Chapter 35 35. The Wounded Sun
The last time Morgan saw his nephew, he was quite a child.Now, Dave is twelve years old; if their meetings are still as "frequent" as before, Dave will be an adult the next time they meet.
Morgan doesn't feel bad about it, though.In the last two centuries, kinship has become far more distant than in the past, so Morgan has had little contact with his sister.They greeted each other by TV and phone every two months, and the relationship between the two parties was very harmonious, but Morgan couldn't remember the place and time of their last meeting.
But at the moment of exchanging greetings with the sprightly youth (apparently his famous uncle had no particular respect for his nephew), Morgan felt a vague pain.He has no son; he had made such a choice between work and life a long time ago, and it is very difficult to avoid this choice when human activities have entered a high-level stage.
He knew the price he had to pay to make this "deal" and yet he accepted it.It's too late to go to jail over petty things—things past are irrevocable.Conflating genes together is something every fool does; and that's what most people do.It doesn't matter whether history will give Morgan its due evaluation, but what he has done and will do, there are indeed not many people who can compare with it.
In the past three hours, Dave has seen more comprehensively on the "Earth" station than any of the VIPs.He entered from the foot of the mountain to the inside of the mountain, passing through the vestibule at the entrance of the nearly completed South Station, where people led him to watch the passenger waiting room and baggage room, the control center and the engine room where the flight cabin is organized.At this place, the cosmic airtight capsule descending along the east and west orbits will transfer to the north and south orbits for lifting.He looked up from the bottom of the liftway, five kilometers deep, and the liftway itself looked like a giant cannon aimed straight at the stars.Dave's questions exhausted the three guides until the last of them remembered that the best thing to do would be to send the child back to his uncle.
"Leave him to you, Van," said Warren Kingsley resignedly as he took Dave to the flattened hilltop in the high-speed elevator. "It seems to me that he has made up his mind to Take my place."
"I didn't know you were so interested in technical issues, Dave." Morgan said to his nephew in surprise.
It seems that the child's self-esteem has been hurt, and he also showed a little disappointment:
"Don't you remember what you gave me on my birthday?"
"Of course, of course I remember, I was just joking. Don't you feel cold?" Morgan quickly changed the subject in order to hide his guilt from not going to Muming.
The child nonchalantly pushed away the lightweight thermal jacket that was handed to him, and then asked a series of questions like a cannonball:
"No, I think it's fine. When are you going to open the lift? Can you feel the strap? Won't it break?"
"Have you learned the lesson now?" Kingsley smiled at Morgan triumphantly.
"First, before the space track tower is built on the mountain and enters the elevator, the roof will always be closed. Now, we use the roof temporarily as a workbench, and it can also serve as a shelter from rain. Second, if you want to move, you can touch the straps. Third, the straps will not break. But never run—running at such heights is very harmful to your health." Morgan answered question by question Then, I added another sentence.
"It doesn't matter to twelve-year-olds," Kingsley put in insinuatingly.
Near the anchor iron on the eastern edge, they caught up with Dave running ahead.Like thousands of people who have been here before, Boyu carefully watched the narrow, dark gray conduction belt, which rises from the ground and soars into the sky, so high that there is no end in sight.Dave threw his head back vigorously, his eyes swept up the guide tape.Morgan and Kingsley hadn't followed his example; but even now—after all these years—the temptation to look up in this way remained strong.What they didn't tell Dave, of course, was that some visitors had gotten so dizzy after watching this that they fell down and couldn't move without help.
But the boy was unharmed: for almost a minute he stared into the great distance, as if hoping to see thousands of people and millions of tons of cargo flying on the other side of the blue sky.Then he grimaced, closed his eyes, shook his head and looked at his feet, as if to check that he was still on solid ground.
He reached out and touched carefully the narrow band that connected the earth to its new moon.
"If it breaks, what will happen?" Dave still didn't forget the question, but this time he used the subjunctive voice.
This is a very common question.But Morgan's answer surprised many.
"Almost nothing happens. At this point, it's effectively unloaded. If you cut the conduction band, it's just hanging in the air and blowing in the wind."
Kingsley showed dissatisfaction: both of them knew that such an answer was an exaggeration.At present, each of the four guide belts bears a load of about one hundred tons, but compared with the design load, this value is insignificantly small.However, it is unnecessary to trouble the little boy with such details.
