Chapter 21 Chapter 20 Vortex

Ann found writing paper in another drawer of the desk.Anders leaned over the table and began to draw his schematic.He first drew a vertical upward arrow to represent the normal space-time motion of Burroughs, Albania, and Liberty.He used a shorter arrow to demonstrate the orbit of the CT planet whose orbit had been altered by Drake and Mackey.The third arrow slopes downward from the top of the second arrow, which represents the time travel of the CT ship.On the edges of the paper he marked the days of the month and drew curved lines to show the voyages of the Purseus, Goodbye Jane, and his own Golden Eagle.

"It seems reasonable." Anders finally raised his head, his face full of joy of victory, "This spaceship is about ten billion years old in its own time, but it will never Older than that, for this is its end." "On the night of March 23, the biggest explosion lit up the night sky. That's when the CT spacecraft collided with the CT planet and was destroyed. Of course, there are still van Falkenberg's photographs. From our current state of time, I should probably say that this CT spaceship is about to be destroyed." He gritted his teeth, "Better before we are brought to that moment by it, Rick and Mackey can fix the Jane."

"I don't quite understand..." Ann hesitated for a moment, then continued, "You mean, since the spaceship changed direction, it is taking us back to the moment when the big bang happened, isn't it?" "That's right, dear." Anders nodded gloomily, "unless it didn't turn. When we landed, our time changed too. In the entropy field of this ship, the people who land here still seem to be a Lives every day, but of course in that backward time. Then, the first to get here will be the last; just like what Mackey warned Rick on the phone, and this call Mackey has until now Haven't called out yet."

Ann frowned and stared at the diagram. "We came here first on the 'Golden Eagle' spacecraft." Anders pointed to the curve on the map and said, "In terms of our time, it is the first, but in terms of the time of this CT spacecraft, it is the last. We were not here when the Jane arrived the next day, because tomorrow in our time is yesterday here. Van Falkenberg and his men arrived here later than the Jane , killed Rick and Mackey themselves just before they arrived." He looked up at Ann, "Now you know what's going on?" "I—I think so." Ann nodded abruptly. "It's like changing from one of two trains traveling side by side toward the other. Before you change, you take the first train." The farther a train goes, the more distance you have to travel on the second train to get back to where you came from after changing trains. The longer it takes."

"Exactly, honey." Anders nodded. "Right now, this train we're on is headed for an explosion. I hope that before we collide with that CT planet, Rick and Mackey managed to get us all back on another train." He drew another vertical line on the schematic, "They can do it! Actually, it shows that they've done it. So be happy , my little fairy!" "I'm afraid I still won't be happy." Ann slowly brushed away a lock of hair that had fallen on her face, "What happened to those comatose astronauts? What happened to that hostile spaceship? And What are those mysterious and weird voices?" She shook her head at the diagram, "Can you explain it clearly?"

"Of course it can be explained clearly. You don't know that those strange voices are actually our own voices." "our own?" "Yes. But we're listening backwards, like you hear tape playback. So it's not surprising that the voices sound a lot like human voices." "That hostile spaceship..." An opened his eyes in astonishment, "That couldn't be..." "It's the 'Golden Eagle' spacecraft." Anders nodded, with a wry smile on the corner of his mouth, "When we encountered it, it was under the control of Popov and his rebels and was about to return home. We followed the usual procedures Questions come first, and the rebels do the same. But for both of us, the order of things is reversed. The shells come first. When the questions come later, no one understands the voice the meaning of."

"I—I think I understand." Ann held her breath. "That's why we called Liberty Star, and Mr. Drake didn't answer." "yes." "However, I still find it a little unbelievable. When that hostile spaceship tried to crash us, how could it be the 'Golden Eagle'? Why did it disappear without any reason?" "That's when time shifted," Anders said, "when we were slammed into the entropy field of this CT ship. And since then, although we think time is advancing , in fact, it is flowing backwards. The vibrations we feel are not caused by the collision, but only the result of the change in time."

"But there must be another Guard patrol ship!" Ann stared at him. "Those comatose astronauts—could they be members of the 'Golden Eagle'?" "I think so," Anders replied, "Popov and his rebels were about to flee to Callisto before the Golden Eagle lost its battle with itself, so they destroyed their own guard." Members' badges. I think when they found themselves trapped in the wreckage of the spaceship, they used Amidin to stave off death. Popov, Muadori, and twenty-six others are still alive, Lying in the Golden Eagle waiting for Rick and Mackey to rescue them."

