47: Chapter 47 Twisted Flight Path

The "vermilion bird-2" rocket lifted off in the morning light, its exhaust plume cutting through the sky as it sent the "Kuafu" probe into the Earth-Moon transfer orbit.

Three hours after launch, when the second-stage rocket separated and "Kuafu" deployed its solar panels to start the ion thrusters, an anomaly occurred.

"The plasma plume of the Hall thruster is experiencing a phase shift." In the control center, the propulsion engineer stared intently at the data, "It's not equipment failure—it's the space in front of the thruster itself that is 'twisting'. It's like a vortex suddenly appearing in a flowing stream; the trajectory of the propellant particles has been disrupted."

On the holographic screen, the real-time images transmitted by "Kuafu" showed subtle distortions in the distant starry background. The stars were no longer individual points of light, but had been stretched into extremely short line segments, all pointing in the same direction toward the moon.

"Space curvature gradient anomaly," Nuwa's voice analyzed calmly, "The spatial structure in the direction of the moon is undergoing compression, with a curvature change of approximately 0.0003 per million kilometers. Although faint, it is sufficient to affect the precision of the low-thrust thrusters."

Lin Shen stood before the console, his fingers operating rapidly on the holographic interface: "Initiate the backup plan. Shut down the main Hall thruster and enable the chemical thruster group for orbital correction. Nuwa, calculate the correction parameters; we need to return to the predetermined orbit within fifty minutes."

"Calculating..." Nuwa paused for half a second, "The correction will consume 37% of the chemical propellant reserves. This will cause 'Kuafu's' orbital maneuvering capability to drop by 65% after arriving at the moon."

"Accepted," Lin Shen did not hesitate, "The primary goal is to arrive. Once we are there... we may not need that much maneuvering capability."

The implication of his words caused a momentary silence in the control center. Everyone understood—if the moon ruins truly "awakened," "Kuafu's" orbital maneuvering capability might be irrelevant.

"Dr. Lin," Chen Xuan connected from Xichang, her voice somewhat urgent, "The moon ruins are reacting to the 'Kuafu' launch. It has stopped the television signal broadcast and has started sending a type of... navigation signal."

"Navigation?"

"A set of continuously updating orbital parameters, like flight instructions. But what's eerie is—" Chen Xuan transmitted the data over, "The orbit guided by this set of parameters has a deviation of 127 kilometers from our predetermined orbit. And the deviation value is increasing at a speed of 3 kilometers per hour."

Lin Shen brought up the orbital simulation. Following the orbit guided by the ruins, "Kuafu" would not enter the polar orbit around the moon, but would instead fly directly at an extremely steep angle toward... that hollow at the moon's south pole.

"It is guiding us to go there." Academician Li Weimin's voice came over the encrypted channel, "Active guidance."

"It could also be a trap," General Liu said.

"Or the next stage of the test," Lin Shen stared at the constantly changing orbital curve, "Look at this parameter update frequency—once every twenty-three seconds, which is exactly the communication delay time between the Earth and the Moon. It is calculating 'Kuafu's' position in real-time, then providing the next step of guidance. This is not a preset program; this is... real-time navigation."

A presence, 380,000 kilometers away, calculating the orbit of a human probe in real-time and providing millimeter-level precision correction guidance. This capability itself already explained too much.

"Are we going to follow the guidance?" the orbital controller asked.

Lin Shen was silent for a few seconds. On the holographic screen, two orbital lines extended toward the moon: one was the blue orbit planned by humans, smooth and precise; the other was the red orbit guided by the ruins, pointing straight at the south pole hollow, like an arrow shot at a bullseye.

"Do it in two steps," he finally decided, "Fly the first 80% of the journey according to our own orbit. When entering the final Earth-Moon transfer segment, if the ruins' guidance orbit is within a safe range... switch to its orbit."

"Definition of safe range?"

"Under no circumstances should 'Kuafu' directly impact the lunar surface or fall into the hollow," Lin Shen said, "If the guidance orbit has an impact risk, immediately terminate the follow and return to autonomous control."

"Understood."

The countdown showed that "Kuafu" still needed 43 hours to reach the lunar orbit. And the Imperial Alliance's "ares-7" had just had its launch advanced to 12 hours later.

Imperial Alliance launch site, 8 hours before launch.

Max Costa stood by the porthole of the crew module, watching the busy technical team below. He held the heated badge in his hand; the temperature on the metal surface had risen to nearly fifty degrees, feeling a bit hot to the touch.

"Commander," Sarah Chen walked over, lowering her voice, "The badge has changed again."

Max opened his palm. On the surface of the badge, beneath the originally etched words "Daedalus Project-1971," new patterns emerged—fine geometric patterns, exactly the same as the mathematical symbols that appeared on the control center screen.

"Is it... evolving?" Sarah said uncertainly.

"Or unlocking," Max flipped the badge over; the pattern on the back had also changed: a simplified Solar System map, with five points marked—the moon, Mars, Venus, Europa, and a point on Earth, with the location labeled "Mariana."

