Three bodies

37813号，您的这一阶段冬眠已经终止，您已经冬眠62年8个月21天13小时，您的剩余冬眠时间权限为238年3个月9天。

亚洲一号冬眠中心，掩体纪元11年5月9日14点17分。

This small information window was displayed in front of Cheng Xin who had just woken up for less than a minute, and then disappeared.Cheng Xin saw the smooth metal ceiling.She habitually stared at a point on the ceiling. In the era when she entered hibernation for the last time, if she did so, the ceiling would sense her gaze and pop up a message window, but the ceiling did not respond.Although she didn't have the strength to turn her head yet, she could still see a part of the room. As far as she could see, there were empty metal walls, no information windows, and the air was empty, without any holographic display.The metal of the walls looks familiar, like stainless steel sheet or aluminum alloy, without any decoration.

A nurse appeared in Cheng Xin's field of vision. She was very young, so she didn't look at Cheng Xin directly. Instead, she was busy around her bed for a while, probably dismantling the medical equipment connected to her.Cheng Xin's body still couldn't feel what she had done, but she saw something familiar from the nurse.Cheng Xin soon knew that it was the nurse's clothes.In the era Cheng Xin lived in, people's clothes were made of self-cleaning materials, which were extremely clean and looked brand new at any time, but the white nurse's clothes on this nurse could be seen to be old, although Still clean, but traces of wear and time can be seen.

The ceiling was moving, and Cheng Xin saw her bed being pushed out of the recovery room. She was surprised to find that it was the nurse who was pushing her, and the movable bed needed someone to push it.

What I saw in the corridor was also an empty metal wall, without any decorations except for the lamps on the ceiling. Those lamps looked very ordinary. Cheng Xin saw that half of the lamp frame of a ceiling lamp had fallen off, and it was between the lamp frame and the ceiling. She actually saw it—wires.

Cheng Xin tried her best to recall the information window she saw when she regained her consciousness, but she wasn't sure she had actually seen it, as if it was a hallucination.

There were many people in the corridor, and no one paid attention to Cheng Xin.Cheng Xin first noticed people's clothes. Except for a few medical staff who wore white clothes, people's clothes were also very simple and plain, with a single color, like work clothes.At first, Cheng Xin felt that there seemed to be many AD people here, but she immediately rejected this idea. Now that the AD century is far away, and the human chronology has changed four times, it is impossible for there to be so many AD people.The reason for this feeling is that she saw a man, a man in the form of a man.

The men who disappeared in the era of deterrence are back, and this is an era that can produce men.

People are in a hurry and seem to be busy. This seems to be another reincarnation. The leisure and comfort of the previous era have disappeared, and the busy society has reappeared.In this era, most people are no longer the leisure class and have to work for their lives.

Cheng Xin was pushed into a small room. "No. 37813 wakes up normally, enter recovery room No. 28!" the nurse yelled to someone, and then left. When she went out, she closed the door. Cheng Xin noticed that the door of the room was manual.

Only Cheng Xin was left lying on the bed alone in the room, and no one came to disturb her for a long time, which was completely different from the amount of attention and care she received the previous two times when she woke up.There are two things she can be sure of now: First, in this era, hibernation and waking up are extremely common; in addition, not many people may know about her waking up, just like Luo Ji's waking up at the end of the Crisis Era.

Cheng Xin's body gradually regained consciousness, she was able to turn her head, and then saw the window of the room.She still remembers seeing the world before hibernation, when the center of hibernation was a giant tree building on the edge of the city, she was in the topmost leaves, and she could see the magnificent urban forest through the French windows.Now looking out from this window, I can only see a few ordinary buildings. The buildings built on the ground have a uniform appearance. Judging from the surface that reflects sunlight, it looks like a metal structure.These buildings made Cheng Xin feel back to the AD century again.

She suddenly had a hallucination: Did she just wake up from a big dream?Everything in the era of deterrence and the era of broadcasting is a dream. Although those memories are clear, they are too surreal and too dreamlike.Maybe, I didn't cross time three times at all, and I was still in the AD century?

A holographic information window appeared beside the bed, allowing Cheng Xin to dispel the illusion.There are only a few simple buttons in the information window, which can be used to call doctors and nurses.This place seems to be very familiar with the recovery process of the awakened person. The window appeared just as Cheng Xin was able to raise her hand; but it was only this small window, and the information window overwhelming the super-information society disappeared.

Unlike the previous two awakenings, Cheng Xin recovered very quickly this time, and when it was dark outside, she was already able to get out of bed and walk around.She found that only the simplest services were provided here, during which only a doctor came in for a brief inspection and then left. She took care of everything by herself, and for the first time she had to bathe all by herself when she was still weak.Meals, for example, if she didn't ask for it in that little message window, her first meal after waking up might never be delivered.Cheng Xin didn't feel unhappy about these things. She had never fully integrated into the era of humanity that cared for everyone meticulously. She was still used to life in the AD century, and now she felt a sense of return.

The next morning, someone came to see Cheng Xin.She recognized Cao Bin at a glance. This physicist was once the youngest candidate for sword-wielder. Now he looks much older, with a little gray hair on his head, but the years have not left him Traces of 62 years.

"Mr. Thomas Vader asked me to pick you up." Cao Bin said.

"What's wrong?" Cheng Xin's heart sank when she thought of the conditions under which she was awakened.

"Let's talk about it when we get there." Cao Bin said after a slight pause, "Before that, let me show you this new world so that you can make a correct judgment on the situation."

Cheng Xin looked at the ordinary-looking buildings outside the window, and didn't feel that this world was new.

"What about you, you haven't been awake for more than 60 years, have you?" Cheng Xin looked back and said.

"I almost hibernated with you. 17 years later, when the Circum-Sun Accelerator was put into operation, I woke up and worked on basic theories for 15 years. Later, when the research began to enter the technical direction, I was useless and hibernated again. I just woke up two years ago."

"What about the curvature-driven spacecraft project?"

"Some progress... Let's talk about it later." Cao Bin obviously didn't want to mention this aspect soon.

Cheng Xin looked outside again, a small tree in front of the window rustled as a breeze blew past, as if clouds were covering the sun, and the reflections on the metal surfaces of those buildings dimmed.Can this ordinary world have anything to do with the light speed spacecraft?
Cao Bin also looked out of the window following Cheng Xin's gaze, and then laughed, "You must be the same as when I just woke up, disappointed in this era... If you feel that you have almost recovered now, let's go out and have a look .”

Half an hour later, Cheng Xin, dressed in a white suit commensurate with this era, came to a balcony of the Hibernation Center with Cao Bin.The city unfolded in front of her, and the only thing that moved Cheng Xin was still the ordinary feeling of going back in time.After waking up for the first time in the Age of Deterrence, when she saw the giant tree forest in the city, the shock was indescribable. She thought she would never see such an ordinary urban landscape.The city is planned very neatly, as if it was built at one time. The appearance of the building is monotonous and uniform. It seems that it only considers practicality. There is no design in terms of architectural aesthetics. The silver-gray metal was very strange, and it reminded her of the aluminum lunch boxes she had seen when she was a child.These neat buildings are densely arranged until the distance as far as the eye can see, where there is a rising hillside, and the city extends to the slope.

"Where is this?" Cheng Xin asked.

"Damn it, why is it cloudy again? I can't see the other side." Cao Bin didn't answer Cheng Xin's question, but shook his head disappointedly looking at the sky, as if the cloudy sky had a great influence on Cheng Xin's understanding of this new world. Yes, but Cheng Xin quickly discovered the abnormality in the sky.

The sun is in front of the clouds.

At this time, the clouds began to dissipate, and a rapidly expanding gap appeared.Through the gaps in the clouds, Cheng Xin didn't see the blue sky, the sky she saw was still the earth, and the land in the sky was similar to the surrounding cities, but she was looking up or overlooking from a distance, which is what Cao Bin said just now "opposite".Cheng Xin discovered that the raised ground in the distance was not a hillside, but rose all the way up to connect with the "opposite side".She looked back and found that the ground in the opposite direction was also rising in the distance, and it also rose to the "opposite side" - this world was in a big cylinder.

"This is Asia No. [-] Space City, on the back side of Jupiter." Only then did Cao Bin answer Cheng Xin's question just now.

The new world unfolded in front of Cheng Xin like this, and all the ordinary things turned into shock in an instant, and she felt that it was only at this time that she really woke up.

In the afternoon, Cao Bin took Cheng Xin to the entrance and exit of the city in the north.By convention, the long axis of the space city is north-south.They boarded a bus outside the hibernation center, it was a real bus, it ran on the ground, it was probably electric, but in appearance it wouldn't be mistaken for something else even in ancient times .There were a lot of people in the car, Cheng Xin and Cao Bin found the last two seats, and those who got up behind had to stand.Cheng Xin recalled when was the last time she took a bus. Even in the century AD, she didn't take such a crowded bus long ago.

The speed of the car is not fast, and you can enjoy the city scenery outside calmly. Now, all these have a new meaning in Cheng Xin's eyes.She saw a large group of buildings passing by the car window, with small green areas and ponds in between.She also saw two schools with blue playgrounds on campus.She saw that the ground outside the road was covered with brown soil, which didn't look much different from the earth's land. There was a kind of broad-leaved tree resembling a sycamore on the side of the road, and billboards appeared from time to time. Most of the products on it were Cheng Xin's. I don't know what it is, but the style of advertising is not unfamiliar.

The only difference from the cities in the AD century is that this world is almost entirely made of metal, and the buildings are all made of metal. Looking inside the car, there are few materials other than metal. There is no synthetic board or plastic. .

Cheng Xin paid more attention to the people in the car.There were two men sitting on the seat on the other side, one of them was dozing off with a black briefcase between them, the other was wearing a yellow overalls with black oil stains, a tool bag was placed by his feet, and a piece of Cheng Xin Recognized tools are half exposed from the bag, like an ancient percussion drill, but it is translucent. The man's face shows the exhaustion and indifference of a manual laborer.There was a couple sitting in the front row. The boy kept talking in the girl's ear. The girl giggled from time to time, and ate something pink out of a paper cup with a small piece. It was obviously ice cream. Cheng Xin even Smelled the sweet aroma of cream, no different from what she remembered three centuries ago.Standing next to them were two middle-aged women who had no seats. They were the kind of women Cheng Xin used to be very familiar with. Their charms had been worn down by life, and they had become unkempt and unkempt.Such women did not exist in the era of deterrence and the era of broadcasting. The skin of women in that era is always delicate and fair, and they are correspondingly delicate and beautiful in all age groups.Cheng Xin overheard the conversation between the two women.

