Chapter 16 Chapter fifteen

Now, half a century after Star Wars, there are still 90,000 traceable objects in Earth's low orbit.Most of them are so small that if they fall to the Earth's surface, it will be difficult for them to break through the atmosphere.Therefore, these objects are unlikely to cause much harm to people on the ground.They range from the small ones the size of a wrench to the large ones the size of a water balloon.If they were out of orbit, they would definitely rub against the air and burn up.Their effect on Earth is no more than adding to the imperceptible rain of meteorite dust that has been falling on Earth moment-to-moment for 4.5 billion years.There are 72,000 objects in Earth orbit that fall into this size range...and 18,000 more.These are things people on the ground cannot ignore, and they range in size from refrigerators to locomotives, and some are even larger.When a piece of this metal junk goes out of orbit, it hits the ground, or at least a piece of it, at a few kilometers per second.It is powerful enough to raze buildings to the ground.And that's not the worst.Unfortunately, some bulky objects still have energy inside them, usually nuclear energy.That way, if they hit the ground, it's not just the kinetic energy of their landing that can do damage.

Sandy was walking toward Polly's room to see if she was up when the phone rang.It's Margerie calling. "Sandy? I'm in the lobby and I'm telling you that the meeting is going to be delayed an hour due to the event of the meteorite deorbiting. Yes, it happened on this orbit. You can go to Lamont-Dherty with me and watch it live , or you wait for me to come back to find you. Whatever you want." "I'll be down in a few minutes," he told her, and knocked on Polly's door. Polly was up.She was squatting at the desk in the room and taking notes.He informed her that the meeting was postponed, and she shook herself in disgust. "Why do these earthlings make such a fuss about the safety of a city, they have thousands of cities! No, you can go if you want, I want to stay here."

"Well," said Sandy, "Polly? Do you remember when the ship was in Alpha Centauri?" She grimaced in boredom. "Lysander, you've already asked me, why ask?" "I don't remember anything, do you?" She looked up at him, and then, as he expected, she bent down on the table and continued to take her notes.After a while, she shook her body condescendingly and said, "Lasander, this is not the time to ask these stupid questions about the ancient history of Highkley. I am too busy to deal with this kind of thing. I have to prepare my speech draft, and there's something surprising in it. I've prepared a plan for their present little trouble."

"What plan?" "You'll find out when the time comes," she said, shedding a small tear of self-satisfaction.She buried herself in her notes again—Sandy stood there and saw the words upside down—and covered them with her two-thumb hand to keep him from reading what she had written.As if he couldn't be seen!What a nuisance! "You're not an 'elder,'" he told her, "don't treat me like a child. What trouble are you talking about?" "I'm talking about the problem of this space junk going out of orbit, and the earthlings can't solve it by themselves." She said vaguely, "I have to talk about many other important things. I have already got a complete list from Qing Taiqi Luo. instructions, and individually."

"Alone again!" She hiccupped softly haughtily. "Yes, alone, because this is a matter of the Hekleys, not the Earthlings." This made Sandy stunned. "My teammate! Am I not from Haikeli?" "Lysander, of course you're not a Highkley," she said sensibly and patiently, "you're Lasander John William Washington, and if you're not Earth, you're nothing, aren't you? Lasander, let's go, I have a lot to do." She tapped the rug with her short-term tail for emphasis.When he was almost at the door, she said another word and stopped him. "However, Lasander, what you just said is almost right, not entirely wrong."

She looked at him with pleasure and malice, and he did not know what she was talking about. "What did I say?" he asked. "You said I'm not an 'elder'. I'm going to add another word so that this sentence is accurate, which is, 'I'm not an elder'." Sandy had been quiet on the way to the conference hall.He was tired of talking, and every conversation raised questions he couldn't answer, and questions he could answer irritated him so much that he didn't want to answer them.Imagine Polly as a child!Imagine her thinking she could be an elder one day!And it was her own behavior that was so childish!

