The Record of Unusual Creatures

Hao Ren was always curious about the “society of survivors” on the Zenith and the lunar base. But since he had never been able to contact them directly, his understanding of the society was only based on Nolan’s limited observational data, which was clearly far from enough.

The arrival of N-6 brought him a great surprise, but before he could ask N-6 about the society, another “source of intelligence” was sent to his door voluntarily.

N-4 said that she knew a lot more about Zenith and the base on the moon than N-6 because of her long service life. While it did not give her more comprehensive access than N-6, it did give her more information about the society of survivors. But she also wanted more information on the background of the “space visitors” before she shared what she knew.

Trust was based on mutual goodwill. Even if Hao Ren wanted to know only the most basic information about the Zenith and the lunar base, which he could easily obtain at first glance by flying there in a spaceship, he had to exchange his chips.

“We come from a different galaxy—I mean an entirely different star system,” Hao Ren explained, feeling he had nothing to hide. “Coming to your planet was a complete accident. We came to this system in search of a… very, very old entity, but after we entered the galaxy, we hit a space disaster. As a result, we had to make an emergency landing on this planet once the ship was badly damaged.”

“We found traces of civilization on this planet, so we’re curious,” Vivian explained. “One of our main tasks is to travel in space all year round, to deal with various civilizations or cultural relics, to observe and document the ecology of civilizations, or to collect and preserve cultural relics. So while we’re here on this planet to repair our spacecraft, we’re studying the native civilization.”

“Observing civilization ecology? Collect cultural relics?” N-4 was a high-level artificial intelligence with a lot of emotion, so she could express surprise. “Is there such a career?”

“Have you heard of corpse collectors? That’s what our landlord does, but he doesn’t deal with dead people, he deals with dead civilization!” Lily added.

Hao Ren covered half of his face. “That’s not what I remember in the workbook. That’s not what the inspector does…”

The data terminal tapped him on the head. “It’s pretty close…”

However, Lily’s simple and crude explanation was very effective. N-6 and N-4 understood Hao Ren’s work immediately. There were also special recovery forces in the executors. They occasionally brought back wounded and incapacitated soldiers from the battlefield, but more often they retrieved debris of great value, such as chips that record first-hand battlefield data. In the battle with the planet devourer, there was far more debris than casualties.

“So clearly we are pacifists. Protecting the fruits of civilization is what we are good at.”

N-4 looked at the man in front of her, trying to determine how likely he was to lie by measuring his facial expressions, eye movements, and heart temperature. Although she has not been exposed to real humans, the physiological parameters of humans were known to all executors. But it soon occurred to her that she might not be able to use those rigid parameters to judge the ‘person’ in front of her because this was a space visitor who looked a lot like a human, but who knew what he looked like when he lied.

“I want to believe you,” N-4 thought for a moment and said, “but I saw you guys paint the image of the predator on the spaceship’s armor as a totem. I think that’s the way a warlike nation expresses itself—if there’s anything wrong with my understanding, please explain why.”

A predator? Hao Ren thought for a while before he realized what she meant… It was Lily’s sticker!

Everyone in the back was laughing at Lily. Lily stamped her foot in anger to defend her authority. “What are you laughing at? Don’t I look mighty after the transformation! Hello! Even the aliens agree!”

“Ahem, you’re quite a… cute husky, but we really can’t see how mighty you are.”

“Your reaction… Is there something wrong with my perception?” N-4 watched them in bewilderment.

“The predator you’re talking about…” Hao Ren pointed to Lily’s ears. “It was her. It isn’t a war totem at all. It’s just a painting. This lady got me to paint it.”

N-4 tilted her head. As artificial intelligence, she made an almost human gesture to express her doubts, which was almost beyond her sensibility. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with my optical observation module. She looks like…”

“She has another look.” Hao Ren then patted Lily on the back of the head, and the husky instantly hid her ears and turned the hair into the black short hair in human form. Hao Ren patted her again, and her husky ears and hair came out again. “She can change her form. Now you see two forms. She has a third form, which is the predator you mentioned. As you can see, her ears are the same as the creature you saw on the spaceship.”

“Not just her, most of us have more than one form,” Y’zaks said in a muffled voice. He then showed them red streaks on his face that looked like flowing lava, and his skin showed faint signs of lithification. “Transforming form is our basic ability.”

N-4 felt like her logic circuit had been running at a high speed that she had never experienced before in just a few hours. She looked at Lily and said, “It’s beyond my range of knowledge… I didn’t expect there would be such an amazing life in the universe. When I saw the creature on the spaceship with its majestic eyes and sharp fangs, I thought it’s a dangerous predator, but…”

She did not finish the sentence because she wanted to say that Lily looked a little… silly now as she looked at her.

Hao Ren scratched his nose awkwardly and thought about Husky’s serious eyes… Well, Huskies do have a serious look in their eyes, and as anyone who has ever raised one knows, when their eyes are sharp it usually means they have a sharp idea at the same time. The same goes for Lily.

“I think we have cleared the air now. You got what you wanted to know, now I want to ask what I wanted to know. Can I ask you one additional question before you explain the information blockade in Zenith?” asked Hao Ren.

N-4 nodded. “Go ahead.”

“I see that your teammates are all robots.” Hao Ren looked curious. “Why not humans? Are there no humans in your sanctuary at all?”

It was a thought that came to him uncontrollably when he saw N-4’s teammates. It was a strange guess, but after years of experience in the Plane of Dreams, he was no longer surprised by it.

After all, he had seen the ark world go on after human extinction.

Although, according to the original relief, the human beings of the planet successfully launched an escaping spaceship. Now there was evidence that the escaping spaceship had not been destroyed by the Firstborn, and that those in the spaceship had managed to establish a foothold on the moon, but no one could be sure that nothing else happened. What if humans die out in the process? Looking at N-4 and N-6 in front of them, these AI seemed perfectly capable of maintaining that space station and lunar base—after their humans had gone extinct.

N-4 immediately shook her head. “No, humans are not extinct, nor will they be extinct. They live on the lunar base, in the safest fortress.”

“A fortress?” Hao Ren repeated the word and looked at N-6.

N-6 nodded and said, in the same unmistakable tone, “the human race is not extinct, nor will it be extinct. The fortress is the most powerful and solid fortress on the lunar base. Humans moved there thousands of years ago, and the titanium guards and the chief protect the place. However, since the surface of the home planet is occupied by the planet devourer, any approach of humans to their home planet will provoke fierce attacks, so they can only live in the fortress and can’t participate in any action near their home planet.”