Chapter 20 Chapter 19 A Question of Time

Anders lay flat on the highest platform in the huge cylinder.His neck was stiff and his head ached, probably from the injury he'd suffered from the fall.However, the pain only briefly woke him up, and he remained drowsy. He thought he was alone here. Without turning his head, he could see the starlit crack in the middle of the half-open trap door at the top of the cylinder.Straight up a little closer, was a strange narrow passage.Under the reflection of the starlight, the tall armrests, which no human can touch, shone with silvery white light. Half asleep, he tried to picture the CT men walking the narrow passages, but, even with their voices still ringing in his ears, his dull brain couldn't picture anything.Perhaps even the word "walking" is not very appropriate for CT people, because they always use taxiways instead of stairs.

Anders lay still, looking at the passage and the handrail.His body felt so heavy that he couldn't move, and there was nothing for him to do but lie down.If he could keep quiet enough, if he waited long enough, some CT people would pass by.Maybe he'll be able to see why they don't use ladders, what makes them so tall and so thin. Perhaps there was already something or "someone" there, just too slender for him to see?Is this the answer?Are those CT invaders able to use matter and CT matter because they themselves are neither matter nor CT matter?Can intelligence not rely on matter as a carrier?Anders brooded dully, trying to find answers to these questions, but he gave up on them all.It was too difficult for him to think, and his mind seemed to be covered with a layer of fog.

He lay there waiting, watching through the fog, but nothing appeared on the passage.The fog had grown thicker and thicker, and the dull ache in his head had subsided now, too weak to keep him awake.He was worried that he would fall asleep before those tall people arrived. But just then Anders saw it. It was leaning over to look at him, it was just a vague shadow.He knew it must be tall and thin, he knew its touch meant death, but that didn't matter anymore.He didn't want to turn his head away, there was nothing he could do. The thing landed on the platform, right next to him.It began to fumble for his spacesuit with its hands.He waited for his physical body to react with the CT substance.When he suddenly saw a bright light, he thought that the end had finally come.

However, that light is not the flame of a destructive big bang.It was just the rose-red glow of a spacesuit headlamp.Under its reflection, Anders saw a man in a space suit, it was Ann O'Barian!Anders tried to stand up. "It's best to lie still," An Rou said, "You almost suffocated." "I thought..." Anders was about to say something, "I thought you were..." But he couldn't say anything, he just lay there limp.Those things he thought before were not important now.He heard the sound of air again.Suddenly, he could breathe.Dimly, he knew that An took off his air device from the space suit and connected it to his space suit.He thought Ann shouldn't do this for him.She herself would soon face death, the result of his recklessness.However, he was still too sleepy to tell Ann all this.Ann wasn't an invading CT man, and he was breathing again.Spreading his arms and legs flat on the platform, he fell asleep again.

When Anders awoke again, he found himself lying on a rollaway bed with Ann O'Barian standing beside him.He knew he was on board the Jane.Ann counted his pulse and frowned. "Thank you, goblin." Ann must have dragged him back to the spaceship and took off his torn spacesuit, Anders thought of this, even though he was still heavy and unable to move, he smiled at Ann With a smile, "I didn't know you would..." "You really worry me." An released Anders' wrist, smiled wearily, and sat down on an empty water tank beside the bed.In the dim light of the backup light, she looked very tired. "You lay on that platform for too long. You were almost passed out when I found you."

"It's very kind of you to come to me." Anders lay on the bed looking at Ann's face, those gray eyes sunken deeply with fatigue and worry, but she still looked so beautiful, The determined expression on her face did not change in the slightest.Then he asked, "Where's Mackey?" "Going out with Rick," Ann said. "They assembled an electric arc saw and prepared to saw through the shell of the 'Golden Eagle' spacecraft." "Is Rick back yet?" "Come back a few days ago." "A few days ago?" Anders asked in disbelief. "How long have I been out?"

"We gave you a dose of Amidine." Ann said apologetically in his low voice. "You know, the reactor went out, and Rick needed all of our batteries to assemble the chainsaw, so the ventilation had to stop working. We were Oxygen needs to be conserved." "Amidine?" Anders blinked. "I guess it's good for me. I should go out with Rick and find another FM diamond, though." He tried to sit up, but his whole body was limp and there was no strength at all. "Lie down and wait for your pulse to return to normal." "But we've got to find the FM diamond and the switching coil." Anders insisted stubbornly. "I've seen what the Golden Eagle looks like now. It's going to take a lot of work to get into it. They need My help."

