“It’s so cold.”
They were standing on a piece of gray lunar soil. The young man looked at the external temperature on his spacesuit helmet display and asked, “How can you be cold under that spacesuit?”
Walking next to him was the captain of the lunar scientific research station engineering team, Wu Gang. People in the engineering team teased him whenever he talked about the weather on the moon.
In fact, there was only one engineering team in the entire research station.
The packages thrown down from the Moon Palace were unloaded, installed, and deployed by these people.
They were the ones that repaired the solar array and the lunar collider. All of the facilities on the moon surface and all of the space construction equipment were operated by this engineering team.
The person standing next to him was an engineer recently assigned to the team named Xu Chengli. Apparently, he graduated from Jin Ling University with a master’s degree in aerospace engineering.
Due to the close cooperation between Jin Ling University and the Institute for Advanced Study, his resume was regarded as very attractive in the aerospace industry. So much so that Wu Gang was confused as to why Xu Chengli came to this cold, desolate place.
“I’m just saying, chill out.”
Xu Chengli heard the voice from the helmet communication channel and laughed.
Because he had just arrived here, everything was novel to him. So much so that many teammates thought he was a bit silly. However, he thought his silliness was an advantage.
After all, it was rare to hear a new human’s voice on this silent moon. He always felt that if he didn’t speak as much as he did, he would definitely go crazy one day.
However, Captain Wu seemed to disagree.
“You talk too much.”
Seeing how the captain was annoyed, Xu Chengli spoke with a careless look on his face.
“Fine, I will stop talking so much… Hey, actually, when I was on Earth, I didn’t talk this much.”
“You’re doing it again.”
The two continued to walk and stopped at a piece of flat ground.
After stepping on the ground with his foot and confirming that the lunar soil was strong enough, Wu Gang reached out and took the navigation beacon out from his backpack. He skillfully set the accuracy parameters, then steadily inserted it on the ground.
For now, their work had come to an end. All that was left was to wait for the cargo spacecraft to throw down the landing module. After that, they could disassemble the cargo and deploy it correctly.
The two stood quietly on the deserted piece of land while waiting for the package to arrive.
Xu Chengli was wondering if he should make some conversation when Wu Gang suddenly spoke first.
“You’re only 25 years old, right?”
Seeing how the captain took the initiative to chat, Xu Chengli quickly replied, “Yeah, why?”
Wu Gang: “Why come to a place like this?”
“Isn’t it obvious? The salary is high; it’s about three times for the same type of work on the ground. Moreover, it also includes food and accommodation, and the work intensity is not too bad, a rotation for half a year and three months of rest. The only thing that makes me a little unhappy is the internet latency is too high, and the communication bandwidth is limited, and… having no night clubs is a bit boring. What about you?”
Wu Gang went silent for a while, as if he was hesitant to answer this question.
However, when he saw the curious look in Xu Chengli’s eyes, he sighed and spoke.
“The reason is the same as you… but slightly different. I have a family to raise, two children to go to school, and a mortgage to pay… Let me give you some advice, young people like you shouldn’t waste their youth here. A place like this should be filled with old people like me.”
Xu Chengli frowned and said, “How is it a waste? Don’t you think working on the moon is a cool thing?”
Cool?
What is that supposed to mean?
Wu Gang was stunned.
Is this what young people think these days?
He felt like he was no longer keeping up with the times.
In his opinion, there wasn’t any fun here. It was just a bare, desolate place that was filled with craters. There was no entertainment here at all.
“You don’t want a girlfriend?”
“No way, I’ve had enough of them. I’m more comfortable alone. I can go wherever I want. Why tie myself down. Also, I just remembered another benefit of working here. There’s no one urging me to get married here, haha.”
Xu Chengli smiled heartily and raised his head. He glanced at the deep and gloomy sky. He suddenly said, “Every time I look up at the sky, I think that my life is insignificant in the universe. I’m not going to be remembered by generations to come, and even if I do, what’s the point?”
Wu Gang looked at him.
“If everyone thinks that way, we would be extinct a long time ago.”
“We will be extinct sooner or later… If enough time passes by.” Xu Chengli looked at the electronic clock on the upper right corner of his helmet display. He said, “Speaking of which, don’t the Moon Palace people have a sense of time? When will the package arrive? We have been waiting here for a while.”
“There’s probably an accident,” Wu Gang said with a frown on his face. He glanced at the time in the helmet and said, “But it shouldn’t be anything serious. There’s no additional notice from the headquarters.”
Xu Chengli: “Speaking of which, what is the package?”
“Dr-111 sample active substance… I don’t know much about it. Let’s leave it alone. Focus on our job… It’s coming.”
Xu Chengli raised his head and looked in the same direction as Captain Wu.
He saw a flashing green dot appear in the deep and dark space.
The green dot gradually approached like a spacecraft, flickering at a constant frequency. It gradually approached close enough for the two to see the package with their own eyes.
The package was getting bigger and bigger.
Finally, the package steadily hit the surface of the moon, setting off a wave of lunar dust.
“Time to get to work.”
Wu Gang patted Xu Chengli’s shoulder and walked toward the silver-white landing module. Its green signal lights were still flashing.
“You guys are late.”
Wu Gang watched the astronaut walking out of the landing module. He raised his right hand and tapped twice on the side of the helmet, connecting his signal to the communication channel.
“It took me a while to correct the orbit. Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Yang Xingyu.” The astronaut who walked out of the landing module coughed and wiped the dust off his helmet. He said, “The navigation system was recently replaced, so the stability is still shaky. It will be fine after a while.”
Xu Chengli asked curiously, “The navigation system was changed?”
“Yes, recently all of our computing services have been handed over to Star Voyage One. You might have heard of it; it’s the world’s first quantum computer.”
Wu Gang frowned and said, “Is it okay to have such a high delay?”
“The latency is not a problem. The delay can be solved by an algorithm. And later on, Star Sky Technology will install a server on the Moon Palace, reducing the latency.”
The astronaut patted the landing module next to him and said, “This is it. Have fun deploying it… I’m a bioengineer, so I don’t know much about it. Can you contact Captain Ma for me? I remember he is in charge of the lunar research station.”
“He’s already on the way.” Wu Gang looked at the landing module and said, “If it’s not a problem… Can you tell me what this thing is?”
“It’s not a problem at all. You will know soon anyway.” Dr. Yang reached out and clicked on the wrist-mounted computer on his left arm. He selected some data and clicked the transfer button.
The progress bar quickly loaded. A project briefing of about two hundred words soon appeared on Wu Gang’s helmet display.
“Dr-111 active substance… Metabolite purification project in a low gravity environment… Is this thing—”
“It seems that you already know.” Dr. Yang smiled and said, “If this project goes well, it should help with the mass-migration to the moon.”
“Forget about it.” Wu Gang smiled and tapped his index finger twice on the wrist-mounted computer. He turned off the project briefing and said, “Other than people with non-functioning brains, who would come to a sh*tty place like this?”
“Hey, what is that supposed to mean?” Xu Chengli said unhappily, “Is my brain not functioning?”
Wu Gang looked at him and spoke.
“Shut up, you’re still on probation, get to work.”
The young man immediately started to walk toward the landing module with his tools.
Dr. Yang looked at the young man walking away with a smile and said, “You can never be sure. Life is more than what is in front of you. What you see now are the desolate land and lifeless craters. But if you look at this place ten years later, I think you’re going to feel nostalgic.”
Wu Gang: “You mean after I retire?”
“I mean regardless of whether you retire or not.”
Haha, stay a month up here first, then talk to me.
Wu Gang smiled lightly and didn’t respond. He shook his head and got to work.