mother of all races

After John Bronson fell, the ensuing scene can only be described as chaos.

The prospectors in the restaurant suddenly jumped up and helped restrain John together.This is not to prevent him from hurting Lin Xi, but to prevent the old man twitching on the ground from hurting himself.It's just that when they did this, their movements were too rough, and they looked...even as if they were going to kill John Bronson.

Lin Xi admitted that he was a little frightened, and he watched the actions of those people in shock.

They looked like mad dogs, with empty eyes, but with a beast-like light.Any reasonable person can see that John Bronson has no fighting power, and only one person can completely restrain the frightened old man, but almost the entire restaurant's exploration team is moving towards him rushed over.

They pinned down on the old man, the blood vessels pulsating like worms under the blue-gray skin.

By the end, Lynch and Bryce even had to go up and tear the overexcited men off the old man themselves.

"Stop—"

In the end, Alisa took control of the situation. She stopped the excessively rough actions of the young people, and then ordered Bryce to give Old John a tranquilizer.

This was a smart decision. After giving John the injection, the old man's convulsive body finally calmed down slowly.And once he stopped moving, the exploration team also panted heavily and slowly quieted down.

However, he still seemed a little delirious.

"Ho ho... the alien species... will die... we... will all die..."

He lowered his head, his eyes were cloudy like a fish that had been dead for several days, he kept murmuring vaguely, and finally slowly lost consciousness.

"It was like a nightmare."

Bryce was by Lin Xi's side, watching the others transport the unconscious John out of the restaurant, and then Lin Xi heard him say this in a daze.

"yes……"

Lin Xi replied softly.

It's just that neither of them asked the other whether the nightmare referred to John Bronson who suddenly grabbed an ax and tried to kill Lin Xi, or the group of exploration team members who looked like lunatics—the latter was even more excited than John Bronson. Bronson looked even more morbid.

Lin Xi had never felt scared because of John Bronson's madness, but when he thought of the behavior of the exploration team members just now, he felt a layer of cold sweat on his back.

Nobody wants to stay in that kind of restaurant anymore, or say, nobody wants to have a conversation surrounded by that kind of people.Ten minutes later, Lin Xi and Alisa came to Bryce's medical room.

In the past few days, Bryce has dealt with many people who were injured in the previous bug attack, so the medical room looks a bit messy, and the air that has been disinfected many times smells of metal, which is also very unpleasant.

Strictly speaking, the environment of this place can even be said to be harsh, but when Bryce magically found two coffee capsules and used the medical liquefaction machine to deliver two cups of coffee to the other two, Lin Xi quickly changed my mind.

"Where there is coffee is heaven."

Lin Xi sipped the hot coffee cherishingly, full of love for Bryce in her heart.

Of course, at the beginning of every space trip, the space agency will fill the spacecraft with coffee capsules as much as possible, but... everyone knows that no amount of coffee capsules can last until the second half of the return journey.

This cup of coffee is precious on board the Helios today.Lin Xi was sure that if he hadn't been nearly chopped in half by a crazy old man with an ax more than ten minutes ago, Bryce would have been reluctant to share such a good thing.

"This is my last stock."

Bryce said angrily.

Then he looked at Lin Xi, the expression on his face made Lin Xi a little stiff - even the coffee in his mouth didn't seem so delicious.

"You know what, Bryce, once you put on a straight face, it's like there's a nuclear bomb going off on this ship."

Lin Xi said he tried to lighten the atmosphere, but apparently his attempts failed.

Bryce was still frowning at him.

"Don't be so playful, now is not the time for casual jokes... To be honest, I wish I could relax a bit, but God doesn't seem to intend to give me this opportunity," Bryce said seriously, "Look Those lads in the restaurant? And our head chef who suddenly went crazy. Well, now we all know something's not right."

"You mean those prospectors..."

Lin Xi shivered slightly, he found that subconsciously he didn't even want to talk about this topic with Bryce, because he... he felt a little scared.

