Chapter 25 Chapter 23 The Experience of Joshua and Others

"Joshua!" Carlin yelled from the deck. "It's us." The leader was indeed Joshua, he replied below. Now everyone is too excited to speak anymore. "And us!" a woman shouted in Chinese.Cao Cang heard that it was Ximei. From this point of view, these eight people should be experimenters from the United States and China, and they were also out of Remus' control. People on the ice sheet were all wearing thick clothes and snow sunglasses on their faces.One of them found the rope from the supplies around them.Joshua tied the iron rod in his hand with a rope and threw it on the deck of the ship.After Cao Cang caught the iron rod, he pulled the eight people up with ropes.

The eight people came up one after another, and then all took off their sunglasses.Cao Cang saw clearly that they were basically acquaintances.They are Joshua, Joey, Alan, Ni Ximei, Zhou Jie, and two more people, but there is no Lao Song, but two Caucasians. Although they don't know each other, they are definitely Soviet. The last one was very small in stature, squatting on the ice.Cao Cang was wondering if there were children on the submarine.But this child didn't need Cao Cang and others to pull him up with ropes, but climbed up along the ropes by himself. At this moment, Cao Cang saw clearly that this was the monkey, but it was only wrapped in a layer of clothes.

The monkey knew Ximei very well, and when it came up, it stood against Ximei, very honest. All returned to the engine room.Ivan shoveled more coal into the fire, and the cabin became very warm. "When did you run away?" Carlin asked Joshua. Joshua replied: "Like you, we also escaped shortly after you disappeared on the ship." "How did you escape?" Carlin asked. "You don't have a boat." "They helped us." Joshua pointed to the two Soviets, who were standing with Ivan now. Ivan introduced to everyone: "He is Nicholas, my attendant. This is Beria, the cook on board."

Ximei asked Cao Cang what the three of them had experienced in the past two months. Cao Cang said truthfully: "There are not too many twists and turns, but I was trapped here by the ice floes on the sea surface, and then barely survived." Ximei said, "Then our experience will be much more thrilling." Cao Cang heard Allen tell Carlin over there: "At that time the scientific research ship had already started to sink, and Remus was very flustered, and quickly ordered the subordinates on the submarine to rescue him...but the submarine did not respond, and then we went You know, the men on the submarine are fighting."

Here Nicholas also said to Ivan: "It's me, I know there must be another conflict between you and the political commissar, so I will lead my loyal subordinates to exchange fire with them on the submarine. But our After all, the number is not dominant... In the end, the two of us ran out." Ximei said to Cao Cang: "The rest of us saw that the people on the submarine did not attack us immediately, so the Americans took the small boat. We boarded the small boat and met these two Soviets. They were chased by other Soviet soldiers, and we rescued them immediately. Several of us quickly left the sea area of ​​​​the scientific research ship and the submarine. Only on board did we know that the soldiers on the submarine had no time to attack us because of these two Soviets. At first they said I don’t understand, but they made gestures and gestured to the situation on the submarine, so we believed it... We were lucky, and before the submarine caught up with us, we encountered a ship. This ship should be an expedition ship, it should be A ship exploring the Antarctic or the North Pole. So we sailed on the sea, looking for you..." Ximei and Cao Cang are no longer as unfamiliar as before.

"Is Professor Pang dead?" Cao Cang asked. Ximei didn't speak, just smiled wryly.Cao Cang stopped asking.Cao Cang always hoped that a miracle would happen to Professor Pang and he would survive.Although he was shot and fell down, Cao Cang still had a little hope. But the reality didn't change according to Cao Cang's idea.Cao Cang understood his thoughts. He hoped that Professor Pang would survive because there was another superior who could make decisions in this task.But now, all decisions must be made by himself. What Cao Cang has to think about now is how to bring these people (and monkeys) back to Earth.

