Gene of Brilliant City 13 Division

Chapter 629 Prologue. Chapter Zero. Tinder XV
2085. 9, 13

"Dolly!"

The sky is a little yellow, the wind and sand are heavy, the afterglow of the setting sun reflects the land full of yellow sand in front of me, the criss-crossing mountains are already undulating, the whole land seems to have been scorched, a little boy in a thin space suit The girl sat on the edge of a cliff, quietly watching the sunset in the distance.

Beside her is an intelligent guidance robot with tracks. The little girl looks to be in her early 20s. She rests her hand on her chin. She looks serious, but there is bitterness between her brows.

"Dolly, you should have a good talk with your parents."

The tank-like robot next to it is dark gray, with a square protruding head on the surface of Changxing's mobile body. Dolly ignored the robot's greetings. Tomorrow is her 20th birthday. She misses the days on Earth Yes, it has been 9 years since I came here.

Here is Mars, there is nothing, only boring study and work every day, Dolly can't take it anymore, she really wants to go back to your water-blue planet in her memory, when she was 10 years old, Dolly was so excited Joined the Pioneer Program with my parents.

It was a plan that humans planned to start a long time ago, but because of the instability of the world situation, it was not started until the beginning of 2076. Dolly and her parents who are researchers took the spaceship 3094 together, It took more than a year to reach Mars.

A total of 10 people came to this plan, and a total of 100 spaceships carrying various materials and processing and production machinery were launched towards Mars. However, only 79 spaceships arrived on Mars in the end, and 21 of the 15 spaceships were on Mars. During the voyage, a space float collision accident occurred. When 6 ships arrived, they had problems and crashed during landing.

The past nine years have been extremely difficult. For Dolly, on the one hand, she needs to learn all kinds of knowledge, and on the other hand, she needs to do almost the same work every day. The most important job is to take care of the crop fields.

The main food here is potatoes, corn and wheat flour. At first, Dolly felt fresh about everything, but now, Dolly is tired of everything. Like Dolly, there are many people who are the same .

But now there is good news that the Pioneer 3 base has found oil, indicating that they may be able to rely on oil extraction to obtain enough fuel and return to Earth.

It’s just that such an idea is very difficult. The mining of many metal deposits is extremely difficult and requires a very long mining and excavation process. In many cases, it can only rely on manpower. Dolly doesn’t want to dig anymore. Such days are really tormented. This is true for most of the human beings who came here looking forward to building a better life.

I don’t know when, longing for a better life on Mars turned into resentment. Dolly is one of them. She misses the taste of fried chicken burgers, the taste of soda, and the ability to go to the cinema with her parents to watch movies. .

Everything about nine years ago kept coming to mind. At that time, Dolly was extremely excited when she heard that her parents had been selected. The students in the school even held a special farewell party for Dolly. After more than a year During the journey, besides chess and card games, entertainment activities for people on the spaceship include some computer games, small playgrounds and so on.

The journey is not boring, because everyone is looking forward to building a beautiful human homeland after arriving on Mars.

When we arrived at the beginning, everyone was happy and worked hard every day, making serious detection and detection. But in the third year of this kind of life, Dolly felt extremely tired. She left today It was a little farther away, and it was already far away from what they called the No. 9 Pioneer Base, more than ten kilometers away.

In the past nine years, Dolly has been on the spaceship for almost most of the time, and everything she did during the voyage is similar. Now there are 1031 people in their spaceship, and some farmland has also been established outside. There is no need for food for the time being. Worry.

The only thing to worry about is the sandstorm, which is a very annoying thing. Every time a sandstorm strikes, some facilities will always be destroyed, and the extracts for repairing the facilities need to be refined and manufactured at a mine station more than 30 kilometers away, and finally Then transport it back to Pioneer Base No. 9.

Dolly glanced at the time, and it was almost 7 o'clock, but the sun would not set until after 8 o'clock, because a day on Mars is nearly an hour longer than that on Earth.

There was a severe sandstorm a few days ago, and Dolly was asked by her parents to go to the ore mining station with other peers to get repair materials. Dolly was not in a good mood today, and had conflicts with some partners. When her parents came to persuade her, Dolly quarreled with her parents again. She also said that she wanted to go back to Earth and didn’t want to stay on Mars anymore. The moment she said this, most people were silent.

