It wasn't until years later that I realized what was on my husband's mind on the night I spoke of intellectual pleasure. He was thinking that only those who can enjoy the pleasures of the intellect and feel the pain of the intellect are mature wise men. In that era of intellectual explosion, the people enjoyed the happiness brought by the improvement of intelligence, and only Tianle experienced the pain of the "prophet".

——Excerpt from "A Hundred Years of Collecting Shellfish", written by Yu Leshui

1

The "Noah's Ark" will set sail tomorrow. It will first sail within the solar system for a period of time to make a final test of the spacecraft's performance, including take-off and landing on Jupiter and hydrogen extraction, and transmit the results back to Earth as the basis for mass production of spacecraft in the future. It will then fly intermittently, looking for the "Chu's" in the vicinity in a "non-blind" manner, which has lost contact. The speed of "Chu's" is only slightly more than one ten-thousandth of the speed of light, that is, it has traveled only one thousandth of a light year in the ten years since its launch. Therefore, with the performance of the "Noah", it should be easy to find it, it is like an eagle falcon looking for a rubber duck on the surface of the lake. If it can be found, the "Noah" will take the fourteen crew members (including Chu Guifu and thirteen oviparous children) who are in a frozen state, thaw them, accept them as the new crew of the "Noah", and then re-board. After all, the chances of survival of the new spacecraft are much higher than those of the "Chu's". As for the 5 million human eggs in the 500 egg-shaped cabins on the "Chu's", since the "Noah" had no space to hold them, they had no choice but to leave them on the original ship and continue its original voyage "slowly."

In case the "Chu's" cannot be found, the "Noah" will not be delayed too much, but will immediately start flying faster than the speed of light. To put it bluntly, this arrangement is also to dispel the uneasiness in the hearts of people (including Yu Leshui) - the fear that "Noah" will collide with its forerunner during a faster-than-light blind flight, although the probability of impact is basically zero. From this point on, the "Noahs" will truly become a space race, and the "Noah" will cross the cataclysmic area in 100 years, and then surf the wingers to their heart's content, and follow the wingers to travel at the speed of light, and then transmit the observations back to Earth at the speed of light. Of course, it would have been 300 years before the Earth received the observations.

The whole human society is in a state of extreme excitement, like a flock of geese in the excitement of migration. Ever since humanity was thrown into a pot of boiling water, its potential has been fully unleashed. It has only been 22 years since the "Chuma discovery" was announced, and it has only been eight years since the "Chu's" spacecraft was launched, and the scientific and technological level of mankind has spanned thousands of years, realizing the big bang of science and technology represented by faster-than-light navigation, including the three-state vacuum theory, cold fusion technology, awning technology, human egg technology, genetic modification, the "transparent" interface between the human brain and the computer, and the technology of embedding chips to improve the intelligence of the human brain, etc. Genius scientists represented by Chu Tianle, Pauli, Ma Shiqi, Alex, George, Barrow, He Zizhou, Ji Jichang, etc. Ge Qihong, vice president of the Friends of Le Foundation, who loves to say naughty things, once sighed:

"With these twenty or thirty years of splendor, even if the human race really perishes, it is worth it."

Of course, his "crow's mouth" caused everyone to laugh and scold. No one thought that he actually made a prophecy earlier than Chu Tianle.

The farewell ceremony was originally intended to be held in synchronous orbit, just like the farewell of the "Chu". But this time, there were too many guests to participate, and it was not feasible to go to the synchronous track, so it had to be held on the ground instead. As for the farewell location, Ji Renrui chose a place of great historical significance - Human Egg Island in the Danjiang Reservoir in the Central Plains of China. It was once the birthplace of oviparous humans, and there are still traces of eggshells and footprints. Although the oviparous are probably a thing of the past in human history (with faster-than-light spaceships, this "poor man's technology" was completely eliminated, and the hope of survival of the five million oviparous children is very slim), in any case, they are the forerunners of the space race, and they are worth remembering and admiring. Moreover, there is no trace of the human egg island, the water and the sky are the same, and it has the unique artistic conception of "the wind is sluggish and the water is cold", which is a good place to say goodbye.