Everyone was excited for a while.Under the pressure of a common enemy, China and the United States, who were on separate defenses on the scientific research ship, have now completely eliminated the barriers. Cao Cang first opened up and took out the pocket watch. People from the scientific research ship all know that Cao Cang's identity is unusual, and he is the candidate designated by the US.In the previous environment, no one could ask questions.Now Cao Cang took the initiative to take out the pocket watch, and after Karin's explanation, everyone knew the role of Cao Cang in this experiment.

Xi Mei took the pocket watch from Cao Cang and looked at it for a long time. Seeing that Ximei's hands were trembling slightly, Cao Cang regretted that he should have given this thing to Ximei earlier.If this had been done on the scientific research ship, maybe this would not be the case now. Obviously, Ximei's understanding of this machine far exceeds that of others, including the real Cao Cang. Xi Mei returns the pocket watch to Cao Cang.Cao Cang took it and was about to ask Ximei about the pocket watch, but there was a trace of coldness in Ximei's eyes.Cao Cang keenly noticed the look in Ximei's eyes, and didn't ask.

But Ximei took the initiative to say: "This thing can only work in a special environment. Now it is just a piece of gold." Joshua also took the pocket watch from Cao Cang's hand, his face was a little nervous, and he asked Ximei casually, "Where is it?" "East." Ximei said, "You have to look for the specific place as you walk." Cao Cang found that Ximei could already understand English, including the time on the scientific research ship. People from China and the United States have been getting along for almost half a year. It seems that people are not good at learning in harsh environments. unusual.

Because of Ximei's performance just now, Cao Cang became a little wary.Cao Cang found that although other people were curious about the pocket watch, they just looked at it casually.Only when Ximei and Joshua held the pocket watch, their attitudes changed. Cao Cang remembered this. (The document emphasizes here that the waistcoat has bolded these words and added a series of exclamation points!) Afterwards, everyone discussed it. Tomorrow, everyone will head east, trying to find that place before the ice melts.There are at least three months left. "If the ice doesn't find that place when it melts," Carlin asked, "what then? Do we all swim?"