He got out of the car and Marge Li went to park the car. He looked up at the building they were about to enter.It was built on the edge of the rock wall, very high, with a glass curtain wall outside, and a sign at the entrance reads its name: Lamont-Dherty Science Center "Who are Lamont and Deherty?" he asked. "It's just a name. It used to be a geology center until people brought other disciplines out of New York City and into it." She looked around and made out where they were.They were almost alone in the great terrazzo-floored hall, and one or two others were hurrying up a staircase. "They are watching the derailment in the auditorium. This way..."

Before they had climbed the stairs, a sudden burst of laughter and cheers was heard from the room they were going to.Marge Li dragged him forward.There was a huge screen on the stage, and on it was a television image, apparently taken from the deck of a steamship, because the picture dangled dizzily from side to side.Sometimes Sandy caught glimpses of what looked like masts and antennas.But the object of the shooting is not the ship, but the sky.The air was full of flames falling rapidly downwards, like a meteor shower.Margeley grabbed the arm of a stranger beside her and asked, "What's going on?"

"It's gone down, and it's hit nothing," he said with a grin. "It started entering the atmosphere near Madagascar, and it pretty much shattered 20 minutes ago. That's the end of it, all that's left now." Almost all the debris has fallen, and it's in the heart of the Indian Ocean. Perth will be fine." "Thank God," she said sincerely.Turning to see Sandy, she was actually a little surprised, as if she had forgotten his existence. "Oh," she said, "the TV's over. Want a cup of coffee?" "Happy to accompany you," he said, and then asked curiously, "Margerie? Do you have any friends in Perth?"

"Friends? No, not yet. I've never been to Australia." "But you looked anxious just now." She looked directly at him. "My God, Sandy, what you're saying is ridiculous," she said. "Of course I'm anxious. Australians are human, aren't they? And, God knows where the next meteor will land? It might just land right on top of us! " He remembered Polly's promise to give the Earthlings a surprise, and wondered if he should mention it to Marge Lie, but he didn't know what it was.He said seriously: "Margerie, according to statistics, the probability of a certain person being hit is very small."

