Chapter 55 Chapter 55 - The Voice of Saint Michael

All afternoon, O'Toole stayed in his room watching Taburi and Yamanaka inspect the bomb on CCTV.He pretended to have an upset stomach, so he didn't go to the inspection work that he was supposed to be responsible for.The whole process was surprisingly simple and tedious.It is unimaginable that these things are used to destroy the most spectacular spaceship ever seen by mankind. Before dinner, O'Toole made a phone call to his wife.Now, the Newton is rapidly approaching the earth, the communication signal response delay has been less than 3 minutes, and the old two-way communication can be activated again.Talking to his wife excited him and filled him with tenderness.For a moment, General O'Toole wanted to let his wife know about his conflicts and confusion.But he understands that a videophone is not a place where opinions can be expressed freely.Both of them expressed great joy and excitement for their upcoming meeting.

When the general had dinner with the team members, Gallos talked about the interesting things he had with the "bullets" this afternoon with great interest.He nicknamed those nuclear bombs "bullets." He told Frances: "At one point, we tied all the 'bullets' to the floor in a row, like a string of dominoes. I scared Hiroshi Yamanaka to death. I pushed the one in front of me. , 'ping ping pong pong', they fell around. Hiroshi Yamanaka must have thought they were going to explode." Seeing his eloquence, Frances kept smiling at him. "Aren't you afraid of breaking the key components inside?" David Brown asked.

"No." Gallows replied, "The manual Ott gave me said that throwing them from the tower can't hurt a hair of them." He then added, "Besides, they haven't Go into detonation. Am I right, Hellman?" Hellman nodded.Gallos immediately talked about another matter. General O'Toole mused.In his mind, after all, he couldn't help but connect those objects made of metal with the mushroom cloud over the Pacific Ocean... Frances interrupted his thoughts.She said, "Michael, there is an emergency call on your private line. President Boswell will speak to you in five minutes."

The restaurant suddenly became silent.Gallows laughed immediately: "Oh, my God, you must be an unusual person, but not everyone can receive a call from President Boswell." The general said sorry politely and went back to his room. "He must know something," he thought to himself as he waited for the line to connect. "Of course, he's the President of the United States of America." O'Toole has always been a baseball fan and favorite of the Boston "Red Saks" team.Baseball nearly collapsed during the most difficult years of the upheaval, 2141.Four years later, several teams changed owners, reinvigorating baseball. In 2148, when Michael was 6 years old, his father took him to the Fenway Sports Center to watch a game between the Red Sachs and the Havana Hurricanes.Since then, O'Toole has become a baseball fan.

Hillman Boswell was a left-hander who was popular with the public as the top hitter for the "Red Sax" from 2172 to 2187.Born in Missouri, he conjures up an old-fashioned figure with his hard-working attitude, and it shows in his game as well.In his 16-year career, he hit a total of 527 home runs.During his final year of playing, his wife died in a horrific shipwreck.Hillman did not complain, but took on the responsibility of raising four children alone.His deeds have been unanimously praised by the people. Three years later, he married Linda Black, daughter of the governor of Texas.Many speculated that this was a signal that he was going into politics.Sure enough, he jumped up at an extremely fast speed and entered the ranks of the dignitaries.He started as an assistant to the governor, then governor and popular presidential candidate with voters. In 2196, he defeated the previous president with an overwhelming majority of votes and entered the White House.

"Hello, General O'Toole." A man in blue appeared on the screen with a friendly smile on his face. "I'm Hillman Boswell, your president." The president doesn't use scripts.He sat in an armless chair, leaned forward, hands in front of him, and talked as if he and O'Toole were sitting in their own living room. "Since your launch, my family - Linda and the four children - and I have followed the progress of 'Operation Newton' with great interest. For weeks, when tragedy has befallen you and your We were especially saddened and disturbed when it happened to our colleagues. Neither my family nor I expected such a thing to happen on Rama. It was truly shocking...  

"Anyway, I understand why our COG representatives issued the order to destroy Rama. I know that it is not easy to issue such an order. Now, this order places a huge responsibility on your shoulders. Whatever will happen What will happen, I'm sure the action is right. "Yes, sir, I know it's the right choice. Why? You probably know my daughter, Coney, who is eight years old. Every night, she wakes up with nightmares. We used to watch you catch that bird on TV together. Crab-shaped creature. The bloody scene was constantly playing on TV, my God, I felt extremely horrified when I saw it.

