Chapter 5 Chapter Four

Liz found Turk a large robe that fit well, and asked him to throw the clothes on into the washing machine, so that the dust on it would be poisonous.Taking advantage of this time, she went to the bathroom to take a shower.When she ran water through her hair, a puddle of gray water formed around the drain.It's a bad omen, she thought, and maybe the dust won't stop until Port Magellan is buried like Pompeii.She stands under the shower head until the water turns clear. While she was still washing, the light flashed twice.The transmission grid at Port Magellan is still rather crude, and it might take little effort to knock out a local transformer.She tried to imagine what would happen if the storm (if it could be called that) continued for another day or two, or longer.Everyone is in the dark.A UN rescue ship arrives in port.Soldiers evacuate survivors No, it's best not to think about it.

She changed into clean jeans and a cotton shirt, and the lights were still on when she joined Turk in the living room.He looked embarrassed in her old flannel gown, but he was sexy as hell.He has ridiculously long legs with multiple scars from a life before flying passengers over mountains.He has said that he was a merchant mariner before coming here and that his first job in the New World was on the Saudi/Aranco pipeline.Thick big hands, often work hard. He looked around the house with a look that made her aware of her apartment: the large east-facing windows, the audio-visual panels, and her small collection of books and recordings.She didn't know how it looked to him.A little luxurious, maybe, compared to his so-called trailer.It feels a bit too home, too obviously moved part of North America, but this place is still very strange to her, and it feels like a new home.After she broke up with Brian, she moved her things here.

However, none of her thoughts showed any trace.He is watching the local news station.Port Magellan has three dailies, but only one news channel, overseen by a dull and complex multicultural council.It plays in fifteen languages, and as if by definition, none of the content in any language is interesting.But now there is a big thing to talk about. A camera team has gone to the dust to shoot live street scenes, and two commentators read announcements from various departments of the provisional government. louder please.Lise said. The intersection of Portugal Street and Tenth Street was closed, immobilizing a bus full of tourists eager to get back to the cruise ship.Radio transmissions were corrupted by atmospheric oil, and communications with ships at sea were intermittent.A government laboratory was quickly conducting a chemical analysis of the fallout, but no results were announced.Some respiratory problems have been reported, but there is no indication that the fallout is an immediate hazard to human health.Some talk suggested a link between the falling dust and the annual meteor shower, but none could be confirmed.Local authorities are urging everyone to stay at home, with doors and windows shut, and wait out the period.

After that everything was much the same.Liz didn't need the reporter to tell her that the city was closing down, and the hustle and bustle of the night had become silent, save for the intermittent wailing of ambulance sirens. Turk turned the video to silent and said: My laundry may be done.He went to the laundry room, took his T-shirt and jeans to the bathroom, and put them on.He had been bolder at the lake, and so had she.Liz made the couch into a bed for him and said: How about a nightcap? He nodded. She went to the kitchen, poured out the last remaining white wine, and poured two glasses.By the time she returned to the living room, Turk had drawn the blinds and looked out into the darkness.A stronger gust of wind swept the dust across the window.She could smell it, a faint, sulphurous stench.

Reminds me of diatoms.Turk said, taking a glass of wine. What? you know.In the sea there are plankton, which are tiny living things.They have shells, and when the plankton die, those shells drift in the sea and form silt.If you scoop it up and look under a microscope, you'll see the skeletons of these plankton, called diatoms, like little stars or tassels. Liz looked at the dust and dust, thinking about Turke's metaphor.Things that were once alive, their remains descended through the tumultuous atmosphere.The husk of a dead hypothetical intelligent being. Her father wouldn't be surprised by this, she thought.

She was thinking, when the phone rang again.This time she picked up the phone.She can't shut out the world forever, she has to reassure her friend that she's okay.A fleeting thought made her feel a little guilty, wishing it wasn't Brian on the other side.But of course it was him. Alice?He said, I was worried to death.Where are you? She walked to the kitchen, as if to allow some token space between Brian and Turk.I am fine.She said, I am at home. Oh, that's good.There are many who are not. How are you? I'm here at the consulate.There are many others here.We're going to stay the course and sleep on camp beds.If power goes out, the building has a generator.Do you have electricity there?