……

"You're not mistaken. The price of vegetables in the morning market is similar to that in the evening market. Don't bother, go to the Xitou Wholesale Market."

"The quantity there is not enough and they are not sold at wholesale prices."

"You have to wait until later, after seven o'clock. Those vegetable vendors have left, and they can pay the wholesale price."

……

The conversations of other people in the car also came intermittently:

"The municipal department is different from the atmospheric system. It is more complicated. You need to be careful. Don't get too close to anyone at first, and don't be too far away."

"It's unreasonable to charge for heating, it should have been included in the electricity bill."

"If you replace that fool earlier, you won't lose so badly."

"Be content, I'm still an old man in the urban construction period, how much do I earn a year?"

"The fish is not fresh anymore, how can it be steamed?"

"The position was maintained the day before yesterday, and the water in Park No. [-] overflowed again, flooding a large area."

"It's fine if people look down on him, why bother? Do you think he's tired..."

"It's not genuine, it's not a high imitation, at that price..."

……

Cheng Xin felt a warm feeling in her heart. She had been looking for this feeling since the Deterrence Era first woke up, and thought she would never find it.She listened to these voices almost greedily, and didn't pay much attention to Cao Bin's introduction to Space City.

Asia No. 45 is one of the earliest space cities built by the bunker project. It is in the shape of a regular cylinder. The centrifugal force generated by the rotation simulates gravity. It is 8000 kilometers long, 350 meters in diameter, and has an internal area of ​​2000 square kilometers, which is roughly equivalent to the earth in the past. Half of the urban area of ​​Shanghai.More than 900 million people lived here at the most, but now due to the continuous construction of new cities, the population has dropped to [-] million, and it is no longer so crowded...

At this time, Cheng Xin found another sun appeared in the sky ahead, and they were located between the two suns.Cao Bin told her that there are three artificial suns in the space city, all of which are suspended on the central axis of the space city's weightlessness, with an interval of about ten kilometers between them.

Cheng Xin suddenly felt a shock. The car just stopped at this moment, and the shock seemed to come from deep in the ground.She felt a slight push on her back, but the car didn't move.Outside the car window, the shadows of trees and buildings can be seen suddenly moving at an angle. This is the sudden displacement of the artificial sun in the sky, but soon, the sun slowly moves back to its original position in the sky.Cheng Xin saw that the people around her didn't care about it.

"This is the position maintenance of the space city." Cao Bin said.

The bus arrived at the terminal after driving for about three and 10 minutes.After Cheng Xin got off the car, the ordinary scenery that made her intoxicated ended, and a towering wall suddenly appeared in front of her eyes.Its tallness and vastness made her gasp, as if it was the end of the world.In fact, this is indeed the end of the world. This is the "northern" end of the space city. It is a large disc with a diameter of 8000 meters. You can't see the circle on the ground, you can only see the earth rising from both sides. .The height of the top of the disc is about the same as that of Mount Everest, connecting the other side of the space city.There are many spokes that converge from the ground surrounding the disc to the center of the circle at a height of 4000 meters. Each spoke is an elevator track, and the center of the circle is the entrance and exit of the space city.

Before Cheng Xin entered the elevator, she reluctantly glanced back at the city she seemed to be familiar with.From this position, all three suns can be seen, and they line up to the other end of the space city.It was dusk at this time, and the sun was dimming, changing from dazzling yellow-white to soft orange-red, coating the city with a layer of warm golden light.Cheng Xin saw a few girls on the grass not far away, wearing white school uniforms, sitting on the lawn, talking and laughing happily, their long hair blown by the wind soaked in the golden light of the setting sun on the zenith.

The interior of the elevator is very spacious, like a hall, and the side facing the city is completely transparent, forming a wide viewing platform.There are straps on each seat, and as the elevator ascends, gravity quickly decreases.Looking out, the ground gradually lowers, while another ground as the "sky" gradually becomes clear.When the elevator reaches the center of the circle, the gravity completely disappears, and when looking outside, the feeling of going up and down is completely gone.Because here is the axis of the cylindrical space city, the earth surrounds it in a circle. In this position, the space city presents the most spectacular scene.At this time, the luminosity of the three suns has dropped to the level of moonlight, and their color has also become silver.From this position, the three suns (moons) are almost coincident, and clouds appear around them, and the clouds are all concentrated in the zero-gravity zone, forming a white cloud axis on the axis of the cylinder, all the way to space the other side of the city.From here, you can clearly see the "southern" end 45 kilometers away, Cao Bin told Cheng Xin, that's where the city propeller is located.When the city lights came on, in Cheng Xin's field of vision, the sea of ​​lights surrounded her 360 degrees and extended into the distance. She seemed to be looking down from the top of a giant well surrounded by a carpet of bright light.

Cheng Xin randomly locked her eyes on a certain place in the city, and found that the layout of the buildings there was very similar to the neighborhood where her home was located in the [-]th century AD. She imagined a window on the second floor of an ordinary building there, and the blue curtains revealed softness. Behind the curtains, parents were waiting for her... Cheng Xin couldn't hold back her tears for a moment.

After awakening for the first time in the Age of Deterrence, Cheng Xin has been unable to integrate into the new era, feeling like an outsider from another time.She never expected that after half a century, she would find the feeling of going home on the backside of Jupiter, which is [-] million kilometers away from the earth.It seemed that everything that was familiar to her more than three centuries ago was rolled up by a pair of invisible giant hands, rolled into a cylinder like a painting and placed here, becoming the world that circled around her eyes.

Cheng Xin and Cao Bin entered a weightless corridor, which was a large pipe with a circular cross-section, and people walked forward while holding onto the handles on the weightless tow rope.Passengers in the elevators coming from all directions gathered here to go out of the city, and the corridor was crowded with people.A row of information windows is displayed on the round wall of the corridor. Most of the active pictures in the windows are news and advertisements, but the number of windows is limited and arranged in an orderly manner, unlike the layer upon layer of information windows in the previous era.

Before that, Cheng Xin noticed that the dazzling super-information age seemed to disappear, and the amount of information emerging in this world became restrained and orderly. I wonder if it was caused by changes in the bunker world's political and economic system.

Once out of the corridor, Cheng Xin first saw the starry sky spinning above her head.The starry sky rotates so fast that it makes people dizzy at first glance.The surrounding field of vision suddenly opened up, and they were standing on a circular square with a diameter of 8000 meters at the top of the space city.This is the city's space port, where a large number of spacecraft are parked, most of which are spaceships. The appearance is not much different from what Cheng Xin saw more than 60 years ago, but the volume has generally shrunk. Many of them are the same size as ancient cars. almost.Cheng Xin noticed that when the spaceship took off, the flame of the engine nozzle was much darker than what she saw half a century ago, it was no longer dazzling, and it was faint blue. This may mean that the efficiency of the small fusion engine has increased.

Cheng Xin saw a striking red circle drawn around the exit, with a radius of about [-] meters.She quickly understood the meaning of the red circle: when the space city is rotating, the centrifugal force outside the circle can have an obvious effect, and it will increase sharply outward, so the spaceships parked outside the circle need to be anchored. You also need to wear sticky shoes, otherwise you will be thrown out.

It was cold here, only briefly warmed by the heat from the engines of nearby spaceships as they started up.Cheng Xin shivered, not just because of the cold, but because she suddenly realized that she was completely exposed in space!But the surrounding air and atmospheric pressure are real, and gusts of cold wind can be felt.It seems that the technology of maintaining atmospheric pressure in a non-enclosed space environment that Cheng Xin had seen has been further developed, and has been able to generate an atmosphere in a fully open space!

Seeing her shock, Cao Bin said, "Oh, at present, an air layer with normal pressure can only be formed about ten meters above the 'ground', and it cannot be done no matter how thick it is." Although he has not been in this world for too long , but he no longer cared about this mythical technology in Cheng Xin's eyes, he just wanted Cheng Xin to see more shocking things.

On the background of the swirling sea of ​​stars, Cheng Xin saw the bunker world.

From this position, most of the Jupiter space city cluster can be seen, 22 space cities can be seen, and four cities are blocked in the direction below.These 26 space cities (six more than planned) are all in the shadow of Jupiter. They are arranged in an untidy four-row column, which reminds Cheng Xin of the space that was hidden behind that space boulder more than 60 years ago. boat.One side of Asia 150 is North America [-] and Oceania [-], and the other side is Asia [-]. The distance between Asia [-] and the space cities on both sides is only about [-] kilometers, and you can feel their hugeness, like Like two planets.But the four space cities in the other row are [-] kilometers away from here, and it is already difficult to grasp their size visually; the farthest space city is about [-] kilometers away from here, and it looks as small and exquisite as a toy.

Cheng Xin felt that the space city community was like a group of fish floating quietly behind the rocks in the river to avoid the rapids.

North America [-], which is closest to Asia [-], is a pure sphere, and it and the cylinder of Asia [-] represent the two extremes of space city shapes; most space cities are ellipsoids in between, just the length The proportions of the axes are different; there are also some space cities with special shapes, such as spokes, spindles, etc., but the number is very small.

On the back of the other three giant planets, there are three space city groups, a total of 38 space cities, of which, there are 26 behind Saturn, eight behind Neptune, and four behind Uranus. More remote and lonely.

At this time, a space city in the front row suddenly emitted blue light, like a small blue sun appeared in space, deeply imprinting the shadows of people and spaceships on the ground.Cao Bin told Cheng Xin that the thrusters of the space city were activated and the position was being maintained.The space city group is not a satellite of Jupiter, but orbits the sun parallel to Jupiter on the outer side of Jupiter's orbit, so that the city group can be hidden in the shadow of Jupiter for a long time.The gravitational force of Jupiter keeps shortening the distance between the space city and the planet, which requires the city thrusters to continuously maintain the position of the space city, which is an operation that consumes a lot of energy.There was an idea to make all space cities become satellites of Jupiter, and when the strike warning appeared, they would change their orbits to become solar satellites orbiting the sun with Jupiter in the shadow of Jupiter, but the early warning system in the solar system was further improved and proved its reliability Before, no space city dared to take this risk.

"You are lucky, you have encountered a spectacle once every three days, look!" Cao Bin said, pointing to the space on one side.Cheng Xin saw a small white spot in the distance in that direction. The white spot gradually expanded, and soon turned into a white sphere the size of a ping-pong ball.

"Europa?" Cheng Xin asked.

"Yes, Europa, we are very close to its orbit now, don't be afraid if you stand still."

Cheng Xin thought about the meaning of his last sentence. Like most people, in her impression, celestial bodies move very slowly in the field of vision of the naked eye, and most of them cannot detect their movement during short-term observation.But she immediately realized a fact: the space city is not a satellite of Jupiter, they are relatively stationary with Jupiter, and Europa is a satellite that moves very fast. The relative speed to the space city is also so high, if the space city is very close to its orbit...