"Probability? Sandy, what do you know? You've never lived under slow lightning strikes, it makes you nervous. Well, let's go get coffee." He followed her back into the corridor.Her attitude softened again. "Sandy, I'm sorry I yelled at you so hard." "What's the head and the face?" Asking this, he thought of another question. "Also, what is a 'lightning strike'?" she laughed. "Sandy, I keep forgetting that you're only here on Earth," she said.As they waited in line to get into the coffee shop, Margeley was explaining to him what she had just said when she suddenly said, "Look, we still have a little time now. Do you see there?" She pointed to the end of the corridor, and all he could see was a door marked "Space Search Monitoring Room." "What's that?" he asked. "That's the sign on the door. That place is specially set up by them to closely monitor the space near the earth, and monitor everything in space, including the Heckley spaceship. Do you want to see it?" The people in the room were busy, Margery lowered her voice and had a conversation with one of them, the woman nodded and pointed to a computer terminal.Margeley sat down, stared at the keyboard for a while with her brows furrowed, and then began typing the password. "I guess a 'National Security' police officer can do almost anything," Sandy said behind her. "She can do it if she's with you," said Margery, studying the screen. "Especially if she was originally an astronaut. Look here." An image was forming on the screen—a bright, small object, far away, like a soup pot. "This is seen through infrared telescopes," he said, "the same kind of telescopes used to track meteorites entering the atmosphere. You will see a beam of light sweeping across the image from time to time, don't pay attention to them, these are just Earth Space junk in low orbit, the same piece that landed in the ocean. Well, I'll zoom in on the image a bit more." Sandy's eyes widened.This is the Heckley spaceship, yes!It seems to be glowing by itself.The spaceship was so sharp and clear, he had never seen it like this before.Every detail of the ship was in front of my eyes, as it turned slowly, even the light refracted from the sun, even the shallow traces on the hull of the spaceship where Sandy and his landing craft had originally been placed could be seen. See. "I didn't know you could see the Heckley ship from Earth," he said dumbly. "My God, of course we can see you," she said angrily. "Do you think we're ignorant savages? We've been watching you for nearly two months." "Two months?" She made an impatient gesture. "Just because we can't go into space doesn't mean we can't monitor the sky. They found gamma rays two months ago when they searched space as usual. The object emitting the rays was obviously moving very fast, so they naturally tracked it. I Guess these flailer rays come from your engines." She pressed a few more keys, and the image grew larger. "Your spacecraft was still outside the ecliptic plane at that time, more than 1 billion kilometers away from the earth. At first we couldn't get a clear optical image. After you circled the sun, we tracked you with radar." "radar?" "I'm referring to the Hydra rays," she explained. "We project them on objects and receive the rays back." "Oh," he said, satisfied that he had finally figured it out a little bit.He nodded. "Qing Taiqi Luo said that he received some rays from the earth, but the Haikeli don't know what they are, because there is no information in them." "The outgoing rays carry no information," Margery agreed, "but we can see you clearly through the returning rays. Later we can see you with optical instruments, at least the infrared astronomical telescope can. Your spaceship At perihelion it absorbs so much of the sun's heat that it stands out like a light bulb in space. Sandy? Do you see those bumps on the side of the ship? What are they for?" He glanced at the screen. "Are there five in a row? They're landing ships too, and there's a total of six landing ships on the ship—you can see one is missing, and it's ours." He glared at her, "You've been watching us ?” "Of course, wouldn't you do that?" she said patiently. "We've been keeping an eye on you, listening to the bands, wondering if you'd send a signal to let us know who you are. But you No." "Oh," Sandy said apologetically, "it's because the Senators don't know who you are." She shrugged. "We're not sure about you either. We tracked the landing craft as soon as it launched. Sandy, you didn't have to walk around in the rain at all. If you stayed put, we'd find you once the storm was over. .” "Why didn't you tell us?" "Didn't I tell you now?" she added reluctantly. "The truth is I couldn't do it before. I just got permission." "I see," Sandy said coldly. "You're allowed to tell me some of the truth now. But not all of it, I suppose?" She frowned, but didn't answer. "So, in addition to being my guard, you can now reveal a few words of information to me to observe my reaction to them?" "Sandy, I'm not your guard!" "Then what do you call it?" "The word is 'accompanied,'" she said gravely. "But you're a policeman, policewoman." "'Guoan' is not a police organization, not a police organization in the true sense anyway, oh, damn it!" She got angry, "What do you want? It's just out of caution, we naturally