Chapter 21 Chapter 21

Foggy gray buildings gleamed faintly.They jump up and down and look very embarrassing. What kind of buildings are they? What are they for?What did they remind her of? You suddenly appear unprepared in a different world, with a different culture, a different basic assumption about life, and incredibly boring, meaningless buildings.In this case, it is really difficult for you to understand what you are seeing. The sky above the building is a cold and hostile black.So far from the sun, the stars should be bright, blinding points of light, but in fact they are obscured and dimmed by the thick protective bubble.

Tricia rewinds the tape to the beginning. She knew there must be something odd about it. Well, there were probably a million odd things out there, but there was one thing that kept bothering her, and she just wasn't sure what it was. She yawned. While rewinding, she collected the polystyrene coffee cups that had accumulated on the editing desk and threw them in the trash. This is a video production company in Soho, and Tricia is sitting in a small studio.She plastered "Do Not Disturb" signs all over the door and told the operator not to take any calls.At first it was to protect her scoop, now it was to protect her own face.

She was going to go over the tape from beginning to end.If she can bear it.Maybe a little bit of fast forward somewhere. It's about four o'clock on a Monday afternoon, and she's feeling a little nauseous.She tried to find the reason for this feeling, but there were too many candidates. First of all, this all happened after an overnight flight back from New York.Red-eye flight.It's always been fatal, that thing. Then, being accosted by aliens on his lawn, and flying to Rupert.She's too inexperienced at this sort of thing to tell if it's always deadly, but she'd bet that the guy who flies to Rupert every so often will be a motherfucker.Stress charts of that kind are often published in magazines.Lose your job, fifty stress points.Divorce or a haircut change, seventy-five points.So far no one has mentioned being accosted by aliens on their lawn, followed by a flight to Rupert, but she's sure it must be worth a few dozen points.

In fact, she herself is not particularly stressed.In fact, it should be said to be extremely boring.Anyway, at least it didn't make her more nervous than the transatlantic trip, and it took about the same amount of time, about 7 hours. This must be surprising, right?Flying to the edge of the solar system in the same amount of time it takes a human to fly to New York suggests they must have some awesome propulsion in their ship that no one has ever heard of.She asked her hosts, and they agreed that it was really good. "But how does it work?" she asked excitedly.It was at the beginning of the journey, when she was quite excited.

She found that passage and played it on repeat.The Griblons—that's what they called themselves—were politely showing her which button she had to press to get the ship to take off. "That's right, but what is it based on?" She heard her own voice behind the camera. "Oh, you mean, say, a bias drive or something?" they asked. "Yes," Tricia insisted, "what the hell?" "Not too far from that thing," they said. "for example." "Bias drive, photon drive, whatever. You'd have to ask a flight engineer." "Who is the spaceship engineer?"

"We don't know, we all have amnesia, you see." "Oh, by the way." Tricia's voice was a little weak, "You did mention it. Uh, so, how did you get amnesia?" "We don't know," they said patiently. "Because you have amnesia." Tricia echoed gloomyly. "Would you like to watch TV? It's a long way. We watch TV. We love this." All this fascinating stuff is on tape, the problem is that it can't be taken out and played.First of all, all the images are of poor quality.Tricia didn't understand why.She figured it was probably because the Grebrons reacted a little differently to light than Earthlings, and there was a lot of UV light messing around.There are always particularly dense noises and snowflakes on the picture.Maybe it has something to do with the bias drive that none of them understand.

So all in all, her belt was a bunch of thin, faded people sitting in rows watching TV.She also pointed the camera lens at a very small observation hole next to the seat, and the stars were taken with a somewhat dragging effect.quite gorgeous.She knew it was real, but if it was fake, this scene would only take three or four minutes. In the end she decided to save the precious tape for Rupert, so she just sat down and watched TV with them, and even dozed off for a while. So some of the nausea should come from the flight.She spends so much time on a high-tech alien spaceship that she ends up dozing off in front of reruns of "Merry Doctor and Nurse" and "American Police" for the most part.But what can she do?Of course, she took a few photos, but when she returned to Earth and developed them, she found that none of them were clear.

The other part of the nausea probably comes from landing.At least the landing was dramatic and hair-raising.The spaceship skimmed across a dark and gloomy land. The difference in light and heat between this place and the parent star was so desperate that the surface looked like the psychological scars of an outcast. Light pierced the frozen darkness to guide the ship, and something cavernous seemed to open its mouth to welcome the little ship in. Unfortunately, due to the angle at which they approached the hole and the depth of the observation hole on the surface of the ship, Tricia's camera couldn't capture anything from the front, which she fast-forwarded.

