Chapter 176 - Epilogue (2/2)

Tomcat nodded before slowly moving its claw. “Then what about this?”

Tang Yue was taken aback. On careful look, he realized that there was another bright blob amidst the comet’s glow. What was happening? Was this also the comet’s core? Comet Tomcat-Tang-Mai I had two cores?”

“This… is also the comet’s core?”

“No.” Tomcat shook its head. “It’s not. In fact, it’s not inside the comet. The shooting angle just makes it seem like the two are together…”

Tomcat paused.

“It’s Deimos.”

…

Mars II, Deimos.

It was the smallest moon in the Solar System. It was about 23,000 kilometers from Mars’s surface. It had a diameter than exceeded 12 kilometers. In Greek mythology, Mars II, Deimos, was the son of God of War, Ares, and Goddess of Love, Aphrodite. This tiny moon was orbiting Mars at 1.35 km/s, completing an orbit once every thirty hours.

As it was just too small, it had little presence in the grand scheme of things. Occasionally, Mai Dong would discover a tiny point of light hurtling past in deep space twenty thousand kilometers away. It was extremely inconspicuous amidst the sea of resplendent stars.

“I don’t know why it’s here. Deimos’s orbital inclination should be 0.93° to Mars’s equator and 1.79° to the local Laplace plane! How did this fellow end up here? It’s completely impossible for it to appear here!” Tomcat typed rapidly on the keyboard. “This moon has been in a stable orbit for billions of years. Why would there be a sudden change?”

The workstation was working at full load, downloading the massive amounts of data from the space station.

As Tomcat kept saying that it was impossible, it stamped its feet.

it was creating a model, and using an accurate prediction model to simulate the comet’s trajectory. Tang Yue and Mai Dong anxiously watched.

“We didn’t consider Mars II previously because its orbit wasn’t on the same plane as the comet at all. Its orbital period is incorrect as well. When the comet hits the surface, the little guy should be chilling behind Mars!” Tomcat was extremely excited as it spoke like a machine gun. “Human observation has shown the same outcome for more than a century. No change has ever happened before!

“But the United Space Station’s observation and Miss Mai Dong’s picture just told me that its orbital trajectory has changed… Damn it. This fellow went off-track! How is this possible? How can a massive object with a mass of 1.4 × 10¹² tonnes so easily change its trajectory? Who could have pushed this much mass? Could it be some unknown force that nudged it? Or did something happen to Mars itself? No… That’s not right… That’s not right…”

Tomcat muttered to itself, shocked by its own theory.

All the clues were being processed by its brain and finally, an answer was produced.

It slowly widened its eyes.

It wasn’t that some unknown force was doing something behind the scenes.

Nor was it because something had happened to Mars.

“The dynamics of the celestial bodies in the Solar System are chaotic. There are many influencing factors, making it difficult to accurately pinpoint the reason. One trigger might change the entire system. An object with a mass of about six trillion trillion kilograms and more than a hundred million kilometers away has suddenly vanished for no good reason. As such, this little guy’s orbit has been affected! In front of this true giant that is Earth, Deimos is just too light and tiny. That’s why the influence so quickly showed…”

Tang Yue and Mai Dong were stupefied.

They never expected that their home planet which had long vanished would save their lives in such a way.

Neither dared to say a word, afraid that they would disturb Tomcat. It had rushed back after traveling for five minutes because of something important. Perhaps, the hopeless situation could be reversed.

The mathematical model’s construction was done.

Tomcat tapped “Enter” with great force.

The code vanished as the monitor dimmed. The comet’s trajectory was represented by a blue line. Mars remained a huge red circle. At the present distance, Kunlun Station’s computer could very precisely predict the comet’s flight path.

“Tang Yue! Miss Mai Dong!”

“Yes?”

“Yes?”

“Let’s cast the die one last time. Do you think we will get a six?” Tomcat asked.

On the screen, Comet Tomcat-Tang-Mai I slowly moved, drawing a blue curve.

“What’s the possibility of throwing a six?” Tang Yue asked.

“Very, very tiny. A slimmer chance than the comet hitting Mars,” Tomcat answered.

Tang Yue laughed.

“But the problem is that the comet is already about to hit Mars.”

“That’s right.” Tomcat nodded as it grinned. “The comet is already about to hit Mars.”

At that instant, Tang Yue looked up. He could sense a particularly potent force and repression coming for him from deep space. It was unprecedented as Tang Yue clearly sensed the existence of Comet Tomcat-Tang-Mai I. It was as though someone had given him God’s view, allowing him to see the gigantic comet tumbling and evaporating in deep space, dragging with it a tail made up of steam and carbon dioxide.

