Chapter 25 Chapter 20 Recall

"Have you seen Willis?" Mihailovich asked excitedly when Dr. Fo received the captain's call and hurried to meet him, "He is a down and out man." "He will recover on the way back." Dr. Buddha cursed angrily, he had no time to deal with such trifles at the moment, "I'm just anxious to find out what happened." Captain Smith remained seated, almost dumbfounded, when Dr. Fo entered the captain's cabin.If this had been an emergency affecting the Cosmos, he would have directed everyone's work like a tornado.But at this moment, he is completely powerless and can only wait for the next instruction from the earth.

Captain Laplace was an old friend, how could he get involved in this trouble?Can't think of any reason for his predicament, accident, navigation error or equipment failure?As far as the explanations that Captain Smith could think of, there was nothing the Cosmos could do to help him out of the predicament.The monitoring center could only keep going in circles, facing this situation that seemed to be the same as other common emergencies in space, there was nothing they could do except to convey comfort and record the last message.When the captain informed Dr. Buddha of the news, he did not raise any doubts or questions in his heart.

"There has been an accident," he said, "and we have received instructions to return to Earth immediately in order to participate in a rescue mission." "Mission accident?" "It's our sister ship, the Milky Way. It was exploring the moons of Jupiter and had an accident on landing." He saw the surprise and disbelief on Dr. Buddha's face. "Yes, I know that's impossible. But that's the way it is. It's stranded, on Europa." "Europa!" "I think so. It's damaged, but thankfully there were no injuries and we're still waiting for details."

"When did it happen?" "Twelve hours ago. There was a delay in its communication with Gurneymede." "But what can we do? We're on the other side of the solar system. We'll have to go back to lunar orbit to refuel, then take the fastest orbit to Jupiter, which will take at least... oh, months!" Dr. Fo thought to himself, in the era of Leonov, it may take several years... "I know, but no other spaceship can help." "Wouldn't a vehicle sailing between satellites like Gnemede help?" "Those can only perform orbital missions."

"They landed on Callisto." "That's a task that doesn't consume much energy. Oh, they can barely reach Europa without much load. Of course, it's not impossible. They're thinking deeply about it." Dr. Fo did not pay attention to the captain's answer, he was still trying to comprehend the startling news.For the first time (and second ever) in half a century, a spacecraft has landed on this exclusion zone!Suddenly he had a different idea. "Do you think," he asked, "that the creatures (or anything) on ​​Europa caused this accident?"

"I'm wondering too," said the captain angrily, "but we've been exploring there for years, and we haven't found anything." "Moreover, what would happen if we attempted to rescue it?" "I've thought about this from the beginning. But all of this is a risk, and we'll have to wait until we have more information. Meanwhile, the real reason I'm calling you is because I just got a message from the Galactic team that I It's incredible..." He hesitated to push the computer report to Dr. Fo. Dr. Buddha had a hunch of what he might see before he read the reports.

"It's my grandson." He said dejectedly. He told himself in his heart that he was the only one who could inherit my mantle.