Chapter 5 Chapter 5 A Subtle Goodbye
There are probably a hundred thousand people on Zara 23 at any one time.More precisely, a hundred thousand humans, occasionally, Zara Group puts them in a handful of middle management positions to demonstrate the company's commitment to the equality and diversity of intelligent beings in its hiring and appointments.Non-humans generally don't stay long, and the Zara Group and human employees didn't make much effort to persuade them to stay.After all, Zara No. 23 has always been a "manpower factory".
On Zara 23, 60,000 people work directly on hundreds of exploration and mining camps. These camps vary in size and mining difficulty, so the size also varies from fifteen to two thousand people.These were mostly labourers—men, and occasionally women, who operated the excavating and mining machines that scavenged the mines and shafts of the hills; there were also some managers and overseers.Each camp also has support staff, cooks, IT staff, cleaners, medical teams and "special workers" for both sexes.
These exploration and mining camps are scattered on the surface of the planet from the equator to the poles, and the raw materials mined are transported back to the planet's only city, Aubrey Town.The town is located on a plateau at the equator because it saves miles of "bean-stalk" pipelines.Meanwhile, the town of Aubrey is delivering supplies to the camp, rotating workers, and coffins—for those workers who need to be replaced.One can spend one's life working in a Zara Group exploration and mining camp, and some people do.
Another 20,000 people are working on the "bean pole" transportation track in Aubrey Town, sorting out and packing the raw materials transported back from the survey and mining camp, and preparing for transportation. On , the transport station is built in the geostationary orbit of the planet.One glance at these ships shows that the amount of raw material resources brought back to Earth from Zara 23 is huge. This kind of plundering is extremely unfair-if there is any intelligent life on the planet, it can protest this unfairness.But not on the planet, so from the point of view of the Zara Group and the colony official, everything is fine.
Fifteen thousand more people on Zara are contract surveyors, like Holloway.These contract surveyors hand in thousands of credits to the Zara Group every year as a franchise operation fee, and the Zara Group distributes them a piece of campsite survey.If they find any resources worth mining, surveyors are paid 0.25% of the total market value of the resources mined.
If you are assigned a camp rich in sunstone resources, you will get rich, and Holloway will soon become a rich man.If you have ordinary ore and rare wood, you can make a lot of money comfortably.If you are unfortunately like most surveyors, the resource density in the assigned camp is not enough for the Zara Group to organize mining, and you will soon go bankrupt.Most of the contract surveyors can't insist on returning to Earth after one or two years, and they are destitute.The Zara Group even requires each contract surveyor to pay the fee for returning to Earth in advance, and independent surveyors are not allowed on the planet.
The jobs of the remaining 5,000 people are various: workers responsible for the construction and maintenance of buildings and facilities in Aubrey Town; managers of the Zara Group and white-collar employees who are resident on the planet responsible for accounting profits and managing raw materials, as well as their subordinates ; a Colonial Officially Assigned Judge and her two clerks; a well-armed (and arguably over-armed), well-trained vigilante whose main duty is to stop the town's bar fights (provided they aren't They picked it up themselves); the owners and clerks of sixteen bars, three restaurants, and a general store in Aubrey; the medical staff of the twelve-bed hospital in Aubrey; and finally a single The lone priest in the town guards the chapel on the edge of Aubrey Town, and the Zara Group has built a garbage incinerator next to it.There are no housewives or househusbands on this planet, everyone has to work and there are no children.
The careful observer will find that among the various occupations listed above, no one is engaged in purely scientific research.This is intentional.The agreement obtained by the Zara Group is for exploration and mining. For the two, the group is more willing to focus on the latter.The work of surveying is outsourced to mostly unlucky contract surveyors, who profit from it regardless of whether they find useful resources or not.This level of surveying does not require professionally trained scientists, as long as someone is willing to detonate sonic mud all over the planet, collect samples, and then send the data to a machine dedicated to scientific calculation and analysis.Mining requires engineers and other workers with experience in technical operations, and it does not require scientists in laboratories.
