rescued
Chapter 121 A man who is either saved or ready to be saved
On Earth, the grown-up Murphy and Tom stood in the cornfield, watching the smoke billowing from the ashes of the burned corn.
"One-third of the cornfield is gone now." Tom sighed. With less work to do, life became easier, but this made him more and more anxious: "Next year I will go to work on Nelson's farm and make up for these losses."
"What's wrong with Nelson? Do you need someone to help?" Murphy asked, but Tom did not answer. He just put his hands in his trouser pockets and walked silently towards the house left by his grandfather.
In the house where he had lived for a lifetime, the company of his family allowed Tom to temporarily ignore the trouble of having to burn a lot of corn due to blight, which would lead to a large reduction in the harvest.
"Cooper, don't waste food." Sister-in-law Louise taught the second child. Although the environment on Earth has become worse, this son has at least survived the most difficult and fragile age and is now several years old.
Looking at Murphy, Louise asked, "Are you staying here tonight? We haven't moved your room."
"No, I have to go back." Murphy shook his head, "There are too many memories in the room... I'd better go back to work..."
At this time, Cooper, who had just finished dinner, put his tableware next to the faucet and started coughing.
Looking at his nephew's cough, Murphy said to Louise worriedly, "I have a friend..." Looking at Cooper who continued to cough, Murphy continued, "You can help him check his lungs."
Louise forced a smile. Over the years, many doctors have sought help, but let's not talk about the difficulty of treatment. After the famine, many cutting-edge medical equipment has been scrapped and cannot be made now. Children with the same disease are very common in Cooper's generation. They need to wait in a long line, which is enough to make her despair.
In the window behind Louise, it can be clearly seen that the sandstorm is coming again.
"Emilia, I'm sorry." Cooper said to Brand, who was wearing a white coat, on the Eternal.
"There's nothing to apologize for. You're just making an objective analysis." Little Brand adjusted the equipment on the Eternity and checked the human embryo storage device: "Unless you want to punish me for the mistake I made on Miller's planet."
"Indeed, I made a rational judgment and analysis." Cooper said.
Little Brand said: "You calculated the fuel based on the need to return to Earth. If Mann's planet is not suitable for survival, then we have to decide whether to return to Earth or go to Edmonds' planet to implement Plan B."
"This means that you have to decide halfway whether to light the fire of mankind in the universe or go home to reunite with the children." Little Brand exposed Cooper's little thoughts: "I believe you will be very rational and objective at that time."
Cooper did not refute, this was just a counterattack.
The scene changed, and Murphy walked anxiously in the hospital.
A man obviously knew Murphy: "He has been looking for you since he woke up, so we contacted you."
Murphy walked into the ICU. Old Brand was lying on the bed at this time. His thin face made him look very bad.
"Murphy..." Old Brand's voice was very weak.
But Murphy listened carefully: "It's me, I'm here."
"I let everyone down..." Old Brand's eyes were very blurred.
"No, you have led us a long way, and we will succeed soon." Murphy wiped away the tears from the corners of his eyes and looked at the old man in front of him who was both a teacher, a friend and an elder: "I will take over your work and complete your research."
"You... have a strong belief... for so... so many years..." Old Brand spoke with difficulty: "I want you to stick to your belief... I want you to believe... your father... will definitely come back..."
"I have always believed, professor." Murphy looked into Old Brand's cloudy eyes and said.
But it was because of Murphy's firm belief that Old Brand was tormented in his heart: "Forgive me... Murphy... I lied to you..."
Murphy's smile froze, and she vaguely guessed what Old Brand was going to say.
"He doesn't have to come back..." Although his throat felt like a knife was scraping, Old Brand still said the truth that chilled Murphy: "We have no hope..."
"But what about Plan A?" Murphy asked. She really couldn't immediately hate the old man who had treated her like his own child for more than 20 years: "All of this, all these people... and this equation... are all lies?"
Old Brand shook his head and cruelly took away the hope of survival from everyone who was watching the inventory in the interstellar world.
"Does my father know this?" Murphy's heartbeat accelerated and his palms began to sweat: "Did he abandon us?"
