Chapter 43 first quarter

At the deepest point of Shakespeare Lake there is an entrance to an underwater passage.The passage was built under the walls of the Beauvais village and settlement.When designing New Eden, based on his own practical experience, Richard repeatedly emphasized the importance of retaining an emergency exit in the residential area in case of accidents. "What's the emergency passage for?" Hawkman asked. "I don't know." Richard said, "But unexpected things often happen in life. A perfect engineering design should have emergency exits." Richard swam carefully in the canal, checking his oxygen tanks every few minutes.After going through layers of gates, he finally entered a dry underground passage. After advancing 100 meters, he put the submersible on the side of the passage.As he approached the emergency exit, Richard took out his thermal clothing from his waterproof pocket.

Richard looked around, carefully opened the circular door on the top of the passage, and entered the central plain. "So far so good." Richard breathed a sigh of relief, "Now it's time for the second project." Richard spent four days east of the Central Plains, using his best binoculars to observe activity near the control center and the second settlement.As he expected, one or two days, when several search parties patrolled between the two residential areas, one person came towards him, and Richard deftly avoided it. The central plain was shrouded in darkness save for faint lights bouncing off metallic surfaces.Richard thought the light might be bouncing off the surface at the south corner of the second living area.

Richard longed to be able to fly on the vast cylindrical sea.The faint light reflected off the central plain aroused Richard's curiosity about the rest of Rama.Is there a sea of ​​cylinders in the south corner?Is there another island called New York?Is there life in the south of Rama's Cylinder?Is the life zone in the south larger than those two in the north? On the fifth day Richard had a peculiar dream about his father.After waking up, he walked towards the residential area he called Ai Yunniao.He has changed his biological clock, resting during the day and working at night.It's seven o'clock in the evening, and the exploration team has called off work and gone home.

When he was 500 meters away from the hole in the wall of Ai Yunniao's residential area, Richard stopped and looked over there with his binoculars, and there was indeed no one else.He sends the robot Falstaff out to lure the Sentinels.He once drew a square of 80 square centimeters on the floor of his study, confirming that he could crawl through it. "What if the size of the passage is irregular? Don't worry, I will find out soon." He thought as he walked. There was a set of electrical cables plugged into the passage, which Richard removed without much trouble. "My Falstaff robot must have succeeded," he thought, for neither saw nor heard the sentinel.Richard tossed the bag into the opening first, then prepared to climb in himself.He compared the hole with his body, no way.He took off his coat, shirt, trousers and shoes, and was only wearing panties and socks, which fit just right.He tied the stripped clothes into a bundle, tied it to his bag, and began drilling.

He used his elbows to support the front half of his body into the hole, and his body rubbed against the wall and the ceiling and slowly climbed in.After entering the passage 15 meters, his muscles were a little sore.He stopped and looked, and he could get out of the hole after climbing another 40 meters. Richard stopped to rest and found his elbows, knees, and bald head bruised and bleeding.He tried to turn over in the small space to get the bandages—it was impossible, even if he moved or looked up, it would take a lot of effort. He realized that he was too old to move little by little.He felt hot all over his body, and once he stopped, his exposed body immediately felt cold.Richard's teeth chattered as his body pressed against the cold metal surface.

Richard moved forward with difficulty and slowness for another quarter of an hour, when suddenly he felt his right leg pinned down.He raised his head instinctively, but hit the ceiling hard.Richard fainted, blood ran down his head and down his face, and he came back to life. It was dark all around, and Richard felt cold.He touched his wound bleeding, bewildered.Suddenly, he felt the walls of the cave around him start to press against him, and he had difficulty breathing and felt terrified.The walls seemed to crush him, and Richard couldn't help himself, screaming. In less than half a minute, a light came from behind him.He heard the comical voice of Garcia's robot, but couldn't make out what it was saying.He thought, "It must be ready to report urgently, I'd better hurry."