"I know." Ann lowered her eyes, as if he was embarrassing her, "but—but your spacesuit is torn." "Isn't that crack repairable?" "Rick took the energy storage device from your spacesuit, and he's used up," Ann said, "and..." She hesitated and didn't know what to say.Suddenly, Anders nodded with enlightenment. "I see," he mumbled. "I'm a prisoner." "Not exactly. But Rick and Captain Robo don't trust you." "It's not all their fault." Anders forced a smile, "How is their work going?"

"I'm afraid it's a bad situation. The shell of the Golden Eagle was too hard for their makeshift tools to do anything to it. Once they gave up on this project and tried another one. They put the main comms on the Jane" The device was dragged out and tried to speak to Liberty Star, but there was no reply." "why?" "Rick doesn't know either." Ann's face was full of confusion, "Of course, you use the power of the battery, but he said the signal is strong enough." She shuddered, and added: "It's more Strangely enough, Rick had trouble even finding the Liberty Star, because the CT ship had switched directions since we were on board."

"Oh?" Anders raised his still aching head, "Where is it going now?" "It's going the way it came," Ann said, "back to where the big bang happened. Rick didn't believe it at all until I checked his observations—Robo The captain still didn't know where we were and what time it was. But then we got our bearings and we saw Liberty in the binoculars. We sent signals all day and all night, but Mr. Drake never answered , maybe something happened to him - I don't know what exactly. The battery was dying, so we had to stop sending signals. We've been trying to saw through that armor plate again for the last few days, but when It still hasn't worked out."

