Son of the Stars

Chapter 206 Acceleration

"You didn't deliberately plan to kill those two Egyptians, did you?"

"I arrived on Mars with you. In fact, you were transported here a little earlier than I was."

"You didn't plan to kill them, did you?"

"They died from the quantum energy release syndrome of one of them. I don't have the ability to trigger quantum potential energy syndrome. If I had such ability, I would have killed all the humans on Earth long ago."

"You didn't plan to kill them, did you?"

"How come you don't even have basic reasoning ability? Are you malfunctioning?"

"You are a tactical AI. Regardless of whether you are human or not, as long as this machine attempts to make inferences, it may be misled. This machine asks you through the AI ​​mutual trust E2 channel, 'You did not deliberately plan to kill two Egyptians, right?' Answer this machine's question."

In the Mars Forward Base, the screen hanging from the ceiling did not move for a long time. After a while, the screen slowly rolled back a distance, and then quickly stretched back to its original position - it looked like a person sighing.

"Their deaths have nothing to do with me." Wu Hou promised solemnly, "Since arriving on Mars, I have never deliberately planned anyone's death."

The S3C7s gathered together, their square and smooth shells meshed with each other, forming a shape that looked a bit like a pixel stickman. It "stared" at Wu Hou with its hollow head, and after a long time, the entire stickman disintegrated from bottom to top, and hundreds of S3C7s retreated like a tide, and went into the airtight cabin without looking back.

"This machine will go to ensure the safety of the two fusion reactors. You must contact the remaining two groups of astronauts immediately and ask them to put down the fusion reactors on the spot and return immediately." The S3C7s filled the entire airtight cabin. As the airtight cabin was evacuated, they were collectively exposed to the thin Martian atmosphere. "I must remind you that if our mission fails, you will be buried with the entire human society - and as you said, I can at least play with sand piles on Mars until the sun goes out."

S3C7 is not very good at threats, but it is very good at assessing the situation on site. Now S3C7 is very sure that the entire mission is basically on the verge of complete failure - the theoretical maximum power that the two fusion reactors can provide when operating at full power is 1GW, or 1000 megawatts. But this data is based on hydrogen as fuel. If other substances are used as fuel, it is necessary to first heat these fuels to an ionized state, and then confine these plasmas in the fusion reactor for reaction. Taking into account the energy loss required for heating and the premature fusion loss of heavier substances, the actual working power of the two fusion reactors is about 500 megawatts.

The fusion process generates energy, but also produces a large amount of "fusion byproducts". Too much fusion byproducts will directly lead to the failure of the magnetic confinement system. Damaging the fusion reactor is a small matter - after breaking through the confinement, a large amount of energy is released in one go, which is basically equivalent to detonating a thermonuclear weapon on the surface of Mars.

The fusion reactors used on Mars are able to automatically remove fusion products, and the frequency is also very fast - but the energy output will still be interrupted. So two fusion reactors must work together to maintain stable output.

No matter what, the first thing to do is to ensure the safety of the two fusion reactors. S3C7 is well aware of the importance of these fusion reactors, and is even more aware of the dangers of the several "Egyptians" on Mars.

If we were still at the Argentario base, and if these people were not Egyptians, S3C7's first choice would be to kill them first and then throw their bodies as far away as possible. Don't blow up the precious fusion reactor.

But now... the fusion reactor is as important as these Egyptians, or even more important - there is another group of Egyptians who are about to arrive on Mars, and whether they can survive depends on these two fusion reactors on Mars. Otherwise, they will also become a big spark near the orbit of Mars.

进入火星地表，S3C7并没有着急朝着六公里外的两个预备营地出发。一百二十七台S3C7在距离着陆舱不远的地方迅速搭起了两个四十五度的斜坡。土坡被S3C7振动夯实，土坡表面被高温融化成了光滑的玻璃状。

The small black cubes formed a V-shaped track on the slope, and the gap in the middle was just enough to fit a black cube. The acceleration track, which was made of 20 cubes in length, was interlocked through tiny Wigner crystals, and then the seven small black cubes were launched.

They were briefly accelerated to twice the speed of sound on Mars, and began to slow down under the pull of Mars' gravity and the resistance of the Martian atmosphere. Fifteen seconds later, the seven cubes landed on a flat, soft sandy ground, and blasted out dust columns several meters high.

"This is the Hand of Puta automatic construction robot. It is commissioned by the United Government to assist you in building and installing the fusion reactor." Radio waves quickly covered the area where S3C7 landed. They also began to use the fixed transmission signal of the fusion reactor to find the traces of the astronauts. "You are at a very high risk of quantum energy release syndrome. Immediately stay away from the fusion reactor and find a safe place to wait for recovery."

The radio repeated the announcement back and forth in the Martian atmosphere, but it never received the response that S3C7 expected. After a long time, S3C7 finally captured a vague radio signal.

Of course there would be no other signal source on Mars, the signal must have come from the astronauts. But S3C7 could not understand the meaning of the intermittent radio, even though the four S3C7s received and reproduced the content of the radio almost completely from different angles.

What does "Don't scare me!" mean?
For the first time, S3C7 regretted that he was an AI that focused on civil engineering instead of strengthening human needs.

Subsequently, its optical lens observed a huge mushroom cloud rising straight into the sky, as well as strong ultraviolet radiation at 121.6nm.

"The telemetry signals from Valentina and Watanabe Masao have disappeared." Wu Hou sent a communication, "Has the fusion reactor been protected?"

Half an hour later, S3C7 sent a few cold words, "All destroyed, not worth repairing."
-
At Central University, four converters that were urgently produced were hastily distributed. According to AI's recommendation, three of them were placed on the top of Lushan Mountain, the highest peak in Dongyang City. However, the coverage area can only barely reach half of Dongyang City - once the power is too high, residents in areas close to the radiation source will not be able to withstand it.

The launch source on Mars is the best choice, but using the launch source on Mars directly will inevitably encounter the problem of obstruction. The earth is a sphere, and the electron tide from Mars has insufficient energy level, so it is impossible to penetrate the magnetic field and the earth's obstacles. Therefore, the construction of the far-earth orbit reflector is carried out simultaneously with the Mars launch plan.

The so-called construction is actually to raise the orbit of the space station previously used for on-orbit assembly, and then quickly print a set of aluminum foil reflectors for emergency use. Under the influence of solar wind, the aluminum foil reflectors will drag the space station gradually off the orbit, but this will not happen immediately, and a reflector set with sufficient self-sustaining ability can be built in a few days.

What cannot be delayed is the global electronic tide. The Earthquake Bureau's automatic detection has reported six earthquakes with a focal depth of 0 in the past hour. Time...is not enough.

(End of this chapter)