Chapter 6 chapter Five

"Visiting?" Quinn replied. "Visit us?" A drop of hot star mist flashed in Clay's trembling hand, and fell on the instrument, turning into bright red beads. "What does that mean?" "It's hard to tell." He shook his head in bewilderment, and turned to look at the dark night in the distance. "They noticed us. But I didn't know—" He stood for a long time with blank eyes, then raised his hand and inhaled the star mist. "What are they doing?" Quinn also felt the tension. "What can they do?" "I think they are just curious, just like us." He turned around slowly, and the red shadows on his bare head changed. "I hope they'll let us stay, and maybe help us. But I'm afraid Carbon is right, and they might want to kill us too."

A kind of hope suddenly rose in Quinn, and his heart couldn't help beating.Enemy or friend, these space strangers are sure to make Jannott a place of importance again.More ships will come.Someone like him who is familiar with the aperture is useful to Empire of the Sun.If he is lucky, these aliens may be able to open up a golden road for him to go back to the sun! Clay shouted, and Carbon rushed out of the tunnel quickly.He's getting fatter now, and he can't catch his breath when he runs.Time and wine had changed him, turning his thinning hair gray, his oily skin wrinkled, black bags of flesh bulging under his sleepy eyelids.He blinked a few times at Clay.

"What happened?" "Probe light, Captain, from the stars, spying on us." "Damn it! Those fellows killed my poor Leonard." He was worried that the spacecraft or missiles of the aliens had already aimed at the aperture station, so he ordered all communication on the station to stop immediately in order to accurately measure the place where the alien signal was sent. "That won't work, Captain." Clay disagreed. "No echo time—" "We should know the direction." "But there is no way of knowing the distance." "How Far One"

"God knows?" Clay shrugged and glanced at Carbon. "The signal is very weak, not much stronger than the signal of our detection light at a few hundred AU away. If the alien station is strong enough, it should be at 1000 AU away." "But those guys are about to--coming!" Under the dome of the observation deck, the poor captain looked old and vulnerable in the dark red. "They're done tearing up the Spica, and they're coming at us again—" He stopped and looked at Quinn. "If Jason Kirwan actually finds monsters on Spika—" "Quin said he didn't notice."

"Well, I know he's lying." Carbon turned and stared anxiously beyond the gloomy stars. "But I just feel that those guys are lurking around us." "Possibly, Captain," Clay agreed. "As soon as we turn off the lights, we won't be able to see anything." "Close it then," he said hastily. "I will open it after I ask the flight command to send a battleship up." "Captain, do we really need a battleship?" Clay said softly, trying to take care of Carbon's emotions. "I mean, aliens haven't come here to hurt us yet. Maybe they want peace—"

"Go to hell, what peace are you talking about, they killed my son! You want us to sit here unarmed, waiting for these inhuman monsters to manipulate us, don't you?" "We're not unarmed, Captain," Clay retorted, still softly. "We have detection lasers capable of destroying things thousands of kilometers away—" "Things?" Carbon snorted. "We are not dealing with things. They will come in warships and attack us as they attacked the Spica!" He stopped arguing, and immediately sent a signal to the flight command, requesting to send troops to guard Jannot and confront the aliens.While waiting for the signal to reach the sun and return, he put the aperture station on full alert, turned off the detection laser, let the radar and reflectors search for incoming enemies at all times, and kept asking Clay for information about aliens.

"Still there, Captain." Now Quinn stayed with Clay on the dome observation platform all day long, and he listened to this short observation report no less than dozens of times. "There are regular pulses, but I don't know what they mean. It may be from 1000AU away, and it may come from a place. Do you understand?" Carbon waited in the observation deck every time the sun rose.There was no news from Sun Empire for several days in a row, and there was still no news after another few days.As night fell on this day, Kaben left disappointed, but the printer jingled and typed out the news.

"That's it!" Clay, who was setting up the scanning program, yelled out when he saw the news. "Your friend Jason Cowan is coming to Aperture again!" Quinn felt first a wave of hatred, then joy.Now he is mature and much wiser.With this second chance to fight Jason, maybe he can win a point.At least, he won't be a big fool anymore. "I didn't expect him to come," he said. "He knew perfectly well that we didn't meet any monsters on the wreck." "Maybe his career needs another monster." Clay squinted at the flashing red light on the control panel, a mocking smile on his face. "He's got a new title, Commander Aperture. He's coming in a clipper ship, taking over, and taking Carbon's place in dealing with the aliens. Before he arrives, he's asking us to be on our guard, keep quiet, turn off the probe lights, Do not communicate with aliens, only send basic signals to the flight command.”