One thousand and two Noahs (including Chimpanzee Azi and Maru) lined up in the central area of Egg Island. They wore uniform white garments, and on the back of their blouses were black and white taijitu, which was the emblem of the Noah clan. Each person has a book in their hand, which is the Bible of the Space Clan, the Noah's Covenant. They were bareheaded and barefoot, both men and women. The bald head is because in the confined environment of the spaceship, hair loss is easy to cause pollution; Barefoot, because shoes are not needed in the spaceship environment. In fact, the more important reason is that the Noahs deliberately formed some customs that were different from those of the earthlings in order to remind themselves of the new identity of the "space race". The procession is based on the family. At the front of the line were Captain Alex, his wife, Margaret Canippe, and a pair of children, as well as two new young wives. In second place is He Zizhou and his three wives, the third of whom was just married the day before yesterday. Behind them are the physicist Barrow, the mathematician James, etc., and their respective families. The professional choice of the crew of the "Noah" is mainly "hard technology", but there is also a moderate amount of literature, history, philosophy and artistic talents. Ji Jichang, one of the core figures of the Noah faction, is not in this group of crew members, and he will be the captain of the next spaceship.

The thousand-man square was silent, like a frozen stone statue. Only Azi and Maru, who were in the middle of the queue, couldn't stop and kept looking left and right. However, they (they) are intellectually strong enough to comprehend the solemnity of the atmosphere around them, so they can also refrain from acting more excessively.

There were more than 2,000 people who saw them off, forming a dense wall of people around the crew, but keeping a certain distance from the crew in the circle. The area of Human Egg Island is not large, and two groups of people basically occupy the whole island. The Ma family came, Tianle's mother pushed Tianle in a wheelchair, and Sister-in-law Xu carried the grass on her back. Yu Leshui has been holding her sister-in-law Liu Ye by her side, and she knows that today is a difficult day for Liu Ye. Liu Ye was wearing homely clothes and had a calm expression. It was the season for the willows to spit green, and after she went up to the egg island, she went to the water's edge to pick some young willow branches, and made a green laurel wreath to wear on her head, which made her very conspicuous in the crowd of people seeing off.

They stood across from He Zizhou and his family at a distance. He Zizhou and Ma Liuye stared at each other silently.

People come by boat, and now all kinds of boats of all sizes surround the desert island, like a flock of black swans gathered on the vast lake.

The oath began. The Noahs put the Noah's Covenant on their left chest with their right hand and recited the oath in unison. The oath is very simple:

"I pledge to abide by the Noah's Covenant,

Life is above all else, the collective is above the individual;

Continue the unity of mankind and inherit the civilization of the earth. ”

They took an oath in English, which was the only official language of Noah's society, and others such as Chinese, French, Spanish, etc., were reserved for research purposes only. The crew's voices are sonorous and rhythmic, and the sound of Langlang echoes over the desert island. The two chimpanzees, already equipped with voice changers and able to speak in English, recited the oath like everyone else.

Listening to Noah's oath, Yu Leshui couldn't help but think of what Tianle's mother said when she interviewed the Ma family twenty-two years ago: "Aren't people living to stay behind?" At that time, I once felt that this woman with low education summed up the meaning of life in the most concise and homely language. In fact, Noah's oath can also be simplified to the four words that Tianle Ma said:

Alive. Stay later.

After the oath was over, the families of the crew had already set their sights on the target, and at this time they rushed up and broke up the white queue in the circle. They shed tears and hugged their loved ones, and gave their loved ones the last food and wine to their loved ones who were about to say goodbye. Francine Blois, who had travelled from Africa, squeezed into the heart of the crowd, found two orangutans, hugged them affectionately, and said goodbye to them in sign language (Bruis is not used to speaking English). After three years of intensive training, Azi and Maru have taken their intelligence to the next level, and they already know that they are about to go on a space expedition to the stars. Azi happily said in sign language:

"I like to go up to the sky, look at the stars, look at the Milky Way."

"Yes, you'll be able to see the stars, the Milky Way, and so many other things that you can't see on earth. I envy you both. ”

Maru said, "I like you to go too." ”

Blois said bitterly: "It's a pity I can't go, I want to stay on Earth." However, I will always remember you, the two smartest orangutans. ”

"I remember you too. I remember liking you. ”

Brois was amused by her childish words, "Yes, I remember to like Maru, remember to like Az." Good bye. ”

"Goodbye."

