Chapter 45 Chapter Forty-Five "Nicky"

Richard carefully observed the surrounding situation, and found that on a building, there was a protruding, plate-like thing.Press hard, and the hole lid opens. "Do you think the lid of the Iyunnir's cave can be opened in the same way?" Nicole asked. "Maybe," he replied. "We can go back and see." "But these places are not very safe," Nicole said. They walked to the mouth of the cave, knelt down and looked into the cave.A wide slope descended from the street beside them, hidden in darkness.They could only see about 10 meters into the hole. "It looks like an old car park," Richard commented. "Everyone had cars." He walked up the slope. "It feels like concrete."

Nicole watched him move slowly down the slope. When Richard's head was below the ground, he turned around and asked her, "Are you coming?" He turned on his lamp, illuminating the ramp a dozen meters down. "Richard," Nicole called from above, "I think we should talk it over, I don't want to be stuck in..." "Aha!" exclaimed Richard.When he walked down, a platform appeared under his feet. As soon as his feet stepped on this platform, the surrounding lights automatically illuminated the next section of the slope. "The slope turns back," he cried, "and goes straight down, just like up." He turned so Nicole couldn't see him.

"Richard!" Nicole yelled angrily, "can you please stop for a moment, we have to talk about what to do." A few seconds later, Richard's smiling face appeared again.The two discussed it. Nicole insisted on staying outside, regardless of what Richard wanted to explore.She argues that this at least keeps her from getting stuck in a hole. While Nicole spoke, Richard stood on the platform below, looking around.The material of the walls is the same as that of the Aiyun bird cave that Nicole discovered.There are long strip lights on the wall, similar to the fluorescent lights used on earth.These lamps are arranged one after the other, illuminating the entire passage.

"Just step away, will you?" Richard said loudly. Nicole was a little bewildered as to what he was about to do.She stepped back. "Farther." She heard Richard still calling.She backed up against the wall of a building. "Is it far enough?" As soon as she finished speaking, the lid of the hole began to close.Nicole ran forward, trying to stop the lid from moving, but it was no use, it was too heavy. "Richard!" she cried, and the hole disappeared beneath her feet. Nicole tapped hard on the lid.She recalled the sense of desperation she felt when she was trapped beneath the Aiyunnir's cave.Nicole ran back to the building and pressed on the plate that was built into the wall of the building.The lid didn't move.After almost a minute, Nicole became anxious and ran back, calling her colleague loudly.

"Here I am, all right, just under the cover," he replied, "I found another push plate and pressed it. I think it also controls the opening and closing of the hole cover, but there may be a forced time delay, Give me a few minutes. Don't press that switch again, stay away." With some relief Nicole stepped back and waited. Richard was right, and a few minutes later, the lid opened, and he appeared, grinning with his mouth wide open, and said, "Look, I told you not to worry... now shall we have lunch?" While walking down the ramp, Nicole heard a familiar sound, it was the sound of running water.In a small room about 20 meters above the ground, they found a water pipe and water storage tank exactly the same as in the cave of Ai Yunniao.Richard and Nicole filled their water bottles with this deliciously clear water.

Outside the room, there was no horizontal passage leading in either direction, only another descending chute extending five meters below. Richard's light slid across the walls of the room, and he called, "Look here, Nicole," pointing to the delicately changing walls, "see, here is a kind of arched structure, The walls are united." She looked along his light, and there seemed to be long arcs engraved on the wall. "The room seems to be made of two parts." "That's right." He replied, "Maybe there is also a horizontal passage here, at least there used to be, but it was closed for some reason.

As they walked further down, none of them spoke.The slope does not change at all, it goes down monotonously.Every now and then, Richard and Nicole stepped onto a new platform, and the lights immediately and automatically illuminated the ramp below. At a depth of about 50 meters from the ground, the top of the head suddenly opened up.They entered a huge cave, where the ramp disappeared.The diameter of the circular cave is about 25 meters, and four dark corridors with a height of 5 meters are evenly arranged on all sides at 90-degree intervals, leading to nowhere. "1, 2, 3, 4." Richard counted in his mouth.

"I'll go '4'." Nicole said and walked towards one of the corridors.When she was a few meters inside, a nearby light came on. This time it was Richard who hesitated.He watched carefully, typing quickly into his computer: "Look, doesn't this corridor bend slightly to the right?—look at the end of the light." Nicole nodded.She looked over his shoulder to see what he was doing. "I draw a map," he explained. "Computers are amazing!" She smiled: "So, what's your explanation?" They walked towards the depths of a corridor, "Is there a Minotaur here, or is it a witch's house?"

