Dead on Mars

Chapter 214 - Sol Three Hundred and Twenty-Seven, It Has to be Done
Chapter 214: Sol Three Hundred and Twenty-Seven, It Has to be Done

No one could prove that a parallel universe existed. If something was unprovable or could not be validated, as long as one believed in its existence, it would exist. Therefore, there could be one such universe where Earth was safe, and Tang Yue and Mai Dong were able to lead a peaceful and happy life.

That was what Tomcat said.

It also said that if there were really an infinite number of parallel universes, not only would Tang Yue and Mai Dong encounter each other once, they would encounter each other across the time at every Planck second.

“Then… Will they have kids?” Mai Dong asked softly.

“If your reproductive abilities are normal, you will clearly have children.”

“It’s not us…” Mai Dong corrected, trying hard to maintain her tone. After all, no one could see her face flushed red in the space station. “It’s them.”

“They are you,” Tomcat corrected.

“Then… How many children will they have?”

“How many children do you wish to have?” Tomcat asked.

“I already said it’s them! Them, not us!” Mai Dong took off her helmet and buried her head in her spacesuit. Her cheeks were burning in the cold air.

Tomcat was baffled.

Wasn’t Mai Dong in a parallel universe Mai Dong?

“Alright, then how many children do the Mai Dongs want to have? Miss Mai Dong, as their representative, please answer the question.” Tomcat changed the way it asked.

“Two, a boy and a girl,” Mai Dong replied. “It’s best if the boy is the older one. That way, he can protect his younger sister. The other way works too actually… But an elder sister will bully her younger brother.”

Tang Yue sat by the side sneering.

How naive.

It was clear that Mai Dong had never had an elder brother.

Who said that an elder brother would protect his sister?

For Tang Yue, he was never the one protecting his younger sister.

She was the one protecting him.

…

“Hmm… Hmm… Hmm.”

Tomcat muttered behind the monitor.

“What’s wrong?” Tang Yue looked up and asked.

Tomcat reached out its paw onto the monitor and curled its claw. “Tang Yue, I’ve sent the complete orientation dynamics plan to you. Do a calculation using pen and paper.”

Tang Yue was alarmed by the various symbols and Greek letters on the screen.

“Why aren’t you getting the workstation to do the calculation?” As Tang Yue asked, he took out a stack of scrap paper. “It’d be done with a simple tap of the keyboard.”

“Because I don’t trust it.” Tomcat bent over and continued working. “This workstation has been having problems recently. It keeps giving me erroneous results. It’s more stupid than you.”

“I’ll ignore that last line. You want me to calculate something so complicated with pen and paper…” Tang Yue uncapped his pen and scanned the screen of equations. “If you want me dead, you can just stab me with a knife.”

“Oppenheimer also used pen and paper when he calculated the critical mass needed for the uranium fuel back then.”

“That’s Oppenheimer!”

“But you are standing on the shoulders of giants.”

“It doesn’t mean I’ll be taller than giants by standing on their shoulders.” Tang Yue copied down the screen of equations and slowly began doing the math. Although the equations were complicated, they weren’t anything that tested his intellect. All he needed to do was some matrix transformations. It didn’t require more than college mathematics. It was just hard work.”

“Speaking of which, I’m suddenly reminded of an old Soviet joke. It says that hell has a rule. Whoever kills the innocent will be drowned by the victim’s blood in hell. One day, God was inspecting hell and found that blood was only reaching Beria’s legs. God was curious and asked Beria why the blood only reached his legs despite him killing so many people back when he was alive. Beria replied…”

“Attitude equations of motion.” Tomcat sent him another set of equations and glanced at him. “Take note that q is a quaternion.”

“They are Euler parameters, right? Got it.” Tang Yue nodded. “Let’s continue that joke. God was curious and asked Beria why the blood only reached his legs despite him killing so many people back when he was alive. Beria replied…”

“Here are two results of the simulation. The first one ignores the effect the flexibility of the solar panels has on the spacecraft. The second result considers the effect.” Tomcat sent another large chunk of terrifying math and diagrams.