Ann shrugged in bewilderment. "But it's been many days since you took these people from the Jane to Van Falkenberg." "I know." Anders nodded. "It seems that our traitorous friends have fallen into some kind of causal vortex between two time tracks. They woke up on the 'Persius' spaceship and told I learned about Van Falkenberg's information about this CT spaceship and helped him launch the second mutiny. I don't know who bought who. Maybe they want to get a batch of CT weapons and equipment and plan to sell them for a big price. price. When they saw themselves coming, they sent those three guys off the ship and in to get a sample of the CT chassis. It seems they made the same mistake again. In the fight against itself, 'Persius ' was broken, slipped in here to hide, and ended up falling into this ore mill."

"What about the people we found?" Ann whispered. "The dead people?" "It's the three people who came to get the chassis." Anders replied, "From the video tape Rick found, it can be seen that the three of them got off the spacecraft before the accident on the 'Persius' spacecraft. I At the time I thought I recognized Popov and Muadori. Maybe it was Omega who was holding the camera. Van Falkenberg was more cautious than me, but he didn't foresee that he would end up making such a big mistake. mistake." "Then they're alive outside? And dead here?"

"They're dead," Anders said. "They didn't find the CT weapons. The guy with the video camera was crushed by an automatic door. Muadori was cut in two. Popov did it." Got a sample of the CT chassis, but he wasn't going anywhere." Ann shuddered, "I never liked them, but this way of dying is too weird." "They brought the blame on themselves." Anders said seriously, "As long as you think about what they are going to do, you will not feel sorry for them at all. The trusteeship government is indeed an organization for maintaining interstellar peace. Although it is extremely unstable, at present It's the best form we can get. Destroying it with CT missiles is not a step forward, it's a step backwards in time." "Maybe you're right." Ann looked nervous. "I don't feel comfortable here. This CT ship is so old, Paul. It's so dead, if only we could get out before it exploded." .I gotta go out and talk to Rick and Mackey." Anders waited anxiously for Ann.He looked at the schematic diagram and tried his best to control his emotions so that he would stop thinking about those people who died in strange ways. After Ann left, time seemed to pass extremely slowly.But at last he heard the hatch slam, and he went down to meet her. "They've entered the 'Golden Eagle'!" Ann's voice came out from the helmet, weak but full of triumphant joy, "Their tools can't deal with those hard armor plates, but they decided to use That ore cutter turned out to be cutting through the steel plate like cheese, with no effort at all. Now they've found everything we need to restore the Jane!" "Great, honey!" Anders helped Anto take off his space suit, "Do you know how much time we have left?" "I'm afraid not much." The smile on An's face slowly faded, "Captain Robo still doesn't know what time it is and where we are. It's hard to observe what's going on with a spectrometer. But Rick Still measuring it with instruments, he said that now we are only a million kilometers away from where the explosion happened-I mean where the explosion is going to happen." "So, we still have five hours to repair the 'Jane' spaceship, transport the comatose rebels, and return to the time state where the explosion has already occurred." Anders suddenly smiled, " But we shall succeed, dear goblin. For we have succeeded!" "Rick also said we'd be successful." Ann smiled at him. "At first he thought your back-in-time theory was ridiculous, but now he thinks it's true. And—Paul!" She paused and continued. Say, "I talked to him and Mackey about you, and they both think we're going to need your help." Suddenly, Anders felt that hugging Ann was no longer unfair to her. "Too soon, Paul?" Anders didn't see that Rick had entered the ship, so he was taken aback by his teasing question.Embarrassed, he turns to look at Rick. "Congratulations!" Rick put down the things in his hands and held Anders' hand enthusiastically. "When Ann told me that you solved these mysteries, I was so happy and relieved. Can you stand It's great to have us here. Paul, I've always admired you, even when I thought..." He blushed and stammered, "Well, I mean... " "When you thought I was courting Karen?" Rick's flushed face got redder, and Anders laughed, "Maybe I liked her before, and she liked me. But she got you back." FM Diamond, she quit her job at Interstellar Corporation, she didn’t do these things for me!” "I don't know," Rick whispered, "I...she didn't tell me she quit her job." "She's going home on the 'Planet' ship." Anders nodded. "In fact, as much as she's stubborn about admitting it, she's tired of the StarCorp business and the way I do things. Hood I don't know what happened to her yet." "You said Karen was going back to Earth?" "Maybe you can dissuade her," said Anders, "why don't you persuade her to work with us? Drake and Mackey should be thriving by now, because we can do far more for humanity than Star Corp does everything. We're going to need someone to work in Port Burroughs. In my opinion, Karen's beautiful head would be very helpful to the company. Why don't you make a call