Chapter 23 Chapter 23: At Sunset

“…his father was very neurotic as a child and beat and scolded him frequently. His psyche was deeply scarred by the breakdown of his marriage to British actress Sura Tedding when he was young. With these circumstances in mind, Walkerfield can be said to be a person who is very good at self-adjustment. After his famous divorce case ended, he received two years of psychotherapy until the year before he entered the Astronautics Academy in 2192. In the academy However, his academic performance was very unusual. Until he graduated, his professor of electrical engineering and computer science insisted that Walkerfield was the most knowledgeable person in the college...

"... Walkerfield exhibited no antisocial behavior other than being careful not to get involved in emotional entanglements. His SC was as low as that of a young teenager. Apparently his SC did not decline with his age Mature. Despite this, he is not arrogant, and he does not now compare his strengths to others' weaknesses. His integrity and character are impeccable. Only knowledge and wisdom are the goals he strives for, not by any means. Power and money..." Nicole put down the psychological analysis report on Walkerfield in his hand, and rubbed his eyes.It was very late, and Lamali's team members had already fallen asleep, but she had been studying these files.Within two hours, the players will wake up to start their second day at Lamari.In two and a half hours, she will take over.She and O'Toole took turns to be on duty every 6 hours to ensure the smooth flow of communication.

"Look at the general situation," Nicole thought to himself. "There are four people who can't get rid of the stain because of illegal secret contracts with the media; the situation of Hiroshi Yamanaka and Elena is not clear; anyway, Wilson is fairly stable, but he has his own troubles; only O'Toole, Tallbank, and Walkerfield are clean now." Nicole washed her face and hands, and sat down in front of the computer again. She quit Walkerfield's file, returned to the main menu, called up the comprehensive statistics, and placed two sets of statistics side by side on the screen.

On the left is the IE data of the twelve players, and on the right is the SC data: IE SC Walker +5.58 O'Toole 86 Sabatini +4.22 Posov 84 Brown +4.17 Gao An 82 Gao An +4.02 Wilson 78 Taburi +3.37 Dejardin 71 Posov +3.28 Heilman 68 De Jardin +3.04 Tabouri 64 O'Toole +2.92 Hiroshi Yamanaka 62 Elena +2.87 Elena 60 Hiroshi Yamanaka +2.66 Walkerfield 58 Wilson +2.48 Sabatini 56 Hellman +2.24 Brown 49 Although Nicole had browsed a lot of information when he read the file a few hours ago, he didn't pay much attention to the chart data of the players.It was the first time she had seen some data.

Sabatini's high IQ surprised her a lot. "It's such a waste!" She shook her head regretfully, thinking, "With such potential, but engaged in such a simple occupation, it's overkill." The IQs of all the team members are quite high, belonging to one percent of the population with high IQs, which is very impressive.Nicole belongs to the one-thousandth of the population with high IQ, but she only ranks in the middle of twelve people.Walkerfield's IQ is really surprisingly high, ranking first among the twelve.Nicole had never seen anyone score so high on any standard intelligence test.

Although her psychiatric training told her not to use statistics to judge people's characteristics lightly, she still became very interested in this SC's statistical ranking.Intuitively, she herself would put O'Toole, Posov and Takashi first.These three people give people the impression that they are trustworthy, stable and empathetic. She wondered why Wilson's SC coefficient was also high? "He must have been a very different man before he fell in love with Frances." She thought, why is her SC indicator not very high?She later realized that, as a young woman, she was too reserved and too arrogant.

And what about Walkerfield?she asked herself.She understands that he is the only one who can help her find out the situation of the surgical robot and the truth about Bosov's death. Can she trust him?Could she make him understand her far-fetched suspicions that were not yet evidence, and thus gain his help?Nicole wavered again, it seemed wiser to give up the investigation, she said to herself: "Nicole, maybe the so-called conspiracy of someone is just nonsense." But Nicole is convinced that there are many unanswered questions that justify investigation.She made up her mind to talk to Walkerfield.After making this decision, she combined the materials she extracted into a new file, named "Nicole", and stored it in the data crystal given to her by the king.Then, calling up her word processor, she wrote the following memo:

3-3-00: It is certain that the failure of the robot during Bosov's operation was caused by the input of external commands after the operation procedure was set, resulting in an error; seek Walkerfield's help. Nicole took a blank data crystal from the drawer, stuffed it into the computer, and copied all the materials and memos into it.She put on her uniform and put the crystal in her coat pocket. General O'Toole was dozing off in the command deck of the military cabin when Nicole walked in and woke him up. On the surface, the military command module is not as grand as the scientific module, but it is very advanced and practical, especially from the point of view of ergonomics.All control handles are positioned for individual manipulation by the astronauts.

