Saves His Life
Chapter 123 Cooper Saved a Life
On the Wanderer, Cooper was checking the data on the computer of the spacecraft.
Romilly had just come in from outside and had not had time to take off the helmet of his space suit. He said to Cooper: "For your return trip, I have a suggestion, that is, to try the problem of breaking the boundary black hole one last time."
"But I want to go home." Cooper said.
"I know it won't take long." Romilly took off his helmet: "This is also an opportunity for the people on Earth."
Realizing that going back like this would be waiting for death, Cooper thought for a while and said: "You tell me."
"Gagantua is a very old rotating black hole, and its gravitational tides are very fast. If the speed is fast enough, such as a lightweight detector or something, there may be a glimmer of hope through the gravitational slingshot effect." Romilly told Cooper about his research results over the past 20 years.
"Can you cross the time boundary?" Cooper asked, "What will happen if you enter the time boundary?"
"I don't know, I have no idea at all. Maybe you will be stretched into noodles several light years long, or maybe you will be broken into atoms. I don't know." Romilly said, "So instead of asking what you will see, you might as well think about how to transmit the data back to the outside of the horizon if the detector successfully collects the data. It needs to be equipped with a device that can transmit any form of pulse energy, and try to guess whether this information can be slingshotted out by gravity. That's right, the glimmer of hope I'm talking about is not the detector, but the data."
"Is this detector me?" Tas' voice was a little confused.
Romilly rolled his eyes, and the robot's humor module began to work: "Tas is the best detector candidate. In the past twenty years, I have told it what to do."
The function of the humor module was canceled, and Tas said to Cooper, "Cooper, I need the old optical transmitter on Kip."
"Are you willing to do this for mankind?" Cooper knew that the robot in front of him had already developed a very rudimentary personality.
"Before you burst into tears, don't forget that I am a robot that must follow orders." Tas' voice was very relaxed: "I'm not kidding, don't stare at my humor indicator."
[Tony Stark was first amused by Tas, and then he was somewhat moved by his willingness to enter the black hole.
"Hey, Jarvis, do you feel lonely?" Tony Stark asked Jarvis who was everywhere in the house.
"With your company, I am not lonely." Jarvis replied.
Tony Stark said with some pride: "It's really corny, where did you learn this?"
"From the words you said when you brought the cover model back before." Jarvis said in front of Pepper.
He touched his nose awkwardly and glanced at Pepper, who seemed to be indifferent on the surface: "Ahem, don't learn these things in the future. Look at TARS, who has just the right sense of humor. Although I can't communicate with that world, I will indeed create another artificial intelligence. I wanted to name it Ultron before, but now I plan to change it to TARS."
"I really look forward to what contribution our TARS can make to the advancement of human civilization after its birth!" Tony Stark's eyes were full of expectations. I really look forward to an artificial intelligence designed specifically to protect peace! ]
In the video, Romilly and Cooper came outside, and Mann had been waiting for a long time.
"I need to take some parts from Kip." Romilly said straight to the point.
Mann's eyes rolled: "Okay, but don't damage the information management system. There are still some important data stored in it."
"I'll watch it." Romilly promised.
Mann only then realized that the one who took the parts away was the robot that looked a bit cunning.
"Dr. Mann, we have to find three suitable bases, one for Brand's laboratory, and the other two for living quarters. After all, it will be inconvenient to move after the rest of the Eternity lands." Cooper walked up and said.
Mann nodded, saying that a blizzard could come at any time, and took Cooper alone to the target location.
The terrain of the ice planet is indeed as Mann said, with two layers. The layer they are in is like a man-made building, hanging in the air. What was thought to be the ground is actually a dome. The real ground is the lower layer that supports these huge domes.
It just so happened that Keith, who stayed on the Eternity at this time, had already flown past Cooper in a cargo spaceship.
"Fly slowly, the clouds here are solid." Cooper said to Keith through the communicator.
Cooper walked in a heavy space suit. "To be honest, Dr. Mann, it's a great honor for me to be able to participate in such an operation. But after the camp is built here and the spacecraft is confirmed to be safe, I will call it a day and go back."
Mann respected Cooper's decision. At this time, they had reached a steep place.
"Be careful." Throwing out the operating lever folded on his arm, Mann jumped down the steep slope first, pressed the button on the folding operating lever at the right position, and the backpack sprayed air to reduce the falling speed to a safe range.
Cooper followed suit and fell behind Mann.
"Do you know why we still need people to carry out such a plan when our robot technology is so advanced?" Mann said to Cooper behind him after walking a long way: "Because machines can't adapt to changes, we can't write fear into their programs. A group of fearless machines can't rely on the instinct of survival to surpass their limits and survive."