before the 'Planet' spacecraft takes off What about her?" "Thank you, Paul," Rick said, "I—I will." Anders turned quickly to Ann. "There's a lot we can build on that chassis," he said softly to Ann. "I think I'm very lucky to have the opportunity to work for your company." He took Ann's hand and his voice became stronger. Softly, "How lucky, honey! I used to think you and I were rivals, but maybe we're not that far apart at all!" Robo Mackey was also back on the "Jane" spaceship, holding a FM diamond in his hand--the same flawless diamond weighing eight carats that Anders had wondered about.Mackey replaces the burnt diamond.Together, Rick and Anders repaired the switching coil.The dim lights in the spaceship suddenly brightened a lot.The ventilation device also started to work, and the "Goodbye, Jane" spacecraft suddenly became full of vitality. "Everything is ready, Captain Robo!" Rick called, "Take us out!" However, Mackey's sense of time and space is still confused, and he lets Ann operate the control stick instead of him.An drove the spaceship out of the black area of ​​death, and then landed next to the wreckage of the "Golden Eagle" spaceship.Using the faint starlight, they attached a fiber tube to the hole Rick and Mackey had cut in the Golden Eagle's broken hull. Eight pounds of air swelled the fiber tubes, creating a tunnel between the ships.But the pressure of eight pounds of air was far from enough to open the Golden Eagle's automatic hatch.Rick had to use the invisible knife again to cut a new hole so they could get to the undamaged rear cabin. Anders nearly threw up when he first saw the survivors. The "Golden Eagle" spacecraft turned over, and those people were lying in the cabin in various strange postures.Most had their shirts ripped, and you can imagine the pain they felt as they felt suffocated.They were terribly dirty, with smoke, blood, and vomit everywhere.Several were still wrapped in blood-soaked bandages.Various expressions froze on their dead white faces, pained, calm, and smiling. Anders recognized Popov, Muadori, and Omega, even though the men had thrown away all evidence that they had betrayed the Trusteeship.They were sleeping under the effects of Amedine, and it looked like they were going to die soon. "Paul!" Rick's voice was full of anxiety, "I just observed the positions of the sun and Burroughs, and we are already quite close to the explosion site. We have less than two hours left." "But we have to take these people." Looking at them, Anders shuddered, "not to save their lives—I know they're going to come straight back here and kill themselves, but we still have to take They took them because we took them!" The comatose rebels were finally transported to the spaceship "Jane", where they lay side by side, unconscious.Rick closed the hatch and dropped the fiber tube.An drove the "Jane" spacecraft away from the empty "Golden Eagle" wreckage and the CT spacecraft. The "Goodbye, Jane" spacecraft shook violently. "I'm feeling again!" Robb Mackey exclaimed excitedly, "I can sense time again!" "It means we're back in our own world," Anders said with a smile. "What time is it?" "March 23, thirty-one seconds past nineteen one hundred." "We still have fifteen minutes. I think that's enough." Anders said a little uncertainly, "Don't forget to call Ann and Rick now." "But they're all here—" "Ann is also on Albania to prepare a batch of necessities for Mr. Drake. Rick is also still working for Interstellar Corporation in Port Burroughs. Neither of them has given up hope that a CT chassis can be developed. You can't say much, but they both need encouragement. Tell Rick to pack and kiss his girl goodbye." "spaceship--" Ann was looking at something through the binoculars, and she held her breath. "It turned back again—or so it seemed. Now it's returning the way it came. I see—ourselves!" Ann's voice trembled. "The Jane landed on the Golden Eagle. Next to the wreckage of the _____. That fibrous tube swelled up on its own—as if we were going to put the comatose people back where we found them!" "Don't watch," Anders said gently. "We already know enough about what happened there. From our current viewing point, the video tape is going backwards. The CT ship is in the ocean. Restored into a whole in the flames of the explosion, it began its interstellar drift for many billions of years. "Just let it go. I think the other secrets about it are safe, because it has trapped Van Falkenberg and all the other rebels. I believe we got what we wanted. We Anything built on the chassis is ours. I don't think we need much of what's theirs." "I know we don't need it!" said Ann. "I'm glad it's gone. Even after Rick found out how old it was, I couldn't stop thinking about those CT people and the way they died— Destroyed themselves and all their world - with those horrible CT weapons..." Ann's voice was inaudible, but she was still fascinated by the binoculars.Anders nodded to Mackey, motioning for him to operate the lever. "I've seen ghosts myself." He grabbed a trembling arm and pulled her away from the telescope. "Slender and tall ghosts, walking on that narrow passage that we would die if we walked up. But They didn't hurt us dear. In fact, I think we should thank them for keeping us going. I believe it's them who gave us one last chance not to go their way. As long as we don't build on that chassis CT missiles, everything will be safe!"