Chapter 52 Chapter 52 "Flight 302"

Richard tied the rope tightly around Nicole's waist and hips."Your feet will be hanging down there. At first, those ropes will be stretched and you feel like you're falling," he said. "What if we hit the water?" Nicole asked. "You have to trust the big birds to fly high enough so you don't fall overboard," replied Richard. "I think they're pretty clever, especially the big red-necked one." "Do you think it's 'King'?" Nicole asked as she adjusted the rope chair to make it more comfortable. "Perhaps about the same," replied Richard. "He made it clear from the beginning that he intended to fly in the middle lead."

Richard walked up the steps that slanted to the wall, holding the three ends of the rope chair.The Aiyun birds stood together quietly, looking at the sea.They were silent and acquiesced as Richard tied the ends of the ropes to their bodies behind their wings.They then watched his computer screen as he showed them an animation of takeoff.The iyunbirds flew off the ground slowly together, and came to Nicole's head, and the sling straightened. Richard returns to Nicole.She was standing 5 meters above the water. He said to her, "If for some reason the iyunbirds don't come to pick me up, don't wait. When you find the rescuers, come in the motorboat. I'm in the white room." He took a deep breath and added "It's going to be all right, honey. Remember, I love you." When it was time to take off, Nicole's heart went "bang, bang".She kissed Richard affectionately on the lips and murmured, "I love you too."

They parted reluctantly.Richard waved his hand at the Aiyun birds above, and the gray Aiyun bird rose carefully, followed by its two companions.Nicole was immediately pulled up and hung in the air. A few seconds later, the rope was stretched and Nicole fell again.The Aiyun birds flew up quickly.Nicole felt like she was doing a "bungee jump" as she plummeted towards the surface.Her heart fluttered as the rope stretched and shortened, and her body also rose and fell as the rope went up and down. It's been an exciting flight.Once, just off the shore, she touched the water, but the iyunbirds quickly pulled her up.At that moment, she was still terrified.When the rope was fully stretched, the flight became smooth.Nicole sat in the rope chair, holding tightly to two of the slings with both hands; her feet hung below, about 8 meters above the water.

In the middle of the Sea of ​​Columns, the ear is silent.Nicole suddenly noticed two huge black animals cruising alongside her, parallel to her.She was sure it was the "shark" robot.She also saw two or three other "creatures" swimming in the water.One was slender and had eel-like skin.It flew out of the water and walked side by side with Nicole, its eyes fixed on her. While looking around the sea, Nicole thought to himself, "My God, I'm glad I didn't swim across." Landing was easy.At first, Nicole was always worried that the Aiyun birds might not be aware of the 15-meter-high seawall on the other side, but she worried too much. When they were about to reach the shore, the Aiyun birds flew up slightly and changed their altitude.Nicole landed softly 10 meters from the sea.

The iyun birds landed beside her.Nicole climbed out of the rope chair and walked towards the iyunbirds.She wanted to pat them on the back of the head to thank them for their generosity, but they avoided her hand. After resting for a few minutes, only to hear their leader say hello, the Aiyun birds flapped their wings and flew towards the city of "New York" across the sea. Nicole could not restrain the impulse of emotion, she knelt down and kissed the earth.It was then that she realized that she had never expected to escape safely from the city of "New York." She pulled out her binoculars, ready to search for rescuers.At this moment, her mind suddenly flashed all the things that happened after she stepped on the snowmobile that was fate.She said to herself: "Before going to 'New York' it seemed like a lifetime ago, and now everything has changed."

Richard untied the rope chair from the iyunbirds and threw them to the ground, and the iyunbirds were free.The gray ivan with the colored ring around its neck circled Richard to see if he had untied all the ropes.Its cherry red rings are particularly vivid in the light.It is very likely that we will never see these noble and helpful Ai Yunniao again in the future, so Richard really wants to understand the symbolic meaning of this color circle. Nicole walked up to Richard and hugged him tightly, never leaving his side.The Ai Yunniao stared at them with wide eyes, obviously curious.Nicole thought, "They must really want to know us too."

The linguist muses that saying something to an alien requires understanding the behavior of different intelligent beings... Richard said: "I was thinking, how do I say 'thank you' and 'goodbye' to them?" Nicole replied: "I don't know, it would be great if it could be..." She watched silently the leader Ivan, and saw that after it called the other two Ivans to come to him, the three Ivans lined up facing Richard and Nicole.Just listening to an order, they all spread their wings and formed a circle; then, one after another, they turned around in a circle, and after one round, they turned around and stood in a row, facing the two earthlings.

