Mars surface

An excavator was running wildly across the vast Martian land, with smoke billowing everywhere it passed.

"Captain, where are we going?" Qashqai woke up from his sleep and found that Captain Li Mo was still in high spirits, controlling the space excavator and running wildly on the desolate surface of Mars.

"I don't know either!" Li Mo's eyes scanned the highly sensitive radar on the dashboard, but there was still no suspicious signal.

"I don't know?" Qashqai frowned. This was already the tenth Earth day after they landed on Mars. Except for the first day when they accidentally rescued the buried Valor, they didn't make any new discoveries.

.

The tasks of drilling holes, sampling, and collecting rock specimens have been completed. According to the scheduled plan, they should now embark on the journey back to Earth aboard the Navigator spacecraft.

However, the captain Li Mo didn't seem to have any intention of returning. Instead, he drove the excavator all day long, as if he wanted to reach every corner of Mars with the "violent" space excavator.

Although Mars is only one-seventh the size of Earth, it is not something that a small excavator can traverse.

When will this end?

Fortunately, the Navigator carried sufficient energy and food reserves for this voyage.

Thinking of food, Qashqai's stomach growled. He turned on the communicator and called: "Operator, I want to eat stir-fried pork for lunch today. Remember to add more salt and no chili."

"Captain, what do you want for lunch?"

"Same as usual!" Li Mo looked forward without looking back.

"Oh, give the captain some scrambled eggs with tomatoes."

"...Roger that!" came the voice of Guan Weiqun, the spacecraft controller, from the other side of the communicator.

....

Today is already the 20th day after landing on Mars, and 2/3 of the energy materials carried by the Navigator have been consumed. Perhaps it is time to go back.

Li Mo decided to start the return plan after exploring the canyon area ahead.

During these twenty days, he drove a space excavator to explore an area of ​​thousands of kilometers, but unfortunately no new discoveries were made.

Perhaps only after returning to Earth and studying the tons of Martian rock samples collected can we know the harvest of this space exploration.

"Is there no life on Mars at all?" Li Mo carefully controlled the space excavator and passed through a ravine area.

"Beep...beep...beep..." The highly sensitive radar sounded an alarm.

"Captain, the radar shows that there is a piece of land under the surface of Mars 500 meters ahead..."

Dozens of targets suddenly appeared on the radar screen at the same time.

"It's not one piece...it's many pieces of metal...there are multiple sensing points on the radar." Qashqai stammered in his report.

500 meters?

Li Mo looked up and saw what seemed to be a Martian rift zone 500 meters away.

He slowed down and slowly drove towards the rift valley.

This is a rift valley made of red Martian rock. The width of the rift valley is not large, and the cut is flat and smooth, like a piece of tofu cut in half with a knife. The crack should be caused by the movement of Mars plates.

"How deep is this?" Qashqai picked up a stone and threw it into the rift valley. The sound of the stone falling to the ground came from the rift valley.

Li Mo looked at the time. It took 10 seconds from the time the stone was thrown to the sound of landing. Considering that the gravity and air resistance on Mars are relatively small, it means that the depth of the rift valley is more than 1,800 meters.

.

"It's too narrow, the Navigator can't go down." Qashqai visually measured the width of the rift valley and shook his head.

Do you want to enter the treasure mountain and return empty-handed?

This was definitely not Li Mo's usual style. He turned back to the space excavator and adjusted the radar mode. The radar showed that the distance between the metal signal and the surface of Mars was only more than 500 meters.

If those metals are man-made, there is likely to be a cavity 500 meters into the rift valley.

There is a way!

He picked up the communicator.

"Call the Navigator!"

"Navigator received!"

"Please move forward to the coordinates A1278:F8982 area, we have made a new discovery."

Half an hour later, the two astronauts hung Li Mo, who was tied up like a rice dumpling, on the bucket of the space excavator. The other end of the rope was connected to a motor, and a simple human body crane was completed.

.

"Captain, are you sure you want to do this?"

"This is too dangerous!"

Qashqai shouted loudly to Li Mo, who was hanging in the air.

"Let's start!" Li Mo closed his eyes. The spacecraft couldn't go down. This was the only way.

Guan Weiqun controlled the space excavator to move slowly, carefully approaching the rift valley, and the bucket stretched upwards over the rift valley inch by inch.

"Perfect!" Li Mo looked at the bottomless abyss under his feet and gave Guan Weiqun a thumbs up.

"Start releasing the rope!"

As the motor rotates, Li Mo, hanging on the bucket, begins to slowly descend.

"Captain, if you feel any discomfort, please sound the alarm immediately. Weiqun and I will pull you up immediately." Qashqai was lying on the edge of the rift valley, holding a walkie-talkie and shouting.

"Received, please continue to release the rope."

The motor continues to rotate.

100 meters

200 meters

...

500 meters

As a breeze blew by, the rope began to sway from side to side. Qashqai stared nervously at the black spots in the rift valley, while Guan Weiqun kept his hand on the motor switch.

...

"stop!"

"Pa!" Guan Weiqun pressed the stop button.

"I found a hole in the rock wall of the rift valley. The excavator retracted its boom!" Li Mo's voice came from the intercom.

The space excavator slowly moves its boom.

"good!"

"stop!"

At a distance of 512 meters from the surface of Mars, Li Mo, who was suspended in the air, used the swing of the excavator's arm to jump lightly and step onto a hollow.

He untied the rope from his body and picked up the walkie-talkie: "I have arrived at the target area, you are waiting for the signal above."

"Received!" Guan Weiqun

"Copy that! Captain, be safe." Qashke.

This cave is as tall as two people, and the rock walls are extremely smooth. It is an obvious product of wisdom.

Li Mo suppressed his inner excitement and took out a tactical searchlight from his backpack.

In an instant, the light dispelled the darkness, and complex lines seemed to be engraved on the rock wall deep in the cavity.

The searchlight came closer.

It’s rock art!

On the rock wall, the simple and deeply carved lines vividly constitute exquisite pictures.

Plants, plants, all kinds of plants!

Li Mo found that most of the rock paintings were engraved with various plants, and the branches and leaves of these plants were clearly visible and lifelike.

As we go deeper, the plants on the rock paintings become larger and larger.

Are there only plants on Mars?

So what species carved these rock paintings? He does not believe that plants have the ability to carve on rocks.

No! It seems like I overlooked something.

Li Mo turned around in confusion and returned to the first rock painting.

This rock painting is engraved with a prokaryotic organism floating in an ocean-like liquid. Several lines on the mural express the presence of water.

In the second rock painting that follows, prokaryotic cells in the liquid evolved into multicellular clusters.

....

In the fifth rock painting, the engraving becomes a plant with roots.

"This is the evolution diagram of Martian life!" Li Mo understood that the rock paintings described the entire process of evolution from single-celled organisms to plants.

"Smart plants?"

With such doubts, Li Mo continued to read with a tactical searchlight. In the next twelve rock paintings, the protagonists are still plants, but they have more types and are larger in size.

Until the thirteenth rock painting, the plant disappeared and was replaced by a circle with several lines drawn around it.

This is the sun!

Li Mo instantly remembered the simple drawings he had drawn.

But why use a single petroglyph to carve the sun?

Didn't the sun exist above Mars before?

This is impossible!
Chapter completed!