Dead on Mars

Chapter 103: Sol Hundred and Ten, zhddygt

Translator: CKtalon Editor: CKtalon

Mai Dong’s idea was a good one.

Prioritizing the search based on the terrain was, indeed, faster than brute force searching every spot. Between Kunlun Station and the Chelomey’s landing spot, there were few areas that could be considered precipitous, so it wouldn’t take too long to search those areas. Delivering a precision strike was clearly better than carpet bombing. They could complete everything in half a day.

However, Tang Yue wasn’t sure if Kunlun Station had the Isidis Planitia’s terrain information. Back when America, China, Russia, and other countries worked together to build Kunlun Station, they had gone into a deep discussion about the nearby terrain. They had come up with an extremely detailed map of the area and placed it on the official site of NASA for public consumption. However, Tang Yue wasn’t sure if this map was available on Kunlun Station since he wasn’t involved in terrain science.

“Wait… Let me look for it! If we are going to search for any cliffs along Tomcat’s path, we need to have a terrain map… Let me find it.” Tang Yue paused his identification work and immediately opened the computer’s documents folder on the hard disk. He first searched for the keyword “map.”

A series of results appeared.

Tang Yue felt a little nervous as his heart raced. He could see the shortcut in finding Tomcat… Perhaps Mai Dong’s suggestion was workable, and they didn’t need to search for three months. It was possible that they could obtain results by today. All he needed to do was find a detailed map. Remote sensing maps would precisely label the elevation, longitude, and latitudes of the terrain; then, Mai Dong could use these coordinates to find the target.

“People’s Republic of China map.

“London’s Tube map.

“Pamir Mountains contour line map.

“Amazon River rainfall distribution map.

“Chernobyl City tourist travel map.

“Tourist map for the Akihabara otaku pilgrimage.”

Tang Yue’s gaze swept through the list of document names, there were all kinds of random maps left behind by Old Wang and company. They were basically garbage data, ranging from a standard world map to random tourist maps! Despite having a trekking map from Canada to Alaska, there weren’t any signs of the Martian Isidis Planitia remote sensing terrain map.

Tang Yue shook his head. A direct keyword search clearly wasn’t working. Regardless if he keyed in “map,” “terrain map,” or “Mars terrain map,” he couldn’t find the information he needed. This meant that the Isidis Planitia’s remote sensing map either didn’t exist, or the document’s name had been changed by someone. Without knowing the name, he could only search for it manually.

Tang Yue opened Old Zheng’s personal folder.

Old Zheng was a terrain expert, so if Kunlun Station really had such a map, it was likely in his hands… Even though Old Zheng had left Kunlun Station, a portion of his work had been left here, including the maps.

Thankfully, Old Zheng was a frank and open person who never encrypted his documents.

Tang Yue frowned.

“Evaluation results of Martian surface water source and soil quality.

“Isidis Planitia’s topsoil’s silicate analysis.

“Mars southern hemisphere’s meteorite crater numbers and distribution.

“Records of 2052 Venus transition observation.

“13th Mars landing mission commemoration photo.

“Anthology of premium Japanese language flicks.”

Tang Yue dragged his cursor, opened every folder and did a careful search, afraid he would miss out something. The words left Tang Yue’s eyes blurred, with certain theses spanning hundreds of pages. Tang Yue kept clicking with his mouse but was unable to find the terrain map for the Isidis Planitia.

It was true that Old Zheng’s documents mostly included information on the Martian surface, but Tang Yue and Mai Dong couldn’t use any of that. They were research results regarding a crater in the southern hemisphere which had little to do with Kunlun Station. Tang Yue scrolled to the bottom, and finally saw an unknown document titled “zhddygt.” The name looked as though Old Zheng had rolled his face on the keyboard after having too much to drink.

“Damn it!” Tang Yue slammed the mouse on the table as he leaned back and sighed.

“There’s none on my side either.” Mai Dong shook her head after searching through the space station.

Tang Yue was very disappointed. He slouched in exhaustion as he placed his chin on the table, looking straight at the computer screen… It wasn’t easy for them to come up with a new solution, but now they were unable to carry it out without a precise map. When one was unlucky, one would sprain his thumb when blowing his nose.

“Forget it. Let’s just go through one picture at a time. So what if it’s 1,500 hours? So what if it’s three months. It’s better than being helpless.” Tang Yue reached out and casually clicked the document named “zhddygt.”

The computer suddenly froze.

Tang Yue was taken aback as he moved the mouse, but the cursor on the screen didn’t move at all. It looked as though the computer had really hung, as the screen had gone black.

“What? Did it crash the computer? Is that document some virus?” Tang Yue stood up to check on the computer. He really had no idea what was stored on Old Zheng’s computer. Perhaps the screen would suddenly go from showing black to showing a sexy voluptuous croupier handing out cards.

Right on the heels of that, Tang Yue heard the fan in the computer case spin as it emitted a whirring sound.

This meant that some resource-intensive software or document had been opened. Even with the processing power of Kunlun Station’s computer, it still took several seconds to launch it.

Two seconds later, a gigantic white logo appeared with a line in English: SATELLITE REMOTE SENSING DATA.

Satellite remote sensing data?

Tang Yue grew excited. There was hope!

The logo slowly dimmed as a huge, complicated map appeared before Tang Yue’s eyes. The boundaries of the map had fine markings for longitude and latitude, with all kinds of numbers squeezed onto it. Tang Yue held his breath as he moved the cursor to drag the map and scroll to zoom into it. This was an extremely detailed three-dimensional map, with blue and green lines intersecting to form a mesh that formed the undulating terrain.

Tang Yue briefly glanced at it and realized that the map had tons of information. Every detail could be seen, and even tiny drops could be seen clearly. He had no idea how many man-hours and effort it took for the people to create this remote sensing map as its area spanned hundreds of square kilometers.

Tang Yue didn’t know how much space was needed for such copious amounts of data, but it was at least more than ten terabytes.

It was no wonder the computer took quite some effort to launch it. A slightly weaker computer would probably have frozen right on the spot.

Tang Yue scanned the map as his eyes lit up.

A striking red arrow labeled Kunlun Station’s location.

“Mai… Mai Dong? Mai Dong? Mai Dong?”

“Yeah, yeah? I’m here.”

“I found it… I found it!” Tang Yue yelled. “I freaking found that damn map! Its name is zhd… dytg!”