"Remove me!" Carbon frowned when Clay handed the typed document to Carbon. "However, as long as he can defeat those savage aliens and avenge my son, I don't care. Before he arrives, we must strengthen our precautions!" "How to guard against it, Captain? We can't see anything." "Using a telescope, inspect the aperture." "Can't see it," Clay muttered. "The planet is rushing towards us, we can't see it at all, and when we see it, it will have knocked the stars away." So they waited for Jason Cowan, or the aliens.They stared at the red dots on the instruments, at the extraterrestrial sky.But they found nothing, only the faint and mysterious pulse of laser light.Are aliens hunting them?Or are you searching for planets on the far side of the sun?Is that aliens talking to each other, or calling humans?Quinn couldn't help thinking wildly when he was free.During the long, empty nights, when Clay was on his shift with him, they talked about possible aliens, about Jason Cowan.

"Don't fight against him, child." Through the fragrant star fog, he said softly. "I know he lied to you, but now he's grown up. He's Commander Aperture and has the means to get us new engines and build a base so we can keep exploring." "What he did to me, I can't forget." "Small intolerance can lead to big schemes, child. The most important thing is the aperture—" "Not to me." Quinn said bluntly. "I'm going to the side of the sun, I'm going to do my best." "You show that you're still a fool by doing that."