"Come on, let's do it," said Nicole. Nicole and Richard stood shoulder to shoulder, arms outstretched, facing their avian friends.Nicole grabs Richard by the shoulders and turns him around in a circle.Richard spun around awkwardly.As they stood back in a row, it seemed to Nicole that the leading evan was laughing to himself. After a while, the three Aiyun birds flapped their wings, flew higher and higher in the sky, and then flew towards their hometown on the opposite side of the sea. "I wish you all the best of luck," Nicole said softly.Rescuers were not near Camp Beta.In fact, Richard and Nicole drove the rover along the coast of the Columbus for half an hour without seeing a soul.

"Those guys are so stupid. Why didn't they see the note I left on the bulletin board at Camp Beta? Didn't they come this far after all?" "It's less than three hours before dark, and they may have returned to the Newton," Nicole replied. "Okay then, to hell with them. Let's get something to eat and then head for the chairlift." "Do you think we should save some of this melon?" asked Nicole as we ate. Richard gave her a puzzled look. "It's just in case," Nicole added. "What if?" Richard replied, "if we can't find the idiots and have to climb the steps ourselves, we can still get there before dark."

"I guess I'm cautious," Nicole said, laughing, putting a few slices of managua back in her backpack anyway. Forty-five minutes as they drove in the direction of the Alpha Staircase, they saw four men in space suits.Apparently, they came out of the high-rise "Paris" city of Rama, and they were walking towards the direction of the rover. "I told you they were idiots," Richard complained. "They didn't even know to take off their space suits. This must be a special rescue team, sent just to find us." He was driving the rover across the Central Plains, heading straight for those people.When they were less than 100 meters away, Richard and Nicole began to shout loudly.But those in space suits ignored it and kept walking slowly westward to themselves.

"They're wearing helmets and earphones, so maybe they can't hear us," Nicole reminded. Angrily, Richard drove the car to a close distance, less than 5 meters away from the people lined up, and stopped with a "crack".He jumped out of the car, ran quickly to the lead man, and said loudly, "Hey, boy, we're here, right behind you, you've got to turn around..." The blood on Richard's body suddenly froze, and he saw the expressionless face of the leader.He recognized the face, God, it was Newton!His heart trembled, his hair stood on end, and a chill came down his back.When four people walked slowly past him, his feet were so weak that he couldn't take a step.He subconsciously and quickly observed the faces of the other three people.Their expressions were rigid and unchanged; they were all members of the first Rama expedition. After the last man had passed, Nicole came to Richard.She asked: "What's the matter? Why don't they stop." Seeing Richard's face flushed, she asked with concern: "Honey, what's the matter with you?" "They're biobots," Richard muttered, "fucking humanoid biobots." "What?" Nicole asked startled, fear in her voice.She ran quickly to the front, staring at the face behind the glass of the helmet.Yes, it was Newton, every feature of the face, including the color of the eyes, the light beard, was perfect, but the eyes were dull and lifeless. After taking a closer look, she realized that the walking movements of these people were stiff, and there was only a slight rhythm change before and after the queue.She thought: "Richard is right, these are humanoid bio-bots. They must have been made from pictures, just like those toothpaste and combs." The horror surged in her heart again, "Of course, we didn't There is no need for rescue." She comforted herself, trying to calm her worries, "Isn't the military cabin still waiting outside the hub?" Richard was taken aback by the android.He sat in the rover for several minutes, motionless, asking questions that neither he nor Nicole could answer: "What's going on here? Are all biobots looking at a biological sample?" Manufactured? Where in the universe did Rama find them? Why are they made here?" Before going to the chairlift, Richard insisted on filming a video of the humanoid walking.While closely chasing "Newton" and taking close-up shots, he said: "The Aiyun bird and the eight-legged spider are fascinating, but this video will surprise everyone even more." Nicole reminded him that it would be dark in less than two hours and they had to climb the "Ladder of God" before then.Richard is very proud of the thought of leaving a video of this strange team for future generations.He slid gently into the seat of the rover, started the car, turned around and sped off towards the Alpha steps. It doesn't take testing to know that the chair lift is intact and working properly because it was running when their car was parked.Richard jumped out of the car and ran to the control room. "Someone's coming down," he called, pointing up. "Or something's coming down," Nicole added, laughing. Five minutes of waiting feels like a century.At first, both Richard and Nicole were too nervous to make a sound.After a while, Richard suggested that they should all get in the car and get away quickly if need be. Both stared with binoculars at the end of the cable that stretched continuously into the sky. "It's a man!" Nicole exclaimed. "It's General O'Toole!" After a while, Richard also called out. Yes, it was him, U.S. Air Force General Michael O'Toole.He was descending rapidly in the chairlift.He was still hundreds of meters above Richard and Nicole, and he didn't see the two below at all.He is busy studying and admiring the magnificent beauty of this alien spaceship with a telescope. General O'Toole was sitting on the lift chair and was about to leave Rama for the last time, when he suddenly saw three Aiyun birds flying in the sky south of Rama. His companions were waiting for him below. It was an amazing meeting.