The camera lens is pointed directly at the sun. This is usually very bad for the camera.But since the sun was about a third of a billion miles away, no damage was done to the machine.In fact, not many things were photographed at all, only a small light spot in the center of the frame, and it was impossible to tell what it was.One of countless stars, nothing more. Tricia hits "Fast Forward." Ah, here, the next part is pretty promising.They stepped off the spaceship and came to a huge gray building that looked like a hangar. This was obviously a very large-scale application of alien technology.Huge gray buildings stood protected by dark plexiglass bubbles—these were the buildings she saw at the end of the tape.She stayed with Rupert for a few hours and took some more shots of them as she left, just before she reboarded the ship to head home.What did these videos remind her of?

Well, among other things, the first thing they made her think of was definitely a movie set—that's what pretty much every low-budget sci-fi movie in the past two decades has looked like.Sure, they're much bigger, but they look fake and tacky on TV.In addition to picture quality, she also had to contend with unexpected g-forces.Rupert's gravity is so much lower than Earth's, and Tricia finds it difficult, to her embarrassment, to keep the camera from dangling very amateurishly.For all these reasons, no details can be seen clearly on the screen. Then the chief came forward to meet her, and held out a hand to her with a wide smile.

That's what he calls it.leader. Griblons have no names, largely because they can't think of any.Tricia also discovered that some of the dregs buried deep in their cultural subconscious kicked in as soon as some of them tried to borrow names from Earth TV shows, but they started calling each other Bob and Chuck. These little things that followed all the way from the distant hometown suddenly came out and told them that this is wrong, it really can't be done. The appearance of the leader is no different from the others.Maybe a little less skinny.He told Tricia that he was a huge fan of hers, how he loved her show, how happy he was to have her as Rupert's guest, how everyone was looking forward to her coming, how he wished the trip had been a good one, etc. wait wait wait.She couldn't detect any sign that he might be an ambassador of some planet or anything. Really, judging from the tapes now, he is actually wearing a costume and putting on makeup, standing in front of a bad set, and the set is not very stable, and it may cause problems if he leans on it even slightly. Tricia sat staring at the screen, her face resting on her hands, shaking her head in bewilderment. too terrifying. It's not just this paragraph that's scary, she knows exactly what's next.Next, the leader asked her if she was a little hungry after flying for so long, maybe she would like to have a simple meal together, and they could discuss while eating. She still remembers what she thought! Alien food! How should she cope? Do you really eat it?Do they have napkins or something so she can spit things out?Will there be various immune problems? Finally she found that what she wanted was a hamburger. Not only did she discover that the food turned out to be hamburgers, but the hamburgers were apparently reheated in a microwave.Tricia thought they were McDonald's, not just because of their appearance, not just because of their smell, but because of their polystyrene boxes, with "McDonald's" printed all over them. "Eat! Enjoy!" said the chief. "For our esteemed guest, no food is too good!" The dining table was set in his room, Tricia looked at the surrounding environment, her eyes were extremely confused, almost terrified.But she took pictures of them all anyway. There is a water bed and a set of digital stereos in the room.There was also one of those tabletop glass ornaments, tall, electrically lit, that looked like there were lots and lots of sperm floating in it, and the walls were covered in velvet. The Chief lolled on a brown corduroy cushion and sprayed some breath freshener into his mouth. Tricia was suddenly frightened.As far as she knows, she's farther from Earth than anyone since ancient times, and she's hanging out with an alien lounging on a corduroy cushion, blowing breath freshener into her mouth . She didn't want to say a wrong word, she didn't want to scare him, but there were some things she had to know. "How... where... did you get these?" She nervously pointed to the furnishings all over the room. "Adornments?" asked the Chief. "Do you like them? They're very esoteric. We're an esoteric race, we Gribloons. We buy esoteric consumer durables . . . mail order." Tricia nodded surprisingly slowly. "Mail order..." she said. The leader giggled.It's that dark chocolate-smooth laugh that's very reassuring. "You think they're going to drop it here? No! Haha! We have a special PO Box in New Hampshire. We pick it up regularly. Haha!" He leaned back on his cushion quite relaxed and reached for it. A root of heated French fries, biting one end lightly, a happy smile flashed across his mouth. Tricia could feel a little bubble popping up in her head.She continued to shoot down. "How do you, uh, uh, buy these wonderful...things?" The leader giggled again. "Citicorp Bank." He shrugged nonchalantly. Tricia nodded slowly again. He knew