On his deathbed, Old Brand looked at the ceiling and recited his favorite poem with his last strength: "Don't... go... gently..."
"No..." Murphy looked at Old Brand, who had closed his eyes: "You can't go!"
But Old Brand was already dead.
[In the world of Interstellar, some far-sighted farmers only raised their inner passion for a few minutes, and found that they were actually abandoned. The entire earth was abandoned. Only those embryos and "brave people" could survive, even if they had to survive a narrow escape.
They couldn't accept it, and they all wanted to call to cancel the donation.
But soon they realized.
What's the point?
If there is no turnaround, the human race on Earth will inevitably perish. This has nothing to do with what to eat for the rest of the day. There are only a few choices anyway, and the more fatal problem is the environment.
In the video, although Tom's first child was not explicitly stated, it seems that he died just after birth when his resistance was the weakest. Even if the second son passed this stage, he seemed to have suffered from a lung disease that ordinary people could not solve.
Looking around on the lonely earth, they found that there seemed to be really no hope.
There are the most rational people and those who do nothing, and the least out of control people.
But the least part is the noisiest.
They didn't even plan to wait until the end of the inventory video, they had already begun to vent their despair.
In the Three-Body World, Zhang Beihai looked at Old Brand with a twinkling eye.
"Hey, this old Brand is a defeatist like you." Dashi handed over a cigarette habitually, but Zhang Beihai refused.
Zhang Beihai's eyes were firm: "In the past, I was a defeatist because I couldn't see any hope for the Earth facing the Three-Body People. Now it's different. We have star-destroying weapons, and the Three-Body People have also found a way to solve the Three-Body problem. Our contradictions have been resolved to the greatest extent, and we have even begun to cooperate. Dashi, you can clearly see what great changes have taken place on the Earth in such a short period of time."
Exhaling a puff of smoke, Dashi said nonchalantly: "You guys are so smart. If you want, you can even do something to others after you die. Who knows what you are thinking in your heart? Alas, it's none of my business. I'm just an errand boy. I can travel around the world all day long in the name of you wall-facers!"
"We are not wall-facers, Dashi." Zhang Beihai said, "Luo Ji is the sword-bearer, and I am just the gatekeeper as a backup for Luo Ji. Times have changed, Dashi, we and the Three-Body Civilization will eventually move towards a wider universe, rather than fighting each other in this small piece of land." Dashi
waved his hand: "Okay, okay, you are right. By the way, what happened to that project in the end? The project to study the reasons why the hyperspace engine cannot be used. I heard that it is because the high-dimensional space does not exist?"
Nodding, Zhang Beihai said, "Yes, it's a pity. The speed of light will be the peak speed we can reach for a long time."
After a few words, Dashi felt tired of talking to Zhang Beihai and left.
Soon someone knocked on the door and brought him the appointment letters of the Pan-Universe Observation Department, the Dark Forest Counterattack Research Laboratory, the Earth-Three-Body Joint Political Cooperation Body Outer Civilization Early Warning System and other departments.
Zhang Beihai's eyes lingered on the calligraphy he wrote on the wall of the office for a while.
"The more you know, the more you know that you know less."
This sentence is used to describe the awe of knowledge. In this era of cooperation with the Trisolarans and technological explosion, it is indeed very appropriate. Not only Zhang Beihai, this sentence is also written in the hearts, notebooks, and books of many people. It is undoubtedly the slogan of the times.
But for Zhang Beihai, this sentence has another meaning.
The more civilizations you see, the more dangerous your own civilization is. ]
In the video, Murphy recorded in front of the camera telling little Brand about her father's death.
After expressing regret for the death of old Brand, Murphy was about to turn off the camera.
But her action paused, retracted her right hand, and Murphy stared at the camera: "Brand, do you know? Ha... He told you a long time ago... You know, this is all a scam. You left us here to die, letting us suffocate in the sandstorm and lack of oxygen... starve to death..."
But Cooper and others had boarded the Wanderer and went to the planet where Dr. Mann was shortly before this video was transmitted to the Eternity, and no one could see her questioning little Brand.
