When Hao Ren emerged from the crack in the elevator shaft, he saw what was inside the hundred-kilometer-long interstellar spaceship, and it was an amazing sight.
He saw a huge inner space that was far beyond the reach of his eyes. In this space, there was a starship city. Countless buildings spread out on the ground, and the ground gradually rose in the distance, warped, and finally closed on the other side of the sky. The whole city was built in a closed, eggshell-like oval-shaped container. All the artificial land and building complexes were attached to the inner wall of the eggshell.
He looked in all directions, and a strange sense of dizziness made him dizzy. There was no sky here, and there was no strict distinction between up and down. The closed earth formed a spherical shell. No matter where he looked, he could see rows of buildings and huge and strange mechanical devices. Hao Ren looked back at the elevator shaft that he had passed through when he came down. He found that it was a metal pipe that ran through the entire spherical space. There were more than a dozen of such metal pipes lined up in parallel behind him, stretching out from a large building in the city and finally disappearing into another large inverted building on the opposite side. And halfway through these parallel metal pipes, there were many platforms and horizontal pipes suspended in the middle of the space. Obviously, this was the main transportation route.
And such "parallel metal pipe clusters" were not the only ones. When looking into the distance, Hao Ren saw from the faint silhouette that there were other metal pipes standing in the distance. They were like the bones of a monster, crisscrossing through the giant starship, maintaining the transportation route between the city and the outside world.
Vivian was the last to come out. She looked at the city in the spherical shell curiously and muttered to herself, "There's no air, it's quiet … but there's light."
The city was not completely dark, but it was not bright either. Between the silent buildings, there were remnants of the lighting system still operating. Countless lights flickered in every corner of the closed earth, shrouding the entire city in a faint light. At the end of the oval spherical space, there was also a particularly large thing. It was a cylindrical "mountain". It looked like a huge machine with a complex structure. The outer edge of the machine was a circle of orange-red light, like a heat sink. This layer of light was like the sunlight at dusk, bringing some light to the shimmering city.
But all these lights were far from bright. The internal system of the spaceship must be faulty. Whether it was the remaining lights in the city or the huge machine at the end of the spherical space, they were obviously not operating at full capacity. It was more like some kind of standby state.
"There's no sign of life." Hao Ren glanced at the readings sent by the MDT. Although the MDT was a portable personal data assistant, it did not have a strong scanning ability. Looking at the cold and dead place in front of him, he did not think that a bigger radar would be able to find any survivors in the city. "There's no atmosphere, no water, almost as cold as outer space, and there's excessive radiation … looks like everyone is dead."
Nangong Wuyue suddenly floated over and poked Hao Ren's arm with the tip of her tail. She pointed in a certain direction and said, "Everyone is dead."
Hao Ren looked in the direction where Nangong Wuyue was pointing and saw a humanoid creature floating in the air in the distance — the body of a human.
And when he looked closely, he found more bodies. These bodies were floating in the gaps between the city's buildings, and some had floated to the top of the spherical space. In this place where there was no up or down, strictly speaking, the "top" was the center of the enclosed space, which was very far from the outer wall. Countless bodies floated in the air, and most of them were mutilated. The ultra-low temperature made them fragile, and the slightest collision would shatter the bodies like breaking ice. The bodies that survived were probably the luckier ones. Most of them had probably turned into dust after countless collisions over a long period of time.
Hao Ren turned and floated to a building that was closer to him and 'landed' on the roof of a tall building. When he did not look up at the upside-down building, the strange illusion of being upside down was not so obvious. He noticed that there were also a few bodies floating around the building, so he went over to them to check on the situation.
"The facial features are similar to a standard Type I human. Light skin, long ears, slender bones, tall stature. We can't rule out the fact that they survived in space for a long time." Hao Ren examined the biological characteristics of the bodies like a professional coroner, and compared them with the biological pedigree on the data network. "Well preserved."
"There is no air here, and the temperature is ultra-low. The bodies will not rot and dry up. After turning into an ice sculpture, they will almost always maintain their appearance when they died," Nangong Sanba said as he took out a few delicate knives and metal needles from his toolbag, and cut the bodies to examine them. "Let me see if there is any information left."
Hao Ren looked up at the silent city of Shimmer, and guessed the cause of the tragic death of the ark's crew. "Was it an air leak that killed the crew? Or did the life-support system shut down for some other reason? "
"The airlock cabin we found earlier was faulty, but the outermost door of the airlock cabin is still closed, and the control system is operating normally," the MDT said. "This ship is too big. We may need a detailed scan of the entire hull to determine the cause of the accident. And there are more than a dozen ships out there, I'm afraid they are not in a better condition than here. "
Hao Ren nodded and connected to the communicator. "Nolan, release the detector and examine the hull of this giant ship. See if there are any air leaks or other fatal injuries."
"Nolan understood."
At this time, Nangong Sanba had already finished examining the first body. He seemed to have found something, and floated to the other bodies to examine. Nangong Wuyue asked curiously, "Brother, what did you find?"
"The cause of death of these people is not suffocation or hypothermia," Nangong Sanba put away his tools. "They died peacefully, and there are some residual chemicals in the frozen blood vessels, very like …"
Lily asked anxiously, "Very like what?"
"Very like they inhaled a lot of hallucinogens … or something else," Nangong Sanba said, pointing around. "Every body is like this."
"Hallucinogens?" Hao Ren looked surprised. "These people died of drugs?"
"Although that's what you mean, I think there's something wrong with your choice of words," Nangong Sanba's mouth twitched. "So far, I've only examined a few bodies here, I'm afraid they can't be used as evidence. Let's go further."
Hao Ren nodded and turned to float to the street in the distance.
Although this city was deep inside the spaceship, due to the size of the spaceship itself, the scale of the city was naturally unparalleled. There were a large number of buildings and a complete variety of facilities, wide streets, tall buildings, and if it were not for the closed artificial land, people would have forgotten the true face of the city.
They came to the depths of the city and soon found more bodies, and... something more strange.
They found a building with a beautiful round glass dome and a wide interior space. Judging from the style of decoration, it should be a special venue for a party. As there was a big hole in the outer wall of the building, Hao Ren and the others directly went through the hole and saw a shocking scene.
It seemed that there was a banquet here. In the huge venue, there were countless neatly arranged tables with sumptuous food on the tables. Although everything had been covered with a layer of frost, it was still obvious that this was a grand banquet. A large number of bodies filled the place, and they still maintained the appearance of the moment of death: sitting at the table, the men were wearing neat little suits, and the women were wearing bright and beautiful new dresses. Although they had been frozen into ice corpses, they still dressed up as if they were attending a banquet. In the corner of the hall, Hao Ren also saw the bodies of a few men in black long suits lying on a small table there. They had been frozen into one with the things around them, holding what looked like musical instruments in their hands: it seemed to be a small band.
The sumptuous table, the accompaniment of the band, and the men and women in formal attire. There had been a banquet here — before everyone died.
"I feel creepy." Nangong Wuyue rubbed her hands.
"I feel furry." Lily wagged her tail.
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