Baotong's customer elite policy, and credit cards were basically issued on the spot. "What about these?" She held up the hamburger he gave her. "That's easy," said the chief. "We line up." At one point, Tricia felt a chill run down her spine... and she realized that the leader's answer was really telling. Tricia pressed fast forward again.There is nothing useful here at all.It was all nightmarish emptiness.Her own falsehood is more convincing than this. She looked at the hopelessly bad tape and another wave of disgusted gratitude crept through her body; as she grew more and more horrified, she began to realize that this must be the answer. she must be... She shook her head trying to pull herself together. Flying east all night... sleeping pills to get through.The vodka you drink to get your sleeping pills moving. What else?Ok.There are still seventeen years of obsession.The charming man with two heads, one of which was disguised as a parrot in a cage, tried to catch her at the party, but then got impatient and flew to another planet in a spaceship.Never really bothered her these days, but now seemed to be displaying many, many disturbing traits all of a sudden.Never thought of it, seventeen years. She stuffed her fist into her mouth. She needs to see a doctor. Plus Eric babbling on and on about alien spaceships landing on her lawn.Before that...New York was, uh, very hot and stressful.High hopes and bitter disappointment.And that astrology thing. She must have had a nervous breakdown. This is it.She had a nervous breakdown when exhausted and began to fantasize soon after returning home.The whole story is a dream.An alien race that has lost its life and history, stuck in an outpost of our solar system, using our cultural trash to fill the void in their culture.what!It was nature telling her it was time to report to a high-fee medical facility. She is very ill.She glanced at the large cup of coffee that she had swallowed, and found that the amount was considerable, and at the same time realized how heavy and slow her breathing was. With any problem, she told herself, being aware of it was part of solving it.She began to control her breathing.She has stopped herself.She saw her problem.Now she was stepping back from whatever mental cliff she was.She started to calm down, calm down, calm down.She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. After a while, she felt that her breathing had stabilized, so she opened her eyes again. Where did this tape come from? It's still there. Well, it's bogus. She faked it herself, that's all. She must have been the one who faked the tape, because her voice is all over the track, asking endless questions.Every now and then, she'd put the camera down after a shoot, and the tape would show her own feet, wearing her own shoes.She forged the tape, but she didn't remember doing it or why she did it. Looking at the dangling, snow-covered screen, Tricia's breathing was messed up again. She must be still fantasizing. She shook her head, trying to shake off the feeling.She had no recollection of forging the apparently forged tape.On the other hand, she does seem to have some memories that are very similar to the fake ones.She was confused, confused, and continued to look down in a trance. In her imagination, the man named the Chief asked her many questions about astrology.Her answer was tactful and calm.Only she could detect it. In fact, in her heart, she was getting more and more flustered. The leader pushed a button, and a dark purple velvet wall parted, revealing a large flat-screen TV monitor. A kaleidoscopic array of images was displayed on each monitor: a few seconds of a game, a few seconds of a police film, a few seconds of security footage of a supermarket warehouse, a few seconds of home video of someone on vacation, a few seconds of Clock sex, seconds news, seconds comedy.The Chief was clearly very proud of it all, waving his hands like a conductor, and continued his utter gibberish. He waved his hand again, and all the images on the monitor disappeared. They formed a huge screen, showing all the planets in the solar system, with the stars of each constellation in the background.The picture is completely static. "We have great technology," said the Chief, "whether it's computing, cosmic trigonometry or calculus for three-dimensional navigation. Great technology, very, very great technology, we just lost them. It's too bad. We love these technologies, but they're gone. They're out there somewhere in this universe, flying, bearing our names and details of our hometowns and loved ones. Please," he waved her to the computer In front of the floor console, "Use your skills to help us." Next, Tricia naturally hastily put the camera on the tripod to record the whole situation.Then she walked into the camera herself, sat down calmly in front of the huge computer screen, spent a few minutes getting used to the interface, and then smoothly, very professionally, began to pretend that she really knew even a little bit of herself. What are you doing. It's actually not that difficult at all. After all, she was a formally trained mathematician and astrophysicist and a seasoned TV anchor, and no matter how much science she had forgotten over the years, she could make up more than enough with her bravado. The computer she used was very advanced, which undoubtedly showed