Dolly's words seemed to express the feelings of most people, but it is obviously impossible now. Every spaceship has a machine for producing high-energy fuel, but it is not easy to find the raw materials to produce this high-energy fuel. , where oil is a must.

Most of the pioneer bases can only communicate with signal-emitting robots driven by electric energy. On this nearly 100 square kilometers of solid rock land, there are 79 pioneer bases built around spaceships.

"Dolly, let's go back. I observed that there may be a small-scale sandstorm near here. It's better to go back."

The guiding robot next to her urged eagerly, and Dolly laughed disapprovingly, then shook her head.

"I'm not going back."

Dolly is still full of anger now, her parents taught her a lesson in front of many people, her parents are one of the managers of this base, so the daily ration of food and all aspects of ration are extremely strict , Dolly can't stand this kind of life anymore.

"I'm not a robot."

Dolly glanced at the guiding robot next to her. She sighed, and then Dolly raised her arm. The crystal screen above showed the remaining amount of oxygen, as well as the temperature inside the spacesuit, including the temperature outside, and the wind speed, etc.

Dolly once heard from a doctor who taught her that according to the current progress, it is impossible for them to return to Earth in this lifetime, and the gap between ideal and reality is too great.

What worries everyone the most is that the space station that communicates with the earth has sent back a message that it has lost contact with the earth nine years ago.

This is a point of panic for many people. Some people feel that they have been abandoned. As the first batch of pioneers to land on Mars, once an environment conducive to the stable survival of human beings can be established, the second and third batches will follow one after another. come over.

Because there are countless resources on Mars, and the output has been drawn in the past few decades of Mars surface exploration, a general conclusion has been drawn. Humans only need to build their own living bases, and then rely on science and technology to change the atmosphere of Mars. Meet the standards of the earth, and then Mars may become the second earth.

Dolly has no longer believed in such a beautiful idea over the years, and perhaps she may see it when she dies of old age.

Dididi

It was detected that the wind had begun to strengthen, and the nearby No. 8 monitoring station sent an early warning.

As soon as Dolly heard the voice of the guiding robot, she immediately stood up, turned around and ran wildly. The sandstorm is not a joke. Once it is blown away, it is impossible to survive.

The guiding robot kept making sounds, guiding Dolly to run on this dry and hard land, and gradually Dolly saw the No. 9 Pioneer Base in the distance.

An oval-shaped metal spaceship is surrounded by many translucent glass covers. Those are the crop fields outside the spaceship, and some are experimental fields. The sunlight here is very abundant.

The reason why I chose this area where there will always be sandstorms is because there is a huge lake nearby, and the water reserves are enough for everyone to live. Without the water, everyone will not be able to survive, so I can only endure the scorching sun The scorching of the sun and the invasion of wind and sand made it impossible to leave this wasteland, which was the reason why many people became more and more unbearable.

Once a sandstorm hits, you need to be vigilant at all times. The high-speed metal objects in the wind can easily penetrate the outer shell of the crop field, and the hull is often damaged.

Dolly is running softly, and it is not too strenuous to run here, because the gravity on Mars is much smaller than that on Earth, and she only needs to run lightly to move quickly, so Dolly can come to the place more than ten kilometers away from the base. place.

Dididi

The siren sounded suddenly, and Dolly quickened her pace. She was stunned as soon as she looked back, because there was already a large gray area behind her, and she was approaching at a high speed.

"According to the current speed calculation, it is impossible to escape the sandstorm, look for a bunker!"

Dolly felt a chill in her heart. She looked around, and a chill rose up her back. Once she encountered a sandstorm outside, she might die.

"198 meters to the northeast, there is a bunker, please go to the bunker, there are 108 seconds left before the sandstorm arrives!"

Dolly ran over quickly, and soon saw a large raised rock. She quickly ran to the north of the rock, and then squatted on the ground close to the rock, and the guiding robot followed.

There was a rumbling sound, and Dolly felt fear for a moment, and there was only wind and sand around her in an instant, and she couldn't see anything. She closed her eyes and felt that the situation was very bad. Such sandstorms are Dolly's daily life. It takes two days and two days to go through.

At present, the people in the Pioneer Base can't find any good way. The inability to leave the water source is a big problem.