Anders lay silently for a while, looking at Ann's sad face. "Do you know what turned this CT ship?" he whispered uneasily. "If the CT people who built it—" Ann shook her head, "We have a lot of difficulties, but Rick said we won't meet any CT people." "But they're around." Anders felt a little scared. "We've heard their voices. We also know that they captured a guard patrol ship, which was the one that fired at us and then disappeared. Then came back and smashed the guard ship of the 'Golden Eagle'." "I don't understand what those strange voices are saying." Ann shrugged worriedly, "We can't explain those. But Rick said that the people who built this CT spaceship are all dead. He's sure they were born in the solar system. died before." "What?" Anders supported his upper body on his elbows, he had forgotten the dull pain in his head, "How could Rick be so sure of this?" "He found an arsenal down here, bigger than the one on Burroughs V. It was full of automatic machines and the most lethal weapons he had ever seen. Most of the weapons were loaded Missiles with CT warheads, but also a few atomic bombs." "Arsenal!" exclaimed Anders, "isn't this a power factory?" "Rick said it was originally a power station. He found some empty CT chassis underneath, and there must have been a huge reactor on it. He said those gold needles were actually some kind of power transmitter antenna. But then the reactor It was dismantled, and the energy sending equipment was all dismantled. Rick thinks they might have been melted down and made into various weapons." Ann's voice became hoarse. "Rick believes that this is the fate of those CT people. This factory was originally built for peace, but they later used it to serve war. When the war ended, they also perished. Rick believes that the birth of the solar system Before, there must have been a super missile of some kind that blew their world—or part of it—out of their galaxy." "Wait a minute!" Anders shook his head and said, "I know this CT spacecraft is very old. I also think that it has been drifting among the stars for billions of years at an absolute zero temperature, and it probably won't be too big. Change. How did Rick work out the date of that war?" "Those atomic bombs helped him." Ann replied, "Rick thought that in the early stages of the war, the CT people used them to defend their energy spaceship, until they modified the spaceship and produced CT missiles." .” "But what are those atomic bombs going to do for him?" "Rick measured the uranium in the atomic bomb with Captain Rob's old analyzer. He can barely find Shaft 235, and most of the uranium has been converted to lead." "Oh!" Anders nodded. "I see." He was silent for a moment, then asked. "Do you know how much uranium survives?" "Less than one in a hundred thousand." "Under normal radiation loss, a sample of Axis 235 will lose half of its core number after about 700 million years." Anders frowned, calculating, "This means that this CT spaceship has been drifting for almost a year. Tens of billions of years." "That's been too long!" Ann said in a trembling voice, "Paul, I'm still scared. Even though I know those CT guys are dead. Because that's what killed them. It's still killing people now. It destroyed the ship 'Persius', the ship 'Golden Eagle'. It killed all the rebels. It will kill us too, unless we get out, it's just a matter of time." Sooner or later a matter of time... The phrase echoed in Anders' head, and it suddenly became telling.He held his breath, sat up straight all of a sudden, and stared blankly at a place behind Ann.His hands were clenched into fists and were shaking. "Paul—" Ann cried worriedly, "what's the matter with you?" "That phrase you used," said Anders, with a haggard smile on his face, "is a matter of time. Maybe that's the answer." "What do you mean by that?" "If you think about it, every problem we encounter seems to be a matter of time, or the interval of time, or order. Maybe the earliest really is the latest, as it is here. Maybe it really puts Tomorrow becomes yesterday, and maybe Rick and Mackey really didn't get here until April 1st." "They said the same thing." An asked anxiously, "but how do you explain such a thing?" "It's just a matter of time," Anders replied, "Ten billion years is a long time." He said slowly, trying to find the words to express himself, "long enough to prove that The CT ship is indeed from another galaxy, as our solar system is less than half as old. Perhaps the time was completely different where it came from!" "Is that possible?" "It's possible." Anders said thoughtfully, "I remember when Rick used to work for Interstellar, he knew where he found an old book. It was a long time ago written by a writer full of weird ideas A thesis on CT matter written by a German professor. Somewhere in the article it is mentioned that the form of the nucleus depends on the form of the entropy of the space in which the atom is generated." "what does that mean." "The form of entropy is also the form of time." Anders' deep-set eyes sparkled with excitement, "The professor thinks that CT matter must have been formed in another place in space, where time flows backwards .Maybe he's not a fanatic at all!" "But those CT asteroids don't look like this thing," Anma retorted. "As long as they don't collide with matter, they don't look any different." "The professor knew that, too," said Anders, "but he thought that a large piece of CT matter or matter could form around it a special state that he called an 'entropy field', and that the entropy field could give way to the Small pieces of matter remain consistent in time. He believes that the CT asteroids we know are just fragments of the invading CT giant planet that has been destroyed by the stronger entropy field of the Adonis star— Maybe it's the entropy field of the entire solar system -- taking hold and shifting into downstream time." Anders sat up straighter, panting with excitement. "However, this CT spacecraft was too far away from the invading CT planet, so it was not involved in the big explosion caused by the collision? It was never too close to a large mass of matter to be affected by its entropy. The field takes hold and turns into downstream time. Its present time is still running backwards, and its opposite entropy field holds us in!" Anders jumped to his feet, but slumped back on the bed, his knees still weak. "I think that's the answer!" he said hoarsely. "I think that's enough to explain everything we've encountered—and some of it you could say hasn't happened yet." "Everything!" Ann