Die on Mars

Four

"So, Professor Shi, what is your attitude on this matter?" the female host asked.

A middle-aged man with a big belly is sitting in an armchair. He is somewhat bald and wearing gold-rimmed glasses. The introduction at the bottom of the screen is "well-known celestial body research expert."

"First of all, we can be sure that this was definitely not done by humans. No country in the world has this kind of technological strength." Professor Shi said, "Then it can only be the work of alien civilization. Many people outside are very excited and think it is the work of humans." A milestone in history...but I personally think they were overly optimistic."

"What basis do you have for this?"

"It can be inferred from two points. The first is the message they send to humans. This message is very conspicuous and can be seen by people all over the world. It is a number on the moon, and it is a human number. If they intend to communicate with the human world , in order to avoid causing panic and unnecessary hostility, they must first contact the top government officials, but they sent the information to the world in the most understandable way... What is this? I think it is a warning! Only a warning It will be announced to everyone for maximum effect.

NASA is aware of this, so they are panicking. They have just announced that they will return to the moon and launch a lander within a week. This is probably the most rushed space program in human history, because they know there is no time. "

The female host nodded, convinced.

"It was 30 a few days ago, and it's 25 tonight. Anyone can see that this is a countdown." Professor Shi continued, "What has a countdown? I think the worst scenario is a time bomb, and alien civilizations are trying to destroy it. Bombs set by humans.”

"If aliens have technology that far exceeds that of humans, why don't they just invade the earth?"

"I have two hypotheses about this." Professor Shi straightened up with some difficulty. "First, the moon itself is a bomb. It was transformed into a giant bomb by alien civilization in the past 4.6 billion years of history. Now it’s time to explode, so I’m starting to count down. I remember there used to be conspiracy theories saying that the moon is hollow, but now it seems that it can’t be completely denied.”

"What about the second one?"

"The second is that aliens are on their way to the earth, and the countdown is to predict the time of their arrival. Any civilization that can develop to this extent must have corresponding social ethics, otherwise it will destroy the civilization itself. They were forced to occupy the earth as their habitat, but their survival instincts conflicted with morality. They were unwilling to kill all humans who were also intelligent creatures, so they set aside a month for humans to escape..."

Yang Yuan turned off the TV and looked out the window.

Almost all news media these days are hyping sensational texts such as "alien invasion of the earth". Yang Yuan is a graduate student in radio astronomy. He is not an amateur in this regard. He does not blindly follow the trend. However, the iron-clad facts prove the existence of extraterrestrial civilization because humans cannot carve such huge numbers on the moon.

Yang Yuan had no intention of refuting the completely untenable ridiculous remarks in the media. At this time, truly capable people would not have time to show up on TV.

The phone vibrated in his hand. The caller ID number was familiar and Yang Yuan answered it.

"Xiaoyuan?"

"Dad...it's me."

"Are you...are you okay? Can you go home?"

Yang Yuan was silent for a long time. His parents are typical Chinese parents of this generation. They are honest farmers. They work in the fields with their faces facing the loess and their backs to the sky. They have not read many books and do not know what the so-called "alien invasion of the earth" means. , but even though their senses are dull, they are extremely sensitive to their son's safety.

Yang Yuan remembers that year when he was admitted to university. In that small mountain village with limited information, he represented the hope of the whole village as the only college student in his family and even in the village. His parents sold pigs in exchange for two dollars that were going to be used to pay for the medical expenses for his mother's leg. Thousands of dollars were put into his hand to buy some food on the way. They were so happy to think that this generation could get rid of the loess and fly to the clouds. Yang Yuan could not even bear to tell them that college students were everywhere and worthless.

"No, Dad, I have to work overtime this month." Yang Yuan was telling the truth. In such emergencies, the workload of observatories across the country increased rapidly. He looked out the window and saw armored vehicles full of armed policemen driving down the road. However, this place has been taken over by the army since yesterday.

