Black

Base Three is not unlike the main base and Base Two. The purpose of building Base Three is simple: to mine, train and then transport the finished minerals to the main base. So Base Three was relatively simple.

After fifteen days of construction, most of the materials brought by the Rare Earth Expeditionary Corps had already been turned into a factory and a machine, and at this rate of construction, it was estimated that the remaining materials would last for about three more days.

It was at this time that the replenishment brigade set off. This replenishment brigade consisted of three hundred load-bearing robots, carrying a large amount of supplies, and set off towards the third base.

The main base had become a strong backbone to support the construction of the entire Titan.

And all this construction was for the building of the Stellar Interplanetary Voyage Fleet!

In the darkness of the night, the huge army moved on quietly, this time still with the Wind God One helicopter taking up the role of navigator. Hawk first contacted Wind God One via a satellite in the sky, and then Wind God One guided the supply replenishment brigade towards the end of the line.

Two days later, this force managed to reach Base Three, with some of the robots starting to return and others staying behind.

The lake next to Base Three was named by Hawke as Lake Two, and at the moment, next to Lake Two, was a scene of feverish construction.

At this moment, the first signs of Base Three are already visible. With such an efficient army of builders who could not make mistakes and would not get tired, no construction task was worth mentioning.

Hawke even thought proudly that if the contractor bosses on Earth knew that such a construction army existed, they would be drooling with envy.

The second lake was about five square kilometres in size and about sixty metres deep at its deepest point. This methane lake, which is not very large, provides the most solid fuel backing for Hawke's construction army.

Next to lake number two, a lone robot was walking around. It was a robot responsible for surveying the terrain, the geological data, for Hawke to make his next construction plans.

It walked freely around the lake, crouching down on the ground from time to time and doing some tests on the ground with its eyes that could emit red light. Five more geological points and it had completed its task for the day and it was time to go back to rest.

However, after it had completed four more geological points, Hawke suddenly lost its signal.

In the centre of base three, there was a large radio station, this radio station was responsible for communicating with the satellites in the sky, the thousand or so robots in base three passed signals to it at any time, it would then send the signals that needed to be processed to the satellites in the sky, the satellites would transfer the signals one hand to another satellite and eventually to the main base, where Hawk would process them.

Hawke would then pass the processed signals, following the same procedure, to this radio station, which would then pass them on to the thousand or so robots busy at base three, directing them to work tirelessly.

So to speak, the 10,000 or so robots on Titan, with their hundreds of millions of sensors, are Hawke's eyes. The photonic computer provides Hawke with enormous computing power, and the failure of any one robot, of any one sensor, is immediately detected by Hawke.

The link between the radio and the robot is real-time, meaning that contact is maintained between the radio and the robot at all times. Now, the sudden and abrupt disappearance of a robot's signal was immediately detected by Hawke.

Immediately, Hawke retrieved all the information about the robot.

"Well, Rare Earth Type Three robot, responsible for geological survey, the location where the signal disappeared, is at Lake Two near five hundred meters in the direction of Base Three."

"Could it be that the signal transmitter is broken?" Hawke made this speculation, but then dismissed it.

For the maintenance records clearly showed that the robot had just been replaced with a new signal transmitter just eight hours ago. And Hawke was confident in the quality of his product.

This is not the quality of the dregs on Earth, this is what you use. When Hawke produces these things, he is naturally very strict about quality.

"A rising tide in the lake, flooding it? Impossible, the next high tide in Lake Two is measured to be in three hours, or, is there something blocking the signal between it and the base? Nor is it possible that, on Titan, there is something else that moves besides me?"

Puzzled, Hawke had to send the rest of the droids forward to check it out.

As a precaution, Hawke sent an exploration team of one flame-throwing robot and four regular robots.

The nearest robots to the missing droids received their orders and immediately abandoned the work they were doing and headed towards Lake Two. A searchlight also beamed its light over, illuminating their path forward.

Hawke increased the computing power placed on the five robots by a little, and immediately, all the information the five robots had explored was transmitted to Hawke's mind, even some secondary information that did not originally need to be processed by Hawke himself.

