Chapter 1428: Returning After a Century
Departure hall.
Lu Zhou, who was sitting in his seat waiting for boarding, suddenly felt a pain in his heart.
His sight was a little blurred; the moving figures in the terminal hall had split images.
He clenched his teeth and endured the pain. A drop of cold sweat slid from his forehead and dripped onto the armrest of the seat. A mechanical hand was suddenly placed on the back of his hand.
The flexible polyethylene material was cold.
However, it unexpectedly made him feel at ease.
The pain deep in his bone marrow gradually receded. Lu Zhou took a deep breath. He then looked at the robot man sitting next to him.
“Thank you.”
The bionic man nodded and did not say anything. It just gave him a smile and used simple body language to comfort him.
As an inexpensive robot with rough workmans.h.i.+p, this was the best it could do.
Professor Leonard, who was wearing a plain t-s.h.i.+rt and a leather jacket, walked over.
He didn’t notice Lu Zhou’s previous struggles.
He spoke straightforwardly.
“I helped you contact the museum that is willing to take over the cultural relics, which is in the Yangtze River Delta city group you are going to. After hearing that it is the cultural relics found near The Gates of h.e.l.l, they showed great interest and have already contacted the Tiangong City authorities to issue a special electronic clearance certificate for the cultural relic. I just finished the formalities. And now, we can pa.s.s the customs smoothly and take it on the s.p.a.cecraft… Of course, it must be placed in a special box.”
Guns were banned throughout the Pan-Asian Cooperation.
Even for cultural relics, they must comply with the law.
Lu Zhou spoke sincerely.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Professor Leonard shrugged and said, “It’s payback for saving my life. Speaking of which, have you thought about it?”
Lu Zhou: “Thought about what.”
“Your relatives, friends, family, children, savings, house… are all gone. I guess you didn’t buy insurance for yourself when you were frozen. I’m the only one who knows you are alive. When you’ve recovered, where are you going?”
Seeing Lu Zhou was silent, Professor Leonard continued, “My suggestion is, if you haven’t thought about it yet, you might as well try to integrate into society first. If you are interested in re-education, I can find a way to help you get an offer from the University of Oxford. After you come out, you will have at least an academic degree. Of course, if you want to work first, I also have a friend at the British Museum. He seems to have mentioned that interns are being recruited there.”
Lu Zhou glanced at him.
This guy…
No wonder he gave up the rifle so generously and even helped me contact a museum willing to accept cultural relics.
I’m the thing that he wants…
“No need, I’ll think about it later.”
Professor Leonard wanted to say something but there was a sudden boarding announcement.
He shrugged and said, “Fine, whatever you want, it’s just an offer.”
The two lined up in front of the boarding gate and boarded the long shuttle with the crowd.
Professor Leonard played the role of a guide and explained to Lu Zhou, “This thing called a shuttle is equivalent to an elevator. We take it to the s.p.a.ce station in high orbit, then take a transport s.h.i.+p from there to Tianzhou.”
“Tianzhou?”
“Yes, the s.p.a.ce station in the East 8th hour zone is the largest s.p.a.ce station in the world! I feel that its name should have something to do with your name, perhaps to commemorate you.”
Commemorate me?
Lu Zhou smiled embarra.s.sedly.
Although he still had a lot of worries about the uncertain future in his heart, when he saw the city and the surface of Mars that was gradually pulling away, he began to look forward to the return journey after a century of being away.
…
It only took three days to return from Mars to Earth.
This speed would be incredible a century ago.
Before boarding the s.h.i.+p, Lu Zhou observed that there were a total of twelve pairs of engines behind the cuboid-shaped transport s.h.i.+p.
That’s right, twelve pairs, twenty-four total.
When the twelve pairs of engines were lit together, the entire night sky outside the s.p.a.ce station seemed to be lit up.
The long and narrow stars.h.i.+p was like a meteor sliding toward the sky, galloping toward the dark cold night…
“We are going to leave soon, is your seat belt fastened?”
“Of course.” Lu Zhou pointed to the thing hanging on his waist and said, “It’s not the first time I’ve taken a s.p.a.ce shuttle.”
A violent shaking came from behind, followed by the hum of electricity. The starry sky outside the porthole was stretched.
Professor Leonard closed his mouth. He nervously pressed the back of his head against the cus.h.i.+on of the seat.
Lu Zhou couldn’t help but laugh.
This dude tells me not to worry.
He’s the one who is scared.
Lu Zhou noticed a child who was about seven or eight years old, looking out of the window eagerly. The kid pointed at the s.p.a.ce station that was drifting away outside the window excitedly to his mother who was seated next to him.
It was like this was the first time the kid had been on a s.p.a.cecraft…
“Why are there children here?”
Leonard recovered from the initial tension, and he gave Lu Zhou a strange look.
“It’s normal. There are many newborns on Mars who have never been to Earth in their entire lives. Maybe it’s their first time even going on the s.p.a.ce station… Why do you think it’s weird?
Haven’t been to Earth their entire life?
Lu Zhou couldn’t imagine what kind of life that was.
“… It’s not weird, but I remember low gravity seems to affect bone development.”