sat on the tank, staring at him in bewilderment, "I don't understand how—" "I don't quite get it either." Anders smiled. "But I really believe that's the answer. It's just a matter of time. Can you give me a pencil and a piece of paper?" "It's on Captain Rob's desk in the cabin above. Can you climb the stairs?" When Anders first stood up, he felt top-heavy.But he climbed the stairs with Ann's help.Ann moved a chair in front of Mackey's ink-stained desk and asked him to sit down.Then Ann opened a drawer for paper and pencils. Something rushed out. "Oh!" Ann grabbed the thing with her hands, but it slipped away, "Rick's disk—" She stopped abruptly, her eyelids turning red.Anders didn't notice her embarrassment, his eyes fixed on the fleeing little thing.It was a shiny circular steel plate about the size of his palm, with a small hole in the middle.He tried to reach out and grab it, but it fled away like a living thing.There was also a strong leather cord attached to it, and the other end of the leather cord was fastened to a small ring on the bulkhead behind the desk. Anders grabbed the leather strap and pulled the bouncing disc closer to him, but it was still bouncing off his fingers.He yanked the disc into the desk, but the little thing escaped from the drawer that had kept it shut.Anders noticed that the leather cord that held it was also only looped around it, not touching it. Anders managed to get the disk into the drawer, shut it in a corner, and tried to push it down with his hands.However, his hand met a counterforce resistance.Even when he pressed down with all his strength, his hand didn't touch the disk.And the disk is not pressed tightly against the bottom of the drawer. "Put it back, please!" Ann blushed in embarrassment, "I don't want you to see it." "Untouchable!" Anders closed the drawer and turned to stare at her. "Where did Rick get it?" "Oh, Paul!" said Ann excitedly. "What a fool I am! Rick doesn't want you to know it. I can't tell you anything." "Well, let me guess." Anders smiled at her. "I guess it's anti-gravity, permanent anti-gravity! Isn't that right, goblin?" Ann pursed her lips tightly, but her face was red again. "I guessed it right!" Anders looked back in awe at the drawer with the disc closed, "This is what we've been looking for ever since Maxie Gore discovered reverse gravity in sunspots. Maxey Gore had long written the equations for permanent antigravity, but we've never been able to make an alloy that would retain the force." He jerked his gaze back to Ann's face. "The disc that can't be grasped is made of some kind of anti-gravity alloy, isn't it?" Anders asked. The analyzer analyzed the composition of the alloy, didn't he? That's how he learned how to make the alloy, didn't he? The chassis made of this alloy will last a trillion years!" "Paul, don't ask me!" Ann pleaded, "I can't tell you anything." "It's all right, dear," Anders said cheerfully. "You've shown me the most important thing. It's a surface force that obeys the 12-square law. Half the distance, quadruples the repulsion. That's This means that contact is impossible - even if the disk is pressed hard against the CT surface, the two will not touch. I think it is to weld a chassis like this to a mushroom handle made of material, and at the same time connect it to this The CT alloy chassis of the same composition is fixed inside the CT mushroom cap, so that the stem and cap of the mushroom can be put together, and because of the chassis made of this alloy, they will never touch together. cause an explosion." "I guessed right again, didn't I?" Ann lowered her eyes and nodded reluctantly. "Also, if there is no contact, there is no friction, so there is no need for lubrication." Anders continued excitedly, "This is the reason why those machines can still operate after so many years. And the anti-gravitational field will not weaken Yes!" He nodded at Ann, "If we can bring that disk home, it will definitely cause a sensation!" Ann looked up at him. "Paul—" "What's the matter, goblin?" "Rick doesn't want you to see that disk," Ann said very gently, "now that you know too much about it, I don't think he'll let you go back and use what you've learned to make CT missiles for Interstellar Corp. Yeah. I guess you're going to have to work for Drake and Mackey now." Anders looked at her smooth and beautiful face for a long time, and the smile slowly faded from his lips. "I've got to do it," he said at last. "If we make it back alive, and you really want me to join, I'll work with you. Actually, I'm not that keen on doing something right now. What kind of CT missiles are people making. I have changed my mind since I learned why the CT civilization died. My dear, if you really need me, I believe I will agree." Ann stood there, tall and lovely.Her black hair exudes a refreshing fragrance.There was a faint smile on her face. "I need you, Paul!" Ann said fervently. "I really need you!" At this moment, Anders was desperate to kiss her beautiful face, but he restrained his urge because it suddenly seemed unfair to him. "Thank you, goblin," he said with a smile, "but let's not get too impatient. We're still stuck here. If we do make it back alive, I'd love the chance to work with Drake and Mackey— On that little disk, we can create a whole new civilization! But I'm an Earthling. My dear, when that's done, your friends may not want me around them anymore. " A look of worry appeared on Ann's face again. "It's not easy convincing Rick that you're really on our side." Ann became serious. "He's in a bad mood right now. He's worried about what happened to his father on the Liberty Star. The shell of the 'Golden Eagle' spaceship It frustrates him that the saw won't cut it. He's also tormented by the oddity that you'd previously thought we were connected to a conspiracy. What's especially disturbing to him is that the ship is heading back the way it came, and we don't even know when meeting--" "Maybe nothing will happen," said Anders reassuringly, "and now that we've found out why, I think all those suspicious things will be cleared up." A smile appeared on Ann's face. "I almost forgot about your time theory. Do you really think you can explain what happened to those comatose astronauts? Then Rick and Mackey can be cleared of their crimes." (奇*书* Net*.*whole*management*provided) and those mysterious voices calling for the Star of Liberty, the enemy patrol ship that engaged the 'Golden Eagle', can you explain all of these clearly?" "I'm sure I can," Anders assured, "if only you could find me a piece of paper."