In the darkness of the night, a high-powered searchlight paved a path of light for them. In the midst of this bright road, the five robots moved cautiously forward.

Farther and farther from base three, closer and closer to lake two.

Hawke silently calculated the distance.

At this distance, the searchlights of base three had lost their effect.

"The missing droid is nine hundred metres to the left in front of the droid squad. Okay, turn on the overhead mining lights, power to maximum, forward speed to maximum."

Hawke gave a new command. This command was transmitted to the five robots in a fraction of a second via the satellite in the sky and the radio on the ground.

The five robots immediately turned and switched on the searchlights above their heads, opening up a patch of light in the middle of the night.

"The methane level in the air is not elevated, which means that the lake is not at high tide. The seismic wave monitors are also not monitoring shock waves, which means that nothing geological has changed here. So what could have caused this robot to go missing?"

Hawke silently made speculations and manoeuvred the robot onwards.

It was up to Hawke not to be cautious. In a universe where there was a lot of danger, any negligence could lead to the end of the world.

Suddenly, Hawke sensed something wrong.

The ground here was all orange-red. This was the colour of the lanthanide elemental oxide. But Hawk saw that three hundred metres ahead of the robot squad, the ground had all turned black.

Hawk's mind jumped.

"No, it's not right." Hawke ordered the robot squad to stop and quietly watched this blackness.

This blackness was moving. It was coming from the direction of Lake Two and moving towards Base Three. Hawke made a measurement and found that this blackness was moving at a speed of five metres per minute.

"Is this the ... creature?" Hawke's mind raced and increased the share allocated to the five robots by a few more times, while ordering the Wind God One helicopter to take off immediately and rush towards this area, expecting to arrive in fifteen minutes.

In the midst of this time, Hawke did a thermal imager test.

"No way?" Hawk's heart was surprised. Because, the average temperature of that black ground was minus one hundred and fifty-six degrees. And the orange ground next to it, the temperature was minus one hundred and sixty-two degrees.

This piece of black, the temperature was six degrees higher than the one next to it.

Hawke knew that this must mean something. But to say that this blackness was a creature was too much for Hawke to accept. Although there were some very cold-tolerant bacteria living at the North Pole of the South Pole of the Earth, the lowest temperature there was just over sixty degrees below zero, and there was no comparison with this place.

"Could it be that the universe is so big and the creation is so miraculous that there are really creatures that can survive in an environment of more than 160 degrees below zero?"

Hawk felt very incredulous.

Over one hundred and sixty degrees below zero, what kind of concept was that? In such an environment, people would be immediately frozen into ice sculptures, and with a slight knock, their heads and arms would break off like stones, and even steel would be frozen to lose its hardness and toughness. The three bases and the robots that Hawke had built would have been frozen out of action if not for the nickel and cadmium added to the construction materials, which gave them special resistance to the cold.

How could there be creatures in such an environment? Hawke could not accept this speculation.

The Wind God One helicopter had arrived. Within those fifteen minutes, the eerie blackness had advanced eighty metres and was still two hundred and twenty metres from the exploration team.

From the Wind God One helicopter, a huge detection beam struck down, and within the bright circular spot of light was a deep blackness. Then the blackness within the patch of light surged strangely under Hawke's gaze, as if the blackness next to it had sensed the brightness of the place and surged towards it.

Higher and higher, higher and higher. Within five minutes, the thickness of the black matter increased to a minute meter within the area of the circular patch of light, and compared to the flatness of the rest of the place, it was as if a small hill had risen out of thin air.

"These ... things are phototropic." Hawke came to a conclusion.

There was no way to determine if these things were living creatures yet, so Hawke had to use the word "things" to refer to them.

"Probe team, advance." Hawke was determined to find out what they were, even if he had to sacrifice the five robots to do so. If he didn't find out what they were, just thinking about it was going to make Hawke distracted.

How can someone else snore on his side of the bed?

One of the five robots in the probe team began to move slowly, while the other followed ten metres behind it, monitoring the situation closely.

The distance, slowly closing in.

Two hundred metres ... one hundred and fifty metres ... one hundred metres ... fifty metres ... one metre ...