have to figure out what kind of situation we will face Situation, so..." She paused, glanced at the ceiling, and then said stubbornly, "So we've been watching you just as you've watched us." She changed the subject, "Would you like some more coffee?" "Is this what my 'escort' lady asked me to do next?" he said sharply. "What do I need to do after this to satisfy your kind concern?" She gave him a look he couldn't read. "That's up to you," she said. "Oh, you must have instructions," he said persistently. She stared straight ahead, and after a while, she sighed and looked at her watch. "It's almost time for Polly's speech," she said. "Of course we're going there, then, aren't we? That's your order for me, isn't it?" She didn't answer.He turned and left, but she put a hand on his arm, glanced at the other people in the room, and then spoke. "Sandy," she said almost in a whisper, "you told me you wanted to see old New York City. We could go this afternoon if you wanted to." Her tone of voice was very strange, and Sandy's attitude did not soften. "Of course," he growled, "I'll do exactly what you say. What choice do I have?" Polly was late.When the audience was almost seated, she came in, pattering across the center aisle with that long, running-and-jumping stride typical of the Heckley.Hamilton Boyle walked dignifiedly beside her, trying to keep abreast of her.In the first row, Polly did not turn with Boyle.Boyle pointed politely to the side stairs leading to the side of the podium, but Polly ignored him, and Boyle turned and walked towards the stairs alone.Polly glanced at him contemptuously, and with a little jump, she jumped onto the podium.When he came to her side, she was already squatting in front of the desk, studying her speech. There was a low chuckle from the audience. Typical of Polly—no, Sandy corrected herself, typical of Highckley.Polly looked up, shed a tear of joy, and accepted the laughter.Sandy sat in the first row, surrounded by Earthlings, and he couldn't help but look at Polly through Earthling eyes, no doubt she looked ridiculous to them.Hamilton Boyle introduced Polly, and she looked smug.Boyle pressed a button, and a screen dropped behind them, and she looked up, shaking restlessly.Boyle concluded by saying, "Our esteemed guest will show us some astronomical data obtained by the Hekleites on their long journey." She turned. "Do I have to do this?" she asked. Boyle was taken aback. "I thought you wanted that, that's why you were invited," he reminded her. She quivered angrily. "Oh, alright. Let's get this part over with, is this the remote?" She watched impatiently as Boyle showed her how to use it, then snatched it away. "Okay, turn off the lights," she ordered, craning her neck to look at the screen.Before the room was completely dark, she began to quickly post photos. "These are some of the worlds near Earth," she said, as images flashed across the screen, one half a second later. "The first group is what you call Gamma Cephei and its two planets - not very interesting; they are what you call 'brown dwarfs' in general, useless at all. About 50 years ago in Earth time, We left the gamma cepheus star system, and on our way to gamma alpha centauri, we discovered your radio waves and passed by here. This is alpha centauri, which has no large, well-shaped planets, only many Objects resembling comets or asteroids, these are. Now I'm showing your galaxy...Boyle, why are you interrupting me?" He put one hand on her forearm and said politely, "Can you slow down?" "Why? You have these photos in your files. And I have something more important to talk about. This is your sun, and here are some planets in your solar system..." Sandy blinked.The speed of the image was too fast to see clearly, and he heard people around him complaining.Polly didn't care. "Earth, Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, and Mars. I think you'll be interested to see that most of these pictures are from polar orbital angles—that's north of the ecliptic when we come from Gamma Cepheus, and halfway to It was taken south of the ecliptic on the road of Alpha Sagittarius. Of course, there are many other photos, and I will show you later. This topic is enough, turn on the light!" She ordered arrogantly, and then looked at the audience smugly and whispered audience.The overhead lights turned on one by one. "Now," she said, "I'm going to get to the more important part of today." At this point, she paused, squinting at a man near Sandy who raised his hand. "What do you want to do?" she asked . "I'm just wondering if we'll have a chance to ask questions later," the astronomer called. "I think there will be, but wait until I finish. Please pay attention to all of you. My superior Qing Taiqi Luo has instructed me to inform you that the people of Earth should immediately start building a magnetically driven thruster, that is, you The so-called 'rail gun'. We have selected two suitable sites, one on your island of Bora Bora and the other on Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa. Our experts are working on the construction of the rail gun A detailed plan has been drawn up, and it is nearing completion, and it will be passed on to you soon. We are also planning to send two teams of experts to land on Earth, each in charge of a