"My father never mentioned these," Max said in a low voice, "But before he died, he repeated one sentence: 'The moon is not the destination, it is just the vestibule'. I thought it was just the ramblings of an old man at the time..."

The cabin door slid open, and Katherine Weiss walked in, holding a tablet computer: "Max, the image analysis results for the badge are out. The metal composition contains an isotope we cannot identify, with an extremely long half-life, at least in the millions of years. And—" she brought up a spectrum graph, "It is emitting extremely weak gravitational waves, with a frequency exactly consistent with the signal from the moon ruins."

Max and Sarah looked at each other.

"So this badge..." Sarah asked cautiously, "is some kind of... beacon?"

"Or a key," Katherine's expression was complex, "The Daedalus Project back then might not have just been listening to the moon's signals. They might have... received something, and perhaps even responded. This badge might be a product of that response."

"Then this mission of ours," Max gripped the badge tightly, the metal edge pressing into his palm, "Is it completing some kind of... conversation started fifty years ago?"

"Or opening a door that should have been opened fifty years ago," Katherine did not deny it, "Command has just issued the final order: after landing, if you discover any non-natural structures, your first priority is no longer sampling, but attempting to make contact using the badge."

"Contact?" Sarah was surprised, "In what way?"

"Any way you think is effective." Katherine transmitted an encrypted file to Max's personal terminal, "The file contains some... suggested methods, based on speculations in the Daedalus archives from that year. But remember, none of these have been verified. You will be groping in the unknown."

Before she turned to leave, she said one last thing: "There is one more thing: the Dragon Country's 'Kuafu' probe has just launched, 8 hours ahead of us. According to orbital calculations, both spacecraft will arrive in lunar orbit almost at the same time. If their target is also the South Pole... you might meet on the lunar surface."

The cabin door closed.

Max and Sarah looked at each other in silence. Outside the window, the rocket stood on the launch pad like a giant cannon about to be fired. And they were going to fly toward a moon that was undergoing abnormal changes, carrying a key that might open a door to the unknown.

"Are you afraid?" Sarah asked softly.

Max looked at the badge in his hand; it now felt like a warm, living thing: "Afraid. But more than that... curious. What did the people fifty years ago see? Why did they seal all of this away? And what... will we see?"

Countdown: 07:58:33.

Dragon Country, National Ocean Monitoring Center.

On the big screen, the global ocean acoustic environment map presented a scene of chaos. Thousands of red warning points were scattered across all the oceans, but the densest area was around the Mariana Trench in the West Pacific.

"The anomalous acoustic signal is spreading outward at a speed of 15 kilometers per hour," the marine acoustics expert reported. "The frequency range covers 1 Hz to 100 kHz, encompassing nearly every communication band used by marine life. We have already observed abnormal behavior in whale pods, changes in the migration routes of deep-sea fish, and even shifts in the acoustic signatures of coral."

"Is there any further analysis of the signal from the 'Jiaolong-3'?" General Liu asked.

"Yes." The expert pulled up a spectrogram. "In the last thirty seconds before the submersible lost contact, it received a clear data packet. After demodulation..." He hesitated for a moment, "It's a welcome message."

"A welcome message?"

Text appeared on the screen: "[Welcome to the Monitor Station - pacific node] [Key carrier detected - Civilization assessment in progress] [Assessment progress: 17%] [Warning: Network activation has reached threshold, autonomous protocol may initiate prematurely]"

"Monitor Station..." Academician Li Weimin repeated the term. "So these ruins aren't abandoned; they are still operational. Like an automated system that has been monitoring the Solar System all along."

"Monitoring what?" Zhou Min asked.

"Monitoring us." Lin Shen's voice cut in from the space control center. "Or rather, monitoring the 'seed subjects'. The pandora virus was the first key to test us. Mastering fundamental spacetime mathematics is the second trial. Achieving interplanetary survival—we have a space station now and will soon have a lunar base, which partially satisfies that. Detecting the 'Reapers' threat... we have already triggered that one."

He paused. "All conditions are about to be met. And the system seems... impatient."

The acoustic signal from the Mariana Trench suddenly intensified. All the speakers in the monitoring center simultaneously emitted a mixed sound: whale songs, dolphin clicks, the low-frequency vibrations of volcanic eruptions, and a never-before-recorded high-frequency tone resembling metallic resonance. All these sounds were blended in precise mathematical proportions, forming an eerie harmony.

"Is it composing music?" a young researcher blurted out.

"No," the acoustics expert said, his face pale. "It is adjusting the acoustic environment of the ocean. It's like... tuning an instrument. It's turning the entire ocean into a resonant cavity."

Global sea level monitoring data updated in real-time: sea levels across all oceans had risen synchronously by 0.3 millimeters over the past hour. This was not a localized tidal change; it was a global, uniform, and simultaneous rise.

"The law of conservation of mass..." a physicist muttered. "With this much seawater, the volume has increased—where is the mass coming from?"

