Chapter 6 2

Marco went out once to drink coffee, and went out again to eat sandwiches.The meeting was adjourned in the afternoon so that Nick could assemble and demonstrate the second flight board.The meeting lasted all day.That night, four of the engineers left Skygate but McCabel and two others decided to stay. "Just for fun," as McCabel said.They then worked with Nick and Kelly for nearly a year, completing machine instructions and operating manuals they didn't fully understand. When their proposal to the Cosmos was finally ready, the presentation had to be postponed because a plane carrying many European guides went missing over the Atlantic.Official inspectors glossed over the details of the facts, but a missed-flight survivor later told us that a friendly space snake flew too close to the plane, damaging its engine and forcing the plane to descend into that unusual fog.

At the exhibition, representatives of the United States and the Soviet Union made a final demonstration, and the strength of other countries was evenly matched.The head of the American team was Eric Thorson. Marco and I visited him after he arrived at the residence. I almost didn't recognize him.He was an old man now, stooped and slow, with a sad face and trembling pale hands.I guess the psychiatric therapy he had had was successful, but I felt sorry for him nonetheless.He greeted us with difficulty, waited to see what we wanted, didn't ask the kids or anything. We referred to Nick's presentation, which he listened to quietly, his ashen lips pursed, shaking his haggard head now and then.After we finished speaking, he made hasty promises to see us at the conference, but I could tell he wasn't convinced.

We met the next day in the once-magnificent but now tarnished Hall of the World—built when the Cosmic Organization had great dreams.The team members clustered around the podium, and the hall suddenly seemed empty.The echoes in the hall seemed to mock our hopelessness. Petrov arrives at Soviet headquarters, a stocky, energetic man.He warmly shook hands with all his old friends.When Kelly and Nick came in, he shot Kelly an admiring smile. One of his advisors surprised us.A short, muscular man with tousled hair and dark glasses arrived on Petrov's plane and slept in the Sino-Soviet apartment that night.When he took off his sunglasses, I recognized him as my brother Tom.

He was less enthusiastic than Petrov, waving his stubby arms at Marco and me, lighting a long yellow cigar and changing into another pair of spectacles to study our terminal plans. The meeting was anticlimactic, with delegates dissatisfied with the lengthy and cumbersome announcement.Kelly showed the tetrahedron, Nick explained the purpose of the information missile, and then asked McCabel to brief the delegates on the tachyon terminal. "I was skeptical," McCabel began, "but I've been convinced. I'll admit that the task of establishing a terminal will tax the planet's resources, but I think we can and must get it done. "

His voice rose enough to silence a startled objection. "Not making this choice, the result is death. We are no match for the cosmic beings we encounter on Venus, Mercury or elsewhere, and we don't know how to deal with space snakes in our own atmosphere or anything that enters our oceans." Thorson stood up, but McCabel would not stop. "I believe that our neighboring cosmic beings have found it very difficult to understand us or to fight us. Alien biologists are implying that we have severely damaged the ecology of Venus. I am afraid we have never given other life forms to feel justified Come and love us."

McCabel still didn't notice that Thorson's hands were shaking. "Gentlemen, this is a turning point for life on our planet. The Terminal can give us the means to understand differences and connect, and it can open a door to civilizations across the galaxy. I can't imagine not What happens to the terminal, I think it's tantamount to death." Thorsen finally got his attention.He said at the slow pace of an old man that there are already too many space aliens on Earth, and he doesn't want to see more.The American delegation supported Thorson and voted against the proposal.

Petrov spoke again, longer this time but with less content and less enthusiasm.His technicians have found many interesting items in the Terminal Station project that could be brought back for additional investigation, he understands the serious danger of intersecting organisms in separate universes and is aware of the growing danger posed by extraterrestrials to life on Earth . If Nick had suggested this a few years earlier, the Soviet Union might have supported the terminal project, but unfortunately, under the growing pressure of space invaders, amid suspicions that there are moon children on Earth, there are other Under the speculation that alien races in space secretly interfere with human affairs, the various races on the earth that are divided will never unite to establish any terminal station.So, regrettably, the USSR was forced to join the US in giving this proposal a "death sentence".In addition to this, the Soviet Union and its allies are making a statement to move away from With the withdrawal of the Universal Organization, it is officially stated that the issue of assets and privileges will be filed under the charter.