Alex and He Zizhou, as the captain and deputy of the ship, first had to entertain the United Nations and the ** representatives, the Pope's representatives, the representatives of the "Friends of Music", etc., and said goodbye to them one by one, and also said solemnly goodbye to Ji Jichang, the captain of the next spacecraft. Half an hour later, He Zizhou took time to lead his three wives to squeeze in front of Liu Ye. Liu Ye is familiar with Ofhra and Kembdora, and He Zizhou introduced another yellow ** named Qi Jichen. Liu Ye found that this woman's eyebrows and eyes were extremely similar to herself, and she couldn't help but realize He Zizhou's secret intentions when choosing the last wife.

But everything was irretrievable, and she had no intention of doing so. At this moment, her heart was overflowing with pity, because in a little while the Noahs would hear that terrible news, which she already knew yesterday. She calmed down, took off the willow crown from her head, put it on Brother Yangyang's bald head, and said jokingly:

"The ancient Chinese have always liked to fold willows to say goodbye, so I'll give you a willow crown. I see it as a crown and wish you a good chief after Alex. ”

He Zizhou said solemnly: "Thank you for the gift. I will use genetic technology to keep it alive forever and always accompany the ship. ”

Qi Jichen stepped forward and hugged Liu Ye, "Sister Liu Ye, I already knew about you. It's a shame that you decided not to immigrate, but it's a blessing for me, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to take advantage of it. ”

She laughed loudly, causing everyone around her to laugh. Liu Ye envied her clear state of mind, and she did not show her usual sadness and sadness when she was about to part with the earth and her relatives. When the two women embraced, Liu Ye crossed Qi's shoulder to find Brother Yangyang's gaze, and the two nodded tacitly, smiled, and left.

The send-off man left the desert island and returned to the ship to free up the ground to land the helicopter. The 1,002 crew members will fly directly to the equatorial island of Halmahera, where they will be lifted into synchronous orbit in a transport spacecraft and enter the "Noah", which will soon set sail. The send-off reluctantly said goodbye to their loved ones, left the island in tears, and stared at the crew on the island from the boat. Liu Ye and Tianle's mother also left, and the only people on the island who saw off the island were Chu Tianle in a wheelchair and his wife pushing a wheelchair, as well as Pauli, a resident of the island, who was still far away from the crowd and looked at this side with a lonely expression.

One thousand and two crew members relined themselves in front of Chu Yu and the others. The island was eerily quiet, the breeze stirred the half-man-deep thatch, and the eggshells and small footprints under the glass cover were silently sealed in time. Chu Tianle smiled at his wife: It's time to start. Yu Leshui took out the wireless microphone and a piece of paper, and said in a soothing tone:

"I have been asked by my husband, Mr. Chu Tianle, and Mr. Hawke Paulie to read this letter. The discovery described in the letter was made by the two of them four years ago, but has not been made public. She nodded to Pauli in the distance, "My father-in-law, Mr. Ma Shiqi, had a deep conversation with Chu Tianle before he died, and persuaded him to make it public. After that, Chu Tianle and Pauli agreed to announce it to the crew before the spacecraft went into the sky, and then to the public. Because Mr. Ma said: The human beings of this era have matured enough to face any bad news. ”

The audience was silent.

Yu Leshui began to read. Her voice was high-pitched and desolate:

"Fellow relatives, children, please understand this address, because we are seeing off our children on behalf of the mother's family. The words of blessing are no longer spoken, what we want to say today is to remind you of the storms and waves on the journey, and to tell you the reality that the spaceship is about to face. Unfortunately, this reality is quite cold. ”

"Twenty-two years ago, the scientific community discovered that the local space centered on the Sun has shrunk dramatically, which will cause the destruction of the solar system and the Earth. Since then, all the potential of humanity has been unleashed, and all efforts have been made to find a way for the population to survive. Since then, the scientific community has discovered that the collapsed area is expanding outward at the speed of light. However, according to physical theory, the shrinkage of space must decrease with the square of the distance, so that the fleeing ship can still find a safe place. Four years ago, the scientific community further discovered that the collapse area is expanding at the speed of light while its intensity is not diminishing. However, by then, humanity already had faster-than-light spacecraft, so ships could stay safe on the edge of the tsunami forever until the tsunami spread across the universe. Although the final outcome is unfortunate, it will be tens of billions of years later. ”

The above is a review of history. Yu Leshui paused slightly, and continued to read:

"It's cruel enough to be a reality, but it's a pity that we've found an even harsher reality. In fact, there is no such thing as a local cosmic collapse. As early as 22 years ago, what mankind discovered was the total, synchronized contraction of the entire universe. It is only because the contraction began only 30 years ago, due to the delay in the propagation of light, only the spectral blueshift of stars within 30 light-years can be observed at that time, so the illusion of local space shrinkage is created. Twenty-two years have passed, and now this observable area has expanded to fifty-two light-years. Children, this means that the whole universe is terminally ill and will collapse in a thousand years, and there is no safe oasis, even the faster-than-light 'Noah' has nowhere to escape. Perhaps at this very moment, many light-years away sapient races are trying their best to flee to us. ”

Although the crew was mentally prepared, this utter bad news still made a thousand people feel like ice water, and the desert island was filled with an eerie and murderous atmosphere. Yu Leshui looked down at her husband in a wheelchair, who was straight, his eyes were level, and he was as expressionless as a stone statue. Look at Pauli on the edge of the crowd, he stands with his hands behind his back, and he has the same expression. What's on their minds at the moment? In the past four years, when they were alone with this secret, what were they thinking? This was the expression on my husband's face when he handed him this speech yesterday, and Yu Leshui remembered that he had always had this expression when he was alone for the past four years.

Yesterday in the middle of the mountain, Mom, Willow Leaf and Grass were playing in the courtyard. The two-year-old grass went crazy, giggled and ran into the house, hit each adult in the palm of his hand, and ran out with a giggle. She repeated the simple game so endlessly that the adults couldn't help but laugh. Liu Ye and He Zizhou were about to be separated, even if her heart turned back and forth, she didn't show it, she just happily played with Cao'er. Chu Tianle, who had just returned from Renegg Island, handed over a computer printout to his wife, and Yu Leshui looked at her husband in shock after reading it. Tianle gave a brief explanation:

"Actually, scientists should have thought of this conclusion a long time ago." "The conclusion is that the entire universe actually began to contract at the same time, and there was a simultaneous spectral blueshift," he said calmly. However, since it takes time for light to propagate, the Earth can only see the blueshift of the surrounding stars in T light years when the change begins, which creates the illusion of local collapse. Because the shrinkage is uniform, the visual velocity or blueshift of the star is proportional to the distance, and the farther away the star, the greater the blueshift; But the contraction is uniformly accelerated, and since the distant starlight is in the early stages of contraction, the blueshift value is smaller the farther away. The combination of these two opposing factors results in a blueshift peak at 0.5 t light years. This conclusion is fully consistent with the observations of the past 22 years and no longer requires any far-fetched explanations. And this also swept away the last cloud of doubt that Dad was worried about - he said that if the collapse happened in the time and space where human civilization existed, it would be more or less like a disguised resurrection of 'anthropocentrism'. I should have thought of it a long time ago. "But as Dad said, there are many heavy cages in which human beings are imprisoned, including the cage of ideas, which is even stronger than the cage of objectification." There was a golden rule in physics that no one doubted: no matter what the motives of change in the universe, they should not travel faster than the speed of light. This has also been confirmed by observations. For example, if a distant nebula were to brighten in its entirety in a decade, it would never be larger than ten light-years. Because of this iron law, no one, including me, thinks that the universe will suddenly turn around and contract overnight. In this way, we have been blind to an obvious fact for twenty-two years. ”

Yu Leshui whispered, "But this golden rule is indeed correct." ”

The husband shook his head, "It's correct, but there is some mechanism that bypasses it, and Pauli and I only realized it four years ago." In fact, someone has been breaking it for a long time, albeit unintentionally. Cosmologists have been discussing the hypothesis that when the critical density of the universe is greater than 1, the expanding universe will eventually turn to contraction. This hypothesis actually has an underlying premise, which is that the universe should be contracted as a whole and synchronously, and not - for example, half of the expansion and half contraction. The 'cosmic isotropy' that the scientific community has recognized actually implies the overall synchronization of the universe. So, what is the mechanism that can bypass this golden rule? I'll use an intuitive metaphor for a two-dimensional world," he said, smiling at Yu Leshui, "using the bubble blowing that I loved to play with since I was a child." ”

Yu Leshui instantly thought of the terminally ill boy who was sitting on the luggage roll and blowing bubbles thirty-eight years ago, and subconsciously clenched her husband's hand. The husband continued:

"Suppose there is a God with a very large lung capacity, standing in the center of a balloon, and is blowing a balloon that is 10 billion light-years large. And we are two-dimensional people living on the surface of the balloon. The expansion of the entire balloon is synchronized and determined by a cause outside of the two dimensions—the air pressure of God's blowing—and has nothing to do with the speed of light on the surface of the balloon, which is the two-dimensional world. Now, suppose God suddenly sneezes violently, and the blast wave travels to the sphere at the speed of light. Since the blast wave occurs at the center of the sphere, it will reach all parts of the sphere at the same time, and the spherical universe will begin to explode at the same moment. Tian Le made an emphatic gesture, "Please note that it takes time for the explosion of the center of the sphere to reach the surface of the sphere, and it still obeys the speed of light limit, but that is a matter of one dimension higher. On the two-dimensional sphere, the spike occurs synchronously in an instant, seemingly breaking through the speed of light limit. Pauli and I called this mechanism 'intrinsic synchronization'. He paused and looked at his wife, "This is exactly what is happening in our universe, just change the two-dimensional to the three-dimensional, and the 'skyrocket' to the 'contraction.'" In a nutshell, the reason for the synchronous contraction of our universe is in the fourth dimension, which is the deep depths of the vacuum. ”

The two were silent for a long time. Outside the courtyard, there was the screaming and crazy laughter of the grass, and the obedient voice seemed to be that Liu Ye had caught a butterfly for her. After a long time, Yu Leshui asked:

But what about the motives? What is the cause of the dramatic contraction of the universe? Which god sneezed in a negative direction? ”

Chu Tianle shook his head, "You asked well." This is still the cover door of the three-state vacuum theory, and no explanation has been found so far. If it did happen in a higher dimension, it might be difficult for humans to understand......" he shook his head again, "I think of what astronomer Xu Yifan said at the first meeting of the Old Boundary Ridge. He said that he had a strong feeling that the reason for the contraction of our local universe was likely to occur in a higher dimension. I easily dismissed it with the arrogance of a young man, saying, 'I don't recognize that there is a God in the universe who loves to play with balloons,' and I am ashamed to think about it now. "However, although the cause is unknown, there can be no doubt that the result – that the universe is contracting as a whole, synchronously, dramatically." The truth was so cruel that Pauli and I kept it a strict mystery until after talking to Dad. ”

Yu Leshui was silent for a while, "Dad encouraged you to make this discovery public?" ”

Dad didn't say anything, only asked: When you were seven years old, I ruthlessly cut off your back road, do you regret it? Leshui, I have never regretted knowing the truth of my condition. The two were silent. Shaoqing Tianle said, "I don't regret it. I thank my godfather for doing this. My godfather also said at that time: 'People always have to die, but this does not prevent them from living happily'. Now, we just need to replace the word 'man' with 'human' and 'cosmos' in this sentence. To live is to live, not to escape death, because ultimate death is inescapable and theoretically inescapable. One can rely on science to change the local environment, but no one will be arrogant enough to think that humanity can transform the entire universe, or that when the universe inevitably goes to extinction, the flower of humanity can bloom on its own in the ruins. Therefore, we might as well cut off the back road of mankind ruthlessly, so that maybe human beings can have a brilliant flowering period in their old age. ”

Yu Leshui sighed and reluctantly agreed with her husband's decision, but she couldn't help but feel gloomy in her heart. For more than 20 years, the "Friends of Joy" have been "whipping" all mankind to find a way to live, but they didn't expect that looking for the front is still a dead end, a complete dead-end road! She said:

"Pauli agrees to publish it too?"

"He doesn't care. He was a philosopher far from the world, obsessed with exploring the deep mechanism of the universe, and did not pay much attention to the small disturbances of the world. ”

"Before the announcement, I have to discuss it with Ji Renrui and them, I'm afraid of causing a big turmoil."

Chu Tianle smiled bitterly and said: "I understand him, he will not agree to the announcement, he will definitely say that this conclusion is beyond the people's ability to bear." ”

The husband's words are actually saying that even if Ji Renrui disagrees, he will announce it to the public, especially to the crew of the "Noah", and he will not let Noah set sail before he knows the truth. Yu Leshui thought hard, unable to get out of this dilemma - if it was announced, it would be difficult to avoid major turmoil; If it is not announced, will it allow human beings to die in such a blur? Finally she asked:

"Are you willing to tell Mom and Willow Leaf the news?"

