However, in the early hours of this morning, when the system staff of the space agency conducted a routine time check, an incredible phenomenon occurred, and there was an error between the atomic clock in the space agency and the time of the space station.

There are a lot of things happening in the space agency every day, and not everything has to alarm the director, especially in the early hours of the morning, if it is not a major event, it is impossible to notify the director of the space agency at the first time.

The phone rang seven times before I heard an old voice on the other end of the microphone, "What's the matter, what time is it, don't bother me with everything", it is obvious that it will not be happy to be woken up from sleep at this time.

The system staff was so nervous that they couldn't even grasp the microphone, and every phone ringtone was like a hammer hitting the heart, and the heart was beating wildly, and a mouth would pop out of the throat.

"Mr. Director, something is wrong, the space agency's atomic clock and the space station's time are one second apart, and I'm checking the cause now?"

The other end of the phone was quiet all of a sudden, not even a curse, the silence was terrifying, and after waiting for a few breaths, I heard a shout: "Find the reason immediately, when I arrive at the space agency, there must be a complete report in front of me, don't publicize this matter, otherwise you will fuck me out." ”

The system member was frightened by a spirit, he had a big deal, he thought that he could try to be easy on the night shift, but he didn't expect that something that he hadn't seen for a thousand years or 10,000 years would happen to him, and he didn't have anything to do. Reluctant systemalists can't say anything about their grievances at this time, this kind of thing only happens in theoretical textbooks, or before the invention of the atomic clock, and no one will believe it.

But the fact happened right in front of his eyes, someone stole a second of time unknowingly, what caused it must be investigated, otherwise not only will he be unlucky, I'm afraid even the director's life will not be easy.

It's easy to say, but it's hard to do, the atomic clock is kept strictly in an underground warehouse, trying to destroy the atomic clock is comparable to robbing a bank vault, and the atomic clock is only used to check the time of the globe and the space station, who would do such a prank. The atomic clock is connected to the internal network of the space agency, and the destruction of hackers is obviously impossible, and the only remaining possibilities are internal destruction and machine failure, and the probability of these two occurrences is 1 in 1000 billion, and the atomic clock is maintained every day, and the probability of error is almost none.

An hour later, a black Cadillac sedan parked in front of the space agency's building, and out of the sedan came a gray-haired old man, this person was Robert, the director of the Kennedy Space Agency, in fact, Robert was only fifty years old this year, and he was overwhelmed by the heavy work, and Robert looked like a seventy-year-old man before he was old.

Robert's energy is not as good as before, so he rarely comes to the space agency in the middle of the night, "Is there something big happening today", in the doorman's random speculation, Robert rarely rushed into the hall of the space agency, and the usually polite Robert disappeared, leaving only the surprised doorman still staring at Robert's back.

In the monitoring hall of the space agency, the atmosphere became extremely tense, and some things could not be hidden inside, and soon the news of the error in the atomic clock spread to everyone in the monitoring room.

"What's the situation now", Robert appeared at the door of the monitoring room, and immediately someone surrounded him.

"Director, the European Space Agency called and asked what was going on?"

"Director, the Asian Space Agency also called and asked why there was a deviation between time and space station?"

"Director, NASA has also found a time error and asked us if there is a time error here?"

……

"Director ......"

"Enough, I want to know what's going on, not for you to ask me what happened, who can tell me when this happened?"

Silence, deathly silence, no one can answer Robert's question. Time errors have been discovered all over the world at the same time, which excludes human and machine errors, "Director, do you want to find some senior astronomers, physicists, ...... and astrologers?" a staff member cautioned.

Astrologer, is this person stupid, this matter has something to do with astrologers, Robert was so angry that he almost kicked out the person who made the suggestion.

"You guys talk about your opinions first", this matter is too big to be responsible for, but fortunately, it is the middle of the night, and it will be impossible to hide this matter in the morning, you must know the cause of this matter, even if you give yourself a reason to be out of tune.

"Director, this matter is not a simple independent incident, space agencies around the world have found that a second was lost, we can rule out the cause of human and machine failures, and now we need to find the cause from the macroscopic and celestial and physical aspects, maybe we can find the root cause of the problem?"

"Celestial, physical?" As long as it's not the reason for the Kennedy space agency, but as the most important space agency on earth, if you don't even know the cause of the incident, it's a bit unreasonable: "If any of you know how it happened, tell me what happened." ”

The hapless time system officer noticed that Robert was looking for him, and he slipped through the crowd and said, "Director, I have checked the data of the atomic clock, and the time of the error was between 8 and 9 o'clock last night, and before this time, we transmitted a file with the space station, and there was no error in the time records of both sides. After 9 o'clock, when the space agency made contact with the space station, there was a one-second error in the record, but no one noticed it at the time, so we were able to lock it in between 8 and 9 o'clock. ”

It's not bad, at least knowing the time of the incident, which makes me not too passive, "I want you to immediately investigate what happened between 8 and 9 o'clock yesterday, such as the activity of the sun, the movement of the earth's crust, and everything that may affect it, immediately help me contact the nearest astronomers, astrophysicists, professors and doctors from several nearby universities who study time, and also invite me to notify the military, proofread the time of all government departments, and do it immediately." ”

Robert felt that all his strength was drained all at once, a second's error, this incident was enough to alarm the top leaders of the alliance, and he had to find a solution to deal with the crisis before the situation was serious, and if he couldn't do it, he had to know how it happened and why this happened.

