Die on Mars - Chapter 201

c201 Day 323 (1) Mars wasteland top sweep

The next day.

Tang Yue drove the Martian stray dog ​​out, carrying a small shovel and a plastic specimen box to collect soil.

Every once in a while, he would go out to dig suitable soil as a substrate for the growth of plants. Now, making a soil base for planting in Kunlun Station is not as difficult as it was when he first tried. The earlier mature dung mixture is quite fertile and the microbial community It is active enough and can be used as a fertilizer base for fermentation. It is like adding a little old yogurt to fresh milk as a primer when making yogurt.

“Old Cat, how many liters of soil will be taken this time?”

“It doesn’t take much, you can figure it out yourself.” Lao Mao replied, “When the Tianzhou 37 cargo spacecraft arrives, you no longer need to rely on growing vegetables to provide yourself with nutrition. There are soft-packed yellow vegetables on the spacecraft. Canned peaches and oranges.”

“What about Ophiopogon japonicus… We have three seeds that are recovering as planned, and five tomato plants have started to bear fruit in the second cycle. What is the appropriate amount of fertilizer and soil? Ophiopogon japonicus?”

No one responded in the channel.

Tang Yue patted Mingguang Armor’s mask.

“Have you entered the no-signal area again?”

The communication system of the Joint Space Station was damaged in the accident. Lao Mao and Tang Yue took the time to try to repair it. Unfortunately, no results were achieved. Now the communication link between the space station and the Kunlun Station is quite unstable. When the space station is on Mars The signal from the Kunlun Station cannot be received at all from the back, which means that half of the day, the space station will be in a signal-free area.

During this period of time, the communication between the old cat Tang Yue and Ophiopogon japonicus on the ground was cut off, and there was no solution. In the words of the old cat, the United Space Station and Kunlun Station could only communicate directly within the visual range. , if you want to make a call, you can only wait until the space station moves away from the back of Mars and rises from the horizon.

But once the space station falls below the horizon, communication will be interrupted.

“Okay, then we have to wait another half hour.”

Tang Yue sat on the ground facing the desert, with a shovel and box flat on his knees.

In front of you is an endless rocky beach, covered with a thin layer of floating sand. This layer of fine sand is very shallow. Part of it comes from the transport of atmospheric activities, and the other part comes from the weathering of rocks. Under the floating sand is Rocks and soil. There is no vegetation or enough moisture on Mars, so there is no soil environment that has been modified by the biosphere for millions of years like on Earth. The soil here is dry and rough, just a mixture of gravel and fine sand.

Under Tang Yue’s feet, there was at least one meter of soil like this.

Only after arriving on Mars did Tang Yue realize that the impact of living things on the environment is astonishing. Darwin’s theory of evolution believes that natural selection is the environment selecting the direction of variation of living things. But in fact, living things and the environment interact with each other. The reason why the earth can form The existing natural conditions in modern times can be traced back to the bloom of cyanobacteria 3.5 billion years ago.

If cyanobacteria had not appeared at that time, Tang Yue might have been a nitrogen-breathing creature.

“Old Cat, can you contact the United Space Station?”

“No.” Lao Mao said, “China Telecom reminded me that the user I dialed is not within the service area.”

“The telecommunications signal is indeed poor.” Tang Yue curled his lips, “Let them wait. When I go back, I must port my number to another network, and I still want to complain! Call 95598 to complain!”

“95598 is the number of the State Grid. You complained to China Telecom but you called the State Grid. Do you want the power supply bureau to cut off the power to the base station?”

Tang Yue used a shovel to dig out the gravel and sand. Every time Tang Yue took the soil, the location was fixed with a small flag. This saved him the effort of searching everywhere. Ophiopogon japonicus had taught him how to search for suitable soil. , how to mix fermentation with manure and soil, and how to grow tomatoes and carrots by himself for so long, Tang Yue has evolved from an electrical engineer to a qualified vegetable farmer.

He poured the soil mixed with sand and gravel into the box, closed the lid, and then began to tap the walls of the box gently, shaking it vigorously, as if shaking a sieve.

The purpose of doing this is to make the small particles of soil sink. During the shaking, the soil particles will fall into the bottom of the box through the gaps, leaving rocks on the upper layer. Large pieces of basalt cannot be used to grow tomatoes. Tang Yue must To weed them out.

Tang Yue opened the lid, grabbed the gravel, and then started the second round of soil extraction and screening.

His movements suddenly slowed down.

“Hey old cat.”

“Um?”

“I saw a little tornado.”

“Little tornado?” Old Cat frowned.

Tang Yue nodded. A small cyclone was swinging leisurely from less than ten meters in front of him. It looked less than half a meter tall and was dyed light brown by the sand. It swayed here and there. , moves very slowly. This was not the first time that Tang Yue encountered a tornado in the desert, but it was the first time that he was so close to this kind of small tornado. This kind of small cyclone is usually born on the backside of the dune, walking along the ridge of the dune or the hillside. The existence time is very short, less than three to five minutes.

And they usually have a quirk. The closer a person gets, the faster they dissipate, so few people can get close contact with them.

Seeing this thing on Mars is a bit like finding a seal basking in the Arctic ice cap. Most people will look at it curiously. Of course, it is not ruled out that some African chiefs who have long-standing grudges may also get angry and smash the seal on the spot. The back of the head.

Tang Yue pushed the specimen box filled with soil into the cockpit of the Mars rover, fixed it on the edge of the seat, then took down the remaining empty boxes and threw them on the ground.

“Shh… Look, what did I find? There is a lone little tornado! We can try to capture it. A small tornado can provide us with energy for several days. They are rich in protein and have the nutritional value of beef. Six times the size, but it’s not easy to deal with… We approach it slowly from behind, being careful not to make any noise.”

Tang Yue was chattering while sifting through the soil.

“I caught it! It struggled hard. We can cut off its head, remove the head and internal organs, and the rest of the body can be eaten. Of course, if time is not tight, we can roast it first.”

The old cat was stunned for a moment, and then rolled his eyes: Congratulations, Mr. Tang Yue. After a year of struggling to survive on Mars, your hard work has paid off. You have finally achieved enlightenment, learned the method of fasting, and can obtain life-sustaining nutrients just by drinking the northwest wind. Energy, from now on I suggest you go around hunting tornadoes as an apex predator on the Martian wasteland.

The old cat described this scene to Tang Yue: a man was running wildly on all fours in the desert like a vicious dog, chasing tornadoes and biting him, his eyes were glowing red and his saliva was flowing, from south to north, from west to east, He ran non-stop, taking a lunch break day and night, and ran three times on the Ixi plain in one day.

Tang Yue: Is this a case of rabies?

Old Cat: The suggestion here is mad cow disease, dear.