Lin Xi has always been a bit cynical in front of other people. After all, his mantra is "don't think too much", and he doesn't want to reveal his fear and timidity in front of outsiders anyway.

And since the Helios jump failed, he has been frightened by some inexplicable people and things.

For example, the strange sculpture of Sunu, or the exploration team members on the ship.

God knows it wasn't that long ago that he'd been playing poker with those guys and scamming them out of their calming gel bars.

"There are other people, such as the Ando couple, and... that Mr. Ax just now." Alisa added, she seemed very depressed. After all, she had worked with John for many years, but now she saw him change. become like this.

As soon as the Ando couple and John Bronson were mentioned, Lin Xi felt a bitter taste in his mouth, and he was sure it was not because of the coffee.

He fell silent for a moment.

Bryce clicked on his terminal, and he showed the daily physiological reports of many crew members in front of Alisa and Lin Xi.

"Out of professional ethics, I shouldn't have leaked the personal information of the crew to others. But now is not the time to care about it... I found something." Bryce stared at the data on the electronic screen, obviously carefully He has studied it many times, but every time he reads it, he feels that his heart is heavier.

Lin Xi and Alisa stared at the professional data and charts together.

"Is there really something wrong with this data?"

A moment later, Alyssa surrendered, she asked strangely.

"I really don't understand these professional things, but as far as I can understand, these people look healthy? Ah, look at this—" Alisa called one of her personal records In front of him, "Anthony Leo, his teeth that were smashed more than ten years ago have grown back?"

"Yeah, he came to me to get his old dentures out because his teeth were starting to grow back."

Bryce said grimly.

His fingers moved slightly, and more similar cases were projected in front of the other two.

"The hair turns black again, the old wounds heal, and the original allergies disappear... The biological age of these people is almost all younger by more than ten years. Yes, I admit that if we just look at the data, our ship It's almost a dream ship, even the most injured prospectors, their physiological data is perfect-look at this, Corris Luka, he is 31 years old this year, but since the jump failed, he It has grown a full ten centimeters on this damn planet."

"In space travel, it is normal to increase in height..."

Lin Xi couldn't help but said softly, but even he himself knew how weak this kind of defense was in the face of these cases.

"However, it is not normal for a person to have such a high proportion of proliferating and dividing cells in the body."

Bryce clicked on a picture, which was densely packed with cells with enlarged nuclei ready to proliferate, and the rest were connected and split...

"God, this thing is disgusting."

Alyssa's face wrinkled, and she said in disgust.

"Well, these are the biopsy images of the exploration team members. The crew members are a little better, but not much better—"

Bryce clicked on many similar pictures. He didn't move them until he saw that Alisa and Lin Xi were both slightly pale, and they couldn't even drink coffee with their cups. .

"I very much suspect now that something in the food bag reacted with something on this planet. You see what those people look like now, no matter how perfect their physical data is now, but what will happen next What happened must not be a good thing." Bryce said with a serious expression.

"God, that's why you told me not to touch the food bag..." Lin Xi's face turned slightly pale, and then he quickly looked at Alyssa, "Then, we have to inform the ship about this Something? It's not a minor accident. Now the Helios is under your jurisdiction - at least as far as I know, that guy Taran hasn't been out of the hatch for a long time, hasn't he? His illness very serious."

Alisa's face changed, and Lin Xi had never seen her so embarrassed.

"No, no, I can't do that."

Alyssa whispered, her tone sounded even fearful.

"Why? Our food, or the planet, is mutating our crew—"

Lin Xi was puzzled.

"It's a complicated issue," Alisa said, pausing for a moment, then nervously looking at the door to the medical room, keeping her voice low, almost as if she was worried that someone was eavesdropping outside.

"I don't know if I should say it... but the Helios problem is actually worse than you know. Covenant has burned most of our fuel, and if we don't find the coordinates and warp back soon, Sooner or later, we will be trapped alive in this damn place. Our food warehouse was the most damaged in the previous spaceship crash landing. Why do you think Talan approved the use of food bags so early? The reason is simple, we are about to run out of food. In this case, if this matter is announced, we will not wait for the arrival of the so-called mutation and we will usher in civil strife.”

