Chapter 40 Chapter 40 An Invitation from an Alien

"I must be ready to rescue," Nicole said to herself.She filled the vial with green melon juice; carefully cut off the pulp, put it in her old grocery bag, and sat back in the corner. She started thinking wildly again. "What do those unusual things mean?" She recalled her dreamy experience and seeing when she was a child in "Paro", and a conversation with her grandfather afterwards. Three years later, while attending her mother's funeral, she returned to Nidogo. "Where is Ronata?" he asked one afternoon when the little girl was with her grandfather.

She understood immediately, and replied: "I became a big white bird, and I flew into the sky, higher than the sun and the moon, and I went into the vast expanse of space." "Oh, grandpa guessed it too," he said. "Why don't you ask him, what happened to you afterwards?" Ten years later, when the adult Nicole was already a scientist, she said to herself again, "These things may be very meaningful. .” Of course, Nicole also knew that these things existed in a kingdom that had not yet been revealed; and the methods of logic and reasoning that made science so powerful could not help to peer into its mysteries.

Nicole thought of her mother again, and how beautiful she had been in her red gown.Allawi rescued her from a tiger's sharp teeth. "Thank you, mother," said Nicole in her heart, longing to talk to her mother a little longer. At this time, there was a very strange sound, which sounded like the sound made by more than a dozen barefoot children stepping on the tarpaulin.Obviously, the voice was coming in Nicole's direction.She didn't have much time to think about it. Immediately afterwards, a centipede-like creature with a head and long tentacles appeared at the entrance, and it came down the well wall from the opposite side of Nicole without any hesitation.

The creature was four meters long, and it had no trouble crawling along the walls of the well.It has 60 legs, each of which has a suction cup firmly attached to the smooth wall. Nicole put her backpack on and watched her opportunity.She was not at all surprised by the appearance of this creature. From the dream just now, she was sure that she would be rescued in some way. This centipede-like creature consists of 15 segments, each with four legs.Its insect-like head is lined with a set of sensory organs, two of which are long and thin like a pair of antennae. In a short while, the guy had changed three legs, one shell, and two bumps on the side of his head.The whole process was over in less than five minutes.Immediately afterwards, it climbed towards the wall again.

Nicole watched it, and then realized that the pile of metal junk at the bottom of the well turned out to be its spare parts. When the centipede was three-quarters of its body on the wall, Nicole jumped onto its back.The sudden added weight was so heavy that the creature's feet slipped and it fell through the wall with Nicole.After a while, it tried to climb the wall again.This time Nicole waited until its entire body was on the wall before climbing onto its back.But it was still useless, and they fell into a ball again. The leg on the front of the centipede's body was injured during the second fall, so it made the necessary repairs again before hitting the wall a third time.At the same time, Nicole also took out the suture thread from the medical bag, which was extremely tough.If only it could bear the weight of a man, Nicole thought.She combined the thread into eight strands, tied one end to the centipede's tail, and tied the other end into a noose.Then she put on gloves to protect her hands from strangulation, and tied the knotted end of thread around her waist. "If the thread breaks, it will be a disaster." Nicole knew that he was taking a risk. "I will fall, and I won't be so lucky the second time."

The centipede began to squirm towards the wall a little bit like the previous two times, and its body stretched out.It felt the weight of Nicole below, but this time, instead of falling, it struggled desperately to climb slowly up.Nicole grasped the sutures of the well wall with both hands, and his body was perpendicular to the well wall, like a climber hanging from the cliff. Nicole was 40 centimeters from the creature's tail, and she felt her body slowly rise up.Nicole was halfway up the well when the centipede's head reached the mouth of the well.Little by little she continued to rise, and part of the centipede was still on the side of the well.After a while, she felt that the speed of ascent slowed down significantly, and when there were only four knots left in the centipede's tail, the ascent stopped.As soon as Nicole reached out, he could feel the centipede's tail.And its body only has a 1-meter-long tail left in the well.Even so, it was clearly stuck and unable to move.It is likely that Nicole tied the wire too tightly, making it difficult to extend the body behind it.

Nicole's body was dangling 6 meters above the deep well, the upper line was tightly stretched, and her feet touched the hard wall of the well.A terrible picture flashed through her mind. "This is wonderful," she thought to herself, "there are three possible endings, and none of them is good. The thread may break; the centipede may not hold; or I am hung here forever." Nicole hurriedly thought of a way to get out of the predicament. At this moment, she was suspended in mid-air, with a distance of 6 meters below and 1 meter above.She put her feet firmly on the wall of the well and cried out: "This is good." She thought that the only possible way to succeed was to climb up, but it was still very risky.She can climb up this small suture, grab the centipede's leg or body with her hands, and slowly climb out of the well.

