Chapter 48: Unbearable restlessness
Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations
Editor: Karai
Katherine looked at Heinrich’s cold face, and instantly came up with a bitter drama of a strong A and a weak B, a seven-year itch, and a forced take and run with the ball. Her lips moved, but in the end, because of Heinrich’s identity, just gritted her teeth and said, “Marshal, you’re really good.”
Heinrich, who was inexplicably puzzled by Katherine’s sarcasm, frowned at her furious back and asked, “What was she saying?”
Lin Xu was equally puzzled and answered truthfully, “She said… I’m too skinny, so I should get some nutrition?”
Heinrich smiled and looked at Lin Xu seriously. Lin Xu had lost a lot of weight in the past few days, and was wearing the Heinrich size combat uniform that Zhou Pingbo had brought, which looked empty at the moment. With just a touch you can press away the empty air, holding Lin Xu’s slender arms and shoulders. It was hard to gain a little weight before…
“Yes, you have lost weight, you need to eat more.” Heinrich said matter-of-factly, without moving a muscle.
“I’ll try.”
“What did the doctor say?” Heinrich glanced at the medicine in Lin Xu’s hand, the red and blue symbols on the bottle he hadn’t seen before, but he could recognize a few names. They were mainly anti-radiation confusion, promoting the body’s repair and stabilizing the body’s condition.
“It’s not a big problem, it’ll be fine in a few days.” He said and tucked the small bottle into his coat pocket.
“Yeah.” Heinrich responded. The two men stood in silence, as if something was surging between them and as if nothing was there, the white artificial light inside the fortress stiff and cold, making the brim of the military cap cast a shadow on Heinrich’s face.
He wrapped himself meticulously in his uniform, his back straight, cold, ascetic, and majestic. It was as if he was in chains, separated by the rules of civilized etiquette, a deep obsession that was a taboo that stung, bound by rigor, surging, but not knowing how to transgress. In the endless desert and the cold moon with no one watching, the shackles seemed to loosen, but back in the steel fortress, it seemed to slowly become solid again, waiting to be broken next time.
Arnold stood at the corner of the corridor, making room for Marshal and Mr. Lin. The slight scent of pheromone that had leaked from Heinrich’s return from the sand planet made him keenly aware that perhaps something had happened to the two on that planet.
He thoughtfully stood at a distance, leaving Heinrich alone to meet Lin Xu. The two stood in place and talked for a few moments, Arnold only heard muffled phrases, and when the two came toward the corner, he finally heard them.
“The Zerg source is cut off, the remaining Zerg won’t last long with the cooperation of the Abyss Fleet, Golden Cross Defense Force and Elam Fleet. Golden Cross Defense Force has never seen Zerg, Imperial wants to destroy all Zerg that appear here so that they don’t flourish.
“The Abyss Fleet will stay for a while.”
Arnold was about to faint, Marshal, creating opportunities for you, and you used it to talk to Lin about the war? But as Heinrich and Lin Xu approached him, Arnold stood upright and saluted Heinrich with a solemn expression, not looking at all like he was grumbling at Heinrich. Heinrich nodded and Arnold stepped back to follow him, allowing Lin Xu and Heinrich to walk side by side.
“I sent a small team back to the Crescent District to interface with Imperial on the subsequent disposition of the black hole, and Imperial sent a task force to investigate Garier and the others. I’m going to give them the recording of your conversation with Garier after it’s been blurred as evidence, is that okay?”
“Hmm.” Lin Xu nodded.
Heinrich asked, “Garier is almost conscious again, do you want to go see him?”
“No.” Lin Xu replied that he didn’t need to do it himself since there were professionals in charge, “Marshal, I’m going back to the Victoria, can you keep me informed of the real-time progress of the case every day?”
“Okay.”
The duo walked right up to a fork in the road, the directional marker on the wall was flashing green, Lin Xu was about to turn the corner and leave the fortress when Heinrich suddenly called out to him, “Lin Xu.”
“Hmm?” Lin Xu stopped and looked at Heinrich.
“You can just call me Heinrich.”
