Die on Mars - Chapter 246

c244 Day 338 (2) Universal Circuit Court

Tang Yue dragged the cable up the hillside and stood under the setting sun, looking ahead into the distance. Under the light brown sky, the horizon had no fluctuations. The old cat said that the Yixi plain was a huge impact crater 3.9 billion years ago. Born from the impact of a huge meteorite with a diameter of more than 1,500 kilometers, there are hundreds of thousands of such craters on Mars.

“What are you looking for?”

“Look for anything suspicious.” Tang Yue stretched out his hand and pointed forward, “Is our target in that direction?”

“Yes.” The old cat picked up its forelimbs, “But it is still a hundred kilometers away from us. What do you expect to find? Such a long distance has long exceeded the limit of human vision.”

“Isn’t there still you?”

“But Mars is a sphere. Even if the Burj Khalifa stands at that coordinate, it is now sunk below the horizon. We stand here, even with the Hale telescope on our shoulders, we can’t see that far.” Old Cat shrug.

Tang Yue was a little disappointed. They had been trekking in the desert for such a long time, and there were always only the same hills and deserts in front of them. There was never anything that could make people even remotely interested.

It is naturally impossible for a building like the Burj Khalifa to exist on Mars. If it did exist, it would have been discovered long ago. Even humans themselves probably don’t know how many probes humans have thrown over the past few decades. – Mars The small satellites brought by the landing plan are counted in sacks. Sack after sack of space junk was shaken out by the Orion spacecraft in the low-Earth orbit of Mars. Each detector is related to thousands of undergraduate and master’s students. graduation plan.

“Aren’t we going to litigate with them?” Tang Yue asked, “Is it possible that the destination is the court?”

It was impossible for a court with tall pillars like that on Earth to exist. Tang Yue thought it was more likely to be a circuit court.

In today’s era, circuit courts are quite rare, but in the backward and remote mountainous areas of the west, in order to take care of the parties who have difficulty traveling, judges will still carry the national emblem on their backs and travel across mountains and rivers, under the blue sky and red sun, to use local materials and set up two tables The chair is a simple open-air court. With this simple court, many issues concerning the ownership of cattle, sheep, chickens, ducks and homesteads have been resolved.

In Tang Yue’s imagination, when they arrived at the coordinate location, what might be waiting for him and Lao Mao was a circuit court like this – a strange-looking aircraft landed from the sky, and then the hatch slowly opened, with short arms and short legs. The little green men carried the table and hummed down the stairs. The little green men arranged tables and chairs on the sand, and then sat down one by one. The one sitting in the middle slapped the gavel and shouted: “Your Majesty!” Who is suing me?

“It could also be a spaceship or something.” Old Cat said, “Who knows? This is probably the only problem we face in this life where we can’t find previous experience for reference.”

Tang Yue stood on a high place. In front of him was a gently downward slope. There was a shallow ditch at the bottom of the slope. This was probably a trace of water flow. At a certain season and time of the year, there would be The water flows through, and the gravel has been polished more rounded by the water over time.

The sun is about to set, and the old cat has gone back to clean the solar panels. Anyway, there are only a few days to live in the end. There is no need to put the panels away at night. When the sun rises tomorrow morning, they can continue to charge, saving the need to move. The hassle of moving around.

Tang Yue sat down cross-legged and wanted to support his head but found that Mingguang Kai couldn’t assume this posture, so he had to give up and put his hands on his knees. He was thinking about the little green man’s circuit court… As a pure science and engineering man, he only I had seen the court session on TV. In fact, Tang Yue didn’t even know the specific steps of the lawsuit. In Tang Yue’s impression, the image of the judge and the auctioneer probably overlapped, because they both used a small hammer to knock. go.

The old cat’s voice suddenly came from the headphones.

“Tang Yue, come here and do me a favor.”

“What’s wrong?”

Tang Yue turned around and saw the old cat squatting next to a battery panel, his back facing him, motionless.

“come over.”

The old cat’s voice was deep and serious.

Tang Yue stood up and walked over. The old cat was squatting on the ground, staring at the battery panel, holding a brush in his right paw, as stiff as a statue.

“Old cat?” Tang Yue was stunned.

“Do not touch me.”

Tang Yue’s hand that was about to extend retracted and stopped in mid-air.

“Left arm,” the old cat said, “Pinch my left arm, just below the shoulder, with both hands.”

“What’s wrong with you? What’s wrong? Can’t you move?” Tang Yue squatted down beside it and held the old cat’s arms with both hands.

“Push harder.” The old cat whispered, “Now listen to my instructions, twist counterclockwise, turn slowly, don’t go too fast, stop when I tell you to stop.”

“Is that so?” Tang Yue nodded and began to slowly twist the old cat’s left arm. He immediately realized that something was unusual. The old cat’s arm looked like it was rusted to death. The rotation was like rough metal rubbing against each other. When he came down, he felt something suddenly break. It felt like a steel wire was stretched to the limit. The old cat’s body trembled suddenly, and he gritted his teeth and said: “Stop!”

Tang Yue stopped and didn’t dare to move again.

“let me go.”

Tang Yue stared at it blankly.

“You can let me go.” The old cat breathed a sigh of relief, “It’s okay now, it’s just an old problem.”

“Old problem? When did you have such an old problem?” Tang Yue let go of the old cat’s arm, very surprised.

“Didn’t I break this arm when I went out to find the Chelome last time? The conditions at Kunlun Station are too poor to be completely repaired.” The old cat grabbed his left shoulder and jerked it like an orthopedic surgeon. Pushing and pulling, making a clicking sound, “this arm will not obey the command from time to time, as if it is cramped. What’s even worse is that the rest of the limbs are also starting to have problems. If one fails, the rest will also fail. , Sure enough, he is old.”

“Is there any way to fix it?” Tang Yue asked, “You teach me and I will fix it for you. I’m an expert at repairing electrical appliances.”

“You are only an expert in repairing tractors and refrigerators. This is not within the scope of your expertise. There are no key materials on Mars, and it cannot be repaired without returning it to the factory.” The old cat tried to round its forelimbs, “It’s fine now, don’t worry. …Look, this arm is fine now.”

Tang Yue was still worried.

“It’s okay.”

“I don’t study well, so don’t fool me.” Tang Yue said, “Is it really okay?”

“No problem.” The old cat threw the brush into the air, and then accurately caught it with his left paw. “Look, is it as flexible as before?”

“I will do all the rest of the work. You go back and rest.” Tang Yue took the brush from the old cat’s paw.

The old cat looked at him, his ears perked up.

“Go back! Get back in the car! You are disabled, why are you still here? You old disabled cat!”

The old cat looked around, showing a cat-specific expression of disgust, purred, stood up and walked towards the Martian stray dog.

Tang Yue squatted beside the solar panel and was about to clean up the sand on the panel. Suddenly, a strong force came from behind him, causing him to stagger and almost fall to the ground. Tang Yue was startled and turned around quickly, only to find that the plug of the charging cable connected to the Mingguang Armor had been torn off. The old cat tripped over the cable and fell to the ground. He lay there motionless with his fallen left arm hanging on his body. Several steps ahead.