Yaleriga walked into the bridge room to check out the railway mentioned by Qiaoqiao Tianyi.
Before setting off, she and Qiaoqiao Tianyi discussed whether the Silence should be equipped with a complete visualization system. It was a comprehensive project, so in the end they did not rush into it, but made a simpler replacement. After the directional cores of all automatic detectors were damaged, Qiaoqiao Tianyi changed them into short-range detectors to explore the ground through short-wave communication. In the bridge room, they also installed supporting projection facilities, which are enough for the simplest environment simulation.
This is exactly what Yaleriga saw in the bridge room. She passed through the transparent illusion created by the stereoscopic projection lamp and came to the land thousands of miles away from them. On the exuding white salt crust, she saw the railway that Qiaoqiao Tianyi had mentioned.
It is real, made of wood and metal, and at first glance looks like a typical design often seen in trap tapes. Because the sleepers were not made of artificial stone or metal, but just black fiber wood with iron rings on them, this railway obviously could not withstand excessively high loads and speeds. It's the kind of design that's still early even in primitive civilizations, perhaps even with fossil fuels and reciprocating power machinery.
This was Yaleriga's judgment on the railway in the chasm at first sight. That wasn't to say that she was completely oblivious to some of the strangeness of the railway, but the discovery of its own significance made both her and Qiao Qiaoyi overly excited. What they are eager to find out is not the details of the railway's construction, but how long it has been there and whether it is still in use. The probe is still traveling along the railway, searching for possible sites, but Yaleriga has found very encouraging signs in the temporarily simulated scene. That said, she realized the railroad wasn't even covered in dust.
They immediately set out to land to see this brand new discovery for themselves. At this time, more than 5,000 hours have passed since they set off. For the cat people in the lion pride, this is equivalent to one-fifth of the growth period. They never met the killer with the magic eyes again. Qiaoqiao Tianyi began to believe that the killer might be dead, or suffered some serious injury and permanently retired from this dirty business. Although this view is tempting, Yaleriga still insists on bringing enough armor and weapons every time she goes out.
The Silence finally landed a little further away from the railway, in a mangrove forest formed by giant tamarisk plants. They were very similar to those that Yaleriga had seen on the surface of the chasm, but the color was redder and brighter. From this they knew that there was some basic atmospheric environment here - on this point, Yaleriga had done some research on the way. She kept this information and planned to give some to some of her mage friends after she went out. material. Naturally, she might want something in return, after all, she now has her own ship to decorate.
That will happen after we go out. She and Qiaoqiao Tianyi walked out of the mangrove forest and came to the simple railway with great significance. It was only then that Yaleriga saw the true appearance of this track. The details that had caught her attention in the bridge room before became more specific and more confusing.
That did not change the general structure of the entire railway, but it seemed to imply other functions. Among the iron hoops that held the sleepers in place, she found steel plate nails evenly distributed, penetrating deep into the ground. In the bridge room she had used it as a somewhat ingenious spike design to hold the sleepers in place. However, when she carefully compared all the steel nails on a section of railway, she found that some of them were significantly different. They are thinner in shape and installed in locations that are not suitable for fixation. A very thin black film is stuffed in the gaps between these weird spikes and sleepers, extending from the bottom of the sleepers into the rails.
Yaleriga had seen many kinds of primitive mechanical vehicles, but she could not immediately see the purpose of these black films. They are clearly not dust cloth or lubricant, nor do they seem to help dissipate heat.
"Do you know this?" she asked Qiaoqiao Tianyi.
"Hmm... it's a weird thing. I don't think I've seen it before. I guess I'd have to see the overall structure to know what it's for."
Qiaoqiao Tianyi lowered her neck by the rails, her eyes close to the gap between the rails and the ground, and she looked inside. The horns on her head emitted a soft silver glow, and her eyes also radiated light like lamps. Yaleriga heard slight movement from the railway tracks, like the crackle of electricity due to poor contact.
"Oh, oh, that's it..."
Qiaoqiao Tianyi swung her tail and let out intermittent exclamations. She seemed to have discovered something very interesting, and even forgot to share it with Yaleriga immediately. Yaleriga could understand her interest in this matter, but she did not forget to remain vigilant. She still turned on the multi-phase radar and paid attention to whether the amulet on her body glowed and vibrated.