Lin Xu’s gaze fixed on Heinrich’s still cold face and smiled gently, “Okay, Heinrich, remember to contact me every day.”
Arnold was not far from listening to the conversation between the two, hissing in his heart for the enlightened Heinrich, Marshal, rush!
But Heinrich just watched Lin Xu’s back fade away, hidden in the light of the fortress searchlights, without saying anything. When Lin Xu’s back completely disappeared, he turned around and prepared to continue his work, his eyes glancing at Arnold. Arnold immediately suppressed his eyebrows and the corners of his mouth, indicating that he was the upright and serious Marshal’s deputy.
—
The passengers from Haven on the Nature’s Evolution were all temporarily quarantined inside the fortress for individual review. The soldiers on duty knew Ika, so they didn’t stop him when he entered Godric’s room, but simply said, “Please, be safe.”
In the room, Godric was reading a paperback book, and when he saw Ika, he smiled and asked him to sit down, relaxed and seemingly not bothered by his house arrest. But Ika’s remark caused his face to change dramatically.
“Dr. Lin saw the black hole that released Zerg.”
“Then he’s now…”
“Still here, not gone.”
Godric put the book down and rubbed his face hard. The last time the Crown had left without saying goodbye was because the Exiled Alliance had split over the humans who had fled Earth due to dissatisfaction with the Ark Fleet hierarchy, and He was perhaps frustrated with the morality of humanity, or perhaps disgusted with the Ark Fleet’s ambition to try to manipulate Him.
The Whispering Church, where Godric and Ika were, was extremely surprised to find Lin Xu, and they could not understand why the Crown had returned, or why the Crown had chosen to return in this parasitic human way. And forget everything.
“I found this at the black hole relics.” Ika pulled up a three-dimensional projection of a scorched black object whose shape was only barely discernible, but Godric knew at a glance that it was a black hole generator created under the Crown’s technical guidance.
“I thought we were the only ones in the Whispering Church with this technology?!” Ika spat out a questioning tone for the first time.
Godric sighed, “That’s not true, there are always some people who remember what happened five hundred years ago.”
“The attackers came from Haven,” Ika said, still not convinced.
Godric looked at him and confessed, “It’s the Rememberers. They were… A group of eccentric people who fled to Haven for refuge when they were extremely resistant when the Imperial tampered with history. But the Imperial’s political tactics worked in the end, and it only took a few decades for people to forget everything. The Rememberers have not continued their explicit activities since then, an organization that passes on history and memory but never reveals it to the outside world. I originally just thought they were self-indulgent and out of touch, but I didn’t expect them to be able to create so much chaos.”
“Why?” Ika didn’t understand, “Why did they have the Zerg besiege the Abyss Fleet?”
“The Rememberers remember, but do not intend to remind the already-forgotten humanity of Imperial’s bloody groundbreaking and deception, to stir up humanity’s re-established prosperous greatness. They are radical conservatives who think that destroying the Abyss Fleet will deter humanity from exploring the home planet.”
…
Ika walked out of Godric’s room with heavy feet. When he first joined the Whispering Church, everything was still peaceful. The vast, beautiful white church was filled with scientists coming and going from the coronation of faith, talking freely about science and truth.
“Almighty God, guide me to the path of truth.”
The metaphor left by the Crown ignited their passion, assuring them that the science of the future could solve all the problems that cannot be solved now* and that He confirmed the ultimate truth. But with the discovery of the ancient Earth, a latent crisis surfaced.
“What are you doing here?” A barbed question awakened a dazed Ika. Ika looked up and made a meaningful sound, “Ah… Fixing the robot.”
He had come to see Godric without reporting. Ika patted the cleaning robot that slid by his feet, the robot was held down by him, zi’er woosh, the red light at the eyes flashed very poorly.
General Kalt looked at the little omega’s confused appearance and thought of his addled son, and was furious. He gave the officers behind him a look to back off, and then said to Ika, “I want you to leave my son alone.”
Ika looked at him for a moment, thinking that he didn’t know him, and then, just as General Kalt was about to lose his cool, Ika realized, “Oh, you mean Ryan.”