Tang Yue suddenly realized why some people believed in determinism. The Universe was a massive machine and the Solar System was a gear. Mars was one of the teeth on the gear, and the comet was the crank axle or link lever that kept moving back and forth. Everything was working in precision. Based on the Ptolemaic geocentric theory, the revolutions of the planets were epicycles and deferents. They were like gears that clung to each other. This extremely complicated theory accentuated the simplest deterministic mathematics at its deepest core.

Would Deimos save their lives?

Tang Yue didn’t know either.

“Roll it boldly!”

The blue curve slowly approached Mars on screen. This prediction was identical to what the workstation predicted previously. It would then land on the Syrtis Major Planum, destroying everything.

Tang Yue clenched his fists.

Mai Dong hugged Ah Q tightly.

On the boundary of the screen, a white curve suddenly appeared. It was the orbital trajectory of another celestial body! Tiny Deimos suddenly charged into the vision of everyone. In the previous calculations and predictions, Tomcat didn’t add Mars II into the simulation because it had been excluded from the beginning. A moon with a fixed orbit had the most predictable position. Based on the data it had, the computer took a second to predict that it wouldn’t have any effect on the comet.

Deimos had kept to its orbit for billions of years. No one knew that it would silently change position.

Mars II’s speed was much slower than Comet Tomcat-Tang-Mai I, but the white trajectory unhurriedly extended. Even a blind person could tell that it would block the comet if it continued its trajectory.

Tang Yue grabbed Tomcat’s shoulders as Tomcat pressed its paws on the back of Tang Yue’s hand, gesturing for him to stay calm. However, Tomcat itself wasn’t able to. Its hind legs were already shaking intensely under the table.

The two humans and cat stared at the two curves on the monitor. This was the scene of a space collision. Comet Tomcat-Tang-Mai I was a huge truck that moved at 70 km/s and had lost control. It was bound to wipe out anything that came in its path. It was about to smash straight into a residential estate across the road. Deimos was a Chery QQ that didn’t know any better. It was slowly driving towards the intersection. Whether the two humans and cat in the residential estate could be saved depended on this Chery QQ’s ability to push away the racing truck.

This possibility was, yet again, the comet hitting an object, but this time Comet Tomcat-Tang-Mai I had become the object.

Hit it! Hit it! Hit it! Hit it! Hit it!

Ruthlessly hit it!

Hit it as hard as you can—!

Tang Yue clenched his fists, his face flushed red. He was like a spectator watching a soccer match. With both sides in a draw, the end of the match was just thirty seconds away. However, the team one supported had just brought the ball to the enemy’s defense. A kick had been made and a successful goal would mean immediate victory!

Mai Dong hid her face into Ah Q’s stomach, afraid to take another look.

Tang Yue didn’t know how long it was. It could have been about ten seconds or it could have been a few hours. Time seemed to pass like a year or even an entire lifetime. At the instant the two trajectories crossed, there was a beep as a large series of numbers appeared. A red window popped up.

IMPACT!

Just before the match ended, one’s team had scored a goal!

A decisive victory!

In the two seconds after the collision, the computer gave a result. Deimos, this Chery QQ, had rushed over from the rear and stabbed with a pole. To be honest, Deimos was lost and innocent. It didn’t know how it ended up colliding with a massive object. It was a truly surprising disaster. Comet Tomcat-Tang-Mai I had collided with Deimos at a very small angle. The collision caused a change in the trajectory between the two. It was like two billiard balls hitting one another. Via the conservation of momentum, both bodies changed directions and speed.

Deimos had been pushed forcefully, causing its trajectory to become a flatten ellipsis. As for Comet Tomcat-Tang-Mai I’s core, it received an impulse that sent it flying away from Mars. Its closest distance to Mars was lifted by 10,000 kilometers, making it brush past Mars.

Tomcat pushed the computer and chair away with great force and turned around to hug Tang Yue tightly.

“Hahahaha, it’s a success! Hahahaha, We’ve succeeded! Tang Yue, Miss Mai Dong! We can all live! Hahaha!”

“Hahahahaha! Hahaha! We can live! We can live! Mai Dong, we can live!”

“Hahahaha, we are saved!”

The human and cat hugged each other as they cried tears of joys, jumping and cheering.

…

No one really saw the actual collision. When Comet Tomcat-Tang-Mai I hit Deimos, it was during the day at Kunlun Station. As for the United Space Station, it was behind Mars. To make sure that nothing went wrong, the space station had folded all the solar panels and heat-dissipation panels to prevent any fragments from the collision ruining them. In fact, this space collision happened 23,000 kilometers away. The fragments that it produced could hardly ruin the space station.

