wandering planet

Appearing in front of the Phoenix is ​​a huge silver-gray space station, which is wider and longer than the general sense of the space station, composed of a truss structure and a building block structure, like a delicate and beautiful model.

A large white bird with outstretched wings is engraved on the surface coating of the space station, which is the symbol of the egret space station.

Below it, the planet Apple, which is covered by a thin atmosphere, emits a faint silvery-white brilliance under the light of the star, because its atmosphere is full of silver elements. This is a wonderful planet covered by silver.

And beyond the egret, what they can see is an extremely wide star field, countless star clusters and galaxies blooming brightly in the distant black deep sky, and the stars are constantly burning every moment.

There is the place where the most advanced civilization known in Marseilles exists, the Arlans star field.

The docking of Phoenix with Egret took some time.

Due to the incompatibility of the docking systems of the two parties, Egret Space Station had to use the data left by the Ekaterina and the Flying Scene to readjust the data of the docking system.

Everyone on the Phoenix was very nervous, only Fei Lian showed a melancholy expression.

"I can't go to the space station," he said. "I can only move inside the Phoenix."

Everyone: "...!!!"

They get along with him normally every day and completely forget about it.

After several hours, the docking port was finally opened.

All members of the Phoenix passed through the clean cabin first, and then walked to the cabin door.

There were two people standing outside the slowly opening hatch, one was a young woman in a space station uniform, and the other was also a young woman, but she only wore a very simple dress.

"Amber, you can't enter the Phoenix... No, it should be said, you can't enter the Phoenix. You can only move within the range of the Egret space station." The young staff member is persuading the girl named Amber.The girl had a pair of bright green eyes, and from the moment the Phoenix hatch opened, she had been staring at Fei Lian standing behind Lin Ni and the others.

"He's also an AI." She pointed at Fei Lian unceremoniously, "He can't enter Bailu either."

Fei Lian nodded: "Hi, I'm Phoenix's AI, Fei Lian."

"Hello, I'm Egret's AI, and my name is Amber." The girl scratched her chin and asked him, "Then we can only stand at the cabin door and chat?"

"I think so." The staff member said, "Okay, Amber, you can chat here. I have to take the rest of the people to the observation room. Please pay attention to the principle of confidentiality and don't talk nonsense. Also, change Your bad habit, don't try to steal data from the Phoenix."

Amber shrugged and stepped out of the way.She curiously and earnestly observed the six people passing by her. Jiang Che stared into her eyes, and suddenly discovered an incredible thing: Fei Lian said that all artificial intelligences with human forms will also have a pair of Dark red eyes, this is the sign of AI.

But the girl in front of her didn't.Her eyeballs are a very bright and transparent green.

Realizing that Jiang Che was looking into her own eyes, Hu Po pointed to her eyeballs and said, "I'm not an ordinary artificial intelligence."

"Before the Egret space station was restarted, she was used in military reconnaissance and combat artificial intelligence." The staff responsible for leading them added, "She is unwilling to change the color of her eyes, and we have nothing to do."

Everyone waved goodbye to Hu Po and Fei Lian.The two AIs stood at the edge of their guarded space and started chatting.

Where Amber was out of sight, the staff member half-covered her mouth and said in a low voice, "Except for the station master, no one can convince Amber. She is a very powerful military artificial intelligence with strong lethality and is very similar to human beings." , has its own emotional and moral system, which is very complicated. If she refuses to change, she won’t change, it’s okay anyway, we just hope not to annoy her at will.”

From her words, Linney keenly captured the key information: "Emotional and moral system? This is very similar to Fei Lian on our ship."

"Of course they are similar." The woman smiled, "We created a humanoid AI like Hu Po based on the information left by the Phoenix AI production team. Strictly speaking, she and Fei Lian have the same mother, an artificial intelligence expert. Arbitrary."

Jiang Che's heart skipped a beat, and he couldn't help but look back.

The corridor was winding, and he could no longer see the cabin door, nor could he hear any conversations.

He didn't know if Fei Lian knew about it, or if Amber would tell him on his own initiative - in this world, he had a partner of the same origin, maybe even more than one.

How similar it is to the continuation of human life.

The interior of Egret Space Station is roughly divided into two areas: the working area and the living area.

The living area was at the other end, and they were led into the work area of ​​the space station.

However, since they are not from the space station, even if they enter the work area, they cannot visit the key parts.

"The room we just passed is our temperature control system. The temperature in Bailu's room has been maintained at a suitable 24 to 27 degrees for a long time. A few years ago, due to excessive homesickness, the station master adjusted the temperature control system for about two weeks. The indoor temperature of Egret Space Station dropped to about ten degrees. He even thought about adjusting it to below zero, but was rejected by Amber.” The woman in uniform introduced everyone neatly as she walked, “The station master said that he wanted to make Egret Space Station It is a pity that the four seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter will be rotated in turn within a year, but his proposal was unanimously rejected by all the crew members, even Amber did not agree."

"You look happy," Linney said.

The woman smiled slyly: "Of course. Amber told us that if the station master really adjusts the temperature, it means that in a year, we will have a high temperature of 35 degrees for [-] days, and another [-] days It's going to be ten to minus ten degrees. That's horrific."

They passed the propulsion system and the robotic arm system, turned around the notice board with Cicero's photo, and entered a new aisle.

Although there is a photo of Cicero on the bulletin board, under the photo, there are densely packed small sheets of paper. If you look carefully, they are all comments on him, from "Please don't sing suddenly at the meeting." To "The boiled potatoes in the cafeteria are too bad to eat, you can't ignore our protest just because the cook is your lover".

Song Junxing was so curious that he kept looking at the notice board.

