《星》阿瑟·克拉克 中文搬运(6)

It's 3,000 light-years from the Vatican. I was sure that faith would not change because of the space transfer, just as I was sure that the magnificent sky proved the glory of God. When I saw this side of the magnificent sky, my faith began to be tested.On the bulkhead of type 6 computer, there is a cross. For the first time in my life, I doubted whether this cross was an empty symbol.I haven't made the results public yet, but the truth can't be concealed. We took thousands of photos, and the tapes that recorded the detection data were dozens of miles long. I dare say that any scientist can interpret these data without difficulty. Although I belong to the Jesuit order, I will never tolerate tampering with the facts, which will tarnish my old reputation.The crew are extremely depressed. I'm really worried about how they will cope with this ironic ending. Only a few of them have religious beliefs. Starting from the earth, they are "fighting" with me-an undisclosed, harmless but serious ideological war. But they can't bear to use this discovery as the last weapon against me. The crew only thought that it was a very funny arrangement that the chief general physicist on an interstellar exploration ship turned out to be the Jesuit priest. They believe that the roles of scientist and missionary are incompatible.We have an observation deck on board, where an oval plastic window is installed, which is flawless. Plus, the observation deck is only dimly lit, and the stars outside the window are bright. I often meditate on the observation deck. Whenever he meets the ship doctor Chen Dele, he will look forward at the elliptical window and face the starry sky rotating around the spacecraft for a long time. Finally, he can't help but say, "Father, there is no end outside. Maybe there really is a creator, but even if there is, do you want him to take special care of our insignificant world and insignificant human beings? It's puzzling! " Is it possible that people in the medical profession are all hardcore atheists?For the crew, I often point out the three papers published in Astrophysical Journal and five papers published in Monthly Newsletter of Royal Astronomical Society. I'm doing this to remind them that although the number of our society is not as good as before, I'm still known for my outstanding achievements in scientific research. Especially in astronomy and earth science, the average performance of each person is even more out of proportion. But will the report about Phoenix Nebula that I am about to write end the Millennium history of our society? I'm afraid the impact will be far more than once ..."Phoenix", what a terrible name. If the person who named this nebula has a prophecy, it will take hundreds of billions of years before it can be verified. Even the word "nebula" is wrong. This "nebula" is far from the stellar embryo village that pervades our galaxy. On the scale of the universe, the Phoenix nebula is just a tiny and thin gas shell, surrounded by a star-to be precise, it should be a star that once existed.On the spectrogram, there is a portrait of Father Rolora made by Peter Paul and Rubins. Ah, father! What would you do with this pile of data if you and I changed places? My faith is not enough to support me to stand up and face this challenge. What about yours?Ah, father! You stare into the distance, but the distance I have traveled far exceeds the world that you can understand and imagine when you founded our society. There has never been a probe ship so far away from the earth before. We fly to the far edge of the universe. We finally flew to the Phoenix Nebula, and with great discoveries, set foot on the road of asking the earth's hometown. But this discovery is a heavy burden to me. I have to cross time and space and ask you for help silently.The book in your hand is printed with "The glory of the Lord is supreme". But when you have a chance to witness our discovery, will you still believe this sentence? What is the Phoenix nebula? In this galaxy alone, more than 100 stars explode every year. Suddenly, in a few days or even a few hours, the brightness of them suddenly increased to ten million times as usual, and then they were silent. These exploding stars are "new stars"-they're just a common occurrence in cosmic disasters. When I was working at the Lunar Observatory, I recorded the spectra and dimming curves of more than a dozen new stars.Every few hundred years, there will be celestial wonders that compare the new stars to nothing. When a star becomes a supernova, it is brighter than all the stars in the Milky Way combined. Ancient Chinese astronomers once saw this scene in 1054. In 1512, Cassiopeia reappeared. Our task was to inspect the disaster site, find out the cause of the disaster and, if possible, find out the cause of supernovae. Our spaceship passed through the gas that exploded six thousand years ago. The gas is hot, and it still shines purple in generate, but it is too thin to hurt us. Layers of ivory ball gas, thrown out by the exploding stars, is still flying outward today. The gravity of the stars can't pull them back. The space contained in the gas can accommodate X thousand solar systems, while the center is occupied by a strange celestial body, a white dwarf that is only the size of the earth but millions of times heavier than the earth.The brilliance of the gas around the spacecraft dispelled the darkness of ordinary interstellar space. Our goal, like a detonated space bomb, thousands of years have passed, and its fiery fragments are still flying away. The explosion is so large that the fragments of stars are scattered in billions of kilometers of space, but there is no dynamic feeling of flying. After several generations, the naked eye may be able to detect chaotic gas and entangled vortex, and some of them move slightly. At the moment, the surging momentum of the nebula is breathtaking enough. A supernova so bright that it can be seen in the daytime. In the next thousand years, there were three supernovae.We turned off the main power several hours ago, and flew to the dangerous little dwarf at a surplus speed. In the past, it was no different from our sun. Unfortunately, the energy that will keep it alive for millions of years will be dissipated in a few hours. What we see is just a little star who is stingy with every penny of energy, as if to compensate for the wasted light.Finding a planet in this situation is almost a delusion. Even