Chapter 6

Beijing China.

In the ministerial conference room, Xu zhe was leaning against his position and listening to a group of scientists led by the director of the National Institute of Astronautics.

The oval bright fluorescent lamp is hung in the middle of the long round conference table. The light from the top of the head lengthens the shadow on each face and looks very gloomy.

"How long do we have?" Xu zhe asked directly.

"Mr. Minister, according to the data observed by the sky eye radio telescope, this uncertain body has passed the orbit of Jupiter and is approaching us at a speed of 1200 kilometers per second. The extension of its trajectory is our earth!"

"What I asked is how long? Are you testing my mental arithmetic ability?" Xu zhe stared at him impatiently.

"Yes, yes, about... It will arrive in a week!"

"So fast..." Minister Xu zhe was 50 years old. He was wearing a straight gray green military uniform without a military cap. His inch was neatly arranged, revealing his wide forehead and high hairline. He looked extremely dignified. He was stunned on his face. "How can we conclude that the other party is not a natural celestial body?"

"He's slowing down..." I don't know whether it's out of excitement or fear. Professor Zhao of the National Space Administration said in a trembling voice, "we may be facing the first contact between mankind and alien civilization."

"What's the news from NASA?" Xu zhe didn't show panic, but asked his own questions step by step.

Professor Zhao shrugged: "They are consistent with our judgment. This is an unnatural celestial body with a diameter close to a quarter of the size of the moon. Its surface is round like a giant satellite. Through ultrasonic detection, it is found that its interior may be a hollow structure, but its mass is huge. At present, there is no trace of power propulsion system on the surface, but it is constantly slowing down. If calculated according to the current decline cycle If so, it is likely to stay in lunar orbit. "

"Aliens?" Xu zhe murmured, "Ma... It's not good!"

"Sir, we can't confirm that the other party is hostile... At least, we can't be sure before the first civilized contact."

"It's too late to wait until hostility is confirmed..." Xu zhe looked back at the leaders of the State Administration of news and media, "is it necessary to release news all over the world?"

"Not for the time being? After all, we don't want to cause a large area of panic..." the director said blankly.

"Don't you need to evacuate residents?" Xu zhe continued.

"Evacuation refers to the outbreak of war crisis in the general sense, but if the other party's purpose is to be an enemy of the whole earth, where can people evacuate?"

"Sir..." Professor Zhao, who has been nearby, couldn't help speaking. "In fact, it's unlikely that the other party is hostile. We don't think the other party is malicious to attack the earth. On this point, we are more optimistic..."

"Optimistic?" Xu Zhe's calm square face showed a chill. "In my opinion, it's a little inappropriate to put forward the word optimistic at this time. Haven't you heard of the famous dark forest law?"

"Well, Mr. Minister, I have read that famous novel, in which I am very clear about the malicious description of civilization: civilization continues to grow and expand, but the total amount of material in the universe remains basically unchanged..."

"What does this mean?" the director of the General Administration of media interrupted in confusion.

The biologist sitting in a far corner stood up and explained to everyone: "this... For example, it's like doing a biological experiment, putting nutrient solution in a Petri dish and a bacterium in it.

Due to a lot of nutrient solution, bacteria will multiply rapidly and continuously, and soon occupy the whole Petri dish

We assume that when the total amount of nutrient solution remains unchanged, the reproduction of biological quantity increases exponentially, and the resources are always insufficient

Therefore, in order to survive by themselves, the organisms will inevitably compete, and they will begin to kill each other and compete for resources... "

"It makes sense that human beings on earth have been fighting with each other for resources for thousands of years. It seems that this truth is applicable everywhere!" Xu zhe sincerely sighed.

Professor Zhao expressed disdain for this theory: "but Mr. Minister, in fact, this is not the case. The main goal of competition among organisms is energy, and energy is almost inexhaustible in the universe, which is not as scarce and scarce as we think

Take our solar system for example. The core temperature of the sun is as high as 15 million degrees Celsius and the pressure is equivalent to 250 billion atmospheres. The gas in the core area is extremely compressed to 150 times the water density. Nuclear fusion occurs here. Every second, please note that every second... 700 million tons of hydrogen are converted into helium.

In this process, about 5 million tons of net energy is released, which is about 3860 billion megajoules, that is, 386 followed by 26 zeros!

If you multiply the solar constant by the spherical area with the radius of the average distance between the sun and the earth, you get the total energy emitted by the sun per minute, which is about 2273 per minute × 10 ^ 28 joules.

Speaking of numbers, you may not have a precise concept. Convert it and say

The heat radiated by the sun into space every second is equivalent to the total heat generated by the complete combustion of 100 million tons of coal!

If this second of energy is collected, it will be enough for all mankind to use from the first year of ad to the present.

The galaxy is expected to have at least 200 billion stars, and there are at least 100000 large and small galaxies in the universe. They have been spreading huge energy to space for free. This situation has lasted for more than 10 billion years, and may continue for tens of billions of years.

Moreover, stars are far from the largest energy body in interstellar space, and supernova explosions can release hundreds of millions of times the energy of stars at the moment of an explosion.

