Chapter 17 Chapter 16 Iron Mushroom

No matter how the attacking ship disappeared, it did disappear. "Maybe it passed us and flew behind the big ship after a collision," Anders told Popov. "Fortunately, our ship was not damaged. You put everyone in your team on high alert." .If it doesn't come back, we'll land on that big ship." That spaceship never came back.Anders parked the Golden Eagle in its original position.He called Ann O'Barian and told her to wait for him by the main hatch.He then took the small elevator to the control room at the back. Popov turned around, his face beaded with sweat.

"A strange base!" he said. "Is there going to be a second attack, Colonel?" "I don't know," Anders replied, "I'll go scouting. You'll be in charge here while I'm not on board. You're supposed to wait here unless you're attacked again. If you're forced to leave, you'll Coming back, keep an eye out for the signal. No one is allowed to leave the ship, I will go alone, and Miss O'Brien." "Yes, sir." Popov chuckled gruffly. "Her pretty face isn't your passport to base camp, is it? What a recruit, Colonel! Those asteroid engineers and their Martians The companions armed their secret base with CT missiles no doubt. But you can knock them to the ground with a light kiss."

Anders forced a forced smile. "I'm not so sure," he said, "it's quite possible that there will be hostilities again. You'll have to take every precaution. Unless you're attacked, you'll have to wait here for twelve hours. If we don't Come back without calling you, you can confirm that we are missing." "I understand, sir." Popov nodded. "If we don't come back within twelve hours," Anders continued, "you must return to Port Burroughs at full speed. No contact with the outside world is allowed. After landing, leave everyone on the spacecraft, and you will go to the senior Report to Commissioner Hood. Tell him everything you know. Tell him half of this object is CT, attached to the other half by some kind of stable chassis. Do you remember, Lieutenant Colonel?"

"I've made a note of it, Colonel." Popov saluted awkwardly.His face was full of joy. "In this case, the High Council will order the base to be destroyed. That will trigger a war with Mars, and the war will bring about rapid economic development." He smiled smugly. "You know I can be trusted, Colonel!" "I know." Anders also showed a smile on his face, "but I plan to come back." Ann O'Barian was waiting for him by the main hatch.She's already donning that bloated spacesuit and looking just as awkward as Popov.Ann watched in silence as Anders hung some special gear from the belt of his spacesuit.Anders took with him a camera with a lead case, a plug-in headlamp, a glowing pencil and writing pad, and a hand-held test gun.Ann smiled, and stretched out her hand to show him her testing device, which was about the size of a watch and was being worn on Ann's wrist.

Ann followed Anders into the airlock.The inner trap door slammed shut.The air pump slowly sucked the air out of the room, and the surroundings became silent.Finally, the thick movable door on the outer layer opened silently.They stepped out of the spaceship and into the star-studded night sky. Some uneasy impulse made Anders look back at the Golden Eagle.It moored there silently.When the outer trapdoor closed, the last glint of metal faded, leaving it oddly black and parked.Just like the attacking ship.Anders felt a little scared, The ship was painted black just for camouflage, he reminded himself irritably that there was nothing wrong.and.Even if he couldn't trust Lieutenant Colonel Popov, Popov wouldn't trust Muadori and Omega either.Divide and conquer, he shrugged and chased after An.

They flew into the air side by side, wanting to take a look at the mysterious spaceship as a whole.The faint sunlight shone down from overhead, and the silver space suits on their bodies reflected the cold light.Anders knew that the temperature of his spacesuit was normal, but he couldn't help shivering.He moved closer to Ann. Ann was silent.A sudden burst of loneliness made Anders thankful that Ann was there with him.Suddenly, he wanted to talk, wanted to hear Ann's voice, but there was no time for useless talk now.Anders tried to calm himself down, and began to observe the CT ship.

Under the starlight and the faint sunlight, the CT spaceship looked very strange.Those bright pinnacles reflected an icy golden light, and the huge rims and curved struts made the Golden Eagle look like a useless toy. "Paul?" Anders was taken aback by Ann's small voice, but then he was glad to hear her.He turned away and asked her what was the matter. "It's nothing." When the two faced each other, Ann's voice sounded clearer. "I just wanted to talk to you. This thing makes me feel young and small and lonely. I'm scared Paul...but I'm still glad you took me out. You don't mind talk to me?"

"Not at all, beauty. I feel the same way." "Strange, considering how old it is. Captain Robo said that the invading CT planet collided with Adonis about a hundred thousand years ago. So, this thing- I don't know what to call it What—it’s at least that old.” Ann paused, then continued, “I’m wondering why there’s no rust on the CT material side.” "I don't know." Anders shook his head. "Perhaps the people who built it haven't mastered the technology of smelting earth iron. The CT part is all special alloys, but maybe they can only use natural earth iron. However, it is also possible that the part of the material has never Polished."

"This thing is huge!" Ann said. "I never thought there was anything..." Her awed voice trailed off, then died away.She stopped in the air silently, looking at the mysterious CT spaceship. "It's really too big!" Anders estimated its diameter with a professional eye. "The long axis must be 600 meters long, and the short one may be 300 meters long. The golden needle may be 200 meters high. Those support bars are twenty meters thick. Compared to it, we are like two small midges." "It's so dead!" Ann's voice was hoarse. "It's frightening. What do you think happened to the people who built it?"