However, the Zara Group still has three scientist employees on the Zara 23 star, mainly to meet the requirements of the exploration and mining agreement.They were a geographer, a biologist and a depressed alien linguist - who was supposed to be assigned to Ula, but was sent to Zara 23 by mistake due to red tape confusion. No. star.He has to stay on the planet until the formalities are sorted out, a process that has been going on for two standard years, and there is still no sign of it being resolved.The alien linguist, with a salary but nothing to do, spends his days reading detective novels and drinking alcohol.
Jack Holloway met the alien linguist at a Zara Group dinner he was forced to attend.During this period, this half-drunk man gave Holloway all the knowledge about the phonetic complexity of the multiple branches of the Urrian language and how the three sub-dialects of the Urrian language interact with each other.After an hour-long blast, Holloway told the date who had brought him to the party that she had to make it up to him.She complied.She is the biologist.
And Holloway was looking at her now.
Isabel Vanga did not see Holloway.She was looking down intently at her message board as she stepped out of the office area, and he was standing across the street, holding Cal on a leash.Carl saw Isabel and wagged his tail wildly.Holloway looked to the left and right of the street. There were no cars but some pedestrians.He untied Carl, and the dog shot like an arrow across the street to Isabel.
Watching a dog charge towards her, Isabelle looked confused at first, but then recognized the little animal, let out a yelp of joy, and knelt down to receive her recommended daily ration of canine licks Face volume.She was still rubbing Carl's ear cheerfully as Holloway walked by.
"He's glad to see you," said Holloway.
"I'm happy to see it too." Isabelle said and kissed the dog's nose.
"Did you see me happy?" Holloway asked.
Isabel looked up at Holloway, flashing her trademark smile. "Of course I'm happy," she said, "how else would I see Carl?"
"Oh, well said," said Holloway, "then I'm going to take my dog with me now."
Isabel smiled, stood up, and patted Holloway on the cheek in a friendly way. "It's all right now," she said, "be more comfortable."
"Thank you," Holloway said.
"You're welcome," Isabel said.She turned to Carl, first clapped her hands, then held them out.Carl jumped up and put his paw on her hand for a double handshake. "What's the matter with you coming to town? Or did you drive 600 kilometers specially so that I could meet Karl?"
"I've got a business for Chad Burne," Holloway said.
"That's funny," Isabel said, looking up at Holloway playfully, "do you two still hate each other?"
"We get along pretty well now," Holloway said.
"Aha," said Isabel, "I've seen you lie so many times that I can see you're not telling the truth now, Jack."
"Then let me put it another way," said Holloway, pulling out the Sunstone he had brought with him. "I recently gave him a reason to get along with me."
Seeing the Sunstone, Isabel let go of Carl, stopped shaking hands with it, and stretched out her hand to Holloway.He put the Sunstone in her palm, and she held it up to the sun, and the crystals inside sparkled.
"It's so big." After a while, she finally expressed her opinion.
"There are bigger ones on the seam," Holloway said.
"Hmm——" Isabel continued to look at the Sunstone. She held the stone in her palms and said to Holloway, "So you finally got lucky."
"It seems so," Holloway said, "acoustic images show that this sunstone mine is about a hundred meters wide, its length exceeds the range of measurement, and its depth is also four meters. This may be the parent mine of the sunstone mines discovered before. "
"Then, congratulations, Jack." Isabel said, "This is exactly what you've been waiting for." She handed him back the Sunstone, which had already shimmered softly from the heat of her palm.
"Here you are," said Holloway, "as an apology."
Isabel raised half of her eyebrows slightly. "Apologize? Really? What are you apologizing for now?" she asked.
"You know," Jack said uneasily, "for everything."
"Okay," Isabel said.
"I admit I screwed up," Holloway said.
"You just can't admit how you screwed up," Isabelle said, "but that's really important in any apology, Jack."