Joshua laughed and said to Carlin: "It doesn't matter if we still can't find that place after three months, we only have ten people, and two inflatable kayaks can support us to move on." Cao Cang now knows that the boat that Joshua and the others met brought them a lot of supplies, including two kayaks.No wonder they are so optimistic and not discouraged in such a difficult environment. Now that everyone is resting on the ship, Ivan and Karin are no longer stingy with the pile of coal, and they are burning the boiler very vigorously.The cabin got very warm and everyone was sitting around talking to each other. During the chat, Cao Cang heard clearly about Joshua's experience before they came here.Their experience was a bit more twists and turns than the three of Cao Cang.But they found a ship that helped them a lot. When the purple mist filled the sky, Professor Pang suddenly turned his face and bought time with his life to let Cao Cang, Karin, and Ivan escape.Joseph saw Professor Pang's intentions, made the same choice as Professor Pang, and died on the scientific research ship. Before Ivan was arrested, he secretly gave Nikolai some secret orders, so at a critical moment, the torpedo from the submarine hit the scientific research ship where Remus was.Then Nicholas led his subordinates into another conflict with Remus' subordinates on the submarine.Finally Nicholas and Beria escaped from the submarine.The soldiers on the submarine were unable to pursue Joshua and the others in the chaos. When they rescued Remus to the submarine, Joshua and the others had already rescued Nikola and Beria and disappeared in the purple mist. Their small boat, like Cao Cang's ship, left the sea area in a short time as the space tension expanded rapidly.They followed Ximei's command at that time, and Ximei was able to judge the direction of Cao Cang's ship in the chaotic space in the purple mist.But in the vast sea area of ​​Yihai, slight deviations prevented them from catching up with Cao Cang's three people's ship quickly. That's how it was. Next, a group of seven of them floated on the surface of the sea, but the situation was much more difficult than that of Cao Cang and the others: there was no food, no supplies, and the fish in the sea were no longer abundant.At that time, they didn't know why the fish in the sea suddenly decreased. When the different sea began to freeze, they realized that these animals had fled this sea area before the severe cold came.If the entire Alien Sea was frozen, these animals should have dived into the bottom of the sea.Of course, this is what they figured out later. Joshua and others encountered a savior when the food shortage was severe.Of those mysterious ships floating on the ocean, one of them was heading in exactly the same direction as them.The equipment and supplies on this ship are complete.After the seven people boarded the boat, they temporarily settled down.Ximei couldn't find the direction of Cao Cang's ship, but they didn't give up looking. Until the sea began to freeze over a large area. Like Cao Cang, Ivan, and Karin, their boat was also trapped.When the sea was completely frozen, Joshua and others jointly decided that they could no longer stay on the boat. They had to find Cao Cang, because Cao Cang was the key to the experiment.If he couldn't rendezvous with Cao Cang, even if he survived, he would be found by Remus sooner or later.Even if they were not found by Remus, a group of people living aimlessly in the strange environment of the Alien Sea was not what everyone was willing to face. So Joshua and the others used all the available supplies on the ship.First, put on thick winter clothes, then dismantle two sections of the steam pipe on the ship, rivet iron bars on it, and then fix the wooden boards inside the ship to the iron bars, thus creating a large sled. When it came to this, Joshua and others looked at Allen. Allen scratched his head embarrassedly.Yes, Allen is an expert in mechanics, Joshua and others must have created this large sled carrying supplies under his command. On the hard and flat ice field, this sled does not require much force to pull. Allen also designed a mast on the sled, tied a canvas, and used the wind to push the sled. When the wind is strong, everyone can sit on the sled and travel leisurely on the ice field. Of course, when loading supplies, Sister Zhou reminded Joshua that the ice in the different sea might disappear.So they moved the kayaks from the boat to the sleds.The most other supplies are food and kerosene, and then various necessary tools. Hearing this, Cao Cang once again thought that the people who entered the alien sea with the scientific research ship were elites selected from billions of human beings on the earth, and each person's skills could save a team.The personnel sent by the Chinese side play a decisive role in the direction of the experiment, while the candidates from the American side are more concerned about how to survive in the alien sea.As for the Soviet Union, they have a powerful nuclear submarine, and the allocation of resources is relatively strong, so they pay more attention to combat effectiveness. When Joshua and his team were moving forward on the ice sheet, it was the time when Cao Cang, Ivan, and Karin were lingering in the ship. Of course, Joshua and the others also had difficult times: When there is no wind on the ice field, they can only rely on human power