The Ranger was flying among the clouds, and Cooper did not take the same radical landing method on this planet as Miller's planet.
Because of this, after hitting a corner of a cloud and finding that these clouds had been frozen by extreme cold and were essentially large ice blocks, Cooper, Little Brand, and Romilly, who were sitting on the Ranger, were afraid.
If they were faster, or went directly into the "cloud", they might all have to explain here.
At the same time, they had the same doubts in their hearts.
It was so cold... Is this planet really suitable for human survival?
The Ranger found a suitable path among the clouds more cautiously, and landed on the rocky ground covered with frost and snow in the empty space with white above and below.
Cooper, wearing a space suit, took the lead and walked up a nearby hill and saw a man-made facility not far away.
And here is the scene in the inventory trailer.
A spaceship in the ice and snow.
The three of them circled the facility and found the frozen hatch without much effort.
After passing through the airtight chamber, the power inside the facility began to be supplied again, and the lights came on.
In this space that is as big as the living room of an ordinary room, the most eye-catching thing is naturally a hibernation capsule in the middle.
Fortunately, there is no problem with the facilities, and little Brand easily opened the hibernation capsule.
The sleeper Mann woke up soon. He looked at Cooper, and a grown man couldn't control his emotions and started crying.
[On Mars, Mark Watney was taking care of potatoes while looking at the screen.
When he saw the face of the sleeper clearly, he froze in his place.
How could I have the opportunity to have the opportunity to appear in the parallel world...
Now that I have shown my face in the parallel world, I believe that those who are capable on Earth will actively discuss the plan to bring him back from Mars!
Mark Watney happily dropped the shovel in his hand, and was as excited as a three-year-old child weighing more than 100 kilograms, singing and dancing in the shed.
Not only is there hope of returning to Earth, but after returning, he can even quit his job as an astronaut. Just relying on live broadcasts and the like is enough to easily make enough money to last a lifetime!
He knows humans, and he will definitely do so! ]
(End of this chapterAnswer in the Room
Chapter 122 The Answer in the Room
Dr. Mann, who had just finished hibernation, told the story of these years.
After arriving at this ice planet, he was already on the road of despair. When all the supplies were exhausted, he did not set a wake-up time and entered a hibernation state, hoping that someone would come to rescue him.
[In the interstellar world, Old Brand looked at the screen, where Mann was wrapping his body with tin foil to prevent the loss of temperature, with a complex look in his eyes.
What he did was completely opposite to his mission...
According to the original plan, if this planet was suitable for survival, in the more than 30 years in the video, although the supplies were only for two years, he should have been able to build a small base for his survival.
But his supplies were only constantly consumed, not replenished, until he had no choice but to enter hibernation and wait for rescue.
This shows that he was lying and used false information to trick the latecomers here.
"Mann, you were the best... but you..." Old Brand closed his eyes.
Who is the Dust of the Heavens this time? For him, it is already a definite answer.
He is a brave man who clearly carries the hope of the world and the whole civilization and goes to the starry sky. He thinks he is ready, but when he actually faces the lifeless planet, he finds that he has no courage to face death. This alone is not enough. He may even have the intention to murder Cooper and others...
According to the video, he should have entered a dormant state by now, so he can't see the inventory in that state. This is fortunate, because he at least doesn't have to know that he has been abandoned.
To be precise, he may be left there for decades, and even in the end, humans will forget him. He will be in eternal loneliness, waiting for the energy of the dormant chamber to run out before waking up, and then he will be shocked to find that he is doomed.
After adjusting his body that had just finished dormancy, Mann led the way and walked on the ice field with Cooper and the other two, introducing the planet.
"The daytime here is 67 hours long, and it's very cold." Recalling the bad experience, Mann said: "The night is also 67 hours, and it's even colder, but the gravity is only 80% of that on Earth, which makes people feel lighter."
"Where I landed, the water is alkaline and the ammonia content in the air is too high, making it very uncomfortable to breathe. In other words, the air is smelly. Generally speaking, the area represented by where I landed is extremely unsuitable for human survival." Mann changed the subject: "But there is more than one layer of surface here. Under the first layer of surface that we can observe from outer space, there is another layer that is a little more comfortable."