If the energy of supernova explosion is too short to use, have you heard of quasars? The brightness of a quasar exceeds the collection of all stars in the whole galaxy, and its huge energy reserves have exceeded human imagination!

If you don't think it's enough, the sum of these huge energy bodies I mentioned above only accounts for 5% of the total mass of the universe, and the remaining 95% of dark matter and antimatter can be used as energy under possible technical conditions in the future.

It can be said that if we humans are a bacterium in the Petri dish, the Milky way is a grain of grain bigger than the sun. The universe is a "barn" made of tens of thousands of trillions of such grains!

As far as our current observation ability is concerned, the resources are almost endless, but in contrast, life is extremely poor and rare.

Therefore, based on the above reality, we speculate that there is unlikely to be a so-called energy competition between civilizations.

To put it another way, in terms of the huge volume of this spacecraft, if you want to push it to the earth, even if it flies from the nearest Galaxy 4 light-years away, the total amount of energy it needs to carry has exceeded thousands of times the total amount of oil available on the whole earth!

Flying to rob us?

It's superfluous. It's like you took a truck of grain for two years to grab half a cake from others. It's completely out of cost! "

The head of the space administration replied discontentedly, "but Professor Zhao... Your theory is based on ideal conditions. Look at our earth. Under the premise of your so-called" abundant "energy, are not all countries breaking the head's competition for that poor oil resource?

The peace you mentioned can only be achieved on the premise that technology can collect a large amount of stellar energy, and we obviously do not have the conditions for such peace at present! "

Professor Zhao smiled: "that's because we are relatively backward and don't have the ability to mine stars and interstellar space. We just guard a huge energy treasure, but don't know how to use it.

We can fully imagine that if the other party does not have the ability to use stellar energy, it is impossible to cross the huge space in light years to come here?

If the other party has the technology of exploiting stellar energy, it should have the ability of constant interstellar travel. It will face the huge "barn" we have reached before, and the competition for resources is impossible.

Sir, if the dark forest law is established and all civilizations are desperately seizing resources, there should be only one astronomical situation that we can observe since ancient times! "

At this point, he deliberately paused, glanced at the people, and seemed to be looking forward to the answer he wanted.

Or General Xu Zhe, after slow thinking, said the answer: "you mean, if the dark forest law holds, we shouldn't see any stars in the sky!"

"Yes, general, you are so smart!" Professor Zhao shouted excitedly, "because since resources are so precious, stars should have been occupied, collected and covered by various higher civilizations long ago.

But isn't it obvious?

Look up at the stars

Two hundred billion stars are "idle" in the Milky way, wasting endless resources into space every minute. It's like being in a warehouse full of bread, but the people inside break their heads because of hunger. Is it possible? "

Everyone here was silent. Professor Zhao's reasoning seemed impeccable, but everyone still had an inexplicable fear in their hearts. After all, this was a forced gambling, and the winning or losing was completely beyond the control of the people on earth.

A moment later, General Xu zhe expressed his views word by word: "what if the other party is not a permanent civilization of the star system? If they are just a civilization of interstellar wandering, eat up a star in one place, and then continue to wander towards the next star system? Then we are not safe!"

Professor Zhao shrugged helplessly: "if this is really the case, we can only wait and die."

"Can't we do something?" Xu Zhe, a pragmatic soldier, finally brought back the topic of the meeting.

"From the military point of view, I'm afraid nothing can be done!" Professor Zhao smiled bitterly almost like schadenfreude. "It's like... What can the chicken in the cage do when the butcher walks to the chicken house with a kitchen knife?

But fortunately, we are not chickens in cages. We are a civilization with self-awareness, so the last thing we can do should be... Communication! "

"Communication?" Xu zhe opened his eyes in surprise. "Do you mean to talk about conditions with alien civilization?"

Sociologist Lin Fan raised his hand and said in a low voice, "yes, as we all know, war is the continuation of politics. Only the contradictions that cannot be coordinated on the negotiation table must finally be put into war. The best way for us to avoid destruction is communication. Moreover, I agree with Professor Zhao. There is only one way left to negotiate."

All the scientists present lowered their heads and listened to Professor Zhao say the irrefutable answer they didn't want to admit: "indeed, if the other party is hostile, we really can't do anything... We are too backward to even have the ability to escape."

"Well..." Minister Xu zhe sighed heavily, "it seems that we can only place our hope on good luck. God bless each other, just for sightseeing!

Now immediately call our best linguists, mathematicians and literary masters to focus on how to communicate with aliens, and be sure to come up with a complete set of feasible schemes before the other party arrives! "

A word cools everyone's heart. Sightseeing?

As if it were a joke

The meeting was reluctantly dissolved. Xu zhe stood in front of the wide glass curtain wall with his back hands, looking at the sunset in the distance of the city. His eyes were as bright as fire, but with the melancholy of the approaching night.

"Lao Xu..." a voice sounded carefully behind him, and Xu zhe turned his head.

"Oh... Lao Yang, why?" Xu zhe smiled amiably. He was an alumnus of Tsinghua University, a younger brother two years younger than Minister Xu Zhe, and now he is the main person in charge of the biochemical laboratory of a military region in North China.