This sentence is actually a test of Chu Tianle's determination: Before telling the people, do you have the courage to tell a few relatives this bad news? Chu Tianle looked at her and didn't say much, but directly called the three people outside in. The three women were having fun, all with the breath of sunshine and spring breeze, the grass was red and fluttering, their foreheads were soaked with fine sweat, and they were holding a large black butterfly in their hands. Chu Tianle handed the piece of paper to Liu Ye, and Liu Ye glared at his brother in shock after reading it. The brother motioned for her to pass the paper to her mother. Tianle's mother was silent for a long time after reading it, and sighed:

"I expected that. In the past few years, watching Tianle suffer alone, I have already guessed that I am not far from ten. Alas, at my age, I have long looked down on life and death. But it's really ...... to think of a baby like Cao'er."

Her eyes were red and she stopped talking. Liu Ye was silent for a while, and suddenly said thoughtlessly: "Let Yangyang let them go." Since the universe ...... Let them fly. ”

Cao'er looked at a few adults strangely and asked, "Auntie, what's wrong with you?" Grandma, why are you crying, did Dad make you angry? ”

She stroked her grandmother's face with her little hands. Tianle's mother finally couldn't hold back her tears.

On the barren grass slope of Egg Island, Yu Leshui finished reading the letter, and a thousand bald and barefoot Noahs were silent for a long time. After a long time, Alex took a step forward, turned on the spot, faced his subordinates, and said with a smile:

"Thank you, Mr. Chu Tianle and Mr. Pauli, for telling the truth before we set off, and decisively cutting off our back road, just like Chu Tianle did when Ma Lao was seven years old. I understand how difficult it was for you to make this decision, so, thank you again for the trust you have placed in a thousand Noahs. He asked, "What are we going to do now?" This is a very significant accident and is a force majeure factor. So, if any of the crew members changed their minds and didn't want to embark on this hopeless expedition, I could understand that. Please think about it for ten minutes, and if you want to change your mind, please retreat outside the circle, and everyone else will still start as planned. ”

He stopped talking, and stared silently at the square in front of him, a thousand people did not say or move, like a thousand frozen statues. The wind of the wilderness tossed the deep thatch, and the monotonous rattle of waves crashing against the shore of the lake could be heard in the distance. Ten minutes passed, and Alex said:

"If not, then I'll notify the helicopter group to come."

There was still no movement below, so he informed. In a matter of moments, dozens of helicopters that had been prepared for a long time flew in, obscured the sky, and landed around the crowd square, dozens of pairs of rotors stirred up a strong wind, and the wild grass under the belly of the plane lay on the ground. At this moment, Ofla, who was standing in the front row, suddenly shouted:

"Wait for me for a few minutes!"

She ran to the nearest helicopter, opened the hatch and jumped on it, quickly saying something to the pilot. The helicopter was immediately elevated and flew towards a large ship on the lake outside the desert island. It hovered over the big ship, and Ophra fell down the rope to find the willow leaf in the crowd. Amid the roar of the helicopter, Oprah spoke loudly and gestured with her hands. Liu Ye was stunned for ten seconds, then suddenly jumped up, hugged his mother and little niece, hugged Uncle Ji, and said with tears streaming down his face:

"Farewell, Mom, Cao'er, Uncle Ji, remember me, I will always remember you!"

She and Opra then ran hand in hand to the helicopter and climbed the rope one after the other. The helicopter then flew to the island and landed on the spot. The two women jumped out of the cabin, Liu Ye ran to her brother and sister-in-law first, hugged the two with tears in her eyes, and then turned around and ran to the team, coming behind He Zizhou. He hurriedly hugged Willow Leaf, and his other three wives also hurriedly hugged Willow Leaf, and then He made a gesture to Alex. The latter then gave the order, and the crew of one thousand and three men ran to their respective helicopters in an orderly manner. Willow also shook off her shoes vigorously as she ran, and went barefoot like everyone else—as for her long black hair, it was only shaved off after boarding.

The helicopter swarm took to the air at the same time and flew south like a flock of birds. Only Chu Tianle in a wheelchair, his wife behind him, and Pauli at the water's edge were left on the desert island. The three of them silently looked into the southern sky, and the eggshells of those lying in the glass cover quietly accompanied them.

2

In a synchronous orbit 36,000 kilometers above the Earth, "Noah" hovered quietly, just like the "Goldfish" a few years ago. In appearance, it is not as spectacular as the "Goldfish", because it is inferior in scale to the former, and the shape is too geometric and lacks personality. The multi-turn winding orbit of magnetic acceleration makes it resemble a longitudinally striped cantaloupe: the head is a convex parabola, on which the two ends of a trillion-electron volt accelerator are fixed, where the particles will complete their collisions. The original "goldfish tail" is still retained, but it is no longer used as a reflector for light, but as a tail antenna.

