However, Lin Xi understood what Lina meant. Since this spacecraft could come here from Earth (judging from its intact appearance, it couldn't possibly have crash-landed here due to an inexplicable jump failure like the Apollo), its central computer must have records of its flight path, or at the very least, the coordinates of this planet.
However, upon seeing this aircraft, Lin Xi already had a vague guess in his mind.
Perhaps, just as those people say, this is indeed the destination of the lost Providence... planet AS192.
This speculation made Lin Xi feel a little down.
The words Professor Ando uttered when he suddenly went mad in the solitary confinement cell still weighed heavily on his chest like a boulder.
It's the Providence again...
Could it be that the ghost of the captain of the Providence, who disappeared into space with 250,000 people, has really traveled through 300 years and is still lingering on this strange planet?
Lin Xi's reason told him that this was impossible, but sometimes, a person's body is not only filled with reason.
"Dr. Lin Xi? Is...is something wrong?"
Schroederes' trembling voice forced Lin Xi to refocus his attention. He glanced at the young man beside him, whose face was deathly pale, clearly having been lost in thought because of Lin Xi's long silence.
"No, it's nothing."
Lin Xi shook her head.
He showed no sign of unease; forced by circumstances, he had unknowingly become the leader of the four, and he had to learn to stabilize the situation.
Lin Xi gripped the gun tightly in his hand as he walked forward down the corridor.
The lights were so bright that he was starting to feel uncomfortable. The Helios had been using up so much fuel to maintain the Covenant shield that he had almost gotten used to the unstable, dim light from the Level 2 energy source.
For the same reason, Lin Xi was also not used to the quietness here.
After all, the old equipment on the Sun God ship, which had been in service for hundreds of years, would always make noises here and there from time to time—while here, apart from the faint buzzing sound when it was first started, only the slow, hesitant footsteps of their group echoed in the narrow corridor.
They first went through a temporary passage used for emergency evacuation, then used a crowbar to push open an isolation door and entered the actual interior of the aircraft.
What appeared before Lin Xi and the others was a bright and smooth corridor. Because the spaceship itself was not horizontal, the corridor was tilted and went all the way down.
Some round hatches are embedded on both sides of the corridor.
Lin Xi tried to open them, but most of them were locked from the inside.
However, their original purpose can be seen from the metal badges on the hatches.
"Supplies storage and distribution room 1, supplies reserve room 2, supplies—damn, these people are really rich. Just how many supplies do they have in reserve?"
Schroederes repeated the words on the signs in a low voice, then asked in amazement.
No one answered his question. Lin Xi cautiously and slowly descended the sloping corridor, stopping every now and then to try to find some clues in the smooth, brand-new aircraft... some clues about why it was here.
In addition, he discovered that the materials and facilities of the entire aircraft were very sophisticated, but the style was that of the oldest era of exploration.
They found the elevator at the end of the corridor. Lin Xi glanced at the sign and then pressed the up arrow.
When they reached the other decks, the clean, cold scene they had seen on the storage deck finally changed.
There were many more miscellaneous items on the ground, and a white shoe with reflective material clearly belonged to a researcher who must have been in a panic when he ran through the corridor where Lin Xi and the others were now.
"...Otherwise, he wouldn't have lost his shoes while running around."
Lin Xi murmured.
Then he turned his gaze to a place further away.
There were some documents on the ground, but those electronic ink papers had completely broken down over the long years.
Now they look like nothing more than some grayish plastic film.
Then came the weapons, all of which were out of ammunition. A little further on... black stains appeared on the ground and walls.
Lin Xi's gaze lingered on the stains for a long time, his heart pounding faster and faster.
Because those stains, which had turned completely black... were actually bloodstains.
"What...what exactly happened here?"
Schroederes' voice trembled.
Lin Xi did not answer him.
They continued walking until they arrived at a row of open-air cryogenic hibernation chambers.
Upon seeing the situation inside, almost everyone let out a low, terrified gasp.
There are nearly a hundred cryogenic chambers in this aircraft. At a glance, the neatly arranged cryogenic chambers seem to stretch from one end of the aircraft to the other.
Compared to the hibernation chambers here, the hibernation chambers on the Apollo were simply rudimentary and unsightly.
Moreover, these cryogenic hibernation pods all contain people... or rather, corpses.
Indeed, the hundreds of people lying in the cryogenic hibernation pods had all turned into shriveled, elongated, and blackened mummies. Yet the vital signs monitors and terminal systems still glowed with a faint blue light—they had been working all along.
Lin Xi swayed slightly, feeling both nauseous and terrified.
But he eventually forced himself to calm down.
After looking around, he forced himself to endure the extreme discomfort and slowly walked to the middle of the hibernation pods.
He examined the mummies and the instruments in order.
The mummies' eye sockets were deeply sunken, and their lips were all wide open. However, due to the low temperature, all the hair and clothing on their bodies were perfectly preserved. Some of them still had clear tattoos on their skin, some still had wedding rings around their necks, and some still had photos next to their pillows, although the people in the photos had long since lost their features... All of this gave them an eerie, living aura, as if they would open their eyes and smile at Lin Xi at any moment.
The other three were already too scared to speak. Lin Xi calmed herself down and opened the work log of the cryogenic chamber.
The freezing began in 2275... This coincided with his inner guess, which was indeed the end of the Great Exploration Era, by which time the Providence had already disappeared into space.
All the cryogenic chambers were open in normal condition, and Lin Xi flipped through the pages one by one, searching for the information she wanted.
The first few dozen pages were filled with boring and tedious data, which seemed perfectly normal. However, in 2280, something unusual began to appear in the work log.
He discovered that people were starting to use emergency cryopreservation devices frequently to put some people into cryogenic hibernation, and soon after, some bizarre instructions began to appear in the work logs.
For example...
"Should the unfreezing period be adjusted from 2295 to 1,000,000?"
He looked at the words on the work log with a puzzled expression.
This adjustment was tantamount to sending everyone in the cryogenic chamber to their deaths, and of course, they are now dead.
Lin Xi attempted to find the source of the instruction, but he ultimately failed due to a lack of the key.
"You mean, these people were...were killed?"
Lina's voice trembled as she spoke, clearly terrified by the hundreds of living corpses that had been turned into mummies in the cryogenic chamber.
"Maybe... but that's too strange."
Lin Xi murmured.
"Such an instruction, which completely violates the basic human right to life, could never be successfully issued unless the underlying program is changed, let alone be adopted by the central computer."
Lin Xi looked around at the mummies around her.
Those mummies, whose jaws were pulled open due to the taut skin, resulting in their lips being wide open, now look as if each one is screaming silently.
And this scream has been going on for three hundred years.
Lin Xi felt terrible in his stomach; he felt like vomiting, and his body was cold.
There were a few moments when he almost wanted to give up the exploration and flee with his companions.
But even as he thought this, a voice deep within him seemed to be constantly reminding him—look again, look again, here is what you need, here is what you need… clues.
I am the captain of the Providence—
In a daze, Lin Xi seemed to hear Dr. Ando's ethereal, ghostly whispers in his ear once again.
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