Dead on Mars

Mai Dong rushed into the core module and picked up the earpiece.

Her heart beat furiously as her hands trembled nervously. She was afraid that the sound she had just heard was a result of the computer’s tiny bug, and that there wasn’t any radio signal… The girl wore the earpiece, held her breath, and listened carefully.

A few seconds later, another beep was heard. The waveform on the screen jumped as Mai Dong’s heart immediately tightened.

The computer wasn’t having problems. There was indeed a radio wave, and it was a regular one. The space station had received an unknown signal that resembled Morse code. It blinked once every few seconds, and the oscilloscope resembled the electrocardiogram of a person.

Mai Dong was ecstatic. It clearly wasn’t noise, but an electromagnetic signal with meaning.

In the past hundred days or so, she had held a slim hope. She was alone day and night here, listening to all the sounds and stirrings that came from everywhere, and today, there was finally an outcome. Even though she had no idea of the radio wave’s origins, nor did she know the message contained within, it could very well come from an intelligent life form, with a greater possibility that it was of human origins—for example, Orion I or other remaining human spacecraft. It could even be Earth.

The girl’s tears immediately welled.

She had finally seen a glimmer of light in that swath of infinite darkness.

“Mr. Cat! Tang Yue!” Mr. Cat wiped away her tears as she immediately contacted Tomcat and Tang Yue. “Mr. Cat! Mr. Cat! I received a radio wave signal!”

In Kunlun Station, Tomcat and Tang Yue jumped in shock as they leaped out of their chairs.

A radio wave?

“From who?” Tomcat asked.

“What does it say?” Tang Yue asked.

“I’ve no idea, but the signal is very clear. It’s constantly being sent.” Mai Dong was excited. “I’ll forward it to you. You can see what it is.”

Tomcat and Tang Yue nodded. They were puzzled and shocked, as they nervously hung onto that tiny bit of extravagant hope, nor did they dare ask for too much… If it really was a radio signal, where did it come from? Had the long-disappeared Orion I appeared again? Or had the other man-made spacecraft been resurrected? Who knew if this radio signal would become a turning point for everything, allowing Mai Dong to successfully land on the surface?

Mai Dong transferred the signal as Tomcat and Tang Yue impatiently grabbed at the earpiece and stared into the computer screen, standing there, listening for a very long period of time.

“How is it? How is it, Mr. Cat?” Mai Dong asked anxiously. “Mr. Cat, Tang Yue? What is it exactly saying? Is it Morse code?”

Tomcat didn’t say a word, nor did Tang Yue.

The man and cat stood there motionless, their faces grim. They looked like statues.

“Mr. Cat… Tang Yue?”

Tang Yue took a deep breath and removed the earpiece first. He then smiled at Mai Dong. “Mai Dong, it might be a shocking result.”

“Really?” Mai Dong’s eyes lit up. “What does that radio signal say? Who sent it? Humans? Or the Orion?”

Tomcat removed the earpiece and slowly said, “It’s from a pulsar.”

The girl was stunned.

Tang Yue turned his head away and sighed. He and Tomcat had recognized it to be the electromagnetic pulse sent from a pulsar. A pulsar’s period of rotation was extremely short. It was like a spinning lighthouse that shot out electromagnetic radiation, which was why the signal was so stable and regular. This radio signal wasn’t of human origin, much less that of the Orion I. It didn’t contain any information… It was a natural phenomenon in the Universe.

Discovering this pulsar was indeed quite an academic success, which was why Tang Yue had said those words. The signal was at best, an academic achievement, but it had nothing to do with human spacecraft.

“This is a pulsar with a rotation period of three seconds. The space station is receiving its signal.” Tomcat sat on a chair with its eyes stuck to the screen. The signal on the oscilloscope was regular and periodic.

“If… If it’s a pulsar, why are we only receiving its signal now?” Mai Dong’s voice trembled, a clear sign that she refused to give up hope. “It should have been there constantly…”

“It really is there constantly.” Tomcat nodded. “This pulsar has likely long been identified and taken note of. The space station’s communications system would filter it away as background noise. You heard it again because you had adjusted the computer system. This is also why only you heard the signal while we didn’t. Kunlun Station is still filtering it out.”

The color drained from the girl’s face. It was true that she had only received the signal after she adjusted the space station’s computer and communications system.

Based on the electromagnetic wave’s characteristics, Tomcat quickly found the pulsar in the Kunlun Station’s database—PSR-J1078-2416. It was five million light-years from the Solar System.

This cast the results in stone.

“So… it was only a star…”

Mai Dong’s eyes drooped as all her joy instantly turned into a heavy burden that nearly crushed her.

“Mai Dong…” Tang Yue racked his brains for something to say, but he realized that it was all useless. It was a false hope, and they had destroyed it. But at the same time, they had smashed the hopes in the girl’s heart.

Tang Yue wished to give her a tight hug for perhaps it might make her feel better, but with a distance of four hundred kilometers between them, he couldn’t even lend her a shoulder.

“I got it… Thank you, Mr. Cat, Tang Yue. I’m a little tired. I’ll go get some sleep. Bye.”

Mai Dong took a deep breath as she lowered her head to leave the sights of the camera. She slowly passed through the core module’s APAS, her heart empty. She didn’t wish to say anything, for she felt exhausted. Just using her brain to think made her feel tired.

She knew the source of the radio wave. It was from a star of more than five million light-years away.

Five million light-years. It was an unimaginable distance.

She could receive the sounds from millions of light-years away, but she couldn’t find Earth which was just nearby.

She had been searching bitterly all this time, but for what?

Mai Dong drew the sleeping quarters’ curtains, and slowly unzipped her sleeping bag in a mechanical and stiff manner. A tiny Shiba Inu doll floated over and struck her hand.

Mai Dong was taken aback.

A smile appeared on her pale face as she grabbed the doll and squeezed it. “You came to welcome me again…”

Large drops of tears welled in the girl’s eyes, and finally, she hugged the silly-looking Shiba Inu doll and wailed. She hadn’t cried like that when the Earth had disappeared, but the sorrow had never left or disappeared. It had only lingered around her, waiting for her to get tired, before chasing up to her and devouring her.

At that moment, Mai Dong accepted her fate. The last piece of hope in her heart had finally been shattered. All that was left was deep sorrow and despair. She accepted the fact that Earth had vanished, along with the Orion, and all of humanity. No one would save her. All her family and friends, as well as her entire life, was gone.

The girl’s sobs echoed in the space station, but in the darkness of deep space, even her sobs couldn’t escape that tiny area.