Anders gave her a sharp look.Through the helmet, he couldn't see Ann's face clearly, but her doubts and anxiety seemed real.Suddenly, he wanted so badly to believe in her innocence, certainly not because he needed her help.However, there is evidence that she is not innocent. Despite her feigned surprise, the ship was the same object that Drake and Mackey had successfully altered its orbit a year earlier.Their CT techniques must have been learned from the works of this real CT engineer.And Ann, as their loyal employee and ally, must also know the secret about the CT substance. "Don't you think it's too lifeless?" Before Anders could answer, Ann said again, "They can't be—" Her voice trembled, "Paul, it's really impossible for those... here?"

The CT ship seemed silent enough.It should be lifeless.Anders doesn't believe that the CT people can survive on it for 100,000 years, because the spacecraft is surrounded by untouchable planets made of matter.But what about those strange, unfamiliar voices he heard? "I don't know," he whispered. "What do you say, Miss O'Barian?" Ann turned around quickly, as if stung by a bee. "Oh, Paul!" she said in amazement, "if you're thinking about that mysterious call to the Freedom Star—please believe it wasn't for us! I don't know anything about it." These words don't mean much.But when she turned her face, the cold sunbeams fell into her helmet and fell on her face, so that he saw her young face, with the pain of hurt and the pain of encounter. When it comes to the seriousness of trouble, there is also the persistence of courage. "I'm sorry." Anders shrugged. "Let's move on, goblin." He smiled. "We should have six more hours to go for my darling before your asteroid friends arrive." Interstellar is looking for the CT chassis." Ann didn't say anything, but she followed Anders toward the wide rim that surrounded the spaceship.It was a huge ring, about twenty meters thick.After they approached it, they discovered that it was actually composed of two rings, and there was about half a meter between the bright ring and the darker ring. Anders slid toward the rust-red ring, and he reached out to catch it.He was anxious to see what separated the two circles, but Ann rushed ahead of him. "Wait a minute, daredevil!" she echoed him. "You're an engineer, but you still have some skills to learn, and you'll find that you can't take anything for granted. Especially when you're dealing with CT. " An stopped above the ring, she stretched out her hand and aimed the small device on her wrist at the ring.She seemed to be listening to the warning sound from the detector, but Anders couldn't hear anything. "It's physical," Ann said. Anders nodded his thanks, but didn't take it seriously in his heart.Together they landed on the rust-red rim.The rim was fifteen meters wide and looked like an iron paved road around a metallic planet.Anders moved his steps carefully, walking towards the crack between the two rings. "Look at those discs!" Ann exclaimed suddenly as she walked in front of him, "Are they CT chassis?" Anders leaned over and saw that the rim turned out to be separated by thousands of discs.They were broad mushroom tops, made of shiny CT steel, but they all had black earth iron handles.The upper mushroom top is firmly fixed to the CT rim, while the lower iron handle is roughly welded to the substance-made rim. "They're CT chassis!" Anders said. "Real CT chassis!" He bent down as much as possible, trying to see how the black handle and the shiny mushroom cap were connected together.He couldn't see a crack.This took him by surprise, and he took a step back uncomfortably.The substance and the cap of the CT are obviously linked together, but how is that possible?Even though he knew they had been together like this for at least a hundred thousand years, he couldn't help feeling that they were about to explode violently. "Hey, Mr. Genius!" An gently teased him, "You have found a CT chassis for your Interstellar Corporation. What are you going to do now?" "I don't know." Anders forced a smile. "Perhaps the only way to do it is to take one off and see how the cap and handle go together. But that's a slightly tricky job again." "A little bit?" Ann looked at him, "A small mistake will detonate the entire spaceship." "Maybe, beauty. Do you have any suggestions?" "I don't get paid by Interstellar." An sweetly said, "That's all your business, Mr. Handsome." "I will solve it." Anders straightened his body. "The cylinder at the top looks like the hatch of a spaceship. The answer may be waiting for me inside the spaceship. Come with me, Miss O'Barian?" "Of course, Paul. Actually, I don't mind if you call me a beauty." Anders laughed, feeling his nerves relax.Impulsively, he reached out and grabbed Ann's hand.She squeezed his hand too, and the two rose into the air together.She seemed to Anders a particularly friendly enemy. "Thank you," Anders smiled at Ann, "I'm glad to have you as my company." The tiny shadow of the Golden Eagle disappeared from view, and now only the stars were with them.They fell towards the cylinder protruding from the top of the spaceship. "If anything happens," said Anders suddenly, "you mustn't wait for me. No one will come to the rescue. I ordered Popov to come back if we hadn't returned after twelve hours. Get the spaceship out of here." Ann said nothing, and flew forward to test the thick rim of the protruding cylinder.It is physical and they land on it. "Strange!" Anders exclaimed in a low voice, "Something sucks us in. Although this thing is completely dead, it still has its own reverse gravitational field." They stood on the wide edge of the cylinder, the cold light of the sun still shone on them, but the inside of the cylinder was dark and mysterious.They turned on the helmet lights, and Anders plugged in the extra headlamp, but even that was too weak. Ann stood on the edge of the cylinder, looking down the red beam of the headlight.She was wearing a bulky space suit, but she still looked small here.Anders estimated that the opening of the black hole must be sixty meters wide. As his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness within, he began to see the outlines of some great flaps and hinges beneath the rim of the cylinder.He couldn't guess what those things were for, only to realize with discomfiture that their makers must have thought quite differently than humans.But at last he saw that they were part of valves or flaps.The door is used to close the top opening of the cylinder.Now, they are half open. Anders stepped down the side hole of the cylinder and fell towards the opening where the mouth opened. "Wait, Paul!" Ann yelled hoarsely, "shouldn't we be careful? I mean, if there's anything alive in there—" She saw Anders wouldn't stop, Hastily said: "Wait for me!"