Chapter 9 coffee shop

Mars coffee is a substitute, synthetic caffeine, very fragrant, not too bitter.Available in various strengths and additions, refreshing is also an option.The cafe is spacious, there are no waiters, self-serve coffee machines are built into the walls, and a chef bakes refreshments in the kitchen.Cafes are specialized places for chatting.Since hotels and ordinary people have coffee machines, they are not much different from cafes. People who come to cafes are usually meeting friends or negotiating.Therefore, the sound environment of the cafe has been specially treated, with sound-absorbing materials hung, plants used as partitions, and tables and chairs placed far apart to give each table enough private conversation space.

The cafe is in a prime location on the corner of the street. Looking out from the floor-to-ceiling windows, you can clearly see the clothing store on the left, the oil painting store on the right, and the amphitheater surrounded by bushes in front of you.There are various statues on the street. This street is a culinary avenue, and the statues are outstanding gourmet chefs of all ages.Almost every street on Mars is named after an eminent person: scientists, engineers, painters, gourmets, and fashion designers.There are statues of them on all the streets, some standing tall and serious, and some humorous moments.The statues of gourmets on this street are particularly vivid, and each gourmet poses in a different shape. The human sculpture is surrounded by food sculptures, leaving an eternal moment of taste.

Some children ran and jumped past the cafe and sat under umbrella-shaped trees to eat fruit.In the circular space in the middle of the road, four teenagers were playing a string quartet.Several girls are opening the glass box on the side of the road and putting the dolls they made into it for display.These are all part of the studio curriculum.People come and go, walking in a hurry, like a vague wind passing through the French windows. Janet Joig met at this café, not far from the film studio, where she and Arthur had their first date.She didn't touch the coffee, her eyes looked into the distance, and she listened quietly.

Iger said everything he could think of. "He... didn't make any more films?" "No." "Never accepted an interview?" "No. The teacher has always been a mystery, explained to no one." "Never told you?" "Occasionally I said a sentence or two, but I was still young at that time, and I usually didn't understand it." Janet sighed: "Arthur is like this, like a cow. He does what he thinks wholeheartedly, no matter what others think." She looked at her hands, intertwined her fingers, and lowered her voice, " So he at least explained it to his family?"

"Family? You mean..." "His wife and children." "No. He and his wife divorced a long time ago. For the next ten years, the teacher lived alone." Janet raised her eyes: "Ten years?...When did Arthur get divorced?" "Very early. I can't say clearly. When the teacher was thirty-two or three-year-old." Janet put her hand over her open mouth, and it took a moment before she said, "I don't know." Iggy was surprised.How could it be possible to not know for eight years.He asked carefully: "Teacher, he didn't say that?"

Janet shook her head, a little absent-minded, as if she fell into a memory all of a sudden, she wanted to say something but only opened her mouth. Iggy waited quietly without interruption. After a while, Janet took a deep breath and said, "Arthur didn't say that. But it's not his problem." She paused, "It's because I didn't want to know, or didn't dare to know. Arthur just The year I came here, I saw a photo he carried with him. It was a photo of him with a woman and a little boy. I asked him if it was his wife and son, and he said yes. I asked him when he left home After so long, are you afraid that your family will be anxious? He said that they are not well now. I didn’t ask what it means, but I just thought it was a bad relationship. I smiled and said that if it’s not good, I should go home. He said, yes, I will go back. Later... Later he didn't leave, we got better, and I didn't dare to mention it again, I was afraid that he should leave if I mentioned it. Every time he said to me, Janet, there is something I I have to say, I asked him, are you leaving? He said no, if I don’t leave, I said, don’t say anything. Then he didn’t say anything. Not necessarily, if I don’t ask, he won’t say anything. He’s immersed in his script, and I’m watching him from the sidelines. Year after year, I don’t let myself think too much. My heart In fact, I have been hanging on it all the time, afraid that he will leave one day. The more this is the case, the less I dare to speak out. I have a hunch that he will not stay on Mars forever. I just want to postpone this day day by day, push As far as it can go. So I wasn't even surprised when Arthur finally said he was going. I was sad, but not surprised. I thought that was the day that was bound to come, it was just a matter of time."

"Do you think..." Yige expressed in deliberation, "The teacher went back to reunite with his wife?" "Yes. I thought so." "The teacher didn't. He and his wife were completely separated." "I also... I thought about it too." Janet's eyes were a little red again, "I always hoped that he could come back. He said he was going to deal with some things. I thought he was going to deal with... this something happened." Janet raised her head, blinked diagonally upwards, and kept the tears from shedding.She stroked her hair back, took a deep breath, forced a smile to Ig, and gradually calmed down.She didn't want to make herself appear vulnerable again, especially in front of a young junior.She was well prepared mentally today, she was low-key and calm from the very beginning.Without the ups and downs, there is no pain of ups and downs.Yig looked at her with respect.Her complexion was not good, she was a little haggard, her skin looked dull, and her eye bags were swollen.One can imagine the state of the past few days, more sad than happy, but she tried her best to maintain a strong appearance.Her hair is still neatly combed, and the striped cotton shirt on her body is simple, but has the proper pattern of ironing.Ige knew that if he lived alone for many years, he would gain a kind of habitual independence, no matter how chaotic his state of mind was, he would be able to take good care of himself by habit.Janet is not married.She left a void for the teacher, and kept it until the void could never be filled.

