Xiao Yu had already completed about five-sixths of this long voyage. Ahead still lay around one thousand years of travel, and a remaining distance of roughly 1.5 million light years.
This distance was one million light years less than the distance from the Milky Way Galaxy to the Androda Galaxy. At this distance, Xiao Yu’s observation equipnt could already clearly resolve individual stars in the Maffei One Galaxy, and could even see the planets orbiting around those stars. It was from this position that Xiao Yu began a detailed observation of the Maffei Galaxy Group.
To the naked eye alone, the Maffei One Galaxy was still only a dim patch of light, with no details visible. But because the surroundings were simply too empty, the Maffei One Galaxy was still the brightest object in the entire sky.
This was the empty vacuum of the universe, yet the “temperature” here was very high, so high that it was sowhat unbelievable. Xiao Yu’s asurents showed that the temperature here was more than one hundred million K. This scene seed very contradictory, but was actually quite reasonable. Temperature was only a physical quantity asuring the activity of microscopic particle motion. The microscopic particles here were very active, so the temperature was high. Yet their density was too low, and the total energy was also very low, so it also felt very cold here.
The extre environnt of the universe perfectly combined the two conditions of very high temperature and feeling very cold.
Within just such an extre environnt, Xiao Yu made another new discovery. With the help of the faint light reflected from the Maffei One Galaxy, Xiao Yu discovered so things ahead that resembled cold stone blocks. In such an empty place, any matter that was discovered was out of the ordinary. Discovering an asteroid within a galaxy was normal. Discovering sothing like this here might signify sothing special.
Xiao Yu sent out his detection spacecraft and slowly approached those objects. Under the illumination of an artificial sun, an area tens of thousands of kiloters across was brightly lit. Xiao Yu could finally examine these strange things in the visible light band, the most convenient one for observation.
What appeared before Xiao Yu were so objects with very obvious geotric structures. The largest of these was about thirty kiloters long, an object that was roughly cylindrical in shape. On its surface were also so raised or sunken things resembling instrunts. Around it were so smaller objects that also had obvious geotric structures, with a total number of about three hundred.
These things were clearly creations of intelligent beings. Only the power of intelligent beings could transport such things into this empty place, and only creations of intelligent beings could possess such obvious geotric structures.
“These are spacecraft. Ruined spacecraft that have lost all energy supply. Preliminary observation shows that these spacecraft are at least two billion years old.” Xiao Yu silently thought to himself.
Two billion years ago, Earth had still been in a primitive prehistoric age. No, it was an era even more remote than the primitive prehistoric age. At that ti, there was scarcely any life on Earth, much less humanity. Yet at that ti, so unknown civilization had already piloted its creations into this empty cosmic space and lost all energy supply here, turning into cold stone blocks from then on.
Xiao Yu could not clearly describe what he was feeling. Under Xiao Yu’s control, several robots broke open the hulls of these spacecraft and entered their interiors. What appeared before Xiao Yu was still darkness. Within that darkness, the light sources in the robots’ hands illuminated the appearance of a long corridor. The corridor was still filled with so kind of gas. After the hull of the spacecraft was broken, that gas surged outward, stirring up clouds of dust and making the already disordered corridor even more chaotic.
After Xiao Yu controlled other robots to repair the breach in the hull again, the place quieted down. Within this darkness, Xiao Yu’s robots began slowly exploring these spacecraft.
Xiao Yu discovered so things resembling the bones of intelligent beings, but these things had long since lost all organic structure and had now beco no different from stone. Xiao Yu also had no way to infer what these intelligent beings had looked like when alive, nor what kind of bodily structure they had possessed. So room doors were still open, and inside these rooms, Xiao Yu also discovered so things resembling computers.
So Xiao Yu began repairing and analyzing these things, trying to read the information recorded on them. By now, Xiao Yu could already determine that these spacecraft were of Level 5 Civilization technological standard. Under normal circumstances, obtaining information from their computer systems would have been very simple for Xiao Yu. But the age was simply too ancient, so even with Xiao Yu’s Level 7 Civilization technological standard, he still had to expend so effort to restore that information.