"It's not that there's more seawater," Lin Shen said. "It's that the 'bowl' holding the seawater has deformed. Earth's spacetime curvature is changing, causing the reference point for sea level measurements to shift."

The control center fell into a deathly silence.

If the spatial structure of Earth itself began to change, what would that mean? It would mean that all technologies relying on spatial stability—from GPS to power grid synchronization, from particle accelerators to quantum computers—could begin to experience unpredictable errors.

And this might just be the beginning.

"Lin Shen," General Liu's voice was stern. "The second pandora sample. We need a complete decryption. Now."

The Long Nation Biosafety Laboratory, maximum security level.

Using the remote control system, Lin Shen directed the robotic arm to retrieve the second glass tube containing the virus sample. This time, he did not place it into a standard analyzer but connected it directly to the input of the jiuzhang-2 quantum computer.

"Nuwa, prepare for a full-dimensional genetic scan. I want the quantum state information for every base pair of the virus—not just the sequence, but their entanglement correlations."

"The scan will expose the sample to a strong quantum field and may permanently alter its structure," Nuwa warned.

"We no longer have the luxury of preserving the sample," Lin Shen said. "Proceed."

The quantum computer activated, and an invisible field enveloped the glass tube. Inside, the Deep Blue viral gel began to glow—not reflecting light, but emitting it—as each viral particle released a faint blue light, like plankton in the deep sea.

On the holographic screen, the virus's genetic structure unfolded in three dimensions, and then... began to self-reorganize. Base pairs automatically disassembled, rotated, and reconnected to form new sequences. This process was not random—it followed strict mathematical rules, and every step could be described by equations.

"It is decrypting itself," Nuwa reported. "It is actively revealing its hidden encrypted layers. It requires 97% of the jiuzhang-2's computing power for real-time decoding."

"Authorize full computing power."

The decoding began. The second layer of encrypted information unfolded, even more complex than the first. It was not text, but dynamic genetic manipulation instructions:

[When monitoring network activation reaches 30%, initiate 'Adaptive Adjustment Protocol']

[Protocol Objective: Optimize biological foundation of seed subjects, enhance adaptability for technological transition]

[Adjustment Scope: Global biosphere gene expression lineage]

[Estimated Adjustment Time: 0.1 standard galactic years (approx. 36.5 Earth days)]

[Warning: Adjustment process is irreversible; individuals who do not adapt will be eliminated by natural selection]

Below the text was a series of specific genetic modification plans: enhancing neuroplasticity, optimizing radiation resistance, lengthening cell telomeres, adjusting metabolic efficiency... Each modification was precise down to specific gene loci, as if it had been optimized over millions of years of design.

But at the end, there was a line of small text: [This protocol is designed based on standard galactic biological templates and does not account for the specificities of local species. Probability of side effects: 22%]

A 22% probability of side effects. For human civilization, that could mean billions of people failing to adapt, an outbreak of unpredictable genetic diseases, and a complete restructuring of the ecosystem.

"It wants to 'upgrade' us into a form more suited for technological transition," Academician Li Weimin's voice trembled. "Without our consent."

"And it's using our own virus as a vector." Lin Shen stared at the genetic modification plans. "The pandora virus was never a natural product. It is a designed 'gene delivery system.' The pandemic was not an accident; it was... the first inoculation."

He felt a chill. The pandemic that swept the globe three years ago had claimed tens of millions of lives. And it might have just been... preparatory work for a grander plan.

"Dr. Lin," Nuwa suddenly reported, "detected quantum entanglement between the lunar ruins signal and the virus sample. The ruins are... reading our current decryption progress. It is tracking our level of understanding in real-time."

On the holographic screen, the signal pattern from the lunar ruins changed again. This time, it was no longer sending mathematics or images, but a question:

[Are you ready to receive the gift?]

The question was repeated in all known human languages, and finally, a countdown was attached: 35:28:17.

Thirty-five hours later.

It could be the time the "Adaptive Adjustment Protocol" initiates.

Or it could be the time the Zeus Station lander begins drilling.

Or perhaps, it is the time both events occur simultaneously.

Lin Shen looked at the countdown, then at the orbital data for the kuafu probe—it would arrive in lunar orbit in 28 hours. There was a 7-hour window.

7 hours to understand a system that may have existed for a million years, and to find a way to control or stop it.

He opened the communication channel, connecting all relevant teams:

"After the kuafu arrives, we will establish a direct quantum connection with the ruins. Before that, I need you to complete three tasks: one, identify all possible 'abort protocol' commands by searching for patterns in the ruins' historical signals; two, analyze all decrypted files from the 'Project Daedalus,' as that badge may be the key; three, prepare a global emergency notification plan—if the worst-case scenario occurs, humanity has the right to know what we are facing."

He paused, his voice firm:

"We may not be able to stop a program that has been running for a million years. But at least... we must try to understand its rules. And then, within those rules, find a way to survive."

The countdown continued: 35:27:59.

Time had never seemed so precious, and yet so merciless.