Without allowing Cheng to think about it, the white sphere grew rapidly, and its expansion speed gave people an unreal feeling.Europa quickly occupied more than half of space, from a small white ball to a huge planet in an instant, and the sense of up and down in space also changed instantly. Cheng Xin felt that Asia One was falling towards that white world.Then, this world with a diameter of more than 3000 kilometers quickly moved past their heads, and at that moment the entire space was occupied by it.At this time, the space city was actually flying over the frozen ocean of Europa, and the criss-cross stripes on the ice surface could be clearly seen, like palm prints on a giant white palm.A gust of wind blew up in the air layer disturbed by Europa's gravity, and Cheng Xin felt an invisible force pulling her from left to right. If she wasn't wearing magnetic shoes, she would definitely be pulled off the ground.Small objects that were not fixed nearby all flew up, and several pipe cables connected to the spaceship also fluttered and floated up. A heart-pounding rumble sounded from under the feet. caused by the stress generated in the gravitational force.It only took about 3 minutes for Europa to pass by the space city, and then it showed its other side on the other side, while shrinking sharply.At this time, the eight space cities in the first two rows all activated their propellers to adjust their positions and postures changed by the gravity of Europa, and eight light clusters suddenly lit up in space.

"Oh my God, how close was it just now?!" Cheng Xin asked in shock.

"The closest time is 150 kilometers away from here, almost passing by. There is no way, Jupiter has thirteen satellites, and the space city community cannot completely avoid them. This row of cities is very close. It is the main source of water for Jupiter’s urban agglomeration, and there are many industries on it, but once the blow comes, they will all be sacrificed. After the sun erupts, the orbits of all Jupiter’s satellites will undergo major changes. It will be a complicated operation for the space city to avoid them at that time."

Cao Bin found the spaceship he was on when he came here. It was the smallest kind, its shape and size were like an ancient car, and it could only accommodate two people.Taking such a small aircraft into space made Cheng Xin instinctively uneasy, although she knew that this kind of worry was unnecessary.There is no need to wear a space suit in the boat, Cao Bin just said to the AI ​​to go to North America One, and the spaceship started the thrusters and took off.

Cheng Xin saw the ground receding rapidly, and the spaceship flew out along the tangential line of the city's rotation. Soon, the top of the city with a diameter of 8000 meters came into view, and then the whole of Asia No. [-] Space City.Behind this cylinder, there was a vast expanse of dark yellow. It wasn't until this dark yellow border appeared in the distance that Cheng Xin realized that this was the Jupiter that he couldn't see just now.This is the back side of this giant planet, everything is in the dark and cold shadow, the sun seems to not exist at all, only the phosphorescence emitted by the liquid surface of Jupiter's hydrogen and helium, forming hazy halos through the deep atmosphere, like Rolling eyeballs under eyelids in sleep.The hugeness of Jupiter shocked Cheng Xin. From this position, only a part of its edge could be seen, and only a small arc could be seen from that edge.Jupiter was like a dark wall that covered everything, giving Cheng Xin the feeling of standing in front of the giant wall at the end of the world again.

In the next three days, Cao Bin took Cheng Xin to visit four more space cities.

They first went to North America [-], which is the closest to Asia [-], which is a space city in the shape of a pure sphere.The great advantage of this design is that only one artificial sun in the center of the sphere allows all areas to be equally illuminated.However, the defects of the spherical configuration are also obvious. The main reason is that the gravity of different latitudes is quite different.In this way, people living in different regions have to adapt to life under different gravity.

Unlike Asia One, the small spacecraft can enter the space city directly from the entrance at the North Pole.After the spaceship entered, Cheng Xin found that the whole world was revolving around her, and the spaceship had to rotate itself to synchronize with the city's rotation before it could land.

Cheng Xin and Cao Bin took the high-speed rail train to the low-latitude area, which was much faster than the road car in Asia One.Cheng Xin found that the urban buildings here are denser and taller, showing a grand metropolitan style.Especially in low-gravity areas at high latitudes, the height of buildings is only limited by the space of the sphere. In the regions near the poles, buildings as high as ten kilometers have appeared, which is half the radius of the sphere, and the distance from the top to the artificial sun is only ten kilometers. Meters, like a few slender spikes extending from the ground to the sun.

North America No. 2000 was built earlier, with a radius of [-] kilometers. It is the most populous space city, with [-] million people living in it, and it is a prosperous commercial center in the Jupiter urban agglomeration.

In this space city, Cheng Xin saw a magnificent landscape that Asia One did not have: the sea surrounded by the equator.In fact, most space cities have surrounding seas of varying widths, and Asia One is a special case in this regard.In a spherical or ellipsoidal urban configuration, the equator is the lowest point in the direction of gravity, where the city's water body is naturally concentrated, forming a water ring around the middle of the city and becoming a sparkling belt of the city.Standing by the sea, you can see the surrounding sea rising from both sides, across the "sky" from behind the sun.Cheng Xin and Cao Bin sailed around the sea in a speedboat for a week, with a distance of more than 60 kilometers. The sea water comes from Europa, which is clear and cold, and the shimmering waves are projected on the skyscrapers on both sides of the river.The levee on the Jupiter-facing side of the sea is higher to prevent the seawater from overflowing due to the acceleration generated during position maintenance. Even so, small-scale floods may still occur when the city performs unconventional propulsion.

The third space city that Cao Bin took Cheng Xin to was Europe 300.The configuration of the city is the most typical ellipsoid, which is characterized by no public artificial sun, each community has its own miniature fusion sun, these small suns illuminate part of the ground at a height of [-] meters.The advantage of doing this is that the weightless axis can be fully utilized. The tallest or longest building in all space cities is built on the long axis of Euro IV. It is [-] kilometers long and connects the north and south poles of the ellipsoid. a long axis.Because the interior is in a state of weightlessness, it is mainly used as a space port and a commercial and entertainment area.

Euro IV is the least populated space city, with only 450 million people, and the richest place in the bunker world.Cheng Xin was amazed to see a large area of ​​exquisite villas illuminated by the small sun, each villa had a swimming pool, and some even had a wide lawn.The tranquil surrounding sea is dotted with patches of white sails, and there are leisurely fishermen on the shore.She saw a yacht sailing slowly by, its luxury level is not inferior to that of Earth in the past, and a reception with a small band accompaniment is being held on board... She is surprised that this kind of life can be moved to a place [-] million away from the Earth Kilometers from the shadow of Jupiter.

Pacific One can be said to be the opposite of Euro Four.This is the first space city built by the bunker project, and it has the same standard spherical configuration as North America One.Its biggest feature is that it does not belong to the urban agglomeration on the back of Jupiter, but orbits Jupiter and is a satellite of Jupiter.

In the early days of the bunker project, Pacific One was used as a residential area for millions of engineers, and as the project progressed, it was used as a large storage warehouse for construction materials. It was later discovered that this early experimental space city had Many design flaws, eventually abandoned.After the big immigration to the bunker world ended, people began to live in Pacific One again, and later formed a city with a city government and a police agency, but it was only responsible for maintaining the most basic public facilities, and the urban society was basically laissez-faire. artesian.Pacific One is the only city where you can move in freely without the right of abode. There are mainly unemployed and homeless people in the city, as well as many poor people who have lost social insurance for various reasons, as well as down-and-out artists. Later, they even became some extreme stronghold of political organizations.

Pacific One has no city propellers, and there is no artificial sun inside. The most important point is that it does not rotate, and the city is in a state of complete weightlessness.

When Cheng Xin entered the city, what she saw was a fairytale world: like a dilapidated but prosperous old city, it suddenly lost its gravity and everything was floating in the air.Pacific One is a city of eternal night. Every building uses nuclear batteries to maintain lighting and life, so there are lights all over the sky.Most of the buildings in the city are simple shacks, made of discarded building materials. Since there is no distinction between up and down, they are generally made into cubes with windows (also doors) on six sides, or spherical. The advantage of the latter is that The strength is higher in the inevitable floating collision.There is no concept of land rights in Pacific One, and all buildings are floating in uncertain positions. In principle, citizens have the right to use any space in the city.There are still a large number of homeless people in the city. They don't even have huts, and all their belongings are placed in a large net bag to prevent them from floating around. They live in floating with the net bag.The traffic in the city is extremely simple, there are almost no vehicles, and there are no such things as weightless towlines and personal thrusters. People in weightlessness use their feet to kick buildings and float.Since the floating buildings in the city are very dense, it is not a problem to go anywhere, but this method of movement requires high skills.Seeing the people swiftly passing through the floating buildings, Cheng Xin couldn't help but think of the gibbons wandering among the branches.

Cheng Xin and Cao Bin floated to the side of a group of homeless men around a bonfire. It is absolutely forbidden to light open fires in other space cities.The thing they used to burn the fire seemed to be some kind of combustible building material. Due to the weightlessness, the burning could not produce rising flames, and it was just a ball of fire floating in the air.The way they drink is also very special, throwing the wine out of the bottle, forming many floating liquid balls in the air, those men with shabby clothes and long beards are also floating, swallowing the crystal clear balls in the firelight one by one inside.A drunk guy throws up, and the vomit kicks back, sending the drunk guy rolling in the air...

Cheng Xin and Cao Bin came to a market again, where all the goods were floating in the air, forming a complex scene in the light of several floating lights, and customers and vendors were floating in it.It should be difficult to tell which one belongs to whom in this mess of goods, but if a customer inspects something, the owner of the goods will immediately come over to chat.The goods here include clothing, electrical appliances, food and wine, nuclear batteries of various capacities, various light weapons, etc., as well as many strange antiques.There are a few pieces of metal fragments of different sizes marked with high prices. The stall owner said that they are fragments of warships in the doomsday battle collected in the outer space of the solar system. I don't know if it is true or not.Cheng Xin was surprised to find that there was also a stall selling ancient books. Looking through a few books, those books were not old to her, and all the books were floating in the air in a big ball. A flock of birds flapping their white wings... Cheng Xin saw a wooden box float past her eyes. It was marked as cigars. As soon as she grabbed the wooden box, a black boy floated over and assured Cheng Xin that it was authentic. The ancient Havana cigars had been preserved for nearly 200 years, because some of them could be cheaper when dried, and she opened the box for Cheng Xin to see, so she bought it.

Cao Bin took Cheng Xin to the edge of the city, which is the ball wall of the space city.There are no buildings on the wall of the ball, and there is no lining such as soil. It is in the rough state when the city was first built, and there is no arc in a small area, like a vast and flat square.The buildings are densely suspended in the sky, projecting colorful light and shadow onto the "square".Cheng Xin saw that the inner wall was covered with graffiti paintings, extending as far as the eye could see.These paintings are rich in color, wild and unrestrained, full of unrestrained imagination, as if alive in the changing light and shadow, as if they were dreams precipitated from the floating city above.