Tomcat observed using a telescope and discovered that the number of fragments was less than it expected. After all, Deimos didn’t directly hit the comet, but simply brushed past it. Deimos was a massive rock spanning twelve kilometers in diameter. It’s hardness and density far exceeded the brittle comet core. The collision was like throwing an egg at stone, but in this case, the bigger one was the egg.

Comet Tomcat-Tang-Mai I was mainly composed of water, methane, and dry ice. The shattered dry ice quickly evaporated under the sunlight.

Indeed, a devil could only be driven out by a devil. A huge celestial object like Comet Tomcat-Tang-Mai I was not something humanity could deal with. It could only be subdued by heaven.

The space station and Orion II were ants compared to the whale-like comet, but Deimos was also another whale. Only a whale could move another whale.

Night fell.

Tang Yue and Tomcat went out to take a look at the comet.

Comet Tomcat-Tang-Mai I had been tripped by a rock at Mars’s doorstep, saving Tang Yue and also itself. The comet had brushed past Mars at an extremely close distance before leaving Mars’s orbit at 60 km/s as it headed for the Sun.

Tang Yue had the fortune to see the most spectacular comet of this century. Apart from probes, there had never been anyone in human history that had seen a comet so close. It dragged its two long tails as it hurtled across the celestial sphere. The gas from the comet’s evaporated core ionized thanks to the solar winds, emitting blue and red lights like the skirt of a goddess.

There was nothing at that moment that could suppress her resplendence and beauty. She was the most striking girl on the dance floor, attracting the sights of everyone around.

“Strictly speaking, we are currently inside the comet.” Tomcat leaned against Kunlun Station’s wall and sat on the sand. It leisurely said, “The comet’s head is hundreds of thousands of kilometers in diameter and its tail is more than a million kilometers long. The entire planet of Mars is actually inside the comet.”

Tang Yue sat down beside Tomcat and looked up at the comet in the sky.

“How long will it stay?”

“Comet Tomcat-Tang-Mai I’s trajectory is a parabola. It will stay within Mars’s orbit for about a month before leaving from the other end of the Solar System, never to return.”

“Will it not come back again?”

“Never.”

“It’s quite a pity and kind of regretful…” Tang Yue hugged his arms. “That’s what I think.”

“What’s a pity?”

“It was a comet we named after all. It even came to the Solar System, meaning that it’s fated with us. It came all this way to meet us, and it’s really not easy to encounter something in this massive Universe. If it were to return to visit us again in the future, we probably wouldn’t be around anymore.”

Tang Yue felt that some relationship between him and the comet that nearly destroyed everything had formed. This connection was ethereal, simply because it had come to the Solar System and because it had been named by them. But even so, this fragile connection was especially precious in the vast Universe. It was so precious that you could reconcile with it, ignoring any animosity or sorrow.

“Your divination skills are still lacking,” Tomcat suddenly said.

Tang Yue was stunned.

“Your divination was the Wei Chi hexagram. You said that it was a dangerous booby trap,” Tomcat said. “In fact, Wei Chi doesn’t mean really mean an impasse. Just as it means Before Completion, it also means that before things come to an end, there is still hope hidden within the despair. After breaking out of the impasse, there will be clear skies… That Immortal Cuttlefish enjoys eating cuttlefish, but you kept giving him squid. Clearly, he didn’t teach you his true techniques.”

Tang Yue was alarmed.

“Is that so?”

Tomcat nodded.

“I’m thinking that this comet was nothing but a passerby to us,” Tang Yue said. “If it was destined to hit Deimos the moment it entered the Solar System, then it never actually held any threat towards us.”

Tomcat was surprised. In a sense, what Tang Yue had said was right.

They had been gripped with anxiety as if they were facing the greatest enemy of their life, simply because Tomcat had made a wrong calculation of Deimos’s trajectory.

If they had detected that Deimos’s orbital trajectory had changed, the computer would immediately have given the result that Comet Tomcat-Tang-Mai I would have collided with Deimos.

This was from start to end the trouble of one’s own imagination.

Tang Yue stood up and walked out into the desert. Then, he waved his hands at the sky, facing the comet that was gradually distancing itself and shouting, “Hey—! See you again—! All the best! Goodbye—!”

“Goodbye—!”

Tomcat sat there languidly as it observed the young adult waving at the stars in the direction of the comet. In Tomcat’s eyes, Tang Yue’s tiny figure was like a man standing alone on a sand dune conversing with the Universe itself. Tomcat didn’t know if the radiance that sparkled around Tang Yue’s body was a result of the stars or because of the communication between human and god.

Suddenly, there was a meteor shower overhead them.