In a foreign land [Luo Longxiang]

1. Xinjinshan City

Phaethon starship, Xinjinshan City, the sun is shining brightly.

A young man with a crew cut and earrings was sitting in the Chinatown police station. The branch chief, Zhao, was sitting in front of the young man. He looked like a rebellious young man who had no courage to commit any crime. , Lao Zhao has seen a lot. "Don't look at me like a criminal," the young man said, "I'm here to report a crime. My motorcycle was stolen."

Lao Zhao logged into the police network system and entered his license plate number. The whereabouts of the motorcycle soon became known, "I said to Zheng Weihan, your motorcycle is too old. This is the second time it has been picked up by sanitation workers as garbage thrown on the roadside. Next time, remember to hang a sign. Marked: This is not garbage, you know?"

Zheng Weihan smiled, and then started chatting: "I heard that you are very free these days?" From Street, Zhouren Street to Chinatown and Songren Street, you can count them all with ten fingers, and the public security has always been good.

Lao Zhao said: "It's not too leisurely. There was a small car accident in the shopping street in front. Two bicycles collided with each other. This is the only 'big case' this month... Last night I had another Did your dad quarrel?"

Zheng Weihan said: "The old guy was so busy on the Europa Starship that he came over and forced me to take the postgraduate entrance examination at the military academy." He didn't want to go to the military academy at first, so he went to Xinjinshan. I took refuge with my uncle in the city, and later applied for an ordinary university without telling my parents. My uncle was Lao Zhao's neighbor. He was a heavy drinker. His marriage was divorced. After several marriages, he was killed several times. In the end, he was left alone with no children... In the winter two years ago, there was a snowstorm. He drank a few more drinks in a small hotel and passed out drunk on the street. His body was found under the thick snow the next morning.

"Speaking of being a soldier, I also thought about it when I was young..." Lao Zhao said, "At that time, I thought it was very prestigious to be a soldier, so I applied for the military academy in the same year as your father. But. , he passed the exam, and I passed the exam, so I went to the police academy." He patted the pistol on his belt, "It has been more than 20 years, and this gun has not fired a bullet."

Zheng Weihan said: "When my father was a child, he went to the military academy because his family was poor. The military academy took care of food and accommodation and did not charge tuition. He often said that it was a life-threatening job. Fifteen years ago, there were more than fifty classmates in his class. They all went to the battlefield, and only five of them came back alive... He knew that soldiers would die quickly, and now he actually wanted me to die!"

Lao Zhao said: "I guess. What your dad means is that he finally rose to the rank of colonel and has some friends in the military academy. You can get a high degree and then find a civilian job in the army. It will be much safer than being a soldier on the front line and it will be easier to get promoted. "

"I don't care about that," Zheng Weihan couldn't listen to it at all. "Anyway, my motorcycle is gone. Remember to take me home when you get off work."

2. Tea Houses in Chinatown

There are many things in Chinatown that are neither local nor foreign, such as signboards with traditional Chinese characters, banks deliberately decorated to look like classical money houses, world-famous Chinese restaurants... and of course This teahouse.

People always feel homesick when they are in a foreign country, right? In the Phaethon starship, many people may have been wearing spacesuits and working on the space station yesterday. They rushed back to the ground as soon as they had a break today and came to the famous "old alley impression" bathhouse on the street to soak in hot water. Taking a bath, looking at the water-stained ceiling and the walls deliberately planted with moss, discussing the news on a certain galaxy... They don't care about money, what they buy is the feeling of their hometown. After taking a bath, I put on my old-fashioned clothes and went shopping at the small stalls that took up half the street. They said this place has an authentic taste of the earth.

Camel Teahouse is a relatively famous teahouse in Chinatown. There is a storyteller in the teahouse, and there are five old gentlemen who come there every day, holding sunflower fans and wearing old-style robes to drink tea and chat. Sometimes they even come over. Curious "foreigners" (aliens). Since the "Ma Zhuangbei Teahouse" across the street closed down, the business of the Camel Teahouse has become even better.