……

That day, when Lin Xi walked out of Bryce's medical room, his heart was extremely heavy.

It was after such a secret conversation that he realized why Bryce and Alyssa didn't seem to care too much about the tragic death of the Ando couple.

After all, before the survival crisis of the entire ship, the tragedy that happened to the couple became insignificant.

If one had to find some reassuring information from that conversation, it would probably be about the Sulu fossil sculpture.Lin Xi still remembers the horror that occupied Shizuo Ando's precious body when he saw the sculpture in his room.And when Alyssa and Bryce mentioned the apparently deteriorating mental state of many on board, Lindsay brought it up uneasily.

Lin Xi always had a feeling that there was a weird and weird power in that sculpture.However, it was obviously difficult for his brother and Alyssa to understand Lin Xi's fear of the sculpture...

"God, I was scared to death. I thought you were hiding something important. For example, you actually killed Liz..." Alisa heard that what Lin Xi was hiding was only the Sunu After the sculpture, she even seemed relieved, and then her tone became a little lighter, "Don't look at me like that, it's just a joke... Shizuo Ando lied to you, since that sculpture had an accident, uh , the accident you know, Taran had his seal groove re-bolted and moved it to his personal warehouse. You know Taran's character, his private warehouse is like a bank vault in space No matter how powerful Shizuo Ando is, it is impossible to steal the Sunu fossil sculpture from Taran's warehouse."

"But I clearly saw..."

Lin Xi murmured.

"As far as I know, before that tragedy happened, An Teng Shizuo suddenly became interested in Sunu's religion, so he bought a hand-carved sculpture of Sunu from one of the crew members, and I think that's what you saw It's a toy." Alisa said indifferently, "That sculpture is just a toy that Ando bought for Liz to calm her emotions."

Lin Xi didn't doubt Alisa's explanation.As the deputy captain, she must understand the movements of all the crew members as much as possible in this crisis-ridden moment.If she said Shizuo Ando bought handmade sculptures to fool Liz, then he really did.

But even so, Lin Xi would still be restless because of the unease in his heart.

If it was really just a handicraft, why did Shizuo Ando beg him so sincerely after leaving the cabin that day?

And, there is another question in Lin Xi's heart.

The Ando couple, John Bronson, and those increasingly weird prospectors...

Bryce and Alyssa are adamant that it's all about the food pouches, which may contain special ingredients, but...

Is it really just that?

This anxiety stayed with Lin Xi until he returned to his own living cabin.

After seeing the Petri dish in the room, or rather, "Number One", Lin Xi finally felt better.

He saw "Number One" build a new nest on Sunuxiang wood.It is golden yellow and its shape is rounder and more lovely than the previous one. The "treasures" that were carefully hidden by "No. [-]" before were also dug out by it and placed at the bottom of the nest.

After doing all this, it is not an easy task for a newborn worm. Probably because of this, when Lin Xi approached the petri dish, "No. [-]" looked a little tired, and it was curled up in its newly built nest Sleeping in it—Lin Xi knew this because its wings were now a translucent color without any extra spots or colors.

What made Lin Xi even more relieved was that he checked the feed dish he had placed in the petri dish before he left, and it was empty.

The "Number One" who was furious before seemed to have eaten up all the feed in the petri dish.

"That's how to be obedient."

Lin Xi smiled.

"Number One" heard his whisper, shook its tentacles, and immediately crawled out of the nest.

It seemed to have forgotten the embarrassment it had with Lin Xi not long ago, and immediately shook its wings and danced happily after seeing him.

Only this time its wings were very careful to avoid the newly built nest.

Lin Xi stared at "No. [-]" for a long time, feeling as if his heart had been soaked in warm water and slowly stretched.

