Chapter 106:
People quickly gathered in front of Building 874.
During the previous exploration, Jiang Yang had some impression of Building 874.
It was a square platform over one meter high, topped with a semicylinder with a radius of about 3.5 meters and a height of two meters.
This shape was certainly a bit strange, but compared to the other buildings in the floating city, it was quite ordinary. Although the astronauts conducted a lot of detection on it, they did not pay more attention to it than to the other buildings.
At this moment, Astronaut No. 7, who had discovered the anomaly, was standing next to this building.
Jiang Yang looked at Building 874 carefully again, but couldn’t see any anomaly at all.
Once everyone had gathered, Astronaut No. 7 bent down solemnly and pointed to the joint between the semicylinder and the square platform: “There’s a gap here. It seems that the semicylinder on top and the platform below are not one piece.”
Jiang Yang was slightly stunned.
The buildings in the floating city had a very important feature. That was, no matter what shape they were, they appeared completely seamless, with no traces of joints or connections.
But Building 874 had a gap?
Jiang Yang leaned in for a close observation, and sure enough, he saw a nearly imperceptible gap at the joint that was impossible to notice without careful inspection.
The astronauts exchanged glances and fell into silent contemplation.
Why was this building so special? What did this gap mean?
A moment later, Tong Zheng finally made a decision: “Try moving it.”
Several astronauts stepped forward and tried together to lift the semicylinder, but they failed.
“Try blowing it up.”
A block of high explosive was attached to it and exploded with a boom. The smoke dispersed quickly in the vacuum, and the strange building remained unchanged.
Casings ejected rapidly, and hundreds of bullets struck it like a gale of rain, but still no changes occurred.
It seemed that, apart from having a gap, it was no different from the other buildings.
Jiang Yang looked at it carefully, and his peripheral vision inadvertently swept over the passage they had come from. Instantly, something flashed in his mind, making him freeze for a moment.
“It has another anomaly.”
Jiang Yang controlled his breathing: “If this semicylinder on top can be removed, then it—from its size—it’s the only one among all these buildings that can pass through that passage.”
At this moment, even Tong Zheng’s pupils contracted instantly, his voice full of solemnity: “You suspect it’s a spaceship?”
If it was a spaceship, then when this underground base was operating normally and everything around was enveloped in a negative matter field, wouldn’t this spaceship almost certainly have the ability to resist the influence of the negative matter field?
If they could figure out the secret of this ability, wouldn’t it mean that in the next life, they too would have hope of creating this material, thereby gaining the ability to enter this underground base?
Of course, this was just speculation, just a possibility. Even if they figured out the secret of this material, whether they could replicate it was highly questionable—more likely, they wouldn’t even figure out what material it was. But it contained hope nonetheless!
As long as there was a glimmer of hope, it was already precious enough, worth all the astronauts, including Jiang Yang, risking their lives for!
“If there is a vehicle in this floating city that those aliens could use to enter and exit, then overall, this semicylinder is the most likely candidate.”
3.5-meter diameter, 2-meter height, about 9 meters long, total internal volume around 40 cubic meters—roughly a small spaceship. But perhaps those aliens were small in size too?
In any case, it met the conditions to be a spaceship.
Tong Zheng nodded, and the astronauts gathered again in front of this semicylinder, bringing over all the detection equipment they had this time and testing it carefully one by one.
The initial testing yielded no valuable information. It was only when an astronaut connected the electric current detection equipment to this semicylinder that they finally made a discovery.
“Its resistance is zero! It’s a superconductor!”
The astronauts’ gazes all turned to the equipment, and they clearly saw this testing result.
Resistance zero? Superconductor? This characteristic had never been seen on the other buildings.
Exchanging a glance with Tong Zheng, Jiang Yang felt his heart pounding wildly.
If this semicylinder creation was really a spaceship that could pass through that passage, and it also had superconductor properties, did that mean… that the superconductor was the key to penetrating that omnipresent negative mass field?
In any case, it had this possibility and was worth attempting!
This was their first major discovery since entering the floating city!
Subsequent testing further confirmed the authenticity of this information. At this point, it was undoubtedly confirmed that the material constituting this semicylinder was a superconductor.
Silently noting this discovery, the astronauts temporarily ended this exploration and withdrew together. When they returned again, they brought a large amount of supplies, even set up a temporary camp with temperature control, circulation, and pressurization functions, and brought large amounts of oxygen, water, and food.
Keeping company with these strangely shaped buildings, the astronauts stationed here, repeatedly researching and testing all the buildings until they confirmed no more anomalies could be found.
By now, five full days had passed, and six days had passed since the annihilation of human civilization.
After performing the final testing on the last building, Tong Zheng slowly straightened up.
He knew it was time to withdraw.
The astronauts took all the supplies and equipment, except for one thing.
That giant hydrogen bomb with a yield of 2 million tons of TNT.
Climbing along the rope to the passage end, Jiang Yang turned to look at the floating city where he had stayed for five days, then turned and left with his astronaut comrades.
Walking silently all the way, it took over an hour, and people exited this passage, which testing showed was constructed about 300,000 years ago.
Not only this passage, but even that underground spherical cavity was constructed about 300,000 years ago. But the age of that floating city could not be determined, because human equipment could not obtain any information from them.
But presumably, since this passage and underground cavity were both constructed about 300,000 years ago, that floating city was probably from the same era.
300,000 years ago, humans on Earth were probably still living like beasts, eating raw meat and drinking blood. And at that time, an alien civilization with unknown super technology had arrived in the solar system and left behind this creation here.
After silently existing for 300,000 years, it suddenly activated and caused the extinction of the entire civilization.