Mann stopped and said to Cooper with a half-smile: "Take you for example. As a father, you extend your desire for survival to your children. Do you know what the last picture a person sees before dying is? It's a child, a child's face. At the moment of death, your consciousness will violently stimulate you to struggle for survival."
Mann took the lead and continued walking until he came to another steep slope.
"When I left the earth, I felt that I was ready to die." Mann said panting. The constant temperature system of the space suit was very powerful. Now he was a little hot, and exercise was no problem at all: "But in fact, before I set off, I never thought about what would happen if my destination did not have the conditions for survival."
Cooper was a little confused, looking at the ice field in front of him and the deep and dark cliff in confusion.
Mann turned sideways and took off the magnetic communication device on the back of Cooper's helmet without hesitation, and threw it towards the steep slope in front of Cooper.
Cooper stared at the thrown communicator in a daze, and for a moment he didn't even realize that it was his.
But Mann didn't give him a chance at all. Before Cooper could react, he pushed him down the steep slope.
As an astronaut, Cooper reacted immediately and grabbed the protrusion on the steep slope. At this time, the speed of sliding was not too fast, and he was strong enough to hold on.
Looking at the terrifying cliff deep into the darkness below, Cooper cursed in his heart. No wonder Mann didn't know what he was talking about all the way. It turned out that he was preparing him to kill himself!
"What are you doing!?" Cooper asked.
Mann's space suit has foot spikes that make it easier to move on steep slopes and icy areas: "Sorry! I can't let you drive that spaceship away! I need it to complete this mission, to go to a new planet and build a new Earth. Once someone finds out that there is no life here, we will all be dead, let alone building a new Earth!"
"I'm sorry! Cooper, I have to do this. The Earth is doomed. I'm going to build a new Earth so that I can survive. I'm going to build a place that can be my home. I want to go home!" The spikes on the toes kept kicking Cooper where he was grabbing the bulge, but because he climbed down backwards to ensure his own safety, he couldn't see exactly where to kick, which prevented Cooper from being kicked off the cliff immediately.
Cooper struggled to bear the weight of more than 200 kilograms, including the weight of the space suit, with one hand. Mann regarded it as a target and was about to kick it. He loosened the bulge with his hand and aimed the auxiliary jet nozzle on his arm for slow descent at Mann's feet. He pressed the switch, and a strong airflow sprayed on Mann's feet. Mann, who lost his balance, immediately slid down, but he grabbed Cooper, and the two slid down the gentle slope together.
Neither of them wanted to die, but the bottomless cliff was not far away, so the two cooperated briefly for a while, adjusted the sliding trajectory, and finally slid to the edge of the ice field.
"You made up all the data?" Cooper panted, looking at Mann lying not far away.
"Yes..." Mann lay on the ground, judging the distance from Cooper from the slight vibration of the ground: "There is no second floor suitable for survival here, no... When I first arrived here, I knew that this was not a suitable target at all. I struggled for many years, but the button that can make people come to rescue me is there, and it can be easily pressed! Do you know how tempting this is?"
The vibration of the ground was very short, which meant that after Cooper stood up, he stood there. Mann's plan to attack was in vain, and he struggled to stand up.
"You coward!" Cooper cursed.
"Yes..." Mann walked towards Cooper: "Yes... yes..."
Mann repeatedly admitted that he was a coward and rushed towards Cooper.
The two wrestled in the ice field. With rich experience and stronger physical fitness, Cooper suppressed Mann under him: "Stop!"
But Mann hesitated for a moment, then suddenly raised his head and hit Cooper's mask with his helmet.
Space materials cannot be broken so easily. Cooper said seriously: "Dr. Mann, there is a 50% chance that you will commit suicide if you do this!"
Mann looked at Cooper: "50% is already a higher probability than 0%!"
After that, Mann hit Cooper's mask again. He bet right. Cooper's mask broke a crack, the balance between the inside and outside of the space suit was broken, and the high ammonia gas that poured in made Cooper temporarily unable to move.
Mann seized the opportunity and snatched back the joystick of the jetpack that was temporarily lent to Cooper: "Don't blame me, Cooper, you have never experienced a life-and-death test like me, and none of you have..."
[In the Interstellar world, after learning about the horror of the mountain waves on Mercury from the inventory video, the brave Miller, at this time, has not landed on the surface of this planet because of the time anomaly.
She was lucky to save her life and returned to the synchronous orbit, using the super-slow time anomaly to wait. For her, perhaps in a few minutes, the rescue is coming.