Nick and Kelly should be prepared for such an outcome, but they will never learn to reasonably tolerate the ignorance and stupidity of ordinary people.They were utterly devastated, clinging to each other, weeping sympathetically.Marco and Carolina try to comfort them, but they don't want to talk to anyone. When Petrov gathered his men to leave, my brother ran to Thawson seeking political asylum.Thorsen called my brother a traitor and turned away, ignoring him.Panting and sweating profusely, Tom rushed towards Marco and me. "Jin! My dear brother!" He embraced me passionately with his strong arms, and a scent wafted from his armpits, "There is even my old comrade!

Yuri!What a pleasure to meet you all. " Marco hesitated for a moment, then shook Tom's extended hand. "I need your help," he gasped, "and you need me too. I can help you, and help you build the terminal." "Help us?" Marco looked at him suspiciously, "How?" "I've made contact," his eyes moved slightly, as if thinking, "I have the power, I've seen how to do it. I have everything you need to get your project going. That's the truth. Believe Me, Kim. You have to trust me too, Yuri." Of course, we can't trust him, but it wouldn't hurt to listen.Although our plan was rejected, we have nothing to lose.

Although I had learned to live with his smooth talk, I couldn't resist his shrewd charm. "Is there any way?" Marco asked, "Who did you contact?" Tom shrugged, dodging the question.This is not the place to talk about it, and it would take a long time to clarify what we were asking.He whispered frankly to us that he would not return to work in the Soviet Union and would kill himself if we refused him. "This is your last chance!" He said eagerly, "Trust me, Kim, you would never have built the terminal without my help." Marco finally agrees to speak with Thorsen.Tom grabbed me, wiped the sweat off his face, and stared at the Soviet delegation like he was afraid of being stopped by the delegation.