In such a world full of ominousness and danger, it seems that only this corner of his room can breathe.

And only when looking at "No. [-]" can Lin Xi temporarily forget the troubles she is facing and become a little more relaxed.

Perhaps it was the abnormal behavior caused by too much mental pressure, or it was the love for Xingdie that made him dizzy.

When Lin Xi reacted, he realized that he had involuntarily pushed the top of the petri dish away, and then put his hand in.

He lightly touched "Number One"'s body as hard and cold as metal and its pair of huge wings.

According to the records in Shizuo Ando's notes, if Xingdie had the slightest dislike for him, his fingers would have been directly cut into two at this time.

But of course such a thing cannot happen.

As soon as "Number One" saw Lin Xi open the petri dish, it instantly became more active. It danced around Lin Xi's wrist non-stop, and finally stopped directly on the back of his hand. It remained motionless, only the top of its head The slightly curly tentacles were shaking non-stop, as if they were sniffing his body.

"So nice."

Lin Xi looked at its pair of small red eyes and sighed.

"If only you were always this good..."

he said softly.

……

That night——

On the bottom deck tens of meters below Lin Xi's feet, in the crew's confinement room, John Bronson twitched heavily, and then slowly woke up from the drug-induced coma.

Heavy electronic shackles were hung on his body, and several infusion tubes were directly inserted into his flesh, and the other end of the infusion tube was connected to some light green medicine bottles.

John's cloudy eyes focused for a long time before he could clearly see the names on those medicine bottles, which were all powerful sedatives.

These drugs usually have serious side effects, but at this moment, John Bronson has to be grateful for the effectiveness of these drugs.

Under the effect of powerful sedatives, he was finally able to withdraw a little sanity from the crazy state that was on the verge of collapse, of course, it was only a little bit.

After all, for so long, just fighting against the mutation in his body has almost exhausted John's energy.

But now, recalling his mistake during the day, John Bronson's heart was instantly overwhelmed by regret and despair.

"We're all screwed..."

Knowing that this was called the confinement room, but in fact the small room in the prison was empty except for himself, John still pursed his lips and whispered hoarsely.

"The mother of worms will turn us all into incubators for her children..."

His murmur was very slight at first, almost a whisper, but soon the whisper turned into a growl.

"Lin Xi—you have to kill Lin Xi—he is the alien—look at what he did! He hasn't woken up yet, you still have time! Look at what he did! He called it Worm! Because that is his family! It will be too late when the king worm appears, his children... His children... will kill us all!"

John Bronson jerked his head up, stared at a corner of the ceiling and yelled veiny.

In that corner, the red dot on the monitor was blinking regularly and slowly.

Two floors above John's deck is the monitoring center.The Helios is a very old spacecraft, so the most primitive monitoring system is still in use here.A whole row of surveillance windows is neatly suspended in the midair of the spherical room.If nothing goes wrong, there will be two monitoring personnel sitting under these monitoring windows.And after they heard John Bronson yelling, they would frown and increase the dose of the old man's drug injection through remote control to calm him down.

It's just that it's not a "no fault" situation here today.

The two crew members who are in charge of monitoring people tonight are unfortunately a pair of underground lovers. The duty in the monitoring room is a boring working time for some people, but it is a rare leisure for the two of them-they find a way Finding myself a storage room to spend the night in, and ignoring their supposed monitoring duties.After all, the Helios is now stranded, everything is so boring and peaceful, there is really nothing to monitor.At least they thought so.

Therefore, when John Bronson sensed something was wrong, there was no one on the other end of the monitor to respond to his screams and calls for help.

……

At first it was just a slight "rustling" sound.

So slight, so far away, it almost sounded like a glitch in the fan in the air duct, nothing worth noting.

But soon, the "rustling" sound became clear.

John Bronson stopped cursing Lin Xi, he squeezed his lips tightly, and his body trembled heavily.

Some distant memory began to flash back in his mind, he thought he had forgotten, but now he remembered.

