Chapter 8 Chapter Seven The Narrow Passage

Later that day, Colonel Paul Anders went to report to Austin Hood.Anders sat down uncomfortably on a metal chair. He saw his request to investigate the matter sitting on the shiny hardwood table, but he couldn't talk about it because Hood didn't Don't give him time. "Dude, it's been twenty-four hours since that CT planet played tricks on all the laws of nature, have you figured out anything?" Hood's eyes were fixed on him. "Barely, Mr. Hood." "Two fragments flew out, the small one was moving at an astonishing speed, and had already disappeared. The large one was also moving away from us at a speed of nearly fifty kilometers per second, and it could not resist the scorching heat. influence, keeping its own temperature close to absolute zero."

Hood's upper body leaned forward slightly, his cold eyes narrowed. "Do you know anything more about that little fragment?" "Nothing of value." Anders shrugged. "I've got two reports from the observation room. The first says it's moving fast in our direction. The second says it's passed Bale Star Star is millions of kilometers away, heading somewhere at a thousand kilometers per second, and then disappears. It's gone, and we can't catch up with it, our spacecraft can't go that fast. " "But I have a picture of it." The High Commissioner sat silent for a while, then said, "Perhaps you can tell me if this picture is useful. But before you look, I want to ask you a question. "

Anders nodded, but Hood hesitated. His face was expressionless, but there was a strange uneasy look in his eyes. "Please," Anders said. "Will there be—" Hood paused, his voice hoarse, "do you think there will be CT people?" "Oh?" Anders blinked, "Why?" "Is there such a possibility?" "There is a possibility in theory," Anders replied seriously, "Any kind of earth substance has its corresponding non-earth substance, and the latter also follow the same law and form the same compound. A CT planet only needs to With the right chemical and climatic conditions it would be entirely possible for CT life to evolve. However, such planets do not exist today. This is the theoretical explanation. The remains of the planet CT. In such a violent collision, nothing would survive. You wouldn't—" His voice suddenly became excited, "You can't find evidence of life in CT, can you?"

"Come and see what this is?" Hood lowered his head and opened a drawer of his desk, and took out a thin roll of film and a sophisticated stereoscope.With fat, clumsy fingers, he carefully unrolls the film in front of the camera. "Here's a film from your friend, Colonel Franz van Falkenberg." Hood grinned slightly. He was ordered to keep an eye on the two rock rats—Drake and Mackey's. He was heading back to Albania. His observers saw a flash of light behind the ship and saw the speeding debris heading toward They went away. So he ordered the Perseus ship to turn around and intercept it, and he took a picture of it. This will give you a look at what that piece of debris looks like."

Anders stood up eagerly to get the scope. "Careful!" Hood warned. "The film cost the company a hundred thousand dollars." "A lot of money." "But you'll find it's a worthwhile trade." "Didn't Van Falkenberg sell it to Interstellar?" "Of course not." Hood smiled again, clearly pleased with what he was doing. "He's still playing that old game. He should have taken it to Guards Headquarters right away for us all to see, But he wants to take care of the Martians first." "That's natural." Anders nodded.

"He landed on Albania, ordered his men to keep quiet, and sent the film on commercial lightwaves to a lawyer here in town who was employed by the Martian government. The lawyer was going to send the film to The Martians, but our people received a tip from the spy we placed on the 'Persius' spacecraft. Mr. Vickers sent someone to buy the film from the lawyer." Hood couldn't help pursing his lips He chuckled, "In this way, we got the film, and Van Falkenberg is still waiting for his secret order from the Martian High Commissioner on Planet Albania." Anders took the scope and flipped the switch, making it work.He first saw a few small stars hanging in a dark and silent space, and suddenly, a shiny thing hung upside down.He squinted to make out its shape carefully.

"A needle!" he whispered, "a gold needle—broken." The X-scope buzzes and holds the film closer to the lens.The golden needle shone in the sunlight, and seemed to be very close to the stars.The tip of the slender, golden cone was broken off, and the breaks were jagged. "Hi!" He held his breath, and a figure came into view: an astronaut in a bulky space suit, hanging motionless behind the long thin tube.The man is too close to the golden needle and pushes it towards the camera, making it appear very large.Anders estimated it was about a hundred meters long and five meters wide at the break.

"It's a clear shot, isn't it?" said Hood. "Van Falkenberg was lucky indeed, and of course that luck belongs to us now. By the time that thing passed the Purseus, he had his men ready Alright a speed camera." The camera pans away from the man and onto the golden needle. "Look carefully!" Hood's voice suddenly became hoarse, as if he was approaching something terrible, "See if there is anything that can prove it is a CT." "There will be no evidence." Anders shook his head. "Every characteristic of the earth's matter will be reproduced in the CT matter. The CT people will look like us, of course, in theory. The difference is , CT people cannot survive in the Earth's atmosphere."

"Look again," Hood said hoarsely, "tell me what you see." Anders took a closer look and found that the needle was hollow, and that there was a spiral channel in the metal, and the armrests on both sides were shiny.There was something wrong with the passage and the railing, he thought.He stared at them in bewilderment for a while, before he suddenly realized that the sloping passage was surprisingly narrow, and the handrail was extremely high. "The passageway and the handrail—it wasn't made for humans," he cried lowly. "Is that why you think it's a CT?"

