Die on Mars

I don't know how much time passed, but Tang Yue's eyes felt sore and painful, and tears couldn't stop flowing down. Staring at the images on the computer for a long time was really a time-consuming and energy-consuming thing. As time went by, Tang Yue couldn't stop watching. Became cross-eyed.

There are so many photos that need to be identified that it seems endless, and each one is highly similar. The previous one looks different from the next one only by the number. When the image is enlarged, it is filled with gray and black pixels. Staring at this kind of thing Watching can easily cause eye and brain fatigue. In order to prevent his eyesight from missing clues, Tang Yue often had to close his eyes and rest.

Ophiopogon japonicus's camera field of view is a rectangle with an area of ​​2,000 square meters, with a length of 40 to 50 meters and a width of 40 to 50 meters. The length of the Martian stray dog ​​is more than five meters, and the shadow cast by the sun on the ground can appear even more Big, if the space station really photographed a Martian stray dog, then Tang Yue and Maidong should be able to quickly distinguish it, just like a striking reef on the sea.

Tang Yue also tried to find more traces, such as the ruts of the Martian Stray Dog and the traces of the deployment of solar panels, but he later gave up his efforts. The resolution of the image was too low, and the Martian Stray Dog was as big as a truck. The thing could barely be distinguished clearly, but the ruts on the sand were completely hidden in the mosaic, and all the details were blurred into square pixels. Tang Yue couldn't see it with two eyes.

dune.

dune.

rock.

shadow.

dune.

mountains.

rock.

Rock again.

Still rock.

Tang Yue closed his eyes and left the table. All the computer screens were filled with images of the surface of Mars. The number of the photos had reached three hundred and twenty, which meant that he had viewed more than three hundred photos and searched for sixty-four It covers an area of ​​10,000 square meters, but so far he has not found any valuable clues, and there is no trace of the old cat's activities.

As a robot, the old cat needs nothing but electricity. In a sense, this makes it more difficult for Tang Yue to search for it. If the old cat is replaced by a normal person, then he will inevitably carry the momentum like a nomad. With the huge cost of food and clothing, human life will leave a lot of traces and produce a lot of garbage. These abnormal traces are obviously different from the natural environment and can be easily seen.

But the old cat only needs the battery panel and the rover. When moving, he puts the battery panel away, steps on the accelerator, and disappears into the vast desert. The wind and sand will bury and eliminate the ruts of the stray dogs on Mars, leaving no trace.

Tang Yue pressed his eyes and rested for half a minute. He opened his eyes and glanced at the time. Unknowingly, he had been searching for more than three hours.

Within these three hours, the United Space Station passed over Kunlun Station again. Maidong took another thousand photos and transmitted them to the computer at Kunlun Station for storage, waiting for interpretation.

"Tang Yue, have you seen the position I just circled? What do you think it is... I think it's a bit like the traces of a Mars rover, and the direction is exactly the same." Maidong was nibbling biscuits and turned towards the camera. . Maidong is also as tired as Tang Yue. Her workload is even greater than that of Tang Yue. She is so busy that she has not eaten yet, so she can only solve the problem by nibbling on a piece of biscuit.

Tang Yue shook his head, "It's just the shadow of the river bed, not the ruts of stray dogs on Mars."

"So what about Mark No. 2? Is that circle so neat and formed naturally? Could it be a sign of Mr. Cat's activity?"

"It has nothing to do with the old cat, it's probably just a trap."

After searching the surface of Mars so carefully, Tang Yue and Maidong occasionally found some strange things, which did not look like natural formations or artificial creations. For example, in a certain photo, a huge half-buried statue could be seen. With a shoehorned face - Ophiopogon japonicus could not explain their origin anyway. Tang Yue said that it was possible that they were just ordinary rocks. Since the resolution of the photos was extremely low, the rocks were captured by them under the combined effect of light and shadow. The association became something else.

This is like the sensational statue of a human face on Mars. In the 1970s, the Viking probes discovered a clear human face on the surface of Mars. However, it turned out that this human face had nothing to do with intelligent Martian creatures. It was just a magic trick of light and shadow. Later, other detectors re-photographed the original place, and it turned out to be just a rock with no abnormalities.

Maidong rubbed her eyes. Her eyes were a little dry and astringent, and she could see beating shadows even if she closed her eyes.

She had to rest. If she kept looking like this, she would see double images.

The United Space Station has already moved to the far side of Mars, and it will take more than an hour to pass over the Kunlun Station again. During this interval of more than an hour, Maidong took the time to interpret the images and bear part of the workload for Tang Yue. The girl has completed the analysis of more than two hundred photos. Maidong is a very careful girl. She has repeated the boring interpretation work more than two hundred times and is meticulous. She must confirm that there is no doubt in every picture.

After two rounds of scanning, Ophiopogon japonicus has photographed an area of ​​nearly six million square meters, which is six square kilometers, and the total area she needs to search is as high as one hundred and ninety square kilometers, which is less than one-thirtieth completed. .

The amount of image data left is daunting when you think about it. It’s a vast ocean.

Maidong picked up the Shiba Inu doll floating in the air, held it in his hand, squeezed it hard, and then placed it on top of his head.

"Little Q, little Q, where do you think Mr. Cat went?"

The name of this Shiba Inu is Ah Q. It is obvious that Ophiopogon japonicus is a bad namer. The name she chose is simply a collection of Lu Xun's works. The tomatoes in the incubator can be called Runtu and Yu.

The little stuffed toy opened a pair of big dark eyes with an innocent face.

Maidong looked directly at it, with his bright black eyes open and his face full of innocence.

"There are still one hundred thousand photos... One hundred thousand, one hundred thousand, one hundred thousand! One hundred thousand, one hundred thousand!"

The girl pinched the stuffed toy here and there, each time it was pinched, it was like a hundred thousand words, and the dog's face was pinched and deformed.

"Oh my God, who can help me... There are a hundred thousand of them. I think I'm going to die here..." The girl slowly covered her face and sighed.

"Ophiopogon japonicus?"

"Here!" The girl opened her eyes and pushed the carp upright against the bulkhead, "Why did you call me, my dear?"

"Look at this." Tang Yue sent the photo, "Two lines of very uniform dark marks, almost completely parallel, do they look like ruts?"

Maidong stared at the screen for a long time, "No...no, it's not a rut. Tang Yue, compare it with the surrounding environment and look at the ruler. If this is a rut, then the rut must be more than three meters long." Width, the wheels of Mars Stray Dogs are nowhere near that wide..."

Tang Yue said nothing, presumably observing the image carefully.

"I think these should be the shadows on both sides of a rectangular sand dune. Tang Yue, please rotate the photo a little bit." Maidong reminded, "These two shadows are not concave, but convex."

"I understand, next one."

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(Author Jun’s gossip:

Highly recommend the movie "The Wandering Earth", the first domestic science fiction masterpiece.

When the author read the original work of Da Liu's "The Wandering Earth", he thought that this novel was one of Da Liu's many works that was not suitable for adaptation into a movie, because its core is grand emotion and courage rather than storytelling. A film adaptation of a novel with a weak story is likely to be unflattering.

Unexpectedly, someone really took this hard nut. The author is very happy for domestic science fiction from the bottom of his heart. )