Something was crawling towards him.

John was sure of that.

Because that thing doesn't seem to bother to hide its tracks at all.

Soon, something slowly crawled out from under the air filter.

"Oh no……"

The vital sign monitoring system connected to John began to alarm, because John's blood pressure and heartbeat far exceeded what a human being of his age should have.

It wasn't just the imminent death that frightened John so much, but the thing itself.

The huge and deformed body, the evil compound eyes and the hideous mouthparts, oh, yes, and the pattern on the bug, the pattern is more terrifying than a nightmare.

That bug looked like it just crawled out of hell.

"Help—help—"

John started screaming.

"The bug - oh my god - it's come - it's -"

More rustling sounds came out, and the lighting facilities in the confinement room were supposed to be on 24 hours a day, but now they became much darker.

John looked up, shocked to see the light tubes on the ceiling.

He saw many bugs scrambling for the first place, and they squeezed out from the gaps in the spaceship wall like a tide, and then they lined up and climbed up the lighting tubes.

A sweet and slightly fishy strange smell spread in the confinement room, it was the smell of bugs.

The lights quickly disappeared completely under the cover of the bugs.

Darkness enveloped the entire confinement room.

But in that darkness, two scarlet gleams appeared so clear, and then, something slowly emerged from the shadows.

John didn't know why he saw it.

He shouldn't have seen it.

But the thing just appeared, and the horrible and hideous appearance was deeply imprinted in his mind like a branding iron, and he was terrified, just like it was today during the day.

"Help—no no no—help me—don't—don't come near me—"

Even those tranquilizers couldn't stabilize John's mood.

He began to struggle and howl with all his might.

"Sand... rustle..."

It is the sound made when elytra rub against each other.

The thing crawled slowly towards him.

Suddenly John couldn't move, perhaps because the fear had overwhelmed his mental capacity.

He wished he could run away, scream, close his eyes, any of those things, but he just couldn't.

He saw it, and it tilted its head, looking straight at John.

Then John saw its mouthparts quivering.

so good -

The old man heard an extremely weird sound, which came from the depths of the worm's throat.

No. [-] - so good -

it said again.

Then, it leaned over.

"Crack...knock..."

When the sound came out again, it was the clear chewing sound.

……

If it wasn't for a little incident, Lin Xi should have been refreshed that morning.

After all, it was a blessing to be able to fall asleep smoothly under such a preoccupied situation, not to mention that he had no dreams all night and slept very peacefully.

However, just as he was stretching contentedly and getting ready to get up, some small things fell off his body with a crackling sound.

Lin Xi maintained the posture of lifting the quilt and looked at the extra things on his bed, and didn't know how to react for a while.

The lighter ones are leaves, and the color and shape look familiar.

The heavier ones are small stones and metal parts.

The most puzzling thing is that there is even a pen on his bed that he has never seen before.

Lin Xi picked up the pen and looked it over carefully, and was quite sure that it was definitely not his own - after all, no matter how sloppy he was, he would not put such a shell in his room and it would have been trampled on A deflated fountain pen covered in dark brown stains.

Of course, he is even more certain that he has absolutely no habit of sleepwalking... Or, even if he sleepwalks, he will not sleepwalk to Xingdie's petri dish to brainstorm the babies in "No. [-]" nest Steal out and hide in his quilt.

That's right, these things are the ones in the "Number One" nest.

Lin Xi could already recognize those leaves and stones. The reason they looked familiar was simply because "No. [-]" put them in his lair yesterday and showed them off to Lin Xi for a long time.

Of course, that pen was something new, God knows where it came from.

"You better explain what's going on here?"

Lin Xi jumped up from the bed, and then he grabbed those gadgets and rushed to the petri dish of "No. [-]", and asked brokenly.

But before that, "Number One" was lying comfortably in its lair, and when it heard Lin Xi's voice suddenly raised, it jumped up quickly, then slid and hid behind Sulu Xiangmu, Only the head was left outside, and the two curly tentacles kept swinging.