The news spacecraft and the in-cabin camera broadcast the long, close, and interior shots of the "Noah" to people all over the world. The commentators are still Ye Zhiqiu and Judy Turner from last time. The camera pans to the interior of the cabin. Nestled to the inside of the ellipsoidal hull, the living rooms of more than a thousand hexagonal crew members resemble bee hives, which take up half of the cabin's space. Behind the ship is the engine room and liquid hydrogen storage tank, and at the bow is the command cabin. Now, Alex and He Zizhou stood in the captain's and deputy's seats, waiting for the order to be issued from the Sanya command hall. In the center of the hull was a large hall of activity, where a thousand and three crew members gathered. They don't have a specific job at this time, they talk to each other, hug, make gestures, pat their peers on the shoulders, and frequently exchange places, as if they were driving a large pa

ty。 There are three people in the cabin who stand out: Azi, who has black hair, Maru, and Maliuye, who is dressed in civilian clothes and has black hair. With a set of outfits in their hands, Ophra and Qi Lichen squeezed over to find Liu Ye, who was changing her clothes at the moment. The coat was quickly changed, but her long black hair was still very conspicuous among the group of bald heads, making her mother, brother and sister-in-law, and Cao'er, who were tens of thousands of kilometers away, easily recognize her from the screen at a glance.

The ultimate bad news announced by Chu Tianle didn't seem to have much impact on the Noah people, who were in the midst of a group euphoria before departure. The relatives on the ground were delighted to find that Liu Ye also had a bright expression, and it seemed that she had put aside all kinds of heavy thoughts about "alienation" before—originally, if the entire universe had only a short lifespan of hundreds of years, those ethical thoughts would be too tortuous, and it would be like worrying about a baby girl who had fallen to the ground about the pain of her future childbirth. Tianle's mother was relieved of Liu Ye, but they couldn't avoid sadness in their hearts, Liu Ye's departure was too sudden, so that the mother really couldn't stand it.

The two hosts are explaining, and now it is Ye Zhiqiu's voice: "...... the ignition of the 'Noah' is different from the 'Chu', and even different from the 'Goldfish'. It is capable of reaching a superluminal speed of Mach 1.6 and there is no acceleration phase. Therefore, at the moment of ignition, the spaceship will also disappear instantly, because the human gaze cannot catch up with the faster-than-light stealth spacecraft. This is the unbridled power of the ocean, which neither Yahweh, Zeus, nor Jupiter can do, and it is simply beyond the most magnificent imagination of mankind. But this divine power is achieved through science and technology, and it is a real achievement. So, keep your eyes peeled and wait for the moment when the spaceship suddenly disappears! ”

Judy went on to explain: "The spacecraft's first stop is Jupiter, where it will experiment with high-speed emergency shutdown conditions and simulated hydrogen extraction conditions. Now that the newly ascended Chuma telescope has been aligned with Jupiter, let's hold our breath and wait for the good news to come from there! ”

The people, including the two commentators, did not know the "ultimate bad news" at the moment, so the crowd was filled with excitement before the expedition.

It's time to set sail. There was silence, and the monotonous countdown sound struck the frozen space: "...... 6、5、4、3、2、1。 Ignition! ”

A white light suddenly flashed in front of the ship. This time unlike the "Goldfish", because there is no reflection of the parabolic mirror, the white light does not converge into a single beam of strong light that shoots forward, but scatters in all directions, forming an explosion of light. Then, in a split second, the spaceship suddenly vanished, clean and complete. A long, opaque strip appeared in the sky, obscuring a narrow starry sky behind it, but it was a very brief time, and only a discerning person could get a very short glimpse. The obscured strip of starry sky immediately returned to normal, and the "Chaos Fish Monkey Fish quickly swam away, and soon disappeared." ”

Seven billion people stared at the long, empty shot. Moments later, there was a simultaneous burst of ecstatic cheers across the globe. The confluence of the cheers of seven billion people must have raised the Earth's atmospheric pressure by one percentage point at that moment. People left their televisions and took to the streets, where they spontaneously organized revelries. Unfortunately, most of the population missed the first echo of Noah, which was sent twenty-four minutes after the spacecraft set sail and arrived on Earth sixty-three minutes later. He Zizhou shouted passionately from 700 million kilometers away:

"This is the Noah! We have reached Jupiter in twenty-four minutes. Now the 'Noah' is at anchor to communicate with the Earth. We haven't received a call from Earth yet......"

