The Record of Unusual Creatures

Without the artificial atmosphere, Hao Ren could not hear the sound of the giant machine running under his feet in the vacuum, but he could see the lights, which lit up one after another, on the instrument panel and the falling frost from the roof and pipes. He knew he had successfully restarted the machine. He pressed his hand on the icy wall feeling the vibration, which went from weak to strong, coming from the depths of the building. Then the quake began to weaken again, which meant the machine was running smoothly now.

“I can’t believe that this thing still works,” Lily said, sticking her tongue out. “I thought the ice had frozen it.”

Hao Ren did not say anything, just carefully studying the various indicators on the instrument panels and the prompts popping up from the small screens. He was not familiar with this system, and he did not know how the machine would run after being left redundant for a millennium. He was worried that the startup process would not be smooth. Fortunately, it was not difficult to figure out the prompts on the instrument panels. Considering that this was a long voyage, after a few generations, the crew might not be able to retain the complete flight knowledge. So the designer of this giant spaceship had made the control system easy to understand and operate. The machines were mostly automatic, and the parts that required manual operation had clear and concise instructions.

As the vibrations subsided, the main reactor and the generator seemed to be functioning normally. The various instrument in the control room began to light up one after another; the busy flashing lights showed the restart and self-diagnostic progresses of different apparatus. A rectangular silver-white metal panel rose from the central console. The panel displayed the states of various running units. “Main generator restarted. Ecological computer begins to reboot. Emergency system is taking over the accumulative data. System error. Emergency system’s accumulated data is deleted. Transferring to the special process. Reboot ecological computer into beta mode…”

When the ecological computer rebooted from hibernation, Hao Ren found the reset function of the local ecosystem on the console. He pressed the button. A new window popped up on the screen. “Checking the central control station status… Serious error! No atmospheric pressure detected! Multiple leakages found! The central control station initiates the subzone-isolation process. The atmosphere is being reconstructed. All personnel evacuates to the nearest sealed compartment immediately. Repeating. All personnel evacuates to the nearest sealed compartment immediately.”

A series of automatic procedures were being executed. In the peripheral vision, Hao Ren saw the outer doors were closing one by one, and the ventilation system of each compartment began to run. He felt a very soft breeze and pressure on his skin; the atmosphere was recovering.

They were in the central control station. It seemed that the ecosystem of this place was independent of the outside, so in the case that the atmosphere of the whole city disappeared, the atmospheric pressure in the control station would recover within one minute. The MDT checked the composition of the atmosphere; though it was not the same as Earth’s, these super humans here could still breathe smoothly. So they turned off their life-support collars temporarily.

Lily breathed a sigh of relief. “Now at least we don’t have to yell to each other through the radio,” she said.

“I’m looking for something like the computer log,” Hao Ren said as he fiddled with the console. “I’m trying to figure out what was going on here at the time… but the log files seem to have been destroyed,” he said.

A soft system prompt suddenly sounded. The eco computer finally completed its self-diagnostic processes and booted into beta mode from hibernation. Immediately after that, it began to check the state of the city inside the spaceship and of course, it also sounded the panicky alarm at the same time.

A series of red warning lights lit up on the central control station. The panicky alarms sounded loud in the newly restored atmosphere. Hao Ren heard a severely distorted synthetic voice screaming its warning in the air: “Serious Failure! Urban ecosystem shutdown! Serious failure! Urban ecosystem shutdown! Second-tier and above crew, please go back to your positions immediately. Second-tier and above crew, please go back to your positions immediately.”

Hao Ren turned off these irritating alarms and began to restore the artificial atmosphere of the city. When he tried to initiate it, an unexpected error message popped up: “Fatal error. No atmosphere circulating pumps and storage facilities detected.”

“What’s happening?” Vivian asked, puzzled.

“It seems that two especially important components are missing,” Hao Ren replied as his brows pulled together. He kept fiddling with the control panel on the console before he found the way to switch the monitoring windows. Some new monitoring windows of the critical facilities popped up on the screen. He discovered in the image a massive gap between the piles of pipes and machinery on one of the displays. Someone had removed something.

More monitoring visuals popped up. There was more than one similar situation.

He let the control station computer check all the systems one by one. A series of jaw-dropping error messages popped up:

“Fatal error. No water recycling unit found.”

“Fatal error. No thermostat and related servos found.”

“Fatal error. No signal detected in B-2 to C-12 keel mechanical warehouses.”

“More than half of the important facilities have been removed,” Hao Ren said. He dragged the various surveillance screens to the center of the main display. “The ship’s life-support system is almost an empty shell,” he said.

While saying, he continued to fiddle on the console and accidentally touched a seemingly irrelevant small button. A panel next to the main display suddenly lit up. The audio and visual appeared on the panel interrupted him.

It was the image of an old man in a commander’s uniform; his chest was full of medals and emblems, the face exuded a natural aura of authority—the old man was none other than the ice sculpture on the chair before the console. It was a recording, which the old man had made at the last moment of his life.

“Message code… Forget it. This is the Terra Firma. I am Lord Geern Shiron. The shutdown instruction countdown has begun. The ship’s ecosystem will be down after ten minutes. Let me repeat the distribution plan we have agreed earlier: the atmospheric circulation pump will be assigned to the Long Night, the atmospheric storage facility will be assigned to the Eversong, the thermostatic controller and its servo unit will be assigned to the Dawnlight, the water circulation and purification unit and all the mechanical warehouses are dedicated to our king. May he and his Royal Throne spaceship be safe forever. According to the plan, I have blown the ‘gas’ into the atmospheric circulation pump, so please wait twenty-four hours after this message is sent until the purification pump completes the filtration and recovery of the atmosphere.”

The old man who looked emotional in the video took a few deep breaths, and he calmed down again.

“The propulsion unit of the ship will be retained and will continue to follow the fleet until all systems break down. In the name of Duke Geern Shiron, the lord of the Terra Firma, I now announced that after the death of my ship, all the property of the ship, including the propulsion unit, core reactor, and everything in the hull would be returned to the kingdom. If the kingdom is in trouble, please take the spaceship apart by removing the remaining components. This message is over.”

The small display dimmed, and the short message ended. Hao Ren and the others looked at each other, and no one said a word. Lily broke the silence. “Did they just remove the parts on their spaceship and give to others?” she asked.

“These ships have a limited life span. It is already a miracle for them to have flown so far until today with their level of technology,” the MDT said slowly. “The second half of the voyage is dangerous. Various system failures are common and difficult to solve. As long as the mass extinction caused by the deicide is still going on, it is impossible for them to stop and rest. The only solution is to put together the usable parts to at least ensure the ecosystem of the remaining ships is intact.”

Hao Ren shook his head. “But the capacity of the ecosystem has dropped; it could not support more population,” he said.

“So those who were chosen to sacrifice themselves chose euthanasia,” Nangong Wuyue said, biting her lip. She did not know what to make of the incident. She thought of the frozen city outside, and those who wore fine suits and dresses and died at the banquet. “How long have they been struggling to live using this way?” she asked.

Hao Ren shook his head. “They persevered as long as they could, but they could not make it until our arrival. Nolan had sent out a message to all the arks earlier, but there was no response,” he said.

Everyone was silent, feeling a deep regret in them. The MDT suddenly said, “Wait a second. There should be survivors!”