Die on Mars

As the sun rises, Tang Yue drags his car and walks in the battery farm.

As the saying goes, if you survive a catastrophe, you will be blessed later in life, but Tang Yue didn't see any kind of future blessing in himself - of course, the old cat said that smashing shit in 996 is also your blessing.

Tang Yue asked, should he thank the comet for giving him the opportunity to poop?

The old cat gave a thumbs up.

Tang Yue laid the solar panels flat on the deserted beach, carefully brushed off the sand and soil on the batteries, and looked up at the sky. There is basically no concept of weather on Mars because there is no complex atmospheric water cycle. Six hundred and eighty-seven years a year. The sky is bright and sunny most of the time, but occasionally there will be wind and sand. Very fine dust is swept into the atmosphere by the flowing air, making the whole day look gray, some like light brown haze.

The dust storms that Tang Yue encountered when the Eagle spacecraft was originally launched were rare. Storms on Mars are related to the seasons. Because Mars is farther from the sun than the Earth, the eccentricity of its orbit is greater, so the dust storms on Mars are The changes in the seasons are actually more obvious than on Earth. As the seasons rotate, the ice cap area at the poles of Mars will change significantly.

Of course, Tang Yue couldn't see this change.

Whether it is summer or winter, the outdoor climate of Kunlun Station is a virtue for Tang Yue...the atmosphere is one percent of the standard pressure, the temperature is minus forty or fifty degrees Celsius at night, the eternal drought and windy sand, if there is any problem with the Mingguang Armor, it will be a dead end. One piece.

Old Cat said that the storm they encountered last time was just a small-scale cyclone, which was a normal activity of the atmosphere. What is really scary and fatal is a global super storm. This kind of storm only occurs about once every three Martian years. Calculated In six to eight years, once Kunlun Station encounters such a super storm, there will be no way to do it.

Even legendary old-timers like Opportunity have fallen into the hands of global storms.

Tang Yue and Lao Mao could only pray that the next storm would come as late as possible.

Tang Yue patted the sand on his body and dragged the car back to the garage. Today's outdoor temperature is minus 20 degrees Celsius, no wind and no sand. The air quality is very good, with 95% pure carbon dioxide and 3% Nitrogen gas, one breath can cause myocardial infarction.

Counting the days, today should be July 1, 2053 in the Earth's Gregorian calendar. It is the turn of winter and spring on Mars. The most common thing at this time is a dry and windless sunny day.

Kunlun Station is located in the northern hemisphere. The spring and summer in the northern hemisphere are more than forty days longer than the autumn and winter. The spring that the Yixi Plain is about to enter will last for six months. Tang Yue only hopes that in the long and silent period that will follow, In spring, there is no singing of birds or fragrance of flowers, but everything is safe.

Spending every day peacefully has become an unattainable luxury.

"Tang Yue, your speed has slowed down." Lao Mao's voice sounded in the headphones, "It only took you two hours to complete your daily work before, but now it takes two and a half hours. Are you too old to walk?"

"When did I become slow? I've always been fast, okay?" Tang Yue pushed the small trailer into the garage, turned around and came out, cleaning the Chelome with an old brush. "Which time are you looking at? Standard Earth Time? Or Coordinated Earth Time? Mars time?”

"Of course it's standard Earth time." Old Cat replied, "One second is defined as the duration of 9192631770 cycles of radiation corresponding to the transition between the two ultra-fine energy levels of the ground state of a cesium atom. The most stringent and standard Earth time .”

There are two timing systems at Kunlun Station.

In addition to standard Earth time, there is also a set of coordinated Martian time.

Coordinated Martian Time redivides the Martian day into twenty-four hours, so one second in Coordinated Martian Time is 2.7% longer than a normal second.

This timing method is generally only used by astronauts in daily life.

"I'm only twenty-seven years old. Strictly speaking, I'm still a youth, right? I haven't reached the age of automatic withdrawal from the Communist Youth League yet." Tang Yue carefully maintained the Chelome detector and removed dust particles from its Clean out the cracks in the shell.

"But maybe your total lifespan is only thirty years." The old cat said, "Isn't it already half buried in the earth at the age of twenty-seven?"

"Can you say something nice?" Tang Yue rolled his eyes.

"I said you can live to be thirty, isn't that a good thing?"

Tang Yue was stunned, and after thinking about it carefully, there seemed to be nothing wrong with what the old cat said.

"Okay, you're right, I'm old." Tang Yue sat down on the ground and threw away the brush in his hand, "I serve as an old man. From now on, these daily routine tasks will be left to you. Come on, old cat, I, an old guy, can just lie in bed and wait to die..."

"What are you talking about, young man!" Old Mao shouted and interrupted him, "How can you say such depressing words at such a young age? You haven't reached the age of withdrawal from the Communist Youth League yet, and you are still the successor of communism. Oh! As the 6.5 billionth heir to the great cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics, you should cheer up!"

"Two hundred years ago, when the capitalists exploited the workers at the bottom, were they the same as you are now?"

"No."

"No?"

"Capitalists always have this face when they exploit workers." Old Mao said, "You have recorded so much history, you should be clear about this: they will draw a pie on paper and use this to motivate workers But when people make this pie, capital will put the pie into their own pockets without hesitation, and all the workers will get is the oil on their hands when making the pie."

"You exploitative cat."

"Don't take class struggle as the key point at this time. Besides, have I ever exploited you? There has never been an employment relationship between you and me, because I have never paid you any wages for your work."

"You have been upgraded from a landlord to a slave owner, right? Master Cat, I think the melon-skin cap, robe, mandarin jacket, old Beijing cloth shoes are very suitable for you."

The old cat thought about that image for a moment.

"Are you an old man from a big house in a Hutong house in Beijing?"

"No, it's Kong Yiji." Tang Yue patted the Chelome number next to him, straightened up, and picked up the brush. "There are four ways to write the word "exploitation," do you know?"

Tang Yue turned his head and glanced into the distance. There was a grave he dug for himself there. Tang Yue was originally going to lie in that pit to face death, but in the end the comet did not hit Mars and the dug grave was of no use.

But Tang Yue did not fill this hole.

He knew very well that although the comet was far away, death was never far away.

The invisible ghost was floating in the wasteland in front of Tang Yue, like vultures waiting for their prey to die and rot. They were hovering in the sky, and Tang Yue could see their shadows.

"Old cat."

"Um?"

"When will Orion 2's landing begin?"

"Wait until Miss Maidong and I complete the final preparations." Old Cat replied, "It is expected to be in twenty hours."

Tang Yue opened the door of the airlock and bent down to get in. The thick airtight door clicked shut behind him, sealing out all the desolation.

In this wasteland outside Kunlun Station, a silent spring comes quietly.