Chapter 61 Chapter 61: Extremely Dangerous

"We shouldn't be surprised," Richard said calmly as the three sat in front of the big black screen. "Didn't we know they would do this?" "But we all wish that wasn't the case," O'Toole interjected. "It's frustrating that unfortunately it's true." "Are you sure, Richard?" Nicole asked, "are these images really objects from space?" "I don't think there's anything suspicious about it," Richard replied. "The image must be coming from some scanning sensor. You see, I'll change the camera's point of view."

Richard typed the order.The screen showed that in the center of a concentric circle, there was a cylinder, which of course was Rama.Then, he typed in another set of commands, the camera began to move, and the cylinder became smaller and smaller until it shrunk to a small point.The concentric circles around the cylinder also become smaller, and new concentric circles appear at the edge of the screen.Finally, a group of small dots, about 16 in total, appear on the right side of the monitor. "However, how do you confirm that they are missiles?" Nicole asked again, pointing to the bright spots.

"Of course I can't be sure," said Richard, "but I know they're coming in an orbit from Earth to Rama. I can also speculate that they're messengers of peace, but I doubt the seriousness of the idea." .” "How far?" O'Toole asked. "It's hard to estimate accurately." After pondering for a moment, Richard replied, "I can only estimate that there may be 18 to 20 hours before the first missile touches Rama. The range of their distribution is beyond my expectation. If you track it for another hour or so, you can estimate a more precise time of contact."

O'Toole hissed, then thought for a moment, then said, "Before we figure out how to notify Ramar, can you answer me a quick question?" "If I can answer it," said Richard. "Even if we were able to send an alert to Rama, how do you think Rama will protect itself from this nuclear disaster?" There was a long silence. "Do you remember, Michael," said Richard, "that we talked about religion when we flew together from London to Tokyo about a year ago?" "Yes, I was reading Eusebius at the time." "You told me about the history of early Christianity...During the conversation, I suddenly asked you, why do you believe in God, remember your answer?"

"Of course I do," O'Toole replied. "When my oldest son was eighteen, he declared he was an atheist, and I answered him that way." "Your answer on the plane is exactly the same as what I think now. We know that Rama has very advanced technology, and it must have been designed to deal with some hostile attacks... Who knows, maybe it also has our Undiscovered, very powerful propulsion system capable of changing orbits quickly, I bet..." "Can I just interrupt," Nicole said, "I didn't go to Tokyo with you, can you tell me how Michael answered your question?"

The two men looked at each other.Finally, O'Toole replied: "Faith comes from thinking and observing." "The first step of your plan is not difficult, I think it is feasible. But I don't know how to contact them, and how to deal with these incoming missiles." "Michael and I will do this, and you will draw the first part. Michael knows how nuclear weapons work." Michael reminded: "We must ensure that the information in each part is clear." For two hours, they worked hard. O'Toole went out of the room and into the horizontal corridor.Five minutes later, two of his colleagues became a little worried.

"He probably went to the bathroom," Richard said. "He won't get lost," said Nicole worriedly. Richard walked to the door and yelled into the corridor: "Hey, Michael, are you okay?" "I'm fine." The voice came from the direction of the middle stairs, "Can you and Nicole come over for a while?" "What's the matter?" asked Richard, walking with Nicole to the foot of the stairs. "Who built this cave?" asked O'Toole, his eyes fixed on the dome above his head. "Why do you think these were built 'in the factory'?"

"We have no way of knowing," replied Richard impatiently, "and I don't think we can solve this problem in minutes, if not hours. Besides, we have to work..." "Give me a moment, please," O'Toole interrupted stubbornly, "I need to discuss this before continuing." He continued, "We are in a hurry to warn the control ships I don’t know whose alien intelligent creatures, even if they can save Rama from catastrophe, how do they know whether it is right or wrong? How do they know that this is not a heinous crime against the people of Earth?” O'Toole, waving his arms in this huge cavern: "There must be some motive for all this, some kind of grand plan. Why are these imitations of human objects placed in the white room? Why do the Rama want us to communicate with They contacted? Who are those Aiyunniao and eight-legged spiders? What are they?" Faced with a bunch of unanswerable questions, he shook his head helplessly, "I can't make up my mind to blow up Lama, but neither can I. Give them a warning. What if Rama escapes because of our information, and then it destroys the Earth!"

"That's impossible, Michael, 'Rama 1' isn't traveling through the solar system...?" "Wait, Nicole, if you don't mind," Richard interposed softly, "let me answer General O'Toole." He walked over, put his hands on General O'Toole's shoulders, and said, "Michael, like you, these questions bothered us in the beginning. We all know that there is no scientific, reasonable answer to these questions." Logical deduction, because there is not enough evidence. We can't even answer what Rama is for. For example, it is like in a nonlinear equation system with too many variables, but we want a definite conclusion. It is also possible Many answers are equally correct."