From its blinking red eyes, Lin Xi could see that it seemed a little dazed and flustered.

"..."

Lin Xi and "No. [-]" looked at each other for a while, then relaxed her shoulders dejectedly.

"This is what you gave me, isn't it?"

Lin Xi put those miscellaneous gadgets next to the petri dish.

"Number One"'s tentacles trembled violently, then stopped.

Lin Xi felt that this was probably Xingdie's affirmation.

"All right……"

He sighed.

After getting close to the petri dish, Lin Xi discovered that there was something extra in the nest of "No. [-]".From the perspective of "No. [-]", perhaps Lin Xi should congratulate it. Its collection has indeed been upgraded.

"No. [-]" no longer put shabby stones and leaves in his nest, and now only those shiny metal parts covered the bottom of the nest, Lin Xi stared at those metal parts in disbelief, some metal parts looked A little familiar, let him have a very bad premonition.

"I wish, you could tell me, where on earth did you get these things out of? God forbid, I don't want my room to be called for repairs due to faulty plumbing."

Lin Xi muttered to "Number One" and bent over, like a detective, carefully studying the metal grid he rested on top of the petri dish.

After such careful exploration, he finally found a clue, a certain position near the edge of the metal grid seemed to have a small displacement.

Lin Xi was sure that "No. [-]" escaped from the petri dish from here and slipped back again.

The high IQ of this little bug is also perfectly displayed, and it even knows how to move the metal grid on the Lin Xi cover back to its original position after crawling in and out.

Perhaps it was Lin Xi's previous behavior of pinching its body and throwing it back to the petri dish, which made "No. [-]" realize that Lin Xi didn't like it leaving this small and cramped area.

On the other hand, however, Number One was surprisingly clumsy.

For example, it tries to assign its favorite collection to Lin Xi.

That's right, that's what Lin Xi thought. Those things on his bed should have been separated from his collection overnight by "No. [-]" and then moved to his bed.

He really didn't understand the brain circuit of the star butterfly, maybe, in their cognition, there should be some shiny things at the bottom of all the nests?The same goes for human beds.

But does this little bug know that the act of distributing its own collection has perfectly exposed its behavior of being able to freely enter and exit the petri dish?

"clatter--"

Just when Lin Xi looked at the metal parts in his hand, he couldn't laugh or cry, there was a light touch sound from the inside of the petri dish.

Lin Xi turned her head and found that "No. [-]" had got out from behind Xiangmu at some point.

It seems to have noticed that what Lin Xi is holding in his hand is the gift it worked so hard to give to the other party yesterday.It seemed a little flustered at first, but immediately became confident,

It tapped the inside of the petri dish alternately with its two forelimbs, and at the same time made a "sizzling" sound that had never been made before.

It took Lin Xi a long time to realize in astonishment that "No. [-]" was actually signaling him to touch her like yesterday.

Dr. Ando's notebook has recorded Xingdie's sticky nature, but...

"No, I can't encourage you to do that."

Lin Xi frowned and said to "No. [-]".

"..."

"Number One" stopped suddenly, it stared blankly at Lin Xi, its tentacles dangling above its head.

"Thank you for your kindness, but I don't need this at all, and I really don't like your behavior of dismantling parts—" Having said this, he couldn't help looking at the old pen in his hand again, and he had a very headache Added calmly, "I don't really like your behavior of digging out the trash can either."

"..."

"Number One" still looked at him without moving, but this time, not even the tentacles on its head moved.

"Understand?"

Lin Xi said solemnly.

"Whoa-"

Of course, what greeted him would not be an apology from a high-intelligence alien bug.

But Lin Xi can be sure that "No. [-]" can understand what Lin Xi said to it - the reason is very simple, it turned around suddenly, then vigorously picked up the sand at the bottom of the petri dish with its hind legs and planed towards Lin Xi. Xi's direction.

The author has something to say: Number one: My wife hasn't hit me for three days.