"Oh...oh then..." The old man on the other side of the phone was a little at a loss, "Then you have to be careful, it's very chaotic outside."

"It's okay, Dad." Yang Yuan smiled, "I still have soldiers standing guard here for me."

"That's good, that's good..."

There seems to be no common language between father and son, let alone an old farmer who is nearly illiterate and a young graduate student from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The distance between the two generations is so far that it seems like they are separated by the entire world, but the old man is still searching for things to talk about.

"Dad, listen to me, don't go out for the next month." Yang Yuan said softly, "Buy more salt and put it at home, fill up the water tank at home, and remember to lock the door at night."

Yang Yuan could almost foresee the coming disaster, but all he could do was warn the elderly to pay attention to safety, and he could not even go back to see them.

"Okay...I'll listen to you."

"Dad... information control will be implemented starting tonight." Yang Yuan said, "I won't be able to call you for the next month."

There was silence on the phone.

"Then you should take good care of yourself. I originally wanted your mother to talk to you. She just went to weed the vegetable garden." The old man said, "The winter melons at home are growing well. I will let you go when you get home. Mom made it for you to eat."

"……good."

The phone was hung up, and Yang Yuan felt that something in his heart was also disconnected.

The old academician stood in the operation control hall, looking up at the LCD screen on the wall. Young people hurried past him with documents in hand. The atmosphere in the hall was unusually solemn, and there was only the murmur of electricity in his ears. , no one spoke, and the sound of heavy breathing was amplified in the silence. The old man remembered that the last time it was so dead here was when he tried to wake up the Moon Rabbit rover... At that time, everyone stared at the screen and held their breath until the image flashed. appear before your eyes.

A long silence was followed by cheers that almost lifted the ceiling. Although the process was thrilling, it ended well after all... But the old man knew that this time his luck might not be as good as last time.

The huge moon occupied all the old man's field of vision. He stared at the only satellite of the earth for a long time. The old man spent his whole life on it. He felt that no one in the world was more familiar with the moon than him, but at this time he looked at the moon surface. With the number on it, he suddenly realized that he had never really understood it.

The first voice to break the silence was reporting data.

"The digital elevation model of the moon has been established."

"Multispectral images are also coming out..."

"The analysis of 3.0GHz microwave radiation brightness temperature data is completed."

"Analysis of high-energy particle and solar wind ion data in recent moon space is completed."

"How's it going?"

The answer was despairing.

"...Nothing unusual."

The most worrying situation finally happened. All human detection methods currently available are unable to detect the cause of the lunar anomaly.

If you don’t know the cause, you can’t stop it.

God bypassed human eyes and carved a countdown on the moon, and humans could only watch the number return to zero.

five

The president never thought that he would be lucky enough to live in Cheyenne Mountain and personally take charge of the North American Aerospace Defense Command during his term. This behemoth in Colorado is the highest-security nuclear bunker in the country. The tension of the Cold War created this almost absurd project. , people dug through five hundred meters of granite and built a fifteen-story building underground, using two-meter-thick reinforced concrete doors to eliminate all possible crises.

This was originally a fortification built in response to the Cuban Missile Crisis. Today, nearly thirty years after the Cold War, this underground nuclear bunker that has long been engraved in history has begun to play its most original function again, using airtight rock and steel. Concrete constitutes the oldest form of defense.

The CIA and other agencies of the Department of Defense have all transferred to the National Readiness Command Center yesterday. The U.S. government has never been so nervous since the collapse of the Soviet Union, but the enemies they face now may far exceed the Soviet Union.

"This is ridiculous." The president closed the folder and became furious. "You have tens of billions of budgets every year, but you still use spaceships from fifty years ago?"

Charles lowered his head and remained silent. He had just brought bad news to the president. The lunar exploration failed. The Saturn rocket disintegrated three minutes after liftoff, and the debris was scattered in the Atlantic Ocean.

