Dead on Mars

Chapter 196: Sol Three Hundred and Twenty-Four, How to Enter the Two-Dimensional World

“Fine, so what if I’m paired up with a rotten tomato? It’s better than being alone.”

Tang Yue packaged the curry-like feces and placed them in a warm spot to ferment. Then, he stepped out of the garage, frowning as he looked up at the dark sky.

The role-playing was becoming a bore. However, the cargo spacecraft was still nowhere to be seen. Tomcat was someone without much artistic sense. Despite confidently claiming that it could play out Alexander, it was nonsense. All it could do was repeatedly act out a few old Hong Kong movies. Apart from New Kunlun Inn and Dragon Gate Flying Cat, there was Infernal Affairs. It would mimic Tony Leung and Andy Lau’s gunfight at the rooftop.

Tomcat played Lau Kin-ming while Tang Yue played Chan Wing-yan. One said, “I had no choice before, but now, I want to turn over a new leaf and be a good cat.” In response, the other said, “Good. Try telling that to Judge Fish. See what he has to say.”

No matter how the script developed, it revolved around cats.

Tomcat walked over from the garage and stood beside Tang Yue.

“What are you looking at?”

“Finding the cargo spacecraft.” Tang Yue cupped his eyes. “How much further is it from us?”

“Seven million kilometers,” Tomcat replied. “If it was a powerful torch, its light would take twenty seconds to reach your eyes.”

“I used to find the speed of light fast, but now, the distances that we cover require light to take seconds or minutes. In retrospect, the speed of light is just too slow,” Tang Yue said.

Tomcat nodded. For communications, the speed limit of the Universe, the speed of light, was beginning to affect human work. The delay between communications of Earth and Mars ranged from ten minutes to half an hour.

“Think about it. If two people are separated at the two ends of the Milky Way, and one of them sends a message to the other, it would take ten thousand years. You can press that button and look up into the starry skies, only to have the radio wave reach its destination ten thousand years later. It would take another ten thousand years for you to receive a reply.”

“This might very well be the longest and most circuitous message sent in the Universe. All the communication base stations on the entire Orion II’s cantilever need to help send it out,” Tomcat said. “What kind of message is worth waiting ten thousand years?”

“Such as…” Tang Yue sat down cross-legged and thought. “You don’t have to wait for me anymore.”

Tomcat was taken aback.

It also sat down, turning to look at Tang Yue. The latter’s eyes were peeled to the front, what he was looking at a mystery.

“But you’ve already made the person wait so long. Wouldn’t sending such a reply be a little too late?” Tomcat asked. “The reply takes another ten thousand years. The person who sent the message probably isn’t alive anymore. At best, there will be a tombstone left… What kind of reply will the tombstone see?”

“If it were me…” Mai Dong said over the comms, her voice crystal clear. “Probably, ‘got it.'”

Tomcat was somewhat caught by surprise before it laughed. This was truly a fairytale—just like The Little Prince with his unique loneliness. If the world really had two such people, spending twenty thousand years to exchange two sentences, with one being “you don’t have to wait for me anymore” and the other was “got it,” what kind of emotion that could transcend time in such a manner…

“Love.”

Tang Yue sighed.

“In the past, life was short. The speed of light is slow, but the stars are very old. The person you see will forever be fixed, only changing after ten thousand years.”

“But for radio waves, subjectivity is only an instant. It sees the you from an instant ago. What it sees the next instant when it returns is nothing but a tomb,” Tomcat said. “Under the speed of light, time dilation will reach its limits. Time will stop flowing, and any beam of light will see the end of the Universe the next instant.”

“Then, in the eyes of light, what does the world look like?” Tang Yue asked. “Quickly changing without any form?”

“From the point of view of light, the world doesn’t exist,” Tomcat said. “They were born from the Big Bang, and in that instant, the Universe ended.”

“Therefore, the best way to pass through time is to speed up.” Tang Yue looked up. “This is also the only way to resist time… If we put the remains of humans into a box and then boost it to close the speed of light, perhaps it will be able to be preserved to the end of the Universe.”

“But that energy needed is unimaginable.”

“How much is needed?”

Tomcat thought and said, “That will depend on how heavy the box is. If we were to preserve a box with a mass of a kilogram to the end of the Universe, allowing time for it to dilate to ten billion times slower than us, then in the process of accelerating it to close the speed of light, its mass will rise sharply to 10²0 times its proper mass. That would make it a hundred million billion tonnes.

“To accelerate such a box to near-light speed will roughly expend more than 10²⁶ Joules of energy,” Tomcat said. “And the amount of energy the Earth expends a year is 10²¹ Joules. Therefore, the energy to accelerate that box is enough to last seven billion people on Earth for a hundred thousand years.”

“Storing a box outside time needs to spend a hundred thousand years worth of energy?” Tang Yue was stunned. “Relativity sure is strange and terrifying.”

“What’s strange isn’t relativity,” Tomcat pointed above. “What’s strange is time itself.”

“If we had this capability, I wish to accelerate the United Space Station to near the speed of light,” Tang Yue said. “At the very least, I want to let humanity see how the United Space Station ends.”

“Don’t accelerate the space station. I don’t want to head there.” Mai Dong’s voice sounded.

“That would be the end of the Universe.”

“I don’t wish to see the end of anything.” The girl shook her head. “Be it the heat death of the Universe or the Big Crunch, it’s an ending with no life. Why would I cross twenty billion years to see the Universe’s corpse?”

“What Miss Mai Dong says makes sense,” Tomcat said. “I always believe that the present Universe is in its prime because it has given birth to life. In a way, it can be as big as life and as small as a seed. However, there is one similarity. That is it will only sprout in the most suitable environment. You and my existence are proof that the present Universe is irreplaceable.”

“Alright. Lass, don’t worry. We don’t have the power to do so either.” Tang Yue laughed. “Accelerating a one-kilogram box requires the energy expenditure of humanity for a hundred thousand years. Accelerating the United Space Station would probably require the whole of Mars to be converted into energy… If there’s anything to be accelerated, it should be Tomcat.”

“If you really accelerate me to those speeds, I’ll be flat,” Tomcat said.

“Flat?”

“Based on length contraction, the faster I am, the longer I’ll be in the direction of travel. Finally, I’ll shrink to the thinness of a piece of paper.” Tomcat gestured as it brought its paws close and smack them loudly at the end. “I’ll become a paper cat.”

Tang Yue was confused. Not only did light conceal the method of traveling through time, but it was also the door to the two-dimensional realm.

Unfortunately, the physics classes on Earth never promoted such ideas. Otherwise, with the strength of the otakus, they might swarm over to solve this major conundrum in order to meet their two-dimensional waifus.

Unfortunately, the people who researched physics were normal, straight men. All they had on their minds were grand endeavors like heading out into the cosmos.

How could the ethereal and infinite cosmos be as good as having a waifu?

As long as you accelerate, accelerate, and keep accelerating! Once you reach 99.999999999999999999% the speed of light, you would be able to meet your waifus!

Tomcat smacked its ass as it got up, carrying the containers to the nearby Kunlun Station.

“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate.”

Tomcat walked as it chanted.

“All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.”

Tang Yue rested on his arm while leaning in the garage, somewhat in a daze.

“Time to die.”