Nicole looked back down, remembering the first fall: "I guess I'll wait and see if it still moves." A minute passed; another minute passed.Nicole took a deep breath, grabbed the stitches, and pulled herself up hard; then the other hand came out again, and harder.Her head touched the centipede's tail, and she reached out and clung tightly to one of its legs, but Nicole gave it a hard effort and the leg was free from the side of the well. "It won't work!" Nicole was startled.While stabilizing her body under the centipede, she carefully observed and studied it.The centipede's body is composed of sections of carapace overlapping. "Maybe we can grab these armor pieces..." Nicole thought about the reasons for the two failures just now, "These feet are suction cups and cannot be pulled. Now that most of the centipede's body is on the level ground, it should bear Hold my weight."

Nicole understood that once she climbed onto its back, there was no protection and she would probably fall.She crawled slowly to the end of the stitches and tried grabbing the centipede's carapace. It seemed strong, but she wasn't sure if it could hold her full weight.She tried again, but the other hand that was holding on to the suture did not dare to let go.Fortunately, it seems to be ok. Nicole carefully shifted her weight to the hand that was holding the centipede's carapace, clamped her legs around the centipede's body, and let go of the stitches.She climbed slowly, grabbing another carapace.The centipede's tail legs "popped" away from the wall of the well, but its body did not move.

She repeats her movements.Two times, three times; one section up, another section up, and Nicole's going to be at the top.Just as she was making her last climb, the centipede suddenly slid a few centimeters down the well, and Nicole was startled. She held her breath and waited for the centipede to stabilize again.The body of the centipede crawled forward again.When Nicole began to climb again, it also started to move forward.Nicole rolled sideways, touching the solid ground with her back. "My God!" she exclaimed.As she stood on the walls of "New York" and watched the waves rolling in the sea of ​​columns, Nicole wondered why no one answered her call.