The Saturn V is the largest launch vehicle ever built by mankind. It once created the greatest initiative in human history. In order to ensure absolute success, NASA almost repeated the Apollo program.

But success is not guaranteed.

"Mr. President, this is not a technical problem." Charles said. "It is not surprising that a high-risk undertaking such as aerospace fails at any time."

"But we don't have extra time!" The president pointed to the electronic clock hanging on the wall behind him. There was only one number "20" on the red LCD display, which made it look more like a timer for a time bomb, but no one knew You will know what will explode when this number reaches zero.

"I only give you three days!" The president reached out and grabbed the director's collar, "Go to the moon again! Send everything we can up there!"

"Mr. President, this is unrealistic." Charles shook his head and spread his hands. "Landing on the moon within three days is beyond our capabilities."

"Then let the whole world unite." The president let go of the director, turned and looked up at the dazzling crimson numbers on the wall, "I'll call Moscow, Beijing and Brussels."

A third of the way through the countdown, humanity has done nothing but realize the limits of its capabilities and despair.

Due to the government's inaction, panic began to spread like wildfire on a large scale. The social system was on the verge of collapse. Inflation was completely beyond the scope of market regulation. People began to rush to buy daily necessities amid soaring prices. The credit of the government and banks was reduced to a piece of paper. What followed was the comprehensive devaluation of banknotes, and a craze for exchanging hard currencies such as gold began all over the world. Faced with almost crazy crowds, governments of various countries had to urgently close exchange channels.

Many eschatological theories, fueled by national panic, have become popular, and even many official media have admitted that the end of mankind is approaching. The Pope in the Vatican announced that he would celebrate a grand mass in person, and a pilgrimage movement for Christians around the world was launched vigorously. A mighty army of Christians gathered from all over the world to Italy. This was probably the largest pilgrimage in human history. The religious movement was far larger than the Crusades and Christian pilgrims in the Middle Ages.

As a result, Italy was severely overpopulated, and the public security was so chaotic that the police were unable to do anything. On the day of the Mass, the streets were packed with people, and some fanatics even strapped bombs to their bodies and tried to detonate them at the venue. Fortunately, this absurd plan was discovered by the national security department in advance, and special forces were dispatched to eliminate the extremist organization before the Mass officially started.

But the Mass did not end happily. Due to the large number of people, a large-scale stampede occurred at the venue that day. The scene was chaotic and tragic, causing heavy casualties. This largest religious event in human history not only resulted in the innocent deaths of more than 2,000 loyal believers. It didn't let the numbers on the moon stand still for even half a second.

People were abandoned by God, and the religious world suffered an unprecedented blow, and it has never recovered.

But human elites are still working hard to find a way, and the ultimate space program led by NASA is in full swing.

For the first time, the entire world is being chased by time. In this competition that may be related to the survival of human civilization, humans have begun to exert their full potential and try to distance themselves from the numbers on the moon. For the first time, the development of science and technology is not driven by humans but by humans. Forced to move forward, the huge machine composed of 6.5 billion people is operating at full capacity, just looking for a glimmer of hope.

At this time, it would be extremely foolish for anyone to be self-conscious. The United States and Russia have come up with astonishing technological reserves. The half-century-long space race between these two established aerospace powers has left an extremely rich legacy. With the influx of funds from all over the world, the Russian aerospace industry, which was once languishing and impoverished and struggling on the edge of life and death, quickly glowed with amazing vitality.

Experts from various countries reached a consensus with unprecedented efficiency and decided to build a total of twelve lunar landing spacecraft, eight of which were manned, and the other four were cargo spacecraft, each with a payload weight of an incredible thirty tons. People decided to move all the testing instruments that could be moved up, and moved the entire large laboratory to the moon. This was an unprecedented and huge project, equivalent to building four international space stations - one international space station took decades of human time, but They now had four times the workload and only three days. In the face of an unprecedented crisis, people are so crazy that they do not care about the cost.