to pull the sled.Although the friction between the steel pipe at the bottom of the sled and the ice surface is very small, the supplies are heavy, and pulling them for a long time is also a very laborious task. In addition, when they started walking on the ice field, no one noticed that the pure white ice would cause other troubles for everyone. When they started walking on the ice field for the third day, everyone suddenly went blind.No one could see anything, and everyone panicked.It was Joshua who first thought of the reason and told everyone that it was snow blindness, a physiological reaction to walking in the snow for a long time.So they rested where they were, and when their eyesight recovered, Joshua and Nicholas turned back to the boat, found sunglasses for snow on the boat, and brought them back to everyone.Then the group moved on. When Joshua and the others were resting in the tent at night, they encountered strong winds several times and overturned the tent... Of course, these small twists and turns are nothing, after all, Joshua led everyone to find the ship Cao Cang without any injuries. After more than 40 days of walking on the cold ice field, they finally saw the monkey. Everyone was surprised. At the beginning, Karin roughly said that it is very likely that Yihai will not evolve mammals.So they speculated that the monkey must have come from some other mysterious ship. When this monkey met Joshua and the others, he lived a very nourishing life. This clever monkey actually knew how to mix with the creatures of the different seas for warmth and share the food of these animals.These animals on the sea are very docile. Judging from the classification of animals on earth, they should belong to a kind of amphibians, but they are not cold-blooded. Joshua has studied this kind of animal for a long time, and thinks that they must have evolved into warm-blooded animals, and they have thick subcutaneous fat on their bodies. The surface of the skin is also long hairs like mammals. These hairs are very delicate. Look carefully. Now, it looks like the feathers of birds again.The monkey huddles with these animals to sleep at night. The food of these animals is a small fish that freezes on the ice and struggles to stay afloat when the sea freezes.Those large warm-blooded animals use their soft abdomen to melt the thin ice layer on the small fish closest to the ice surface, and then dig out and eat them.Of course, the monkeys are also welcome, and follow these animals to feast. Carlin heard what Joshua said, thought for a while, and said, "This is the evolution direction of alien sea creatures." Everyone quietly listened to the paleontologist continue: "Obviously, this large animal is evolving towards mammals, because of the particularity of the different sea environment, they have to live in two mutually Survive in alternate environments. One is the warm ocean and the other is the cold ice. When it is all ocean, their feathers will stick to their skin and adapt to marine life. When the environment changes, they should Creatures that cannot survive on the bottom of the sea for a long time can only climb to the ice surface, so they evolved fluff. The same is true for those small fish that are frozen by the ice, they cannot survive in the deep sea, so try to make them They hibernate themselves on the upper layer of the ice, waiting for the next season change. There are two possibilities for doing this: one is that the sunlight can penetrate the ice, and they can also gain part of the heat during hibernation, so as to maintain their own energy as much as possible. Body functions; there is another possibility that the melting of the ice surface of the different sea starts from the upper layer, and the smaller fish in the upper layer can wake up first." Everyone agrees with Carlin's analysis.What else is impossible to happen in this alien sea? Karin's explanation is the most reasonable. When Karin said this, Ivan immediately ordered Nicholas to go to the ice sheet to dig out samples of this fish and come back.Not long after, Nicholas returned to the cabin with a piece of ice and placed it on the deck.Everyone looked carefully at the little fish frozen in the ice.The small fish is only a dozen centimeters long, with a slender body and a pointed head and tail.The surface color of this small fish is dark gray close to black. Karin looked at it for a long time, but still couldn't connect this fish with the fish species on the earth."I dissected the fish to understand its physiology," Carlin said. As a biologist participating in the experiment, it is his duty to understand the physiological structure of the alien sea creatures, which plays a vital role in whether human beings can survive in the alien sea. Karin explained to everyone: "All organisms on the earth have right-handed DNA, but this is not absolute, and a small number of left-handed DNA organisms have been discovered. It's just that this subject has not been successfully released. Now I can confirm Creatures in different seas, at least the creatures we encountered all have right-handed DNA..." "How did you find out?" Sister Zhou asked. "Because..." Karin said with a smile, "We have already eaten many creatures in the alien sea. We can digest them normally. This is the most primitive verification method. Although it is very simple, it is very reasonable." "Then do you want to determine whether this fish is