Jack pointed to the Sunstone. "Great gem," he said.
Isabelle chuckled and pushed the Sunstone back into his hand, which Holloway reluctantly accepted.
"It's worth a lot," said Holloway, "and you could have sold it if nothing else."
"And then do a lot of shopping at the group's stores?" Isabelle said.
"You can find flowers somewhere else in that building," said Holloway.
"I don't want it anymore," Isabel said. "I can't spend it anywhere else. Besides, if I want to make money, I won't be a biologist. I'll learn from you."
"Ouch." Holloway said hurt.
"I'm sorry," Isabel said. "This sun stone is beautiful. I appreciate your apology, but I don't think it suits me."
"Apology or Sunstone?" Holloway asked.
"None of them are suitable." Isabel said, "I still want a more appropriate apology, and I'm still waiting for the day you can say it. And you know how I feel about Sunstone."
"Those jellyfish have been dead for a long time, don't worry," Holloway said.
"Maybe," said Isabelle, "but watching the Zara Group tear up that mountain you named after me and drive out all life on it, just for these rocks—" she pointed The Sunstones, now in Holloway's hand, "—I can't like them."
"They're not just digging for the sunstone," Holloway said. "They're digging for the timber."
Isabel glared at Holloway.
"Just kidding," Holloway said.
"Really?" Isabel asked back, without any emotion in her voice. Holloway had learned to be afraid of this kind of voice in the past, and later even avoided it instinctively. "You've said funnier ones before."
"I think I can remedy that with another gift," said Holloway.
"What? Another rock? No, thank you," Isabel said. "You named a living mountain after me a long time ago. It was a very thoughtful gift, and I loved it. It's a pity it ended up like that. ’ She bent sideways to press a kiss on Carl’s forehead and walked down the street.
"One more thing." Holloway asked to stay.
Isabel stopped, and it took a second before she turned to face Holloway. "What's the matter?" she asked.Her tone suggested to Holloway that he had used up the limited amount of time she was willing to spend with him today.
Holloway pulled a data card from his pocket. "I had a visitor to my cabin the other day," he said. "Some kind of small animal. I haven't seen it before. I don't think anyone else has either. I thought it might interest you."
She blurted out involuntarily, "What kind of animal?"
"I think you should watch that video yourself," Holloway said.
"If it's just another lizard, the Zara Group doesn't care," Isabel said, "unless it's highly poisonous, harmful to humans, or the urine it excretes is pure petroleum."
"Not lizards," Holloway assured. "Has the group told you what you should study?"
"Of course." Isabel said, "To be precise, it tells me what I can't study. Unfortunately, even if I don't classify lizards, I have nothing else to do. I will become like Dr. Chen." Dr. Chen It was the alien linguist.
Holloway tilted his head to indicate the data card. "This one will keep you busy for a while," he said. "I promise."
Isabelle looked at the card suspiciously, but walked towards him and held out her hand. "I'll take a look." She took the card. "You better not waste my time, Jack."
"I didn't," he said. "At least I've learned not to waste your time."
"That's good." Isabel said, "You can also gain some knowledge when we fall in love once."
"But I don't use that knowledge every day these days," Holloway said. "You're mostly in town now."
"Life is like this sometimes. By the time we finally learn it, it's too late to use it." Isabel looked at Holloway quietly.
"I'm sorry, really," said Holloway.
"I know," said Isabelle. "Thank you, Jack." She patted him on the cheek again, friendly, but nothing else. "Now I really have to go. I'm late for my lunch appointment." She patted Carl and hurried off.
After a few minutes, Holloway watched her go, then leaned over to snap the leash onto Carl's collar. "I thought it was a good atmosphere," he told Carl. "It's not bad in general."
Carl looked up at Holloway with an "I doubt it" look on his face.
"Oh, come on," said Holloway, "it's not all my fault."
Carl and Holloway, who were looking at each other, looked away in time and returned their attention to the street, just in time for Isabel to turn the corner and disappear into the street.
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