"And now that Rama is coming towards Earth, my daughter is really freaking out, she's panicking. She's imagining those crab-like creatures running around and tearing her friends to shreds like they did to the Wilson reporter. like that. "I'm telling you this, General, because I know you're facing a big decision. I've heard rumors that it's your hesitation about destroying that gigantic spaceship and the amazing masterpieces inside. But General, I Already told Kony about you. I told her that you and your crew will beat Rama up before he reaches Earth. "That's why I called you. I want to tell you that I'm pinning my hopes on you, and so is Kony."

Before listening to the president, General O'Toole had thought of taking the opportunity to tell the president of the United States of his ambivalence; he imagined discussing the instinct of biological self-defense with the president.But after hearing what the former softball player had to say, O'Toole had nothing to say.How could he refuse such an entreaty?The koneys all over the planet are counting on him. After five hours of sleep, O'Toole woke up at three o'clock.He remembered that the most important task in his life was waiting for him to complete.It seemed to him that everything about him, his profession, his religious studies, even his family, had been prepared for this moment.God trusted him to make such a responsible choice.But what did God want him to do?

O'Toole knelt in front of the desk, looking at the statue of Jesus on the cross, with beads of sweat on his forehead. "Dear Jesus," he said silently, clasping his hands on his chest, "I don't have time, but I don't know your will yet. It's so easy for me to obey orders and do what everyone wants me to do. Yes, but is that your will? How can I be sure?" Michael O'Toole closed his eyes and begged his intuition to enlighten him as it had done before. He recalled another experience, many years ago.At the time, he was a young flight officer serving in a temporary peacekeeping force in Guatemala.Early one morning, O'Toole and his comrades awoke to find their small air base in the jungle surrounded by right-wing terrorists.Terrorists want to get the plane and coerce the newly established democratic government to compromise.In exchange, they guaranteed the safe evacuation of O'Toole and others.