"Go on," Hood said. Anders stared at the camera, and the golden needle with the broken tip rushed straight at him, very fast.Just as it was about to hit the camera, a bullet hit it - and there was a sudden white light in the lens, and nothing else was visible. "No problem—" Anders suddenly paused, "That's CT." He looked at it for a while, and the white light slowly turned red, and then disappeared.A large hole appeared on the golden needle, which was the result of a violent reaction with the earth's iron in the bullet.Then, the needle flashed past the camera, spinning farther and farther away.

"What do you think?" Hood asked impatiently. "Unbelievable!" Anders put down the perspective glass blankly.He stood there staring at the mirror-like table top, trying to organize his thoughts, "But that thing must be CT." "Is it made by CT organisms?" "Probably," Anders said, "or maybe human-made—on that CT chassis that Rick Drake's always dreamed of." "Do you think so?" "I don't know what to think." Ender touched his chin and said, "Even if there were CT creatures on that planet, I don't understand how their works can be preserved for such a long time. But I don't understand either. Why would humans build something like that, the passage in the middle of it is so weird." "Either of the two conjectures is true," said Hood gloomily. "Either way, it's not good for Interstellar. We must act—and fast!" "I'm ready." Ender glanced at the application form on the table, "The weird spire has disappeared, but I want to investigate another fragment—the larger fragment that runs in the opposite direction .Its speed is not that amazing, a high-speed patrol ship can catch up to it in five or six days if it starts now. I think the first people who get there will find some interesting things." His The voice became urgent. "If you'll send me ahead, ahead of Van Falkenberg—" Hood waved his hand, and interjected, "Let's not talk about this now. I want to ask your opinion on another piece of material, which is the recording material sent by our telephone monitoring station. Robo McKee has been bombing since the last explosion today. A call was made to Rick Drake near the place where it happened. Drake didn't answer, and I don't know what Mackey means, so I want to hear your opinion." He turned on the tape recorder on the table sideways. "Hello, Rick." Mackey's gentle voice was very subtle in the noise of electromagnetic waves, "Have you decided to leave Interstellar Corporation and join us?" Anders stood there listening in amazement to what Mackey had to say.Rick Drake was about to pack up and leave because there was a chassis model waiting and a race with a Colonel Ann to see who would get there first.The latest will be the earliest, and the earliest will be the latest.Rick better not talk back. "Colonel Ann," Hood said with mocking light in his cold eyes, "what do you think?" "I guess that means we have to deal with them," Anders said grimly. "These damned rock rats! I don't believe they could have developed a useful CT chassis, but they weren't re-orbiting the CT planet. What did they find on the planet? Maybe it was something made by those CT creatures in the past, maybe it was the golden needle-like tower, or they may have found a real CT chassis." A smile flitted across his face. "Now I think you'll have to send me a ship to track that thing down." "The new patrol ship 'Golden Eagle'," Hood said with a smile, "is comparable to Van Falkenberg's Purseus. It's just been completed on Burroughs II. You can choose what you trust people to serve as crew members.” "I trust myself?" Anders grinned. "You mean, behind the trusteeship government?" Hood couldn't help but blush. "We must first be loyal to our company and the planet, and sometimes we will inevitably betray the trusteeship government. You know the situation of the guard very well." Anders nodded, because he did know the inside story of the high-level Space Guard.The members of the Guard come from Earth, Venus, Mars, and the Moon, and the Space Treaty requires them to swear allegiance to the Trusteeship, but they all work for the benefit of their own planet. "Your official orders will be issued shortly," Hood said gravely. "You will be assigned to CT Patrol to investigate the circumstances of this sudden collision. You may take any action necessary to defend space." Railroads and inhabited planets. Of course, Van Falkenberg wants the mission too, but we can manage to keep him on Albania for a few more days." "Let him sit and wait for the order." Anders nodded knowingly, "while we tracked down the fragment and brought the CT chassis back." "But you must remember that this may be a trap." The senior commissioner put the X-ray film back into the drawer and locked it, "I hope you will conduct a secret investigation on Albania and Liberty Star before tracking down the fragment. .” Anders frowned suspiciously: "If we delay any longer, we will lose this competition." "Don't forget that the latest will be the earliest." Hood smiled softly, "As long as you can figure out what the **** rock rat is doing, we will have the upper hand. On Albania , There are two people you have to investigate." Hood looked at a notepad on the desk. "One is an asteroid girl named Ann O'Brien who works for Drake and Mackey. The other is her father who used to hang out with the Free Space Party. If you investigate them with CT Study any discontent concerning or inflaming the Asteroids, and immediately send them both to prison on Burroughs IV." "Yes, sir." "And to find out what the metallurgical lab that Drake and Mackey built on Liberty Star is. Van Falkenberg can't get through the CT cloud they spread around Liberty Star, but the girl Should know how to get in and out." "I'll figure it out." "There's one more person on my list, Rick Drake," Hood said, looking at his notepad. "But I know Rick," Anders pleaded, "and he's been working really hard to come up with a workable CT chassis pattern for us. I don't think he's going to be involved in any kind of conspiracy." "But Karen said he's changed his mind." Hood's fat face was expressionless, "and he did answer the call. Maybe he's packed up and ready to go find that CT chassis. We're going to He's detained here and watched carefully."