Cao Bin did not take Cheng Xin further into the city, because according to him, the social order in the downtown area was very chaotic.Gang fights often occurred in the city. A few years ago, a conflict broke through the wall of the ball, causing a serious air leakage accident. Later, it seemed that some kind of unwritten agreement was formed, and these conflicts only occurred in the central area of ​​the city.

Cao Bin also told Cheng Xin that the federal government has invested a lot of money in establishing social welfare on Pacific One. Although most of the more than 600 million people living here have no jobs, they can still guarantee their basic life.

"If the Dark Forest hits, what will happen here?" Cheng Xin asked.

"There is only destruction, and the city has no propellers. It is possible and impossible to advance to the shadow area and run parallel to Jupiter. Look at this," Cao Bin pointed to the large group of buildings floating in the air, "If the city speeds up, all of them will hit the ball At that time, the city will be like a leaky bag. If there is a strike alarm, the only way is to evacuate the people here to other space cities.”

When leaving, Cheng Xin looked at the floating City of Eternal Night with emotion through the porthole of the spaceship.This is a poor and homeless city, but it also has a colorful life, like a picture of "Along the River During the Qingming Festival" in a state of weightlessness.

She knows that compared with the previous era, the bunker world is far from an ideal society. The large migration to the edge of the solar system has brought back some social forms that have long since disappeared. s things.

After getting out of Pacific One, Cao Bin also took Cheng Xin to see several space cities with special configurations. Among them, the one that is closer to Pacific One is a spoke-shaped city, which is the earth space that Cheng Xin visited more than 60 years ago. An enlarged version of the elevator terminal station.Cheng Xin didn't quite understand that the entire space city was not built into a spoke shape, because from an engineering point of view, the spoke shape is the most ideal configuration for a space city, and the technical difficulty of building it is much lower than that of a space city with an overall shell configuration. The city has higher strength and disaster resistance after completion, and is easy to expand.

"Sense of the world." Cao Bin's answer was simple.

"what?"

"It's the feeling of being in a world. The space city must have a vast interior space and a wide view, so that people can feel that they are living in a world when they are inside. If it is changed to a spoke configuration, people will live in one world." In a circle or a few circles of large tubes, although the inner surface area is similar to that of a space city with an overall shell configuration, the people inside always feel like they are on a spaceship.”

There are also space cities with more peculiar configurations. Most of them are industrial or agricultural cities without permanent residents.For example, a space city called Ziyuan No. 120 has a length of 3000 kilometers, but a diameter of only [-] meters. It is a slender pole. It does not rotate around its own long axis, but turns around its midpoint. somersault.The interior of this space city is layered, and the gravity of different layers is very different. Only a few layers are suitable for living, and the rest are industrial areas suitable for different gravity.According to Cao Bin, in Saturn and Uranus urban clusters, two or more rod-shaped space cities can be twisted together from the middle to form a cross-shaped or star-shaped combination.

The earliest space city clusters built in the bunker project were Jupiter and Saturn clusters. In the later Uranus and Neptune clusters, some new space city construction concepts emerged, the most important of which was the city interface.In these two communities at the far edge of the solar system, each space city has one or more standard interfaces, which can be connected and combined with each other. After the combination, the flow space of urban residents is doubled and has a better sense of the world. It is of great significance to the development of social economy.The connected atmosphere and ecosystem become a whole, and the operating state is more stable.The current urban docking method is generally coaxial docking, so that after docking, they can rotate coaxially and keep the gravity environment before docking unchanged.There is also the idea of ​​parallel docking or vertical docking, which can make the combined urban space more balanced in all directions, not just the vertical expansion of the coaxial combination, but the joint rotation of the combination will cause major changes in the original gravity environment. change, so no actual attempt was made.Currently, the largest city complex is on Neptune, where four of the eight space cities are coaxially combined to form a combined city with a length of [-] kilometers.When needed, such as when the dark forest strike alarm appears, the combination can be disassembled in a short time to enhance their respective maneuverability.People have a hope that one day all the space cities in each urban cluster can be integrated into one, forming four integrated worlds.

At present, on the dark side of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, there are altogether 64 large space cities, and there are nearly a hundred medium and small space cities and a large number of space stations. There are [-] million people living in the bunker world formed by them.

This is almost all of the existing human beings. Before the attack of the dark forest, the earth civilization has entered the bunker.

The political status of each space city is equivalent to a country, and the four urban clusters together form the Solar System Federation, and the former United Nations has evolved into the federal government.In history, all major civilizations on the earth have experienced the era of city-states. Now, the world of city-states has reappeared in the outer reaches of the solar system.

The earth has become a sparsely populated world, with less than 500 million people living there. They are those who are unwilling to leave their home planet and have no fear of death that may come at any time.There are also many daring people in the bunker world who continue to travel or vacation to the earth, and every trip is a life-threatening adventure.With the passage of time, the attack of the dark forest is approaching, people have also integrated into the life of the bunker world, and the nostalgia for the home planet gradually fades away in the busy livelihood.Fewer people went to the earth every day, and the public no longer paid attention to the information from the mother planet, only knowing that nature was reoccupying everything there, and the continents were gradually covered by forests and grasslands.People also heard that those who stayed lived like kings. Everyone lived in a spacious manor with their own forests and lakes, but they had to carry guns when they went out to prevent wild animals from attacking.The entire earth world is currently just an ordinary city-state in the Federation of Solar Systems.

The spaceship that Cheng Xin and Cao Bin were on is now sailing on the outermost part of the Jupiter city cluster. On the banks of the huge and dark Jupiter, this space city cluster looks so small and lonely, like a few huts under a tall cliff. The soft candlelight in the distance, although weak, is the only warm shelter in this boundless cold and desolation, and it is the yearning for all tired travelers.At this moment, a little poem that Cheng Xin had read in middle school popped up in Cheng Xin's mind. It was written by a long-forgotten poet during the Republic of China:

the sun went down,

mountains, trees, rocks, rivers,

All great buildings are buried in shadows;

Humans have fun lighting up their little lights:
delighted in what they saw;
Hope to find what they are looking for.

[The 11th year of the Bunker Era, Lightspeed No. [-]]

Cheng Xin and Cao Bin's final destination was Xinghuan City, a medium-sized space city.Medium-sized space cities refer to space cities with an internal area of ​​less than [-] square kilometers and more than [-] square kilometers. They are generally mixed in the cluster of large space cities.But the two medium-sized space cities of the Jupiter cluster, Halo City and Lightspeed [-], are solitary in the outermost of the space city cluster, far away from the main body of the cluster, almost outside the shadow protection zone of Jupiter.

Before reaching Star Ring City, the spaceship passed Lightspeed [-] City.Cao Bin told Cheng Xin that Lightspeed [-] used to be a science city, one of the two bases for research on reducing the speed of light in a vacuum and establishing a black domain, but now it has become an abandoned empty city.Cheng Xin was very interested and proposed to take a look at the Science City. Cao Bin reluctantly instructed the spaceship to turn in that direction.

"Let's take a look from the outside, it's best not to go in." Cao Bin said.

"Is it dangerous?"

"dangerous."

"We also entered Pacific One, which is also dangerous."

"This one is different. There is no one in Lightspeed [-]. It's a... ghost town, anyway, that's what people say."

As the spaceship approached, Cheng Xin saw that the space city was indeed a ruin. It didn't rotate, its appearance was dilapidated, and there were many holes and cracks. In some places, the skin had turned out in large chunks, exposing the framework inside.Looking at the huge ruin under the searchlights of the spaceship, Cheng Xin felt a sense of awe and fear in her heart. She felt that the ruin was like a stranded giant whale. Bones, life has already left it.Cheng Xin felt that what was unfolding in front of her seemed to be a ruins older than the Acropolis, hiding more secrets.The spaceship slowly approached a large crack, the crack was several hulls wide, and the metal frame inside was twisted and warped, forming a breach.The spaceship's searchlight shone through the crack, and Cheng Xin saw the "ground" in the distance, empty and empty.The spaceship drove into the crack for a short distance, hovered, turned on the searchlights, and shot everywhere. Cheng Xin saw that the "ground" in all directions was empty. Not only were there no buildings, but there were no sundries, and no people could be seen. The traces of the truss structure are clearly visible on the "ground".

"Is it an empty shell?" Cheng Xin asked.

"No."

Cao Bin looked at Cheng Xin for a few seconds, as if assessing her courage, and then turned off the searchlights on the boat.What Cheng Xin saw at first was darkness, with starlight coming in through the crack on the opposite side, like looking at the night sky through the roof of a dilapidated house.But after Cheng Xin's eyes adapted to the darkness, she found that the ruins of the space city were not completely dark, but a faint blue light was shining.Cheng Xin felt chills all over her body. She forced herself to calm down and searched for the light source, and found that the blue light was emitted from the middle of the inner city space—it was a luminous point, which flickered on and off at irregular intervals, like a bird blinking at will. Eye.The interior of the ruins also appeared and disappeared with the flickering of light spots. The empty ground just now was full of strange shadows, like a wasteland illuminated by lightning from the sky in the dark night.

"That light is produced by space dust falling into a black hole." Cao Bin pointed to the direction of the light point and said, as if to ease Cheng Xin's fear.

"Is there a black hole there?"

"Yes, it's less than 5000 meters away from us now. It's a miniature black hole with a Schwarzschild radius of only twenty nanometers and a mass equivalent to Jupiter XIII."

In this dim blue light, Cao Bin told Cheng Xin the story of Lightspeed [-] and Gao Way.

Research on reducing the speed of light in a vacuum began almost simultaneously with the bunker project.As the second way of survival for human beings, the international community has invested huge resources in this regard.The bunker project has built a large space city as a research base for this purpose, which is the Lightspeed-60 Science City in the Saturn cluster.But [-] years of large-scale research have yielded no breakthroughs, even in fundamental theory.

It is not difficult to reduce the speed of light in a medium. As early as 2008 AD, it was possible to reduce the speed of light in a medium to an incredible 17 meters per second in the laboratory, but this is essentially different from reducing the speed of light in a vacuum.The former is only achieved through the absorption and re-emission of photons by the medium atoms. The propagation speed of the intermediate photons is still the standard vacuum light speed, which is meaningless to the black field project.

