Die on Mars - Chapter 253

c251 Day 342 (1) A dead cat is not afraid of boiling water

“Old cat? Old cat, can you hear me?” Tang Yue got up and tried to contact the old cat, “Old cat, where are you? Can you hear me…”

Tang Yue was suddenly stunned.

He saw the time on the control terminal on Mingguang Kai’s wrist.

7:23.

7:23 am.

Tang Yue subconsciously turned his head and looked toward the porthole. He thought it was still early in the morning and it was still dark, so the window was dark, but the clock showed that it was already seven o’clock in the morning… Why hadn’t the sun risen at this time? stand up? This is not the polar region, and there are no long polar nights.

“I can hear you, are you awake?” At this time, the old cat’s voice came from the earphones, and then the hatch was opened, with a dull click, the old cat got in from the outside, Tang Yue paid attention When it had already put on the cabin suit, the old cat took off his helmet and asked, “How did you sleep last night?”

“I slept well, but something big and fat, weighing a hundred pounds, pressed on my legs and made them numb… What’s going on?” Tang Yue pointed out the window, “Why isn’t the sky still up? Bright? The sun goes out? Is the end of the world coming?”

“Come out.” The old cat put on his helmet and stretched out his paw to give Tang Yue a hand. “You’ll know for yourself when you see it.”

“no problem?”

“no problem.”

Tang Yue followed the old cat out of the experimental cabin and landed carefully. It was indeed dark outside the cabin, and he could hardly see his fingers. Tang Yue raised his head and looked around. Through the glass of the bright armor, he could tell that it was not night, because of the darkness. Not on the sky, but within reach, just outside the glass mask, only a few centimeters away from him. Tang Yue felt like he was immersed in ink, unable to see any sunlight.

Tang Yue turned on Mingguang Kai’s headlamp, and the beam of light shot out less than five meters away. The dark air was turbid red-brown in the light, and the dust was stirred by the violent airflow.

“Is this the smog you are talking about?” Tang Yue turned around and looked around.

“Hmm… severe smog.” Old Cat replied, “Today’s air quality is indeed a bit bad, worse than I imagined.”

“What’s your family’s virtue in smog? It blocks out the sky and makes you unable to see your fingers?” Tang Yue glared, “Does your family live in a coal kiln chimney?”

“Do you know this? I told you that I grew up in a hard life. Less than five months after I was born, I was sold to a black coal mine in Shanxi. I worked day and night, and the evil boss didn’t even give me food money… ”

“Say something useful!”

“Well, to be honest, I didn’t expect it to be so serious. The atmosphere was extremely turbid and there was no sunlight. I got up half an hour earlier than you and tested the battery panel.” Old Mao stood next to Tang Yue, ” Obviously, when we were sleeping last night, a dust storm passed above our heads. It carried a huge amount of dust and covered the surface of Mars like a thirty-kilometer-thick blanket, and the sunlight could not enter at all. Come.”

“How long will it last?” Tang Yue stretched out his hand and opened his palm in the darkness, “I can’t feel the wind.”

“It’s hard to say how long it will last. This may be a global storm. There will be no wind for three years, but it will blow for half a year.” The old cat replied, “It’s normal that you can’t feel the wind. The scope of the dust storm is very large, but that doesn’t mean The wind speed is very high, the atmosphere is so thin, and you wear such thick gloves, of course you can’t feel anything.”

The old cat and Tang Yue touched the body of the Martian stray dog ​​and walked forward step by step. Tang Yue turned off the headlight of the Mingguang Armor. The old cat held the small light bulb in his paws and held it above his head, emitting a faint light. .

“What should we do next?” Tang Yue asked.

“Everything is proceeding as planned.” Old Cat walked in front, “I said the weather conditions will not affect our progress, it is just a walk in the dark at night.”

“Can you still find a way with this kind of visibility?” Tang Yue was a little surprised.

“It’s as if we can find the road if the visibility is high.” The old cat snorted, “It’s a blind cat looking for a mouse anyway. What difference does it make if it’s dark or not?”

The old cat finally exposed his completely unreliable face. The sextant, the star chart, and the longitude and latitude were all deceiving a layman like Tang Yue. He had always been a blind cat, looking for a dead man in the desert. Rat.

Tang Yue was stunned.

“you you you you you!”

“What are you?” The old cat spread his paws and grinned, “That damn shabby letter just dropped the coordinates and asked us to find them. It’s a vast desert, hundreds of kilometers away, and we don’t have any reliable navigation equipment. How to find it? Use your head to find it? It’s just luck… If you’re lucky, you’ll encounter it, but if you’re not lucky, you won’t.”

A dead cat is not afraid of boiling water.

Tang Yue had nothing to do with Old Cat. He knew that Old Cat was telling the truth. Whether it was a sextant or a star chart, relying on visual inspection could only point out the general direction. It was impossible to achieve high accuracy like GPS. , along the way, they relied on measurement for seven points, intuition for two points, and luck for the last part.

Tang Yue and Lao Mao walked to the front of the car and climbed into the cab one after another.

The cab with ventilation on all sides was no different from a convertible. Tang Yue fumbled to sit down and fasten his seat belt. Lao Mao put the small light bulb on the center console. The dim light illuminated the wooden photo frame in the darkness. Tang Yue After taking another look at it, the smiling faces of the Orion crew members were still bright, but more distant.

The old cat started the engine of the Mars Stray Dog, and the indicator light on the control panel lit up, showing that the rover’s battery was fully charged, with 96% of the remaining power remaining.

“Do you know which direction to drive in? This damn weather…” Tang Yue stretched out his arm forward. At arm’s length, he could no longer see his palm. He simply stretched his hand into a pool. How to drive in thick ink with such visibility? Won’t you fall headlong into the ditch?

“Drive forward.” The old cat said calmly, “Are you still worried about me driving?”

The next moment, the headlights of the Martian Stray Dogs lit up, like two sharp swords piercing the darkness. The light was so dazzling at that moment that Tang Yue subconsciously squinted his eyes, feeling slightly surprised. He had never gone out on a mission at night, and had never Turning on the lights of the Mars rover, he didn’t expect that the earth had installed such two powerful krypton gold dog eyes on this old dog.

“When did I roll over the car?” Lao Mao looked forward with an indifferent expression, stepped on the accelerator hard, and started to accelerate and rotate the steering wheel with smooth movements. He was really an experienced driver of bumper cars.

The rover shook slightly and began to accelerate.

“Hey… wait! Stop the car! Stop the old cat!” Tang Yue suddenly remembered something, “Solar panels! The solar panels are still on the ground and haven’t been installed yet!”

“I know, I don’t want it anymore.” Old Cat turned the steering wheel and continued to accelerate, “Abandon everything that can be thrown away, and give up all the burdens. Anyway, this storm has been blowing for more than half a year, and it is useless to keep the solar panels. In the last thirty Kilometers, let’s go into battle lightly! Go straight to Huanglong!”