All of Europe is responsible for assembling these huge chemical-powered rockets, and then these complex machines are flown to launch sites around the world.

China is responsible for signal detection for the entire program.

"Teacher Ouyang, do you think the world will be destroyed?" Yang Yuan sat on the grass, the huge parabolic antenna of the radio telescope casting irregular shadows cut by buildings.

The old man stood in the shadow, looking up at the antenna.

"Xiaoyuan, look at this telescope."

Yang Yuan raised his head, and the circular antenna was above his head. Only at such a close distance can people feel the power and beauty contained in this huge and shocking steel structure, like a giant holding up the sky.

"The ancients said that virtue carries everything." The old academician smiled, "Look at this telescope, isn't it the same? It carries the Chinese nation's thousand-year dream of flying into the sky. It carries such a heavy weight but stands so stable. This is virtue."

The old man squatted down next to the young man, "The wisdom of our ancestors will not be outdated for thousands of years. If you are virtuous, you can bear the burden. Look at the earth under our feet, how much weight does it carry?"

Yang Yuan lowered his head silently.

"Teacher Ouyang, the rocket will be launched today, right?"

"Yes...it will be launched in Jiuquan, Xichang, and Wenchang." The old academician nodded and pointed at the telescope. "Then it and we will be responsible for receiving the signal."

"Will we succeed?" Yang Yuan raised his head, his face haggard. As the countdown reached zero step by step, he became more and more anxious. This was not just Yang Yuan's reaction, it was the same for all the young people in the entire observatory... Symptoms of anxiety, insomnia, and psychological imbalance were spreading among the crowd.

The leader tried to hire a psychiatrist, but in this place, which can be said to be the closest to the moon in the country, the psychiatrist was infected by the solemn and tense atmosphere and began to feel anxious.

"It doesn't make much difference whether it will succeed or not." The old man shook his head and tapped his toes. Yang Yuan squinted his eyes. At his feet was a low foxtail grass. Next to the grass roots were small holes. Ants were swarming in twos and threes. In and out, it's an ant's nest.

"Look at this ant nest..." the old man said softly, "What is the difference between us and these ants?"

"Human beings are intelligent creatures, how can they be compared with lower arthropods like ants?"

"That's because we stand at the top of the Earth's ecosystem." The old man shook his head, "If the Milky Way also has an ecosystem, then in the eyes of those civilizations at the top of the Galaxy's ecosystem, we are just like ants, but we are all on Earth. They're just lower species. Do you think these ants know that the earth is in big trouble?"

Yang Yuan stared blankly at the ants on the ground. A black ant was poking its head out of the hole. It might have just been born. It was the first time it stepped out of the cave and saw the light of day. It was immersed in the feeling of embracing this vast and vast world for the first time. In joy.

"Humans and ants are very similar in some aspects," the old man said. "A high degree of sociality and discipline can increase the chance of a species surviving a disaster, but at the expense of individuals. Ants are creatures with a spirit of sacrifice. When you When integrated into this huge collective, the destiny of the collective is the destiny of the individual. We also relied on this spirit to create New China back then. This is the destiny of ants, and it is something that flows in the blood of every Chinese."

"Ant life..." Yang Yuan murmured.

"Everyone must have the courage to move forward in disasters." The old man patted Yang Yuan on the back. "We have no way of knowing the final result, but we must do our best. Human power is very limited, and we can't do it with all the strength of the world." We can only build these twelve spaceships. Since we have tried our best, what does the result matter?"

Yang Yuan admired the old man's open-mindedness. For the first time, he realized that there was actually a group of people in this world who were not panicked or crazy. They would not rush to the doctor when they were sick, and they would not put their hope in the illusory God and Allah. Facing the end, they will just sit quietly in front of their posts and watch the changes in the numbers.

"For a man who has reached an octogenarian age..." the old man smiled, "death may be the only thing he has never experienced."

(To be continued)