Nicole consoled herself: "We're going to be lucky." As they walked step by step toward the depths of the corridor, fear began to creep into her heart.She remembered the horrifying sight of the first time she had seen the Aiyun bird, its beak and claws stretched out towards her.A chill ran down her spine. "It's like this again," she said to herself, "and the troubles and horrors like last time are coming again." She stopped. "Richard," she said, "I don't like this, we should go back..." They both heard the voice at the same time.There was no doubt that it was behind, near the large circular cave they had just left, and it sounded like a stiff brush dragging across the metal surface.

Richard and Nicole held each other tightly. "It's the same sound," he whispered. "We heard it on the walls of 'New York' the first day we entered Rama." The corridor behind them curved slightly to the left, and when they looked back, they saw the lights go out at the end of their line of sight.They heard the sound a second time, and at the same time a distant light came on to show that something was approaching the entrance of the passage in which they were. Nicole broke into a run.Even though she was wearing a flight suit and carrying a backpack, she ran the 200-meter distance in 30 seconds.Then she stopped and waited for Richard.They didn't hear the sound again, and they didn't see the lights in the far distance of the corridor turn on.

"I'm sorry," Nicole said to Richard when he caught up. "I'm panicking. I think I've been in this alien wonderland for too long." "God!" gasped Richard, grimacing. "I've never seen anyone run so fast." He laughed again. Just stand there." Nicole, still panting heavily, looked at Richard. "What did you call me?" she asked him. "Nicky," he replied, "I thought I'd give you a name that means something to me, don't you like it?" For nearly ten seconds Nicole could not utter a word.Her thoughts suddenly returned to a place a million kilometers away. Fifteen years ago, in a hotel in Los Angeles, she had just experienced a frenzy of love. "Very well, Nicky, very well," murmured the prince.She told the prince not to call her 'Nicky' because it sounded like the name of an acrobat or a prostitute. Richard snapped his fingers in front of her eyes and said, "Hey, hey! What are you thinking? Come back!" Nicole smiled. "Okay, Richard. If you like the name 'Nicky,' you go. Just don't call it that all the time." They continued to walk slowly down the corridor. "What were you thinking just now?" he asked. Nicole thought to herself: "There are some things I will never tell you. Because the existence of each of us is the sum of what we have experienced, and only children are a blank sheet of paper." She subconsciously held her arm Chad's arm, "it's a pleasure to keep some personal secrets." The corridor seemed to never end.Just when Richard and Nicole were about to turn back, they noticed a dark passage on the right.They walked in without hesitation, and the lights came on immediately.In a room, there is a large wall on the left with 25 rectangular objects arranged in 5 rows and 5 columns; the opposite wall is empty.As soon as the two of them entered, they heard a high-frequency "squeak, squeak" sound from above their heads.They tensed up, then calmed down.Although the sound still rang out, there were no other startling new developments. Holding hands, they walked toward one end of the long, narrow room.The objects turned out to be photographs, mostly recognizable, of certain places in Ramari.In several photos, there are close-ups of the huge octahedron building standing beside the square.Of the other photos, half are of buildings in "New York" and the other half are aerial views of Rama's interior. Three photographs in particular caught Richard's interest.They are streamlined ships sailing in cylindrical seas.There is a photo that vividly shows a huge wave splitting the prow of a large ship. "That's all we need now," said Richard excitedly to Nicole. "If we can find a boat, the trouble will be over." The squeak from above continued, but with some minor changes.A bright light moves from one image to another, and there are short pauses in the sound during the movement.Nicole and Richard quickly surmised that they were visiting a museum, but other things were less certain. Nicole sat down against the corner and said, "We've had a lot of trouble and I feel like it's getting out of hand." Richard sat down beside her, nodded and said, "I feel the same way, and I'm only new to 'New York,' so I can imagine how you feel." They were silent for a while.Then Nicole said, "Guess what hurts me the most?" She wanted to express the despair she had felt, "I see our ignorance. Before this voyage, I thought the human race Knowledge is already great, and I feel that I have mastered a lot. But through this action, I realized how poor what we already know is compared with what we can master. You see, the same Compared with the vast universe and galaxies, what humans know is just a drop in the ocean." "It's really scary," Richard interrupted her spout. "It's like what I sometimes feel in bookstores and libraries. I'm overwhelmed with knowledge I don't know. I hungrily Reading those books, one after another. Think how these libraries can compare with the real library, the infinite universe itself... We are so small, so insignificant." Nicole turned to him, slapped him on the leg, and said jokingly, "Okay, Richard, a change of mood. Our stupidity has been demonstrated. Now it's time to think about our plans. I estimate that we have walked almost 1,000 meters in this corridor, where are we going now?" "I think we walked in the same direction for another 15 minutes. In my experience, the corridor always leads somewhere. Let's go and see, and if we don't find anything, we will go back." He helped Nicole to her feet, gave her a gentle hug, and said, "Okay, Nicky, go another kilometer or two." Nicole frowned, shook her head, and said, "Twice a day is enough." She held out her hand to Richard.