Every week, I go to the lake in the center of this base community to get water, and get enough water for 1000 people to live. Dolly has also been there many times.

The sound of wind and sand is very loud. Dolly just wants to go home and have a good night's rest. She may feel better tomorrow.

It's just that the wind and sand didn't seem to stop at this time, and Dolly heard a violent roar from outside.

"what happened?"

Dolly muttered, 10 minutes had passed, and the power of the wind and sand hadn't decreased, but had become stronger and stronger. Dolly became anxious, and felt rumbling noises coming from her back.

Suddenly, Dolly saw a black shadow passing over her head, and then moved quickly. It lasted for nearly half an hour, and the wind and sand finally stopped.

"It's over, such a big sandstorm, I don't know how many days it will take to clean up the sand."

Dolly complained. At this moment, Dolly saw that the ground in front of her was in a mess, and some rocks bigger than herself could be seen everywhere. Dolly swallowed a mouthful, and returned to the back of the raised rock, and found that the surface of the rock had been A lot of places were cut off, and Dolly watched in horror, and she immediately followed the guiding robot and continued towards the base.

"Lost coordinates! Continue searching for signal source."

Dolly looked at everything in horror. She didn't know why this sandstorm lasted so long. This was something Dolly had never experienced before. Generally, a sandstorm would end in more than ten minutes at most, but this sandstorm lasted for a long time. It's been half an hour.

After that, Dolly immediately planned to open the front cover of the guiding robot, intending to check the signal receiver, but when Dolly's hand just touched it, the guiding robot immediately issued an alarm.

"The flow velocity in the air is changing, and a sandstorm is coming."

Dolly looked at the place behind her in horror, the sun was almost invisible, and there was a large area of ​​gray things in the distance.

"Look for cover."

Dolly is very clear that this place can no longer stay. The next sandstorm is very likely to destroy this bunker. Some hard metal ores carried by the wind can easily destroy this kind of rock that has been eroded by wind and sand all year round. .

Dolly ran eagerly, and the guiding robot was still looking for cover. Dolly looked around anxiously, and soon Dolly saw a horizontal ditch. She ran over and found that there was a slope going down, and she immediately Sliding down the sand, he found a raised rock on the slope, opened the work bag behind the spacesuit, took out the fixed cable, and fixed himself on the rock.

Dolly directly tied the guiding robot with a rope, and quickly pressed it into the sand.

The strong wind blew over Dolly's head in an instant, and the sand poured like a torrential rain. Dolly felt that her body was constantly being pulled in the crazily flowing sand.

After 17 minutes, the sandstorm ended. Dolly looked at everything in front of her with lingering fear, as well as the rolling stones around her. She was lucky that she was not hit by some big falling stones, and she was lying on the ground. Underneath the raised rock.

Dolly immediately pulled out the guiding robot, and the robot began to measure the signal. At this time, an aircraft slowly approached in the distance. Dolly immediately stood up, took out the signal flare, and soon followed The red signal flare that took off, the aircraft in the distance slowly landed nearby, and Dolly ran and jumped over.

"father!"

Arriving next to this long small four-person aircraft, Dolly lowered her head in embarrassment, like a child who has done something wrong. There are three people on it, her father Rodin, and the technical maintenance worker Joyner, wrapping her own Teacher Dr. David.

"Dolly, I'm sorry, Daddy spoke a little harder this morning."

Dolly walked over and hugged her father, and Georgina laughed and patted Dolly on the shoulder.

"What you said is correct, Dolly, but it's just a fact that many of us haven't said. Everyone is exhausted, because we don't know when we will be able to build a base suitable for human survival."

David smiled kindly and shook his head.

"If you can make enough fuel, you still have a chance to go back."

Soon the four of them rode a small aircraft towards Pioneer 4 Base, which had been partly covered by sand in the distance.

A large number of people have started to clean up the sand with automatic shovels. After Dolly went back, many people greeted Dolly, and Dolly also worked hard.

Dolly's father, Luo Dan, and the other two returned to the spaceship, and soon returned to the control room of the spaceship. At this time, the room chief and some other managers were there, and everyone's expressions were solemn.

Just an hour ago, they received an information briefing from the space station. There were only a few short text descriptions, but the content made everyone feel shocked and unbelievable.