Xiao Yu’s efforts were not in vain. After Xiao Yu dispatched several million robots to gather information storage devices, and then conducted at least one week of information restoration work, Xiao Yu finally managed to roughly restore that information and piece it together into a ssage with a basic logical structure.
From that information, Xiao Yu learned about this civilization and the origins of these spacecraft.
“The long-lasting debate has finally produced a result. Through voting, the Civilization Joint Council has made its decision. After wasting several million years in this tiny galaxy, we have finally decided to leave.”
“This place is too small, and there is too little matter. This severely restricts our developnt. We believe that there must be other intelligent beings in the universe, and we deeply long to communicate with other intelligent beings. But here there is only ourselves, only our one civilization.”
“It took us several million years to develop to our present technological level. Now, there is no road ahead to be found any longer. This place is too small and too remote. It is impossible for us to obtain any further opportunity for developnt here. In fact, our civilization’s technological progress has already stagnated for nearly one million years. Over a million years of ti, we have co to understand every celestial body in this galaxy in complete detail, and have even beco so bored that we assigned detailed serial numbers to every asteroid and explored them all. In this galaxy, we have truly had enough.”
“If we cannot obtain an opportunity for further developnt, then what awaits our civilization is only destruction. In fact, signs of destruction have already appeared in our civilization. With nothing left to explore, our civilization can only turn its energy elsewhere, toward indulgence, toward war, toward seeking stimulation. We continuously split apart and continuously reunify. Scientists have developed a great many forms of entertainnt that stimulate the mind, while the people live in drunken stupor, muddling through their days.”
“We clearly realized that this could not continue. But the surrounding galaxies are simply too far away. The nearest one is more than eight million light years away, a distance we cannot cross. You must understand, the highest speed we can presently achieve is only thirty tis the speed of light. We would need to sail through the void of space continuously, without interruption and without any resupply, for more than two hundred thousand years in order to reach our destination. To us, that ans death. We will certainly die on the journey, and die in complete silence. Yet we have still decided to set out, to dedicate our civilization to a voyage in pursuit of new life. Even if it is bound to fail, it is better than being destroyed in this kind of decline.”
“The most recent war of division has already dealt a crushing blow to our civilization. The intelligent beings within our civilization have decreased by ninety percent. At this mont, fewer than one billion people remain in our civilization. We have already despaired of this galaxy, and already despaired of our future, so we have set out, embarking on a road that is certain to lead to death.”
“We stockpiled as many supplies as possible. We spent tens of thousands of years preparing. Many people died after exhausting their lifespans before we had even finished our preparations. But they were happy, because they had a goal to struggle for, and had devoted their lives to that goal.”
“In the end, we completed our preparations and set out. May our civilization have good fortune…”
“We hope that after we die, so other civilization will discover us, proving our conjecture that there are other intelligent beings in the universe. Oh, and if you discover our ruins, if possible, please bring our ruins to the galaxy nearest to us. This has been the lifelong wish of our civilization. Please, please.”
The recorded information ended abruptly there. This information had all been preserved in a most special way. All the rest of the information, because the age was too ancient and the damage too severe, could not be restored. In fact, Xiao Yu suspected that this information had been intentionally preserved by that civilization, precisely so that even if they were destroyed, this information could remain and be discovered by so other civilization that happened upon them by chance.
Their purpose had been achieved. Xiao Yu, passing through this place, had happened to discover their ruins and happened to detect this information.
“You were right.” Xiao Yu silently thought. “There are many, many intelligent beings in the universe. Your civilization was only Level 5. Above you, there are many more civilizations, even civilizations whose forms of existence are beyond your imagination.”
“I will fulfill your wish and bring your ruins into the Maffei One Galaxy.” Xiao Yu silently thought, as he collected all of those broken spacecraft into the folded space inside his own spacecraft.
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