"In this layer, the atmosphere becomes less extreme. Although the composition is still different from that of the Earth, it is already breathable, and there may even be life. We may not be alone on this planet." Mann's words greatly encouraged the three: "Over the years, I have sent many probes out and found ways to make several long journeys, but due to limited oxygen, most of the legwork was done by Kip."
In the corner, a pile of broken stainless steel boxes were scattered there. They were robots of the same model as Tas and Case.
"How could he become like this?" Compared to humans, Tas, as an advanced artificial intelligence, noticed something wrong from the fragmented state of Kip.
Mann paused for a short moment: "The performance has aged. I thought of many ways, but in the end I could only retire it and use its power to ensure that the mission can be carried out."
Tas's CPU did not allow it to calculate immediately whether a robot of the same model as itself would be damaged so quickly in such an extreme environment, and proposed to check the wreckage of Kip.
"No, it doesn't need you, it needs humans." Mann's palms were slightly sweaty.
Tas's CPU was running rapidly, and the cooling system had begun to work at full capacity, trying to analyze the lies it had detected.
But Keith in the Eternal sent a message, interrupting Tas's calculation.
Tas returned to the state of a square box. The video file sent from Keith had been downloaded, and little Brand had come to Tas, ready to receive the message.
"Dr. Brand, unfortunately, your father passed away today. He passed away peacefully." Murphy's voice came from Tas's loudspeaker.
Cooper had watched the only video of Murphy countless times on the Eternity, so he could naturally recognize the voice of his daughter when she grew up. Putting down the files organized by Mann, Cooper came behind Little Brand and watched the video that Tas was playing.
"Heh... He told you a long time ago... You know, this is all a scam. You left us here to die, leaving us to suffocate in the sandstorm and lack of oxygen... starve to death..." The second half of the video sent by Murphy was played: "Does my father know? Dad? I just want to know... Did you leave me here to die? I just want to know the truth..."
The video stopped abruptly, and Cooper's face was gloomy. His daughter's crying made his heart sink to the bottom.
"Cooper... I... My father... I don't know anything..." Little Brand's expression looked very sincere.
"I know." Mann said on the side.
Cooper looked at Mann: "Has he never thought of sending people away from Earth?"
Mann nodded and looked at little Brand: "Emilia, your father had already solved the equation before I left. The reason he didn't use it was because the equation couldn't reconcile relativity and quantum mechanics, and needed more to supplement it."
"More?" Cooper had a very bad feeling in his heart. What couldn't be found in forty years, and couldn't be supplemented? That equation was just there for forty years with no progress? !
Mann said calmly: "To get more data, we need to see the data inside the black hole, but the laws of nature make it impossible to observe the inside of a black hole, and the singularity at the center of a black hole cannot be exposed."
Cooper knew what a black hole was. Doyle said it very clearly that it was the heart of ultimate darkness. He cast a lucky look at Romilly, a professional scientist: "Romili, is what he said true?"
Romilly thought about it and tried to explain in plain language: "If a black hole is an oyster, the singularity is the pearl inside. Because the gravity is too strong, the escape velocity has exceeded the speed of light. Therefore, the black hole forms an event horizon, making it look like a large black sphere, and the singularity is hidden in it. No means we know of can observe the singularity hidden within the event horizon... In other words, when you can see the singularity, you can no longer get out, and there is no way to transmit the information out."
[In the mythological world, Huangdi frowned and pinched a mountain in his palm. According to the feeling given to him by the black hole in the inventory, he continued to compress the 30,000-foot-high mountain.
Finally, after reaching a critical point, the sphere compressed by the mountain appeared in Huangdi's hand.
In the scientific world, this sphere is called neutron star matter. Natural neutron stars look very bright because they release a huge amount of energy, but the neutron star matter ball in Huangdi's hand is not. It looks like the most perfect mirror ball.
Huangdi continued to compress. At this time, he felt a little tired, but in the end, the almost absolutely smooth sphere further became a smaller black sphere, but in an instant, it dissipated between heaven and earth. The energy evaporated by the black hole blew Huangdi away for an unknown distance.