"Cicero's lover is the cook?" He read one sheet and then the other, "but here it says the doctor is his lover. How many lovers does he have?"

"There is only one, the doctor." The staff replied, "But the cook is also the doctor's lover, so someone made a mistake."

Song Junxing: "...is the interpersonal relationship in your space station so complicated?"

"The station master thinks this should be called freedom. Free love, free love. We are in the universe, these things are not important at all. To be honest, our real lovers should be the starships in the Arlans star field, and you There are countless stars that can be seen or not." She said with a smile, "Once the starship appears, no matter where it is or what it is doing, we must immediately rush to our posts, especially the station master."

She pointed to a huge warehouse that everyone was passing by: "This is Bailu's environmental control and life support system, and it is also a key place that no one except Hu Po and the station master has the right to enter."

She kept talking all the way, and everyone listened very carefully.The space station is more complicated than they imagined. It is like an independently operating city above Apple, with countless machines and systems supporting Egret itself.

Walking up a long and narrow spiral staircase, their goal is ahead.

"The station master is in the observation room." The staff who brought them here used a secret order to open the silver-white sliding door, "Very lucky, you will have the honor to see the scene of the return of the starship in the Arlans star field. This type of starship is also extremely rare in our 30-year observations."

The observation room on the top of the space station is very wide, and a huge base is placed on the central floor. On the base is a slowly rotating star domain model.

With just one glance, Lin Ni immediately recognized that the three-dimensional model of this star field was very similar to the model of the Milky Way in his brother's room.

"The station master is very good at making three-dimensional models of galaxies. This is the model of the Arlans star field, but we have not successfully observed the central part, so it is not complete yet."

Following her guidance, there is a completely transparent screen on the top of the model, and the stars seem to be hanging above the head, truly radiating light unscrupulously.

The sliding door of the observation room closed slowly, Tang Mo staggered suddenly, and Pierre quickly grabbed her.

She was startled by the ground beneath her feet.

The moment the sliding door closed, the ground of the observation room also became transparent.

As if the Egret space station below the observation room had disappeared, they were in a glass room that was completely transparent on all sides—no, not even glass.They are suspended in the universe, even in the center of thousands of stars.

Fear and tension slowly dissipated, replaced by unspeakable ecstasy and excitement.

"Welcome to the egret's observation room."

Cicero's voice came from another direction of the star field model.

"This is the best observation room in Marseille so far. We can achieve a truly comprehensive observation without missing any details."

Linney couldn't help but took two steps in his direction.

The model that my brother once kept in his room with great care, the model of the Milky Way that he loves and that he often looks at non-stop, should have been made by this Cicero.

"Cicero..." he finally said, "I'm Linney."

"I know." The man standing in front of the console only showed a black silhouette, and he didn't even look back. "You must have never seen the starship in the Arlans star field."

"Is it here?" Jiang Che turned his head and looked around.

"One o'clock." A voice came from another corner of the observation room, "There are 30 seconds left."

Cicero turned his head and asked, "Where's Amber?"

"I'm chatting with Phoenix's AI, it doesn't affect the record..."

--"coming!!!"

As soon as the words fell, countless bright silver fragments suddenly burst out from the constellation of stars at one o'clock, and they all rushed towards the Egret Space Station!

As the distance shortened, they quickly discovered that it was not fragments, but extremely thin silver metal, like the lightest feather or confetti, passing by in front of the observation room.

Jiang Che was so surprised that he couldn't speak—it couldn't be a starship at all!

Although the quantity of these thin silver metals is huge, judging by the size, even one person cannot carry them.

But in the next second, he knew that he might be wrong.

Just as they passed in front of Egret Space Station, the countless silver metals suddenly slowed down. They gathered together at a speed indistinguishable from the naked eye, and finally formed a round sphere, as if deliberately displaying it, passing slowly In front of Egret space station.

Everyone in the observation room held their breath.

The sphere is very close to the observation room, and they can see the extremely smooth surface of the sphere without any trace of connection, and even see the shadow of the egret space station reflected on the mirror-like surface.

The huge perfectly round sphere continued to move, and finally left the monitoring range of the Egret space station.And the moment it left the monitoring range, it split into countless slender silver metal pieces in an instant at a speed that was impossible to observe.

They are like a large piece of light snow that suddenly appeared in the black abyss, spinning and dancing, quickly drilled into the range of the Arlans star field, and disappeared into the star cluster.

All that happened in just a moment.

The starship appears, until the starship leaves.

None of the guests responded: "This is... a starship?"

"Yes, their starships." Cicero emphasized, "the starships of advanced civilizations."

"But... people? There are no people on it... No, it should be said that there are no living things or operating systems on it?" Linney felt a little confused, "The pieces are about the size of a surfboard, it's impossible... "

Cicero left the console and walked over to them.The light from the model reflected his face, which was the face of a middle-aged man, only the scars on his face were still clear and hideous like yesterday.

"This is the fourth time we have observed such a starship in 37 years. Amber named it 'Snowflake'." Cicero looked at them, "The advanced civilization in the Arlans star field far exceeds that of human beings. The understanding of the two words 'civilization' and 'technology'. We don't know the construction principle of 'snow flakes', and we don't know what is manipulating 'snow flakes'. We don't even know what the biological form of this advanced civilization is. What. Do they still have a physical body? Do they operate only on consciousness? We don't know anything."

He turned his head and pointed at the track that "Snowflake" had just passed by.

"They are deliberate. They deliberately chose this location to pass by, and deliberate to gather and then split in front of us." Cicero's voice was very low, "When we first observed the 'snowflake', we were not shocked, but felt Horror."