"Actually, the teacher wants to come back." Yige said slowly. He didn't say that to comfort.He did wish to offer Janet some reassurance, but he wouldn't say words of reassurance on purpose.He told the truth, he knew about the last days of the teacher, who missed Mars until the end of his life.The more silent, the more nostalgic. "It's just that his disease has not been cured. He has been treating the disease for almost ten years, but it has spread in the end." He didn't know if these circumstances could make her sad a little less, "I guess this disease is the cause of death." The reason why the teacher returned to the earth. He started treatment shortly after he arrived on the earth, laser, nano surgery, chemotherapy. Maybe he discovered it when he was on Mars, but I didn’t want to worry you, so I didn’t say it. I want to go back to the earth and get cured before coming back After all, the earth’s medicine still has advantages in some aspects. It’s a pity that it couldn’t be cured in the end.”

"That's not going to happen," Janet shook her head. "He had a normal physical examination before he left." Iggy didn't expect this. "It's true. If you have a serious illness, you can't go on the spacecraft. Cosmic radiation is very dangerous. It is harmful to normal people, and it is even worse for patients. If he finds a tumor, we will not let him go. He It's healthy to go." "Really?..." Igger frowned, "Then maybe it was the radiation on the road that caused him cancer. That's beyond the question." He fell silent.He thought this was the reason why the teacher left, but her words ruled out this possibility.He had expected Janet to tell him the answer, but it didn't occur to him that she needed him to tell the truth.He and Janet each had a reasonable guess, but they each overruled the other.This became a real hanging question, the thread was broken, and he wasn't sure if it could be continued.

He was silent for a while, enveloped by the gloom in the air.The dome is like an umbrella, covering him in the scattered sunlight, the light is like rain.The dining table in the center rotates, and the automatic piano plays tunes, adding to the sadness.The potted leaves blurred Iger's vision, and for a moment or two, he seemed to see a figure in a tuxedo sitting in front of the piano, with his back turned to him, looming. After a while, he suddenly woke up. Remembering that he hadn't said anything about the most important thing in this trip, he quickly sat up straight and said seriously, "I almost forgot, the teacher has something for you."

He took out the teacher's belongings from the bag, a comb for women, a small badge with his face and name flashing on it, and the electronic notebook that he always carried with him, and arranged them in a row on the brown glossy round table. "Well, this is mine," Janet nodded, stroking those small objects one by one, "This is...his passport, which I issued for him. This is his diary, which he brought with him when he came from Earth." "I've seen your picture," said Igg, "in the teacher's blotter. . . . Well. He doesn't have a picture of his wife. He has yours." Janet lowered her head and gently stroked the book with her fingers. "And..." Ige spoke more slowly, choosing his words carefully, "When the teacher was dying, he converted the brain waves into digital signals and input them into the chip. In other words, the teacher stored the memory. He asked me to bring Come Firestar, stay here. I think I should give it to you. The teacher didn't say anything, but I guess this is the way he really wants to be buried." He took out the tiny disc that he always carried with him, held it in his palm, and solemnly handed it to Janet. Janet's lips quivered.She held out her hand, her fingers trembling.Her hand touched Ig's palm, then drew back, as if he held a fire.She looked at the chip, her swollen eyes filled with tears again. "Arthur... didn't say anything?" "No. So I don't know what to do." "Did he die a painful death?" Iggy didn't know how to answer.He thought for a while and said, "It's not pain, it's just being too weak and unable to speak. The teacher once wrote a letter B when he was finally sober. I think that's your name." "B?" Janet looked up at him, her lips suddenly calming down, "No, that wasn't referring to me. He never called me by my last name. If he wrote my first name, even if it was an initial, he would just write a J. "She shook her head and said with certainty.She didn't appear unhappy, but seemed to understand something suddenly, and her voice became steady: "I know where you should take this chip. Yes, this is Arthur's style." Ig listened attentively. "Let me tell you one thing first." Janet said, "He took something with him. Before he left, he had been to the photoelectric studio of the information system, which is the hardware core maintenance center of the database. Our database principle It is single-atom control, using the charged jump of a single atom as 0 and 1 to store information, which can store a considerable amount of information. Arthur got the basic plan from them and brought it back to Earth.” Janet spoke, succinctly and clearly.At that moment, Yige seemed to be hit by an electric current.He suddenly understood the whole thing, and all the incomprehensible points became coherent.He got the eye that made the puzzle complete.Yes, that's the reason.This is the real reason why the teacher left.And he didn't bring a piece of technology with him when he went back, as Janet thought, but he went back for this technology.The teacher stayed because of this wide space, and left because of it.He hopes to bring it back to the earth, bring back the storage method of the database, and create a cave for the earth, a static cave, a cave that can store all the whimsy.He believed that the earth lacked sufficient storage technology and could not achieve such a large capacity, so with stubbornness and pleading many times, he asked the Mars Research Laboratory for a circuit solution, and embarked on the return spacecraft with hope.He said to Janet that he went to take care of something and hoped to come back when it was done, and that's what he said.He kept quiet, didn't explain, and didn't accept interviews on Earth, presumably because he carried such precious Martian technology, and he couldn't let the people on Earth know casually.Maybe he made a promise, maybe that promise was the premise of his proposal.It's just that he didn't expect that he had cancer, and he never came back once he left. In this way, everything is explained, and the only remaining doubt is what the teacher did on Earth. Yige thought of Tyne almost in a flash.He was almost sure that the teacher found Tyne as soon as he returned.He and Tyne are old acquaintances, and have a deep relationship with Thales Group.He hopes that the technology can be carried by Thales Group, because there is no other organization in the world with such coverage, such strength and influence.In the second half of the 22nd century, when online supermarkets completely overtook physical supermarkets, Thales became the number one company in the world.If the teacher wants to promote technology, he will definitely find Tyne.Besides Tyne, who else has such ability?