suitable for human consumption?" Cao Cang asked. "This kind of fish must be suitable for our food." Karin replied in Russian, pointing to the monkey squatting quietly next to Ximei. "If monkeys can eat it, humans can eat it." This principle is too simple, and this analysis is very important. It is related to the food source of everyone here on the ice sheet. "I want to know how this small fish adapts to the extreme climate of the different sea." Carlin continued, "This is very important to us." Cao Cang understood that Karin was collecting the characteristics of creatures in different seas. These characteristics could provide human beings with some experience of living in different seas.Cao Cang felt very uncomfortable in his heart: "Could it be that the human beings who entered the alien sea still have to imitate the forms of these lower creatures to survive?" However, Cao Cang did not express his thoughts.Obviously, everyone must have a different opinion on this topic.Cao Cang didn't want to cause controversy. The ice cubes gradually melted in the warm engine room.When the ice cubes gradually melted away, only one layer was wrapped around the small fish.The little fish shook suddenly, broke free from the shackles of the ice, and bounced desperately on the deck. This little fish is indeed alive.When the body is wrapped in ice, it maintains a state of hibernation. Once the ice melts and the body receives heat, the small fish immediately wakes up and is alive and kicking. Karin quickly caught the little fish, and the little fish bit Karin's finger hard. Karin exclaimed. He looked at the bleeding finger and said, "It seems that the first thing it does after thawing is to find food." The little black fish was slammed onto the deck by Karin.The little fish bounced around for a while and became silent, apparently dead. "When it wakes up, it needs a lot of water and nutrients." Carlin said, "This fish is always in a dying state in the ice. If the environment is slightly uncomfortable when it wakes up, its body functions will quickly fail." When Karin said this, a little smile appeared on his face. "This is a good thing. It proves that in the time after the ice in the different sea melts, all aspects are suitable for the survival of animals." "Except that there is no place to stand." Allen reminded from the side. Next, Carlin took the little fish aside to study it carefully.Everyone is no longer interested in Carlin's in-depth research. Tomorrow, everyone will leave this ship and search for that special place on the vast ice field.We talked for a while, and gradually fell asleep. Before going to bed, both Joshua and Cao Cang asked Ximei: "Which direction should we go tomorrow?" Ximei just replied coldly: "North." On the second day, everyone packed their bags and stood on the ice field.Allen set up the sail on the sled.At this time, the wind direction was westerly. Allen turned the direction of the sail sideways, and the sled took advantage of the wind and moved obliquely to the north and slightly east. Because the wind is not strong, in order to maintain the speed of travel, everyone walks around the sled, and the men pull the rope of the sled in front to keep the direction of the sled stable. Along the way, everyone digs up small fish in the ice for food.But after a few days, this kind of small fish became more and more rare.Everyone realized that the distribution range of this kind of fish is not all ice surfaces in the entire Yihai.Ice sheets with high latitudes should not be suitable for this kind of fish to survive. So everyone started collecting the little fish and storing them on the sled.This kind of small fish has a large amount of fat stored in their bodies before being frozen by the ice layer. After being boiled in water, it tastes very delicious. The small pot and kerosene stove for cooking food were also taken down by Joshua and others from the ship they encountered. The latitudes that the group moved forward were higher and higher, and the small fish under the ice finally disappeared and could never be found again.But the crowd encountered a group of animals on the ice sheet that were migrating south.This kind of animal was known to Joshua and others, and the monkey survived by mixing with them. Now everyone is welcome, try to capture these docile animals as food reserves. Carlin also studied the physiology of the animal.Sure enough, this is an amphibian, and its body surface has the characteristics of adapting to two environments.Carlin speculates that this kind of animal grows body hair quickly on the ice sheet. When it enters seawater to survive, the thick and hard parts of the body hair will fall off, and the fine hairs left will stick to the skin surface. "Just like our human body hair," Karin said. After hearing this, Cao Cang felt a little incomprehensible. Everyone stocked up on food and moved on. The speed of everyone moving forward is getting slower and slower, because the wind direction is northerly most of the time, and the sled needs to be pulled by manpower to move forward. Life on the ice sheet is almost extinct.Karin is researching whether the animals on the ice sheet basically dived into the sea when the Yihai was in the frozen period.But as a huge planet with such a vast environment, the types of creatures must be developing in a diversified direction.Those amphibians and fishes that evolved toward warm-blooded animals and birds are