Looking at the screen, Mann kept saying that the life-and-death test was difficult to pass, and Miller immediately cursed.
There are twelve people in the group. Except for the three of them, how can the other nine brave men survive the test! ]
"You feel it, right?" Mann looked at Cooper who was struggling on the ground: "The ammonia in the atmosphere is very uncomfortable. Do you feel the instinct of survival? It is this instinct that drives me... and will eventually save me... I really want to save everyone. I want the fire of mankind to shine in the universe..."
"Sorry, I really can't bear to see you in such pain..." Mann turned his head and walked in the direction he came from.
"Cooper, I'm here with you..." Mann looked back at the struggling Cooper and said, completely forgetting that he had taken off Cooper's communicator and couldn't hear his voice at this distance.
"Have you seen your children?" The scene turned to the camera, and Mann's voice came from the communicator that fell on the ground: "It's okay, your children are with you."
Mann, who was walking towards the base, recited the poem that old Brand loved the most. Now is a rare windless period on this planet. The sound of the communicator is not loud, but it can be heard.
Cooper covered his mask with one hand, trying to prevent the unbreathable atmosphere from entering his space suit, while crawling towards the source of the sound. Finally, Cooper installed the communicator on his helmet again. In the suffocating environment, he squeezed out the strength to shout: "Brand! Help!"
Cooper took off his gloves and exposed one hand to the extremely cold environment, so that he could hold the small communicator.
In the camp, little Brand, who was carrying equipment, heard the call in the headset. He didn't have time to think about what Cooper encountered, and immediately ran towards the spaceship not far away.
Keith was also highly intelligent. Before little Brand boarded the spaceship, he had already started the engine and was ready to take off at any time.
"Cooper, wait! Hold on!" Little Brand sat in the seat, not even planning to fasten the seat belt, grabbed the armrest of the chair, and took off under Keith's control.
Mann and Cooper didn't go too far. Little Brand quickly arrived at the target location in the spaceship driven by Keith.
Before the spaceship came to a complete stop, Little Brand jumped out of the hatch and ran towards Cooper who was not far away: "Cooper! Cooper! Here I come!"
He opened Cooper's mask and stuffed a portable breathing device into Cooper's mouth. He could no longer care about the cold. If he didn't breathe, he would suffocate to death!
After he recovered, Cooper finally returned to the spaceship with the help of Little Brand
. His breathing became smooth and the temperature became suitable. Cooper saved his life.
(End of this chapteralling into a Black Hole
Chapter 124 Falling into a Black Hole
At this time in the camp, Tas encountered difficulties in dismantling Kip. It could not pass the part that required manual verification, so Romilly stretched out his hand and tried to unlock Kip.
After the fingerprint lock was unlocked, Romilly was surprised to find that the data on it was not correct. The data recorded on Kip was completely different from the data sent by Mann. According to Kip's data, there was no possibility of life here, and there was no possibility of transformation into an environment suitable for human survival.
On Cooper's side, after he had trouble telling Little Brand that Mann was lying, he tried his best to call Romilly.
Just when Romilly was wearing headphones, Tas noticed the high-energy reaction in the wreckage of Kip and anxiously reminded Romilly.
But whether it was Cooper, Little Brand or Romilly, they all underestimated the meanness of human nature. Romilly didn't react at all, and the high-energy military battery inside Kip overheated and exploded.
Military batteries are enough to support a robot for decades. After being modified by Mann, a professional scientist, the explosion power is no less than that of a real bomb. Not only was Romilly destroyed by the shock wave and flames, but most of the entire cabin was also destroyed.
At this time, Mann had just arrived near the camp. Looking at the exploded cabin, a smile of success appeared on the corner of his mouth, and he walked towards the Wanderer parked at the other end of the camp.
"Dr. Brand, Cooper, there was an explosion just now!" Tas's voice came from the communication channel.
Cooper and Little Brand did not speak. They drove the spaceship to the camp in silence. As a military robot, Tas's shell was not simply stainless steel, but some stronger material. This allowed Tas to escape the disaster and not be killed. After Cooper drove the spaceship closer, he rushed to the hatch of the spaceship.
"Romilly didn't survive." Tas said after entering the spaceship: "I couldn't save him."
Without saying any more nonsense, Cooper drove the spaceship to chase the Wanderer and tried to call Mann who didn't respond.
"He doesn't know the docking procedure of the Eternity," said Keyes, who was beside Cooper.
"But the spacecraft's autopilot program knows how to dock." Cooper was not optimistic.
But Keyes brought good news: "TAS has turned off the docking program."
