Cat and Rose - Cat & Rose - Chapter 53 - Reappearing Yesterdays (2)

Chapter 53 – Reappearing Yesterdays (2)

After returning to the Expeditioner, everyone fell silent. At this moment, what they needed the most was a biologist, so that at the very least they would be able to deduce hypotheses regarding the structure of these living organisms.

Reports from every ground team demonstrated that the surface of the planet was essentially a big iron plate. If not for the spectral analysis that showed that this planet was made up of complex elements and terrain structures, they would have believed that the entire planet was made up of those detestable purple things. Mr Colonel even expressed that he felt annoyed just from seeing the colour purple.

Without the support of human intelligence, scientific research work was done entirely by Lucia. She analysed the components of the air—apart from all locations being suitable for human survival, there were no other noteworthy aspects about it.

“At the very least, we should collect a sample to bring back to the Voyager. We definitely can investigate ways to take apart its components.” Someone analysed the situation.

This was also the most difficult problem. Extracting samples had to be done through violent means, but once they used violent means to destroy the plants, the plants would immediately melt into highly corrosive liquid, unable to be withstood by any material they knew of.

The animals and plants they needed samples of, and even the entire surface of the planet, were covered in these things. If they needed to anchor in this excellent environment, this was a danger they absolutely needed to overcome.

Lucia was running, analysing possible solutions, but the things that appeared onscreen were very strange—they seemed to be a barrage of illogical, garbled characters.

The Colonel was highly dissatisfied. “When it comes to these things, AIs are still incomparable to real people.”

After that short discussion, they decided to land again tomorrow, attack the surface with heat weapons, then capture a few animals from the river to bring back to the Voyager.

No matter what, although the situation was not too optimistic, the fact that they could find a planet appropriate for human survival was a monumental event. Even if they did not gain any findings tomorrow, they could still return to the Voyager and handover the exploration mission to the professional team of scientists.

The atmosphere livened up once more. They talked uninhibitedly, full of passion, conversing about a series of beautiful imagery on Earth such as the forests, skylarks, roses, and believed these things could appear once more on this planet’s environment that was tailored for carbon-based life.

This planet’s rotation period was around thirty hours. When nighttime descended, the orange and red twilight glow interweaved with the dark purple sky, then fell downwards in the end. The sky’s canopy transformed into pitch black, its stars glittering beautifully.

Ling Yi was writing in his diary. It was a habit he always maintained these past years. Even if the voyaging days were dull and uneventful, he would still write down how today’s training went, or copy down a beautiful poem he read. Without realising, it had almost become as thick as the spaceship’s voyage log.

When he closed the diary, he gazed at the starry sky outside the window.

Very soon, he would be able to go back to see Lin Si.

When he left so suddenly that day, was Lin Si angry at himself? Even so, he did so many things these past few years and became a very good person, so even if Lin Si was angry, he would probably still forgive him in the end, right?

He opened a silver box on his desk. Inside the box were many things—most were small mineral rocks.

The most among them were large and small diamond rocks, bright and dazzling. They were picked up from a diamond planet they passed by once. The Colonel said these things could be easily found anywhere in the universe, but their value on Earth was priceless.

He said, “If you grew up on Earth, when you propose to a girl, you would take out a diamond ring to prove your sincerity. The bigger the diamond on the ring, the better, otherwise girls will slap you in the face with roses.”

Hm, perhaps these things represented sincerity because they were very hard—and so Ling Yi collected more of them.

Among the rest, the one he liked the most was a translucent, blue opal, which would refract a rainbow, prismatic halation under the light.

Apart from those, there were also various kinds of pretty rocks—all were gifts he planned to give to Lin Si after returning to the Voyager. There was nothing much in outer space, apart from these little rocks that were considered pretty. He shook the box, and in that instant the variegated lights glimmered, just like the treasure chests in fairy tales that could be found in sunken ships in the deep sea.

Ling Yi closed the box, satisfied, then noticed that he was smiling. He patted his face, and discovered it was slightly warm. Not only that, whenever he thought of Lin Si, his heart would beat faster, like it had already become instinctual for him.

After daydreaming with his head in the clouds, he burrowed into his blanket, closing his eyes, and felt like he would certainly dream a good dream, about things like the Voyagers or Lin Si.

But reality was not as beautiful as his imagination. The dream he dreamt was dark, humid, and cold.

There were no concrete things that happened, he was only walking through a spread of darkness. Beneath his feet was a sticky substance, just like that purple planet. In his ears he could hear the ringing of countless cries; he started to run, but the incessant crying seemed to follow him like a shadow, as if they emitted from inside his body.

For an instant, his heart clenched tightly, feeling as if he was being observed by someone.

Ling Yi’s heart thumped erratically due to this unease, so he abruptly opened his eyes.

—He saw Lucia standing next to his bed, staring at himself.

Not only was she staring, she was also crying. On that completely expressionless face, tears were rolling endlessly from the pair of blue eyes, which made her look very, very sorrowful.

“Lucia?” Ling Yi sat up from his bed and asked her, “Are you okay?”

Lucia simply stared at him, and then slowly shook her head.

“Is there something wrong with your program?”

Lucia gazed at him, completely silent.

“It’s alright, don’t cry…” Ling Yi carefully touched her tearful face. “Do you need me to reboot you?”

Lucia retreated back a few steps, then suddenly said, “I’m sorry.”

Her tone was still flat without any accentuation. Then, her hologram fluctuated several times and vanished into the air.

“Lucia?” Ling Yi got out of bed, hastily draped a jacket over himself, then ran to the master control room.

