Chapter 6 Chapter Six

"Dear gentlemen, please excuse me for having to go away for a while." With a slight bow, Tling explained that her mother was taking her to learn dance and music, and then meet the people on the ship in trouble. We are left to stay with the robots.They all look like humans, covered with milky white skin, expressionless, and because they do not have "Nelloro" installed, they are controlled by voice. Kathy tried asking them about the population, cities, and industries of the new Earth, but they were domestic robots who knew neither English nor any information.Rather dismayed by the dumb stares of the robots, we sat on the balcony looking down around the Memorial, pondering our uncertain future, until they announced that dinner was ready.

The food they serve is rather weird, but Pippi urges us to eat it no matter what. It was dark before we stepped onto the balcony again.A crescent moon hung in the west sky, while in the east a train passed the memorial with its headlights flashing.The lights on the boulevard are bright, and tourists are watching the night scene.In the stillness of the night, the Taj Mahal looks like a radiant jewel, and the pyramids like a milky island.Before the lights went out, the robot had prepared the bed for us.They served wine with dinner which made for a dreamless night. We woke up the next morning with nothing to do but unrealistic hopes.I spotted Tling standing outside on the edge of the patio.Overlooks the canyon.Her hair was a bit like her mother's, not feathery or downy, but a cropped chestnut blond.If you ignore the intimidating power of her "Nelloro", I think she looks like a weak and helpless girl.She was a little surprised when I greeted her.

"Good morning, Mr. Duncan." She wiped her face with the back of her hand and forced out a smile. I saw that her eyes were still slightly flushed. "Do your feet still hurt?" "better." "I'm worried," she said with a pale smile, "because you don't have a symbiote to help you repair the damage." I asked her if she had any news of her father and the immigrant ship.She didn't answer, and looking again at the valley and the memorial in the sun, I saw a long puff of steam from the morning train on the bridge to the Sphinx. "I have been observing the life of a baby giraffe," she said slowly and softly, as if talking to herself, "I watched it be born, watched it learn to stand, cuddle with its mother, and learn to suckle. It finally Staggered away with mom. It was so cute—"

Her voice was low, and she covered her lips with her hands.She stood there, looking at me tremblingly, with pain in her long, black eyes. "My father!" She suddenly raised her voice, almost screaming, "He's leaving, I'll never see him again." She turned and ran back into the house. When the robot called us to breakfast the next morning, we found her sitting between her parents.She had wiped her tear-stained face, but had left the food on her plate. Without sunlight in the room, Paine's face looked pale and cold.He ignored us until Tling frowned at him, and then he got up and walked around the table to shake our hands.

"Good morning, Dr. Paine." Casey smiled reluctantly at him. "I see why you don't want us here, but I won't apologize to you. We will never apologize for our coming. And apologise." "Sit down," he said briefly, "and have something to eat." So we ate breakfast together, and the robot brought some food on a plate that we had never tasted before.Paine stopped talking to us, motioned for the robot to pour him another cup of bitter black tea, and sipped a bowl of crimson berries.Tling sat looking up at him, pain in her eyes.Kathy's voice interrupted her gaze.

"Sir, we've heard about that ship. Can you tell us why that ship came back?" "Nobody knows what's going on," he shook his head, smiled kindly at Tling, then pushed away the berries in front of him and looked at us with a stern expression and a sharp, sharp voice, "The original detection expedition found this The destination planet is very habitable, and they planted some earth plants on it. The expedition team entered the three main continents in batches, and this spaceship is loaded with the third group of members. "They reached their destination safely, but when they called the planet from orbit, they received no answer. The atmosphere was shrouded in dust, and the surface of the planet was in chaos. But the colonization of the first two expeditions was detected by infrared detection. Very successful, they left behind streets, bridges, masonry buildings, and steel buildings whose frames were being built. All objects were half covered in red dust that had been piled up by the wind, and there was no green vegetation to be found around them. A ship belonging to the first two expeditions was left in orbit, but it was as dead as the planet.

"They couldn't figure out what was killing life on the entire planet, and no world seemed to have received word of the disaster, which means it came unexpectedly and spread very quickly. Health officials Believing that those deadly objects should be some unknown organisms attacking organic life, but the captain refused to land and investigate, she chose to return immediately without contact with the planet, and perhaps this decision saved their lives." He picked up his spoon and tasted his bowl of berries again.I tried one and found it savory and sweet with an indescribably strong smell.

"Sir," Casey continued, "we see those immigrants, and they are desperate. What should they do now?" "It's a dilemma now," Paine looked at Tering and shrugged sadly.She turned her head to hold back a sob. "Habitable planets are quite rare. The few planets we find must first be surveyed and then terraformed to accommodate colonists. When the event occurs, this group will be considered lucky. Another batch awaiting colonization Humans gave them their own destination, a developed planet 500 light-years from the core of the galaxy. We are currently loading up with fuel and fresh food."

"My dad—" Tling looked up at me, crying loudly, "he had to go with them, and it was all because of me." He opened his arms to wrap her in his arms, and bent down to look at her.Not knowing what he said, she hid in his arms.Penn put his arms around her, rocking his arms back and forth like a baby, until she stopped crying.She kissed him and slid out of his arms, her smile piercing my heart. "Forgive us," she said tremblingly, holding his hand tightly. "We must say goodbye." She dragged Paine out of the room. Lu looked at their backs, without saying a word, until Pippi knocked on the bowl, motioning for the robot to order another crimson berry.

"Really," she sighed, turning to face us, "this was painful for Tling, actually painful for all three of us, and it wasn't what we had planned. " She absently scooped a bit of tufted cake from the plate the robot handed her.Put it on her plate, but didn't taste it. "Why?" Pippi looked at her suspiciously. "We want to stay together," she said. "Pane and I have been working here for almost a century, digging up the space station and trying to restore it. When I'm done here, I want to go back to my home planet." , Tering and we will go together. We plan to take the historical materials we have and reproduce a memorial there.”

She shook her head in frustration. "That changed everything. Paine felt it was his duty to find a home for the colonists. Tling begged him to take us with him, but—" She shrugged resignedly, her lips tightened, "He's worried we'll be threatened by those deadly objects, and for other reasons, his brother—" She paused for a moment and looked away. "He had a twin brother. After they were born, his father had to emigrate and took his brother with him. His mother was working on the genetic aspects of 'Nelloro' and she couldn't leave. Paine Stayed with her, but he kept thinking about his brother. When he grew up, he left the earth and traveled around, searching dozens of colonized worlds, but couldn't find his brother. But he found me, this is us fate." Her short smile slowly faded: "I told him that his search was hopeless. There were too many colonized worlds in the universe, too many light-years apart, and the glider ships might be extremely fast, but still It took a long time, but he never gave up on this dream." "Can we—" Casey looked at Pippi and me inquiringly, we nodded, and he asked a little uneasy, "If Uncle Paine has to set off with the colony spaceship, can he take us?" She shook her head and sat there blankly. Pippi asked, "Why?" "For good reason." Frowning, she scooped up the small piece of brown cake, split it in half, and tossed the rest back on the plate. "First of all, it's too dangerous. The deadly thing that destroyed that planet can also spread to other planets. He is a substitute, in fact, because everyone else is afraid to go. The colonists had no choice, but they I don't want you to get hurt too." "It's our choice," Casey shrugged. "When you travel hundreds of light years in the universe, don't you often need to take risks?" "But this time it's different." She shrugged sadly. "Ife II is heading towards the core of the galaxy, and so is this new colony. If those deadly things come from the core—" She was pale and shook her golden head. "We'd rather take the risk," Kathy exchanged glances with us again, and smiled at her a little stiffly, "You can remind him that we can't keep immortality after being subdued, and life is more precious to him than us." Her body became stiff and gradually faded to white. "Tring and I talked him out," she said feebly, "but he felt it was his calling." "It's his 'Nelloro' who made the decision? Doesn't he think about you and Te Ling?" She paused for a while before answering us. "You don't understand them." She regained her composure, and I suspect it was her "Nelloro" that soothed her pain, "You can think of them as a kind of micro-machine, but they don't make us Controlled robots, we retain all our primordial senses and impulses. 'Nelloro' just makes us stronger humans. Paine stood up not just for the colonists, but for Tling and me, for All human beings distributed throughout the universe." "If the chances of success are as remote as they think—" Kathy squinted at her suspiciously, "what can one person do?" "Maybe in vain," she shrugged sadly, "but he is the best candidate. Long ago, before he left the earth to find his brother, he had already participated in the research of 'Nelloro' with his mother He used that technology to reprogram his own 'Nelloro', and if the deadly thing was some kind of virus-laden organism, he thought 'Nelloro' would form a shield to stop it." "Please tell him," Kathy begged her, "to let him take us with you. We'll do what we can to help." "You?" There was a hint of surprise in her eyes, "How can you help?" "We brought you back to Earth," he told her, "and there wasn't even Nelloro back then." "Yes, that's right." A golden light flashed on her body, "I will tell him." She was silent for a while, then shook her head, "No. He said that there is no place on the spaceship." She paused, looking at the ceiling and frowning.A robot is coming around the table with a bowl of fresh mushrooms that smells like fried ham. "We are trying to plan a future for Tering," she suddenly tightened her face, and her calm voice was full of kindness. "It will take 1,000 years for him to come back. Leaving Tering makes him very sad." "I saw Tering this morning," I said, "and she was very sad." "We're trying to reassure her and I promise she'll see dad again." Pippi looked surprised: "How is this possible?" She picked up a mushroom, sniffed it appreciatively, and put it on her plate. "We have to plan the schedule," she told him. "Tring and I will be traveling and I want to see how my home planet has changed over the centuries. It will take careful calculation and planning." Destination, on the day he comes back, we will come back here to meet him." "if--" Casey swallowed back what he hadn't said.She paled, but after a while she gave us a stiff smile and asked the robot to bring her another order of mushrooms.These mushrooms had a name I had never heard, and tasted like bittersweet chocolate with a hint of ham.The meal is over.She left us with the robots. "1000 years!" grumbled Pippi, "I wish we had 'Nelloro' too." "Or something—" Casey turned to face the door. "There is news from you, Lu stood at the door and smiled at us, "There was good news from the colony spaceship, and some worried passengers were arranged to transfer to a new destination, freeing up some space.Paine has found a few spots for you. "