Chapter 1371

"Cough..."

"Call base Coordinates 15 ° south latitude, 128.1 ° west longitude Support is needed. "

No response.

The only noise coming from the communication channel was the anxious electric noise.

There was darkness around him. The flashing [signal lost] icon on the right wrist computer reminded him that he had completely disconnected from the base.

And the depth is at least 20 meters.

There are also hematite around which can accelerate the attenuation of electromagnetic wave signal

"Damn..."

There was a glimmer of despair in his eyes, but the fleeting negative emotion was soon replaced by a strong desire for survival.

There are many people on earth waiting for him to go back.

He can't explain it here

Recalling the survival knowledge learned during training in Gurbantunggut Desert, fan Tong struggled to get up from the ground with his teeth clenched. After taking a deep breath, he entered the administrator's password on the wrist computer, and closed the meaningless positioning system and communication module besides increasing energy consumption.

I don't know how many meters deep Mars is

Here, all he can rely on is himself.

Thinking that he might have missed the hot pot tonight, fan Tong swallowed his saliva, took out the special paint marker from the toolbox behind him, and found a solid position on the wall of the cave, leaving his trace mark and some last words.

"I hope these last words will never be used."

From his loss of contact to now, the base side should have found problems, no accident rescue team should have started.

However, he did not dare to expect too much from the rescue capability of the base.

After all, as far as the simple engineering equipment is concerned, he really can't think of anything that can help him climb up the ground without knowing how many meters deep.

He is still young.

I don't want to die for science.

In his heart, he prayed for his destiny. Fan Tong then took off the folding multi-functional spade and held it in his right hand. At the same time, he opened the independent powered flashlight on his helmet and began to grope forward in a cave of rubble.

Although the front may not be the way out, but at least better than stay here waiting for death.

When he thought of the crack opening and closing like a time switch, he felt a sense of urgency.

No one can guarantee that he will not be buried by sand or anything else tomorrow.

As for why he is here

It all started a few hours ago.

……

Mars research station.

The quiet morning was broken by an unexpected news.

"Autonomy?" After listening to the captain's explanation, Dr. Sun Wenzhe, sitting at the end of the conference room, frowned and asked, "that is to say, can we decide whether to take action in the future?"

"It's like this," Liang Youcheng continued, nodding and looking at the other four teammates sitting here. "This is the decision made by the command center for us to make more flexible decisions. If we find any special clues during the exploration outside the cabin, we can report them to me directly without waiting for the command center's instructions."

There was a whisper in the meeting room.

From the perspective of a researcher, this is certainly a good thing, at least it means that they can be more flexible in their own research without nearly ten minutes' delay in communicating with the ground command center.

But the risks are equally hard to ignore.

In the face of the conference room full of discussion, Captain Liang Youcheng coughed gently and then looked at Dr. Fan Tong, the only planetary geologist in the scientific research station.

"It's over," he said.

"In addition, the priority of the" 128 outliers "project has been raised to A-level."

"The ground command center has set up a new work log with the code of" 128 "on our database. If you have any new discoveries, you don't need to report to me. Just use your personal terminal to update the discoveries in a separate work log."

"Separate work log?"

There was an unexpected expression on his face. After he was calm, fan Tong asked seriously, "I can ask if this means that when I study this project, my direct responsible object has changed from the scientific research base to --"

"yes," Liang Youcheng nodded down and said concisely, "from now on, your research is directly responsible to academician Lu."

Academician Lu?!

Hearing the unexpected name, fan Tong's face immediately expressed surprise and subconsciously opened his mouth.

The three colleagues sitting next to him also expressed surprise on their faces. After returning to their senses, they immediately threw envious eyes at him.For an ordinary researcher, being able to work under academician Lu means not only the recognition of academic ability, but also the unimaginable resources of ordinary people!

It's no exaggeration to say that this feeling is just like winning the first prize in the lottery -

No, it's more exciting than the first prize!

Happiness comes so suddenly that it takes a long time to get back to my senses.

However, although the excitement in his heart is not false, fan Tong's heart is also full of doubts. Although Lu's research covers a wide range, he has never heard that he still has research in geology.

Even if the fault structure does reveal a lot of valuable clues, it will not attract the attention of the big guy, right?

Compared with the manned fire landing plan itself, this is just a trivial matter.

"Academician Lu Does he also study geology? "

Captain Liang Youcheng shook his head.

"I'm not very clear about the specific situation. If he has studied it, you can only communicate with him yourself. But I think these minor problems can be ignored. Since academician Lu paid so much attention to the fault structure, I think he found some unusual clues. "

Unusual clues?

If so.

I really need to find a time to communicate with Academician Lu

After the meeting, the work of the day went on as usual.