After it was discovered that the "Ma Zhuangbei Tea House" used a robot to pretend to be a human being as a waiter, no customers came to the door. These days, what customers pay for is tradition. Going to a tea house to drink tea is a status symbol. Whether it tastes good or not matters. Secondly.

Back then, my grandparents were worried that my uncle would not be able to support himself, so they gave him the camel teahouse facing the street. Although the teahouse's small income could not make a big fortune, it would not starve to death.

Zheng Weihan thought: Maybe it’s time to hire a few more people. The old man who played the erhu in the last job market looked good. I heard he was a retired teacher from an art college. Unfortunately, the salary he asked for was too high... In fact, even if this teahouse fired all its employees and replaced them with a batch of robots, You can still run a good business - maybe even better. At least the robot won't tell you that you need a raise or a vacation. However, everyone now knows that hiring more employees can get tax breaks. If the company is full of robots, then the tax bureau officials will come to trouble you the next day, saying that you deliberately violated the government If you go against the goal of reducing unemployment, the tax rate you have to pay will be so high that it is not enough to pay all the profits.

When he was pretending that night, Zheng Weihan found a girl standing at the door. The girl asked him: "Excuse me, are you hiring workers here?" The girl was wearing an old dress that didn't fit well and had long hair. He is timid, carries an erhu on his back, is thin and small, and looks like a poor student looking for a job to support his family.

Zheng Weihan almost hit the door panel on his toes - under the cold light of the artificial moon in the sky, this girl looked like a female ghost. His eyes fell on the old erhu, "You can play the song "Er Quan Ying Yue" and listen to it."

The girl was sitting on the stone emblem in front of the door, and the ancient music of the earth era was like flowing water. Gently flowing from the strings of the erhu, the spring-like ancient music tells a peaceful story:

In the age of the earth a long time ago, a blind man sat on the street, quietly playing the erhu, His pupil-less eyes stared blankly at the people handing out flyers on the street, ignoring the bloody hustle and bustle on the street. He knew that the storm was coming, but he just quietly guarded the peace in his heart, just like the quietly flowing spring reflecting the dark clouds that were gradually gathering in the sky. The heavy rain makes a sound, but the dark clouds are silent, so on the eve of the real rainstorm, the spring water is as quiet as before.

In history, many stories have the same beginning. In the age of the earth, the same storm repeated itself. On the eve of the last storm, the bureaucrats exiled hundreds of millions of criminals to Going to outer space is exactly the same as the practice of exiling prisoners to America and Australia during the Age of Discovery.

Zheng Weihan remembered that his father had said before that the Starship Alliance government had received a signal from the Earth a long time ago - first an arrogant order, then a humble request, and finally a bitter plea, begging for these The descendants of the exiles went back to save them...

"The music has been finished. Do you think you can hire me?" The girl's voice brought Zheng Weihan back to reality.

"Hmm... great song, very good." Zheng Weihan actually got distracted a long time ago, "I'm afraid I can't give you a high salary, but I'm in charge of food and accommodation here, as long as "You don't mind living under the same roof as me." He didn't know why he wanted to keep her. "By the way, what's your name?" "Han Dan."

Zheng Weihan quickly found a reason for himself to keep her: He couldn't watch her, a weak woman, wandering around in this unfamiliar city, right?

"Have we met before?" Zheng Weihan always felt that she looked familiar.

Han Dan has a diary that uses ancient electronic ink to display writing on a rollable film. Its data storage space is only 80GB, but each Chinese character takes up two Byte calculation, she was afraid that she would not be able to write it in ten lifetimes.

This kind of diary looks like a scroll when rolled up. In order to cater to the preferences of customers, the merchants painted the "scroll" with the color of rice paper to make it look more like an ancient scroll.

Keeping a diary is not a good habit, especially for someone like Han Dan who has too many secrets. She opened the diary and gently slid her fingers over the film, leaving some writing:

...I may live here for a while and do some part-time work to support myself, until he discovers that I am unusual. Before, leave here and continue wandering...

