Dead on Mars

Chapter 223 - Sol Three Hundred and Thirty-Three, Captain Cook on Mars
Chapter 223: Sol Three Hundred and Thirty-Three, Captain Cook on Mars

Upon hearing this answer, Tang Yue was slightly taken aback. However, it was to be expected.

“That’s right… I don’t believe it either.” He took out the piece of paper from the envelope. Based on the letter’s contents, he was about to head out to file and fight an unprecedented lawsuit. He wanted to request compensation from an incredulous civilization, to get them to compensate the human civilization of all its losses.

Tang Yue had never been in a lawsuit before. He had never filed it against humans, much less aliens.

He didn’t even know what his opponent would be like. Just based on the tone of the letter, the culprit that sparked off everything had the ability to instantly vaporize millions of stars in an instant. To the humans on Earth, they were no doubt a godlike existence. And Tang Yue was about to face the gods alone, to sue god in court.

This sounded akin to an African gorilla’s lawsuit against a particular human construction company, requesting that they compensate it for the destruction of tropical rainforests.

Humans would probably imprison the gorilla in the zoo and let it tour the globe as a spectacle.

Tang Yue folded the letter into a paper plane and threw it out. “Cut the bullsh*t—! Scram, go back where you came from—! Whoever believes you are stupid—!”

“Wait and see! *ssholes—! None of you are going to f*cking run away! I’ll sue the pants off you—!”

Tang Yue roared at the horizon with all his might.

“Bastards—! F*ck you—! F*ck! F*ck! F*ck! F*ck! F*ck your mother—!”

Tomcat sat by the side, watching the paper plane draw out a trajectory like a rock before falling onto the sand.

Tang Yue’s vulgarities had been accepted by the world, but unfortunately, there wasn’t any reply. Exhausted from his shouting, he turned to pat Tomcat on the head. “Let’s go. It’s mealtime.”

“I don’t have to eat.”

“Then return to have a recharge.”

…

Tomcat was bent over the desk. With a scratch, it drew out a sixty-degree-angled curve on a piece of paper. Then, it cut out the fan-shaped cutting and used a ruler and pen to mark fine markings in it.

“What are you doing?”

“A sextant.” Tomcat pulled out a thread from the drawer. Biting through it using its teeth, it pulled straight and measured its length.

“Sextant?” Tang Yue wasn’t too familiar with the term.

“An antique from centuries ago. None of you use it these days, but at the beginning of the century, learning how to use a sextant to determine one’s location was a requisite for pilots and astronauts.” Tomcat tied one end of the string to a screw as a weight. It raised it up high and shook it a little. “We will be traversing hundreds of kilometers of desert. Using a sextant will allow us to accurately determine our longitude and latitude. Of course, the premise is that the sextant is precise enough.”

Tang Yue opened a packet of beef. Turning his head to glance at the crude tool in Tomcat’s hand, he realized it was made of easily obtainable materials in Kunlun Station—paper, pen, screws, nails, pen container, thread, multipurpose glue. No matter how he looked at it, it looked crude and simple. He couldn’t help but worry over its precision.

“The simpler something is, the more reliable it is. It’s because often, such simple-looking tools are based on the most basic and stringent mathematical calculations and physical laws. And they do not have any bugs in them.” Tomcat narrowed one eye, using a needle dipped in ink to draw markings on the piece of paper. It held its breath and focused as it drew the lines meticulously. It was as though it was about to carve out a flower from random trash.

“Don’t we have any other means of navigation?”

“Such as?” Tomcat slowly wrote down a tiny 51.000. This number’s length didn’t exceed a millimeter.

“GPS?” Tang Yue thought for a moment.

“How would there be GPS on Mars? There’s no GPS here, no BeiDou Navigation Satellite System, no GLONASS, no Galileo.” Tomcat shook its head. “There’s also no China Mobile, China Telecom, or China Unicom… Think about it. To not even have those, how can there be GPS?”

“Then what did we rely on for navigation in the past?”

“We have never gone that far out before. To head 300 kilometers into the desert alone would be akin to suicide under normal circumstances. Back when Old Wang and the rest were still around, the geological inspection never exceeded fifteen kilometers,” Tomcat said. “Back then, our navigation relied on the United Space Station.”

Tang Yue silently chewed on a mouthful of beef.

“Since time immemorial, navigation has been an extremely difficult task. Despite proliferating on Earth for more than ten thousand years, it was only in recent years that you completed the means of accurate global positioning. So what gave you the illusion that it’s easy? That determining your location is a simple matter?” Tomcat said indifferently. “Even though we have the ability to escape Earth’s gravitational reach, and have the ability to fly more than a hundred million kilometers, we will still need to use the wisdom and experience of our ancestors on such matters.”

Tang Yue finished drawing the markings on the fan-shaped paper. It raised it to show Tang Yue. “In an era without radio and GPS, Captain Cook had relied on this thing to accurately determine his direction to cross the Pacific Ocean.”

Tang Yue turned his head to look at Tomcat. This cat had one foot on the chair, holding the tiny piece of paper with its two paws high. To it, this was the fruit of labor deserving of its pride. At this moment, Tang Yue also noticed that the in its hand was a protractor, a protractor made of white paper.

A sextant was an angle-measuring tool, in essence, a protractor. Highly precise angle measurement allowed one to accurately determine one’s longitude and latitude. It wasn’t that Kunlun Station didn’t have one, but those tools meant for drawing figures weren’t of any use. It was because their precision was lacking. Tomcat had to do everything itself.

Tomcat and Tang Yue were heading for their destination with this sextant. Isidis Planitia looked like an endless desert without any landmarks. Getting lost meant death; therefore, Tomcat’s drawing of the markings was crucial. It was why it had spent so much time and effort to produce the tool.

Tang Yue suddenly found it embarrassing and ridiculous. So all their seemingly miraculous advanced technology was nothing but a farce. The moment Earth vanished, they had been thrown back to their primal states, having to use the most ancient means to solve problems.

They were Captain Cook on Mars.

“What are you laughing at?” Tomcat rolled its eyes. It carefully clasped the paper-made protractor with a book. “Don’t look down on its simplicity. This thing is now the most precise angle-measuring tool in the Universe. Whether we can accurately arrive at our destination all depends on it… The Wanderer had something better, but when its head was squashed flat, all of that was gone.”

Tomcat sighed.

The last time it had driven the Wanderer out, it had fallen into an old underground river on its trip back. The vehicle had plunged headfirst, and the husky became a bulldog. Nearly all the equipment at the front of the vehicle was put out of commission.

After Tang Yue finished the beef, he drank a cup of orange juice.

Kunlun Station now had a pile of food that he couldn’t finish. It was enough for a Manchu Han Imperial Feast, but he didn’t have the appetite for it.

The Radiant Armor was hung on the wall for charging. The compression air canisters were already prepared. When they set off tomorrow, the Radiant Armor’s air canister would provide him for eight hours of air. After it was depleted of its oxygen, he would switch to an emergency oxygen-creating unit.

“I’ll do another check on the oxygen.” Tang Yue got up. “When shall we head out tomorrow?”

“Your choice.”

Tang Yue stood there for a few seconds. “Let’s do it at dawn then.”