Climbing out of a mountain, Huangdi was a little confused. Wow, a small ball is quite powerful. He didn't react. Although nothing happened, the power of this firecracker is not small.
Fortunately, he rubbed the black hole near his own mausoleum. The explosion of this small sphere called a black hole will not affect the world with countless creatures outside. It's just that there are many flowers and plants in his own space that are wasted.
Coughing out a puff of smoke, Huangdi couldn't figure out why the black hole suddenly exploded?
"Some things shouldn't be known to people." Mann looked at little Brand and said, "Your father found another way to save humanity from extinction, and that is Plan B."
"If that's the case, why build those space stations?" Little Brand asked. It's not a simple matter to design a rocket silo as a prototype of a space station. It's just a lie that it costs so much?
Mann said without hesitation, "Because he knows how difficult it is to get people together. If people want to work together, they must think they are saving themselves."
Looking at Cooper, Mann added, "Or let them think they are saving their children, then they will devote themselves wholeheartedly. If you don't let you think you are doing it for your children, you won't come here at all. Humans have not evolved to overcome emotional obstacles, but it is precisely because we are like this that we can give everything for what we love, and even burst out excess power."
[Interstellar travels through the world, looking at the sunglasses and suits outside, old Brand sighed.
Forget it, just lock it up, anyway, I have lived for so many years, it's worth it.
At least... seeing that I have done a lot of practical things and the plan can really preserve the fire for mankind, it shouldn't be too difficult for an old man like me...
Old Brand didn't know that in the timeline before the inventory video appeared, there was a man named Rey Diaz who would be killed by his own people in the future. He didn't know what absurd things happened to the man named Luo Ji who saved the two civilizations of Earth and Trisolaran in the same world...
Humans don't thank Luo Ji.
Humans won't thank him either.
At this time, after Mann explained everything clearly in the video, Cooper took a deep breath to adjust his mood, and then calmly kicked the glass that separated the clean room from the outside world.
But this was meaningless, and the glass was not broken. Cooper turned around and kicked the entrance and exit of the clean room again and again: "Let me out, Brand, you liar!"
"I want to find my family!" Cooper smashed the expensive astronaut helmet on the door panel, venting his anger and fear of being deceived. ]
"He made a great sacrifice for the entire human race." Mann understood the old man very well.
Cooper gritted his teeth and said hatefully, "No! The ones who really made the greatest sacrifices were the innocent people waiting to die on Earth! And he sentenced them to death because of his damn arrogance!"
"Don't be like this, Cooper," Mann suppressed the smile on his face, his goal achieved: "We are the fire and hope of mankind."
But Cooper ignored him.
Little Brand walked up to Cooper and said, "Cooper, what can I do for you?"
Looking at Little Brand, who felt guilty for his father, Cooper said, "Help me get home."
On Earth, Murphy and his colleagues from the space agency who had been in the hospital together were driving in the town.
Along the way, there were people everywhere with luggage tied to their cars, not knowing where to move.
More than 20 years ago, Cooper's car could drive perfectly in a sandstorm, but now the environment was so bad that Murphy had to park his car on the side of the road and wait for the sandstorm to pass.
"Panic will not help," Murphy explained why he did not intend to disclose old Brand's lies: "We can only continue to work as usual to maintain order."
"Isn't this just like Dr. Brand using lies to manipulate us?" Murphy's male colleague did not understand.
Murphy turned his head and looked at his colleagues: "Brand gave up on us, so I decided to solve his equation myself!"
"But... without the data inside the black hole, how are you going to solve it?"
Murphy squinted and fell into memories: "Just go with your feeling... Remember the ghost I told you about? My dad thought I called it a ghost because I was afraid of it, but I'm not afraid at all."
Shaking his head, Murphy continued: "The reason I called it a ghost is because it gives me a feeling... It feels like a person, this person is trying to tell me something... This may be 'them'. If you want to find the answer on Earth, it must be on that wall of books, it must be in that room."
(End of this chapter