Richard forgot about the fatigue and the bleeding wound and began to crawl forward again.When the tunnel began to shrink and squeeze, Richard estimated that there was still a distance of 10 to 15 meters from the entrance of the cave.He exhausted all his strength but was still squeezed tightly and couldn't move.The situation was quite dangerous. He tried to change his posture when he suddenly heard hurried footsteps coming from the direction of Ai Yunniao's residential area. The sound came from all directions, making Richard's hair stand on end.Ricky crawled all over him, making him itch.Richard had seen Recky on TV—about two centimeters in diameter, with six symmetrical feet, ten centimeters long legs, and a round shape.A rackey crawled up his face, rubbing its legs against his nose and mouth.Richard tried to shake it off, but when he looked up, he hit the ceiling again.Ricky crawled all over his body.While twisting his body, he struggled to crawl forward, and finally reached the entrance.

When he was about to stick his head out towards the Ai Yunniao residential area outside, a voice came from behind: "Hello, is anyone? Whoever you are, please tell us, we are here to help you." A strong light came Searched the passage. Richard found a new problem: the hole is still one meter above the ground in the ring area below.He grabbed his bag and clothes and leaned halfway out.At this time, the voice behind him began to speak again.Richard felt his body sinking, he held his head tightly in his hands, curled up with his chin against his chest and rolled down.As he fell, Ricky jumped off him and disappeared into the darkness.

The flashlight came from behind him and shone on the wall of the circle.Richard looked at himself. Fortunately, he was not injured, and the blood on his head slowly stopped.He picked up his things and limped to the left for 200 meters, stopping at the window where Prince Henry was captured. Richard forgot about his fatigue and immediately started measuring the height of the wall.He quickly dressed, bandaged the wound, and then climbed up, believing that a search camera would come in from the hole soon. Luckily there was a ledge in front of the window opening where Richard could just sit and cut the wire mesh.He thought Recky might show up at any moment, but he saw nothing and heard nothing from the residential area.He pulled out his radio and tried twice to contact the missing Prince Henry, but got no answer.

It was dark in the residential area. "What the hell is there?" thought Richard.Since it was free to move back and forth, he surmised that the air there was the same as on the platform.Just as he was about to turn on the flashlight to see what was going on, there was a sound coming from under his feet and behind him, and there was also a light on the ground below shooting towards him.Richard quickly turned over to the platform on the other side of the residential area, avoiding the lights and carefully distinguishing the sound. It was a search camera, but the range was limited, and it was useless beyond the range.

Richard sat motionless as the light from the tracker swept across the platform below the window. "What should I do? They must have seen something. If I turn on the flashlight and there's a reflection of the light, they'll know where I am." Richard threw something under the settlement to measure its height, but heard no echo.He threw a bigger object down again, but still didn't hear the sound of hitting the ground. Only then did he realize that he was standing on the platform of the residential area, with the abyss beneath his feet.Richard's heart beat faster, recalling Rama's basic structure and thick shell, Richard estimated that the platform he was sitting on was several hundred meters deep from the bottom of the living quarters below.He leaned forward, staring at the darkness beneath his feet. The camera stopped searching suddenly, and the beam focused on a certain point in the ring area.Richard guessed that he might have dropped something in his panic just now.He knew there would be more cameras, more lights.At this moment, he seemed to see himself being caught and taken back to New Eden.He didn't know which law in the residential area he violated, but he knew that he did violate many rules.Imagining himself being locked up in the detention center for a long time, Richard said to himself, "No matter what, I will never let this happen." He reached out and felt the inner wall under the living quarters to see if A place to put your hands and feet—thankfully something sticks out.Richard took out the rope from his bag, tied one end of the rope to the bracket supporting the protective net, and said to himself: "Just in case." A second light came from the platform beneath him.Richard tied the rope firmly around his waist and began to climb down.In the darkness, he supported his body with a rope, searching for a place to stay.Very good, there are quite a few small platforms for him to put his feet on. He continued to climb down, estimated to be 360-370 meters down, took out the flashlight from his bag, and shot down: it was still bottomless, which made him feel scared.He saw something like a cloud gathering 50 meters below his feet. Climbing down another 30 meters and approaching the end of the rope, Richard felt the swirling mist surrounding him.He was too tired, so he grabbed the safety rope and climbed back up a few meters, wrapping the rope around himself a few times.He pressed his body against the wall and fell asleep.