The speed of light in vacuum is one of the basic constants of the universe, and changing it is equivalent to changing the laws of the universe. Therefore, to reduce the speed of light in vacuum requires a breakthrough in the most basic field of physics, which is something that cannot be achieved. In the past 60 years, the real achievement of basic research is the birth of the circumsolar accelerator, and its appearance directly led to the implementation of the largest research project in the Black Domain Project - the Black Hole Project.

Scientists have been trying to affect the speed of light through various extreme physical means, and have ever generated the strongest artificial electromagnetic field ever.But for light in vacuum, the best choice is a gravitational field, but it is extremely difficult to generate a local strong gravitational field in the laboratory. The only possible way is a black hole, and a circumsolar accelerator can create a miniature black hole.

The chief scientist of the black hole project is Gao Way, Cao Bin has worked with him for several years, he described this person to Cheng Xin with very complicated emotions:

"This man has severe autism, no, it's not the loneliness of a genius's self-selection, or a mental defect. He is extremely withdrawn, has no communication with anyone, and has never interacted with the opposite sex. Only in this era, Only he can achieve that kind of success in his career, but people just use him as a high-intellectual battery. He is deeply tortured by this defect and has been trying to change it. In this respect, he is completely different from other geniuses. It seems that Since the 8th year of the Radio Era, he has been engaged in theoretical research on reducing the speed of light. He has been so devoted to it that he has a strange empathy. He feels that the speed of light is his own personality. As long as he can change the speed of light, he can also change himself. "

"But the speed of light in a vacuum is indeed the strongest thing in the universe. Experimental research on reducing the speed of light is like torture to light by unscrupulous means. People apply various extreme physical means to light, hitting it, distorting it, breaking it, dismembering it It stretches it, squashes it, and even destroys it, but the biggest achievement is to change its frequency in the vacuum propagation, while the speed of light remains unchanged, like an insurmountable wall. After decades, Whether they are engaged in theory or experiments, they are a little desperate. There is a saying that if there is a creator, he only welded one thing to death when creating the universe: the speed of light. For Gao Way, this despair is deepened. , He was almost 50 years old when I was hibernating, and he had never been close to a woman. He felt that his fate was as hard as the speed of light in a vacuum, so he appeared more autistic and withdrawn."

"The black hole project started in the first year of the bunker era and lasted 11 years. In fact, the planners of the project did not have any hope for this. Both theoretical calculations and astronomical observations have shown that it is impossible for black holes to change the speed of light. These universes The devil in the film can only use its own gravitational field to change the path and frequency of light, which has no effect on the speed of light in a vacuum. But to continue the research of the Black Field Project, there must be an experimental environment with an ultra-high-density gravitational field. Black holes can be used. There is another reason: the black domain is essentially a large black hole with a low speed of light, and a close study of a miniature black hole with a standard speed of light may yield some unexpected revelations.”

"The circumsolar accelerator can produce miniature black holes in a short time, but such small black holes will evaporate in a short time. In order to obtain stable black holes, the miniature black holes are exported immediately after being produced in the accelerator and injected into the interior of XIII .”

"Jupiter XIII is the smallest satellite of Jupiter, with a radius of only 8000 meters. It is just a big rock. Before the black hole was created, this satellite was lowered from its high orbit and made it the same as the urban agglomeration. The satellite runs parallel to Jupiter. Unlike other space cities, it is located at the second Lagrangian point between Jupiter and the sun, which is our current position. It can maintain a stable distance from Jupiter and does not need position maintenance. This is human The most massive object ever propelled in space."

"The miniature black hole was shot into Jupiter XIII, and after inhaling matter, it expanded rapidly. At the same time, the huge amount of radiation generated when the matter entered the black hole also rapidly melted the surrounding rocks. Soon, the entire Jupiter XIII with a radius of 8000 meters was completely destroyed. Melted, the potato-shaped boulder became a glowing red magma ball. The magma ball slowly shrunk in size and became brighter and brighter, before finally disappearing in a super-powerful flash. No trace. According to observations, except for a small part of the matter that was finally dispersed by radiation, most of the matter of Jupiter XIII was sucked into the black hole. The black hole became stable, and its Schwarzschild radius, or event horizon radius , from a basic particle size to 21 nanometers."

"Then, a space city was built with the black hole as the center, which is Lightspeed II. The black hole is suspended in the center of Lightspeed II. A giant container for black holes. Both personnel and equipment can enter the space city to conduct research on black holes."

"The research on black holes has been going on for many years. This is the first time that humans have studied black hole samples in a laboratory state. A lot of achievements have been made, and the basic theories of theoretical physics and cosmology have been developed. But these achievements are very important for reducing the vacuum. Even the speed of light doesn't help."

"Gao Way died six years after the start of the black hole sample research. According to the official statement of the World Academy of Sciences, he was 'sucked into the black hole' in an accident in the research work."

"Actually, people with a little common sense understand that the possibility of being 'inhaled' by the High Way is very small. The reason why a black hole becomes a super trap that can even absorb light is not because it has a huge total gravitational force (of course, it is caused by the collapse of stars. The total gravitational force of the formed large black hole is also very large), but it has a super high gravitational density. From a long distance, its total gravitational force is actually equivalent to that of ordinary matter with the same mass. If the sun collapses into a black hole, the earth And the planets will still be in their original orbits and will not be sucked in. Its gravity will only show magic when it is very close to the black hole."

"In Lightspeed-5000, there is a protective net around the black hole with a radius of 8000 meters. During the research work, personnel are prohibited from entering the net. The original radius of Jupiter XIII is only [-] meters, so the gravitational value of the black hole at this distance is the same as I used to stand on Jupiter XIII. The gravitational force is very small, and people feel almost weightless there, and they can escape with the thrusters on the space suit. Therefore, it is unlikely that Gao Way was "sucked" .”

"After obtaining a stable black hole sample, Gao Way became fascinated by it. He has been wrestling with the speed of light for so many years, and he can't shake it at all. Anxiety and frustration. The constant speed of light in a vacuum is one of the basic laws of the universe, so he fears and hates the laws of the universe. But there is such a thing in front of him, a thing that can compress Ganymede XIII to 30 nanometers. Inside the event horizon, in that space-time singularity, the known laws of the universe break down."

"Gao Way often lies on the protective net, staring at the black hole 5000 meters away for several hours, watching it shine faintly like it is now. Sometimes he claims that the black hole is talking, and he sees what information from the flash .”

"No one saw the process of Gao Way being sucked in. If there is a video, it has never been released. He is one of the main physicists of the black hole project and has the password to open the entrance of the protective net. He must have gone in and drifted towards the black hole , close to the distance where the gravitational force of the black hole prevents him from returning... He may just want to take a closer look at this thing that fascinates him, or he may decide to enter the singularity where the laws of the universe do not work to escape from all this.”

"The next thing is very weird. After Gao Way was sucked in, people observed the black hole with a remote-controlled microscope and found that there was a figure on the event horizon of the black hole, that is, on the tiny sphere with a radius of only 21 nanometers. That is the person passing through the horizon. High Way."

"According to general relativity, for a distant observer, time near the event horizon slows down dramatically, and the high-way fall toward the event horizon itself slows down to infinity."

"But using Gao Way as a frame of reference, he has already crossed the event horizon."

"What's even more bizarre is that the proportions of the various parts of that figure are normal, perhaps because the black hole is so small that the tidal force[73] did not act on him. He was compressed to such a small size, but the curvature of space at that place is also So huge, so more than one physicist thinks that the high Way body structure on the event horizon has not been destroyed, in other words, he may still be alive now."

"Thus, the insurance company refused to pay the death benefit. Although from Gao Way's own frame of reference, he passed the horizon and should have died; but the insurance contract was formulated with our real world as the frame of reference. In this frame of reference There is no way to prove that Gao Way is dead. Not even a claim, the insurance claim must wait until the accident is over, Gao Way is still falling into the black hole, the accident is not over, and it will never be over."

"At this time, a woman filed a lawsuit in court, asking the World Academy of Sciences to immediately stop the research on the black hole sample. So far, there is nothing to do with long-distance observation, and further research must be done on the black hole, such as letting the experimental object Entering a black hole will generate a large amount of radiation, and may also disturb the space-time environment near the event horizon. If Gao Way is still alive, this may endanger his life. This woman did not win the case, but due to various reasons, The research on this black hole sample has still been suspended, and Lightspeed-[-] is completely abandoned, and now we can only wait for this black hole to evaporate, and it is calculated that it will take half a century."

"But now we know that there is still a woman who fell in love with Way Gao, but it's a pity that Way Gao didn't know about it. Later, that woman often came here, sent messages to the black hole with radio waves or neutrinos, and even wrote a picture The big slogan was placed on the protective net to express love. I don’t know if Gao Way, who is falling, can see it, but from his own frame of reference, he has passed through the horizon and entered the singularity... Anyway, this matter is quite tangled.”

Cheng Xin looked at the faint blue light in the dark depths of the ruins, and now she knew that there might be a person there, falling eternally on the interface of stagnant time.Such a person, from the perspective of this world, he is still alive, but in his own world, he is already dead... How many strange fates, and how many unimaginable lives... At this time, she also felt the light of the black hole It seems that some kind of information is really conveyed, more like a person blinking.

Cheng Xin withdrew her gaze, feeling as empty as the ruins in space, and said softly to Cao Bin, "Let's go to Xinghuan City."

[Bunker Era 11, Star Ring City]

When approaching Xinghuan City, Cheng Xin and Cao Bin's spaceship encountered the blockade of the Federation Fleet.There are more than 20 stellar-class battleships scattered around Star Ring City, and the siege and blockade of this city has lasted for two weeks.Stellar-class warships are also huge, but compared to the space city, they are very small, like a small sampan floating around a giant ship; the warships blocking the Halo City are most of the power of the Solar System Federation Fleet.

When the two Trisolaran fleets disappeared into the vast space, and the Trisolaran world was no longer connected with humans, a new threat from aliens appeared in a completely different form.Fleet International, which was born to fight against the invasion of the Trisolarans, has lost its foundation of existence, gradually declined, and finally disintegrated.The solar system fleet that originally belonged to Fleet International belongs to the Solar System Federation. This is the first time that a unified world government controls the main body of human armed forces.Now, it is no longer necessary to maintain a huge space fleet, and the size of the fleet is greatly reduced.After the bunker project started, most of the original more than 100 stellar-class warships were converted to civilian use, and weapons and ecological circulation systems were dismantled, and they were responsible for the engineering transportation between the bunker planets.Only thirty Stellar-class battleships are in service. For more than 60 years, the Federation has not built any new warships, because the cost of large warships is high, and the investment of two or three star-class warships is equivalent to the infrastructure cost of a large space city; at the same time, new warships are no longer needed, and the Federation The main force of the fleet has been invested in the construction of the solar system early warning system.