that the civilization of the Grebron people was more advanced and refined than the current vacuum state showed.With its help, Tricia made a roughly usable solar system model in less than half an hour. It's not particularly precise or anything, but it looks good.The planets are circling in their respective orbits, which is not too far from reality in general, and you can observe the action of the entire virtual cosmic clock from—basically—anywhere in the solar system, You can see it from Earth, you can see it from Mars, blah blah blah.You can tell from Rupert's surface that Tricia admires her skills, but she also appreciates the computer system she uses, which would have taken hours to program on a computer workstation on Earth. years or so. When she was done, the chief walked up behind her to watch, very happy and satisfied with her achievement. "Very well," he said, "now, then, I would like you to demonstrate how to use the system you have just designed to translate the information in this book for me." He quietly put a book in front of her. That's You and Your Sign by Gail Andrews. Tricia stopped the tape again. Right now she's really spinning.The feeling that she was hallucinating had faded, but it hadn't left any easier, clearer concepts in her mind. She pushed her chair back from the editorial desk and began to wonder what to do now.The reason why she gave up the study of astronomy many years ago was because she knew with certainty that she had encountered a creature from another planet.At a party, and she knew for sure that she would be making a big joke out of it.But how could she keep silent about the most important discovery of cosmic objects in her life while studying cosmic astronomy?She had no other choice, she left. Now she's in the media, and the same thing happens again. She's got a video, an actual video, of the most shocking story since, well, since it all started: on the farthest planet in our own solar system, There exists an outpost of a forgotten alien civilization. She caught the story. She went to the scene. She sees everything. For God's sake she has a tape to prove it too. And, if this thing is shown to her, it will become a big joke. How could she possibly justify anything in it?It's not even worth considering, and the whole thing is a nightmare, no matter how the hell you look at it.Her head started throbbing. She had some aspirin in her bag, and she walked out of the editorial studio to look for a water fountain at the end of the corridor.She swallowed the aspirin and drank several glasses of water. The place seems pretty quiet.There are usually a lot of people busy here, and it is a bit unreasonable not to see a single person.She poked her head into the studio next door to her, but it was also empty. Maybe he was too extreme in keeping people from being disturbed. "Do Not Disturb," the sign read. "Don't even think about it. I don't care what it is. Go away. I'm busy!" When she returned to her studio, she found that the signal light of the telephone extension was flashing, and she didn't know how long it had been on. "Hello?" she said to the receptionist. "Oh, Miss Macmillan, I'm so glad you finally called, everyone is looking for you, your TV company. They're desperate. Can you give them a call?" "Why didn't you turn them around?" Tricia asked. "You said you wouldn't listen to anyone's phone, and you said I couldn't even admit you were here. I don't know what to do. I just came up to bring you a letter, but..." "Okay." Tricia cursed herself secretly.She called her office. "Tricia! Where the hell are you?" "Editing..." "But they say..." "I know. What's the matter?" "What's wrong? It's just a goddamn alien spaceship!" "What? Where?" "Regent's Park. Big silver guy. Girl with a bird who speaks English and throws stones and wants her watch fixed, go fast." Tricia stared at it. That was not a Griblon ship.Not that she suddenly became an expert on alien spaceships, but it was a smooth and beautiful silver-white object, about the size of a yacht in the ocean, and the shape most similar to it.Besides, Griblon's big half-crushed spaceship was structured like a turret on a battleship, a turret.Those gray and black buildings looked the same, and the strangest thing was that when she returned to the hangar and boarded Griblon's spaceship to return to Earth, she saw them move.These things flashed through Tricia's mind as she got out of the taxi and ran to join her group. "Where's the girl?" she called, so that her voice would not be drowned out by the helicopters and sirens. "There!" the producer yelled back, and the sound engineer rushed over to put her infinity headset on, "She said her parents came from some parallel plane here, and she took her father's watch, and... …I don't know. What can I tell you? Get ready. Ask her how it feels to be from outer space." "Thanks, Ted," Tricia murmured.She checked whether the microphone was properly pinned, and tried the sound test with the sound engineer, then took a deep breath, tossed her hair back, and switched to her professional anchor image, in her familiar field, Tricia was ready To cope with everything. At least, almost everything. She turned to look for the figure of the alien girl.That one must be, wild hair, wild eyes.The girl turned to her, and her eyes widened. "Mom!" she screamed, and started throwing rocks at Tricia.