We all love Uncle Paine.The name he gave us was so hard to pronounce, so we called him Sand Paine.When we started to understand the truth, the robot butler told us that we are all clones, and the purpose of being copied is to protect the sky and protect the earth from harm.They keep us busy with studies, quizzes, and all kinds of chores, but there's not much we can do living in this tiny cave, and his visits are the thing we're most excited about. He never told us when to arrive.We often look to him, searching for traces of him in the domed observation room high on Tycho Crater.Below the mountain is a moondust mound piled up by excavators. Those giant machines stand on its edge, like metal monsters in outer space, and their long black shadows are reflected on the abandoned gray rocks and craters.

When we were seven years old, his visit brought us a lot of surprises.Tanya saw him land, and she called us all into the observation dome.His ship gleamed like a crystal teardrop in the black shadow of the giant's metallic insect, and he jumped out, his silver spacesuit wrapping him like skin.We waited in the gas chamber and watched him take off his spacesuit.He was a small man with a graceful demeanor that made him look like a girl, but his body was actually very strong.Even seeing his body was exciting, but Diane ran away and hid because he looked so weird. He was completely naked, and his light brown skin slowly darkened in the light-transmitting dome observation room, and quickly faded when he stepped down.His face was narrow and heart-shaped, and his golden eyes were enormous.Unlike ours, his head was covered with a tuft of smooth reddish-brown fur.He said he didn't need to wear clothes because his sex organs were inside him.

After realizing that Diane was missing, he called her name. Diane crept back to share his gift from Earth with us.There was some sweet fruit we had never tasted, some queer toys, and some curious game which he had to show us first.He brought Tanya and Diane a couple of dolls that would sing strange songs in voices we couldn't understand and play loud music with a tiny contraption we'd never seen before. The best gift is to visit the Observation Dome with him.Pippi and Kathy are eager to learn about life on Earth.Is there a city there?Are there wild animals?Are there aliens?Do people live in houses, or in underground tunnels like us?What is his job?Does he have a wife?Are there any kids like us?

He won't tell us much.The earth, he said, had been changed in the time of my grandparents.It was so different from the past that he didn't know where to start, but he had us take turns looking at the Earth through the giant telescope.Later, he promised, if he could find spacesuits that would fit us, he would take us to the Moon for a few laps to get a closer look.Right now, however, he's busy figuring out what Earth looked like before the big impact. He showed us with holographic projections, and showed us fragile books from a time when the earth's poles were covered with white glaciers and the continents were bare with brown deserts.After the terrain transformation, the new earth no longer has glaciers and deserts. When the sun shines on the ground, under the bright clouds, the land is green, even at the poles.It looked so marvelous that Pippi and Kathy begged him to take us back so we could witness the wonder for ourselves.

"I'm sorry," he shook his head covered with smooth fur, "I'm really sorry, you'd better not have the idea of ​​going to the earth." We're looking out from the observation dome, and the Earth hangs high in the dark north, where it's always been.A little lower in the west, the sun rose slowly over the mound recently piled by the robot excavator next to the launch site, sending out thousands of rays and coating the crater with a purple layer. Diane had developed trust in him.She sat on his lap and gazed admiringly at his peculiar face. Tanya was standing behind him, playing a little trick.She put her hand on his back to block the sun, watching a white handprint slowly appear on his tan skin, and when she took her hand away, the sun wiped away the mark.

Kathy looked annoyed and asked why we couldn't go to Earth. "You are different from me." It was true.Kathy's face was broad and dark, with slender Chinese eyes and straight black hair. "And you only belong here." "I'm different from everyone," Kathy shrugged, "and I don't belong to you." "Of course you don't belong to me," said Uncle Paine patiently and softly, "but you do belong to the station and your great mission." He looked at me. "Remind him, Duncan." My clone father is called Duncan Jarrow.The main computer that controls the space station often speaks to us in his voice, and he tells us how we were cloned from tissue that was refrigerated in a cryogenic chamber.

"Sir, you're right." I'm a little terrified of Uncle Paine, but I'm proud of what the space station has done, "My sim dad already told us how the 'big hit' was over and over again Destroying the planet over and over again, but we always recover it again and again." I felt so parched that I had to swallow my saliva and continued, "Life on Earth lasts because of our reason." "Very well, well said." He nodded, with a trace of teasing on his face, "But maybe you don't know that your little moon also suffered a serious impact. The reason why you can survive today is all It's because of me."

"You?" We all stared at him, but Kathy nodded. "Is that you and the diggers? I've been watching, wondering what the hell they're digging up. When did that object hit the moon?" "Do you understand?" Paine imitated the language and gestures that Pippi learned from his simulated father, and shrugged at him, "This was a long time ago, maybe hundreds of thousands of years, maybe hundreds of years ago. Ten thousand years, I haven't found a clue yet." "That object." Pippi frowned, "It also hit the space station?" "It's a thin line." Uncle Paine nodded towards the huge black hole in the crater to the west of us. "Meteorite fragments destroyed the dome observation room and buried everything here. The space station disappeared from people's memory. And I happened to be in Heard it in some legend."