On the command window there were still a bunch of illegible numbers rolling. Interspersed in between them were startling red error reports.

He took a deep breath and inputted the reboot command.

No response.

Lucia crashed.

He contemplated for a moment and was about to cut the power source, but he suddenly heard a large movement in the depths of the corridor outside. Someone opened their room door, fell over, and was currently vomiting.

He headed over there to ask whether that fellow crew member needed help.

“Don’t come over!” When he reached halfway through the corridor, that person noticed him and shouted.

His voice was very hoarse, very muddled.

“Don’t come near, go back to your room and close the door.” The moment he finished speaking, he was struck with a bout of coughing that tore his heart and lungs. Beside him was a shockingly large pool of blood.

Hearing such a large commotion, the people who were still sleeping all woke up. Someone asked through their door, “What happened?”

Ling Yi’s pupils suddenly enlarged.

“Don’t open your doors,” he said. Right after, he took out his bracelet, then ran back to the master control room while dialling the Colonel’s emergency contact.

The Colonel’s room was not in the same corridor, so he slept quite well. When he was woken up, his voice still had a lazy slur to it. “What is it?”

“Lucia crashed, I’m trying to reboot it.” Ling Yi’s words were swift. “Dempsey’s vomiting blood. It looks serious, like a virus infection.”

—Dempsey was the person who had his protective clothing melted by the unknown organism. As his protective clothing was no longer whole, he immediately returned to the small spacecraft and accepted a strict full-body disinfection.

The Colonel jerked up; his voice immediately sounded more awake. “Stay put in the master control room. Don’t go near Dempsey.”

The call was cut. The Colonel activated the full-cabin broadcast, “All crew members please pay attention. Activating orange warning, all members are forbidden from leaving their rooms. If you discover abnormalities in your physical condition, immediately report to me.”

The broadcast was played thrice; everyone heard it.

Ling Yi cut Lucia’s power source expressionlessly, and then reconnected it. Everything was normal while the Lucia system began to load. The loading interface still depicted the same golden-haired, jade-eyed female knight in platinum armour, with one hand raising a torch, the other hand gripping a long sword.

He had never seen an illness so vicious before. Dempsey must have been infected with something on this planet. Just now, when Ling Yi looked at him, his face was unbelievably white, and that pool of blood was not a bright red, but rather a very deep, dark colour.

They went through with the strictest full body disinfection that could be done on the ship. Dempsey and him, the Colonel, as well as their entire team had been in close contact. If only exposing your arms in the air could result in infection, then he himself would not be safe from it either.

Going back a million steps, the spaceship’s interior was fully sealed, but because they landed and opened the cabin door, the air from the planet would definitely have rushed into the ship. If the virus was in the air, then nobody could have escaped it.

But at this point, there was no purpose in panicking. They could only hope the virus was not that contagious, or the virus was not as strong.

After a while, the Colonel messaged him.

“How are you? The situation isn’t too good right now. Eight people have low fevers and three have headaches.”

“I’m still good,” replied Ling Yi.

“I also feel a bit unwell. Fuck, I don’t know if it’s a psychological reaction or not,” said the Colonel.

Without waiting for his reply, the Colonel sent another message, “Dempsey told me that he feels like his organs are corroding and he’ll die soon.”

Corroded internal organs, dark-coloured blood—just like that animal after it was killed.

Ling Yi replied, “Lin Si said the strongest viruses are like this. It can directly dissolve human flesh.”

“So the same way as the Berlin virus,” said the Colonel. “Back then, it was truly hell on earth. I hope it won’t be like that for us.”

As they spoke, Lucia’s reboot succeeded. She looked completely normal.

“Hello, Lucia.”

“Hello, Ling Yi, “ she replied.

“Can you assess the current situation?”

“Please wait.”

Lucia was operating normally. She grabbed the surveillance footage to proceed with assessment of the current situation.

“Assessment complete. Confirming appearance of Level S abnormality. Currently operating medical robots to proceed with sample analysis for Mr Dempsey, proceed with full-body assessment for all members of the crew. Please wait.”

The progress bar moved slowly. Over an hour later, results finally showed, “Analysis complete. Appearance of unknown virus, danger level: extremely dangerous. Recovery solution: none. Safe crew members: cannot be determined. The only suggestion: all members undergo cryogenic freezing, I will lead the Expeditioner through the subspace, return to the original planet and await the Voyager’s assistance.”

Ling Yi asked, “Can cryogenic freezing ensure virus dormancy?”

Lucia said, “Unknown.”

“Thanks.” Ling Yi passed all his findings to the Colonel.

What Lucia meant was that everyone had the possibility of infection, and moreover, the danger level of this virus was very high. Cryogenic freezing was the only way, but it also could not certainly prevent death. In the event that the low freezing temperature did not allow this virus to lie dormant, then the situation would remain extremely pessimistic.

After all, cryogenic freezing was useless in delaying the deaths of patients infected with the Berlin virus, while this unknown virus did not look any weaker.

Ling Yi looked at Lucia’s surveillance footage.

He saw Dempsey vomiting out more and more blood. His entire body laid in the pool of blood, flattened, his breathing difficult and weak. He also saw some people beginning to cough out a mouthful of blood, then another mouthful, their expressions distorted in pain.

The Colonel was in his room, looking at his slightly high body temperature, his expression grave.

Hell was about to be replayed. After escaping the Berlin virus, they could not escape the virus of distant planets.

“Lucia…” Ling Yi’s voice trembled slightly. “Is there any equipment here? I want to measure my body temperature.”

*

The author has something to say:

I was too tired yesterday qwq

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