"Maybe, but I just want to go."' "If only you'd ever been to the town I grew up in..." He shrugged sadly. "Humans have a problem. People are too smart about the nature that created themselves. Really, boy, they kill lions, hunt whales, and destroy wilderness. And yet, they're not smart enough to survive here. "Unless they let us lead the way." "If many people come up—" Quinn shook his head worriedly. "Isn't it the same here as on the other side of the sun?" "No, child, it won't." Clay spat out a mouthful of star mist. "Because the aperture is different. Space is a million times larger than Earth, and spread out so widely that nothing can destroy it all.The Aperture Law of Survival also makes people different. " Quinn listened quietly to his explanation. "On Earth, people must learn its cruel laws of survival. They must live, reproduce and fight like animals in the primeval forest, otherwise they will not survive. And under the laws of aperture, as I imagine, people must learn to Education, respect for neighbors, respect for the whole ecosystem. We can do it, boy, some of us can, if we're smart enough and brave enough to try." "Perhaps," he whispered. "If aliens—" He paused, looking towards the night full of planets. "If aliens let us live here." "I'm sure they will," Clay said. "They have evolved in the Aura for so many years, they must have learned its laws. Remember, as long as we don't attack them, they have never actively harmed us. I think we should trust them." "But Kowan and the Sun Empire will never trust them." "If they don't trust, that's their worst misfortune," said Clay solemnly. "If Jason came and attacked the astronauts, I'm sure he'd regret it." Clay took a deep breath of star mist, leaned over and grabbed Quinn's arm. "Listen, boy. We have a golden opportunity in front of us. But we have a lot of trouble before we can really get started, so we need you very much. We have few people and a lot to do. Think about it ,child." "I—I'm sorry, Clay," he stammered. "That's just your dream, but I have my own plan." Jason Cowan set off from Kodobosi, and the spaceship he commanded was called Sun Covan, which is the latest model of the Covan series of spaceships. Its acceleration is three times that of Alderballen, and it only takes four months to fly to the aperture.Quinn and Clay were standing in the dome when the ship arrived.The spaceship is silvery white, and it hasn't been stained by solar protoplasm, so it looks very clean. It slowly slid down on a piece of orange-yellow plastic.When Carbon led Jason into the dome, Quinn remained at his post. At first glance, Jason was still the same, and Quinn felt a pang of bitter anger.He was wearing a shiny black flight suit, neat and tidy, with a black-edged sun disc on the collar to identify him.His thick nose made him appear as majestic as ever, but he was also a bit dashing.His brass-colored hair flew back, his mustache was neatly trimmed, and his green eyes were as prominent as his golden sunmark. He didn't recognize Quinn. "Master, do you still remember Deen?" Carbon smiled all over his face, as if he had forgotten his dislike for him before. "He went with you to that wreck." "Dern?" Jason stared at him. "I thought you were dead." "Thanks to you, I'm not dead yet." "Sorry." Jason said very casually, while reaching out to him. "If you want to be suitable at that time, I will let you come back by emergency boat." "You said, you saw me dead," Quinn revealed his old background. "Killed by aliens." "Oh, that's just political necessity." Jason shrugged.His smile is still as charming as ever.Quinn finally shook his hand. "I got these on our adventure." He touched the sun disc on his collar. "I understand that I owe you, Dern. I want to pay this debt. Come to my boat and have a drink or two, and let's have a good chat." "Thanks," Quinn muttered under his breath. "If I do die—" After a while, however, he tried to look at Jason on the bright side.He has grown up, maybe he is really different from before.Now that he is powerful and powerful in the Kirwan Building, he will return to the Sun's side. The next day, Quinn boarded the Solar Kovan and asked to meet with the Commander.A junior officer asked him to wait in the main cabin for a while.He had never seen such a luxurious place.Just as he bent down to touch a glossy table top with novel patterns, he heard Jason's pleasant greeting, which made him jump up like a thief. "Welcome, Dern!" Jason rushed into the room gracefully. He liked the weak gravity here.He slid over to shake Quinn's hand with a big smile on his face, and sat down on the pretty table between them. "Made of hardwood." He nodded at the table. "I guess you haven't seen it here. How about a strong drink?" "Row." Quinn smiled awkwardly, feeling mixed feelings for a moment.Whether it's envy, awe, or fear, he is the son of a giant, lives in Skynet, and has seen everything in the world.Seeing the extraordinary charm he showed inadvertently, Quinn just wanted to forget the bad things Jason had done to him. "It was my first bottle of hard liquor," he admitted, "distilled by a pharmacist from what he called drinking liquor, but I thought it was too nasty." A waiter brought the wine, and Quinn took a swig, which made him want to cough, but fought back.An imperceptible smile flickered on the corner of Jason's mouth, but it disappeared quickly. "Then let's get straight to the point—" Jason looked at him with a sly look in his green eyes. "Today I spent a lot of time discussing those laser signals with Old Carbon. What do you think these signals mean?" "We met intelligent animals." he said. "Like the one we caught. They were staring at us when we looked for them. Clay doesn't think they're hostile. But what are they and what are they—" He shook his head. "I can't tell." "I must find out." Jason picked up his glass.Quinn saw that his nails were manicured, brighter than the sun mark on his face. "I have issued an order to replace the aperture equipment, cancel Carbon's position, and investigate the details of the aliens. I plan to go out to confirm the origin of these pulses." The green eyes were squinting slightly, staring straight at him. "Do you want to go?" This question is more important than hard liquor. "Think about it, Dern. I can't take everyone with me when I leave Codo, and now I need a fission engineer. Your friend Ulu doesn't want to go, and he says you can go, although you haven't got it A specialized degree." Jason took a step closer to him. "If you still want the sun mark—" His heart was pounding, but he