Major O'Toole spent 15 minutes thinking and praying before finally deciding to break out.In the fierce fighting that followed, all the planes were blown up and half of the soldiers were killed.But his firm stance has inspired a young democratic government and brought hope to a Central American nation ravaged by two decades of war.Later, O'Toole received COG's highest level of "merit award" in recognition of his outstanding performance in Guatemala. After all these years, the problems he now faced aboard the Newton were far from straightforward.In Guatemala, the young air force major had no moral qualms about his actions; the order to blow up Rama was quite different, and in O'Toole's view, the alien craft was not acting in any apparent hostile way.He also understood that the order was based on two factors: the fear of what Rama might do and the commotion of public opinion.Historically, fear and public opinion have never obeyed moral constraints, and this is well known. If he can figure out Rama's intentions, then he can... On the desk under the statue of Jesus, there is a statue.It was a young man with curly hair and big eyes, and he was Saint Michael.He has taken it with him on every trip since he got married.Looking at this statue always brings him inspiration. General O'Toole opened a drawer and pulled out an electronic book.He turned on the power switch, checked the catalog, and retrieved the admonitions of Saint Michael. Under the heading "Rama," the General found many quotations.What he was looking for was a sermon marked in bold bold letters.It was a famous speech about "Rama" given by Saint Michael to thousands of new believers three weeks before the Roman Tribulation. O'Toole reads: "... what I have in mind is that the first arrival of Rama 8 years ago gave us new hope. I say 'first time' because I am sure other ships will come Come here. The arrival of Rama forced human beings to look at themselves with an alien perspective. We often ignore the deep meaning implied in the words 'God' and 'our soul'. We belong to the universe and we are its children .On this planet, some atoms became self-aware beings, purely by chance. "Rama forces us to consider ourselves as members of the universe, to think about our relationship with God and the universe. It is like an angel, bringing us wisdom at critical moments. As I have told you many times In that way, this is our long overdue, new, final evolutionary opportunity, an opportunity to revolutionize our social organism. The emergence of Rama is a signal for us to seize the opportunity for change, to change us, to begin the final evolutionary process." O'Toole put down the e-book and rubbed his eyes.He had read this passage before, before going to Rome to see the Pope, but it hadn't made such an impression on him as it had before.He secretly asked: "So, Rama, who are you? Are you the nightmare of the Konis, or the messenger of God who came again?" Before breakfast, General O'Toole still hadn't made up his mind.His conscience still doesn't know what is the right choice, and the unmistakable order given to him by his boss makes him feel a heavy responsibility. O'Toole knew very well that when he accepted the mission, he had sworn an oath not only to obey orders, but also to protect the Corny Boswells on Earth.Had he any proof that the order was immoral, that to obey it would be a breach of the oath? If Rama is regarded as a machine, he can carry out orders without difficulty, since no matter what, his actions will not kill any Rama.But what did Walkerfield say?That Rama spaceship is probably smarter than any living thing on Earth.Is it smarter than humans?Perhaps this supermachine is even a higher form of life that deserves a place in God's creation?In the end, General O'Toole was exhausted, and he no longer had the energy to solve the seemingly unanswerable question.He reluctantly decided to stop this self-torture and prepare to carry out his orders. He began to recall his RQ password.This is a string of numbers that only he himself knows, consisting of 50 numbers from 0 to 9; before the Newton was launched from the earth, he imported the nuclear bomb alone.This string of passwords is composed of a series of complex coding changes using the birthdays of him and his family as basic numbers.He never wrote it down because he was afraid that someone else might find it and use it. General O'Toole quickly recalled all the numbers, so he came to the dining room and had breakfast with other team members. "Here is my code, for you, Frances. This is for you, Elena. The last one is for Hiroshi Yamanaka. Sorry, Gallows," Admiral Hellmann said with a broad smile on his face. " I'm done. Maybe General O'Toole will let you enter his code." "It's okay, my dear general." Gallows made a face, "I would rather not have some privileges." Heilman copied out his password and sent it to everyone, and happily told his colleagues how he used some ingenious methods to combine these 50 numbers.Now, to General O'Toole's incomprehension, he was going to get everyone involved in the detonation. Frances loved doing it because it was good TV stuff.O'Toole suddenly felt that perhaps she had given Hellman the idea.But the general didn't think about it too much, he was surprised why he became so calm.Perhaps, after a long period of intense inner conflict and moral inquiry, he has cleared his doubts and is ready to do his duty. When entering the password, Admiral Hellman became a little flustered, and he admitted that he was a little nervous.He forgot where he had lost.Very early on, the designers of the system had already estimated this situation, and they installed two small lights on the number keys, one red and one green.The machine will check once every 10 digits are input.If it is wrong, the red light will be on; if it is correct, it will be green.Later the engineers conducted experiments, and it turned out that this measure was absolutely necessary. When entering the fourth set of numbers, Heilman ran into a red light. "I must have made a mistake," he said sheepishly. "Speak up," Frances called from behind the camera.She had aligned the shot so that the two nuclear bombs, with the brackets holding them in place, were just in the middle of the frame. "I made a mistake just now!" Admiral Hellmann exclaimed. "The sounds are distracting me. I have to wait thirty seconds before I can start again." After Hellman finished, Brown entered a second bomb.It seemed that he found it quite boring, and just typed those numbers like a routine, without much enthusiasm.Tugeeva entered the code for the third bomb.She made a terse comment saying she thought it was absolutely necessary to destroy Rama. Neither Yamanaka nor Frances commented.But when it came to typing the first 30 numbers, Frances impressed everyone with her amazing memory.An hour ago, after Heilman gave everyone the numbers, she just glanced at them like everyone else, and never had a chance to look at them again, but she still memorized the first 30 numbers and performed quite well. Next it was General O'Toole's turn.He smiled easily and walked towards the bomb.The other astronauts responded with enthusiastic applause, which was not only a tribute to the general, but also an approval of his decision. He asks everyone to be quiet so he can recall the code.Then he entered the first set of 10 numbers. He stopped when the light turned green.At this moment, the colorful paintings on the wall of Saint Michael's Church flashed into his mind like lightning.A young man in a blue robe, staring into the sky, stood on the stone steps of the Victor Emmanuel monument, preaching to the awed crowd.General O'Toole heard a voice yell loudly and clearly, "No!" The general turned quickly, glared at the other astronauts and asked, "What is anyone talking about?" The astronauts shook their heads in bewilderment.O'Toole was confused too.He turned away from the bomb, trying to recall the second set of numbers.But no, his heart was beating wildly, and he kept repeating in his head: "What's that sound?" His determination to perform his duties suddenly disappeared. Michael O'Toole took a deep breath, turned around again, and walked towards the semicircle of people.His colleagues all stared at him dumbfounded.He heard Hellman cry, "What are you doing?" "I'm going to my room," O'Toole replied without stopping. "Are you going to detonate those bombs?" Dr. Brown asked after him. "No," General O'Toole replied, "at least not yet."