The spaceship received an order from the blockade to stop advancing, and a military patrol boat was approaching the spaceship. It was so small that it could only be seen from a distance by the light from the deceleration of the propeller. hull.When the patrol boat docked with the spaceship, Cheng Xin could clearly see several soldiers sitting in the boat.Compared with the previous era, their military uniforms have changed a lot. They have a retro tendency, and the space features have been reduced, with an obvious land combat style.But after the docking of the two boats, a middle-aged man in a suit and leather shoes came over. He still maintained an elegant and steady demeanor during the weightless movement, and he did not look cramped in the small space where only two people could sit.

"Hello, I'm Blair, the special envoy of the Federation President. I will conduct the final negotiations with the Halo city government. I could have spoken to you from the ship, but I still respect the customs of the AD century, and it would be more solemn to come in person."

Cheng Xin saw that the politicians had also changed. The flamboyance and frankness of the previous era disappeared, and they became prudent, restrained and polite again.

"Originally, the federal government has announced a complete blockade of Xinghuan City, and no one is allowed to enter or leave, but we know that it is Dr. Cheng Xin," the special envoy nodded to Cheng Xin, "So we allow and assist you to enter Xinghuan City, I hope You use your influence to persuade the city government to abandon their paranoid illegal behavior and prevent the situation from further escalating. I am also conveying the wishes of the Federal President."

The special envoy opened an information window with a wave of his hand, and the President of the Solar System Federation appeared on the screen. In the office behind him stood a row of flags from major cities in the bunker world. None of them were familiar to Cheng Xin. The country and the flag disappeared together.The president was an ordinary-looking Asian man with tiredness on his face. He nodded to Cheng Xin and said, "As Special Envoy Blair said, this is the will of the federal government. Mr. Wade himself said that the final decision rests with You. We don’t quite take him at his word, but we have high hopes for you. It’s nice to see you’re so young, but you’re too young for this thing.”

After the president's image disappeared, the special envoy said to Cheng Xin: "I know you already have some understanding of the situation, but I still want to introduce the situation again, of course from a fair and objective perspective."

Cheng Xin noticed that no matter whether it was the special envoy or the president, they only greeted and talked to themselves, and ignored Cao Bin's existence at all, and could clearly feel their hostility towards him.In fact, Cheng Xin had already heard Cao Bin describe the situation in detail, and now she heard the special envoy's introduction, and found that there was not much difference between the two.

After Thomas Vader took over the Halo Group, the company participated in the bunker project on a large scale, and within eight years, it expanded tenfold in size and became one of the world's economic giants.But Wade himself is not an outstanding entrepreneur. In terms of company management, he may not be as good as AA. These developments were all realized by the management team he recreated. Interest; on the contrary, a large part of the company's profits were taken by him to engage in the business of light speed spacecraft.

When the bunker project started, the Halo Group started to build Halo City as a research base. The reason why the city site was chosen at the second Lagrangian point on the edge of Jupiter’s protection range was to save the consumption of city propellers and position maintenance.Star Ring City is the only space science city outside the jurisdiction of the federal government.In the middle of the construction of Star Ring City, Vader started the construction of the ring-solar accelerator known as the Great Wall of the Solar System.

For half a century, the Halo Group has mainly engaged in basic research in the lightspeed spacecraft business.Different from the AD century, since the Deterrence Era, large companies have generally been involved in basic scientific research. In the new economic system, basic research can bring huge profits, so there is nothing unusual about the behavior of the Star Ring Group.But the ultimate goal of the Halo Group to manufacture light-speed spacecraft is an open secret, but in the basic research it is engaged in, the federal government cannot grasp the legal handle.However, the government has always been wary of Transwarp and has conducted several investigations into the company.For half a century, the relationship between the Halo Group and the federal government has basically been harmonious. Since the Lightspeed Spaceship and the Black Domain Project have a lot of overlap in the field of basic research, the Halo Group has maintained a good cooperative relationship with the World Academy of Sciences , the black hole samples of the Black Hole Project of the World Academy of Sciences were generated by the circumsolar accelerator of the Star Ring Group.

But six years ago, the Halo Group suddenly announced its plan to develop a curvature-driven spacecraft, making its goal public.This caused an uproar in the international community. Since then, the Star Ring Group and the federal government have been in constant friction.After repeated negotiations, the Halo Group promised that when the curvature engine enters the substantive test stage, the test base will be moved to outer space [-] astronomical units away from the sun, so as not to expose the existence of earth civilization in advance by the trajectory produced by the engine.However, the federal government believes that the development of light-speed spacecraft itself is a brutal violation of the federal constitution and laws. The danger brought by the appearance of light-speed spacecraft is not only the flight path, but it may cause turmoil in the social life that has just settled down in the bunker world. This is absolutely intolerable.The federal government passed a resolution to take over the Halo Science City and the Sun Accelerator, completely stop the theoretical research and technology development related to the curvature drive of the Halo Group, and strictly supervise the future activities of the Halo Group.

Under such circumstances, the Halo Group announced: Halo City is independent from the Solar System Federation and is no longer subject to federal laws.As a result, the conflict between the Solar System Federation Government and the Halo Group escalated.

The international community disagrees with Halo City's declaration of independence, believing it to be overreaching.In fact, after the bunker era began, frictions between the space city and the federal government often occurred due to various reasons.In the distant Neptune and Uranus clusters, two large space cities—Africa II and Indian Ocean I—had declared their independence, but in the end they all fell silent.Although the federal fleet has been greatly reduced compared to the previous era, it still has an absolute advantage over the space city.According to federal law, cities are not allowed to have space armed forces, and can only establish a limited National Guard, which does not have space combat capabilities at all.The economy of the bunker world is highly integrated, and it is impossible for any space city to withstand a blockade of more than two months.

"I can't understand Vader at this point." Cao Bin said, "He is a person with great foresight, and every step is carefully considered. How could he declare independence rashly? This approach is almost mentally retarded. This is not for the Federation to forcibly take over the stars. Does Huancheng provide an excuse?"

At this time, the spaceship was sailing towards Xinghuan City, the special envoy had already left, and only Cheng Xin and Cao Bin were on board.A ring-shaped structure appeared in the space ahead, and Cao Bin ordered the spaceship to approach it and slow down.The smooth metal surface of the ring elongates the starlight into streaks of light, and also reflects the image of the spaceship's deformation, which makes people think of the "Lord of the Rings" seen in the four-dimensional space by the "Blue Space" and "Gravity". ".The spaceship hovered next to the ring, and Cheng Xin visually inspected it. The diameter of the ring was about 200 meters, and the hoop was about 50 meters thick.

"This is the Sun Accelerator." Cao Bin said, with obvious awe in his tone.

"so small?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't say it accurately. This is just an accelerating coil of the circumsolar accelerator. There are 150 such coils, with a distance of about [-] million kilometers, and they circle the sun in the orbit of Jupiter. The accelerated particles Instead of running in this ring, it passes through the middle of the ring, is accelerated by the force field generated by the coil, and then flies to the next coil to be accelerated again... It can circle the sun once or several times in this way."

After thinking for a few seconds, Cheng Xin suddenly realized.Cheng Xin had heard Cao Bin mention the Sun Accelerator many times before, and in her mind there was always a circle of pipes suspended in space. Its length must be astonishing, but to become a Great Wall around the sun, Incredible inside the orbit of Mercury too, that's another God's work.Now, Cheng Xin suddenly realized one thing: the accelerator pipeline on the earth is for the particles to run in a vacuum, but in the vacuum of space, the particle accelerator does not need a pipeline!Accelerated particles can travel through space, flying from one accelerating coil to another.Cheng Xin couldn't help turning her head to look at the other direction the coil was facing.

"The next coil is 150 million kilometers away, which is equivalent to four or five times the distance from the earth to the moon. It cannot be seen." Cao Bin said, "This is a real super accelerator, which can accelerate particles to the point at the time of the Big Bang. Creation energy. It is strictly forbidden to sail near the accelerated orbit of particles, but a few years ago, a lost transport spacecraft strayed into the accelerated orbit and was hit by the accelerated particle beam. After the ultra-high-energy particles hit the spacecraft, high-energy secondary The shower instantly vaporized the spacecraft and the millions of tons of ore it carried."

Cao Bin also told Cheng Xin that the chief designer of the Huanri Accelerator is Bi Yunfeng.During these 60 years, he has worked on this project for 35 years, hibernated for the rest of the time, and just woke up last year, much older than Cao Bin.

"But the old guy is very lucky. A person who built an accelerator on the earth in the [-]st century A.D. built an accelerator around the sun three centuries later. Life is like this, and he is also very successful. But this old man is very extreme and fanatical. Support the independence of Star Ring City."

Opposition to light-speed spacecraft mainly comes from the public and political circles, while supporters come mostly from the scientific community.Halo City has become a sacred place for scientists who yearn for space flight at the speed of light, and has attracted a large number of outstanding scholars. Even scientists in the federal system have a lot of cooperation with Halo Group, which makes Halo Group a lot of basic research. field is at the forefront.

The spaceship left the coil and continued to fly, and the Star Ring City was already in sight.This space city adopts a rare spoke-shaped structure, and the city is like a big wheel spinning in space.This configuration has high structural strength, but the internal space is not open enough and lacks a "world sense".Some commented that Star Ring City does not need a sense of the world, for the people here, their world is the entire starry sky.

The spaceship enters from the axis of the giant wheel and enters the city through an 8000-meter-long spoke. This is the most inconvenient part of the spoke-shaped space city.Cheng Xin recalled her experience at the space elevator terminal station on Earth more than 60 years ago, and remembered the terminal hall that looked like an old train station.But here gave her a completely different feeling. The scale of Xinghuan City is more than ten times that of the terminal station. The interior is very spacious, and there is no such old feeling.

On the elevators in the spoke passages, gravity comes on gradually, and when it reaches 1 G, they enter the city.This space science city consists of three parts: the Star Ring Academy of Sciences, the Star Ring Engineering Institute and the Central Helios Accelerator Control Center.The city is actually a large ring-shaped tunnel with a length of more than 30 kilometers. It does not have the wide sense of space like a space city with an overall hollow structure, but it does not feel cramped either.

There are no motor vehicles in the city, and people travel by bicycle, and there are many bicycles parked on the roadside for people to use.However, it was a small convertible car that came to pick up Cheng Xin and Cao Bin.