3. Meteor Shower

Han Dan has lived here for a month, and his daily job is to play the erhu in the teahouse to attract customers. The teahouse's business hours are from 11 am to 10 pm. It's not easy to find a job these days, so just make do with it.

In the evening, the teahouse stalled. Zheng Weihan said that he had to go out for some urgent matters. It was eleven o'clock and he still hadn't come back. Han Dan returned to the room, turned on the computer and entered a website. He typed a long password with his fingers skillfully. What appeared on the screen was a picture similar to "Google Earth" in the ancient earth era. She found Xinjinshan City on the spherical map, and continued to drag and enlarge the map with the mouse. The streets as thin as a spider web were enlarged to the size of the entire screen, and even the fallen leaves in the green belts on the streets were clearly visible - she found Zheng Weihan, who I was queuing up to buy something in front of a 24-hour convenience store.

The Meteorological Bureau issued a meteor shower warning, and many people lined up in front of stores of all sizes to grab supplies. Han Dan was restless, always thinking about what to do. She found some boards from the utility room to strengthen the doors and windows, but suddenly remembered that it was pointless. Han Dan remembered an ancient legend on earth: When a meteor streaks across the sky, if you close your eyes and make a wish to the meteor, your wish will definitely come true. There are still many people who make wishes under meteors, but they usually only have one wish - let these damn meteor showers end soon!

At 11:30 p.m., Zheng Weihan came back, carrying two large buckets of pure water and some emergency supplies. "Go live in the basement tonight," he said.

Buildings in Xinjinshan City are usually not very tall. According to regulations, if a house has 18 floors above ground, it must have 18 floors of basement, otherwise it will be considered an illegal building; if a city can accommodate a population of 150,000, it must have enough space for 150,000 people. A complex of underground buildings for living and three months' supply of supplies - these were all forced by the harsh living environment.

The basement of Zheng Weihan's house is a two-bedroom suite with one living room. In addition to a staircase leading to the ground, the living room also has a door leading to the air raid tunnel under the street outside - this door is more than 500 meters thick. Millimeter composite doors are enough to withstand ordinary meteorite attacks.

At 3:30 in the morning, the meteor shower finally came. The earth trembled, and there were the whistling sound of shells piercing the sky and the crash of houses collapsing overhead. It seemed that this meteor shower was really not small. Under the pale explosion-proof lights, Zheng Weihan couldn't sleep. When he saw Han Dan walking out of the room, "You can't sleep either?" he asked.

Zheng Weihan turned on the TV casually. The TV signal was very poor, and the picture of a meteor shower hitting the ground appeared in front of them with a rustling sound. The dedicated reporter braved the deadly meteor shower and stayed at the news scene to report the first thing for everyone. hand message. Countless fireballs splashed into the atmosphere, trailing long tails and falling densely like heavy rain, hitting the city like hail. The intense high temperature ignited everything that could be ignited in the city, and the raging fire in Xinjinshan City lit up the entire night sky.

Although there are powerful refrigeration equipment and oxygen recycling equipment in the basement, you can still feel the heat coming from the ceiling. Small meteor showers are suitable for coaxing little girls who like romance, but large ones can knock down an entire city like a carpet bomb!

Han Dan said: "I heard that on Earth, there are two giant planets, Jupiter and Saturn, in the solar system, which have protected the Earth from many dangerous small body impacts."

"Here Not the solar system..." Zheng Weihan took out an old photo. In the photo, several men were all dressed as soldiers. "I originally had two uncles. The eldest uncle was a sergeant in the Seventeenth Fleet and died fifteen years ago.

My second uncle was on the nearest rescue spacecraft at the time. Because the engine of the spacecraft was damaged by a meteorite, he could only watch helplessly as his brother was killed and there was nothing he could do. Later, the second uncle completely collapsed and drank heavily until his death. "

In this ethereal universe, there are very few alien civilizations that can truly be called "enemies." As soldiers, we face more dangerous natural environments in the universe.

