Chapter 56 Chapter 47 Fragments

"You guys better hurry up," advised the Gurneymede Center, "the next satellite rendezvous is going to be bad, and we expect earthquakes on both Europa and Io. Not to scare you, unless we have a problem with our radar, which is predicted Your mountain has sunk another hundred meters since the last survey." At this rate, Vandenberg thinks, Europa will be flat again in a decade.Things happen here much faster than on Earth, which is one of the reasons geologists love it here. Now Vandenberg has become the second person after Little Chris, surrounded by a lot of his own equipment, his mood is a little excited and a little regretful.In a few hours, the most challenging intellectual adventure of his life would be over, for better or worse, and never again.

He is not afraid at all, he has full confidence in people and machines.He was suddenly grateful to Rose McLean. If it wasn't for her, he would never have had this opportunity, and he might have lived his life so plainly. The heavily laden Billy can hardly overcome one-tenth of the gravity when raised above the ground. It was not originally designed for this kind of work, but it will perform better after delivering the cargo on the return journey. .It seemed to take a long time to ascend and disengage from the Yinhe, but it gave them enough time to inspect the damage to the Yinhe's hull, and the occasional slight corrosion caused by acid rain.While Chris was concentrating on takeoff, Van den Berg used his vantage point to quickly report the status of the spacecraft to the Galaxy.This seems like the right and necessary job, but if Piltie is lucky, the space value of the Galaxy will soon not attract anyone's further interest.

Now that they could see the entire refuge spread out below them (the island the Galaxy landed on), van den Berg realized how amazing what Lieutenant Captain Lee was doing when the ship docked, because it was suitable for docking. There are very few places, although this is also a bit of luck, but Li must have made the most appropriate use of the wind direction and sea anchor. The fog surrounded them so tightly that the Billy rose on its ballistic trajectory of least resistance, and for twenty minutes they could see nothing but clouds.What a pity, thought Vandenberg, I'm sure there must be some interesting creatures swimming down there, but probably no one else got a chance to see them...

"Started to cut the engine," Chris Jr. said, "everything is fine." "Very well, Billy. There are no other flying objects reporting your altitude, and you are still first on the runway." "Who's kidding?" Vandenberg asked. "Lonnie Lin. Believe it or not, 'First on the runway' was the motto of the Apollo spacecraft." Vandenberg understood why.As long as it doesn't go too far, an occasional joke can be a relief in this complicated, risky situation. "We're going to start braking in fifteen minutes," said Chris Jr. "Let's see who else is on the air."

He activated the automatic scan, and there was a burst of beeps and whistles, and the tuner rejected them one by one and jumped out. There was a short period of silence between the whistles, and the echo surrounded the small cabin. "Your location identification and data transmission," said Little Chris. "I hope, we are here!" It was just an indistinct note, a trembling voice like a deranged soprano.Little Chris stared at the frequency meter. "The doppler almost stopped functioning, it slowed down so fast." "what is that?" "Slow-scan images, I think, and if positioned properly, they're relaying massive amounts of data back to Earth via Gurneymede's big dish. The Internet is protesting for new information."

They listened to the meaningless, hypnotic sound for several minutes before little Chris turned it off.Although they couldn't understand the message from Cosmos without the aid, it still conveyed an important message: help was on the way and would arrive soon. To break the silence, and because he was interested, Vandenberg casually pointed out: "Have you talked to your grandfather lately?" "Talk," of course, was an inappropriate word for the distances between the planets, but no one could think of another acceptable term.Voice messages, auditory mail, and flashcards were all used and then abandoned; even now, most humans probably don't believe that instant conversation is still impossible in the vast open space of the solar system. matter, and the exasperating remark is occasionally heard: "Why don't you scientists figure it out?"

"Yes," said Chris Jr. "He's fine and I hope to see him soon." There was a little tension in his voice.It must have been a long time since they had seen each other, Vandenberg thought, but he thought it would be unwise to ask the question now; so he spent the next ten minutes repeating the unloading and loading procedure to little Chris, lest they Unnecessary confusion on landing. Less than a second after little Chris started the landing program, the whistle of "start braking" stopped. Vandenberg thought: "I'm in good control. I can concentrate on my work in peace. Where's the camera? Don't tell me it's drifting away again—"

The clouds cleared.Although the radar had already clearly displayed the landscape below them, it was still shocking to see a mountain rising a few kilometers ahead. 'Notice! Little Chris suddenly called out, "Turn left, next to the peak, guess what happened?" " "I think you're right. I don't think we did the damage, it just splashed some water. Don't know where the other one hit—. "Altitude 1,000. Where do you land? Point Alpha doesn't look good for landing from here." "Mistake, try the gamma point. Anyway, we're close to the mountain."

"Five hundred. It's gamma points. I'll fly for twenty seconds, and if you don't like it, we'll switch to beta points. Four hundred... three hundred... two hundred ("Good luck, Billy." Galaxy Sent) Thanks, Lonnie, ... one hundred and fifty ... - one hundred ... fifty ... how? Just a few small rocks, and, that's special, it looks like it's all over the place Broken glass, as if someone had a party here... Fifty... Fifty... ok?" "Very good, go down." "Forty...thirty...twenty...ten...Are you sure you don't change your mind?...Ten...knock out some dust, just like what Neil said, or what Buzz said...five... …touching the ground! It's that easy, isn't it? Don't know why they asked me to do something so easy."