"Well done," Cooper said, and then opened the communication channel to Mann: "Don't dock, automatic docking is turned off, repeat..."
But in order to prevent the voice from interfering with his approach to the Eternity and docking, the conceited Mann directly set the spacecraft to silent mode and headed towards the Eternity.
The Wanderer enjoyed the Eternity very much. After several attempts, he confirmed that he did not have the authority to automatically dock the program, so Mann climbed to the docking hatch and tried to dock manually.
Mann was indeed the best of the twelve people at the time. Pure manual docking did not take too much time, and the Wanderer and the Eternity's hatch docked perfectly.
But he did not have docking authority, and the docking of the Wanderer and the Eternity's hatch could not be completed.
The warning sound of the spacecraft at this time was also telling Mann that it was too risky to rashly enter the Eternity.
"Docking is incomplete."
"Docking is incomplete."
"You do not have permission."
...
The reminder sound kept reminding Mann not to take risks, but Mann, who had previously cracked Cooper's helmet with a helmet of the same quality on the ice planet, was confident that he would win this time. In the gamble of entering the Eternity in an incomplete docking state, he felt that he would not lose.
In the distance, Cooper saw that Mann ignored the safety hazards despite repeated reminders and drove the spacecraft backwards quickly to distance himself from the Eternity.
Little Brand also warned Mann of the danger of his behavior in the form of a broadcast through the computer connected to the Eternity.
But Mann had lost his mind and ignored the warnings from Little Brand and the cabin.
Soon, as the airtight cabin lost pressure, the Eternity and the Prowler fell into an unbalanced state, and Mann was blown directly into space. As his space suit was pierced by the flying spacecraft debris, he, such a cowardly and arrogant person, died in the space of an alien planet.
In the silent space orbit, the Eternity's rotation speed increased due to the space-time explosion of the Wanderer, and the debris was floating in the space. The space station symbolizing hope was falling towards the ice planet.
Cooper ignored the sweat on his head and rushed towards the rotating Eternity.
"Cooper, don't waste fuel on chasing." Keith reminded him. Like TASS, they are AIs, and they have written the lowest-level program for the good of humans. In his opinion, this is too risky.
But Cooper has the judgment of a human: "Analyze the rotation of the Eternity for me."
"What are you doing?" Little Brand asked as he watched the spacecraft narrowly avoid large pieces of debris.
"Docking." Cooper answered calmly, ignoring Little Brand's horrified expression, and concentrating on preparing for the next docking.
"The rotation speed of the Eternity is 67...68 revolutions per minute." Keith quickly calculated the rotation of the Eternity.
Cooper's plan is quite risky: "Be prepared to use reverse thrusters to rotate synchronously with it."
"That's impossible." Keith answered rationally.
"But I have to do it." Cooper stared at the front. Whether he was the bearer of human hope or the father who wanted to go home, he had to do it!
When Cooper drove the spacecraft to the bottom of the Eternity, Case reminded him that the Eternity had entered the stratosphere.
"Case, if I pass out, you take over the driving of the spacecraft." Cooper looked at the Eternity interface on the other side of the porthole above his head: "Tas, you are ready to dock!"
"Cooper, it's aligned." Tas's observation was more precise. The Eternity's interface had been aligned with the spacecraft.
"Start rotating!" Cooper drove the spacecraft to relative stillness with the Eternity.
The rotation speed of more than one revolution per second was very uncomfortable for the size of the spacecraft. Cooper tried his best to stay conscious, while little Brand had already fainted.
Under the super overload, Cooper even encouraged Tas.
Finally, when TASS prompted "docking completed", Cooper immediately started the reverse jet, and the rotation speed of the spacecraft and the Eternity began to decrease. With the exciting background music, Cooper calmly reduced the rotation speed to zero, started the main engine of the spacecraft, and pushed the Eternity out of the planet's gravity.
Little Brand woke up and was stunned for a while before she realized that she had just escaped death and dangled in front of death.
"Okay, please look forward to the next performance!" Listening to Little Brand's laughter after surviving the disaster, Cooper wiped the sweat from his forehead.
Although there were successful cases of rotational docking as early as the Soviet era... I really didn't expect that I could do it on my first trip to space...
"You'd better not mess up the performance." Tas's voice came from the communication channel: "We are entering the gravitational range of Gargantua."
The smiles of the two disappeared instantly. Cooper unbuckled his seat belt, left the control of the spacecraft to Keith, and climbed towards the Eternity.
[In an underground tavern in the Interstellar world, old Brand, who was being transferred by a black suit, looked at the story on the screen and sighed.
As expected, Mann betrayed his beliefs. After reviewing the video, he will be nailed to the pillar of shame of mankind.
