Chapter 242: Grouping and Going Alone
"Pierre! Be quiet!"
"This is a second home! Not Earth!"
"We are the pioneers of mankind. We are exploring a new world and a planet suitable for human habitation. What is this sacrifice worth?"
"Think about Magellan's round-the-world expedition in history. His fleet took three years to sail and lost more than 200 lives along the way, even himself. We only lost four team members." The bearded middle-aged white man who spoke was driving the vehicle while roaring at the black member in the passenger seat. It was obvious that he had a hot temper .
"F#￥U! Jason, there are no damn monsters on Earth. I would rather follow Magellan's old path than stay in this damn place for another day!" The tall and strong black man and the middle-aged white man started arguing, and the whole team was filled with a depressing and tense atmosphere.
As for the mixed-race young man Bruce, he squatted in the back seat of the lunar rover, looking at the distant horizon with a telescope, then looked down at the draft map in his hand, a hint of excitement flashed in his eyes, and interrupted the quarrel between the two people in the front seat: "Jason, how much battery is left in the car?"
"The battery is still 32% and can last for 56 kilometers. This place is full of deserts and has 24 hours of sunshine during the day. The solar panels are very efficient in charging."
"What's wrong? Bruce, have you made any new discoveries?" the middle-aged white man asked, his ears pricked up.
In Jason's eyes, this mixed-race young man kept silent the entire time. His patience and concentration far surpassed the two of them. He would only suddenly speak at the critical moment.
"There is a new discovery!"
"About ten kilometers ahead, there are signs of water, but we can't be sure whether it is a river or a lake!" The mixed-race young man pursed his dry lips and said with a smile.
"What? Bruce, you found water? God bless you!"
"Bruce, you are like the silent Sphinx! Once you speak, you will bring good news!"
"Finally, we don't have to drink filtered urine anymore!" The black man named Pierre was overjoyed when he heard it.
"Ten kilometers?"
"I understand!" Jason's face was full of excitement. He stopped arguing with the black man next to him and stepped on the accelerator to speed up.
Soon, this specially made all-terrain vehicle raised up dust, passed through a large area of sandy hills, and arrived at the edge of the blue sea.
"Haha! It's the sea!"
"It's the ocean of this planet!"
"God bless!" Looking at the waves rising on the seashore, Pierre jumped out of the car first, holding the rifle in his hand, and ran all the way from the beach to the seashore.
The clear sea water, accompanied by waves, washed over the beach, submerging his ankles.
"Pierre, be careful! Don't forget those strange beasts!" Seeing the black man about to take off his clothes and jump into the sea to swim, the middle-aged white man Jason immediately shouted and reminded him from behind.
"Strange beast? What the hell!" Pierre was so shocked when he heard it that he quickly retreated from the tide and returned to the shore.
As for the mixed-race young man, he took a water quality monitoring instrument from the car, carefully approached the water's edge and scooped up some water. After looking at the water composition on the monitor, his face twitched slightly and he said, "Guys, the seawater here can be used directly as raw material for the salt field! It seems that if we want to extract it into fresh water, we have to spend some effort."
"What's the salinity?" Jason came over and took a look at the instrument data displayed by the mixed-race youth. His face also darkened and he started to curse: "Hou Li Crab! 46% salinity? This is higher than the highest salinity in the Dead Sea !"
You should know that the average salinity of the Pacific Ocean on Earth is about 3.5%, which is equivalent to 3.5 grams of dissolved matter can be diluted in 100 grams of seawater.
The Dead Sea has the highest salt content among many large water bodies on Earth, with the highest salinity being approximately 33.7%. At this salinity, ordinary fish can no longer survive in it, only bacteria and plankton can.
Moreover, the higher the salinity, the stronger the buoyancy of the sea water. Even without the help of a swimming ring, an ordinary person can lie flat and float on the surface of the Dead Sea with just a newspaper.
However, the salinity of the ocean before us is one level higher than that of the Dead Sea. If you drink a sip of it, it will not only make your throat choke, but it can also kill you.