O'Toole smiled and nodded.Richard went on to say: "But we know that missile clusters are approaching Rama, and they are likely to be equipped with nuclear warheads. We have a choice, to warn Rama or not to warn it. We can only rely on the information we have so far. Make up your mind, make up your mind." Richard took out a small computer from his pocket, walked to O'Toole, and said, "This 3×2 matrix can be used to represent the current situation. Suppose Rama's possible behavior is: never hostile, Full of hostility, hostile when encountering an attack, these three items are 'rows'; our choice: warning, no warning, these two items are the 'columns' of the matrix. Note that only in the 'warning' item can you get' A complete success'."

O'Toole and Nicol looked over Richard's shoulder and watched the Matrix display on the computer screen. "If the six calculations we see now are correct and reflect our current reality, a decision should be made, right?" General O'Toole nodded, amazed at how quickly Richard had cleared up the confusion they were currently facing. "In the second line, it doesn't matter what you do, the result is the same," Nicole added. "If they are hostile, it doesn't matter whether we warn or not, because of their advanced technology, it doesn't matter. Whether it's this ship or the next one, now or soon, they'll conquer and destroy humanity." Richard paused to give O'Toole time to think. "Also," he said slowly, "if Rama has never been hostile, it wouldn't hurt to give it a warning. Earth is in danger anyway, warning or no warning. If we could tell them about the missile It will definitely make things better." The general laughed. "So, what you're saying is that maybe the only problem is that Rama didn't mean any harm at first, but when he realizes that the missile is aimed at him, he might change his mind and just give Earth a shot." "That's right," said Richard, "and I think our warning might lessen any hostility that might arise. Anyway..." "Okay, okay." O'Toole replied, "I understand what you mean, unless I give a better reason, warning the Rama people is a better solution at present." He suddenly laughed, "Fortunately You don't work for the COG, Richard, or your logical eloquence would probably lead me to activate the nuke..." "I doubt it," said Nicole. "No one can make a strong case for such a paranoid idea." "Thank you." The general smiled. "I am very satisfied. Your words are very convincing. Let's get back to work." The missiles were relentlessly approaching.The three of them worked hard, and the hours passed by. Nicole and Michael devised two different warning messages. The first segment shows that Rama is flying in orbit and entering the solar system. Two Newton spaceships take off from the earth to meet the alien spaceships; Rama. Richard's long hours of work on the computer finally came to fruition. While Nicole and Michael were thinking hard about how to design warning messages, he input all the data of the solar system, the earth, spaceships, missiles, etc. into the computer, and made them It becomes the legend display. The second piece of information is very difficult to design.They wanted to explain that the missiles that were flying by had nuclear warheads on them, and when they exploded there would be a chain reaction.Those heat, shock waves, and rays are powerful and terrifying.Drawing pictures is not difficult, the difficulty is how to make those aliens understand the huge energy generated by the explosion. "That's impossible," Richard complained angrily when Nicole and Michael insisted on using some symbol for the heat, shock, and radiation of the explosion, "why don't we just show here the fusion of matter?" What about the quantity? They are good physicists who can calculate the equivalent of the explosion." Time passed by, and the three of them were exhausted.Exhausted during the final hours, General O'Toole took a break at Nicole's insistence.His physical data showed that his heart was under a lot of pressure. Even Richard had to sleep for 90 minutes.Only Nicole herself did not rest, determined that she must find a way to visualize the destructive power of these weapons. When the men woke up, Nicole convinced them to attach pictures to the second message, showing what would happen if a megaton thermonuclear bomb exploded near a city or forest scenario.She thought it was absolutely necessary to add these pictures. Richard had already accurately indicated the elements, atomic weights, and their reaction formulas of the explosives on the diagrams he had previously drawn.Now, as he painstakingly enlarged the diagram to clearly illustrate the enormous size of the blast surface, and placed various scale marks beside the drawn buildings and trees, he muttered: "If they understand this, then they Just smarter than I thought." Finally, the warning letter was finally completed and stored.They went over it again and made a few changes. Richard said: "I haven't figured out all the commands yet, and I suspect that there are five commands related to different levels of control systems. Of course, this is just my guess, but I think the idea makes sense. I will use These five commands send five warning messages, one for each, and hopefully our letter will reach the central computer." While Richard was typing those special orders, Nicole and General O'Toole were out and about.They climbed to the ground and looked around at the skyscrapers in the city of "New York". "You think we'll be in the White Room again, don't you?" "Of course." Nicole replied. "But for what?" asked the general. "If the Rama want to get in touch with us, why are they making it so complicated? Why are they taking the risk that we won't understand it?" "I don't know," said Nicole. "Maybe they're testing us in some way to see what our species really is." "My God," said General O'Toole, "what a terrible idea. We might be cataloged in their catalog as creatures that fire nuclear missiles at visitors." "Exactly," said Nicole. Nicole showed O'Toole the "barn" with the deep well, the giant grid where she had rescued the Iyunnir, the shiny octahedral building, and the entrances to the other two crypts.She was tired, but she knew she couldn't sleep until everything was settled. They came to the shore of the Columbus to make sure their boat was still in place.So O'Toole said, "Let's go back." "Okay," Nicole replied wearily.She looked at her watch. It was three hours and eighteen minutes before the first missile arrived.