if there was a planet in the past, it turned into steam and debris when it exploded, and mixed with the gas of the nebula. However, we did an automatic search (this is a necessary procedure when flying over a star that has never been detected before) and found a lonely planet. Its trajectory is far away from the dwarf star in the center of the nebula. Its situation is just like Pluto in the solar system. This planet, hovering on the edge of the eternal night Between stars, has never tasted the warmth brought by vitality. But it is the long distance that makes it survive the bad luck of being gasified like its companions.On the burned surface of the planet, only the charred rock, and the solid balloon that once wrapped it, was burned off. We landed on this planet and found grottoes.The builders of the grottoes made every effort to ensure that it would be discovered by later generations. There is only a pool of solidified lava left in the stone monument in the grottoes, but from the long-distance reconnaissance pictures, we are quite sure that it is a sign of wisdom. Later, we detected the radioactive radiation widely distributed all over the planet. The stone signs outside the grottoes can be destroyed, but the radiation prints can't be erased, and signals will be sent to the surroundings constantly. Our spaceship shot at the red heart of this big target like an arrow.The stone sign should have been one mile high, but now it is like a melting candle. We came here as astronomers, but now we have to be part-time archaeologists. However, we have all forgotten our original goal. We know that they chose this remote planet and built this huge sign for only one purpose: a civilized race, knowing that it is doomed, hopes to be immortal.It will take us several generations to fully digest the treasures in the grottoes. Their sun must have a warning before it broke out, so they have plenty of time to prepare, and they can bring all the essence they want to leave behind to this world to hide, and look forward to discovering it for other races in the future without being forgotten. Would we be so motivated? Or are you trapped in sorrow, too lazy to pay attention to the future that you can't live or touch?Why not give them more time! They can travel back and forth Between planets, but they are far from crossing interstellar space. One hundred light-years away, there is another yang department. Even if they have mastered the secret of hyperspace thrusters, they can only save millions of lives at most. Perhaps, such an ending is more acceptable to most people.From the sculptures they left behind, we can see that they are very similar to human beings, but even if they are not, we will still be sad for their fate. They left thousands of video records, together with the projection machines and detailed illustrations, and we easily understood their language. We have carefully read these records, and this is the first time that a civilization more advanced than ours has reappeared before our eyes. Maybe they only left the best side for us to see, but it's no wonder that they, anyway, their beautiful cities are no less than the earth. We watched them work and play, and listened to their melodious language. In particular, there was a picture still fresh in my mind: a group of children playing on the beach of blue sand, plants like weeping willows lined by the water's edge, huge animals walking in shallow water, and people didn't care.At sunset, the afterglow of their sun still warms the earth. Who knows, the sun will soon become a killing judge, and this race will be condemned to death?Presumably, we are deeply moved because we have been lonely and homesick for a long time. Many of us have been to other planets and explored the remains of other civilizations, but we have never felt as deeply as we do today. The decline of a race is like the rise and fall of the earth. Let a splendid civilization burn with a big fire ... How can this be said to be a manifestation of God's mercy?My team members once asked this question, and I tried my best to answer it. Father Lola, you may be more sure, but the gods have no inspiration for me. They are not a group of evil people, and I don't know what kind of gods they worship. I look back at them decades ago, watching them save their cherished ones with their last efforts, and watching them unearthed under the collapsed sun. They deserve to be our mentors-why destroy them!I already knew how my colleagues would answer this question after returning to Earth. They will say this: everything in the universe has no purpose, and the universe is not ambitious. Since hundreds of stars explode every year in the Milky Way galaxy, at the moment, deep in space, civilization will be destroyed. Whether this race has done evil or not has nothing to do with the bad luck it faces: there is no god in the universe, no justice, so there is no scourge.What we saw in the Phoenix Nebula proved nothing. Those who insist on the above arguments are just emotional, not reasoned. God doesn't have to explain his ways to people, he can create the universe; Can also destroy the universe. If God's actions are under our control, it's just arrogance, arrogance, or, more seriously, even contempt for God.I could have pretended to turn a blind eye to everything I saw in the Phoenix Nebula, and the whole planet's civilization was reduced to ashes by the fire. I just needed to be a little harder. But everything has its limits, and so does one's faith. I looked at a pile of calculation results in front of me, only to feel that my unswerving belief shook irresistibly like an earthquake.We can't know the explosion year of that star until we reach the nebula. Now we have mastered the astrophysical exploration data and the test results of the rocks on the only remaining planet, so that I can accurately calculate the time when the planet exploded. I know the year when the flash of cosmic thunder reached the earth, and I figured out how dazzling the supernova remnant that was rapidly retreating behind the spacecraft carrying us home was shining in the sky of the earth that year. I seem to see the star, shining like a distant lighthouse, leading the rising sun at dawn in the east.The eternal mystery has finally been solved, and we can't doubt it. But ... Oh, my God! There are billions of stars in the universe. Why did you choose this one? You ruined the whole world with a fire just to light up the morning in Bethlehem?