"The salt content is too high, and the osmotic membranes we brought are simply not suitable for large-scale desalination."
"We can only use traditional methods... Fortunately, there is plenty of sunshine here, and the temperature is above 38 degrees..." The mixed-race young man analyzed, raised his head to look at the brightly shining sky, and waved to the big black man: "Pierre, get to work! If you want to drink clean fresh water, you can only rely on our human wisdom!"
"wisdom?"
"Then let someone like you, Bruce, use it! People like me are more suitable to use muscles." Pierre forced an ugly smile and raised one arm to show off his strong muscles.
The three men took the excavation equipment from the car and began to cooperate with the two men to dig several large pits on the beach. They then poured sea water into the pits, placed a bucket in the middle, and covered the pits with a layer of plastic film.
This is a simple solar distiller that can use the heat from the sun to heat the seawater in the pit and evaporate it. The distilled fresh water vapor will condense on the thin film above and finally drip into the bucket in the middle.
"It all depends on time! With the temperature so high, a bucket should be full soon." Looking at this simple pit, the mixed-race young man sighed.
Although this strange planet was full of life-bearing minerals, the environment at their landing point was too harsh.
There is nothing but desert and wasteland. In the search for water, several members have lost their lives at the hands of strange beasts.
Fortunately, there is always a way out. After searching more than 100 kilometers to the south, the water problem was finally temporarily solved.
"Pierre, keep an eye on the bucket inside. When it's full, just drink from it."
"I'll go observe the nearby terrain to see if there are any signs of strange beast activity."
"Jason, use the radio to contact the other teams and ask them to come closer to us. If we want to bring back more fresh water, we have to rely on everyone's strength." The mixed-race young man acted like a team leader. After a few words of instructions, he mobilized the other two.
He took a telescope and climbed up a tall sand dune on the beach to observe the situation nearby.
Scanning his eyes from the desert to the sea, a dark shadow as big as a mountain in the depths of the sea caught his attention.
"Is it an island?" The mixed-race young man muttered to himself and increased the magnification of the telescope. Soon he discovered the towering mountains on the island.
“Is this a volcano?”
"No! Why is the shape so similar to the mountain where we landed..." The mixed-race young man put down the telescope, rubbed his eyes, and felt as if something incredible had happened.
Searching the edge of the island with the camera, I saw a raft with several people on it floating out to sea and heading towards the beach.
At this moment, the mixed-race young man couldn't help swallowing his saliva. His body trembled as if he had discovered a new world. He could no longer remain calm and shouted to the two team members who were busy on the beach: "Guys! Something's happening!"
When Pierre and Jason, who were in charge of their own tasks, heard the voice, they hurriedly dropped the work at hand, quickly got on the terrain vehicle and rushed to the sand dunes.
"Bruce, have you found the monster?" Jason's face was solemn, while the big black man was ready for battle with an automatic rifle in one hand and a grenade that could be pulled at any time in the other.
With the deaths of several team members, the members of the joint expedition team that landed on this second home became like frightened birds.
"It's not a strange beast!"
"It's aliens! Look!" Bruce skillfully grabbed a rifle from the back seat of the car and threw the telescope to Jason.
"What?"
"alien?"
"Intelligent creatures on this planet?" The two of them changed color when they heard this. Although they had prepared themselves mentally before coming here, they felt completely different when they actually encountered them.
As for Jason, he took out a telescope and looked in the direction the mixed-race young man pointed, and found that there really was a raft similar to a ship sailing on the sea and getting closer.
"Aliens cross the sea on rafts?"
"Then the civilization level of these aliens is no different from those uncivilized primitive people on Earth?" Jason put down the telescope and analyzed with a slight twitch on his face.
"Hide first!"
"Even if we are primitive people, we have to be careful. Don't forget those strange beasts we encountered before. Some of them also looked harmless to humans and animals," Bruce suggested seriously.