Since the gravity in the big ring has only one direction, the city can only be built on one side of the ring, and the other side becomes the sky, projecting a holographic image of the blue sky and white clouds, which more or less makes up for some of the lack of "world sense".A flock of birds twittered and flew by, and Cheng Xin noticed that they were not images, but real.Here, Cheng Xin felt a sense of comfort that she didn't have in other space cities.The vegetation here is very rich, with trees and lawns everywhere, and the buildings are not high.The buildings of the Academy of Sciences are all white, and the Academy of Engineering is blue, but in different styles. These exquisite small buildings are half hidden in the green trees, giving her a feeling of returning to the university campus.Cheng Xin noticed an interesting place, like the ruins of a temple in ancient Athens. On a platform made of stone blocks, there were several broken ancient Greek-style stone pillars of different lengths. Ivy, there is a fountain in the middle of the stone pillar, which spouts a clear water column in the sun.Several casually dressed men and women were leaning on the stone pillars or lying on the lawn beside the fountain, looking at ease, as if they had forgotten that the city was surrounded by the federal fleet.

On the lawn next to the ruins, there were several sculptures, and Cheng Xin's eyes were suddenly attracted to one of them. It was a long sword, held by a hand in armor, and was picking up a star from the water to form a sculpture. Water drips from the star ring continuously.Cheng Xin had some impressions of this image deep in her memory, but she couldn't remember where she saw it, so she watched the sculpture disappear from the car.

The car stopped next to a blue building, which was a laboratory marked with the words "Basic Technology 021 of the Academy of Engineering".On the lawn in front of the laboratory, Cheng Xin saw Wade and Bi Yunfeng.

Vader has never hibernated since taking over the Halo Corporation, and is now 110 years old. His hair and beard are still shaved very short, and they are all snow white.He does not use crutches, and his steps are steady, but his back is a little bent, and one sleeve is still empty.The moment his eyes met, Cheng Xin understood that this person was still not defeated by time, the core of his body was not taken away by time, but became more prominent, like a rock exposed after melting ice and snow.

Bi Yunfeng should be much younger than Wade, but he looks older. He was very excited when he saw Cheng Xin, as if he was eager to show her something.

"Hello, little girl, I told you that you were still young at this time, and I was three times your age." Wade said, the smile he showed Cheng Xin was still far from warming her, but it was no longer there. It was as cold as ice water.

Facing the two old men, Cheng Xin was filled with emotions.They have struggled for the common ideal for more than 60 years, and now they have come to the end of their lives; and she herself, after waking up for the first time from the Deterrence Era, seems to have gone through many vicissitudes, but it has only been four years in a non-hibernation state!She is 33 now, a young girl in an age where the average life expectancy is 150 years old.

Cheng Xin greeted the two of them, and then they all fell silent.Wade led Cheng Xin into the laboratory, followed by Bi Yunfeng and Cao Bin.They entered a spacious hall, a very closed place without windows, smelling the familiar smell of static electricity in the air, Cheng Xin knew that this was a sophon shielding room. More than 60 years later, it is still not certain whether sophons left the solar system, and may never be sure.The hall must have been filled with instruments and equipment not so long ago, but now all the experimental equipment was piled chaotically around the walls and had obviously been hastily removed to make room for the central area.In the middle of the hall, a machine stood alone.The crowding and chaos around and the empty space in the center show a sense of excitement that cannot be concealed, just like a group of treasure hunters who suddenly dug up the treasure, then threw the tools around randomly, and carefully placed the treasure in the open space in the center .

That machine was very complicated. In Cheng Xin's eyes, it looked like a miniature version of a tokamak device in the [-]st century AD. The unequal tubes, all facing the invisible center of the ball, made the main body of the machine look like half a mine with too many tentacles; it seemed to concentrate some kind of energy at the center of the ball.Cut across the hemisphere is a black metal platform, which is the top of the machine.Compared with the complex below, the layout on the platform is very simple, like an empty table, with only a transparent hemispherical glass cover in the center. The diameter of the cover is the same as the complex hemisphere under the metal plate. The sphere shows a sharp contrast between transparency and airtightness, simplicity and complexity.There is also a small metal platform in the center of the transparent cover, the area is only a few centimeters square, the size of a cigarette case, and the surface is smooth and silvery.This small platform buckled in the transparent cover is like an extremely delicate miniature stage, and the huge and complex orchestra hidden below will accompany it, making people can't help but imagine what will be performed on it.

"We let a part of you experience this great moment." Wade said, he approached Cheng Xin, stretched out his hand towards her head, and held a pair of small scissors in his hand.Cheng Xin tensed up all over, but she didn't evade.Wade gently picked up one of her hairs, cut off a short section from the end with scissors, pinched it with two fingers and looked at it, it seemed that it was too long, so he cut it in half again, and the remaining section was only Two or three millimeters, almost invisible.Wade held that section of hair and walked towards the machine, Bi Yunfeng lifted the transparent cover, and Wade gently put the hair on the small clean platform. Vader, who is more than 100 years old, does these things with only one hand, very precise, and his hand does not shake at all.

"Come here, watch it carefully." Wade pointed to the small platform and said to Cheng Xin.

Cheng Xin put her eyes close to the transparent cover and looked at the small platform. She could see that small section of her hair resting quietly on the clean small surface. She could also see a red line in the center of the platform, dividing the small surface into two equal parts. section, with the hair on one side of the red line.

Wade gestured to Bi Yunfeng, who opened a control window in the air and started the machine.Cheng Xin looked down and found that several pipes on the machine were glowing red, which reminded her of the scene in the Trisolaran spaceship she had seen before, but she didn't feel the heat overflowing, only heard a low hum Voice.She immediately turned her eyes back to the small platform again, feeling as if an invisible disturbance spread from the platform, brushing her cheek like a breeze, but this might just be an illusion.

She saw the hair move to the other side of the line, but didn't see the movement.

One beep and the machine stopped.

"What did you see?" Vader asked.

"It took you half a century to move a [-]mm hair by [-]cm," Cheng Xin replied.

"It's the curvature of space that drives it," Vader said.

"If the same method is used to continuously accelerate this section of hair, it can reach the speed of light at a distance of about ten meters. Of course, we can't do it now, and we dare not do it here. In that case, this small section of hair that reaches the speed of light Hair can destroy Xinghuan City." Bi Yunfeng said.

Cheng Xin looked at the hair that was pulled two centimeters by the tension of space, "That is to say, you invented gunpowder and made firecrackers, but your ultimate goal is to make space rockets—there is a gap of 1000 years."

"You are not accurate. We have the mass-energy conversion equation and discovered the principle of radioactivity. The ultimate goal is to build an atomic bomb. There is only a few decades between them." Bi Yunfeng said.

"In 50 years we will be able to build a curvature-driven light-speed spacecraft, which will require a lot of research and development work at the technical level, so we have a showdown with the federal government to get the environment that can do this work."

"But according to your current practice, you should get nothing."

"It depends on your decision." Vader said, "You must think that our strength is vulnerable to the fleet outside. But that's not the case." He waved to the door, "You come in."

A group of heavily armed people marched in from outside and quickly filled the hall.There were about four to fifty people, all young men, all wearing black space camouflage uniforms, which made the place darker at once—this is a light space suit for military use, and it doesn’t look much different from ordinary military uniforms, but the assembly After putting on the helmet and life support backpack, you can enter space.What surprised Cheng Xin was that the weapons these people brought were all rifles. The rifles from the AD century might be newly manufactured, but they must be guns with ancient structures. They have manual bolts and triggers, and they are all mechanical. thing.The bullets worn by these people also confirmed this point. Each of them carried two bullet chains crossed on their backs, which were filled with yellow bullets.The appearance of these people here is like seeing a group of people with bows and arrows and broadswords in the AD century.But this doesn't mean that this group of warriors has no visual intimidation. Cheng Xin feels that it's not just their ancient weapons, but also their appearance that makes Cheng Xin feel like she's gone back in time.They displayed a disciplined unity, not only in clothing and equipment, but also in mental state.These fighters have strong bodies, with strong muscles bulging under the thin space suits. They all have strong faces, and their eyes and expressions are very similar, revealing a metal-like indifference and indifference to life.

"This is the Urban Self-Defense Force." Vader waved his hand at the armed crowd, "It's all the force we need to protect the satellite city and the lightspeed spaceship ideal, almost all of them, there are still some people outside, and there will be more More people will join, but the total number will not exceed one hundred. As for their equipment..." Vader took the rifle from a soldier, and pulled the bolt with a clatter, "You read that right, ancient weapons, made of modern materials Manufacture, the propellant of the bullets is not gunpowder either, it has a slightly longer range than real ancient rifles and a little more accuracy. In space, these guns can hit a large battleship from two thousand kilometers away, but that's all , very primitive stuff. You must think this is ridiculous, and I feel the same way, except for one thing—" He returned the gun to the soldier, and pulled another round from the belt on his chest, "I As I said, it is basically an ancient bullet, but the bullet is new, and it is also a future technology for now. This bullet is a superconducting container with a high vacuum inside, and a magnetic field is used to suspend a small ball in the middle, avoiding it In contact with the shell, this globule is antimatter."

Bi Yunfeng said with obvious pride: "The circumsolar accelerator is not only used for basic research experiments, it is also used to produce antimatter. Especially in the past four years, it has been running at full power to produce antimatter. Now, we have [-] A thousand rounds like this."

At this time, the seemingly primitive bullet in Wade's hand made Cheng Xin feel cold all over.The first thing she worried about was whether the confinement magnetic field in that small superconducting container was stable and reliable. If there was a slight deviation, if the antimatter ball touched the outer shell, the entire Halo City would be completely destroyed in the flash of annihilation.She looked at the golden ammunition chains on the soldiers' chests again. They were the chains of the god of death, and the bullets on just one chain could destroy the entire bunker world.

Vader went on to say: "We don't need to attack from space, we just wait for the fleet to approach and shoot from the city. For these more than 20 warships, we can fire dozens or even hundreds of bullets to each warship, as long as one A hit can destroy it. Although the combat method is very primitive, it is very flexible. A person with a gun is a combat unit that can threaten a battleship. In addition, we have people sneaking into other space cities with pistols." He said, putting The bullet was inserted back into the soldier's belt, "We don't want war. In the final negotiations, we will show our weapons to the federal envoy and tell him honestly how we fight, hoping that the federal government will weigh the cost of war." , Give up the threat to Star Ring City. Our requirements are not high, we just want to build a curvature engine test base hundreds of astronomical units away from the solar system."

"But if war really breaks out, are we sure of victory?" Cao Bin asked, he has not spoken, obviously different from Bi Yunfeng, he does not approve of the choice of war.

"No." Vader replied calmly, "But they don't either, we can only try."

When she saw the antimatter bullet in Vader's hand, Cheng Xin already knew what to do. She was not too worried about the Federation Fleet, and believed that they had a way to defend against this kind of attack; now, most of her thoughts were focused on one thing On the Internet, a sentence Vader said before echoed in her mind repeatedly: We still have people sneaking into other space cities with pistols.

