Chapter 3 third chapter

In China and America, almost every university has established a department for the study of heaven and man: since those five people returned to China and America, it has become popular.But most people take it as a joke.The Department of Astronomy is basically the illegitimate child of religious studies, actually engaged in astronomy or computers.Everyone puts all the bombastic, incompetent guys in here.Ann Arbor's upperbound department was set up by Larry the Lazy - and he spends most of the class time eloquently arguing its falsity.Think about it, under the feet of Feiyuejie, guess what is on the top of Feiyuejie!Even the tourists shy away from the subject.The Transcendent exists—maybe it includes most of the universe—but it's a tricky, dangerous, and nebulous thing.Larry had said that the existence of the Transcendent was the main driver of the Leap's economy...but all theories about the Transcendent were dubious hearsay.Larry claims that he has elevated the study of celestial beings to the level of palmistry, which is one of the things he is most proud of.

But now... this trader obviously often goes deep into the territory of heaven and man.If the government hadn't blocked the news, it would have absolutely eclipsed the tour group.And this guy is the buyer of Quack.Hamid reached out and patted his pet almost automatically. "You... do you think there are angels on board?" An hour ago, he was still sad about the possibility of being separated from Quack, but compared with this situation, that little worry was nothing. For a few seconds he thought Larry would shrug and avoid the question.But the old fellow sighed, "If there's one thing we know about celestial beings that's true, it's this: celestial beings can't think at such depths. Even in the world of leaps, they'll disintegrate, Death. In a word, there is only one way to die. I think Ravna & Sharp Claw are humanoid intelligent life forms, but it is likely to be much more dangerous than a wave of people from the upper world... Its tricks, those equipment..." Larry's voice grew quieter, and now his attention seemed to be on the forty-centimeter statue on the table.The thing glowed green, as if carved from a single piece of flawless green jade.wait, green?Wasn't that thing black just now?

Larry suddenly turned his eyes to Hamid: "Congratulations, your troubles are much more interesting than you imagined. Tell me, why would an outsider and a high-level trader want to buy croaks?" "... Well, it must be a rare breed. I've talked to quite a few tourists, and none of them can recognize what race the quacks belong to." Larry the Lazy nodded.Space is no small place, and quacks might come from another planet in the reptilian world. "A lot of people studied it when it was little. You read the papers. Its brain was about the size of a chimpanzee, but most of it was used for the diaphragm and processing the sounds it heard. Someone said it It is the ultimate form of phonological function: all mouth, no heart."

"Ah! Just like a student!" Hamid brushed off the Larry-esque taunts. "Look at this." He patted Guagua on the shoulder. Must have been fascinated by the ultrasound machine, it was slow to respond.Finally, it raised its head and asked, "What are you doing?" The young woman's voice had a normal tone. "Some people think it's just a parrot. It's better than a hi-fi tape recorder. But he also has his favorite sentences, and often uses different voices when he says them - mostly decently... ..." Hamid pointed to the electric heater leaning against Larry's feet, "Hey, quack, what's that?" Quack stretched his head forward, around the corner of the table, staring at the red-hot coils.The stove was different from the one used in Hamid's apartment.

"What is that... thing..." Quack curiously stretched his head towards the firelight.Too quickly, its nose touched the safety net of the electric stove, "Hot!" It jumped back, buried its nose in the hair on its neck, and pointed at the electric stove with one front leg, "Hot! It's burnt to death!" It sat down and carefully licked its nose, "My God!" It glanced at Hamid as if scolding him, with a calculating look in his eyes. "Believe me, quack, I didn't expect you to touch that thing... for this matter, it will definitely retaliate against me. Its sense of humor only goes as far as laying an ambush to plot against me, but in this regard, it is extremely persistent."

"Well, I still remember the research report of the Animal Association on it." Fujiyama smiled at Hamid with a wide grin.Hamid has always felt that Larry and Quack are very similar in temper, almost like a family.After listening to Larry's two lectures, Guagua even giggled like the old man. Larry moved the hotplate back and around the table.He bent down and looked into Quack's eyes.Now he looks like he cares about Quack.It's an attitude that serves him well: 'He's got a mouth full of fangs, and he's already playing "The Time Bomb Song."After a while, the music stopped and Guagua closed his mouth. "I can't believe that there's no human-like intelligence hidden here. Really. I've seen a lot of freshmen, and it's not as good as it at the beginning of school. Why does a non-intelligent animal make so many noises?" He said He stretched out his hand and rubbed Guagua's shoulder, "Does your shoulder hurt, my dear? Maybe there will be hands growing inside."