Although the priority of "128" project has been raised to a level, and now his direct responsibility object has become academician Lu himself, but the work to be completed must be completed normally.

After driving a rover to the water source, fan Tong confirmed that the drilling equipment was still working normally. He continued to go to several deposits marked on the map for sampling and investigation.

Having done these things, today's work is over.

Considering the weather information predicted by Xufu, there will be a sandstorm passing through this area in the afternoon, so fan Tong did not waste his time and launched the Mars rover to return to the base.

Unfortunately, the sandstorm arrived five hours earlier than expected.

When he had just started less than two kilometers, the vast red sand had completely obscured the vision outside the window, and the visibility was less than two meters.

Fortunately, this kind of regional sandstorm will not last for a long time.

For the sake of safety, fan Tong didn't rush to the road against the sandstorm, but drove the rover to the side of the mountain less than a kilometer away from him, and found a leeward place along the terrain contour line on the map.

The scuffing out of the window has at last abated a little.

Compared with the wilderness, it is a good temporary shelter.

In other words, this mountain seems to be called the gate of hell?

From the rough outline, it's really like the entrance to hell.

So thinking, fan Tong turned off the engine and prepared to wait quietly for the "light rain" to pass. Just as he was wondering whether to do something to kill his boring time, he suddenly saw an unusual shadow behind the heavy red sand.

At this glance, his eyes couldn't move, and the whole man sat up straight from the reclining seat.

"Horizontal groove? How could it be here? "

He murmured a word, and there was a trace of disbelief in his eyes.

It was a fracture about ten meters long, just like a scar.

"How could it be..."

Yesterday, when he and sun Wenzhe came here together, they drove more than ten kilometers around the edge of this mountain range, during which they clearly passed this area!

If there is such an obvious earthquake crack here, he can never miss it!

Don't you

It's just like the fault structure that disappeared suddenly. It's only recently grown?

Dare not hesitate, fan Tong immediately opened the vehicle communication system and reported the situation here to the base.

"Call base The coordinates are 15 ° south latitude, 128.1 ° west longitude, and the disappeared fault structure reappears Repeat, coordinates 15 ° south, 128.1 ° West... "

No response.

"Day! Is it because of the sandstorm? "

Scolded a rude words, fan Tong hung up the communication system, pushed open the door, jumped down, and walked to the side of the broken crack.

The density of the atmosphere on Mars is very low. Even if there are more than a dozen sandstorms, the lethality is far less than that depicted in the Mars rescue movie.

However, this does not mean that the sandstorm is not dangerous at all. Firstly, the impact on the field of vision is one aspect. Secondly, the composition of sand on Mars is similar to that of hematite, even higher than that of some iron rich ores on earth.

For radio, it's like a dimension reduction strike.When he got to the side of the fault structure, fan Tong took a look down.

Laser ranging shows a depth of about 20 meters

Because of the sandstorm, even if there is a flashlight, the visibility at the bottom is still not high. If you want to know what's going on below, you can only go down and have a look.

It's better to collect a few rock samples for lithology analysis.

But when he thought about it, there was a flicker of hesitation in his eyes.

Or

Or until the end of the sandstorm?

But if this crack disappears like this

Thinking of the independent decision-making power mentioned by Captain Liang Youcheng before, fan Tong finally made a decision after some ideological struggle.

If I just went down to have a look, there should be no problem.

One minute at most, get back on your own.

Thinking of this, he no longer hesitated. After setting up the automatic sending program on the Mars rover, he got out of the car and came to the trunk and took down the safety rope hanging on it.

As he had practiced countless times, he fixed the lock on his waist, and then came to the side of the fracture structure, which was as ferocious as a scar.

Fantong was excited to think that he would soon uncover the secret behind it.

"Come on, let me see what the secret is underneath..."

Murmuring, he took a deep breath and descended gingerly down the edge of the cliff.

At first everything went well.

Along the safety rope, he slowly descended to the bottom of the fracture structure.

However, when the soles of his boots touched the bottom of the moment, the touch on the withered leaves soon came from the soles of his feet.

It's like touching a switch, and the silty ground crashes down.

Looking at the abyss, fan Tong instinctively felt a little nervous.

Or

Forget it today.

However, just as he was about to retreat and climb up the safety rope, the originally solid rock wall suddenly seemed to be touched by some mechanism, shaking like an earthquake, and closing to the middle at a visible speed

-Some children don't struggle every day. It's unreasonable. If their lives are like textbooks, everyone's college entrance examination is 750. To put it another way, if I broke the switch for writing about the spaceship, a group of people almost couldn't come back to the sky. As a result, the astronauts found a pen that they didn't throw away. Fortunately, they connected the switch. Did they have to pour a pot of dog blood on me? Well, this is the story of Apollo 11.)