General O'Toole was sorry for dozing off.Three screens were displaying the same picture from different angles - all the other team members were sleeping soundly in the improvised camp at the foot of the Alpha steps.He pointed to the screen and said: "It's been like this for five hours, it's really hard to keep people excited." Nicole smiled. "General, you don't have to feel sorry. I know you've been on almost twenty-four hours of shift." General O'Toole stood up, checked the record on the screen in front of him, and said, "After you left, they finished their dinner and started installing the first rover. The autopilot system failed the self-test, Walkerfield. Found the problem, a software error in a subroutine. Somehow the program was changed after the final checkout. Walkerfield has corrected it. Before the team went to bed, Tabry was still driving the rover Tried it, all good. Finally, Frances made a lively little program to send back to Earth. Would you like to see it?"

Nicole nodded.O'Toole turned on a TV screen on the far right.Frances appears next to the camp that has already been set up, and the lower part of the step ladder and the lifting mechanism can be seen behind the camera. "It's time for bed, but this is Rama," said Frances, looking around and up. "Nine hours ago, Rama's dawn came unexpectedly, bringing our alien brothers The crystallization of the wisdom of the world is displayed in front of us in detail. Alien friends have traveled across the interstellar space tens of millions of light years, and finally came to us." She inserted some pictures and video shots while speaking.Some were captured by robotic probes, others by herself today.Finally, the camera settles on Frances's face.

