Chapter 27 Chapter 27 Ready to Attack

"Be careful," Heilman said to Frances, "you're making me nervous hanging like this." Frances hooked her ankles to the brackets under the helicopter seat, leaned out of the hatch with a tiny video camera in her right hand. Four meters below her, six crab-shaped creatures were still lined up, ignoring the whistling helicopter above them, walking unhurriedly and methodically, the formation looked like six Bowling pins. "Fly a little closer to the sea," Frances said loudly to Hiro Yamanaka, "They are approaching the edge of the cliff, and they are about to turn around again."

The helicopter turned sharply to the left and flew to the edge of a 500-meter-high cliff.Here is the embankment to the south of the Sea of ​​Columns, ten times higher than the shore to the north. David Brown looked down tremblingly. 500 meters below was the frozen surface of the Cylindrical Sea. He could not help but take a deep breath. "This is ridiculous, Frances," he said dissatisfied. "How can it be a perfect shot? The automatic camera on the front of the helicopter can take enough pictures." "The camera was designed specifically to capture action footage," she said, "plus, a little thriller makes the image more vivid."

Hiroshi Yamanaka flew the helicopter towards the shore.Those crab-shaped creatures are 30 meters directly ahead.The leading one climbed up the edge narrower than its body, paused for a moment, then suddenly turned to the right, then turned another ninety degrees to the right, and walked back in the direction it had just come from.Its other five companions followed its example and also turned their directions row by row, as neatly and accurately as military drills. Frances retracted her body into the cabin and said happily: "I captured a close-up of the front, and when the lead one turned around, there was a flash of light in the blue eyes."

The crab-shaped creatures left the cliff and walked slowly towards the hinterland of the southern plain, at a speed of about 10,000 meters per hour.On the fertile land behind them, they left a long series of shallow footprints; on the right, parallel to their advancing direction, are the footprints they stepped on when they went to the sea just now.From a bird's-eye view, the whole area looks like a large garden with grass cut on the outskirts of the city; the other end of the land is very flat and clean, with no biological activity and no footprints. "This place is boring," Frances joked, throwing her arms around Brown's neck. "Maybe we'll just have to find something else to do."

"We've only been watching them back and forth for a little over a year, and they're pretty simple." Frances was tickling his neck, and Brown ignored her.It seems that he is recalling all the inspection procedures before the official operation.Finally, Brown said into the intercom: "What do you think, Dr. Gao An? What else do we need to do this time?" Behind the console of Newton's science center, Dr. Gao An has been studying and monitoring the walking and movements of these crab-shaped creatures on the big screen. "It would be very useful if we could know how strong their pincers are before we catch them," he told Brown. In fact, it doesn't look like they're even noticing our presence. I think we should send them electromagnetic signals at all frequencies and detect their responses, and maybe there's a better…"

"But that will take a few days," interrupted Dr. Brown, "and, in the end, there may still be a dilemma. I can't imagine that this will actually help or change our plans in any way." .” "If we knew more about them first," Takagishi argued, "then we could devise a better, safer capture scheme. Or it would make us wiser to stop this operation..." "That's impossible!" David Brown replied immediately.He ended his conversation with Tallbank and called out, "Hi! This is Brown. Tabry, how is camp going?" "There's still a little work to do," replied the Hungarian. "It will take half an hour at most. Then I'm going to take a nap."

"It's almost lunchtime," Frances put in. "You're not going to bed on an empty stomach." "What do you want us to eat, beauty?" said Tabouri mockingly. "Lama Crab." "All right!" said Dr. Brown angrily.After a pause, he continued, "General O'Toole, can you control the Newton by yourself? It will take at least 12 hours." "Of course." O'Toole replied. "Okay, all the other team members are invited down. The new camp will be ready soon, and we will meet there. After lunch, everyone will rest for a while. Our hunting operation will officially start in the afternoon."

Below the helicopter, the six crab-shaped creatures walked across a wasteland with still indifferent square steps.The four people on the plane watched them.Seeing that they are about to reach a dividing line, after passing this line, the messy stone field is replaced by a fine metal grid field.As soon as they reached the side of the small road separating the two fields, they immediately turned a U-shaped bend, turned around and paralleled the way they came from, and walked towards the column sea. Hiroshi Yamanaka let the plane fly up obliquely, ascended to a high altitude, and flew towards the Beta camp on the other side of the 10,000-meter cylindrical sea.

"They're right," Nicole muses, "there's no comparison between seeing it on the screen and being there." Midpoint.No matter which direction you look at from Rama, it is thrilling.She remembered feeling that way, too, while viewing the Grand Canyon. "But that is something created by nature after more than 1 billion years of wind and rain, but Rama is an artificial product. Perhaps, it is not artificial at all." Nicole's thoughts were raging. The chair lift suddenly stopped in mid-air.1,000 meters below, she vaguely saw Dr. Gao An climbing out of the seat, and she also heard him and Walkerfield talking on the intercom. "Come on," she heard Reggie yelling again, "I don't like hanging in mid-air." Nicole, however, liked hovering here.With this moment of leisure, and the astonishing sight before her eyes, she finds everything new and interesting.

