Dead on Mars

Chapter 121 - Sol Two Hundred and Seventy, Evolutionary History of Life on Earth
“Guess how many kilograms I’ve lost.”

“Fifteen.”

“Unfortunately, you’re wrong.” Tang Yue looked down at the number on the weighing scale. “I’ve only lost 14.5 kilograms.”

Tomcat rolled its eyes. “What’s the difference? Won’t you have lost fifteen kilograms if you shat out half a kilogram of shit?”

“Do you believe that I can still raise something as heavy as fifty kilograms?” Tang Yue rolled up his robe and flexed his arm, trying hard to squeeze out his biceps.

With the warm breeze from the OGS to bathe in, Tang Yue had returned to the days of wearing ancient Roman attire. He wore pants with a thin robe draped over him.

The period back when the temperature control malfunctioned felt like a nightmare. Tang Yue didn’t even know how he had survived.

“This godforsaken place has less than 40% of the Earth’s gravity. Something weighing 50 kilograms on Earth only weighs about 19 kilograms here,” Tomcat said. “I suggest you don’t attempt to move that cabinet or you might injure your instep. It would be very troublesome if you suffer a fracture. We don’t have enough medicine… You need to realize that your bone loss is like that of a grandpa in his sixties. So Grandpa, please don’t joke around with your body.”

Living in a low-gravity environment for prolonged periods, along with the severe malnutrition had affected the Tang Yue’s kinesiology. His muscles had atrophied and he suffered from bone rarefaction. Tang Yue had already spent 270 sols alone on Mars since Earth’s disappearance. Even though he had strictly followed his physical training, his body weight had dropped by fifteen kilograms.

He was originally seventy kilograms, but he was now fifty-five kilograms. Even his ribs could be seen.

“You have to take note not to let your body weight drop any further. If it drops below forty-five kilograms, it might have disastrous effects.”

Tomcat stared at the computer as it typed on the keyboard. The screen showed a document filled with text.

“Mr. Cat, in Earth’s history, what factors determine the size of a creature?” Mai Dong asked. She was reading about biological evolution genealogy because chronicling the Earth’s history was one of her and Tang Yue’s goals. “I’m looking at the evolution of creatures over hundreds of millions of years. There’s a trait that stands out. The size of the beasts fluctuated periodically.”

“Size?” Tomcat thought for a moment. “There are quite a number of influencing factors involved. It includes the amount of oxygen contained in the atmosphere, ambient temperatures, the amount of food available, as well as the beast’s ecological niche. Here’s an example. More than three hundred million years ago, in the Carboniferous period, the arthropods back then were mostly a dozen or dozens of times bigger than their modern-day counterparts. For example, the famous Meganeura could grow half a meter long… The main reason for this phenomenon was the oxygen concentration in the air. The Carboniferous period’s oxygen concentration was the highest in Earth’s history, reaching as high as 35%.

“If a particular creature occupies the top of the food pyramid, given a suitable environment with plenty of food, their bodies would grow significantly bigger,” Tomcat added. “In addition, the creatures in the ocean have the buoyancy of water to prop them up, so they can grow bigger than land creatures, such as the blue whale. It’s the largest animal known to have existed on Earth. Just its heart alone weighed a ton.”

“The blue whale is the largest?” Tang Yue interjected. “What about the New Zealand Giant Ichthyosaur?”

“Don’t mention urban myths that lack sufficient evidence.” Tomcat shook its head. “In the research of ancient creatures, don’t try hunting for novelty.”

“Why did whales grow so large?”

“It’s because whales are at the top of the food chain. They eat whatever they want. Apart from the bipedal apes that use harpoons to catch them, they have no natural enemies,” Tomcat explained. “Their shark competitors—the Megalodon—were driven into extinction two million years ago. After that, no creature has been able to nudge the whales off their spot on the food pyramid.”

“Megalodon?” Mai Dong had never heard of the term.

“Megalodon, meaning ‘big tooth,’” explained Tomcat. “This shark was one of the most ferocious sea creatures in history. They stood at the top of the food chain and fed on whales.”

“How did the Megalodon beat the Mosasaurus?” Tang Yue asked. “I’ve been thinking over this question for quite a while. Which one is more impressive?”

“The Mosasaurus was a very ancient and primitive ocean reptile. Reptiles aren’t able to adapt to the sea as well as fish, while Megalodons were a highly-evolved predator. Every part of their body was built for hunting. In the same era, the only one that could vie for supremacy with the Megalodons were the giant toothed whales.”

“The Basilosaurus?” Tang Yue asked.

Tomcat shook its head. “The Livyatan whale.”

“The Megalodon still became extinct despite being that awesome?”

“The more awesome it was, the easier it was to become extinct.” Tomcat raised a claw. “You have to know that in Earth’s history, nearly all large-sized predators eventually starved to death. Once the environment changed, there wouldn’t be enough prey, and they would be unable to make up the shortfall. Therefore, the blue whale is smart… It is a filter feeder. Just by opening its mouth, it will eat everything in what seems like a dull but adorable manner. It doesn’t need to worry about not having enough prey.”

Mai Dong nodded and sighed. “But they are now all gone.”

She and Tang Yue had organized an evolution genealogy of Earth’s creatures. It was a huge and complicated framework. In the beginning, they had beautiful thoughts about it, but only when they started did they realize how difficult it was. Tang Yue now regretted his brainless idea to start from the Cambrian period.

From the Paleozoic Era to the Mesozoic Era to the Cenozoic Era, life on Earth had been on a bumpy road. There had been five major extinctions, all for different reasons. The continuation and evolution of each species were different. The vastness and magnitude were unimaginable. Tang Yue had been overconfident, suggesting that they did it in detail and be precise about the particular species.

Three days later, Tang Yue: Precision at the species level is impossible. Why don’t we be precise at the family level?

Six days later, Tang Yue: Precision at the family level is impossible. Why don’t we be precise at the class level?

A week later, Tang Yue: Precision at the class level is impossible. Why don’t we leave the precision to Tomcat?

Hence, Tomcat took on most of the work. This was within its expectations for it knew that it was impossible for the duo to complete the monumental task of such magnitude.

Over the past three months, the two humans and cat had completed the evolutionary history of life on Earth, that had a word count of four million. There was such a voluminous amount of literature that Mai Dong and Tang Yue could only complete a hundredth of the work, believing that they had played a crucial role.

They encoded the text digitally and designed an automatic interpretation system. They broadcast it out together. The data was massive, but it wasn’t the biggest. Tomcat had also digitized the famous art pieces like the Mona Lisa and the Sistine Chapel murals. It was a huge amount of data, but obviously, it wasn’t the largest… The Venus de Milo and Discobolus three-dimensional modeling data were the greatest. Mathematics was likely the most common language in the Universe, so as long as someone received the signal, they could follow the automatic interpretation system to decode the data, restoring the text and images.

The drafts were stored on hard disks in Kunlun Station.

Tang Yue and Mai Dong didn’t have extravagant hopes of completing all the work. Only when they were really standing before the wall of Earth history did they realize how boundless the wall was. It wasn’t a task that could be accomplished by human hands. It was impossible even for Tomcat to really finish it. It was a work without end that they would continue until the end of their lives.

Tang Yue had already instructed Tomcat that even if he and Mai Dong weren’t around, Tomcat was to continue recording the history. After all, it had nothing better to do.

Apart from completing the two epic tomes of Evolutionary History of Life on Earth and the Developmental History of Human Civilization, another extremely important problem was something that was constantly on Tang Yue’s mind: how to bring down Mai Dong.