couldn't help shaking his head. "Forget it." He said softly. "I've had enough." "I apologized to you." Jason waved his repaired hand casually, as if he wanted to brush away the anxiety in his heart. "Forget about the past, boy. We were all dumbfounded back then. That trip was like a crazy stunt.As it stands now, I think both of us are lucky. " "Lucky for you." "I did it right then." Jason threw his hair back triumphantly. "Now I want you to share a little bit of my luck." He managed a small smile. "I remember, when you wanted to go to the side of the sun." "Now—I still want to go!" Quinn blurted out. "at all costs…… Oh, not everything..." "Then stay with me on the spaceship." Jason pointed to the starry sky outside the window with his shining fingers. "Let's go find aliens together. If there was a fight, we'd have rockets, missiles, and lasers—" Quinn sat preoccupied and said nothing. "Speak up, kid." Jason took another step closer, friendly with a little urgency. "If you think I have wronged you, I will make up for it now. Go back to Kodo, and I will send someone to get you the sun mark immediately!" "How can I trust you—" The scene on the small spaceship appeared again in his mind.He was choking to death in the smoke from the burning main magnet, but Jason escaped in the emergency boat, leaving him alone to die.Thinking of this, he shook his head vigorously. The smile on Jason's face disappeared. "Listen, boy!" His thin voice grew cold. "If you don't go, you won't get the sun mark. I'm the next giant, I have the final say!" "Thank you—" Quinn pushed the table away, his voice suddenly hoarse and trembling. "Then I will refuse even more." "You see for yourself, boy. If you want to stay on the snow and don't want the sun-mark, it's up to you. But I say, you're a fool!" "Maybe—maybe I'm just a fool." "Big fool! Kid, big fool!" Jason rang the bell, signaling the waiter to escort him off the boat.Behind him came Jason's mocking voice. "If you make me go back and report you dead again, you'll never be able to say I'm lying." The equipment was moved down from the Sun Kewan one after another, and six or seven new faces came to replace the employees who had expired on the station.Among them was a new signal officer, and an engineer.The engineer's name was Tony Cafodio, a thin, dark man whose father had been a sea captain.Quinn took him aboard the Capala to meet Jomo.He only glanced at the dilapidated engines, and immediately yelled angrily. "Good work by Kowan!" His black eyes seemed to burst into flames. "When my father saw this pile of scrap iron, he asked people to throw it away for 15 years!" He looked at Jomo pitifully and surprised. "You still entrust your lives—our lives—to these scrap metal?" "We'll fix it if it's broken," Jomo said with a grin. "As long as it can be repaired, everything will be safe." "This machine can still be repaired? What a miracle!" "That's called," Jomo said with a serious face, "I would rather die for freedom." "I don't understand what you're saying." He nodded indifferently. "However, compared to Olaf Thorsen's new engines—" "Thorsen?" Quinn stared at him. "You are thousands of miles away, have you heard of him?" "He married my mother." "Aha?" He winked at Quinn. "I've never heard that Naya Dern has a son. But I actually worked with Thorsen and worked on plasma polaroids for the Kirvan series of spaceships. It's a lot more advanced than this pile of rotten copper and iron." A hundred years. Thorsen is a genius, if he masters solar politics—” "Is he in trouble?" "We're all in trouble." His face darkened. "Everyone on the other side of the sun is in trouble. I used to hear my father talk about his trip to the Aperture, and I always wanted to come up here." He bit his lip and shook his head at the engines. "It seems that I don't quite understand that you have many problems here, too." Jason Kirwan immediately flew to the starry sky after loading the reactive substances.Standing in the dome together with Clay, Quinn watched the Sun Kewan quickly disappear into the dark sky, feeling an indescribable sense of depression and helplessness.The aperture station seemed to suddenly become very small, and he yearned for a vast sea and sky. When the news came, it was neither late at night nor Jason.Quinn was preparing to take Clay on duty at that time.The signal is tracking the transfer station on the side of the sun.The receiver beeped, and flight command sent a message.The censors had added the code, and they had to wait for the cardboard to come and put it in the decoder. Clay slowly opened his mouth as Carbon read and sent the message. "They've bypassed us—" The printout trembled between his fingers. "Another alien captured. A different kind than last time, much more solid. Captured by the Conqueror Neptune Fleet. It followed a supply ship and flew close to the aperture station, scout ship berth and radio reflector. The The alien has silver-white scales and moves like a fish, so they call it the Skyfish." "They stunned it with a laser and then dragged it aboard. It was defenseless, but it survived. They took it back to Kodo on a supply ship." Carbon stopped and stared at the dark starry sky in the distance.He was unshaven and looked older and frailer than ever. "This all happened a few months ago. According to my calculations, it was around the time that Commander Kirvan came here to pass the Conquer Neptune Fleet. The censors are investigating, and the linguists are trying to interrogate it." Quinn wondered if his mother was among them. "How did it get there?" Clay asked. "What spaceship did you take?" "Without elaborating, it can be seen that the flight command was shocked. Based on the fact that we received the alien message, and that the Solar Kovan was unaware of it, they were sure that we were about to be attacked." "Will they send reinforcements?" Carbon looked weaker and shook his head. "They plan to evacuate the aperture and close the aperture station. The order given to me is: pack up and prepare for evacuation. Captain Vera Brunn is on standby on the Mars Kirvan and is here to pick us up." At the Nuclear Star Observatory, Xiyanggen did not make much progress on the few surviving planetary bipeds.These things were surprisingly weak and self-destructive, which was beyond her comprehension.Most of them are too stupid, too weak, or too fierce to communicate intellectually at all.The only exception was a tall male - whenever he tried to talk to her, his companions brutally punished him. They kept him outside the cage (they did weird things