Guagua raised his head: "I like it." Hamid often thinks of scenes from Heinlein's novels; science fiction on Earth's homeland occupies a prominent place in American thought and literature classes. "If the croak was still young, it would have died before reaching adulthood. The calcium in its bones and the level of muscle strength have already begun to degenerate, which is about the same as a thirty-year-old person." "Um, yeah. We know it's your age." Twenty years old, "I guess it could be part of some self-aware creature too. But that kind of thing is usually either a celestial being with a damaged brain, Or obviously some man-made object." He went back to the table and sat down, whistling incoherently.Hamid squirmed restlessly in his chair.He had come to Larry for some advice, and he had heard such things.It's no surprise, Larry is one of those people, "We know so little, we need to find out more." Larry said.

"Well, I guess I can try to dig as much as I can from the bugs. But don't know how to get the tourists to help too." Larry waved his hand briskly: "That's not what I mean. Of course I have to ask that Roslyn Mar bug, but in general, those tourists have traveled nine light-years to get to our remote place, and by now, they Brought a database like the one you take with you on vacation in the south pacific... all outdated. As for the feds, of course they don't know anything. Hey, otherwise they wouldn't have come to me , indicating that they are at their wit's end... No, we need to directly connect to a database outside of this area."

Larry spoke in a casual manner, as if he was talking about getting another phone instead of trying to figure out the most difficult problem between China and the United States.He smiled smugly at Hamid, but Hamid was determined not to accept the recommendation.Finally, Larry asked, "Don't you think it's strange? Why are there so many police officers in the university today, especially in the Morality Building?" "Yeah, it's weird." If I didn't have so much on my mind, I should have thought it was weird. "You know a guy named Skader Freenimi Srinitan? He's one of the more serious tourists. This guy brought a real thing from Beyond. For months, he's been refused to sell, hoping to exchange something else for the local product he wanted. The government people-I have to say a good word for them on this issue-have not budged a bit. Finally he had to give his secret The weapon. That thing is in this room now."

Hamm's eyes moved to the statue (which was now turquoise) on Larry's desk.The old man nodded: "This is one." "Surely they don't call it an Ansible!" "Wouldn't call it that, but actually it's that." "You mean, for so many years, everyone said that it is impossible to go faster than the speed of light in the crawling world, but they are all lies?" You mean, I spent my whole life trying to flatter those tourists, all in vain strenuous? "Not quite. Look at this thing, it's changing color. I bet it's changing size and mass. It's a real celestial creation: not intelligent, but definitely not designed by humans Get those things made by Beyond Limits. Scudder said that other tourists don't have such things. I take him at his word."

