The Record of Unusual Creatures

Panda Novel

Before returning to base, the Executors from the moon visited the data center and the antenna array, which were in construction, with Hao Ren in the lead.

The marvelous sight of the super high tech equipment astounded them.

“We never thought that we could resolve the threat of the Planet Devourer this way…” An Executor called 16-C looked at the tower complex before him, her voice filled with awe. “We always knew it was a living being, but no one dared to think about controlling a planet-sized monster… We weren’t even sure if it had any cognitive organ.”

“It obviously has that, and not just one. But, all of them were destroyed.” Hao Ren looked at the tower complex too. Rather than being awed like the Executors, he was, instead, inspecting the building. “We only came up with this solution after some research. The Devourer had already completely fused with your homeworld, and it couldn’t be removed. Killing it would have also caused a catastrophic effect against the planet, so the best course of action was to control it. This tower is a piece of long-range communication e+uipment, and it can transfer volumes of data beyond your imagination without any lag from one end of the galaxy to the other. Once received, the data will be transferred to the data processing center, and that’s comprised of the squarish complexes you saw earlier. Upon being converted to nerve impulses, the data will be transferred through the artificial nerves to various points within the mantle. These contact points are connected to the Devourer’s biological system, and with that, the massive being will fully be under our control.”

16-C was a short-haired and rather tall female who was blunt and direct. After she listened to Hao Ren’s explanation, she did not hide her concerns. “This method will indeed resolve the issue, but our people will still worry because our homeworld won’t be completely safe. The reason for its potential destruction is still around and only dormant. It is a hidden danger.”

Hao Ren understood the perfectly reasonable concern, and for these Executors who had fought against the First Born for thousands of years, they could not picture a “gentle First Born”. And as long as a First Born was on the planet, they would never be fully at peace.

However, Hao Ren did not mind it. He smiled. “Is this your opinion, or the opinion of your people?”

16-C nodded matter-of-factly. “It is my own as of now.”

“Sometimes we need to make tough choices,” Hao Ren said. “Rather than the planet totally collapsing on itself, this is the best outcome. I can guarantee that the ‘Devourer’ will always be under our control, and for the long term as well. You don’t have to worry about it going rogue.”

“…That will become a point of contention for many.” 16-C was a little helpless. “Our homeworld’s survival and demise will be in your hands. After this facility is completed, with just an order, you can easily destroy this planet.”

“And I can only say that your concerns are legitimate.” Facing such a sensitive question, Hao Ren could only be frank. “Any words won’t change the fact of the matter. This planet will indeed be under our control for the foreseeable future. We will be controlling it for a long time. It’s to ensure safety, and it will indirectly cause you some psychological distress. As for your concern, I can only ask you to look at the bigger picture. Even if we don’t control your planet via the Devourer, we have plenty of other ways to determine the life and death of this planet. But I won’t be trigger happy because I, too, am following a series of rules, and these rules dictate that I need to protect as well as aid a ‘good civilization’ like yours. Under most circumstances, I will not interfere.”

16-C frowned while she pondered what a “good civilization” meant. Besides, what were those “rules” that Hao Ren had mentioned? N-6, noticing that the atmosphere was getting awkward, finally spoke as she looked at Hao Ren, “I’m willing to trust you, even though I was wary at first…”

“Building trust requires time.” Hao Ren smiled. “We don’t need to force each other to grind any exalted reputation. As long as we can make sure that we’re neutral or friendly, that’s fine. As time passes, I believe you’ll realize that there are still friends you can trust in this cruel universe.”

16-C did not speak any further and nodded as she fell into deep thought. She then stared curiously at the bug-and-robot-like droids that were flying about and installing equipment on the tower before her.

That tower was the “long-range cognition array” antenna system, and once completed, it would be a few thousand meters tall and wide. It would be visible from space! A large amount of antenna gain along with the high-powered communication module could easily allow the building to receive any cognitive signals from the unmanned relays and transfer them to the cognition array’s three data centers. The droids were now setting up the basic frame of the antenna system, and beneath the frame, many artificial nerve cables were being connected while they ran preliminary diagnostics.