“Why are you sending me this?”

Tang Yue widened his eyes.

“Check it through. See if there are any problems.”

“Buddy ol’ Pal, the problem is that I don’t understand any of this. Are you taking me as Ramanujan… A master who didn’t receive any formal training in mathematics?” Tang Yue scrolled through the document and frowned. Continuing the calculations, he said, “Let’s continue the joke. Beria replied…”

“It’s because I’m standing on the shoulders of Stalin.” Tomcat shook its head. “Why do you insist on telling me that? This old political joke’s age is about as old as your grandfather.”

Tang Yue was taken aback. “What? Standing on Stalin’s shoulders?”

Tomcat was surprised. “Isn’t it?”

“No.” Tang Yue shook his head. “Beria replied that it’s because anti-coagulating agents weren’t added to the blood. Therefore, he was standing on hard blood cells, and all God could see was the top layer of blood serum. This was a joke from my biology teacher in secondary school. He was giving a lesson on blood and serum.”

…

“Listen up. This is the plan. It’s the rendezvous with a non-cooperating party and docking method, as well as the steps needed for the control. We all know that the United Space Station is completely out of control. Under such circumstances, a direct docking is no doubt extremely difficult.” Tomcat sat on the edge of the table and placed its arm on the monitor. “Therefore, we need to set a berthing point at a suitable distance, allowing Tianzhou to observe and analyze the space station from there.”

“How far must it be?” Tang Yue doodled with his pen as he kept calculating.

“No idea. I’m still doing the calculations.” Tomcat shook its head. “Miss Mai Dong, are you there?”

“She’s in the no-signal zone.”

“Tianzhou is an unmanned spacecraft. The most important point of getting an unmanned spacecraft to dock with an out-of-control spacecraft is self-adaptation. Our remote interference has a delay, so it’s definitely not going to be in time,” Tomcat said directly. “The entire plan is split into three major components… First is the analysis of the relative motion. This is the premise for a rendezvous. Tianzhou has to accurately analyze the space station’s attitude, trajectory and state of motion to make a judgment.”

“Can it be done?”

“No,” Tomcat replied. “That’s why it will be done by us. That includes the landing zone. We have to make the spacecraft land as close to Kunlun Station as possible, but once it makes the atmospheric entry, it’s impossible to drastically change the landing point; therefore, this needs to be measured ahead of time.”

Tang Yue put down the pen in his hand and fell silent for a moment before saying, “It’s too complex.”

Even though Tang Yue was a layperson, he could sense the complexity of the plan.

“I’m not afraid of the complexity,” Tomcat said. “No matter how complex and complicated a dead knot is, it’s formed from a simple rope. As long as you find the correct angle of attack, the problem will be solved easily. Besides, this is the easiest of the three components.”

“What’s the second component?”

“The second component is the autonomous control,” Tomcat said. “You are a mechanical and electrical engineer. You know the basic fundamentals of autonomous control—negative feedback. Tianzhou needs to adapt itself to the United Space Station’s attitude and state of motion… This is key to everything. Based on the microwave radar and the docking sensor’s data, it has to adjust its orientation. It needs to keep correcting itself and this requires extremely high precision, extremely, extremely high, extremely, extremely, extremely high precision.”

Tomcat used a total of six “extremely” to emphasize the strict requirements.

“Can it be done?”

“No,” Tomcat replied. “That’s why it will still be up to us to resolve it. Lady and gentleman, let’s try something crazy with the workstation. Let’s remove the chassis and prepare enough ice to lower its temperature. Even if it were to later die, it wouldn’t be in vain. It would be for a good cause.

“The third part is the rendezvous docking, or should I say, grappling,” Tomcat said. “If the first two steps succeed, Tianzhou will grapple the United Space Station in the final stage and dock with the latter. It will then pick up Miss Mai Dong and quickly leave. After adjusting its attitude, it will enter the atmosphere. The entire process will be done by computer. It has to be clean and done in one go without any mistakes. Any mistake would doom both spacecraft.”

“Can it be done?”

“It has to be done.”