To my frozen hometown

Chapter 83 Time is always long in silence

The wind and snow beat against the window, and white mist filled the window edge. Even with the heating turned on, this cold night still seemed a bit cold.

Al curled up between the seats, leaning against Liu Yuan's body.

The old man named Aztod shook the coffee in his hand for a while, probably narrowing his eyes, recalling the past.

"At the very beginning, we thought this would be a great project."

The old man let out a sigh of relief. In his vicissitudes of tone, the wind outside seemed to be a little louder.

"Even though it was once buried in the archives of the greenhouse and no one cares about it, it is undeniable that it still represents the courage of human beings to explore fearlessly in the past. Maybe you can't imagine my excitement when I read that file at that time. I am still a young man, only in my thirties, full of drive and daring to fight. I once believed unshakably that there must be room for other human beings to live in the universe. I believe this plan will be One direction, I believe that if I can discover this planetary belt, then human beings will unite again, move towards new goals, and live with their heads up again. Not like this now..."

The old man said, rubbing the cup in his hand, and fell into a moment of silence.

Then he smiled again and continued.

"So, that year, I submitted an application to the greenhouse, an application for the Institute of Starry Sky Observation. I was not afraid of your jokes when I said it. I was in the greenhouse at that time, and I still had some connections. Therefore, although I experienced a lot on the way There were several twists and turns, but the application was finally approved. And this institute was built in this way."

"It has the largest and most advanced astronomical telescope on the central ice sheet, with 42 built-in electronic couplers of 2200x1024 pixels, which can detect celestial luminosities of 9 to 16 magnitudes. At the same time, the institute also arranges independent Power supply systems, small ecosystems, and complete electronic equipment systems, etc.”

"It is no exaggeration to say that this was once the most likely astronomical observatory on the central ice sheet to create miracles."

"Unfortunately, even though I was prepared, I still underestimated the difficulty of creating a miracle."

Having said this, the old man's eyes were filled with a bit of bitterness. He took another sip of the coffee in his hand, sighed slowly, and continued to talk helplessly.

"Because the observation method we use is the transit method, although we have tried our best to select the site of the observatory, due to the shading of the earth's surface, the rotation and revolution of the planet, the diffuse light, the ecliptic plane and other factors, Influenced by it, we are still unable to continuously track and observe a specific galaxy, and even permanently lose the possibility of observing some planets.”

"The severity of this situation is beyond my imagination, and it makes research that is already full of uncertainties almost illusory."

"So far, in the following ten years, we have not produced any research results. The high-level greenhouse gradually lost confidence in us, and on the other hand, research on interstellar spacecraft has also stagnated. Finally, the greenhouse announced the termination This program, and transferred all the researchers out of the institute."

"Originally this observatory was also going to be dismantled, but I finally tried my best to save it and applied to stay here alone to continue research. This is very irrational. After all, I want to support a research institute, even if it is only a minimum Quotas also consume resources that far exceed my personal needs. But I still don't want to give up that little hope, and my friend finally agreed to my request."

"I redesigned the small ecological circle and built a part of the new power system, which minimized the resource consumption of the institute and increased the possibility of recycling. The greenhouse will send me a batch every three months. Supplies, and then, I spent 20 years here."

"Hu-hu-"

There were some light noises from the end of the corridor, probably some wind coming through the windows.

Liu Yuan looked at the old man in front of him, perhaps because he had talked too much at once, but at this moment, the old man's face showed a little tiredness.

There was silence in the hall for a while, until the wanderer asked.

"So in the past 20 years, have you discovered anything?"

The old man raised his eyes and glanced at Liu Yuan, then shrugged his shoulders with a wry smile.

"Almost nothing."

"That's it." Realizing that he seems to have asked an inappropriate question, in order to ease the embarrassment, Liu Yuan raised the water glass and took a sip of warm water, then looked around, and continued.

"It looks clean here, are you cleaning it?"

"Hmm." The old man seemed to have successfully diverted his attention, and looked up at the corridor.

"The work of astronomical observation is actually not busy. Most of the data will be stored on the computer for processing, so I have a lot of free time to do other things."

As he said this, he smiled gently.

"For example, take care of flowers and plants, tidy up the room, listen to recordings, or communicate with friends in the greenhouse, etc. In fact, I have a fairly rich spare time. After all, if my old bones don't do more activities, it means Maybe someday it will rust."

Hmm, Liu Yuan raised her eyebrows irresistibly. For her, this is good news.

Because in any case, man is indeed a creature that cannot survive alone.

If one is completely cut off from the outside world, it won't take long for an individual to lose his own rationality and personality, thus entering a state almost insane.

Well, Liz is kind of like that.

She was still a little worried about the old man's psychological state, but now it seems that the other party's mood should be relatively stable.

Especially as a more mature individual, the elderly obviously have a stronger self-regulation ability.

"All right."

Perhaps thinking of something, the old man turned his head to the side, looked at Liuyuan and Al again and said.

"Now that I've finished my story, shouldn't you tell me something about yourself?"

Although he didn't really care where Liuyuan and Al came from, just like he didn't care that Liuyuan pointed a gun at him before, his old body made him look down on many things.

However, this snowy night is still very long, isn't it?

So why not find something to do.

Even if it's just a small talk, it's better than spending the night in silence.

(End of this chapter)