An object created by a celestial being.Hamid was fascinated, but also terrified.About this kind of thing, everyone only heard some abstract theories, and it was only in the classes taught by those crazy people. "Scudder also said that this thing is 'connected' to Roslyn Marr's commercial network. From there, we can communicate with any registered address in the world of leap." "Instant messaging." Hamid's voice was almost inaudible. "Basically. It takes time to understand the dynamics of the universe. When you're moving at relative speeds, there are always subtler problems." "What are its limitations?" Larry smiled. "Good question. Scudder himself admits that there are limitations to this thing. For it to work, you have to put it within ten light-years of the boundary line, I bet, the whole There are at most twenty planets in the Milky Way galaxy that meet this condition--our U.S. is one of them. Plus, it's horribly energy-intensive. To get this baby moving, our sun would dim, says Scudder Half a percent. People on the street won't see a difference, but in the long run, it might do some harm." Larry paused for a moment.This pause often occurs when he is deliberately downplaying something, "From your point of view, Hamid, this thing has one big flaw. Its bandwidth is woefully small: less than Six bits." "Huh? It takes ten seconds to send a bit?" "That's right. Scudder reserved three protocols at the Roslyn Marr end: an American Standard Code for Information Interchange; a communication location map, using a branch language that evolved from English; and an artificial intelligence system— It is said that as long as you use it a lot, it can guess what you want to say. The first one is purely a joke, a silly joke made by Scudder; the third one, I think it is his wishful thinking at most. But With a location map, you can send a letter in a day - maybe 500 English words or so. And it's two-way, so it's likely that your letter will be partially answered while it's being sent. Pretty cool, right? Better than waiting twenty years anyway." Hamid thought that this was probably the most sensational news since the first contact with people outside a hundred years ago. "Then...well, Professor, why did they give it to you?" Larry looked around his cavernous office, his smile growing wider. "Hi, hi. The great Mr. President of our planet is also one of the five people who went out and came back, that's right. But I'm the only one who really has acquaintances in the leap world. You see, the federal government is very nervous about this deal Scudder wants to trade this stuff for most of our stock of fertilized eggs, which is a huge moral issue: 'Unborn babies are never allowed to be sold to slavery or worse. 'Now, whoever made the rule wants to do it themselves: they want the Ansible so badly. But what if it's a fake? Maybe it's just linked to some database on the Scudder barge, for example .In this way, they lost some genetic diversity for nothing, and maybe sold some children to hell. Pay such a heavy price, but all they get is a color-changing ornament." "So, Scudder lent it to the federal government for a week, and the government lent it to me—basically no strings attached. I could hook up with old friends, tell them dirty jokes, and of course Dim the sun a little bit. I'll write a report in a week and let them know if this thing can actually communicate with the outside." I don't know you yet? "I bet you have other plans." "Of course. Before you came, I mainly wanted to investigate the foundation that funded Scudder to see if they were as clean as he said. Now... from a moral point of view, your business is not that important , but it's interesting. I think it's possible to do both at the same time. I will use the account Scudder gave me to search the Internet to see if I can find someone who has heard of gua la la or this Ravna & claw .” Hamid never had any particularly close friends.He didn't know why: was he not likable in nature?Or should it be blamed on his bizarre life experience?When he decided to ask Fujiyama for help, all he had in mind was to ask a bunch of questions, hoping to help clear his mind.But now, Larry seemed ready to help him out in a big way.This made him suspicious, but grateful at the same time.Finally, he murmured some words of thanks. Larry shrugged. "It's no trouble for me. I'm curious, and I've found something to satisfy my curiosity this week." He patted the ansible on the table as he said, "But there is one thing. I can really help you with one thing: So far, although China and the United States have been deceived from time to time, no one has directly used force against us. This is also one of the advantages of the tour group system: tourists supervise each other and do not act indiscriminately, which is beneficial to all Tourists are good. Ravna & Claw is an unknown. If it is really a high-level trader, it is likely to take what it wants directly. If I were you, I would stay with Gua Lala as much as possible Together... Later I'll ask the worm if I can move one of his barges over the university. That way, as long as you don't run too far, if someone bothers you, don't try to escape their eyes. "Hey, see? Look how I helped you! I didn't solve your original problem at all, but gave you a whole... er, a boatload of troubles..." Larry leaned back and his tone became serious. "However, I really have nothing to say about your original question. If Ravna & Talon prove to be trustworthy in the end, you still have to make up your own mind whether to separate from the quack. I dare say that anyone who thinks they are Thinking guys—including celestial beings—think of themselves and their loved ones. I— oh shit! Why don't you ask your dad? Why don't you ask Hussein about these things? His heart has been broken since you left the house." Hamm felt his face burn.His dad never said anything good about Fujiyama.Who would have thought that the two of them would talk about him?If he had known this, he would never have come to see Larry today.He wanted to stand up and yell at the old man to mind his own business.But he didn't.He shook his head and said softly, "This is between me and him." Larry looked at him as if considering whether to press further.Hamm knew that if he uttered another word, all the pain would pour out.But after a while, the old man sighed, looked at Quack lying behind the table, and said to it, "Hey, Quack, take good care of him." Croak was looking up and down the electric stove. Hearing this, he looked up at Larry: "Of course, of course."

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