Three hours.

It took Trist three hours to move the unconscious Pike out from under the collapse.

Pike's right hand gripped the other slender hand tightly, never letting go even when he was unconscious, making it harder to dig him out.

But it's just one hand, one arm, and half a shoulder.

The other half of Julie's had been moved to a stretcher and covered with a white cloth half an hour earlier.

Julie, the niece of former judge Diana, the lover of Pike, the director of the agricultural district, and the director of the logistics district, lay there quietly and stopped breathing.

There is no time to grieve, Murphy and Shirley are still inside.

The area was cleared out of the gate, the bodies of a total of 27 victims who had been exhumed were carried out of the agricultural station, and more than a dozen wounded people with varying degrees of severity were evacuated, and people continued to clean up the debris inside.

Clark helped his mother take care of the wounded, and from time to time he peeked at the stubborn teenager in a group of adults.

The dark golden hair was mixed with sweat droplets, and the locks hung down close to the scalp, the always white face was stained with black spots by dust, the brown linen shirt was soaked with sweat, the black work gloves had long been worn out, and a little blood was faintly visible on the five fingers.

The boy didn't realize that his twin brother was still buried inside.

Since the body of Aunt Julie, who has always taken good care of his family, was cleared out, there was no expression on his face anymore.

Another hour passed.

Trist, who had not eaten a drop of water for four hours, did not insist in the face of the water cup handed over by Senior Sister Raven.

The professional equipment that Raven and the logistics staff just brought greatly accelerated the rescue progress.

Two hours later, Trist found Murphy.

In the upper part of the agricultural area, in the corner of the semi-collapsed wall, the unconscious Murphy still maintained a bowed posture, trying to use his back to block the falling steel plate for Shirley. Shirley was lying on the ground, beside a half-finished wreath, and the maker's intentions could be vaguely seen. The girl with a sweet voice, the girl who usually likes to suck her fingers and tilt her head to watch Murphy and Jasper play, this girl who has always been well protected by Julie and Pike, just lay there quietly.

Trist slowly smoothed her frowning brow.

If you don't look at the blood, you can only think that she seems to be in some kind of nightmare.

However, she could never wake up again.

A steel bar pierced Murphy's back and pierced Shirley's heart.

"No!"

With a roar, like a wounded beast, Trist's eyes went black and he fainted beside his younger siblings.

"Quick, get over there!"

A spirit, Senior Sister Raven pulled her boyfriend Cool Boy Fen, who came over to help, and the two carried Trist on the stretcher together.

On the other side, Clark and Wells carefully clean Murphy's wounds and stop the bleeding.

Two days later.

Council Chamber.

On the six empty seats, there was still the body temperature of the members who had just dismissed, and they had already gone to coordinate the aftermath and coordinate the overall repair and maintenance of the ark after the solar storm.

Judge Ahab stood wearily in front of the glass curtain wall, looking out of the ark, the sun, moon and stars intertwined in the dark and cold universe, in this boundless grandeur and vastness, the ark was as small as dust, let alone the humans on the ark. The thousands of years of human history is so insignificant compared to the billion-year-old universe, and the nuclear war a hundred years ago almost completely destroyed it.

Sometimes Ahab couldn't help but wonder if humanity had perished a hundred years ago without the Ark, then after thousands of years, what attitude would the newly born intelligent species on the earth have towards the self-destructive civilization of mankind? Curious? Yearning? Admire? Disdain? Contempt? Ignore? But what does all this have to do with human beings? Without human inheritance, this civilization will only be a gradually dimming page of the history recorded by other races, which will slowly turn into dust and sand under the washing of time.

Isn't it the charm of civilization that gives civilization to the years? Before becoming a judge, as a senior engineer, he once gave an impassioned speech in his lecture, "The Ark inherits human civilization, we are making history, and we will eventually become history", until after the class, he noticed a little boy in the corner teaching his twin brother an old-fashioned lesson, "The Ark? It's just an iron coffin. What kind of spark to inherit civilization? Brag! This is clearly a group of people who are unwilling to admit their mistakes and accept reality in the cold winter, guarding the bonfire that is about to go out, and dreaming unrealistic dreams. ”

"What is a coffin? You said such a profound look, I heard it from Pike, my brother can't be so smart, huh! ”

"A coffin is a wooden box for the burial of the dead. Look, I know you're going to say that the Ark ejected the dead with an airlock, but that's not the case when we're on Earth。。。。。。 I don't know if we can go back to Earth。。。。。。 ”

It was from that day that Ahab paid attention to the boy named Trist. In this accident, I heard that the child dug for five hours to rescue his younger brother, and his twin brother, the child named Murphy, suffered multiple fractures and was pierced through the lobe of the lung by a steel bar, and is not out of danger yet.

"Sir", the hurried guard chief Kane Marcus interrupted Ahab's train of thought, "the statistics are out"

"Tell me, how much do we lose?"

"According to the feedback from various departments, as well as the review and investigation of Dr. Sinclair of the general control room, the space cotton in the agricultural area and the space hemp cultivation area have suffered serious losses, and it is expected that there will be no output in the next three months, and some lines of the remaining sites and communication stations are disconnected, and it will take a week to rebuild the connection, and the engineering department has detected the failure of the No. 74 manipulator in outer space, and the residential station is 。。。。。。" Turning to the next page of the document, Kane reported the human losses, "According to the number of people, a total of 41 citizens were killed, 7 were seriously injured and 19 were slightly injured. ”

The wrinkles in Ahab's forehead deepened a little, and he waved his hand to signal Kane to step down, and he would discuss it with the council later.

When Kane's figure disappeared in the doorway, Ahab turned and slowly sat down the steps, silently covering his cheeks with his hands.

Behind him was the vast universe, the endless void, like a dream.