Dead on Mars

Chapter 104 - Sol Hundred and Ten, Underlying Every Piece of Land on Mars Is a Thesis
Chapter 104: Sol Hundred and Ten, Underlying Every Piece of Land on Mars Is a Thesis

Due to the map’s massive amounts of data, it wasn’t convenient for Tang Yue to send it over. He decided to manually seek out targets. He found Kunlun Station and the Chelomey probe’s location on the map, drew the trajectory that Tomcat would likely take, and in this stretch, he began to search for any location that might lead to an accident.

Tang Yue had driven the Mars Wanderer before, so he knew very well how it performed.

Old Zheng’s map was astoundingly detailed. It was made of three layers, with the Martian “sea level” being the foundational zero point. It accurately labeled every landmark with the sea level elevation. An immense price was needed to achieve such precision. It even left Tang Yue wondering if someone was planning to use the area for military purposes and if the bald, lascivious, middle-aged man, Old Zheng was actually tasked with a secret mission—a secret operative of some military intelligence division.

But on second thought, Tang Yue overturned this random thought. The Martian surface’s remote sensing imagery had been made publicly available on Earth. Many academics were relying on it to finish their thesis for graduation. With the Mars landing projects being carried out for years, every underlying inch of the Martian surface was probably a student’s graduation thesis.

Tang Yue wasn’t sure if there were other goals for the Martian project, nor could he predict anything. But at the moment, the Martian project was a massive scientific research endeavor. The ones who undertook this endeavor were mainly research scientists, engineers, or professional astronauts. It was a global project that was worthy of praise, but with the way certain humans were, they wouldn’t fund anything unless promising returns were possible. The Mars project cost plenty, and the origins of the funding were multifarious. It couldn’t be ruled out that the CIA was involved.

However, there was no future.

Without this map, Tang Yue and Mai Dong would have found it difficult to continue their work. Tang Yue found spots that were respectively 22 kilometers, 41 kilometers and 43 kilometers from the Chelomey.

The first spot was a cliff. The exact distance from the Chelomey was 22.83 kilometers, and it was practically on the straight line between the probe and Kunlun Station. It happened to be in Tomcat’s way with a length of 1,200 meters.

The cliff was created from unequal sea level elevations. With the Martian surface as zero sea level, the plain beneath the cliff was at an elevation of 0.22 meters, while the cliff was at an elevation of 3.37 meters.

“Hmm… a drop of 3.15 meters. If Tomcat were to accidentally fall off it, such a height might damage the Wanderer’s antenna.”

“It’s possible.” Mai Dong nodded. “The Chelomey is at a high elevation, while the Kunlun Station is at a lower elevation. When heading over, Mr. Cat would be able to see the cliff, but on its way back, due to the raised driver’s seat on the Mars Wanderer, it’s possible that it failed to notice it and ended up plummeting over it.”

The second spot was a deep ravine. The exact location was 41.46 kilometers from the Chelomey.

“Mai Dong, look. This ravine is six meters at its widest. The deepest spot is four meters deep. It’s also very possible.” Tang Yue pondered. “Perhaps Tomcat has had an accident in this ditch.”

“Isn’t Mr. Cat an experienced driver?” Mai Dong asked. “I heard it was… some racing god of some mountain?”

“Mt. Akina?”

“Yes, yes, that mountain.” Mai Dong recalled. “Mt. Akina’s racing god. Tang Yue, is Mt. Akina some very famous racing track?”

“That’s right. Mt. Akina’s Pram Racing World Rally Championship. It’s held once every four years. It’s the crowning jewel in the world of racing.” Tang Yue shrugged. “Tomcat was a champion.”

The girl only heard the word “champion” clearly as she couldn’t help but cry out in amazement, “Wow—!”

The third spot was a slope over flat land. It was 43.69 kilometers from Chelomey. Instead of calling it a slope, it was more of a hill that stretched several kilometers. The highest peak was tens of meters tall. Even though the elevation wasn’t high, the slope was extremely steep with an angle of sixty to seventy degrees. It was like a wall that was slightly better than an overhanging cliff. It was obvious to Tang Yue that such steepness far exceeded the Mars Wanderer’s ability to scale the slope.

