When Tang Yue opened the hatch of the airlock room of Kunlun Station alone and stepped on the land of Mars, he didn't have time to express his emotion: "This is just a small step for me, but it is a big step for mankind."

The assistant told him.

The earth blew up.

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Tang Yue's mood was broken.

He later estimated how long his brain was blank, and the subjective time was about a few hours, and all the brain cells in his brain stopped working. The electrical currents on the synapses all stopped flowing, and all the muscles, cells, tissues, and organs in the body were petrified.

In other words, he must have been brain dead once.

Tang Yue put all his work aside, turned around and began to check the computer system in Kunlun Station.

What a good planet.

Such a big globe.

How do you say that it will blow up?

Soon Tang Yue figured out what was going on, the computer was not wrong, it had indeed lost all contact with the earth, the routine connection that was originally carried out every half an hour was suddenly interrupted, and there was no response to the call in the background.

The computer decides to call the police.

It asked the assistant robot old cat to notify Tang Yue.

But when the phrase "lost contact" came to the mouth of a certain second-class robot, it became a terrifying sentence "Tang Yue, your hometown has blown up".

Tang Yue really wanted to step on this stupid assistant.

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This is Kunlun Station, call Jiuquan Center! This is Kunlun Station, call Jiuquan Center! Can you hear me? Kunlun Station calls Jiuquan Center! Call Jiuquan!

No response.

This is Kunlun Station, call Xichang Center!

No response.

This is the Kunlun station, call Baikonur!

No response.

Call Plesetsk!

Call Houston!

Call JFK!

Call French Guiana!

, call Kenya! Call Pakistan! Call Afghanistan!

Tang Yue was sweating profusely and was anxious.

He had tried all means of contact.

But all of them failed without exception.

Losing contact with the Earth on an alien planet alone is really a fatal problem, and Tang Yue doesn't know how those space pioneers solved this problem back then. He had already rushed to the hospital in a hurry, calling all the people he could think of in the world.

If he can't get in touch again, he will jump over the wall in a hurry - calling the Buddha and the Jade Emperor.

"You've been here stupidly calling for six hours, you don't have a communication mechanism with French Guiana, you call them birds?" The assistant robot old cat stood on the side, "Can't you see the words that big on the screen?" ”

A large "NO SIGNAL" flashes on the computer screen.

"How long is the delay in the connection between Mars and Earth at this time?" Tang Yue asked.

"About fifteen minutes." The old cat replied.

Tang Yue's hands and feet were numb, the airtight overalls were not breathable, and the inner lining was already soaked with sweat.

He strictly checked the various systems of the workstation in accordance with the steps of dealing with the problem in the state of emergency, and Tang Yue even turned out the "System Maintenance Manual", which was as thick as a dictionary, and compared it word by word to confirm that he had not missed any step.

"Your inability to contact the earth obviously has nothing to do with the delay, the computer of the workstation has been self-checked 10,000 times, and there is no problem with the contact system, the problem can only be on the other side of the earth." Lao Mao explained, "Probably the signal relay satellite was collectively disconnected. ”

"What can cause a satellite to drop?" Tang Yue asked.

"The earth exploded."

"If you talk nonsense, I'll strangle you."

"Okay, I'll be serious, the probability of the signal relay satellite going offline collectively is very small, because the relay satellite is a public resource, the United States is down and China, China is down and Russia, Russia is down and Japan, Japan is down and Europe is ......" The old cat is verbose, it has always been so talkative.

"So?" Tang Yue interrupted it.

"So it's more reasonable that the earth has blown up, right?"

Tang Yue pounced and pinched the assistant robot.

He couldn't find where the thing's neck was, so he sprained his finger.

"Don't worry, if there is a problem on the other side of the earth, it is much easier to solve it than if there is a problem here on your side, and after losing contact for seven hours, the people in Jiuquan are now more anxious than you." The old cat comforted him, "Maybe their greetings will come in the next second?" You wait with peace of mind, and if you don't want to wait, then go and finish your work. ”

Tang Yue was silent for a few minutes.

If you can't get in touch with the other side of the problem, he can't do it on Mars in a hurry, so it's better to finish the work if he has this time.

As the last payload specialist to return from this Mars exploration mission, Tang Yue is the last scientific research finishing task, so he has to stay for a while longer, complete all the work, and then inspect and close the Kunlun station to prepare for the next batch of astronauts to come to the Kunlun station.

The work of sorting out and counting materials is very simple, Kunlun Station is the earliest scientific research station established on Mars, the scale is very small, the living area is only 100 square meters, one person lives is okay, but six people live is very crowded, in the words of the captain Lao Wang, "7.5 billion people spent 75 billion US dollars to build a 75-square-meter house on the desert 75 million kilometers away, which is definitely the most neurotic real estate project in history." ”

The astronauts in his group had already returned first, and the work was going very smoothly, and Tang Yue estimated that he would soon be able to complete the mission, and then he would be able to return to the space station and return to Earth on the last Orion spacecraft.

The next group of people to come to Mars will have to wait at least until next June's Falcon Heavy launch, and they will be on the road for another half a year.

So by the time someone stepped through the gate again at Kunlun Station, it would have been at least two years later.

The floor and corridor were already filled with large and small boxes, which were all the necessities of life that Tang Yue had organized and stored, including food, medicine, and drinking water.

Everything was sorted out on shelves, and lists were attached to the boxes - there were enough supplies left in the station to survive a team of six for more than six months.

Of course, these things alone are not enough, and the unmanned cargo spacecraft that will provide supplies for the next round of scientific research programs has been launched, taking the Hohmann transfer orbit, and is expected to arrive in a year.

The cargo spacecraft was launched a year earlier than the manned spacecraft, and it was loaded with enough supplies for an entire expedition team to survive for six months.

Tang Yue counted the boxes on the ground, the materials on the side of the wall were what he was going to take away, after all, it would take several months to return to Earth.

The sun was almost setting, a small fireball was hanging on the edge of the desert, today was another day without wind and sand, the sun on Mars looked slightly smaller than on Earth, and the sky had darkened, like a dark blue velvet.

Tang Yue was suddenly stunned, took two steps forward, and slowly widened his eyes.

"Old cat."

"Huh?"

"Is the earth in the western sky at this time?" Tang Yue asked.

"That's right, it's in the western sky at this time, and it's very bright, it's the brightest star you can see, just like you look at Venus on Earth." The old cat replied, "If the weather is good enough and your eyesight is good enough, you can even see the moon." ”

"That'...... Then come and have a look. ”

The old cat turned around and creaked, and looked in the direction of Tang Yue's finger, and the two cat's eyes shrank suddenly.

"Oh, where is the Earth?"

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August 11, 2052 A.D.

15:22:13 Beijing time.

07:22:13 UTC.

A high-speed stream of particles with a diameter of 200,000 kilometers passed through the solar system at the speed of light at an angle of 5 degrees, 12 minutes and 22 seconds to the ecliptic plane, and the third terrestrial planet of the solar system was wiped out in 0.0009 seconds.