The TV suddenly became rusty and the signal was lost. The ground above our heads was shaking, and dust kept falling from the ceiling. Zheng Wei and Han Dunong said: "This is the first time in my life that I have seen such a large meteor shower... ..." But he didn't care too much. Anyway, this natural phenomenon will occur every three years or two years. For the sake of votes, the government will more or less compensate the damaged houses, plus reconstruction. Driven by the demand for building materials, the economy will recover, and tall buildings and wide streets will appear again, just like the crops in the wheat fields. This is how people have come here for many years. >

A earth-shattering explosion shook the entire basement. A moment later, there was a rapid knock on the door. Zheng Weihan opened the door and saw Lao Zhao standing in his pajamas with two bare legs, a belt and a pistol. In front of me, “Hurry up and gather at the emergency boarding port! The meteor shower smashed the sun! "

Zheng Weihan was shocked: "This is absolutely impossible! "But seeing Lao Zhao's nervous look, he understood that this was not a joke.

Above every starship, there is an artificial sun equipped with a giant nuclear fusion reactor. One side of the sun is forever Facing the earth, it continuously provides light and heat to the earth. If it is destroyed, the entire starship will be frozen into a ball of ice!

The underground of Xinjinshan City is the same as the ground. Divided into blocks, each block is separated by airtight doors that can withstand nuclear explosions. The intricate spider web-like passages look a bit like the internal structure of a spaceship.

Lao Zhao continued to inform other residents to evacuate, while Zheng Weihan and Han Dan immediately ran to the underground spaceship boarding port. The waiting hall was covered with thick dust. This place had not been used for many years. It looked like it. The life raft on the ship cannot survive without it, but no one wants to see it put into use. The ancient LCD monitor is constantly refreshing, showing the latest news: the underground city of Zhouren Street has been penetrated by a meteorite. The sea of ????fire quickly sucked away the oxygen in the underground city, and everyone in the entire block suffocated to death. No one dared to open the airtight door to find if there were any survivors in that block. Everyone knew that as soon as the door was opened, the poisonous smoke and smoke would be released. The fire will spread to the next block of the underground city, killing more people.

There is an earthquake, and the ground is shaking like a wounded beast. The spacecraft is filling up with fuel, according to the ancient "Starship." "Emergency Escape Plan", the order of boarding is infants, children, teenagers, and finally the elderly. If they are extremely valuable people such as well-known scholars and professors, they can take the first batch of spaceships to leave with their children. . Although the police who maintained law and order repeatedly emphasized that there were enough spaceships for everyone to escape, everyone knew that the further back they were, the smaller their chances of survival were. Give up your position and I will give him half of my property worth hundreds of millions! "The answer to this man was a round of bullets from the police.

Many old people spontaneously stayed to maintain order, saying to their children and grandchildren: "You go first, we will take the last batch of spaceships to leave. "Actually, everyone knows that the last batch of spaceships will probably never have a chance to take off.

It was Zheng Weihan's turn to board the ship. Standing behind him was a crying woman. Her two children had already boarded the ship. The first batch of spacecraft left, and she happened to be assigned to the next batch. At this time, the flames had already jumped to the launch silo of the spacecraft. "Can I let her go first?" "Zheng Weihan asked the policeman beside him. The policeman didn't say anything. He just pointed the black gun at his head. Zheng Weihan quickly lowered his head and boarded the boat.

Han Dan was the first to board the boat before him, and now he is sitting there On the seat next to him.

She skillfully used a metal safety belt as thick as her arm to secure herself to the chair: "Fasten your safety belt! This old spaceship does not have an artificial gravity field or a pleasant cabin environment like those operated by passenger transport companies!"

The spacecraft started suddenly, and the heavy acceleration made the whole body ache. The cabin also creaked, as if it would disintegrate at any time. The launch port of the escape spacecraft is located directly under the block square. It has no launch shaft cover at all. Instead, it uses directional blasting to directly blow up the buildings on the ground to allow the spacecraft to drill out.

The city collapsed in the flames, and the meteor shower continued to hit the earth. Looking down from the spaceship, the city has been torn apart into several volcanic crater-like spacecraft launch silos. The bustling streets, antique buildings, and trees in the green belt standing neatly like guards... are being swept down bit by bit by the blazing air waves. Turned into ashes...