Professor Leonard: “That’s right, but the limit that human bones can withstand is mainly determined by genes, and the environment is only an influencing factor. In the past, it was popular to build some facilities called gravity chambers to provide approximate gravity through centrifugal force. Nowadays, we mainly use drugs. The effect of low gravity was a problem in the early days of s.p.a.ceflight, but it is not a particularly big problem now.”
Even this can be solved by drugs?
Lu Zhou couldn’t help but feel emotional.
It seemed that the medical technology of this era had really reached an unimaginable level.
I wonder whether a terminal illness like cancer that has plagued human civilization for tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years has been solved now…
…
Because of the virtual reality device, the three-day trip was not too long.
When using the virtual reality device, Lu Zhou discovered that the online game called Calan Empire was still operating, but the parent company had changed a few times.
Of course, because he was on the stars.h.i.+p, he couldn’t access the server on Earth. He could only look at the gray icon and mourn for a while. He then connected to the virtual library and downloaded some materials.
Generally speaking, he learned quite a lot.
Although there were no professional academic materials to study, there were still many interesting things stored in this virtual library.
For example, in a book describing the economic and social environment of the colony, Lu Zhou learned that the steel and chemical industries on Mars were quite developed.
There were not only rich iron ore and t.i.tanium ore resources, but there were also frozen dry ice seas and methane lakes.
The most important thing was that the environmental protection policy here was not as strict as that on Earth.
Many industries with high pollution and high carbon emissions had gradually moved from Earth to Mars as early as the 1970s.
There was no need to worry about pollution or greenhouse gases here. There were even some scientists who hoped that the greenhouse gases produced by human activities could improve the atmospheric environment of Mars and pave the way for the Martian “climate recovery” plan.
Whether it was possible or not, it was worth a try.
In recent years, with the continuous development of various industries on Mars, more and more people had begun to regard this place as a place of dreams.
Although many people were deterred from here because of crime rates and various dangers, there were still many people with the idea of getting rich overnight and setting foot on this desert.
In addition to the steel and chemical industries mentioned earlier, there was also a gray industry on Mars that attracted the attention of countless people.
Which was the excavation of the remains of the Martian civilization.
A long time ago, there was a saying that the Martian civilization once possessed technological strength far surpa.s.sing any civilization on Earth. Therefore, countries encouraged the excavation of Martian civilization relics, and the funds allocated to relevant research units were quite plentiful.
Therefore, in addition to those archaeological teams affiliated with major research inst.i.tutions, there were also many illegal organizations wandering in the gray area of the law.
Regardless of whether there was a bargaining chip in the Martian ruins that could change the international landscape, the invaluable cultural relics and specimens alone were enough to make them take the risk.
In addition to the industries located on the surface of Mars, Mars also took on the role of a material transfer hub, undertaking the task of processing, transit, and transportation of minerals transported from the asteroid belt.
The asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars was one of the largest “mines” in the solar system, with the most abundant materials and the easiest to mine. Many precious resources here had been targeted by people on Earth as early as a century ago, but the development of it had only begun in the middle of the 20th century.
The rapid development of the Mars colonization was inseparable from the rise of the “asteroid belt economy”.
Eighty percent of the s.p.a.cecraft’s materials came from the supply of the asteroid belt.
The latest s.p.a.ce station deployed by the Pan-Asian Cooperation on Mars was almost completely made from the materials from the ores in the asteroid belt!
The abundance of materials there was obvious!
However, in contrast to the rich benefits, there were also various dangers.
Not only was there the navigation risk caused by the meteorite fragments, but also the s.p.a.ce pirates hiding behind the meteorites.
Some powerful s.p.a.ce pirates even built pirate bases on the asteroid belt. They evaded radar searches from patrol s.h.i.+ps of various countries and looted materials.
“It seems that this is an era of extreme material wealth and full of opportunities…
“People are so bored that they’re becoming pirates in s.p.a.ce…”
As Lu Zhou looked at the research materials in the holographic window, a thoughtful expression appeared on his face.
Although he did not respond directly to Professor Leonard, Leonard’s words had been lingering in his mind.
In fact, he didn’t think about where he should go after he cured the sequelae of frozen dormancy.
Maybe when everything was sorted on Earth, he would save a sum of money, then buy a piece of land on Mars. He could then repair the s.p.a.cecraft and head to the center of the Milky Way?
Maybe he could stop by and see what kind of scenery was there.
After all, when he made the choice a long time ago, he didn’t expect to be thrown into such a distant future…
While Lu Zhou was worrying about this matter, he suddenly remembered an important thing that he had almost forgotten.
The treasures on Mars were found, and it seemed that he still hadn’t received the system rewards for the mission.
He slowly closed his eyes and silently summoned the system nervously.
It’s been so long, I wonder if The Observer has forgotten about me.
Fortunately, his worries were superfluous.
The moment he received the three tubes of potions, his fate was bound to the Void.
When Lu Zhou opened his eyes again, he was in a pure white s.p.a.ce.
The pale blue dialog box popped out.
[Congratulations, User, for mission completion!]