When Lu Tianyu was leisurely enjoying the winter morning sun, the conference room of the Kennedy Space Agency was already full of people, all kinds of voices filled the venue, there were doubts, some disdain, some people were watching, more people didn't understand what happened, why they were invited here, no one told them the purpose of coming here, everyone was waiting for Robert to appear.

Among the people invited by Robert were doctors, experts, professors, and even some designers of the space shuttle, as long as Robert could think of, and people who were within 500 kilometers were invited by Robert to the Kennedy Space Agency conference room.

Robert's delay in showing up has deepened some people's speculation, which is rare, and the last time a large meeting was held here seems to be when humans landed on Callistto twenty years ago. Some of the people in the venue had been dragged out of bed, some were not even sober after being drunk, and some were almost impotent by the gendarmes who had been in the venue for more than an hour, and although the space agency had prepared a rich breakfast for them, it still attracted many complaints.

Some well-informed people in the venue vaguely knew what was going on through various connections, and were talking in the corner: "I heard that there was an error in the signal between the space agency and the space station yesterday, and we don't need to come forward for this kind of thing." ”

"It's not an error, it's that the time on Earth is suddenly missing a second, remember that today seems to be Friday the 13th, every month on the 1st, the space agency has to check the time with the space station, and check the correctness of the time every day, it seems that something big happened yesterday", a thin middle-aged man whispered, for fear of being heard by others.

"There is such a thing," asked an old man with a white beard, squinting his eyes, "this kind of thing can also happen, whether it is due to human reasons, or equipment failure." ”

"Impossible, I contacted the European Space Agency just now, and the situation is the same there, and I heard that the situation is the same for several other space agencies, it can't be human and equipment failure, who has nothing to do such a thing?"

"No wonder the president of the alliance canceled the press conference on the economic operation of the finance department of the alliance this morning, it seems that this matter should be true."

"It doesn't make sense! How can Earth time be one second slower than the space station? You're an astrophysics student, do you think something like this will happen? ”

A tall white man dragged his eye frame with his hand, and said with a serious expression: "Theoretically, it is not impossible to slow down for a second, if the earth affects its own motion laws due to some external force, or relative to the space station, this kind of thing may happen." ”

The people around listened confused, "Let's be clear, in the existing technology on the earth, is there any ability to make time faster, or slower, or even caused by other reasons." ”

"It's hard to say, but from the information available so far, no government or company can slow down or speed up time. According to my calculations, if the space station wants to make the time error reach one second, it must fly continuously around the earth at the second cosmic speed for more than a year, and if the speed exceeds the third cosmic velocity, the current space station will not stay at the current altitude, so the problem of the space station can also be basically ruled out, unless it is ....... ”

"Unless there's something ......, say it! I'm dying. ”

"Unless the earth itself is affected by some external force, but this does not seem to be right, this external force should also act on the space station, is this force coming from the earth itself, or is this a symptom of the earth's anomaly?"

"What nonsense, I study geophysics, the movement of the earth is very stable, the movement of the earth's crust has entered a period of stability, and there is no change in the earth's core, this force must come from outer space", someone immediately jumped out and retorted.

Robert has been standing at the door of the conference room for a while, and the news was released by himself, just to hear the reaction of these people first, "The result?" Far from ideal, no one can come up with any constructive suggestions, and it seems that the debate will continue. ”

Robert had just finished the supreme meeting of the alliance, and the president and the military had already known about this matter, and asked about the cause, impact and handling of this matter, and the military and political bigwigs attending the meeting only got a vague statement that there was some kind of external force affecting the normal operation of the earth, causing a time error, and as for what external force was still under investigation, it may be investigated forever.

The president of the alliance is very dissatisfied with this irresponsible statement, a one-second error has directly or indirectly caused the loss of billions of star dollars, and the most serious thing is that two near-Earth satellites collided in the air because of an error in time data, and the explanation he got turned out to be the influence of some external force, isn't this deceiving the president that he is a politician, not a scientist?

The military top brass is also very angry, if this inexplicable external force does not get a reasonable explanation, the military will have trouble sleeping, and will feel scared when you think about it, this is already a power beyond the earth, no matter who masters it is a nightmare, and the matter must be thoroughly investigated, otherwise Robert will go home.

Robert didn't dare to roll up and go home, from the day he sat in this position, Robert already knew that he could not die well, the more things he knew, the more likely it was to be cleared, and the military and political bigwigs did not want a person who knew the secret to be out of their control, unless he died.

"Ahem...... please take a seat", Robert walked into the conference room and gently pressed his hands in the air, motioning for the people present to sit down: "I will tell you what happened first, if you have any ideas and suggestions, you are welcome to put them forward, but first I want to remind you that the kind of argument of chasing after the wind and shadows is forgotten, and say something constructive." ”

Lost a second, in the eyes of ordinary people is just to check the time and standard time, in fact, the space agency's approach is the same, the question is not whether the time is right, Robert needs to know the answer, what caused the time error on the earth, even if someone now tells himself that it is because of the time error caused by the violent activity of sunspots, as long as this statement has a theoretical basis, Robert is willing to pinch his nose to accept such a theory, and he urgently needs a reason now.

The question is very troublesome, and the people who were still talking about the theory of time just now closed their mouths in interest after listening to Robert's introduction.

(End of chapter)