Another pause, Wilson stepped off the chair lift, and Nicole gradually approached the bottom of the Alpha Ladder.There were still 300 meters below, and the vision became clearer and clearer, but Nicole couldn't see the faintly shaking objects on the rover even though his eyes were wide open.Oh, three people, some equipment, and a tent.After a few more seconds, she made out the faces of three people.For a moment, she felt as if she was at the foot of the Swiss mountains two months ago, and she was the same, sitting in the lift.King Henry's face suddenly flashed through her mind.She regained her composure, but saw Walkerfield's smiling face welcoming her.He let the seat touch the ground firmly enough for her to let go of the straps and step out.

"Slow down, it won't stop right away, it will gradually slow down. Okay, now you can let go of the belt and take a few steps, just like you leave the escalator." He grabbed her by the waist and almost lifted her off the platform.Takashi and Wilson were already in the back seat of the rover. "Welcome to Rama." Walkerfield said with a smile, "Okay, Taburi." He then said into the intercom, "Everyone is down, ready to go. When driving, we dial to the listening mode .” "Come on," Gallows urged, "here's your mouth-watering lunch... By the way, Richard, did you bring your toolbox C? We're talking about making a cage, Maybe I need all kinds of gadgets." "Understood." Walkerfield walked quickly into the camp tent and saw the toolbox, which was obviously heavy. "My God, Taburi," he yelled into the intercom. "What do you need in here?" Everyone heard Taburi's laughter: "To catch such a big guy, you have to bring everything, the more the better." Walkerfield shut down the transport robot, climbed into the rover, and drove towards the Sea of ​​Columns. "I've never heard of such a stupid idea," complained Reggie Wilson. "Somebody's going to get hurt." No one in the car said anything for a full minute.To their right, at the farthest point of sight, the astronauts could see Rama's "London" city. "How does it feel to be a second-tier member?" Wilson said, and no one said anything. After an embarrassing silence, Dr. Takagi turned and asked politely, "Excuse me, Mr. Wilson, are you talking to me?" "Of course." Wilson nodded and replied, "Has no one told you that you are the 'backup' scientific advisor for this operation? I guess no one has told you." Wilson paused and said, "Of course, don't be surprised. Since I was born, no one has told me that I am a backup reporter." "Reggie, I don't think..." Nicole started, but was interrupted immediately. "And you, doctor..." Wilson leaned forward, "...you may only be a member of the third echelon. I overheard our big bosses—Hellman and Brown talking about you, If they didn't need your skills, they would rather let you stay on the Newton..." "That's enough," Walkerfield cut him off angrily, with a stern voice, "Don't be so rude." After a while, Walkerfield spoke again, this time more friendly: "If I remember correctly If so, you are a racing fan, would you like to drive this four-wheeler?" That was a good idea, and a few minutes later Reggie Wilson sat in the driver's seat next to Walkerfield, laughing and yelling as he made the car spin around in a quick circle.Unfortunately, Nicole and Gao An, who were in the back seat, were jolted to and fro. Nicole watched Wilson attentively. "He's lost control again," she thought to herself, "at least this is the third time in the past two days." She was thinking about when she last scanned him, "After Posov died, he Haven't done it yet, and in the meantime, I've done two scans for the officers of the Space Academy...Damn it!" She scolded herself, "I'm so disturbed by the Bosov incident, I'm too worried about his condition. Careless." She secretly decided in her heart that when she arrived at the Beta camp, she would try to scan the body of each team member as much as possible. "By the way, my great professor," Walkerfield turned to Dr. Gao'an as Wilson drove straight toward the camp, "have you done any further research on the 'strange sound' we heard since that day? Dr. Brown is Don’t you still think it’s a figment of our collective hallucination?” Dr. Gao An shook his head: "Let me tell you, what we heard that day was a new kind of sound." He looked ahead, crossing the mysterious central plain, to the distance, "This Rama spaceship is the same as the previous one. Not the same, I understand that. South of the Sea of ​​Cylindricals, those tessellated fields are not the same pattern as the first Rama, they no longer reach the shore of the Sea of ​​Cylindricals; the lights come on before the water melts; when the lights go out , not like what Captain Newton and the others reported, dimming first and then going out; those creatures are no longer moving individually, but in groups." He stopped and looked at the tessellated field in the distance, " Dr. Brown says the differences are negligible, but I think they mean something. Likely, Dr. Brown is wrong." His voice was full of concern. "It's also possible he's a complete fucking bastard," Wilson snarled.He drove the car to the limit and shouted: "Camp Beta, here we come!"