inside the cage), yelled at him when he was left alone, and sometimes even threw unwanted food at him or showered him with piss.One woman was so devoted to him that they hid together in his own little cage, unlatching the door only for language lessons.For Xiyanggen, these language classes are purely painful torture.When these guys speak, they create sound vibrations in the toxic atmosphere they need, with corrosive oxygen spouts under intolerable pressure, and the heat is oppressive. However, she gritted her teeth and persisted.The language class went so smoothly that even the woman came to the class.When she comprehends a grunt or a scream, she slams her forelegs, sending the already superheated gas whirling and vibrating. Her mates need a unique kind of rest and copulation activity every day of the night.She was always troubled by such times, for the natural tyranny of her companions kept them tossing and turning in the dark.One night the poor woman died. After dawn, Xiyanggen found that the door bolt was broken, and both of them were beaten with iron bars.The man's body was floating in the poisonous gas, and he almost died due to the excessive loss of some vital body fluids. Like all primitives, he rebelled.The cage was splashed with liquid, making it a mess.The other five men and two women were bruised and covered in wounds, suggesting that they were the killers. She found the body of the dead woman in another cage, and a crowd of guys were wailing around the body, very emotional.The body had been beaten and mutilated, with a metal bar in one eye. She moved the wounded male to a separate room and gave him fluids from his enemy's body.After finally regaining consciousness, he twice struggled to commit suicide, trying to use a razor blade to sever the fluid ducts in his forelegs. Despite the blinding light, the blistering heat, and the disgusting smell, she patiently returned to him again and again, persuading him to continue communicating with her.She brought him food and drink from planetary ships, and invented devices to convert her voice into air vibrations and his voice into light.She showed him Elder's artwork.Despite his frail body and mental retardation, her efforts finally paid off. She learned his language. he has a name.While the sonic form of the name is difficult to translate into light, he said the name is the same as a small wild animal in his native homeland.On the captured ship, he was a liaison.To her surprise again, his companion died, but he had no desire for revenge. "Don't hurt our people," he begged her. "Unless it is absolutely necessary. Right now they are living in fear and despair, so it's not all their fault." He told her that the planetary people had come in three ships, and only this one was captured.He was anxious to hear news of the others, and confessed that any captive would want to go back to his companions.Fearing that he would reveal the secret of their planned escape, his companions had resorted to violence against him. When he learned that two other ships had reached the inner edge of a small aperture and settled there, he begged to be sent there, and when she told him it was impossible, he once again struggled with suicide.She gave him some fluid from his companion, and told him she had been informed that another planetary ship was heading this way. "Our people!" He was trembling with joy. "Come take us home!" "We can't let you go," she told him. "Not yet." "Are you scared?" His joy made the air vibrate violently. "So you always avoid us?" She explained that the Council of Eld would never consider contacting the Planetary until it received her report, so she asked him to be patient.Unfortunately, planetary life is incredibly short, and it is impossible to keep them patient. "I'm getting old," he said. "Die day by day in your Elder discussions." She saw him sinking again.His skin was already wrinkled, and his hair was long and white, as was the hair on his face, because she had taken away the shaving tools he used to shave.She looked pitifully, and explained that it was not her intention to invite them into the Elder. "Nobody invited your ship to the Aperture," she told him. "It was you yourself who invaded and attacked us for no reason." "We're not here to invade." He trembled, his expression very frustrated. "We came to explore. We shot at your ship only because our personnel misunderstood your laser signal. We thought you were shooting at us." He kept begging, let him send a message to the coming spaceship.As the ship got closer, she convinced the director to grant the request.He was so excited that he shook his whole body, and sent a signal to the planet fellow.Said a lot of good things for Elder - she understood that he was hoping to be free. He kept saying that the fight in space had been caused entirely by a terrible misunderstanding.He and the rest of the ship were rescued and taken care of superbly, and the Aperture Man wanted to befriend all the planetary beings.The leader of the planetary people responded immediately, expressing regret for the conflict and hope for future friendship.He said he was curious to learn about the art and science of the Aperture civilization.In return, he promised to bring in large quantities of heavy metals and other products of the planet. So the director allowed the planetary spacecraft to continue to approach, and suddenly he saw laser guns and missile launchers lined up on the spacecraft.He immediately asked the planetary people to keep their distance until their promise of friendship was confirmed by Elder.Xiyanggen heard such a short answer. "It's unfortunate, Carbon, I have to wrong you. Maybe you think these weird snowballs are paradise, but we, Kowan, want to create our own human history." At first she didn't understand what it meant, but when the planetary people fired, she understood everything. Skyfish is an aperture animal captured in space and brought back to Kirwan's lab by Naya Durth.She has a beautiful body, weird movements, and developed intelligence, but she just doesn't speak.The body length is about two meters, the earth weighs 39 kilograms, and the body shape resembles a swimming fish or an elongated raindrop. The soles of the feet are like wings and can be retracted freely, and they are used as signal receivers for electronic communication.The tail is very thin, and it is estimated that organ superconductors are used as propellers.It is generally believed that this animal originated on the surface of a certain planet and gradually adapted to the aperture environment.