Chapter 29 Chapter 29 First Contact

When Jimmy regained consciousness, he first felt a tearing headache, and he was happy about it, which meant that at least he was alive. He tried to move, and the bones all over his body ached, but nothing seemed to be broken.He ventured to open his eyes, then closed them again, and the dazzling Rama sun made his head hurt even more. He lay down to recover his strength.At the same time he was considering how long it would take before he could open his eyes safely, when he heard a crunching noise beside him.He took a risky look and almost immediately fainted again. Less than five meters away, a giant crab-like monster was eating the remains of his poor "flying dragon".Jimmy rolled a little away from the monster, always on guard against grabbing him if it found something tastier nearby.But it paid no attention to him, and when the distance between them was about ten meters, Jimmy took a sitting position carefully.

From a little distance, the thing wasn't so terribly scary.Its short and flat body, about two meters wide and one meter long, is supported by six three-section legs.Jimmy thought it was eating a dragon, but it didn't have a mouth.The thing was snapping the airbike to pieces with pincer-like claws with precision.A bunch of things that looked like human hands piled these fragments on his back. is it an animalIts behavior is very purposeful, and it also seems to have a high degree of intelligence.Jimmy struggled to his feet, keeping one eye on the crab, which was still ignoring him.It appears he can still walk.Then he flipped the radio switch, not thinking at all that he was going to break it; since he could take the blow himself, solid-state electronics were no problem at all.

"Hub Post," he whispered, "can you hear me?" "Thank God! Are you all right?" "Just a shock, look at this." He pointed the camera at the crab, just in time to record it tearing apart the last piece of its dragon wing. "What the hell is that - why gnaw on your bike?" "Wish I knew. It finished the wyvern. I've got to go, or it's my turn." Jimmy retreated while staring at the crab.It was turning around a wide area, looking for missing pieces, and Jimmy had to admire how pretty this guy was.In the panic just now, he unconsciously named it a crab, which is actually a bit wrong. If it was not so big, he might call it a beetle.It has a beautiful metallic sheen.He was almost willing to swear that it was metal.That's an interesting thought.Maybe it's a robot and not an animal?Jimmy took a close look at its anatomy.Where the mouth should be, there is a bunch of mechanical hands that look like multi-purpose knives, there are awls, pliers, files, and even what looks like an electric drill.Insects on the earth also have various tool-like things, and we cannot draw conclusions based on this.

Those eyes are even more unpredictable.They were sunken deep in the protective cover, whether they were crystalline or horny, completely expressionless, and bright blue.They swept in Jimmy's direction a few times, but didn't seem to pay him any attention.This gave him an idea of ​​the intelligence level of the thing.He doesn't think an entity, be it a robot or an animal, can be intelligent enough to ignore humans. After it finished turning, it stopped for a few seconds, as if listening to instructions, and then walked straight towards the sea at a speed of four to five kilometers per hour.He followed it quietly, wanting to see the final fate of his beloved flying dragon.At the same time, the crab's motivation and intelligence level can also be seen from how it disposes of its spoils.Besides, the only place where he could be rescued was in that direction.

It took several minutes for Jimmy, swollen and sore from the fall, to catch up to the crab, which had traveled several hundred meters with purpose.He followed it carefully, keeping a certain distance, until he was sure it didn't pay him any mind.He felt thirsty and hungry when he saw that his water bottle and food box were among the wreckage of the Wyvern. What the crab had taken was the only food and drink in this half of the world, and no matter what the risk, they had to be brought back. He carefully watched the rhythm of the six-legged walking from directly behind it, said "I'm sorry", and quickly took down his belongings.

Jimmy stepped back about ten meters, moistened his lips with the water in the pot, and began to eat the meat strips.This small victory lifted his spirits for other adventures. As long as there is life, there is hope, but he still can't imagine where his way out is.Even if his colleagues can cross the sea of ​​cylinders, how can they help him in the sea below 500 meters? "We will always think of a solution," the hub post once promised. "It is impossible for that cliff to surround the entire world without leaving any gaps." He once wanted to ask: "Why is it impossible?" After thinking about it, Forget it, it's more practical to save a breath.

The strangest thing about walking in Rama is that you can always see your goal and direction. Now Jimmy knew where the crab was going.In front of him was a deep hole 500 meters wide with raised edges.There are three such holes in the southern hemisphere.You can't see how deep they are from the hub.They were both named after the craters on the moon, and this one is now called Copernicus, although they have nothing in common with craters.Their inner walls are straight, like a large well. When Jimmy approached, he saw that there was an ominous lead-green liquid five hundred meters below it, which meant that it was the same as the sea level, and I wondered if it was connected to the sea.There are spiral grooves on the well wall, like the rifling lines of the muzzle of a huge cannon.But they are not just one, but a total of three, staggered in 120° equal divisions—another manifestation of the three-equal basic type of all facilities in Rama.

The three spiral grooves reach the surface of the water and disappear beneath the surface of the opaque liquid.Near the waterline, Jimmy could see the mouths of some tunnels or caves.They look like dens of evil.He thought, Is this the place to live, maybe the Rama people are amphibious? When the crab came to the well, Jimmy thought it would go down the groove and send the "dragon" to some species that could examine and evaluate it.However, it was not like this. It walked to the edge of the well without hesitation, stretched out half of its body—it would fall if there was an error of a few centimeters—then deftly raised its back, and the fragments of the flying dragon fell. was thrown into the abyss.Jimmy watched Feilong's fate with tears in his eyes.He thought painfully that the creature's intelligence was no more than that.

After disposing of the pile of garbage, the crab turned and walked straight towards Jimmy, stopping about 10 meters away.Am I going to suffer the same fate?thought Jimmy.He hoped that his hand holding the camera aimed at the monster would not tremble, and send the scene back to the hub post, and at the same time asked anxiously in a low voice: "What do you think I should do?" "Don't run until you see it's hostile," whispered the hub post.run?Where are you going!Jimmy thought to himself.Slowly, he raised both open hands.For two hundred years it has been debated whether any creature, anywhere in the universe, could understand the meaning of this gesture: "Look - no weapons?" But there has been no conclusion.

The crab didn't react at all, and walked over without any hesitation, walked past him as if Jimmy wasn't there, and walked southward.Jimmy, as a representative of human beings, saw his first contact strutting on the Rama plains, completely ignoring his existence, and felt extremely stupid and humiliated.But what about being welcomed by it as a long-lost brother?Will it be worse? He returned to the pass of Mount Copernicus and looked at the opaque water again.This time he saw some vaguely shaped things moving under the water, some even quite large, and one of them moved towards the spiral channel and began to climb up, which looked like a multi-legged tank.Jimmy estimated that at its speed, it would take an hour to get up, so he left it alone for the time being.

At this time, he saw a fast-moving, human-sized figure at the mouth of the underwater cave, but he couldn't see clearly.He blinked a few times, and when he looked again, the ghost was gone.Perhaps the shock caused by the fall just now was much more serious than he imagined.It was the first time he had this kind of visual illusion.He wasn't going to mention it to Hub Post. He originally planned to explore the groove, but now he decided not to go.Obviously, that was a waste of energy. The imaginary apparition he had just seen had nothing to do with the decision— ----------------------------- Notes: