Chapter 8 chapter eight

After the probe crashed, the screen on the roof went dark.Seconds later, it re-displayed the image of the new nebula.The abandoned "ghost" ship is zoomed in and hangs high above us, flaming silhouette against the Milky Way. "You saw it!" Casey yelled at Paine, "There's something green there, and something alive!" Paine frowned and shook his head.  "I did see a brief green flash, but that was a malfunction when the probe crashed." "It's green," Kathy insisted. "Don't they want to send someone to look at it?" "There's no time for that."

"But if there's life on that island—" "How is this possible?" He suddenly lost his patience. "We saw the entire planet is dead, and the thing that destroyed the planet destroyed the probe before it reached the surface. The captain will not risk any contact. .” "If she can let us replace Lu—" Kathy waited for Pippi and I to nod in agreement, "we can report back by radio." "Let you go up to die?" Pan En's eyes widened. "She cherishes life very much, and she would never consider doing this." "Don't you think we don't want to live anymore? Please tell her that we were cloned to keep the earth and humanity alive. But at the same time, we were cloned to wait to die. If we have to die, I can't think of There is a better way."

Paine took us up to Captain Willis and translated for us.Our meeting was brief, but I still saw a spark of humanity beneath her glowing red scales.I don't know what Panth told her, but it did interest her.She asked him about Tycho Station and our lives there. "You like that?" Her large green eyes peered at us uneasily. "Life without 'Nelloro'? Knowing that I'm going to die someday?" "We know." Casey nodded. "I don't want to discuss this in detail." "I admire your dedication," she said, wrinkling her forehead covered in crimson scales, "but the science officer reports no convincing evidence of any life on the planet. I cannot waste your lives."

"We trusted our eyes," Casey said. "In the last second before the probe crashed, we did see signs of life. It was a gamble, but we were prepared." "The stakes are too high." She looked at Paine, her brows were furrowed, and she finally nodded her head covered in red scales, "I agree with you landing." There are no spacesuits on board for us.That's okay, Casey said, the suit didn't protect the pilot aboard the derelict ship.Through Paine's translation, the robot assistant showed Pippi how to operate the landing module, a small, streamlined spaceship much like the "glider" that took Paine to the moon.Paine shook our hands and wished us luck.

"Act quickly," he said to us. "Captain Willis is not expecting good news from you. In fact, after you have landed, I don't think we will have any news. Our next destination It's still being discussed, no planet looks safe, or to everyone's satisfaction, but we can't delay any longer." Pippi did act fast and we found out that the island was green. As we descend, a thin cloud of dust rises from the shallow sea surrounding the island, a vast expanse of azure water that fades to a vibrant bright green through hundreds of shades of emerald and turquoise.That island is the bowl-shaped caldera of a gigantic, ancient volcano.Low hills surround a circular valley with a small blue lake in the middle.A row of green trees shows the river rushing from the crack of the canyon and flowing from the lake to the sea.

"Kathy?" Paine's crisp voice came over the radio before we touched the ground, "Pippi? Duncan? Please call back." "Talk back!" Kathy grinned at Pippi as he landed the lander on a beach that looked like coral sand, "Anyway, it looks much better than our little crater on the moon. " Pippi repeated his words: "Yes, anyway." "Tell him we're opening the airlock," Casey said, "and if we can breathe air, we'll head inland." Pippi opened the airlock.I held my breath until I couldn't hold it anymore before taking a deep breath.The air was very refreshing, but I felt a slight tingle of acridity, and my eyes immediately felt like they were burning.Pippi sneezed and covered her nose with a handkerchief.Kathy coughed a few times and stared at us sharply.

"Can you report?" Paine's anxious voice came over the radio, "Can you breathe?" Kathy coughed and wheezed. "Yes," he said breathlessly, "we're still breathing." I feel like we're inhaling pathogens, I don't know the pilot who died on the derelict spaceship, or the thousands of people it killed.I don't personally feel sorry for them, but Pippi and Kathy are almost a part of my life.I put my arms around them.We hugged, sneezing and panting until Pippi laughed and pushed us away. "If it's death, it's not too bad." He scratched my armpit. "Let's go out and take a closer look."

We staggered out of the airlock and stood on the hard, wet sand next to the landing module, panting and looking around.The sky was a fuzzy pink, with two suns like small, squinting red eyes and twinkling pink sparks on the other.The beach slopes down to a low green hill, about half a mile to the south, where lush woods cover the delta at the mouth of the river.Pippi picked up a piece of seaweed left by the tide. "It's still green," he scrutinized, sniffling. "It smells fresh." My lungs are on fire.Every breath, I thought, could be the last, yet I struggled with the next breath.Pippi dropped the handkerchief, went back to the landing pod and moved it over the beach, well away from the sea level.He brought back a portable radio.Kathy gasped again, and started walking down the beach to the delta south.We followed him, and it was easier to breathe as we walked.

The creek is cut between two massive cliffs of black basalt.Before we reached the cliff, Kathy stopped and looked up at the nearest rock, frowning.I looked over to the rock and took a deep breath.The summit of the cliff was carved into a face, and the giant's unfinished head was outlined in the rock. "Paine!" Casey took a few steps closer, staring up at the huge black face, "It's Paine's face." "That's right," Pippi covered his eyebrows with his hands, and whispered, "If it's not Paine, unless we're all crazy." I couldn't help sneezing again, wondering what the dust would do to us.

Paine called us again from the spaceship, but Pippi seemed too surprised to speak: a rope ladder hung from the statue's face and dropped down to the beach.The huge black stone statue was staring at the sky, with a mischievous smile carved out of the corner of its mouth, which was undoubtedly Paine's face. "We're fine," Pippi's hoarse voice came from the headset, "still breathing." We approached the cliff and found a narrow cave.Inside a raised ledge sheltered a long workbench hewn from undecorated wood, and a foundry bench with pedal-operated bellows, a basket of charcoal, a heavy anvil, and a long shelf Crude hammers, chisels, and drilling equipment are jumbled about.

"Sculptor's workshop." Kathy stepped back, stepping over a heap of glassy black debris on the gravel, stone chips from a chisel. "Who is that sculptor?" When Paine called again, he reached out and pressed Pippi's mouth. "Tell him not to let the ship go. Tell him we're alive and on our way to the island, and tell him we've found humans, or good evidence of them. But don't talk about that face unless We found something that would convince Captain Willis." We strode toward the interior of the island, following the flat path along the shore.The canyon widened and we emerged between two neatly spaced rows of trees laden with bright red fruit. "Cherry!" Pippi yelled, "Cherry! It's a cherry orchard!" He plucked a handful and shared it among us, and it was unbelievably sour and sweet.We then passed an apple orchard, and rows of peach and pear trees, all laden with unripe fruit.Farther on we found a garden, irrigated by a narrow ravine drawing water from the river.The garden was filled with tomato vines, yams, squash, peas, and plump green corn. Kea held her breath and stopped.I looked over his shoulder and saw a man—a man who might have been a replica of Paine—crossing the path toward us. "Paine?" His anxious voice was almost identical to Paine's, though the accent sounded a bit odd. "Pane?" We waited, and we almost forgot to breathe when he came.He had the same clean appearance, the same smooth brown fur on top of his head, the same impish face with golden pupils.He paused to watch us, visibly disappointed, and when he saw Pippi's radio, he pointed to it abruptly. Pippi handed him the radio.His hands trembled, and he called out eagerly.The other Paine answered him impatiently, in a breathless voice.Their excited words were as incomprehensible to me as their silent communication after they calmed down, but I could read their emotions—surprise, fear—from the weather-beaten face of this strange Paine. , hope, and tears of joy. Finally, the Paine on the ship finally made time to talk to us. "You have found my brother. For the convenience of addressing, you can call him Clough. Captain Willis is ready to jump to the edge of the galaxy. Because she believed what you said, she risked the destruction of the spaceship and postponed to set off, but Roksha asked her to provide solid evidence, and I had to see my brother, so she agreed to let me land..." Clough beckoned, and we followed him along the mountain road until we could see the lake and the collapsed building on the top of the mountain in the distance.The building must have been impressive before, but now the roof has collapsed and all that remains is bare stone walls, dilapidated doors and windows, and darkness.We stopped in front of his unusually modest living room, with a thatched roof, a floor of bare wood, and a stone wall behind it.We sat at a table under the thatched roof and waited for Paine.Clough poured us a cherry sprinkle from a black clay jug and stood waiting, his eyes fixed on the distant sky. Paine landed on the grass in front of the residence in his silver landing pod.Clough ran out to meet him, and they stopped to stare at each other, touch each other, and hold each other's hands tightly.They embraced, then stood away again, looking at each other's faces for a long time, and I couldn't hear a word they said.The two cried and laughed and hugged again until finally Paine wiped his wet eyes and turned to us. "I saw—saw that head," he choked up, pausing to clear his throat, and gazed at Clough's face again, as if to make sure he was real, "it must be my face, although at first I thought it was his. He's been here for almost two hundred years, hiding from pathogens. Since there was no way to find me, he said, he had to hide in the mountains." A cough made Paine bow down.Clough held his arm until he could straighten up, then turned to face us gravely. "We were coughing," Pippi said, "sneezing constantly and having difficulty breathing. We thought we were infected with a deadly pathogen." "Some variant of it, that's what my brother said. But this variant is benign, and he says it saved you." We don't ask anymore.They put us aside and stood together for a long time without a word until they both laughed and hugged again.Finally Paine wiped away his tears and turned to us. "The pathogen spread here two hundred years ago. Clough knows no more about its origin or history than we do. He has invented a new 'Nelloro' and is testing for immunity. This 'Nelloro' Also something I've been wanting to develop, maybe some sort of quantum effect, extended contact: not fully tested, but the new 'Nelloro' does make him immune. It's too late to save the rest of the planet , but it did clear the pathogen off the island." Captain Willis is a diehard skeptic who fears contamination.She refused Paine to take his brother aboard the ship, or even allow Paine to return on his own.But she landed the ship's lieutenant with a small group of desperate volunteers, including Rorxia and some passengers who were still feuding over their new destination, to see the thriving island for themselves. They walked down the landing module tremblingly, their faces pale.A barrage of coughs and sneezes made their faces paler until they saw Clough and heard the news of their new immune system. To prove his survival, the ship's lieutenant drew a vial of Clough's blood and injected it into his arm with a syringe.The ship's lieutenant, still breathing, was not entirely convinced, and wished to see Clough's laboratory. Clough led us to visit the ruins on the top of the hill.Pathogens break down woodwork and plastic, leaving only bare rock and rebar.An earthquake knocked down a wall without a roof, but the isolation chamber remained intact.It's a huge closed concrete box with airlocks between heavy steel doors. The black hatch was stained with rust, and when it was opened, it was pitch black inside.He struck the steel with a flint to light the tinder, then lit a torch, and led us in.The room was empty save for discarded equipment strewn across the workbench and a thick layer of harmless gray dust on the floor. We found nothing to reveal the structure of his new "Neroro", nor how its wind-carried spores could make us sneeze and keep us safe. When Pippi worked up the courage to ask whether the infection would make us immortal, Clough responded with an ambiguous shrug. "At least the dust didn't kill us," Casey said. "That's good enough for us." Spaceship officials brought a vial of Clough's healing blood back to the ship.Captain Willis agrees to keep the ship in orbit. Rokshaw took his engineers to the island to take measurements and set up settlements on high ground farther from the lake. Travelers pack their luggage and boxes of goods and prepare to plant their future on the island.Clough assured them that the red dust would make fertile soil. He decided to stay here with them.