There was a problem in the landing plan of the hope asteroid on the earth, and it encountered a violent impact. Now the creatures on the earth are almost extinct. This is an information briefing from Asgard, the country of the space station, and the accompanying signal identification code.

"Do you think this is true?"

The 60-year-old room chief asked a question, but everyone was silent, and no one answered. Now all the people in the pioneer base should have received such news.

No one knows the specific situation, but considering that they have not received any news or contact from the earth for 9 years, it is certain that this news can at least be believed, but no one is willing to accept such a thing, the pioneers Most of the people on the base want to go back to Earth.

In recent years, many problems and even bloody incidents in the base were created in this environment of continuous labor and sandstorms all day long. Many people can't bear it any longer and want to return to Earth.

Some people even said that it is possible to combine the fuel of all spaceships, enough for at least 30 spaceships to return to Earth. This kind of question is always brought up in every meeting of the room directors.

But everyone did not agree with this approach, because everyone wants to go back, and it is almost impossible to find a place that will not be frequently attacked by sandstorms and has a source of water. Although there are a lot of solid water at the poles of Mars, but The temperature over there is too low, it is impossible for them to establish a base.

The temperature here can reach minus 20 degrees at night at most, but the poles of Mars are different, it may reach minus 100 degrees, which is not the temperature at which human beings can survive.

At this time, everyone's expressions were grim. Everyone knew that the next meeting of the directors would start soon. Although oil had been discovered, it would take at least five years to manufacture machines that could be exploited. It is also necessary to find some corresponding metal deposits.

"I can not stand it any more."

At this moment, an observer stood up, pressed his forehead in distress, and said with a sad expression.

"I still have a wife and children on this earth. I just wanted to use 10 years of work in exchange for future stability, but now it has been 9 years, which is different from what I agreed at the beginning."

"Calm down Bob!"

Rodin looked at the excited observer and walked over to comfort him. At this time, the observer curled up against the metal wall and sobbed silently. Most of the people who joined the Mars project had signed contracts with energy companies for ten years or even more. For permanent contracts, most people will leave Mars and return to Earth when the second batch of employees arrives.

It is possible to get a house, already a large amount of money, including medical insurance for life after the age of 50 in the future.

Many people think that as long as they work hard for 10 years and return to the earth, the earth has been turned upside down, because they hope that the asteroid plan will make the earth better.

Desperation quickly spread throughout the control room, no one said anything, Rodin just sat quietly on the chair, recalling what his daughter said in the morning, and said most of the things that were suppressed in his heart Come out, this is also something that everyone suppresses in their hearts.

The life on Mars is not as beautiful as what everyone built during the journey at the beginning. Now everyone is exhausted to survive. For 9 years, everyone has been doing the same thing almost every day, but it is impossible to do it. , because not doing it means death.

Water supply, mining station metal refining and manufacturing, sand cleaning, crop field maintenance, and internal facility repair, robot repair, many tasks are very heavy and boring.

Some people have already begun to think about the significance of coming here. The energy companies just hope that they can find more efficient and stable new energy sources on Mars, as well as some rarer energy sources, and then send transport ships over, and let them adapt to the transformation of human beings. Survival environment, but all of this is simply impossible according to the current progress.

Although some places have water sources and are far away from wind and sand, it is impossible to build bases in those places. The terrain in those places is too regional, and the structure of the rock formations is also unstable after investigation.

Nowadays, just cultivating the planting soil makes everyone feel physically and mentally exhausted. In addition, there are always only a few things to eat, and the things you see are always just the same dusty yellow. This makes more and more It is difficult for some people to accept it, and many people have the idea of ​​wanting to go back to the region.

"Don't announce this news for now. Once it is announced, some people may not be able to bear it, especially those who still have relatives on Earth!"

The room chief spoke, and Luo Dan hummed. After the brief meeting, everyone left the control room, returned to the outside, and joined the work of cleaning the sand with tools.

"Dad, I'm sorry."

At this time Dolly leaned over and said, Rodin smiled and shook his head.

"It's okay, the days to come will be long, and you will grow up too!"

Dolly looked at her father suspiciously, and found the sadness and bitterness in his eyes, but she didn't ask much.

(End of this chapter)