Deep Space Wandering Fleet-Chapter 168 - 169 To Discard To Keep

Chapter 168: Chapter 169: To Discard? To Keep?

Chapter 168: Chapter 169: To Discard? To Keep?

In the central conference room of Earth Era A Zone, Captain Zhao spoke, “Ladies and gentlemen, this disaster is the greatest disaster of our entire journey. A small half of Section M in our living area has been destroyed, and over six thousand tons of air have leaked. It’s even difficult to ascertain the source of the disaster… And, unfortunately, there are two individuals whose whereabouts are currently unknown.”

“The theme of this meeting, therefore, is how to deal with that high-dimensional fragment, whether to proceed with related rescue efforts, and… how to repair the spaceship, among other things…”

“Now, let us invite Mr. Zhang Yuan, the only survivor at the moment, to bring us firsthand information about the high-dimensional fragment.”

Zhang Yuan organized his language and repeated verbatim what he had said that morning.

Although the people below had heard the related recounts, they were still silent, each listening intently.

If one has not truly witnessed it, even a mathematician would find it extremely difficult to intuitively imagine the fourth dimension, let alone the fifth and sixth dimensions, which can only be calculated in equations but cannot be visually imagined.

“Mr. Zhang, is it really nine dimensions?”

Zhang Yuan replied, “I am sorry, I cannot be certain; everything is just speculation. Without seeing it with my own eyes, I think it’s difficult to describe the specific situation with human language and imagination. There’s related video in the camera of the space suit, and I suggest that a team of experts conduct a series of studies.”

A fervent discussion emerged among many physicists who almost fanatically approached the matter.

Soon, a lady voiced a lingering question, “So, Mr. Zhang Yuan, do you think there’s no value in a rescue? What about those two unfortunate soldiers…”

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Zhang Yuan paused for a moment and said, “To be honest, I don’t know how to rescue them. Because in that space, I only saw myself and didn’t see the two of them. The surroundings were true nothingness…”

“Do you understand the concept of that nothingness?”

“It’s… nothing, it’s different from the emptiness in the universe; it’s genuinely ‘nothing’! It might be what I saw if one were to reach the edge of the universe.”

“So, I am thinking, every object sucked in might be transferred into different spaces.”

“Until we fully understand the nature of the high-dimensional fragment itself, it’s unlikely we can find where exactly they are… So the chances of rescue are very slim.”

By this point, a few girls had quietly started crying; they might be friends or relatives of the victims.

In the vast conference room, only these soft sobbing sounds lingered in everyone’s ears, and the rest were silent. This harsh truth sounded very cruel, but it was the reality—facing an overwhelming position beyond human control, conservatism was the best strategy.

Zhang Yuan sighed deeply in his heart. There was still one thing he hadn’t mentioned; he didn’t know the ratio of time flow between the high-dimensional world and the real world. But based on his own perception of time, it was almost 1:1, whether from running out of oxygen or exhausting energy, both would cause them to disappear in that space. The survival chances for those two brothers were really slim.

Yet, with a responsible attitude, he still had to say this. The high-dimensional fragment was simply too dangerous, and he couldn’t even guarantee that he could escape a second time if he were re-engulfed, let alone others.

After a few minutes of silence and a few more minutes of discussion, that was the end of Zhang Yuan’s information.

Next, the second expert began to speak.

He was an elderly expert responsible for the safety of the spaceship and the Dean of the Mechanical Engineering Department at Deep Space University, his hair already white.

“Please look, this is the high-dimensional fragment. It should be the creation of some advanced civilization, not born of nature.”

A robot was investigating in the room, and the screen displayed the footage it had captured.

Zhang Yuan stared intently and realized that the object was merely a piece of glass the size of a fingernail. It lay quietly on the floor, not emitting any light, nor exerting any so-called gravitational pull, nor had it swallowed any material from the floor.

The object turned out to be an irregular chunk of glass debris!

“Is this what they call a warp point? Why has it transformed into a three-dimensional material? Or rather, is the warp point hidden inside this piece of glass debris?”

A series of questions arose in Zhang Yuan’s mind.

“First of all, it seems to have no mass…” After a few seconds, the old man spoke, “Or rather, its mass is extremely, extremely small, so small that we can’t detect it with robots…It’s an unknown material we are unfamiliar with.”

“However, this fragment can engage in slight electromagnetic interactions with the materials on the floor, which is why it lies obediently on it.”

“Secondly, we seem to be unable to grasp its activation time. The first activation was when it hit the spaceship, the duration of which is still unknown. The second activation occurred when Mr. Zhang escaped, lasting for exactly 24.4 seconds… It’s been so many days, and there hasn’t been a third activation yet.”

“Each time it activates, it will generate a gravitational acceleration of 6.2 meters per square second, creating a fairly strong attraction. And it swallows all the materials within a 2.2-meter radius.”

The screen began to play another video: a light sphere was absorbing aerogel from the floor, but the 6.2 meters per square second of gravity clearly weren’t strong enough to pull it.

However, 3.1 seconds later, the aerogel on the floor abruptly disappeared, leaving a 2.2-meter radius hole!

“Soft substances will be drawn in along with it; hard materials… at most can only last 3.1 seconds before forming a 2.2-meter radius circle.”

The high-frequency camera couldn’t capture the moment the big hole appeared, no matter if the footage was delayed hundreds or thousands of times, from one frame with no hole to the next frame where it appeared out of nowhere.

Zhang Yuan took a deep breath, this strange concept, he didn’t know what it meant.

Upon hearing this, Captain Zhao spoke, “So everyone, if we confirm that there’s no way to rescue the two soldiers, should we throw this fragment into space to ensure the safety of the spaceship, or should we continue to research it and probe deeper into its properties?”

The object was a ticking time bomb; once it acted up, it would cause tremendous damage to the spaceship, and no container could possibly hold it; it might even end up swallowing a bunch of researchers.

Even though Zhang Yuan had found a way to escape, not everyone would be able to escape in exactly the same way when the time came.

Another elder stood up, “…Throwing it out is a very reasonable plan. We are already nearing our destination; just three hundred more years of travel, and we will reach our future Mother Star. We have inherited most of the technology from Earth Civilization and have the guidance of New Civilization History. In this situation, why create unnecessary complications?”

Zhang Yuan frowned but did not voice his opinion at the moment.

Captain Zhao asked again, “Then, based on New Civilization History, can we calculate whether to keep it or discard it?”

Zhang Yuan raised his hand to answer, “Sorry, there’s no way to make such a calculation. We can’t have a mathematical model for such a random accident…”

“But when faced with a higher-grade technological creation, if the risk is controllable, the probability of negative events is relatively small.”