4. Starship

This is a spaceship and a planet. It is called a planet because its volume and mass are similar to those of the old Earth. It has an atmosphere, azure oceans, vast land, and a complete biosphere; it is said to be a spaceship because it has propellers and can fly It moves slowly in the universe and does not revolve around a star like a real planet, so people call it a "starship".

A long time ago, people’s ancestors drove spaceships to wander in the universe. Later, spaceships became larger and larger, and these starships, which are as large as the earth, were naturally created.

This kind of starship, the largest spacecraft in history, is so big that it can generate considerable gravity to bind enough air to form an atmosphere, so it does not have to have a shell like traditional spaceships. . Its South Pole has an eternal brilliance. There, there is a large forest-like giant thruster. The high-energy particles ejected by those thrusters leave a ribbon-like trajectory in space, pushing the entire starship forward. .

The starship is very large. Under the thin atmosphere are white clouds, oceans and land. It looks very beautiful, but also very fragile - against the background of the vast and boundless universe, the thin atmosphere As fragile as a soap bubble. Therefore, it is not difficult to understand why the Starship Alliance has formed such a large army and set up so many lines of defense to protect it.

Unfortunately, the huge army and multiple defense lines failed to withstand this attack. The loss this time was too great. According to news reports, a very large celestial body plunged into the airspace of the Starfleet Alliance at a very fast speed. The government dispatched a large number of combat forces to intercept the celestial body. They originally wanted to drag the celestial body away. orbit, but it was traveling so fast that they could only smash it into pieces. Judging from the data released in the news, this is an impact that will knock even the old Earth of the solar system out of orbit! If a large object of the same mass directly hits a starship, it will completely destroy the starship; but if it is blown into small enough pieces, these small pieces will burn up on the way into the atmosphere, causing The loss will be much smaller.

The military has tried its best. Han Dan looked at the debris floating outside the ship's window. Some warship wreckage was also mixed in. She even saw the mutilated remains of several soldiers floating through the window... The starship originally had its own meteorite prevention system. If In the event of a particularly large disaster, the system cannot withstand it, and the only option is to dispatch the military.

People have long been accustomed to such sacrifices. They remember that when people were trying to build the first starship, nearly one-third of the hundreds of millions of descendants of exiles sacrificed their lives. own life.

There is far more than just one starship. After the completion of the Europa starship, people built two more starships-the Asia starship and the America starship, and gradually became familiar with it. There are only seven continents on the earth. When building the eighth starship, they found that the names of the seven continents were not enough, so they began to name them after mythical characters from various countries on the earth, so there were Gaia, Phaethon, and Pal. Starships like Xius and Kronas, anyway, the continents on the earth were named after mythical characters in the beginning, so it’s okay.

In the pioneering days, the Earth Alliance Space Development Agency was a well-known name.

When its first outer space immigration spacecraft slowly left the solar system, the whole world was deserted. The solar sail on the brand new spaceship slowly opened like a flower in bloom. The beautiful female commentator was so excited that her eyes filled with tears, her words were incoherent, and she was heartbroken. Searching for words of praise, they repeatedly called those pioneers "heroes", as if the entire galaxy was about to become a human colony - no one saw the numerous scars under the spacesuits of those "heroes".

"I wish you will find a new American continent in outer space!" It is said that in the earth era, every prison guard would send such a sentence before throwing the beaten and bruised prisoners into the spacecraft and sending them to outer space to pioneer. "bless". Someone asked: "What if they can't find a planet to colonize?" A bureaucrat from the Earth Alliance Space Development Agency replied: "That's not a problem. There are 10,000 male and female astronauts on each spacecraft, even if they can't find the right one. The planet can also be reproduced on the spaceship from generation to generation. "The ancient exiled prisoners on Earth at least had a destination, but these "heroes" had to find their own place of exile.

