December 2033, Rocket City, Sazhou, Bright Nation
Michael had been commissioned to launch a spacecraft toward the edge of the Solar System. He named it VESSEL—the Great Ship.
It was headed toward Orion, the direction from which the high-energy laser beam had come.
The high-energy laser seemed to be aimed not at Earth, but at Lingshen Star in the asteroid belt. Could it be charging Lingshen Star from an immense distance?
Michael and Daphne, both devoted to science, refused to believe it. If they believed aliens could charge Lingshen Star from so far away, they might as well believe that gods really lived on Lingshen Star.
Science was science, even though no scientific theory was correct forever.
Take evolution, for example. It was one of the most successful scientific hypotheses of the past century, yet in recent years, advances in modern genetics and gene science had challenged it like never before.
Studies showed that biological evolution involved the transmission and alteration of genotypes across generations, not the gradual adaptation to the environment described by Darwin.
Put simply, ape genes could only evolve into apes. The transformation of apes into Homo sapiens had been caused by genetic mutations, not by changes brought about through adapting to the environment.
So what had caused the apes' genes to mutate?
Could it really be, as some scientists claimed, that the organic matter and life forms on Earth had come from outer space, and that the famous bursts of biological evolution, as well as the mutations that had produced Homo sapiens, had all originated with comets?
Daphne realized she had gotten off track. She would have to ask Irene about it another time.
Using Earth's orbital motion for triangulation, she had determined the position of the unknown energy source in the sky. It lay on