Petrov accepted the facts with excellent diplomacy.He stepped onto the podium and declared to the crowd that Tom was a traitor, a running dog of capitalism, and an enemy of the people.His shameless crime is that he has betrayed the proletariat, betrayed the trust, he is no longer popular.Finally, Petrov ironically said goodbye to us and took their men away, leaving only Tom. Out of rage, Thorson had Tom locked up and sent to the American settlement. We didn't see him again until a few weeks later, when the fabric of the universe had completely disintegrated. According to the agreement, all the equipment in Gaotaidi and Tianmen belonged to the United States.Thorson was reappointed Air Commander, temporarily in power. He dismantled the old international security force and formed his own. During the dispute over the property ownership of the Universal Organization, Petrov had proposed that he wanted the tetrahedron.When rejected, he proposed to Kelly.When Marco pointed out that it would be impossible to decipher the tetrahedron without Kelly, he offered Nick.Thorson seemed willing to compromise, but Carolina strongly objected.She said Kelly would have died without Nick.Petrov was not interested in Guy. In the end, Petrov agreed to let the Americans keep the children and the tetrahedron.As compensation, the Soviet Union would gain ownership of the Tianmen space facility, even though Tianmen was only an observation deck on the Earth and the Moon and a semi-abandoned lunar base. After Petrov left, Thorsen asked us to take the boy to a conference room at the old Cosmos headquarters that now belonged to him.Nick and Kelly sat on a high stool, twisting and turning.Carolina walked up and down behind him, the tetrahedron set on the table in front of them, gleaming in the ugly, lifeless military room. Guy and I sat on one side of the room.He was sitting in a chair that wasn't big enough for him, and he was wearing a plaid raincoat.His yellow eyes were big and bright.It's empty, you can't see what he's looking at, not Nick or Kelly, or guards or anything. Before us sits a heavy cast copper ashtray modeled after a donut-shaped lunar observatory.Guy picked it up in his big hand and fiddled with it aimlessly.Suddenly I heard a crack and turned to see that Guy had broken it in two. The guards were very surprised.Guy pointed at one part of it as if he didn't know anything, and he'd chipped it into dozens of pieces by the time we left. When Sosen walked in with his newly appointed security minister, the guards stood up and we felt like we were in a courtroom.Major Gott was a tall, thin man with thin red hair and green eyes that always looked dim.There was a civilian slack about his every move, and he spoke in a rough, hoarse voice like the whispering of an undertaker's eulogy. Thorsen walked in with military arrogance, two more shining stars on his shoulders.He frowned at the children.Like they did something wrong and then started introducing Gott and made the rules for us. "Tianmen is now a fortress." He stared at the colorful little "pyramid" and twitched suddenly, as if awakened from a dream. "We are using military efforts to control all our air connections, and we will on this frontier." "Dad!" Kelly raised her hand like a schoolboy. "Aren't we allowed to work in the terminal?" "Of course not!" he said coldly, "We are in a war. Our task here is to perfect the new defense system." His sunken eyes glanced at Nick, "The engineers think your A beer can engine could be used to propel the missile fast enough to hit the snake in the air." "But, sir," he whispered tremblingly, "we were born to build a terminal. We can't waste our lives exterminating other beings!" Thorsen's haggard face suddenly lost its luster.He snatched up the glass of water that Gott was about to throw away, and gulped it down, pouring it over his hands and face. "Listen now!" he snapped at last, "Universal Organization is gone, Tianmen is a military base. You are all under my orders. You forget about that terminal station. You won't have time to waste using your The mere research of the so-called knowledge." Carolina made a request for freedom of academic research. "Listen!" he interrupted her, raising his voice, "We're fighting for survival! Star Wars is a whole new game! We're either going to lose to the bugs, or beat them with Nick's beer-can engine. All operations have to be conducted for military purposes, understand?" "I see, General," Karolina's reply caught him off guard. "All of you better understand..." His face started to darken and his voice cracked.He swallowed sharply, cleared his throat, and forced himself to smile, "Don't get me wrong. We were good friends and I didn't want to hurt anyone. Remember, I didn't send the kids to Petrov. Just You play this game, and I'm going to let you stay here like you were before, and you know what I mean." His glassy eyes scanned us, one after the other. "Marco," he said in an awkwardly unfamiliar (non-moon old comrade) tone, "Hodian, Carolina, if you don't do what I want, you will be replaced. You You will