After losing the artificial sun, the temperature of the atmosphere of the Phaethon starship dropped suddenly! The strong temperature difference set off strong winds, and heavy rain poured down with hail. The bad weather forced the life-saving spacecraft to take off, and a large number of people were abandoned on the ground. The monstrous flood quickly froze, and the city on the Phaethon starship was frozen together with the people who had no time to escape. Some spaceships that were too late to fly away were also frozen on the ground.

Ice is a poor conductor. As the temperature continues to drop, the temperature on the ice surface is much lower than below the ice surface. Under the influence of the temperature difference between the inside and outside, the ice surface hundreds of meters thick will snap. The ground cracked, long fissures spreading from one end of the starship to the other. Under the huge stress distortion, the huge ice sheet forms deep rift valleys and high mountains, which will be ruthlessly torn apart by frozen cities, grasslands, forests and even oceans. Then, flocculent snowflakes flew down - they were carbon dioxide snowflakes frozen into dry ice. In a few days, blue snow will fall here - the snowflakes condensed by oxygen and nitrogen are blue. After losing the artificial sun, the entire atmosphere will be frozen solid.

Someone was crying in the escaping spaceship, and the screen in the cabin kept playing the scenery of the lakes and mountains of the old Earth, which seemed to remind people that this was not the first time they had lost their hometown, as if this could alleviate it a little bit. The pain of losing the Phaethon starship.

Han Dan opened the diary and wrote down some words:

At this moment, all the victims on the ship seemed to have forgotten their usual leisurely life, and all returned to the way of life of their ancestors - fleeing. , escape, and escape again. From the moment everyone entered the spacecraft, they handed over their lives to the spacecraft. Whether they could escape the disaster was no longer within their control. Just behind me, two spaceships were hit by meteors and exploded. Many parents will never find their children, and many children have lost their parents forever...

5. "Europe" ", Chang'an

The Europa starship, older people are used to calling it "Europe". This was the first starship ever built. Chang'an, the largest city on all starships, is the seat of the highest center of the Starship Alliance government. Chang'an is located on the Europa starship. People who are familiar with history must find it a bit confusing.

Back then, before the first starship was built, people were quarreling over how to name it. In principle, people planned to name the continents after the Earth Era, but they could not decide which continent to use. In the end, people wrote the names of the seven continents on pieces of paper and decided, but they accidentally picked "Europe". , so it was named "Europa Starship".

After the starship was built, people built the first city at the mouth of the most beautiful river. What to name this city? Everyone wrote the names of the cities in the Earth Age that they valued most on pieces of paper and started drawing lots again. Among tens of thousands of city names including Washington, Paris, Jerusalem, Babylon, Delhi, Machu Picchu, etc., Chang'an was chosen by some strange coincidence. , so "Chang'an" went to "Europe".

In the center of Chang'an, a large number of ambulances and medical staff looked up at the Tower of Babel. The police pulled up yellow cordons around the square to keep ordinary people and reporters outside, batch after batch. The victims were brought down from the tower.

The Tower of Babel functions like a port in the Earth Age, except that it docks spaceships instead of ships. Its principle is simple: use cables to connect the synchronous orbiting space station outside the atmosphere and the ground, and attach elevators to the cables to transport passengers to the space station, where they transfer to spacecraft that travel between starships.

As soon as Zheng Weihan got off the spacecraft, he was taken to the medical staff to check whether he was injured during the escape. An official found his identity file in the database of the civil affairs department, issued him a card as a temporary ID card, credit card and driver's license, and said: "Your parents' home is on this starship? It seems like There is no need to prepare a place for you in the resettlement center for the victims. Sorry, the beds there are very tight.”

When the official checked Han Dan’s identity, he was shocked and opened his mouth as if he could fit a mouthful into it. An ostrich egg.

Just outside the Tower of Babel is the central square. Many victims ignored the dissuasion of the staff and frantically searched for their relatives here. After the incident has passed for a period of time, some parents who have lost their children will go to the orphanage to claim the orphans. They always prefer to claim children who have lost their parents in the same disaster. Zheng Weihan saw Lao Zhao's wife and two children looking longingly at the exit of the Tower of Babel. Everyone knows that the police will definitely be the last group to evacuate, and Lao Zhao will probably not come back.