As long as Tomcat’s brain hadn’t bugged out, it wouldn’t have challenged such a steep slope. The correct choice would be to circle it, but under ordinary circumstances, Tomcat wouldn’t have lost contact with them either.

With the worst already happening, all Tang Yue could do was investigate with the craziest of ideas.

Tang Yue gave the three coordinates to Mai Dong.

The next time the United Space Station flew over Kunlun Station, Mai Dong would take accurate snapshots of the three spots. This was a much smaller workload that could be done in one sweep.

Mai Dong entered the coordinates into the computer and confirmed the exact location with her naked eye.

From an orbit of four hundred kilometers, the entire Isidis Planitia was about the size of a fingernail, that was more than the Chelomey and Kunlun Station.

The last time Kunlun Station had suffered a hurricane, Mai Dong didn’t feel it at all, because it looked trivial to her eyes.

In the computer on the space station, there was an entire set of Martian geographical coordinates that resembled Earth’s. Mars had been given its own coordinate system a long time ago.

In the second half of the nineteenth century, astronomers had attempted to replicate the surface map of Mars. Its prime meridian was set to be the geodesic which passed through the crater, Airy-0.

However, the longitudes on Mars were very different from Earth’s. Earth’s coordinates had East and West longitudes, reaching a maximum of 180°.

However, Mars’s geographical system either used an East longitude or a West longitude. Both started from zero and respectively extended 360° either east or west.

The computer found the location in the database, via the coordinates Mai Dong had entered, before guiding the girl to point the optical tracking system onto the targeted area.

This process sounded simple, but the work involved required considerable technique and patience. Even though she was observing a massive celestial body like Mars, Mai Dong felt like she was using a microscope to observe a paramecium. Just a tiny shake of the camera would make her lose her target.

The girl put her eyes onto the eyepiece once more, and with a wide field of view and low magnification, she turned the knobs to adjust the direction of the camera. The eyepiece had a clear crosshair and numbers, just like an advanced sniper rifle scope in movies or a tank display in an old-school tank cockpit.

The green numbers jumped as the United Space Station swept over the targeted spots.

Mai Dong took a deep breath as she turned on the camera.

…

Three hours later.

Tang Yue and Mai Dong fell into silence as the latter sat in the hall, looking at the images on the screen. He was confounded… How was it possible? How was it f*cking possible? Did that cat vaporize? How could such a huge cat and huge vehicle just vanish?

After a careful search, Mai Dong and Tang Yue had finally confirmed that Tomcat hadn’t fallen off a cliff or into a ditch, much less to the bottom of a slope. Tang Yue had yearned to squeeze each pixel until he saw something, but unfortunately, there weren’t any traces of Tomcat at the bottom of the cliff, ravine, or slope, nor were there any signs of any external activity. Tang Yue’s excitement and passion turned into cold, bleak disappointment once again.

If Tomcat had peacefully passed the cliff and ravine, why would it suddenly lose contact with them? Could it really have had an accident on a flat plain?

When did the Mars Wanderer have the additional trait of somersaulting on flat ground?

“Tang Yue… Perhaps Mr. Cat got into trouble elsewhere, or maybe there are areas we missed out. Shall we continue searching in those areas?”

Tang Yue didn’t respond. He tore a piece of white paper, folded and flattened it before taking out a pen.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to make a tablet.” Tang Yue uncapped the pen.

“What tablet?”

“A tablet for gods.”

“Didn’t you say that praying to the gods wouldn’t work? The heavens are dead, and we can only rely on ourselves. Why would you need a tablet?”

“A tablet doesn’t necessarily mean it’s for consecration.” Tang Yue wrote some huge words on the piece of paper. “F*cking heavens.”

Then, he raised the piece of paper on the table and yelled in rage, “Go to hell, f*cking heavens! Go f*cking die!” Following that, he slammed it to the ground and stomped on it.

Indeed, a tablet wasn’t only used for consecration.

It could also be used for corpse flogging.