Chapter 95: Paper Cup
Jiang Yang originally thought that next they would still act collectively, collective retreat, and observe the incident encountered by their side during this process, in order to collect intelligence.
But unexpectedly, Tong Zheng made another arrangement.
He pointed at Astronaut No. 2 and gestured with his arm.
Astronaut No. 2 was Zhao Jianguo.
At this moment, Tong Zheng’s intention was very obvious. He was asking Zhao Jianguo to retreat alone, to have him scout ahead alone, to confirm the risks during retreat, confirm what would be encountered during the retreat process, how he would die, to provide intelligence for them.
In the previous life, Tong Zheng died during the rocket launch process, and it was Zhao Jianguo who had taken on the astronaut captain role.
And now, Tong Zheng had also arrived on the Moon. Obviously, command was transferred to him, who had the highest score in comprehensive training subjects.
This was obviously a suicidal mission. Although everyone knew in their hearts that even staying in place motionless the ending would be death, but based on survival instinct, passively awaiting death was always easier than actively going to one’s death.
But to Tong Zheng’s order, Zhao Jianguo had no hesitation whatsoever.
He left the queue and prepared for solo retreat to face death.
Just…
The arrangement to send one person to actively retreat and scout ahead was fine. But how to solve communication?
At this moment, there was no lighting inside the passage. Their side could only see things by relying on chemical cold light, and radio communication could not be used either.
This meant that as soon as Zhao Jianguo moved a bit farther from their side, they could only see a vague cold light, unable to see anything else, and unable to hear any sound.
In this way, how could they know how he died?
Before Jiang Yang could think of a result, he saw Tong Zheng quickly open another cover plate on his own spacesuit. Inside was a spindle-shaped thing wrapped full of thin line.
He pulled out one end of the thin line, and at the same time, Zhao Jianguo also pulled out his own thin line and tied it together with Tong Zheng’s thin line.
Zhao Jianguo immediately turned around and retreated toward the rear of the passage at a neither fast nor slow speed. As he moved, the thin lines around the two men’s waists were continuously pulled out and stretched taut.
Jiang Yang was slightly stunned, and instantly understood.
He remembered a toy he had played with as a child.
Connecting the bottoms of two disposable paper cups with a thin line, stretching the thin line taut, one person speaks into the paper cup, and even at quite a distance, the other person can hear the voice by covering the other paper cup over their ear.
The essence of sound is vibration. The essence of hearing someone speak in a normal environment is that the throat vibration causes air vibration, and the other’s eardrum perceives these vibrations, thus hearing the speech.
Now, in the Moon environment there is no air, radio waves cannot be used either, so use this thin line to replace air in transmitting these vibrations!
Although the thin line and “paper cup” used by the astronauts at this moment were surely much more precise, complex, and reliable than the childhood toy, in essence, it was still based on the same principle.
In this way, even if Zhao Jianguo was quite far from their side, he could still report his encountered situation in real time.
Unfortunately, this method had many limiting factors and could only be used in this special condition at the moment. Otherwise, their side wouldn’t have to be trapped by the inability to communicate in real time.
Under silent gaze, Zhao Jianguo’s figure gradually blurred in their eyes, leaving only a shadow of chemical cold light.
Tong Zheng stood there quietly, as if listening to the report from Zhao Jianguo. At this moment, only he could hear these sounds; the rest of them could not hear and could only wait silently.
In a moment, white mist emanated from another astronaut’s body. Another astronaut immediately took action and sealed it with tape.
In the silent waiting, Jiang Yang saw that the light from Zhao Jianguo seemed to dim a bit.
That was not weakening due to increased distance; it seemed the brightness of the light itself had also been somewhat reduced?
Was there something in space that could hinder light propagation? Or had Zhao Jianguo’s own brightness weakened?
Jiang Yang didn’t know; he could only continue to wait.
After another moment, when Zhao Jianguo had already walked hundreds of meters away, his figure had shrunk into a faint light spot, Jiang Yang saw him seemingly stop advancing.
He stopped.
What happened?
Jiang Yang suppressed the tension and doubt in his heart and continued to wait.
After another moment, the last bit of light disappeared, and the rear of the passage was completely restored to darkness; he could no longer be seen.
At the same time, the thin line extending from in front of Tong Zheng into the endless darkness seemed to be cut by some unknown existence, instantly losing its taut state.
Under the gravitational effect of his own roller, the thin line quickly retracted and rewound onto the roller.
Cutting off the excess thin line, Tong Zheng finally made a move.
He opened the arm cover plate and quickly wrote some text, displaying it in front of Jiang Yang.
“Astronaut No. 2 sacrificed.”
Although he had long anticipated this result, Jiang Yang still couldn’t control a heaviness rising in his heart.
Tong Zheng quickly erased the previous text and wrote again quickly: “Corrosion accelerated.
Multiple breaks in spacesuit, cannot repair.
Total distance 656 meters.”
Such an outstanding, such an exceptional hero, just sacrificed right before his eyes.
Without the slightest hesitation, without the slightest doubt, he resolutely stepped into the darkness, at the cost of his life, providing a bit of intelligence for them, and for the nation and civilization of the next life.
This bit of intelligence was that retreating would cause corrosion to accelerate.
Then the cause of death of the astronauts in the previous life was also clear.
During retreat, everyone’s spacesuits all broke and could not be repaired, ultimately all died, not one could walk out of this passage to pass information to themselves waiting at the Earth Base in the previous life.
Erasing these texts again, Tong Zheng looked toward Astronaut No. 3.
His arm extended forward again, obviously signaling him to go alone to explore like Zhao Jianguo did.
The difference was that last time Zhao Jianguo went toward the passage exit direction. This time, Astronaut No. 3 was to go toward the deeper direction of the passage.
Astronaut No. 3 Feng Lijun also stood out without any hesitation, opened his own cover plate, pulled out thin line, and connected it to Tong Zheng’s thin line.
After that, he walked toward the lower part, also the deeper direction of the passage, with the same step frequency and speed as Zhao Jianguo before.
The thin line was stretched taut once again.
Jiang Yang stood here watching him leave, silently watching the light on him grow weaker and weaker, watching him ultimately also fall to the ground, the light completely disappearing.