There are still. Almost half of China is in darkness.There was no way for the city to let the restoration team out. Does anyone at your place know what's going on? Brian's voice came through the phone, with the high-pitched, high-pitched tone that he had when he was nervous or upset.no, not knowing Or when will it stop? Nobody knows.But it won't be like this forever anyway. That was a good idea, but Liz doubted she could convince herself, at least not tonight.All right, Brian.Thanks for the call, but I'm fine. There was a pause.He still has something to say.These days he always seems to be thinking about something else.Probably want to talk, if the marriage can not be kept.

If you have a problem there, let me know. She thanked him and turned off the phone.Put the phone on the kitchen counter and walk back to the living room. Is it your ex-husband?Turk asked. Turk knew about the problems between her and Brian.In the mountains, by the windy lake, she told him many unbearable truths about herself and life.She nodded. Am I creating problems for you here? No.No problem, she said. ☆ She stays up late with Turk for more bits and pieces of news.Around three o'clock in the morning, tiredness finally took hold and she shuffled off to bed.Even so, she woke up for a while in the dark, her body huddled under the cotton sheet, as if the sheet could protect her from anything that fell from the sky.It's not the end of the world, she told herself, it's just an inconvenient and unexpected event.

Diatoms, shells, and ancient life remind humans once again that the universe has completely changed during and after the time cycle.She was born into a world that her parents or grandparents could never have imagined in their lifetime.She thought of an old astronomy book of her grandfather's that had fascinated her as a child.The title of the last chapter of that book is "Is There Only Us in the Universe?" >The article is full of conjectures that now seem naive and ridiculous.Because this question already has an answer.No, we are not the only ones.No, we can no longer treat the universe as our private property.Life, or something like life, was here long before humans evolved.We are in their land!Because we don't know them well, we can't predict their behavior.Even today, no one knows for sure why Earth has been preserved for four billion years in galactic history, like tulip bulbs wintered in a dark cellar; or why the shipping lanes to this new world were laid in the Indian Ocean .What falls out of the window is just one more piece of evidence of how ignorant human beings are.

☆ She slept longer than expected and woke up with sunlight in her eyes.Not the sun, exactly, but a pleasing brightness all around.When she got dressed, Turk woke up too.She found him by the living room window, gazing out. It looks slightly better.she says. At least it's not that bad. There was still a steady stream of shiny dust falling in the air outside, but it wasn't as dense as last night, and the sky looked much clearer. The dust, now known as fallout, is gradually decreasing, Turk said, according to news reports.The dust cloud is still there, but is now moving inland.What they've seen on radar and satellite imagery suggests this whole thing could end late tonight or early tomorrow morning, at least as far as the coast is concerned.