This is an oversight. By the time Noah set sail, the Earth had already begun a continuous call to it at the same time. Such a call will continue forever until the end of the earth. The very strong call waves, combined with Noah's powerful tail antenna, can ensure that Noah can still receive the sound of its parent star within 100,000 light-years (provided that the spacecraft is hovering and the sound of the Earth has not been swallowed up by the disaster). But—the call should have started fifteen minutes early! Taking the departure time of "Noah" as the time origin, "Noah" at Mach 1.6 arrived at Jupiter 24 minutes later, but the call waves from the earth did not arrive until 39 minutes later! The faster-than-light "Noah" is like a monkey that has broken into the heavenly officials, disrupting all the classical programs, and the intelligent scientific gods have not yet learned to adapt to the new order.

3

Noah has now arrived near Jupiter, outside Jupiter's gravity. "Noah" stopped firing and hovered in an unpowered state. Alex adjusted the angle of the ship so that the bow viewing window was facing Jupiter. This is the largest planet in the solar system, and it occupies the entire observation window and even the entire sky with a forceful momentum. The spacecraft is at the edge of Jupiter's dark night zone at the moment, facing the aurora that stretches for tens of thousands of kilometers on the back side of Jupiter, and the aurora is swaying and deforming in space, like a dream, and under its reflection, the outline of Jupiter's dark hemisphere is clearly visible. The purple aurora at the poles is brighter, like the giant Jupiter with two purple glow-in-the-dark caps. Jupiter rotates so fast that it drives the clouds at the top of its atmosphere to rotate at a speed of about 35,000 kilometers per hour. The clouds are stretched into striped bands, parallel to the equator, alternating between light and dark. The structure of the cloud belt is very complex, and the fierce winding is like a fire of purgatory. Jupiter's Great Red Spot is even more hideous, like a poisonous eye of Satan, its color is slightly rosy in bright red, and the clouds tumble violently, forming powerful vortices.

The viewing window reveals the faint rings of Jupiter and numerous wooden moons. There's the hot-tempered Io (Europa), whose color is bright red and almost bewitching. It is the most volcanically active star in the solar system, and at this moment there is a volcanic eruption, which ejects a cloud of volcanic smoke hundreds of kilometers high, dragging over the rolling mountains and extremely long and wide canyons. There is also Europa, which is more famous (Europa), which is covered with ice layers up to several kilometers thick, and the bright ice surface is covered with criss-crossing ice cracks, some of which even penetrate up to 5,000 meters of ice.

The crew watched in awe at the wild and mighty Jupiter. It was not supposed to be Jupiter's palace,[note 1] but more like Satan's lair. Traveling faster than the speed of light has caused a serious psychological jet lag, and the earth, which was still in the green water and blue sky just now, has reached the hellish Jupiter in the blink of an eye - it is indeed in the blink of an eye! Twenty-four minutes, that is, the time of lunch, without acceleration and deceleration phases, without overload experience, the spacecraft easily crossed a distance of 700 million kilometers! The crew was stunned by the sudden change in their senses.

At this moment, Captain Alex, Chief Officer He Zizhou, and Science Officer Barrow were all in the cockpit. He Zizhou finished calling the earth and did not wait for a reply, because the earth's answer to the call would not arrive until two thirty-nine minutes later. He said to Alex:

"Start hydrogen extraction?"

"Let's get started. You come to drive. ”

According to the predetermined plan, "Noah" has already experimented with emergency stops in high-speed flight, as well as contact with the Earth in the berthing state, and now it is going to experiment with simulated hydrogen extraction in high gravity (Jupiter's equatorial gravity is 2.52G), because in the future voyage, hydrogen replenishment is the most important thing for the spacecraft, and it must be simulated in advance.

For chemically powered spacecraft, even falling in low gravity like Earth's is a very dangerous operation. The ship can only splash into the atmosphere at a very narrow angle, and too much or too little of the angle will cause the ship to crash. But it was too easy for Noah's nimble "Little Bee" to land, with strong power and two large wings that could be flexibly angled, enough to withstand Jupiter's strong gravity.

He Zizhou took two crew members and prepared to leave the mother ship and enter the "Little Bee" No. 1 through the corridor, at this time, the call of the earth came: "'Noah', this is the earth is calling, please answer when you hear it." 'Noah', this is the earth is calling, please answer ...... heard"