never see the children again. Is that enough?" "Yes, very clear, General Thorson," Carolina whispered coldly, "very clear." From that day on, I hated Thorson, even though I felt sorry for him too.Confused and disappointed, he frantically fights for his "world" to survive.I'm also from his world, but in love with Nick, Kelly and Guy.I can foresee his tragedy. Guy grunted softly just as Thorworn stood up to end the meeting.Although he wasn't looking at Nick and Kelly, I could see him leaning eagerly closer to the tetrahedron.Their faces turned brown again. "Please! Let's go back to the lab," Kelly said anxiously. "I think we've made a new discovery." "Is it a weapon?" Carolina was a little dismissive. Kelly looked hurt and shook her head. "We don't know," Nick said, still looking inside the tetrahedron, his eyes widening strangely. "We don't know yet." Major Gott sent a police car to drive them to the laboratory.They went into the dark room together and stayed in it all day.Late that night, Carolina was worried, so she knocked on the door and walked in. She found them lying on the floor like two small children, the tetrahedron glowing brilliantly between them.Their large eyes were fixed on it and remained motionless until Carolina touched them. She gives them a break.When they came to the kitchen, they walked as if they were sleepwalking, their hips and shoulders kept bumping friendly and intimately, as if they had a new feeling between them.They kept silent about the tetrahedron, drank a few sips of orange juice, and hurried back to the dark room. The next morning, Thorson called my office. He was going to inquire about my brother and hoped I would be there.Major Gott presided over the interrogation.Tom came in, guarded by two guards, and sat down in a chair. He looked fat, wrinkled, and listless.Under Gort's bleary-eyed scrutiny, he squirmed uneasily in his chair.He saw me, smiled at me, and then turned nervously to borrow cigarettes from the soldiers behind him.He looked at Gott very defiantly. "Mr. Hood, we are considering your asylum request," Gott finally began to speak, "you must explain a lot of things before we can help you." "I'm not a liar!" he said in a trembling voice of great dignity. "I'm an astronaut. I was trained by the Cosmos. After retirement, I held a normal job in a member country, which is related to The rights granted to me by the contract of the Universal Organization. Now that I go home to see my younger brother and son, is this also a crime?" "We've heard of some of your work," Gort's eyes were catlike, as if Tom were a cunning mouse, "and I believe one of them is smuggling stolen moon sand." "But that's a fair deal," Tom looked annoyed. "I'm a legal agent. I work for Howard Hudson. He mines the sand on the moon. He's legal there." "The gravel was stolen right under our noses." "Maybe in the dark," shrugged Tom. "Hudson didn't let his billions sit idle." "You sold the grit?" Gott continued. "As a job for you? You're also employed by the Soviet Union, I believe." "I was hired to be a cosmic engineer," Tom said, his tone still steady, but sweat glistened on his black, slightly fat face, "but I soon found out that all they wanted was my genes, and I Mutated genes after returning from the moon. I was sent to a laboratory buried in the Gobi to breed more children." "We heard," Gott nodded sleepily, "and the result?" "No!" said Tom. "The experiment lasted for 5 years, and a dozen lives survived, and one was half human. Three lived for a year and maybe longer, but they are all dead now," he trembled a little, "terrible Little ones, I can't bear to see them anymore." "Have you done any other research on sand grains?" "Yes," Tom looked at him with worried eyes, "I have excellent staff. We repeated most of the research you have done earlier, and we were able to assemble several second-stage tetrahedrons. Although there are no You guys, I think we've discovered something you didn't know about." "for example……" "The new use of the tetrahedron, we are about to figure it out." Gott bent slightly, like a cat about to pop out, "Then why are you defecting?" "Project aborted," said Tom, slumping his fat shoulders. "My sperm's gone wrong, and all our grains of sand have turned to dust, and I'm guessing your tetrahedrons sucked the energy out of it. Laboratory in the Gobi Destroyed by space snakes, our bosses also suffer from what I call space paranoia." "Oh?" Gott stepped back. "What's the symptom?" "That's something they can't get over on their own. Their human appearance isn't suited to encountering beings from our sister universe. When they encounter another intelligent life, they hope to understand it. But if they don't, humans will There was an urge to attack. When those space snakes were playing hide-and-seek with their best missiles, they were pissed off." Gott didn't move, his mouth looked like an ugly mouse. "I'm sure I'll be of use to you," added Tom quietly, "and, as I told you earlier, I'd love to see my brother and son. How are they doing?" Gott finally announced that Tom's case would