"There's something I think you might need to know."

"What's the matter?" Xu zhe was slightly stunned. Looking at Lao Yang's expression, he wanted to say and stop. He couldn't help but be a little curious.

"Yesterday, we sent cadres to investigate the two consciousness students, and an accident happened!"

"Oh?" Xu zhe was surprised. "Did the people of the dawn organization do it?"

"It's still uncertain, but it's very likely. They obviously took the lead in noticing the existence of the target. These two young people are very dangerous at present!"

"Have you sent someone to protect them?" Xu zhe asked alertly.

"Yes, but the girl among them was captured by their people. At present, her whereabouts are unknown. Our people tried to prevent the ghost from succeeding, but... To tell the truth, the strength gap is too big. He knocked out the boy and took the girl!"

"Oh?" Xu zhe showed great doubt. "It's not in line with the ghost's style of doing things. He never keeps alive easily!"

"I also think,

"Well... Also, if the ghost really wants to do something, we can't stop it!" Xu zhe sighed helplessly, "This matter involves many forces. Not only do we and dawning want them, but these two young people have important specimen significance for biochemical research. Even civil hacker organizations are said to have offered a reward for their blood, which is more valuable than gold. According to the news from international intelligence organizations, DARPA of magnesium has sent people to sneak into the country for obvious purposes... I'm just surprised ... how did it suddenly attract so much attention? "

"I just wanted to tell you about it..." Lao Yang took a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. "I heard you're going to quit smoking?"

General Xu zhe smiled and took over one: "I had planned to, but when this happened, forget it..."

"According to the cases reported in the local reports received by our research institute, this kind of human supernatural ability seems to be mainly concentrated in the two or three months after February. There were cases before, but they are not very representative..."

"You mean... It's just the time when our celestial eye system first discovered that an unknown object crossed the Kuiper belt and entered the periphery of the solar system?" Xu Zhe's eyes lit up and showed a surprised expression. "What scientific explanation will there be for this connection?"

"The biological supernatural phenomenon has a long history. During World War II, the KGB and the Communist Party, and even Japan's biochemical 713 base in Northeast China, had special institutions for the study of human ultimate ability, which... Is a new field.

In the last century, after the East and West entered the cold war, several superpowers took the development of individual combat effectiveness as their goal, especially after the emergence of genetic technology, aren't DARPA of magnesium, mi9 of Max, the German Federal biochemical agency and our satellite science all monitoring ordinary people with supernatural consciousness? "

Lao Yang nodded, touched his gray beard and said: "Recently, the overall ability of these ordinary people has suddenly been greatly improved. It seems that they have passed through a blowout node. At present, the only possible explanation is that the mass of alien spacecraft is too large, causing magnetic field changes after entering the solar system, leading to the possibility of human gene mutation."

"So far away, is it possible?"

"The human body is a creature born in the cosmic environment. The close relationship between us and the universe is beyond the imagination of ordinary people.

Our human technology is too stupid. We haven't even made a breakthrough in the field of supernatural phenomena. For example, the outbreak of sunspots and the night of the full moon will have a great impact on the behavior of animals. For example, people with knife scars will be itchy on cloudy days. Even human scientists have studied for decades and can't find waist and leg pain and predict the future weather Direct relationship between changes.

As for distance, it has never been a problem. The magnetic field and gravitational range of mass celestial bodies are beyond our imagination. For example, if the sun is reduced to a ball with a diameter of only one meter, do you know how far its maximum gravitational influence range is? 400 kilometers away!

It is equivalent to the stone lion in front of Tiananmen Square in Beijing, but it attracts a small stone on the ground somewhere in Jinan and makes a circular motion around it... "

"Gravity is really too strong!" Xu zhe sincerely sighed.

"No, gravity is only the smallest of several basic forces. For example, you can use a small magnet to attract nails on the ground. Compared with the earth, the magnet is too small to be ignored, but it can easily defeat a celestial body as big as the earth in this competition.

If the universal gravitation is 1, the weak force is the 25th power of 10, the electromagnetic force is the 36th power of 10, and the strong force is the 38th power of 10.

This comparison means that the electromagnetic repulsion between two electrons is greater than the gravity between the same two electrons. The weakness of gravity is so amazing that its influence on the interaction between particle pairs or several particles can be ignored. Why do you know what kind of influence the alien spacecraft brings, which will lead to this terrible change in the human population! "

"Alas! We are going through an era of great changes!" Xu zhe sighed, "Alas... In recent nights, I often wake up from nightmares. I don't know whether to cry or laugh. You know, when we went to school, we were dreaming all day waiting for this moment, but when it really came, I felt at a loss."

"It's ridiculous to think about us at the beginning. The whole human civilization cries out to the sky all day. Come on, UFO, let me see your appearance..." Lao Yang smiles with understanding. "At our age, what we fear most is that something will change. It's stable. How good it is to be stable..."

"I'm afraid it's hard!" after watching each other for a long time, the two old friends laughed bitterly at the same time