If a war breaks out, those guerrillas who sneak into other space cities in the bunker world will shoot at the ground with a pistol loaded with antimatter bullets. The explosion of positive and negative annihilation will instantly tear the thin outer shell of the city and burn everything inside. , Then, the spinning city will disintegrate into pieces in space, tens of millions of people will die.

A space city is as fragile as an egg.

Vader didn't explicitly say he wanted to attack Space City, but that doesn't mean he won't do it.The image of him pointing a gun at her more than 100 years ago appeared in front of Cheng Xin's eyes. That scene was burned into her heart like a branding iron. She didn't know how cruel a man must be to make such a choice.The core of this person's spirit is the extreme coldness and madness brought about by extreme rationality. She seemed to see Vader when he was younger more than three centuries ago, roaring like a mad beast: "Forward! Forward!! Unscrupulous Go ahead!!!"

Even if Vader really doesn't want to attack Space City, who else?
As if to confirm Cheng Xin's worries, a soldier from the Urban Self-Defense Force said:

"Dr. Cheng Xin, please believe that we will fight to the end."

Another soldier took his words: "This is not a fight for you, not for Mr. Vader, and not for this city." He pointed upwards with one hand, his eyes burst into flames, "Knowing that they will Have something been taken from us? Not cities and light-speed spaceships, but the entire universe beyond our solar system! Billions of wonderful worlds in the universe! They won't let us go to those worlds, they've locked us and our children in this Fifty astronomical units in radius, in a prison called the solar system! We are fighting for freedom! We are fighting to become free people in the universe! We are no different from those who fought for freedom in ancient times, and we will fight to the end! I'm speaking on behalf of everyone in the Self-Defense Forces."

With gloomy and cold gazes, the soldiers nodded to Cheng Xin one after another.

In the years to come, Cheng Xin would think of the soldier's words countless times, but now, his words didn't move her.She felt dizzy and fell into a deep fear.She suddenly had the feeling of holding a baby in front of the United Nations Building more than 130 years ago. Now, she feels that the baby in her arms is facing a group of wolves, and she just wants to do her best to protect the child in her arms.

"Is your promise still valid?" she asked Vader.

Vader nodded to her, "Of course, why else did I ask you to come?"

"Well, immediately stop war preparations, stop all resistance, and hand over all antimatter bullets to the federal government, especially those of you who have sneaked into other space cities, do the same immediately!"

All the soldiers focused their eyes on Cheng Xin, as if they wanted to burn her down.The power balance is too great. She is facing a group of ruthless war machines, each carrying hundreds of hydrogen bombs. Under the command of a powerful madman, these forces are condensed into a giant black wheel that can crush everything; She is just a weak woman, just like Vader said, a little girl in this era, in front of this giant wheel rolling forward, she is just a grass, it is impossible to block anything, but what she can do That's all.

But things were different from what she had imagined, the giant wheel seemed to stop rolling in front of the grass, and the soldiers' gazes that focused on her gradually shifted away to Vader.The oppressive feeling that was suffocating her also eased a little bit, but it was still difficult for her to breathe.Vader didn't look at anyone, he just stared at the curvature drive platform with Cheng Xin's hair in the transparent cover.It was like a sacred altar, and Cheng Xin could imagine that Vader once gathered these warriors around this altar to make the decision to fight.

"Think about it again," Vader said.

"No need to think about it." Cheng Xin's voice was extremely decisive, "I will repeat my final decision: stop resisting and hand over all the antimatter in Xinghuan City."

Wade looked up at Cheng Xin, his eyes showed that rare helplessness and pleading again, and he said word by word, "If you lose your humanity, you will lose a lot; if you lose your bestiality, you will lose everything."

"I choose humanity." Cheng Xin said, looking around at everyone, "I think you are too."

Wade waved his hand to stop Bi Yunfeng who wanted to say something to Cheng Xin.His eyes dimmed, something went out, went out forever, the years crumbled down on him, and he looked weary.He supported the metal platform with his only hand, and sat down on a chair that someone else had just moved with difficulty, then slowly raised his hand, pointed to the platform in front of him, and lowered his gaze.

"Focus your bullets here, all of them."

At first no one moved, but Cheng Xin clearly felt that something was softening, the black power was dissolving.The warriors looked away from Vader, scattered, no longer focusing in any direction.Finally someone came over and put the two chains of bullets on the platform. Although he put them lightly, the sound of the metal impact between the bullets and the platform still made Cheng Xin shudder.The bullet chains lay quietly on the platform, like two golden snakes.Then a second man came and dropped the belt, and then more, and soon there was a bright yellow pile on the platform.After all the bullets were concentrated on the platform, the rain-like splashing sound of the belt being lowered disappeared, and silence once again enveloped everything.

"Order all the Halo armed forces in the bunker world to lay down their weapons and surrender to the federal government. The city government cooperates with the fleet to take over the city, and don't take any drastic actions." Vader said.

"Yes." Someone in the crowd replied, without the belts, the group of people in black space suits looked even darker.

Vader waved his hand to let the Self-Defense Forces leave, they walked out silently, and the hall lit up like dark clouds dissipating.Wade got up with difficulty, walked around the high pile of antimatter bullet chains, slowly lifted the transparent cover, and blew lightly on the smooth and clean curvature driving platform, Cheng Xin's hair was blown away, and he covered After putting on the mask, she raised her head and smiled at Cheng Xin:
"Look, little girl, I kept my promise."

After the Halo City incident ended, the federal government did not announce the anti-matter weapons immediately.The international community believed that the outcome of this matter was expected, and there was not much repercussions.As the builder of the Sun-Sun Accelerator, the Halo Group has a high reputation in the international community. Public opinion is tolerant of the Halo Group. They believe that there is no need to pursue legal responsibility for anyone, and the autonomy of Halo City should be restored as soon as possible.In the future, as long as they promise not to engage in any research and technology development related to curvature-driven spacecraft, and put the company's activities under the strict supervision of the federal government, the Halo Group can continue to develop its own business.

But a week later, the Federal Fleet Staff showed the world the captured antimatter bullets.The whole world was shocked when the pile of golden gods of death appeared in front of people.

The Halo Group was declared illegal, the federal government confiscated all its assets, and completely took over the Central Sun Accelerator. The Federal Space Force announced a long-term occupation of Halo City, and disbanded the Halo Academy of Sciences and Engineering.More than 300 people from the upper echelons of the Star Ring Group and the City Self-Defense Force, including Vader, were arrested.

In the ensuing Solar System Federal Court trial, Thomas Vader was sentenced to death for crimes against humanity, war crimes, and violation of the Curvature-Driven Technology Prohibition Act.

In Space City Earth 110, the capital of the Solar System Federation, in a pure white detention room near the Federal Supreme Court, Cheng Xin met Vader.Across a transparent screen, they looked at each other speechlessly.Cheng Xin saw that this [-]-year-old man was very calm, like a pool of still water before it dried up, without any ripples.

Cheng Xin handed Vader a box of cigars through the small window of the transparent screen, which she bought at the floating market in Pacific One Space City.After Wade took the small wooden box, he opened it and took out three of the ten cigars inside, and then returned the wooden box to Cheng Xin.

"I don't need any more," he said.

"Tell me something about yourself, your career, your life, I can tell future generations." Cheng Xin said.

Vader shook his head slowly, "It's just one of the countless dead people, there's nothing to say."

Cheng Xin knew that apart from this transparent screen, there was also the deepest gully in the world that could never be bridged.

"Then do you have anything to say to me?" Cheng Xin finally asked this question, and to her own surprise, she expected an answer.

"Thank you for the cigar."

It took a while for Cheng Xin to realize that this was what Wade wanted to say to her, the last and all.

They sat in silence, neither looking at each other, and time seemed to drown them in a pool of stagnant water.It wasn't until the vibration of the space city's maintenance that Cheng Xin returned to reality that she slowly got up and said goodbye to Vader in a low voice.

As soon as she walked out of the detention room, Cheng Xin took out a cigar from the wooden box, borrowed a lighter from the guard, and smoked for the first time in her life.The strange thing is that she didn't cough, watching the white smoke curl up in front of the sun in the capital, dissipating in her tearful eyes like three centuries.

Three days later, Thomas Vader was vaporized within one ten-thousandth of a second in a powerful laser.

Cheng Xin went to the hibernation center of Asia One to wake up Ai AA who was in hibernation, and the two returned to Earth.

They went back by the spaceship "Halo".After the Halo Group was confiscated, the federal government returned a small part of the company's huge assets to Cheng Xin, which was roughly equivalent to the total assets of the Halo Group when Wade took over. The disappearing Star Ring Group cannot be compared.Also returned is the "Halo" spacecraft, which is already the third generation of this type of spacecraft. It is a small interstellar spacecraft that can take two to three people. The ecosystem inside is very comfortable and delicate, like a beautiful small garden.

Cheng Xin and AA roamed the sparsely populated continents of the earth. They flew through the endless forests in a speeding car, walked on the grasslands on horseback, and walked on the uninhabited beaches.Most of the cities have been covered by forests and vines, and many cities only have a residential area the size of a small town.At this time, the population of the earth was equivalent to that of the late Neolithic age.

The longer I stay on Earth, the more I feel that the entire history of human civilization is like a big dream.

They also went to Australia.Only Canberra is still inhabited on that continent, and there is still a government the size of a small town, which still calls itself the Commonwealth of Australia.The gate of the parliament building where Sophon announced his extinction plan has been sealed by dense vegetation, and vines even climbed to the flagpole more than 80 meters high.From the government archives, they found Freis' records. The old man lived for more than 150 years, but was finally defeated by time and passed away more than ten years ago.

They came to Mosken Island again.The lighthouse built by old Jason is still there, but it can no longer shine, and this area has become a no-man's land.On the island they heard the sound of the great eddy again, but when they looked around, they could only see the empty sea in the setting sun.

Their future is also empty.

AA said: "Let's go to the era after the blow, the era after the sun disappears, only then can we have a stable life."

Cheng Xin also wanted to fight against the future era, not for the sake of a stable life, but because she had stopped the destructive war and would be worshiped by the masses, which made it impossible for her to live in this era.She also wants to see with her own eyes that the earth's civilization continues to survive and prosper after the dark forest strikes, that is the only hope for her peace of mind.She imagined a life in that sun-turned nebula, where she could find true peace, even happiness, and that would be her last haven.

She was only 33 after all.

Cheng Xin and AA returned to Jupiter's urban agglomeration by the "Halo", and once again hibernated in the Asia-200 space city. The scheduled time was [-] years, but it was specified in the contract: If the Dark Forest strikes during this period, they will Wake up anytime.