"But no one knows why this spaceship came to the edge of the galaxy and invaded our territory after more than seventy years. Maybe these noble creatures can't explain their thoughts to us, because it is beyond our human understanding ;Maybe the answer is here, in this carefully crafted metal world. In this ship built by mysterious alien creatures, you can find the key to open the secret door." She smiled, and the expression on her face The expression is very provocative, "If these keys are found, then mankind will take a big step towards self-understanding... Maybe we will also understand God better." Nicole could see that General O'Toole was deeply moved by Frances' commentary.Although Nicole is very disgusted with Frances, she has to admit again that Frances is very talented. "She actually expressed my feelings about this operation so vividly and heartily. I wish I had her eloquence." O'Toole said excitedly. Nicole sat down in front of the console, entered the shift password, and checked all the equipment according to the procedure list listed on the screen. "Okay, General," she said, turning her swivel chair, "I've taken control of the system from here." O'Toole lingered behind her, obviously wanting to talk. "I had a long talk with Frances three days ago about religion," said he, "and she told me that before she went back to church she was almost a skeptic; When she thinks about Rama, she becomes a Catholic again." Nicole was silent.For some reason, the old church of the fifteenth century in the village came to mind again.The village is only 800 meters away from Beauvais.She remembered standing in the church with her father when the beautiful spring came, looking at the sun shining through the colorful windows, fascinated. "Did God make these colors?" Nicole asked Papa. "It is said to be." Dad said briefly. "What do you think, Dad?" she asked, breaking the casserole. "I must admit," General O'Toole's voice brought Nicole back to reality, "this whole trip has been a cleansing for me. I've never felt like I do now. So close to God. Many things make people think deeply, make people feel the vastness of the universe and the humbleness of human beings; make people..." He stopped suddenly, feeling a little apologetic, "I'm sorry, I don't want you to think that I am ...." "No," replied Nicole, "your religion is touching." "However, I hope I haven't made it hard for you. Religion is a purely personal thing." He smiled, "but sometimes it can create a strong desire to share that wonderful feeling with someone." , and more because you and Frances are also Catholics." When O'Toole left the command module, Nicole watched him off and silently wished him a good night's sleep.Then, she took out the copied data crystal and stuffed it into the reader.A picture of Frances listening intently to O'Toole's religious-philosophical implications of the Rama miracle popped into her mind.She thought: "You are an astonishing woman. Whatever you do, even if it is utterly wicked and hypocritical, is flawless." Dr. Gao An stared blankly at the tower-shaped and spherical buildings of the city of "New York" 4,000 meters away.Time and time again, he looked through the telescope temporarily set up on the seaside cliffs of Huanzhu, studying these strange alien landscapes. "You know," he said to Walkerfield and Frances, "I doubt whether the first Rama Expedition's conclusions about 'New York' are accurate. I think that the ship is probably not what we imagined. .” Neither Walkerfield nor Frances answered him.The former was engrossed in installing the last skid on the snowmobile; the latter, as usual, was busy filming Walkerfield's work. "It seems that this city is indeed composed of three identical parts." Takagishi continued, more like talking to himself, "Each part is composed of three smaller parts that are roughly the same. However, The nine plots were not exactly replicated, but showed subtle differences." "Okay!" Walkerfield said, standing up with a satisfied smile on his face, "It's finished a day ahead of schedule. I should try all the functions of this machine." Frances looked at her watch: "We're almost half an hour late, do you want to go for a drive in 'New York' before dinner?" Walkerfield shrugged and looked at Gao An.Frances walked up to the Japanese scientist: "What do you think, Takagishi? Shall we go to the other side and take some close-up images of the city of 'New York' for people on Earth?" "It's absolutely fine, I can't wait..." Gao An replied. "It's just that you have to return to the camp by 19:30 at the latest." David Brown interrupted their conversation. He was in the helicopter with Hellman and Wilson. Many activities will need to be adjusted.” "Reggie," Walkerfield said, "if we put aside the tackle system for a moment and the sleds don't fail, we can cross the ice and get to New York City in a matter of ten minutes. You can go back to camp." "This afternoon, we have searched carefully north of the Sea of ​​Cylindrical Sea, and found no biological activity. These cities are like replicas. In the central plain, there is nothing unexpected. My personal thoughts are , and attack the mysterious south tomorrow." "'New York'!" Gao An exclaimed, "Our goal for tomorrow should be 'New York', and we must conduct a detailed investigation on it." Brown didn't answer.Gao An walked to the edge of the cliff and looked at the ice 50 meters below.To his left, there was a narrow, small staircase leading directly to the sea. "Is the snowmobile heavy?" he asked Walkerfield. "Not too heavy," replied Walkerfield, "but it's big. You don't want to wait until I've got the tackle on? We can certainly go to 'New York' tomorrow anyway." "I can help carry it." Frances quickly cut in, "If you don't take a look at this 'New York' city, when we discuss plans tonight, we won't be able to say anything new." "Okay," Walkerfield said jokingly, shaking his head at her, "as long as the news coverage requires. Come on, I'll go in front so most of the weight is on my back; Frances in the middle; Takashi in the back. Note , the blade of the sled is very sharp." They reached the surface of the Cylindrical Sea without any problems. "Brilliant," said Frances excitedly. "It's so easy! Why put the tackle on?" "Because there may be other things that need to be hoisted, and in case of an accident, people can also be loaded and unloaded." Walkerfield and Takagishi sat in the front of the snowmobile, and Frances sat in the back with the camera.Behind them, the snowmobiles made a long trail.Getting closer to "New York", Gao An became more and more excited and lively. "Look there!" Gao An said excitedly when there were still 500 meters away from the shore, "'New York' is the capital of Rama, is there any doubt about that?" When they reached the shore, the sight of the city appeared in front of their eyes, and the three of them were too shocked to speak.Each of its complex building structures demonstrates the orderliness and purpose of an intelligent creature.Seventy years ago, the first expeditions found that neither here nor the rest of Rama was deserted.Is it true that this city, clearly divided into nine parts, is, as the first expedition members guessed, a gigantic and complex machine?Or is this long island, 10,000 meters long and 3,000 meters wide, really a city whose inhabitants have long since disappeared? They parked their snowmobiles at the edge of the sea, walked along the shore on foot, and soon found a step ladder on the embankment that surrounded the city.Gao An excitedly walked 20 meters ahead, Frances and Walkerfield followed behind him.When they climb up the steps, through the opening of the steps in front, the details of the city are gradually revealed to them. Walkerfield was attracted by a building with a strange geometric pattern.In addition to the usual tall and thin skyscrapers, there are many rectangular structures, polyhedral structures, and spherical structures. Walkerfield scanned these strange buildings with his eyes quickly, and said in his heart: "Oh, look, that building is a dodecahedron, this is a pentahedron..." Suddenly, his mathematical contemplation was interrupted-in an instant, all the lights went out at the same time, and the whole Rama fell into darkness again.