be reopened, but he would remain incarcerated in the interim.Thorson allowed him to see the child the next morning.I arrived in the lab with Tom in the police car, and Nick and Kelly jumped out of the dark room to welcome him with an enthusiasm that surprised me. "Guy's father!" said Kelly, putting her arms around him happily. "I'm glad you're here. Poor Guy will be happier now." Nick shook his hand politely. "Please, Mr. Hood. Tell us what you know about lunar grit," his voice trembled with obvious interest.Carolina says you've found a new use for it. " "We successfully combined two secondary tetrahedrons," Tom paused, looking at the top of the mountain the same way he looked at me. Unexpected contact devices, they are some magical signaling devices." "It's useless to us," disappointment replaced a smile on Kelly's face, "we only have a tetrahedron." She caught her breath suddenly, and looked at Nick for a moment with wide, dark eyes, and hope returned to her face.Nick turned sharply to Tom. "Do you think there are other missiles reaching other planets in the solar system?" He said so fast that I could barely hear him. "Do you think other biological universes will assemble their own tetrahedra? Or do you think," He was speechless with excitement, "Do you think our tetrahedron has enough energy to connect us with life on other planets?" Tom made a gesture of affirmation, like a merchant in a fair affirming the value of smuggled greenstone. "I bring you the answers to these questions," he said, "and others are just as exciting. I wish to help you answer these questions, but with the permission of General Thawsen." They took Tom into the dark room where the tetrahedron was, and he stayed there for three hours.The guards waiting outside got a little impatient, so they let Carolina go in to see what they were doing. When she went in, she found that the light was on.Nick and Kelly sat on the floor facing each other.Nick held the tetrahedron in both hands, and Kelly leaned forward, her brown fingers touching the shiny triangular surface like some strange musical instrument. Tom was sitting on the stool next to him, smoking a cigarette and making some rhythmic noises. Carolina thought he was giving them directions in Chinese. Tom coughed to remind someone to come in, but Nick and Kelly ignored it, and Carolina watched for a few minutes before going out.The guards called Gott, who came quickly, and with his permission, we followed him into the dark room, Tom was very unhappy, and Nick and Kelly didn't wait until Carolina touched them. When they looked up, they looked terrified.Nick held the tetrahedron tightly in his naked arms while Kelly waved us out pale. "What's the matter?" Gott asked, putting his hand on the gun. "What are you going to do?" "I'm just showing them what I found in the Gobi lab." Tom said sadly, "a technology to manipulate this crystal, a path to the manipulator's brain, a linkable result, a Relaxed and tense rhythms." Gott's cat eyes narrowed, and he took two steps back as if the tetrahedron had suddenly transformed into a terrifying mad dog. "When you manipulate it," he gasped, "how does it react?" "That's what we were trying to find when you came in to block." Gott sniffled and said, "You've got to tell me more, if you want to go on." "Sir," Nick stood up holding the tetrahedron, "a tetrahedron is a kind of machine. There is some kind of communication with the outside world, but it is not at all verbal.It uses its own set of symbols to record reality and events," he hesitated suddenly, then added, "I want to tell you more, sir.But the symbols are unknown to you, and the facts it reflects don't fit any symbol system you know.Mr. Hood is doing his best to let us know of a better way of operating this machine. " "Communicate with what?" "So far it's only with itself," Nick's gaze returned to the tetrahedron, "now I think we can understand some of the records that we didn't understand before. Mr. Hood thinks it may be related to another tetrahedron, perhaps in the Another world. But we haven't made any contact yet." Gott's green eyes blinked sleepily. "Come with me, Hood," he whispered anxiously at last, "I must ask the general for instructions before you go any further." He turned lazily to Nick and Kelly: "Any attempt to use this tetrahedron to establish a connection with anything else must be approved by General Thorson. Do you understand?" "Yes, sir," Nick winked quickly at Kelly. Tom's story makes me very interesting, although the authenticity has yet to be verified.He made Gammel Hordian a sacrificial saint, our mother a dramatic farmer, and Robin a deranged nympho.He made himself a bombastic hero in his stories about the Moon and the Gobi Racecourse, and I told Guy he was a great fictional genius. "Don't lose your cool, Uncle Kim," Guy blinked his tawny eyes, "I know what's true, I'm just helping Dad make a little joke on the guards." I didn't guess what the little joke was about, not even until Guy had an unpleasant encounter with Nick and Kelly the next day.As Guy, Tom, and I walked up