Aboard the U3-173 combat starship, the vessel was about to enter subspace flight. Major General Samuel White and Lieutenant Colonel Maria Hernandez were having their final communication.
Major General Samuel White asked, "Is there any difference in the physical structure between us and the Cygnus people?"
Lieutenant Colonel Maria Hernandez replied, "There's no difference within the scope of our examination."
The conclusion obviously contradicted natural logic. Major General Samuel White blurted out, "How is this possible? Probe One reached the Cygnus star system nearly twenty thousand years ago. After thousands of generations of evolution, how could the Cygnus people be the same as us? At the very least, some organs would be particularly developed, and some would have degenerated due to disuse. This is a basic principle of nature."
Suddenly, Major General Samuel White's pupils shrank, and he produced a thought that made him shudder, "Could it be that this Cygnus person has been alive for twenty thousand years?"
The average lifespan of a human in the Galactic Alliance is over a thousand years. The cause of natural death is all due to cognitive death. When humans no longer have desires or pursuits, the brain gradually loses its cognitive ability, eventually becoming as inert as a rock. Galactic Alliance scientists have always been searching for a theory to break the upper limit of a thousand-year lifespan, but the results have been minimal.
Major General Samuel White seemed to think of something else, contradicting his previous words, "No, that's not right either. Humans in the Galactic Alliance have very clear differences from the humans during the era of the ancient earth nations. How could the physical structure of the Cygnus people be the same as ours?"
Lieutenant Colonel Maria Hernandez, who knew the examination results all along, voiced a suspicion that even she found somewhat doubtful, "I suspect that the results we are detecting now are all fake, deliberately presented to us by the Cygnus person. If he does not cooperate, or if he does not wake up, we will never be able to detect the real secrets of his body."
Major General Samuel White wore a strange expression, looking at the Cygnus person lying in front of the examination equipment and said in a deep voice, "Do you think he is listening to our conversation?"
A chill rose in Lieutenant Colonel Maria Hernandez's heart. Before she had a chance to respond, the red alarm of the starship lit up, emitting a piercing long sound. The voice of the artificial intelligence Monica echoed in every corner of the U3-173 combat starship, "Please note, the U3-173 combat starship will enter antimatter space travel in one Earth hour. All personnel please enter the hibernation pod. I repeat..."
When Major General Samuel White and the others had all entered the sealed hibernation pods for cosmic hibernation.
If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
"He" opened his eyes.
He had been awake the whole time. In fact, the moment the cryo-ray hit him, within a few seconds, he had mastered the energy frequency of the cryo-ray, absorbing and breaking down this energy into his own power. The reason he feigned being frozen by the cryo-ray was because he sensed that the purpose of the cryo-ray was not to kill him, but to trap him. He was unaware of the intentions or plans of these kin, so he deliberately got caught, observing the behavior of these kin from the dark.
He released some kind of sensing from his body, breaking through the life-supporting shroud enveloping him. His thoughts wandered into every piece of equipment in the U3-173 combat starship. There were a few times when the artificial intelligence Monica almost discovered him, and he was always able to break down and absorb the warning energy before Monica found him. Monica's presence also made him hesitant to act rashly.
What interested him most was the woman on the ship, especially the one who had just been observing him up close. This woman was tall, her body stronger than the other women on the ship. He didn't know what wheat-colored skin was, but when he sensed this woman, his body would produce a strange heat.
He wanted to get close to this woman, to become one of them.
Although he didn't understand what the pair of kin had just said, he could sense the images in their minds, understand the content of their speech, and learned the function of the language learning machine, allowing him to emit certain frequency sound waves through his mouth to communicate with his kin.
But first, he had to do a little something, like getting out of this cage-like shroud and the metal hoops locking his body.
His thoughts merged with the starship, sensing the starship's speed gradually increasing, the hyperinteraction of the huge ion reactor at the tail of the U3-173 combat starship intervened, a huge amount of energy was injected into the starship, the speed of the starship suddenly increased, breaking the light speed limit, disappearing into antimatter space.
Outside the starship was endless darkness, light could not enter antimatter space. The ship seemed to come to a halt, suspended motionless.
He could no longer feel his body, it felt as heavy as if he was being pressed in the deep sea, unable to move. His eyelids were so tired that they could not be lifted, as if being pulled by an unseen gravity.
However, his mind was still clear, independent of the limitations of the body. His cognitive abilities were not affected by speed and space, allowing him to continue sensing the conditions within the ship. The temperature and pressure inside the ship remained unchanged, and the reactor was still stably releasing astonishing energy.
He didn't know where he was or what had happened, but he knew clearly that he was experiencing a completely unfamiliar mode of travel. The speed of energy flow in his body was much slower than usual, giving him a sense of viscosity as if moving in magma.
He used all his strength, trying to concentrate and accelerate the energy to return to normal. He was fighting a battle against his paralyzed body, an experience he had never had before, novel and terrifying. His thoughts seemed to leave his body, an extreme sense of emptiness. He tried to acquire energy through breathing, but he couldn't even do that.
Then, he suddenly understood. In this strange space, subjective time and objectively existing time were no longer tightly connected. In other words, time was distorted here, and he was still perceiving and living by the concept of past time, which was the predicament he was now encountering.
This realization made him stop thinking, he focused on accelerating the energy running in his nerves. He knew that once the speed of his energy flow synchronized with the reaction speed of the reactor, he would be able to re-align with the distorted time and space inside the ship, and his body would be able to return to normal.