site, and they will supervise the construction process and the operation of the machine. The most important use of thrusters is to launch the necessary raw materials into the sky to replenish the stockpile of the Hyckley starship. However, Ching Tai Chi Luo has decided that, as a special favor, several of the first launches can be used to launch some self-propelled objects to the low altitude of the earth. In orbit, they can collide with space junk that may be out of orbit in a short period of time under human control to slow it down, and shoot down the junk when it flies to the place where you think it will pose the least threat to people and facilities on the ground. In this way, " She ended her speech triumphantly, "We've solved one of your big problems. Now you can ask questions, but," she added, glancing at her watch, "don't wait too long, before I eat It's time for lunch." To Sandy's surprise, there were no questions at first, and the audience was silent.Polly was surprised too, shaking irritably as she waited.Finally she pointed to a man in the middle of the back row. "Ask," she ordered. "I wonder why you don't shoot Uranus and Pluto," the man shouted. Polly snorted unhappily. "Why don't you ask the more important part of what I just said? We just happen to miss Uranus and Pluto." "But if you miss them," continued the astronomer, "how do you know what planets are not missing from other stars?" "We didn't 'miss' any planets," she corrected grimly. "We don't care about objects that might be useless to us, they are too far from the sun. Of course there are more pictures. We in Heckley As many as 65 galaxies have been visited during this trip, and there are records of visits to many other places by other ships." Another astronomer called out, "Can you still get them?" "You mean reports from other ships?" said Polly reluctantly, after a moment's hesitation. "Not yet." "What are the planets in your own system like?" "We don't have pictures of our own planet. Our grandparents knew this well enough that they didn't need pictures to remind themselves." "So can you at least recognize the star in your galaxy from our data? You say it's only 850 light-years away from Earth, and if it's as bright as the sun, it's at least a 14 or 15 object, all Objects like this are marked on our astronomical maps." Polly hesitated. "I can recognize it," she said. "Can you?" She reluctantly said: "There is no need for me to recognize it now." "Aren't you lost?" "We are not lost! We just haven't reconnected with our hometown, because the distance is so far away—you should also know that if you make contact across a distance of 800 light years, send a signal and receive a reply, it will cost you 1600 years. When we have completed our mission, our planet will be notified." "What exactly is your mission?" She couldn't help being tongue-tied, and suddenly lost her temper. "Our mission is to detect and learn! Don't you have a better question than this?" "Don't you have better pictures than this?" an astronomer retorted. "These are just ordinary spectral pictures. Don't you have infrared, ultraviolet, X-ray, and gamma-ray instruments to take pictures?" "We're not used to shooting anything else," snapped Polly, obviously really annoyed. "Didn't any of you ask a question about the magnetic launcher?" There was a moment of silence, and then Boyle moved closer to the microphone. "I have a question," he said, "about the programs you mentioned. Have you used them to build launchers of this kind before?" "Me? Of course not." "So has anyone ever built a spaceship?" "Not recently," she admitted. "So how do you know if they work?" She stared at him in surprise and anger. "Because they were the plans of the Highkleys," she said, "with the permission of the senators! Of course they worked. Don't you have any more meaningful questions?" There seemed to be no problem with Polly's hopes, and she rushed off to lunch, refusing Hamilton Boyle's company.After the meeting, Boyle catches up with Margerie and Sandy. "Any plans for lunch?" he asked kindly. Margerie answered for both of them. "We're going to visit New York City," she said, "I think we'll just get some sandwiches and eat them on the way." Boyle nodded, looking at Sandy sharply. "I'm afraid your friend is angry with us," he said to Sandy. Sandy decided not to tell him that Polly was seldom happy. "I think she's surprised no one wants to talk about her proposed rail gun." "Oh," Boyle raised his eyebrows, "is that so? Is that a proposal? I sound like a military order." "That's the way she talks," said Sandy. Boyle nodded. "Do you think it's a good idea?" Sandy looked at him in surprise. "Of course it's a good idea. If it wasn't a good idea, the elders wouldn't agree. You can send thousands of rockets into the sky for a fraction of the cost. Wouldn't it be nice to remove that junk from orbit in a safe place? You guys Don't want to save your city from the kind of disaster that nearly happened to Perth last time?" Boyle sighed. "Yeah," he said thoughtfully, "that sounds really good, removing space junk and avoiding cities. My concern is the other side of the coin." "I don't understand," Sandy said. Boyle shrugged. "If you can get an object out of orbit without hitting a city, don't you think it's just as easy to make it hit a city?"