From the narrow cabin passage to the cockpit, it was only a distance of thirty or forty meters, but in this distance, Team Cao kept instilling too much information into me, and together with the time I was thinking, it was as if I had run most of the marathon, and I was indescribably tired.

I have to say that the first four-person leadership group meeting was still amazingly efficient. At this time, we were less than five nautical miles away from the area where the signal of the Eastern Star had disappeared. According to the results agreed upon before, when they reach that area, the research ship will drop a deep-sea submarine and search on the seabed at a depth of about 2,000 to 3,000 meters.

At the same time as the submarine was launched, Professor Lu and his team were responsible for collecting hydrological and meteorological data in this sea area, and setting up large-scale monitoring equipment, hoping to find the interference of magnetic field signals, and of course, the most important thing is to monitor whether there is a mirage on the sea surface.

In my opinion, these two work arrangements are no different from looking for a needle in a haystack, just waiting for the result, and I can't figure out what reason is worth running into the cockpit? I only asked half of the sentence, and the Cao team had already understood what I meant, and told me in a low voice that one of my previous guesses was correct, and the sighting of the Dongxing mirage in Sanya, Hainan was no accident, and the Zhejiang Institute had done a breakthrough study on Lu Binglin's theory, and they predicted the time and approximate location of the mirage, and according to their speculation, fifteen minutes later, the mirage image of the Dongxing would appear again in this sea area.

Hearing this ghostly statement, I couldn't help but grab Cao Team's wrist, "Old Cao, how is this possible? Lu Binglin's research is to first have an image ontology, by simulating the climatic conditions of mirage imaging, searching for the location of the illusion, and deducing the mathematical model of imaging. Of course, with this mathematical model, we can deduce the specific location of the ontology through the image of the mirage. However, if we don't know the exact location of the Eastern Star, how can we calculate the time and place of the mirage? Knowing the location of the Eastern Star, we can just go straight to it, so why bother looking for any images?"

Team Cao stopped, turned sideways and let Captain Jiang and Wei go first, and whispered to me, "Lao Chang, I don't know exactly what's going on, but the situation you just said is based on the fact that the Dongxing is in a fixed position, assuming that the Dongxing is constantly moving, then do we need the image of the mirage? At the morning meeting, Professor Lu asked the same question as you, and Wei answered like this. We underestimated Wei, he knew very well the content of the experiment of the Zhejiang Institute, and he was the one who invited the Zhejiang Institute to Hainan, and he was the first to observe the mirage image of the Sanya Dongxing. He had already told us about the situation when we had a meeting in the morning, and the researchers and equipment of the Zhejiang Institute were on another supply ship. ”

Team Cao's words shocked me, I turned my head to look at Lu Binglin walking behind me, his expression was cloudy, three points worried, seven points angry, it seemed that he had suffered the same great impact as me, but that kind of suppressed anger came from nowhere. Even if Wei deliberately concealed some information at the wine table the night before, Professor Lu would not have had such a reaction, right? It seems that there must have been a fierce dispute between the two sides at the work meeting in the cabin just now.

I subconsciously looked at the sea again, although it was almost noon, the sky was as dark as evening, thick clouds covered most of the sun, in the distance, at the junction of the clouds and the sea, there was a faint lightning jump twice, as if people did not feel its majesty.

In the past few days, the distance between the supply ship and us has been maintained at about two or three kilometers, although the position changes every day, but on the deck, you can always see the supply ship the size of a beetle on the sea, and the connection between the two ships is also very close. But today, the supply ship has disappeared, is it the darkness or the waves that have obscured its tracks?

Seeing that I kept looking at the sea, Team Cao whispered again, "When we had a meeting, the supply ship changed course, and it is estimated that it is now more than ten kilometers away from us, and they are closer to the disappearance of the East Star, and their ultimate target should be the sea area forty kilometers northeast of us, which is now out of sight." But just now, we lost contact with the supply ship, or rather, we lost contact with the outside world. ”

It dawned on me why my Inmarsat phone could not be dialed, and if the communication signal was interrupted, did it mean that we had entered the magnetic anomaly zone?

"Chang, today's morning meeting, all the gods have been revealed, Professor Lu and Wei have a fierce quarrel on the work plan and arrangement, I always feel that Professor Lu has noticed something, but he doesn't know what to say, and to the key place, both of them will consciously avoid it, I don't know what the reason is, I have to ask when I go back." Not much to say, Wei's plan is about to unfold, maybe go up to the cockpit, and many questions will be answered. After Team Cao finished speaking, he didn't allow me to ask any more, and pulled me to chase after me in a hurry.