proof. But we walked on and off for more than a month, and we didn't see any creatures on the ice field.Karin, who was very confident in his own research, was almost collapsed by this phenomenon. However, other people don't care much about this matter.Because of the environment of the different sea, it is completely unpredictable.It is normal for theoretical inferences to deviate.Instead, everyone felt that Karin's persistence in his own research conclusions was incomprehensible. As night fell, everyone set up tents to rest, and Cao Cang and Karin slept in the same tent. "Could it be that all creatures that cannot survive on the seabed will hibernate in the ice?" Karin said to himself. Cao Cang knew that Karin's persistent research was of course necessary.It is impossible for human beings to survive in the world as a separate species.Whether it is the earth world or the alien sea world.Understanding the biological characteristics of the Alien Sea will play a decisive role in the large-scale colonization of humans here in the future.If there is a perfect biological chain in the upper layer of the frozen alien sea, the survival of human beings will be easier.After all, human beings are land creatures, and it is impossible to live in the sea for a long time. A few days later, Carlin's speculation finally got an answer. Karin finally discovered traces of biological activity on the ice sheet.Holes suddenly appeared in the thick ice sheet.These holes are tens of centimeters in diameter, and the edges are very smooth. At first, everyone thought it was an ice cave formed naturally by the different seas. However, Sister Zhou seemed to have a different opinion, but she was not sure. She just muttered to herself: "What is the reason for these holes?" After a day, everyone knew the origin of these holes.Karin first saw countless animals on the ice sheet, they were resting and mating on the ice.When these animals sensed the arrival of humans, they instantly disappeared from everyone's sight.When everyone approached the hole, they saw dense ice caves on the ice surface, and there were many unhatched eggs in the ice caves. Now Carlin has the answer. It turns out that many animals have burrowed out of the ice and lived in the caves. Carlin was very excited, and he further deduced that there must be more than one kind of animals that can dig holes in the ice.It is very possible that one of these animals not only built a cave in the ice layer, but also stubbornly broke through the entire ice layer, leading the ice cave to the bottom of the sea.The animal most likely foraged on the seafloor and reproduced on top of the ice. Karin excitedly fetched the rope, tied a heavy object to one end of the rope and put it in the ice cave. He wanted to detect whether these ice caves really extended into the sea water under the ice. But Carlin's attempt failed.The reason is simple, the ice cave does not extend vertically downward, but after a certain distance downward, it will extend in a parallel direction.Seeing Karin's anxious look, Cao Cang doubted if the diameter of the ice cave was large enough, would he tie a rope to his body and climb down to find out. But Karin was not discouraged, his deduction was correct, and he was very satisfied to see that there were creatures in the ice.This proves that even in the frozen state of Yihai's world, the seawater still maintains biological diversity. Everyone moved on. Another month later, at noon one day, everyone discovered another huge ice cave.This ice cave is tens of meters wide, the edges are not smooth, and it is bottomless. Everyone was stunned. If this was the exit of a creature's cave, wouldn't the size of this animal be unacceptably large. Karin is still looking for traces of living creatures near the ice cave. Sister Zhou stopped Karin's actions, and she said coldly to Karin: "Don't look any further, this ice cave has nothing to do with animals." After hearing what Sister Zhou said, Cao Cang knew that Sister Zhou must have figured out something.Sister Zhou used English, and soon, everyone knew what she said.Everyone came over and asked Miss Zhou. Sister Zhou said slowly: "The thing I was worried about finally happened." Cao Cang asked, "What are you worried about?" "Do you know about the disaster in the Yellow River?" Sister Zhou asked. Of course Cao Cang knew that because the Yellow River flows from low latitudes to high latitudes, when winter comes, due to the flow direction, the downstream rivers will freeze and cause flooding. "The situation in Yihai is similar." Sister Zhou said, "There is also a difference in latitude here. When the climate suddenly turns cold and the sea freezes over a large area, we don't feel the impact, but when the ice freezes to a certain extent, The entire sea surface forms a whole block of ice. Because of the latitude, there will be some differences in the freezing and melting speed of the ice in different regions. The difference will be very subtle at first. But as time goes by, the stress accumulated inside the ice gradually Increase, when it reaches a certain level, these forces that have been suppressed for a long time will burst out." After Zhou Jie finished speaking, she pointed to the huge ice cave in front of her. "You mean," Cao Cang asked, "this ice cave is a sign of ice activity in the different sea?" Sister Zhou replied: "We won't be lucky anymore, this ice field will no longer be stable."