Upon hearing this, the other two nodded. The three drove the vehicle to hide behind a large sand dune, found a shelter, buried themselves in the sand, and used a telescope to constantly monitor the approaching raft.
As the raft got closer, the blurry shadows in the telescope gradually became clearer. Jason saw the insignia on the people's clothes and exclaimed, "Bruce! They are not aliens! They are the Russian expedition team! I remember that among the rocket launches, there happened to be a Russian lunar spacecraft. The ground command center also said that they were a few hours behind us."
Upon hearing that it was a human, the big black guy was the first to breathe a sigh of relief and put down the rifle he had been holding, while the mixed-race youth grabbed the telescope and started observing again.
After seeing the physical features and faces of the people on the raft, he suddenly widened his eyes and screamed, "Why is she here?"
Then he crawled out of the sand, shook off the sand on his body, turned around and laughed at his two teammates: "Guys! Do you believe in love at first sight?"
"What do you mean? Bruce? Are you in love?" The two people lying on the sand didn't quite understand what the mixed-race young man meant.
After saying something that seemed like nonsense, the mixed-race young man no longer maintained his previous caution and composure, and began to run wildly from the sand dunes to the beach, shouting and waving at the raft on the sea all the way.
"Bruce, are you crazy? Even if it's a Russian bear expedition team, we can't contact them easily!" Seeing this, Jason and Pierre had no choice but to follow.
When the raft, which took more than 20 minutes to reach the coast with the help of the tide and wind, got off the raft, several fully armed members of the Bear Expedition Team came down from the raft. In addition, there was a woman who was obviously smaller in size.
The heroic woman, wearing a combat uniform with silver patterns, was frowning as she looked at the mixed-race youth who was yelling at them on the shore.
"Beautiful Miss Linglong, we parted hastily last time in Antarctica. I've been thinking about you day and night and can't sleep at night."
"I didn't expect that I could meet you here even though the earth is 380,000 kilometers away from me! It really proves the old saying among flower growers: If we are destined to meet, we will meet no matter how far apart we are!" The mixed-race young man was obviously very excited.
"It's you! Zhao Zhen!"
"Don't you know there is another kind of fate called bad fate?"
"You dare to appear in front of me? Believe it or not, I will kill you now!" Linglong recognized the mixed-race young man, her face turned cold, and her tone became cold, without any sentimentality of meeting an old friend in a foreign land.
"WOW! Miss Linglong , I think you misunderstood me! Last time in Antarctica, I was indeed quite offensive, but that was all the idea of old man Eugene."
"I have now withdrawn from the extreme sports association and am now a free person."
"As for my feelings for you, Miss Linglong, they are genuine. If Miss Linglong is still angry about the half meteorite, I thought of this planet. We should let go of this little misunderstanding. After all, there are magical stones everywhere here. If you want, Miss Linglong, I can give you a meteorite as big as a mountain, as an apology to you!" Zhao Zhen waved his hand and explained hurriedly, and at the same time stretched out two fingers to gesture, as if to say that the previous conflict was very insignificant.
"Zhao Zhen, you are really good at speaking!"
"How can you sever your relationship with Eugene? Don't think I can't do anything to you just because I have a few guns here."
"This is not Earth! There is no glacier crack that can help you!" As Linglong spoke, a faint steam rose from the top of her head, and it was obvious that she was ready to take action.
"Bruce, your woman is your lover?"
"She seems to have a bad temper. Can you tolerate her if I marry her?" The big black man following behind Zhao Zhen couldn't help but interrupt them even though he couldn't understand the two people communicating in Chinese. He pulled the bolt of the gun to show his presence.
His action made the other Russian explorers alert and they raised their guns and pointed them at the three of them.
Including Jason, he also raised his gun and pulled a fragmentation grenade from the mount on his chest. For a moment, the whole beach was filled with an awkward atmosphere.
"Want to fight? I'm at your service anytime!" Jason grinned, his tough face covered with stubble showing some of the freehand style of a western cowboy. He felt that facing a group of members of the wooly bear expedition team was better than facing those deadly monsters.
