Chapter 705 - 684 Karst

Zhong Cheng was not visiting the base for the first time; on the contrary, he was very familiar with it, recognizing the purpose of every building and even remembering the faces of many ordinary staff members.

However, as he stood on the gangway with the hatch open, he felt an extreme sense of unfamiliarity.

The lights of the runway and buildings were as usual, but on the ground apart from the regular ground staff working, one could also see teams of tall figures patrolling in an orderly manner.

Over a hundred ’Warrior’ robots were inspecting every place with their photoelectric probes glowing a shiny green, occasionally passing by in patrol vehicles at a high density.

Those who came to the runway to welcome him were just ordinary workers; other important figures were absent.

Lin Ju perceived the questioning in his eyes and explained with a smile,

"I’m sorry, Director Zhong, we had no other choice."

"Why."

Zhong Cheng muttered the three words he himself thought were the most powerless.

"As I said, we had no other choice. The dinner I promised you might be a bit late, please come with me first."

Sitting in the electric car heading to their destination, Lin Ju took the initiative to start the conversation:

"You must have been following ’Departing Fire’ closely. I will tell you, it actually arrived on Mars half a year ago and has already collected a lot of data. The monitoring network now has only a fake radio beacon as a disguise.

We deceived you. The ’Departing Fire’ thruster is nuclear-powered. We call it the ’Comet’ propulsion platform. It utilizes a fission reactor-powered Hall Thruster. After it sent ’Departing Fire,’ it returned and is now parked at the Earth-Moon Lagrange Point."

So that’s how it was.

This was roughly in line with Zhong Cheng’s conjecture, but he did not expect it to be suddenly revealed on this day.

He wanted to say something, but ultimately remained silent.

"’Departing Fire’ is equipped with very comprehensive detection equipment. In the past time, it has carried out detailed mapping and surveying of most of Mars’ surface, and all the data returned is here, I’m taking you to see it now."

The electric car stopped in front of the space department’s building, and the two men quickly walked in one after another, stirring up a breeze.

Xiao Okada was hunched over a computer screen at the moment. Seeing the two men, he let out a sigh of relief and then excitedly pointed behind them.

It was the first ultra-high-definition image of Mars returned by ’Departing Fire,’ displayed on a huge LCD screen, with a presence that tremendously shakes one to the core as if facing the planet itself.

"Look, this is the first complete map of Mars taken by a Chinese detector. It’s definitely the clearest photo in the world; no other detector’s lenses can compare to it.

This is Utopia plain, loved by the whole world. Even the Phoenix Detector’s landing spot can be seen in this photo."

Xiao Okada earnestly introduced the many achievements of ’Departing Fire.’ As the most powerful comprehensive detector in history, ’Departing Fire’ had nearly reached the limits of what an orbital detector can achieve.

Even Zhong Cheng couldn’t help but temporarily forget his questions, immersed in admiring one photo and detection map after another. Just these materials alone would be enough to keep the space agency busy for quite some time.

Xiao Okada presented the carefully selected materials in chronological order, stopping when he reached May 8th.

Zhong Cheng still felt a bit reluctant to end, and couldn’t help but exclaim,

"Very comprehensive, it fills quite a gap in the domestic data... Why not announce it earlier? It’s not a bad thing."

He had never understood the New Yuan’s intention of sending the detector ahead of schedule. If it was simply to obtain data earlier, there was no need for this, as it seemed there was no anomalous activity on Mars for the past six months.

"Because previously, these were never our goals, or shall I say, not the main ones, the real target was this."

An enlarged image of Zero Plain appeared on the screen, looking completely normal, and judging by the watermark in the upper left corner, it even seemed to have been taken this very morning.

"What is this?"

"I don’t know, but we call it ’Zero Plain.’ We didn’t know what was there before, and we still don’t know now, but we have confirmed that there is definitely something."

Zhong Cheng’s gaze followed Xiao Okada’s and moved to Lin Ju’s face. The latter said solemnly,

"Beneath Zero Plain there lies a gravity wave emitter, and it emitted a modulated intelligence signal 13 days ago.

Departing Fire is equipped with a very crude gravitational wave detection device, which theoretically should not be able to detect anything, but it was so close that we intercepted the signal.

It was a clear intelligence signal, lasting for 0.5 seconds, with an approximate power of 96 kilowatts, and the target, content, and ownership of the emission source are unknown."

"That’s absurd."

Zhong Cheng thought so at first, but he quickly regained his composure.

"You’ve known about... something there?"

"Yes, it’s part of New Yuan’s objectives."

"Why did you know?"

"’Kas’t’ told us."

"Who is ’Kas’t’?"

"A machine, an artificial intelligence, and possibly a form of life. In any case, it has a physical existence."

"Is ’Kas’t’ created by humans?"

"No, at least we don’t think so. When it was discovered, we were still in the era of vacuum tube computers. Thankfully, the concept of computers and artificial intelligence had emerged at that time, otherwise ’Kas’t’s existence could not have even been comprehended."

Lin Ju’s response to the conversation had almost no delay, the answers so straightforward and simple, all pointing towards "Kas’t."

Clearly, Lin Ju had no interest in playing with his curiosity and directly led him to another place.

Zhong Cheng followed him to the fourth underground level that he had never entered before and passed through multiple security checkpoints and robot searches, even seeing a large number of robots armed with weapons that resembled electromagnetic rail rifles from a sci-fi movie.

After another meticulous search by a robot at a door, the heavy alloy gates slid open to the side.

Inside was an enclosed metal-walled room, with a sleek shuttle-shaped large black object on a central pedestal and a laptop next to it.

The surface of the black shuttle-shaped object was covered in complex patterns, chaotic yet full of detail, and from a distance, one could clearly see what appeared to be three floating characters, quite peculiar.

"’Kas’t,’ discovered by a Chinese-American named Guo Xiao, who is also Guo Shen’s uncle. As an aerospace engineer, he had been working for McDonnell Company since the 1930s and loved to travel.

During one of his trips, he found it in a mountain range with Karst topography, hence named it ’Kas’t.’ This was the beginning of everything.

From the 1950s to the late 1960s, Guo Xiao conducted in-depth research into ’Kas’t,’ eventually evolving into a small group of people. However, this group suddenly began to flourish and rapidly expand ten years ago, following a change in ’Kas’t.’

Four years ago, in order to properly utilize the technology brought about by ’Kas’t’ and to achieve its purpose, New Yuan was established."