the road to the gym, Tom began to ask Guy how the grains of sand were assembled into tetrahedrons, and Guy seemed disturbed. "I don't remember." He stammered.We stopped on the sidewalk outside the lab.Gai Hui's ears were a little red, and a low trill sounded from his throat. "Okay," Guy said gruffly, "I'll do it for you." He rushed into the laboratory.Tom glanced at me, then ran in after me.The guards yelled and fired a warning shot, but Gai was gone and I followed them into the building. In a dark room, the tetrahedron shines brightly on the floor.Guy crouched beside it, wailing as if hurt.Nick bent over, clutching a long red gash on his chest that must have been scratched by the sharp corner of the tetrahedron.Kelly walked between them, pale with fear and grief.Tom was standing in the doorway, telling a story about three thieves and a sheep in our father's Nayidi accent. He kept gesticulating with the cigarette between his fingers, a little glib. "Come here, Hood!" said one of the guards, pointing a gun at him. "Now you're really in trouble." Guy's gorilla-like roar paralyzed me.He rushed over and grabbed the guard's arm and dragged him into the dark room. When the roar stopped, the guard was crushed and lay on the ground.Guy was crackling bullets like he was tearing apart a toy.Two guards ran out for help. "Relax now," panted Tom. "Let's put the goat back in our pockets." He waved his cigarette and winked at me. "What do you think, Kim? You're old Sowson's Running dog? Or are you willing to take this chance?" I don't understand what he means. "You were a coward," he shrugged and turned to look at Nick and Kelly. "What do you guys do? Do you want to die for old Gort? Or try your luck with us?" "Our mission is to build a tachyon terminal." Nick grabbed Kelly's pale hand and looked at Tom calmly. "Nothing can stop us, but I'm afraid you can't help us, Mr. Hood." At this time, the alarm sounded outside.Gott came to the hall lightly, followed by the guards.He handcuffed Tom, picked up the tetrahedron, and herded us outside together.At this moment, Thorson's car screeched to a stop beside us. "Eric!" Tom laughed. "Glad you're here. Your men nearly killed us. Let me explain." "Stand back, Hood!" Thorson, looking very angry and ill, beckoned Gott to the side of the car. "Look at him," he said, knocking on the car. "We think he is a spy for our enemy. Charge him with treason!" "My friend," said Tom sadly, "my old companion from the moon." "Lock him in the dungeon at headquarters." Thorsen took the tetrahedron away with a shaking of his bony pale hand. "No one can touch it without my permission." "Yes, sir." "You children," Thorsen glanced blankly at Nick and Kelly, "you have had enough fun, I hope you can develop the beer can missile propulsion system, and start tomorrow." "Father!" Kelly said, pointing to the bright red wound on Nick's chest, "don't you see he's hurt?" Something to ask for. But you have to work under guard, no grit.” The children stood in the sun hand in hand, not saying a word.Suo Sen called the driver and drove away.Gort licked his lips and shoved Tom into his car, with Guy snarling after him. "No, Guy!" Kelly yelled, "They're going to kill you." Guy whimpered and staggered away.I walked to the gym with Nick and Kelly.Without saying a word, they both seemed very depressed, and they quickly went back to bed without eating the supper that Carolina had specially prepared for them. That night we heard the hiss of a space snake.I didn't see the space snake because I was reading a novel and just wanted to forget about the kids and the terminal.I only heard a scream as it flew by, felt a biting cold, bitter in my mouth, the windows rattled, and the desk lamp flickered and went out. I walked to the door with bare feet. It was pitch black outside and the car wouldn't start.People squatted in the dark, cursing, and flashlights and gunshots appeared everywhere from time to time.The generator stopped working and the entire plateau was in darkness for an hour.When the lights came on again, I went downstairs to the nursery.Nick and Kelly fell asleep soundly.I spoke to a guard who saw the space snake. "It's not like the picture," he said, "you can't see its shape in the dark, you can only see the tooth-like crystal in the middle, and there are feathers sticking out, like blue wings. ’” he trembled, “I only saw it as it whizzed overhead, and it scared the hell out of me.” I went back to bed.I didn't look into the covered bed.Marco woke me up the next morning with a breathless message: "Guy is gone, get up with Tom and Tetrahedron." "The soldiers guarding Tom were all knocked out and tied up," he said. "The dungeon door at the headquarters was wide open. No one knew how they escaped from the plateau. Gott thought the escape was a blackout." It happened." He gave me a nervous look, "I don't know what your brother's up to, Kim, and I guess you don't either, but Gott thinks he's with the snakes." It seemed that the boy did represent her father, a kind of communication with the dead? Maybe something in a fantasy?