"That's unheard of... not that it's unimaginable, but... oh, I guess it can only be used here. Yeah, it would work if there was such a device... um..."
When Qiaoqiao Tianyi raised her head, she seemed to have the answer. Her long-lost dignity and majesty returned to her, and she nodded with satisfaction like a queen inspecting her territory.
"This is a great catch," she declared.
Yaleriga gestured for her to speak more clearly. So she stood up straight and tapped the rails in front of her with her front hooves.
"Correction to my earlier announcement," she said, "This is not just a railway, Yalai, it is powered by electricity. It is an electric track."
"electricity?"
"Yes. It's not difficult to imagine. You see, we have reached a place where we can't see the external celestial bodies at all. The things that are shining brightly in the sky now are either land fragments with magma and radioactive crystals, or they are just pure illusions - -In fact, it is not in our space at all, it is just a shadow cast by the waves. The light and heat from the outer layer that they can use is very little. In this case, if the residents here can develop anything, electricity is a kind of A good choice. But they don't rely on fuel or tidal power. You see, they don't have reliable gravity, and they can't necessarily find sedimentary energy on their own debris."
"So?"
"By voice. I think so."
When she said this, Yaleriga had already thought about a lot. She gently tapped the small part of the black film exposed to the outside: "A power generation device?"
"A crystal cavity piezoelectric, or something like that, I think. When it vibrates, it releases electrical energy. I think it's a special material that resonates more easily with certain frequencies of sound."
"But where does the sound come from?" Yaleriga asked.
When she spoke, the answer was already vaguely in her mind. She saw Qiaoqiao Tianyi lowering his head slightly, as if with a bit of strange awe.
"The sound in this chasm." She replied, "We have checked that there are always very strong infrasound waves here, and the sound pressure becomes greater the further down. But it is usually stable within two star distances. And then there are these extra thin nails that are actually kind of pipes that go very deep into the ground... I couldn't probe very far, but I know they're over three and a half feet long... I I guess they are wires, Ya Lai. But they are not for conducting electricity, they are sound wires! Since this land is still in the process of collapse, the movement of the crust at the bottom of it will definitely make a lot of noise, and those strong and high sound waves will be even more Directional, it’s also easier to cause materials to vibrate. Oh, I don’t know whether to admire them or feel sorry for them, it’s such a cruel natural resource. Do you know what I mean?”
"They are creating electricity from the sound of destruction beneath their feet."
"That's exactly what I mean. But there are a few issues here that I haven't figured out. This coated power generation material doesn't look like it was formed naturally. Before they master this material..."
Some changes interrupted Qiaoqiao Tianyi's words. Both she and Yaleriga looked towards the end of the railway track. In this abyss world where there was no horizon, a pair of perfect eyes could look out in any direction and easily see the end of the world. They don't have such ideal eyes, but they can see farther than they can on a small spherical celestial body: a weak light the size of a pinhead appears in the darkness, and then magnifies extremely slowly. The shimmer spreads evenly to the periphery, splits into two at a certain moment, and becomes a long string again. At this time, Yaleriga could already recognize its wheels speeding on the track, as well as each window that gave off a steady light.
A train was heading towards them in this bottomless chasm. Its iron shell is very old, and rust stains are like moss all over every carriage. The shadows of creatures swayed inside the car window, almost 100% announcing to them that there was still some remaining civilization in this world. But at that moment, Yaleriga failed to discover this exciting fact immediately. She caught sight of something else, and her attention was almost entirely absorbed by it.
That was the car at the front of the queue, and according to common logic, it was the front of the car that housed the control room. Under the weak but reliable light, the front of the car showed a very human silhouette. It is a carriage and at the same time a huge statue, a statue showing a human face. The face looked gloomy and dull because of its withered appearance. The rust all over the carriage has never left its shrunken, wrinkled face, and its eyes, which are deeply sunken at the bottom of the eye sockets and are also the two front windows of the train, are as pale as monsters in a nightmare. Shine. Two towering shadows were distributed on both sides of its cheeks, and some outlines were vaguely illuminated. Those are the statue's bulging, over-developed and bloated ears.