"Did the excavator dig us out?" Kai Ting turned and looked at the landing field below. Uncle Paine parked the spaceship in the shadow of those huge machines and the dirt hills they piled up. "How do you know where to dig?" "The power system of the space station is still working," said Uncle Paine, "keeping its positive computer running. I can detect its metal shield and radiation." "We thank you," Pippi solemnly waved his hands, "I'm glad to be alive again." "Me too," Kathy said, "if only I could make it to Earth." Seeing that Uncle Paine was about to shake his head again, he immediately changed the subject, "Tell us about the 'big impact' on Earth that you know , after that collision, how did we bring Earth back to life? And then how did we save humanity after it was destroyed again?"

"I don't know what you guys did." "You showed us the difference we've made," Casey said. "The earth is full of green forests, no deserts, no ice." "Of course, it's been remodeled." Uncle Paine nodded, smiling at Tanya, who had just stopped playing her little trick with the sun on his back.He sat down with his legs crossed. "Whatever you did, it was very far away. Historians have proved that we ourselves have put in a lot more effort." "You transformed the earth?" Casey looked disappointed, with a hint of doubt, "How did you do it?"

"We removed reefs from the bottom of the sea, widened straits, diverted seawater to the poles and warmed it. We diverted rivers to form new lakes, and carried rainwater to deserts. We devised new ways of living , improving the entire ecosystem.” "But you've always owed us something for allowing you to thrive there again." "Of course," Uncle Paine shrugged. "From the excavated space station, I found evidence that all life on Earth was destroyed in the last impact. Before the moon was also impacted, humans on Earth had been re-cloned. " "It's our fault," Kathy grinned. "You should feel lucky to have us here." "Your spaceship," Pippi walked to the edge of the dome observation room, looking at the monster-like machinery below and Paine's dexterous spaceship, which is very different from the spaceships we see in ancient holographic movies, "Can it fly to other planets?" "Yes," he nodded, "you can fly to other solar systems." Tanya's eyes widened, and Pippi asked, "How does it fly in space without rocket thrusters?" "It doesn't fly in space," he said. "It's called a glider, and it glides around space instead of going through it." "Other planets?" Tanya whispered. "Have you been to other planets?" "I have set foot on their land." He nodded solemnly. "I hope to return there after finishing my work here." "Crossing a distance of tens of light years?" Casey was in awe, "How long would it take?" "It doesn't take a second," he said with a smile, looking at our gaping mouths, "the glider doesn't need time when it flies. Outside this time and space, time stands still. But there are laws in nature, and I can Traveling 100 light-years to another planet in one instant, and back in the next instant, but 200 years of time on Earth will pass by the time I leave." "But," Tanya's eyes were still wide open, "your friends and family may have died by then." "We are immortal." She shrank and hid aside, as if suddenly afraid of him.Pippi opened his mouth to ask something, but closed it before he could say it. Looking at our shocked expressions, he giggled happily: "We have also transformed directness. You see, our transformation is even greater than that of the earth." Kathy turned and looked out at the shadows of the vast landmass of the Earth, the green American continent glistening in the sun, and the faint shadows of Europe and Africa.He stood there for a long time, then walked slowly to Paine. "No matter what you say," he said with a determined look on his face, "when I grow up, I'm going to see what the new earth looks like." "Then you have to grow wings." Uncle Paine smiled and patted his head lightly with his golden arm. "You don't know that the impact has already destroyed all your old spaceships." He quickly withdrew his hand. "Really, my children, you belong here." Seeing Casey's hurt expression, Uncle Paine's voice became softer, "You were all cloned for the work of the space station, and you should proud." When Uncle Paine withdrew his hand, Kathy looked at him resentfully, swallowed with difficulty, but remained calm. "Perhaps so, but what crisis is there now?" Uncle Paine showed a strange expression, and he was silent for a while before answering his question. "We've stopped worrying about getting hit by another meteorite. All the asteroids that periodically approach Earth's orbit have been redirected, mostly toward the sun." "Then," Casey raised her black jaw angrily, "why did you dig us out?" "For the sake of history," Uncle Paine looked away from us and looked at the huge earth in the distance, "I hope you can try to understand what I mean. The reconstructed earth has no trace of human origin, and historians are trying to Trying to prove that we evolved from another planet and then colonized the earth. The 'Tycho' space station proved that the earth is indeed our home planet, and I found our roots under the ruins." "I imagine you'd be proud of it," Casey said, "but who needs a space station these days?" "No one needs it, really," he shrugged, his golden lips twisted slightly, I think he was sorry for Casey, "If another natural disaster befalls the earth, we can clone humans again on the space station , but that's almost impossible." "Then it was of no use to you to dig us out?" "You don't know what I've done," Paine leaned over him as if to hug him, but he backed away even further. "It's not easy! We had to develop some new equipment according to the actual situation. We The cells had to be tested to be well preserved in the freezer, and we built new instruments in the culture room. It's a complicated system, and it had to be tested." He smiled at Tanya, who was listening attentively. , "Experiments have shown that it works well." "You mean we're just some experiments?" "Don't you like living?" "Maybe," Kathy murmured bitterly, "if only I could get off the moon. I don't want to sit here pointlessly until I die of old age." Uncle Paine looked a little disturbed as he bent down and picked Tanya up. "Our lives should have more meaning," Casey told him. "I want my own life." "Please don't do this, dear children, you have to understand," Uncle Paine waved his furry head and patiently explained, "The space station is a precious historical monument, the only surviving thing of the primitive earth and primitive human beings. It's part of it. I'm so sorry if you take this as your misfortune, but there really is no place on Earth for you."