Before the construction even started, Hao Ren had contacted Zorm, who was busy creating new emoticons in CARS. After he found out that he would soon obtain a real body, Zorm was, of course, elated. Following that, he discovered the situation of his new body: its original owner was a First Born that had descended into madness and almost destroyed the civilization as well as ecosystem it was supposed to protect. However, Zorm did not mind all that. His only concern was the possibility that the once rotten body would leave any contaminants, but Hao Ren had already looked into the issue and assured Zorm that everything was safe. The crystals infused with the powers of the goddess of creation had totally killed the nervous system in the new body; the toxin could not be cleansed and was fatal to the original owner’s body. But for Hao Ren, there was no better “cleansing” than that.

As for requiring a long-distance connection to control the body, Zorm was also surprised when he first heard about it, nevertheless, the gentle and strong First Born had no objections. Having a new body was good enough news for him. Provided that the network was up to speed, whether the brain was part of the body or not was immaterial.

From then on, Zorm’s basis of life had become WIFI (no mistakes here.)

Hao Ren also briefed Zorm on Lily’s “cloud computing” idea, of course. He only hid that god awful name from him. Zorm showed extreme interest in the idea, indicating that his one-mind-many-use ability was very handy and that he would definitely be able to cope.

Hao Ren wondered how Zorm would live from then on, with his body stuck in the CARS cabin. Once connected to the WIFI, Zorm would create a number of alternate accounts and play the real-life version of “Stellaris[1]” across the stars. During his free time, he would probably play emoji-battle with the droids or the station’s mainframe. If he ever lost the WIFI connection, he would be as good as dead…

He would definitely be fast friends with White Flame, that was for sure.

While N-4 and N-6 wanted to stay in their homeworld a while longer, the moon base needed urgent manpower so they left for the moon base by the Petrachelys (normal Executor transportation still triggered an adverse reaction from the First Born, so they avoided using them). The task force crew members who had nothing to do also left with them.

The departure of the Executors did not leave the base quiet as an increasing number of droids came in from space to join the construction works. Many more construction projects commenced at the same time, turning the base and its surroundings into a rather lively place. Even when night fell, the tireless droids continued to remain busy.

The construction modules deployed from space to the planet were swiftly assembled by the droids, and every other hour, a new facility or massive equipment would go online. By the time the sun rose again the next day, the area looked totally different once more.

Hao Ren and the rest gathered in the lounge after dinner to rest, drink, and play games. It was wider than the other rest areas on the base, and not cramped like the little bar on the Petrachelys.

With the droids being deployed, everyone could still live in a degree of comfort on the foreign planet. Now that the forward base was online, they rarely ever returned to the ship.

That left Nolan grumbling at first but the shipgirl soon found a way to rid herself of boredom: she had gotten hold of one of the droids and sent it to the lab for conversion. After installing a number of holographic displays and sensory modules, she then used the droid as a conduit to move around in the base.

The almost fully-overhauled droid was now sitting in the lounge. Half of Nolan’s body was being projected above its roundish head while its tentacles beneath held a number of cards. It was happily playing Landlord with the Nangong siblings.

Vivian squinted as she held a teacup. “Frankly speaking, besides the fact that we’re stuck here, we’re actually still living pretty comfortably.”

Lily hugged her tail in the corner and whined sadly when she heard what Vivian said. “That’s because you’re not losing any money by being here… I’m anxious over… I still owe a magazine two articles…”

“It’s not like there’s no internet here. Why don’t you just send it over once you’re done with it?” Vivian gave her a weird look. “This isn’t like Collow, where we totally lost connection. I was actually curious about this, but it never crossed my mind to ask.”

Lily suddenly perked up as she hugged her tail. “Huh? We can connect to the Internet?”

She then hugged her tail and felt sad again. “Ahh…. so sad… Even when I’m exiled on a planet I still need to submit my work… Is there any other woo-ay…”

Vivian glared at the werehusky. “Hypocrite.”

Hao Ren was playing a round of Gomoku with Lil Pea, and after a long hard victory, he got up to stretch. He overheard Vivian and Lily’s conversation. Remembering what Vivian told him when he was frustrated the other day, he smiled.

At that very moment, the droid Nolan was controlling suddenly threw her cards and dashed toward Hao Ren. “Boss, the droid swarm we sent to scout deep space has just sent a transmission! We probably have a new lead on the thing you asked me to check on!”

Vivian looked up with interest. “Thing? What thing?”

Hao Ren grinned. “The divine energy motion-mapping that’s locking down Star Cluster X.”