That's great.Lise said. But the problem is not over yet.Streets need cleaning.There are also problems with the transmission grid.The roofs of several houses collapsed, mostly flat-roofed tourist rentals along the headland.Just cleaning the pier is a huge undertaking.The interim government got a contractor to get a bunch of bulldozers to clear the road, and when the road was clear, they could start pumping seawater into the bay, assuming the storm sewer could hold the excess water.But if the motor gets dusty and the car won't start, the situation is much more troublesome. Was there any mention of toxicity? Reporters said that the dust was mostly carbon, sulfur, silicates, and metals, some of which had very special molecular arrangements, and whatever they were, quickly decomposed into simpler elements.In the short term, it is not fatal unless you have asthma or emphysema.Long term, who knows?They are still asking people to stay indoors and are advising those who must go out to wear face coverings. Does anyone have a say where these come from? No.There's a lot of speculation, most of it bullshit, but everyone in the geophysical survey agrees with us that it's a material that travels through space and has been modified by hypothetical intelligent beings. In other words, no one really knows anything.Did you sleep well last night? Didn't sleep much. Have you had your breakfast? I don't want to mess up your kitchen. I'm not very good at cooking, but I can make an omelet and coffee.He wants to help, she said: You will get in my way.Give me twenty minutes. There was a window in the kitchen so Lise could watch the harbor while the cream was sizzling in the frying pan.The multilingual, kaleidoscopically multicultural metropolis that was growing rapidly on the edge of a new continent was now shrouded in sinister grayness.The wind became stronger at night, and the dust piled up sand dunes on the empty street. On the road trees planted along Abbas Street, the dust trembled and fell from the tops of the trees. She sprinkles fresh cheddar cheese over the omelet and folds it up.Just this once, the egg didn't break, and a sticky mess ran from the spatula.She made two trays and brought them to the living room.Turk was standing where she was working. There was a desk, keyboard, file folders, a collection of books. Are you all writing here?he asks. Yes.No wonder.She puts the plate on the coffee table.Turk sat with her on the couch, tucking his long legs and placing the dinner plate in his lap. Delicious.He tasted the omelet and said. Thanks. How is that book you're writing, he said, going? She flinched.That imaginary book didn't actually exist, it just gave her an excuse to stay longer in Equatoria.She told people she was writing a book because she was a college graduate in journalism and because after a failed marriage it made sense.This book is about her father, who just disappeared out of thin air when their family was still here more than ten years ago.She was fifteen years old.very slow. No progress? There were some interviews, and a few meetings with my father's old colleagues from American University.These are all true.She immerses herself in her family's fractured history.But what she wrote was at most a note for herself. I remember you saying that your father was very interested in the fourth year. He is interested in all kinds of things.Robert.Adams came to Equatoria as part of a joint program between the Geophysical Survey and the newly formed American University.He taught New World Geology and did fieldwork in the Far West.The book he was writing at the time (it was true) was called Planetary Artifacts, a study of new worlds whose geological history was heavily influenced by supposedly intelligent beings. Yes, he's obsessed with fourth-year groups, too.This is a private interest, not a work one. You show me the woman in the picture, is that a 4th year?Turk asked. Maybe.possible.How much does she really want to reveal about this? how do you know? Because I've seen her before.She said, then put down the fork in her hand, and turned to face him.Do you want to know the whole situation? If you will. ☆ The first time Lise heard the word missing applied to her father was three days after he failed to come home from college and a month after her fifteenth birthday.Local police came to her home to discuss the case with Liz's mother, while Liz listened in the hallway off the kitchen.Her father was missing, that is to say, leaving home for work as usual, driving in the usual direction and disappearing between American University and their rented home in the hills above Port Magellan.No clear explanation, no relevant evidence. But the investigation continues.His obsession with the fourth year is also brought up.Lise's mother was questioned again, this time by people not in uniform but in suits: personnel from the Department of Genetic Safety.Mr. Adams is interested in the fourth year. Is it his personal interest?Is there a topic he brings up again and again, say about longevity?Did he suffer from any degenerative disease that could be reversed by Martian longevity treatments?Did he have an unusual fear of death?Are you unhappy at home? No, Liz's mother said.In fact, what she said most often was: No, damn it.Lise remembers her mother sitting at the table being questioned, drinking cup after cup of brown rob tea, saying: no, damn it, no. Still, they've come up with a theory.A family man in a new world, away from his family, seduced by the all-can-do atmosphere of the frontier, and by the idea of ​​the fourth year, adding thirty extra years to one's life expectancy left and right life Liz had to admit that there was some truth to this view.He would not be the first to leave home in hopes of living a long life.Thirty years ago, the Martian Van Novin brought a technology to extend human life to the earth, and this therapy will subtly affect human behavior in some ways.Banned by almost every government on Earth, this remedy is circulated instead among the underground community of Earth Fourth Years. Robert.Will Adams give up his career and family to join this group?Liz's instinctive answer was the same as her mother's: no.He wouldn't do that to them, no, no