At this moment, the sounds of several motors were heard from behind the distant sand dunes, and the other two expedition teams, who had received the radio message, drove over.
Seeing two groups of people confronting each other on the beach, a bearded man jumped out of one of the cars and rushed between the two groups to mediate: "Friends! I don't think we need to be so tense on this strange planet, right?"
"We are all human beings, so we should work together to explore this strange planet! Brother Ivan, I'm sure you have also encountered strange beasts on this planet, right?"
After these words were spoken, everyone fell silent, especially the leader of the bear team, who lowered his gun slightly after seeing the bearded man: "Abra! I didn't expect you to come to this planet! It has been more than ten years since we last trained together in the Arctic."
"Ivan, I didn't expect that we would be reunited in this way. How is Instructor Peru?" The bearded man smiled at the burly hairy man. It was obvious that the two had a very deep friendship.
"The instructor has retired, but he also plans to land on this planet to see if he can find further hope." The strong man shrugged in response.
"This planet has a magical energy that can transform and evolve the body. I think the instructor will definitely not miss it."
"But if we want to take root on this planet, we must first unite against the outside world and conquer those strange beasts first!" The bearded man continued to change the subject to ease the tense atmosphere between the two sides.
Seeing that both sides slowly put down their guns, the bearded man secretly breathed a sigh of relief.
As for Linglong, after staring at the group of explorers with different skin colors in front of her, a strange look flashed in her eyes, and then she said to the mixed-race youth who was grinning at her: "Zhao Zhen, didn't you say you wouldn't lie to me? I can let you go for now, but you have to tell me all the information you know!"
"In addition to the information about the strange beasts, there is also information about the relic hanging around your neck and the seven-colored ore!"
"As you said, life ore is worthless on this planet. The only valuable thing is the seven-color ore."
After Linglong said this, the faces of the expedition team members who had learned Chinese changed. Especially after hearing the description of the seven-color ore, Zhao Zhen's face twitched and he looked a little embarrassed. His tone was no longer frivolous but serious: "Miss Linglong... We did find traces of the seven-color ore, but there is a very scary large beast in that mining area. In order to obtain some samples of the seven-color ore, we even paid the price of several members' lives!"
"For this lunar exploration, we combined the strength of the Western Alliance, Eagle Country, and several developed countries to put together a large lunar landing spacecraft, and barely sent 20 people to this second home."
"But we have only just arrived at this damn place for the second day and we have already lost one-fifth of our men. I think even if you, the Flower Growers, and the Mao Bears join forces, you probably can't afford such a loss!"
Looking at the sincere mixed-race young man opposite her, Linglong knew that he probably misunderstood her and thought she was a member of the expedition of the Flower Growers. However, she did not expose him: "You just need to take me to the mining area, and we will solve the rest of the problems ourselves."
"Since Miss Linglong is interested, I will naturally risk my life to accompany you! But before that, we have to collect drinking water supplies."
"From here, it's all desert, without a single oasis..."
As the atmosphere eased, both sides began to communicate and exchange some information.
Just as the bearded man said, we are all human beings, and we should temporarily put aside the grudges on Earth on this strange planet.
After all, in such a special environment, ordinary people can only survive by cooperating. It is obviously difficult to go long-term by fighting alone.
…
However, there are always some unusual cases in this world!
In a mountain range many kilometers away from the beach, Chen Jue was flapping his wooden wings with the little parrot flying beside him, avoiding being chased by a group of strange giant rats with red eyes.
These giant rats are shaped like rabbits, with heads like mice, limbs spread out, and their fur pulled into a parachute shape, and they squeak non-stop.
The reason why they chased Chen Jue was because when he landed on a mountain just now, Chen Jue picked a few red fruits from a giant tree that looked like a crabapple.
"It's bad enough that snakes can fly, now even mice can fly!"
"They say that stirring up a hornet's nest will bring disaster, but I've never heard of stirring up a rat's nest! Damn it!"