At this time, Cooper had driven back home. He just pulled the handbrake and got out of the car without even turning off the engine, and hugged his daughter who rushed over.
"I didn't abandon you, my baby!" Cooper hugged Murphy tightly. No matter what, he definitely didn't want to miss the children's lives like himself in the video.
"Hi, Dad." It was only a few days, but Tom felt that he was separated from his father for a lifetime.
Cooper went forward and hugged Tom, tears in his eyes: "Good boy, good boy... Have you tried to contact Louise?"
Tom smiled: "The inventory is not over yet, and you haven't bought me a mobile phone yet."
"Wow, are you so looking forward to meeting your future wife?" Cooper wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes.
"You don't know how happy he was when he knew who his future wife was. He jumped up and down like a monkey in the mountains." Murphy rolled his eyes.
"Shut up, you woman who doesn't go home!" Tom said mercilessly.
Let the two go back to Murphy's room to study what the ghost is, Cooper looked at Donald on the side.
"But the environmental problem will be very serious in the future, you also know, my future great-grandson, Tom's eldest son... Cooper, if they still need you, what will you do?" Donald asked.
"I will help them with everything except spaceflight." Cooper said calmly, "Although NASA was in decline before it was disbanded, it was not like I was the only one. If they mobilize their forces to find someone, they will always find someone suitable."]
"The inventory is over, and the Easter eggs are starting!"
In the video, the Eternal is sailing on the side of the accretion disk of the black hole.
As the countdown ended, the remaining engines of the Eternal ignited. Under the attraction of the black hole,
the Eternal has exceeded the limit speed of the design range and has once again risen. [In the Three-Body World, Zhang Beihai's expression is very concerned. The Eternal carries the seeds of human civilization in another world, just like the Natural Selection he drove on the original timeline carries the seeds of humans.
It's just that in his world, the seeds can be Natural Selection, Blue Space, Enterprise, and Ultimate Law.
He knows that according to the original timeline, there will inevitably be battles between seed ships, because most ships do not have enough resources and fuel.
But he doesn't care, it's all the same.
But it's different in the video. They only have the Eternal.
This is the only seed.
The seed is in a bad state, too close to the black hole. The hull structure is not safe enough under the strong gravitational force, because the design of the spacecraft obviously cannot reach this speed. Now the speed of the spacecraft, according to Sophon's analysis, has exceeded 15% of the speed of light that the Forward Four can reach...
Wait, with the help of the gravitational slingshot of the black hole, such a spacecraft can reach 25% of the speed of light?
Then... What if it is a professional combat spacecraft? Can it challenge a higher speed?
Zhang Beihai thought about it and recalled whether there were any projects related to artificial super gravity sources in the frontier projects he knew. ]
In the video, the spacecraft where Little Brand and the spacecraft where Cooper were were ignited separately. The two used their will to fight against their bodies that wanted to faint in the stronger overload.
A piece of debris was torn off by the black hole, but it was the loss of mass that made the speed of the Eternal jump again.
"With just this little operation, we lost another fifty-one years!" Cooper said goodbye to Little Brand in a relaxed tone.
"You don't sound like someone who's almost 120 years old!" Little Brand's physical condition was not as good as Cooper's, and it was very difficult for him to not faint in such an overload.
At this time, the Eternity was visibly flying away from the black hole, and the overload feeling weakened. Little Brand breathed a sigh of relief.
With the fuel exhaustion prompt on the display, Cooper ordered the No. 1 landing module to separate.
In the No. 1 landing module, only Tas was here. The robot, who did everything for humans, obeyed the order without hesitation, controlled the separation of the landing module, and reduced the mass of the Eternity so that it could successfully escape the influence of the black hole.
"Bye, Tas." Little Brand said goodbye to this spiritual robot.
"Bye, Dr. Brand." Tas responded: "See you over there, Cooper."
"See you over there, kid!" Cooper smiled.
Little Brand: "?"
Before Little Brand could figure it out, Cooper was already separating the Ranger II spacecraft he was on.
"What? No! No! Cooper, what are you doing?!" Little Brand only then understood what Tas and Cooper meant by "see you over there". Cooper was also going to separate and fall into the black hole!
"Newton's third law tells me that I must leave something behind to let you out..." Cooper said, looking at Little Brand on another Ranger from the porthole above his head.
When the separation began, Cooper's Ranger II, like a fallen leaf, fell towards the black hole. The Eternity further reduced its burden and flew out of the gravitational binding range.
It's been sunny these two days... The quality is a bit poor... Sorry...
(End of this chapter