matter how tempted he was. But evidence has emerged that disproves this belief.He hangs out with some strangers off campus.Some people came to the house, people who had nothing to do with the university. He didn't introduce these people to his family, and he refused to explain the purpose of their visit.And the fourth-year faction has particular appeal in academia, a therapy first developed by scientist Jason.Lawton circulated, he only circulated among friends he considered trustworthy, so it was mainly distributed among intellectuals and scholars. No, damn it.But did Mrs. Adams have a better explanation? Mrs. Adams did not.Neither did Liz. The investigation is still inconclusive.A year later, Liz's mother booked a pass to California for herself and her daughter.It was an insult to her well-planned life, and she was hit but not knocked down, at least on the surface.This disappearance became a topic that could not be brought up in front of her, and by extension, not even the new world.Silence is better than speculation.Liz learned this lesson through and through.Like her mother, Lise puts her pain and curiosity in the dark attic of taboos in her heart.After she married Brian and he transferred to Port Magellan, suddenly those memories came alive, and wounds reopened as if they had never healed.She found that her curiosity also settled when the wound closed, no longer a child's curiosity, but an adult's curiosity. So she started asking questions of her father's colleagues and friends, the few old acquaintances who still lived in the city.Inevitably, these questions involve fourth-year groups in the New World. At first Brian wanted to help.He didn't want her to go out of her way to investigate something he thought might be dangerous, and Liz guessed it was just another piece of the growing emotional divide between the two of them.However, he was quite tolerant of this matter, and even used the power of his genetic safety department to investigate some problems for her. Like the woman in the photo. It's actually two pictures.She told Turk.When she moved out of her mother's house, she rescued many of the things her mother had always threatened to throw away, this time a floppy disk containing photographs of her parents' years in Port Magellan.A few were taken at a staff party at the Adams house.Liz picked out a few and showed them to old family friends, hoping to spot people she didn't recognize.She managed to associate most of the names with people, but one stood out: an older, darker-skinned woman in jeans, standing in the hallway behind a group of far better-dressed faculty members, It's like a temporary visit.She seemed panicked and nervous. No one recognized who she was.Brian expressed his willingness to use the image recognition software of the Department of Genetic Safety to find the photos and see if there were any results.Lise took this to be the latest onslaught of goodwill from Brian, and he threw this act of generosity at her as if to distract her from the breakup.She accepts his offer, but warns him that it won't change anything. But the search department had matching results.This woman had walked the docks of Port Magellan only a few months ago.Her name is listed on a passenger ship list: Su Lian.Moai. The name appeared again, and it was He Turk.Finlay related.He drove the chartered plane to take Su Lian.Moai flies over the mountains to the desert town of Kubrick's Tomb.This is the same town Lise had tried to fly to months earlier, based on various clues. ☆ Turk listened to this patiently, and then said: She doesn't like to talk.Pay is cash.I dropped her off at Kubrick's grave airport and that was it.She never talked about her past or why she went west.Do you think she's in her fourth year? She hasn't changed much in fifteen years, which means she probably is. So maybe the simplest explanation is right.Your father underwent illegal therapy and started a new life under a new name. Maybe.But I don't want another hypothesis, I want to know what really happened. Even if you find out the truth, then what?Will it make your life better?Maybe you'll know something you don't like.Maybe you have to start over and feel bad all over again. At least, she said, I'd know what I was upset about. ☆ Whenever she talked about her father, she often dreamed about him that night.Sure enough, she dreamed about it that night. Dreams are mostly memories.It was the home on Port Magellan Hill, and she was on the balcony with her father, who was talking about hypothetical intelligent beings. He was talking to her on the balcony because Lise's mother didn't like talking about it.This is the strongest contrast Lise observes between her parents.Both of them are survivors after time turns, but what they show after this crisis is the opposite.Her father dives headlong into the mystery, loving the added weirdness of the universe.Her mother pretended that none of this had happened, that the garden fence and the back wall were fortifications, strong enough to withstand the tides of time. Liz didn't know where to place herself on that line.She liked the security she felt at her mother's house, but she also liked listening to her father talk. In the dream he spoke of hypothetical intelligent beings.Don't make the mistake of pretending that intelligent beings aren't people, Liz.When those unnamed equatorial stars appeared in the gray sky.We guess it's a network, made up of mindless machines, but does the network know itself?Does it have a soul?Liz, like you and me?Every element of its mind, if it existed, must have been transported across millions of light-years.The way it sees time and space will be very different from ours.It is likely not aware of us at all, seeing us as fleeting phenomena, and if it manipulates us, it is likely to do so at an unaware level. Like God, said Liz in the dream. blind god.Said her father in the dream.But he was wrong, because in the dream, just as she rejoiced in the grandeur of her father's vision and the safety of her mother's emotions, the imaginary intelligent creature reached down from the sky and opened a steel fist that shone brightly in the starlight. After snatching him away, she didn't even have the courage to shout out.