Dave thought carefully about what his uncle told him, and then experimented with flicking the guide belt with his fingers, as if he wanted it to make a musical sound.However, his answer was a short and blunt voice.
"If you hit it with a sledgehammer, then when you come back here in ten hours, you'll be just in time to hear the echo from the 'Central' station." Morgan said jokingly.
"Not necessarily!" Kingsley said, "The damping is too big."
"Come on, don't spoil that impression, Warren. Better let's go a little further and see if there's anything really interesting."
They approached the center of a metal disc, which now became the mountain's great hat, sealing the elevator like the lid of a cauldron.Right here, equidistant from the four guide belts that lead the Space Orbital Tower to Earth, stands a small, unassuming geodetic tent.A telescope protruded from the tent, and it was aimed directly at the apex of the lofty heights. It was obviously not used to aim at other objects.
"Now is the most suitable time. Before sunset, the light conditions at the bottom of the space orbital tower are excellent." Morgan said, looking very relaxed.
"Even the sun today is brighter than yesterday," Kingsley said jokingly, pointing to the very handsome ellipsoid sinking in the thin smoke, which seemed to be squashed.Since the smog greatly reduces the light from the sun, one can now look at it comfortably.
The dark spots clearly appearing on the surface of the Sun appeared about a hundred years ago.Now, it covers almost half of the sun's disk.It seems that the sun is suffering from a mysterious and intractable serious illness, and maybe even a hole has been pierced by something.However, even if Jupiter hits the sun, it is impossible for it to cause such serious damage to this luminous celestial body!The largest black spot has a diameter of four million kilometers, which can accommodate hundreds of earth miles.
"It is estimated that we will be able to see a large piece of aurora again at night. Professor Sai Suyi and his group are really lucky to have chosen an excellent time." Kingsley said.
"Okay, let's see how their affairs are going." After Morgan finished speaking, he began to adjust the telescope. "Come and see, Dave."
The boy watched carefully for a full minute:
"The four straps are all going in, that is to say, going up, and then they are invisible."
"Is there nothing in between?" Morgan asked heuristically.
Dave was silent for another moment:
"No, I can't see the Space Orbit Tower."
"That's right, it's six hundred kilometers away, and the telescope is set to the minimum magnification. But we're about to take off now. Fasten your seat belts!" Morgan asked his nephew jokingly.
Dave loved the old formula he'd seen in dozens of historical dramas, and he smiled with delight.However, he didn't notice any change: only the four lines in the center of his vision became less clear.It took him a few seconds to realize that nothing would change: he looked up the axis of the system, and at any point the four conduction bands looked the same.
Then, completely unexpectedly—although Dave had been waiting for it to appear—a small bright spot appeared in the very center of the field of vision.It quickly expanded to the surroundings, so the boy experienced a distinct sense of speed.
After a few seconds, he was able to see a small circle clearly—no, both his mind and eyes agreed that it was a square.He looked straight up and saw the base of the Space Orbital Tower.And what about the tower?It is crawling along the conduction belt towards the earth at a speed of two kilometers a day.Now, the conduction bands themselves are gone -- they're unrecognizable from this distance.However, the square that seemed to be fixed in the sky by magic continued to expand, and although the highest magnification was now used, it still looked blurry.
"What did you see?" Morgan asked.
"A shiny little cube," Dave replied.
"Okay. This is the very sunlit base of the Space Orbital Tower. When it gets dark here we can see it with the naked eye for a full hour until it goes out of shadow. What else do you see? No?" Morgan continued.
"No...not anymore." After a long silence, the boy replied in a drawn-out tone.
"Strange! It is reported that a team of scientists has set off to an area below to install scientific instruments there. They have already descended from the 'central' station. If you look closely, you can be sure to see their transport planes. It's on the south track, right from here. You focus on a bright spot that's about a quarter the size of the space orbital tower."
"I'm sorry, Uncle, but I couldn't find it. Come and see for yourself."
"It's possible that we can't see it. The visibility is already very poor. Sometimes, even though the atmosphere looks transparent, the space orbital tower is completely gone..." Morgan walked towards the telescope as he spoke.
Before Morgan could take Dave's place next to the telescope, his personal receiver blared twice.A second later, Kingsley's signal system also sounded an alarm.
It was the first level four alert ever issued on a space orbital tower.
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