cold power to force him to go back to the depths of his soul. To examine everything in the outside world and the shell of his own thinking, he finally saw a flaw, a clue.
He felt that something was wrong, something that could be known without knowledge - it seemed to be part of common sense. After escaping from the blindness of knowledge and identity, it still served as the basis of human rationality like a priori knowledge. part of it that he had turned a blind eye to for too long.
He glanced out the window and saw that the vortex of stars had disappeared without a trace.
It was only now that he discovered that the source of his fear had disappeared from the beginning, and that Morse had helped him so profoundly - only now did he dare to admit how afraid he had been of the starry sky. eyes.
"You are the first person I have met since I can remember." Perturabo didn't know what he was talking about. He was just expressing some words and some moods. He almost felt that he was speaking like this. Weird and unreasonable.
He looked straight at Morse, staring into his calm and cold appearance, like looking into a steel mirror. He spoke to him and to himself at the same time.
Morse waited for him tolerantly.
He felt nervous and afraid, and then all the emotional membranes were dug out of the leaky holes. A gurgling and clean stuff surged out from the source of his soul, filling the holes and washing away the panic. He looked for the right one. Vocabulary, I think it might be defined as peace of mind.
“From the beginning you talked to me about fairness and trade. All getting and giving must be put on the table. I pushed out the chips, you took the goods and put a price on everything. We put the price on It's as if you can't understand me and I can't understand you."
"But the truth is far from that. At least you can manipulate my psychology skillfully. This is not normal. Things, you and I both know that humans cannot survive forever by just trading.”
"What do you want from me? Morse, your attitude sometimes makes me confused by your tolerance, and sometimes I think you hate me."
Perturabo admitted that he could not He didn't admit everything, these words were full of barbs, and every word made his throat and mouth sore as if bleeding. However, facing a steel mirror that was always cold, his pain was easily frozen and smoothed away. .
He did not imagine that if another person were here, he would be able to speak like this. Damex? Miltiades? Unknown courtiers and priests?
He did not make any assumptions, because the fact was that the person here was named Morse.
Under his gaze, he could not see even the slightest wavering. Morse was as unfathomable as he was every moment, or even more elusive. And he has confessed so much. Perturabo gritted his teeth and asked: "Do you hate me?"
Morse lowered his eyes. "Remember what I said before?"
Then he put on a smile. "'Your Creator has not finished his work. Perturabo, you are not a qualified tool. And what should a qualified craftsman do with steel that has failed to be forged? I choose to melt it back into molten iron, quench, beat, and cool '"
"Of course I don't hate you, I'm just taking over the work of your creator. I can't bear that a piece of excellent material becomes dust, Perturabo, I'm just reforging you. . I decided to stay for this reason. I saw that my stay could shape you better."
"So I am a tool." "So you and I talk about deals. So you and I never get close."
Morse smiled slightly. "Are you ready to establish a closer relationship?" He shook his head, "At least I'm not yet."
(End of this chapter)