Her intercom self-test signal indicated that the machine was working fine.Nicole called three times, but couldn't get in touch with other team members. Nicole knew that no response meant: first, the rest of the team members were 6,000 to 8,000 meters away; second, the relay station at Camp Beta had stopped working. "If the beta relays are still up," she thought, "they can talk to me from anywhere in Rama." Nicole told himself that the team must already be on board the Newton, preparing for another assault.Camp Beta may have been closed or damaged during the storm.But she still has a hidden worry in her heart. It has been more than 90 hours since she fell into the deep well, and the sea of ​​cylinders has also melted for 45 hours. Why did no one come to her? Nicole's eyes searched the sky for the helicopter.As previously expected, there are now clouds in the air.The melting of the Cylindrical Sea has greatly changed the climate pattern of Rama, and the temperature has also increased significantly.Nicole looked at the thermometer, and as she expected, the temperature was already 4 degrees Celsius. "It is likely that they will come back soon." She speculated that Nicole's thoughts returned to the strange whereabouts of his colleagues, "I must stay near this wall so that I can be easily found." Nicole did not No matter how much time and energy was wasted thinking about other things, I just vaguely wondered if the team members had encountered some major accident and couldn't come to find her, "If that's the case, I'd like to stay near here, they will come soon .” To pass the time, Nicole took some samples from the cylindrical sea for biochemical tests.Strangely, almost none of the organic toxins that Captain Newton mentioned was found in the seawater.She thought, "Maybe the poison used to be very strong, but when I fell in the well, it slowly dissipated. Anyway, the sea water is actually non-toxic now." In an emergency, Nicole reminded herself, a strong swimmer could cross the Sea of ​​Columns and reach the other side without a boat.But then she remembered that Captain Newton's report contained pictures of shark-like creatures and other aquatic inhabitants.The idea of ​​swimming back seemed too risky. Nicole walked for hours along the walls and was hungry.She sits and quietly eats a feast of alien melons, which she calls "managuas."She wondered if there was any way to get the remaining melons out of the well, so that if there was no rescue for a while, she could still deal with it for 72 hours.At this time, she suddenly heard a sound coming from the city of "New York", and she immediately thought of Dr. Gao An. She picked up the communicator again, but couldn't hear anything.Nicole searched the sky again, looking for the helicopter.Another cry came from the city, and this time she was sure that it came from the road leading south from the seaside steps to the center of "New York".Still, she hesitated to leave the shore. In the end, she decided to seek the sound and leave.When she crossed the circular street in the central square, she stopped beside the octahedron building.She's entered a map into her computer of all the new discoveries she can recall, including "The Barn."While she was admiring the beautiful octahedron building, she heard another cry.Only this time it sounded like something was screaming.If it is really Gao An, then he must have made a very special voice on purpose. She jogged across the open square, trying to get closer to the sound.As Nicole approached the building across the square, the screaming rang out again.This time, Nicole recognized it, and it was like the call of the pair of evans she had heard in the deep well.Nicole became cautious, and she slowed down, walking in the direction of the voice.It sounded like the sound came from a grid-like structure that Frances had discovered. In less than two minutes, Nicole was standing between the two skyscrapers.From the ground, the two buildings are connected by dense thick net ropes, and the grid stretches towards the air, which is 50 meters high.about 20 meters above the ground.The bird's velvety body was struggling desperately, its wings and claws caught in the net rope.When it saw Nicole, it screamed even more shrillly.Ai Yunniao's companion, who was hovering on the top of the building, immediately swooped down in Nicole's direction. Nicole hid behind the outer wall of a building as the Aiyunniao approached.The linoleum-skinned aiyun lashed out at Nicole menacingly, as if scolding, but didn't actually touch her.At this time, the Velvet Aiyunniao said something, and the two birds exchanged a few words, so the Linoleum Aiyunniao retreated 20 meters and stopped on a high platform. While observing the reaction of the linoleum bird, Nicole approached the rope net and inspected it carefully.The last time I passed by here with Frances, I was in a hurry to find Dr. Gao An, so I didn't take a closer look.The net is made of 4 cm thick, rope-like things that are somewhat elastic.It seems that there are about a thousand grids, and each knot is intertwined with each other, and the knot is still a little sticky.However, in Nicole's view, this is not enough to consider that this is a trap that catches creatures like a spider's web. While Nicole was looking at the grid below, the unnetted Iyun bird flew over Nicole's head, approached its friend, carefully avoided the rope trap, and pulled a rope with its claws , twisting and pulling with difficulty, trying clumsily to loosen or snap the knots that bound its friend.After a short rest, it stopped and came back to Nicole, looking at her for help. "What is it doing? Is it trying to tell me something?" Nicole thought.She didn't move, and the bird repeated the demonstration tirelessly.This time, Nicole was sure, the bird was trying to tell her that its friend had been caught.Nicole smiled and waved.Still standing below, she tied a few knots with the net rope and untied them.Both aiyun birds screamed in approval.Nicole repeated this action twice, then pointed to himself, and then pointed to the Aiyunniao that was trapped above. The iyunniao was flying back and forth anxiously, chatting with the velvet aiyunniao, and then flew back to the high platform to stop.Nicole watched the entangled Ivan, which was ensnared in three places, and each struggle made it more secure in the knot.Nicole figured it must have been blown onto the net last night when the wind was blustery.The force of the impact presumably deformed the mesh, and when it bounced back, the bird was trapped. It is not difficult to climb up.The net rope was firmly tied between the two buildings. The rope was so thick that Nicole could not feel much shaking.But 20 meters is quite high, exceeding the height of a six-story building, so when Nicole finally approached Ai Yunniao, he still thought carefully for a while. She was out of breath as she climbed up.After a while, she cautiously moved towards the big bird while observing it carefully for fear of misunderstanding.Ai Yunniao has been watching Nicole with its big blue eyes. Nicole tried to untie one of the wings that had been harnessed very close to the iyunbird's head.She stamped her feet first to wrap around the net rope to prevent herself from slipping.She took a lot of time. For a moment, Ai Yunniao's powerful breath hit Nicole's body.At that moment, Nicole thought of the smell of Managua. "Oh, you eat the same thing?" thought Nicole, "but where did they come from?" Nicole wanted to chat with these strange and wonderful creatures. She tugged hard at the knot, which was so strong that Nicole feared it would damage the wing of the iyun bird if she pulled too hard.She reached into her bag and took out a sharp scalpel. At this moment, the other ivy bird flew over her head immediately, screamed and pounced on her, scaring Nicole half to death.It seems that it is determined not to let Nicole continue.Nicole stepped back quickly and signaled to it that the scalpel could cut the rope net. The scalpel quickly cut the rope, and Ai Yunniao was freed.It soared into the sky, and the music-like and happy chirping sound of its mouth resounded for several kilometers.Its companion joined in, screaming congratulations.Two Aiyun birds fly together, love like lovers.They soared above the net and disappeared into the sky in a moment. Nicole watched them fly away, and then, slowly, descend to the ground. Nicole was in a good mood, ready to return to the edge of the city and wait for rescue.Companions, she was sure, would arrive soon.She hummed the Loire ballad that she used to sing when she was a girl, and walked north. A few minutes later, Nicole had company again, and technically, she had a guide.Whenever she went in the wrong direction, the Aiyun bird above her head would chirp loudly until she turned in the right direction.Nicole asked inwardly, "Hey, where are we going?" At the square, about 40 meters away from the octahedron building, the Aiyun bird swooped down towards an unobstructed part of the metal ground, tapped its claws a few times, and then circled over there.What appeared to be a cover slid open, and the Aiyunniao disappeared under the plaza.Then it flew out twice, said something to Nicole, and went down again. Nicole understood what that meant, and said to herself, "I think I'm being invited to see the family. Just hope I don't become a big deal myself."