“That’s right.”
“No.” Ika replied. He had to use Ryan to meet Dr. Lin, and there was no way he was going to stay away from Ryan.
—
Busy times always fly by. Ika, on Godric’s advice, hinted to the task force to check out Memo Labs, and sure enough, he matched the black hole generator and the genetic targeting technology with Memo Labs.
Memo Labs was the sponsor of the Rememberers, who had been anonymous for a long time and had no intention of doing any extreme assassinations before that, so they didn’t hide their funding information at all.
Haven was not subject to Imperial law, and the Empire had no right to interfere with the internal affairs of Haven. However, the team sent back by the Abyss Fleet submitted the relevant incriminating evidence to the Haven Science and Technology Ethics Review Board, that all freedom on Haven, but freedom must not exceed the moral bottom line of human beings. The behavior of the Rememberers to lure the Zerg to attack humans would never be accepted by Haven.
The review board decided to expel the people involved in the Memo lab from Haven to be tried by Imperial law. The men pleaded guilty but refused to state their motives, but with evidence of a crime that seriously endangered Imperial security, the Imperial Supreme Court deemed it less important to state motives. The Imperial Supreme Court then convicted the men involved of treason and immediately exiled them to the far galaxy. The Memo Lab personnel on board the Natural Selection were also transferred back to Capital Star for trial.
The Zerg riots had largely subsided, and Heinrich spent most of his time at the Fortress working on the follow-up to the case, while speaking with Lin Xu daily to inform him of the progress. After business, he would ask Lin Xu how he was recovering.
He didn’t hang up, but sat down to work on his papers to the sound of Lin Xu and the rabbit-cat breathing around him, and when Lin Xu woke up, he told him to go eat.
Xu Xing, who was in charge of Lin Xu’s upkeep, reported that Lin Xu did not like to drink nutritional supplements lately, and Heinrich had Ninth Canteen deliver daily cooking food, but Lin Xu’s appetite did not seem to be very high either.
Today, Heinrich returned to the Victoria and asked Ninth Canteen to prepare a few dishes that Lin Xu could barely eat in the past few days and invited Lin Xu to the dining room for dinner. This was Arnold’s suggestion.
At the same table as last time, the floor-to-ceiling windows reflected the reopened airfield of the Silver Fortress, and the engines of the incoming and outgoing ships were like bright shooting stars.
When Lin Xu arrived, Heinrich was looking at the logistical reserve supply report, the Abyss Fleet had lost a lot of money in the Zerg war and needed some repair and replenishment at the fortress. When he saw Lin Xu sitting down with Blackie in his arms, Heinrich put down the terminal.
It was Arnold’s suggestion, and he was bitter, “Marshal, you and Mr. Lin see each other once in a while, and if every time you talk about work, what’s the difference between that and two political robots?”
The table was full of dishes, but Lin Xu had been losing his appetite lately, he just wanted to come and see Heinrich. Lin Xu’s eyes scraped over Heinrich’s brow bones, his thin, dry lips, his tightly buttoned uniform collar, his bony fingers after taking off his white gloves…
An unbearable stirring made Lin Xu tense his back and thighs. He looked at Heinrich, but his hands kept stroking Blackie’s fur, sometimes pulling his ears, and Blackie, who had recently been vigorously mauled by Lin Xu, cowered on Lin Xu’s lap in anger.
“Lin Xu?” Heinrich looked at Lin Xu’s dazed and red eyes and felt that he was not in the right state. Lin Xu bit his lip. He had always thought the restlessness was his desire to see Heinrich in person, but seeing him in person made him feel even worse, his body tightening up in bursts.
What the author has to say.
*The Hempel dilemma is inspired by the simple description of a problem that cannot be solved by physics in the present, and someone says it will be solved in the future. Is it reasonable to say that the problem cannot be solved by known present physics, and that future physics is unknowable, and there is no way to know whether future physics will be able to solve the problem. A more complex and detailed discussion involves questions about physicalism, which you can search for if you are interested.
—
Professor Lin, why is it difficult? Because the mouth rises during pregnancy.
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