It wasn't the first time Zhong Cheng had come to the base, on the contrary, he was familiar with the place, he knew the purpose of each building, and even remembered the faces of many ordinary staff.

But when he stood on the gangway where the hatch was extended, he felt extremely unfamiliar.

The lights on the runway and buildings are still there, but in addition to the normal ground crew, groups of tall figures can be seen patrolling in an orderly manner on the ground.

Hundreds of 'Warrior' robots' photoelectric probes glow green, inspecting every place at a very high density, and even driving patrol cars to pass by from time to time.

Only ordinary staff came to greet the runway, and other important people were not present.

Lin Ju felt his questioning gaze and explained with a smile:

"I'm sorry for the bureau, but we have no choice but to do so."

"Why?"

Zhong Cheng muttered out the three words that he thought were the most powerless.

"As I said, everything is a last resort, and I promised you that dinner may be late, please come with me first."

Sitting on the electric car heading to the destination, Lin Ju took the initiative to provoke the topic:

"You should keep an eye on Lihuo, I tell you, it actually arrived on Mars half a year ago, and has already obtained a lot of information, and now the radio beacon in the monitoring network is just a camouflage.

We deceived you, the 'Leaving the Fire' thruster is nuclear-powered, we call it the 'Comet' propulsion platform, using the fission reactor-powered Hall thruster scheme, and after sending the 'Away from the Fire', it has returned, and it is parked at the Earth-Moon Lagrange point. ”

I see.

This was roughly in line with Zhong Cheng's guess, but he didn't expect it to suddenly open on this day.

He wanted to say something, but eventually remained silent.

"Lihuo is equipped with a very comprehensive exploration equipment, and most of the surface of Mars has been mapped and surveyed in detail in the past time, and all the transmitted data is here, and I will take you to see it now."

The electric car stopped in front of the building of the space department, and the two of them walked in briskly one after the other, bringing a breeze with them.

Xiao Okada was lying on his stomach in front of a computer screen at this time, and he was relieved to see the two, and then pointed behind them excitedly.

It was the first ultra-high-definition real-life image of Mars sent back by 'Lihuo', which is being displayed on a huge LCD screen, and there is a huge shock to the planet.

"Look, this is the first full map of Mars taken by the Huaguo probe, which is definitely the clearest picture in the world, and the lens of other probes is far from being able to compare with it.

This is the Utopia Plains, which the whole world loves, and this photo even shows the landing site of the Phoenix probe. ”

Xiao Okada earnestly introduced the many achievements of "Lihuo", as the most powerful comprehensive detector in history, "Lihuo" has almost reached the limit of orbital probes.

Even Zhong Cheng couldn't help but forget his doubts for a while, and indulged in admiring the photos and exploration maps, which alone were enough for the space agency to be busy for a lot of time.

Xiao Okada released carefully selected materials little by little in chronological order until May 8.

Zhong Cheng was still a little unsatisfied, and couldn't help but admire:

"It's very comprehensive and fills a considerable part of the gaps in the country...... Why didn't it be announced sooner, it's not a bad thing. ”

He has not been able to understand Xinyuan's intention to deliver this probe in advance, if it is just to obtain information earlier, then there is no need for this, it seems that there has been no change on Mars in the past six months.

"Because these things before — not our purpose, or not the main purpose, the real goal is it."

A zoomed-in image of Plains Zero appeared on the screen, and it looked completely normal, judging by the watermark in the upper left corner, it was even taken this morning.

"What is this?"

"I don't know, but we call it 'Plains Zero', we didn't know what was there before, and we don't know now, but it's been confirmed that there must be something."

Zhong Cheng's gaze followed Xiao Okada's gaze to Lin Ju's face, and the latter said solemnly:

"There is a gravitational wave transmitter underneath Plains Zero, and a modulated smart signal was emitted 13 days ago.

The fire was equipped with a rudimentary gravitational wave detection device, which theoretically could not be detected at all, but it was too close, so we intercepted the signal.

This is a clear intelligent signal, the transmission time lasts 0.5 seconds, the power is about 96 kilowatts, the target is unknown, the information is unknown, and the owner of the emission source is unknown. ”

"It's ridiculous."

Zhong Cheng thought so for the first time, but soon regained his due calm.

"You already knew it was there...... Something? ”

"Yes, Xinyuan's purpose includes it."

"Why do you know?"

"Karst told us."

"Who's Karst?"

"A machine, an artificial intelligence, or a life, in short, it has a physical existence."

"Is Karst a human creation?"

"No, at least we don't think so, the era when it was discovered was even only tube computers, but fortunately the concept of computers and artificial intelligence appeared at that time, otherwise the existence of 'karst' would not even be understood."

There was almost no delay in the answer with Lin Ju, the answer was so simple and crisp, everything pointed to "karst".

Obviously, Lin Ju was not interested in whetting his appetite, and directly led the way to other places.

Zhong Cheng followed him all the way to the fourth basement floor that he had never entered, and passed through multiple security checkpoints and robot searches, and even saw a large number of robot soldiers with weapons in their hands, and they were holding something very similar to the electromagnetic rail rifles in science fiction movies.

After being carefully searched by the robot in front of a door, the heavy alloy door slid open.

Inside, an all-metal enclosed space with a large black product in the shape of a fusiform with an angular pedestal, sits next to a laptop.

The surface of the black fusiform has complex textures, messy but full of details, and it is obvious from a distance that there seem to be three characters suspended, which is quite strange.

"'Karst', it was discovered by a Chinese-American Guo Xiao, that is, Guo Shen's uncle, as an aeronautical engineer, he has been working for McDonnell Douglas since the 30s, and he loves to travel.

During a trip, he found it in a karst mountain range, so he named it 'Karst', and this is how it all began.

From the beginning of the 50s to the end of the 60s, Guo Xiao conducted extremely in-depth research on 'karst', and finally developed into a small group of several people, but it was not until ten years ago that with a change in 'karst', the group suddenly began to flourish and expand rapidly.

Four years ago, in order to make reasonable use of the technology brought by 'karst' and achieve its purpose, Xinyuan was established. ”

(End of chapter)