Dead on Mars

Chapter 218 - Sol Three Hundred and Thirty-Two, Airlock
Chapter 218: Sol Three Hundred and Thirty-Two, Airlock

There was dead silence in the hall.

Tang Yue heard it clearly this time. Something was really knocking the door from the outside. Furthermore, it was knocking on the inner hatch of the airlock… He originally imagined that it could have been a rock hitting Kunlun Station as a result of a strong gust of wind. It was said that such things often happened on the high plateau radar stations on Earth. A sudden sweep of the wind could send rocks slamming into the walls or doors, creating knocking sounds.

However, Tang Yue quickly eliminated this possibility. Mars’s atmosphere was thin, making it impossible to lift rocks no matter how fast the wind speed was.

He paused for a few seconds. His brain raced, but he couldn’t find a command to issue to his limbs. Tang Yue had been trained, but never once in his training was he taught what to do if someone knocked on the door outside Kunlun Station.

Back when Neil Armstrong went to the Moon, his mission manual definitely didn’t have a scenario stating: “What do you do when you open the hatch not to see a barren lunar surface but a contingent of people giving you a VIP welcome.”

Tomcat reacted faster than him.

As it picked up a steel rod, gripping it tightly in its paws, it yelled at Tang Yue, “Radiant Armor! Tang Yue! Put on the Radiant Armor!”

Tang Yue jumped up and ran to don the Radiant Armor. Tomcat lunged forward to protect Tang Yue, one paw holding a steel rod, the other paw holding canned food as though it was facing the greatest adversary in life. From its stance, it looked like it was about to ruthlessly throw the canned food out the moment the hatch was pushed open.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t a combat-type robot; otherwise, it might have been able to produce an AKM rifle.

Tang Yue donned the Radiant Armor in a fluster, latching on the life support system, and connected it to the oxygen supply. In such a sudden turn of events, protecting himself was forever top priority. Even if Kunlun Station were to be damaged and lose pressure the next moment, Tang Yue wouldn’t immediately suffocate. The Radiant Armor’s protection could provide him with enough buffer.

“Tomcat?”

Tomcat pointed behind Tang Yue and whispered, “Retreat.”

There weren’t any other sounds outside the hatch as Tomcat stared at it intently. It didn’t know what had knocked, nor did it know if it was still outside.

“Take another step back,” Tomcat instructed Tang Yue to retreat further.

Tang Yue retreated all the way to the wall.

Tomcat gently removed the IVA suit from the wall and crawled into the visor with all four limbs. It turned its head to glance at Tang Yue. “I’ll head over and take a look. Stay there.”

Tang Yue nodded.

Tomcat gently placed the canned food in its paw onto the table, changed the paw that gripped the steel rod before inching towards the hatch. The air pressure gauge beside the hatch indicated that the airlock’s pressure was far below standard atmospheric pressure—less than 1%. It was the Martian atmospheric pressure’s numbers. This meant that the airlock had been connected to the outside which also meant that something had opened the outer hatch. Whatever it was, had come from outside.

The circulation system began to inject air into the airlock as the pressure slowly rose, reaching an equilibrium with the Hab. At the same time, Tomcat grabbed the wheel in the middle of the hatch. Exerting its strength, it slowly turned it.

It didn’t use the electric lock and had manually opened the hatch because it could stop midway if there were any unforeseen developments.

With a click, the heavy bolt slowly retracted.

Tomcat’s expression was solemn.

It nudged the hatch with the steel rod, slowly pushing it open.

Tang Yue craned his neck to look out of curiosity.

To humans, this might be a historic moment. The significance was in no way lesser than Gagarin’s flight into outer space, Armstrong’s landing on the moon, and Kunlun Station’s construction on Mars. There was the possibility that Tang Yue would be the first human in Earth’s history to make contact with an extraterrestrial civilization. Of course, he could possibly be the last as well.

Tomcat’s brows were furrowed tightly.

A lot more things were going through its mind than Tang Yue. Of course, it was also more flustered, its composure a farce.

When the knock on the inner hatch sounded, Tomcat’s understanding of the world crumbled. It was something the engineers that created him had imbued him with. Behind it was all the knowledge of the observable Universe to humanity. It was strict, reliable, and infallible—built from impregnable physics and mathematical logic.

But in that one second, what human civilization took more than a thousand years to establish, as well as humanity’s narrow viewpoint, had been completely destroyed. Even if humanity had been looking up at the stars for millennia, chatting incessantly of extraterrestrial civilization for more than a hundred years, such thoughts were essentially no different from primitive people’s belief in pantheism—a product of one’s projection that one was the center of everything.

This was a self-centeredness that humanity was born with.

But at this moment, human thought inevitably had to suffer the removal of self-centeredness.

The world had widened in an unprecedented fashion.

Tomcat originally imagined that what it knew was impregnable because at its core was math, inference, and logic—that one plus one equals two. As long as there wasn’t any fault in the conclusion, it would never be wrong. Tomcat could give a hundred and one reasons why extraterrestrial civilization couldn’t be observed, with each reason irreproachable. But to prove that extraterrestrial civilization existed, there was no need to say anything. Just getting them to knock on Kunlun Station’s hatch would do.

In Tomcat’s words, that gentle knock was as terrifying as the Universe’s Big Bang.

The Universe was far more complicated than humans could imagine.

The hatch opened.

Tang Yue took a deep breath and widened his eyes, prepared to welcome the historic moment.

He had already prepared his lines. It was a rather formal diplomatic sentence.

“China firmly opposes any falsehoods raised against us…”

Wrong script.

“That’s one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind.”

The first thing that entered their sights were the pure white walls. The circular airlock’s walls had circles of reinforced frames. The airlock’s top had LED lights and the ground had tiny sand particles. Right in front of Tomcat and Tang Yue was the circular outer hatch. In the middle of the hatch was a manual wheel similar to the door to a safe. The outer hatch was closed and the indicator light was red. It meant that the hatch had been sealed shut.

Tang Yue and Tomcat darted their eyeballs around, sweeping every corner in the airlock only to be simultaneously taken aback.

There was nothing in the airlock.

Nothing.

Tang Yue came forward and stood beside Tomcat in front of the hatch, frowning.

“It’s empty?”

Tomcat lowered the steel rod and nodded. “It’s empty.”

It secretly heaved a sigh of relief. The airlock was empty of anything. Then, Occam’s razor could easily tear through the origins of the sound from before. Perhaps it wasn’t knocking but the sound produced by Kunlun Station’s structural vibrations or something else. It was a natural phenomenon, and not aliens knocking at the door.

Tomcat’s world view was no longer crumbling.

“What was that sound from before?” Tang Yue looked up, observing the area.

“Perhaps the hatch’s hinge was loose and collided with something,” Tomcat replied. “It might also be the sound of a component falling off.”

Tang Yue wasn’t satisfied with the explanation. The sound was still fresh on his mind. Tang Yue could confirm that it was definitely not the falling off a component. Instead, it was someone curling their finger to rap on the hatch.

However, Tomcat’s explanation was most realistic.

In real life, how could there be so many bizarre, inexplicable matters?

After this false alarm, Tomcat turned around, intending to put the steel rod back. At this moment, Tang Yue suddenly pulled at its arm. “Tomcat…”

“What’s wrong?” Tomcat turned its head.

“Tomcat… Look… Look… L-l-l-look at…” Tang Yue pointed at the ground. “Look at the ground!”