The cockpit was hectic, some people sat in front of the transmitter and radio station and kept pressing the keys to send and receive, some people stood on the side of the ship and held nautical instruments to measure repeatedly, some people kept drawing on the charts, and some people held walkie-talkies and shouted loudly, which should be connected with the bilge. Wei and Captain Jiang stood in front of the rudder, looking nervous and not knowing what they were communicating.

Although Wei Chu and Lu Binglin probably had a quarrel just now, they should have reached a consensus, and the mirage chasers carried out their work in an orderly manner, collecting water samples, measuring wind speed, and releasing a few sounding balloons, reflecting a metallic luster in the dark sky. More people should still be in the bilge, a large number of instruments and equipment are all running, and data is constantly being transmitted.

I walked through the busy crowd to Lu Binglin, who was standing in the corner of the cockpit, without saying a word, and handed him a cigarette. Seeing me coming, Lu Binglin seemed to settle down, tried to adjust his mood, straightened his already small hair, and squeezed out a smile.

"Professor Lu, what's the matter, everyone at the morning meeting has different opinions?" I stood casually beside him, leaning against the wall.

Lu Binglin was stunned for a moment, and smiled bitterly, "Old Chang, Team Cao is too straight, I will talk to you about everything." It's normal for everyone to have some different opinions on academic issues, and they won't take it to heart when they argue two sentences in a meeting. After the meeting, it's not a minority obeying the majority, and the work has to be continued, they are all people in the same boat. ”

Looking at his insincere expression, I couldn't help but smile, "Lao Lu, listen to what you say, if it weren't for the fact that everyone was in the same boat, there was nowhere to run, and there was nowhere to hide, you would have stopped talking and scattered in two." ”

Lu Binglin raised his eyebrows, and followed me twice, "How can it, Lao Chang, this is what you said, but not me." Of course, research work allows for different opinions, and how can we draw lessons without trying. ”

I didn't plan to go around in any circle with Professor Lu, so I asked directly, "Old Lu, there is something I haven't understood, back then in the desert, another team chasing mirages all disappeared, and you searched around for half an hour, and Platoon Commander Zhao forced you to leave, but why didn't you continue the search the next day?"

"Huansheng once told me that you are a person with great feelings, how could you give up your team members so easily, and from your description, I always feel that Zhao Platoon Commander is not simple, he knows more about many things than you, and he dares to take ideas when it is critical, not like a simple one to cooperate with your work, right?"

"Is the reason why you don't want to say it in your heart related to the quarrel at your work conference today?

Lu Binglin looked at me in surprise, and soon showed a complicated expression on his face, and only after a while did he burst out of a sentence, "I can't complain about this search and rescue operation, the above named the Cao team to come in, and the Cao team named you to come in, it's really unusual, if you come to engage in academic research, we will definitely take a lot of detours." Let's go out and say. ”

Lu Binglin pulled me to the deck outside the wheelhouse, and the sea breeze was already very strong, and the red pennant on the flagpole was tumbling up and down, as if it might be blown away at any moment. Standing on the deck, people keep shaking back and forth, and it is difficult to straighten their bodies without grasping the railings.

Lu Binglin also understood that it was a completely bad idea for him to drag me out of the capsule, so he had to lean into my ear and almost shout to tell me that it was an order from above to give up the search and rescue back then, because less than 50 kilometers northeast from the Devil's City is the military restricted area, where there is a nuclear research base for the army, and China's first atomic bomb was successfully tested there.

Lu Binglin paused for a while, as if he had made a lot of determination, and then continued: "Lao Chang, the most important thing is that we really didn't have to look for it at that time, on the fourth day after the accident, the troops found the body of a mirage chaser in the hinterland of the desert, which was undoubtedly one of the several missing people. But the body was very weathered and shriveled, and according to the locals, it was impossible for the body to become like this in hundreds of years, but it was only four days later. “

"In particular, the troops found serious radiation exceedances on this body, even if I misidentified the body, how did this victim be exposed to nuclear radiation hundreds of years ago?"

(The mourning of a husband is greater than the death of the heart, and the death of a person is second.) The sun rises in the east and enters the west pole, everything is incomparable, those who have eyes and toes, wait for it and then succeed. If you go out, you will survive, and if you enter, you will die. The same is true of all things, to be to be to die, to be to be born. I will be formed by it, and I will not be exhausted. The effect moves, day and night without gaps, and does not know where it ends. It is formed, and knowing that fate cannot be regulated in front of it. - "Zhuangzi")