Dragon Raja 5; Chapter 167: Leviathan’s Song (4)

Dragon Raja 5

Schneider was silent for a long time, then nodded slightly. “I understand! From now on, we are truly a team. Let’s look forward to the appearance of Leviathan, or the white whale you mentioned.”

Rebalko walked away with a generous stride, leaving the people of Cassel Academy staring at each other. “Can we trust this man?” Abbas asked.

“We don’t need to trust him. We just need his team to drive the ship well. Hunting Leviathan is up to us. They will all be brainwashed before landing in Europe.” Caesar said.

“How much you offered to buy these Eastern Europeans to work for you?”

“Fifty-four crew members, $450,000 each. Rebalco’s personal compensation is $7.5 million,” Caesar replied. “Considering this sum is in addition to the crew’s commissions, it would be difficult to transfer it from the academy’s account. The Gattuso family will cover the entire amount.”

“We gave these Eastern European guys tens of millions of dollars?” Finger was so surprised that he almost jumped up.

“In this case, using money is the most convenient way to solve the problem. We need their technology.” Abbas agreed. After all, he was not the one paying the money, and he had never had any concept of money.

“Caesar, your style of doing things is starting to become a bit like Pompey’s,” Schneider said, and there seemed to be some deep meaning in his words.

“He and I are a little different,” Caesar shrugged. “He also likes to use money to get things done, but if the woman is beautiful, he doesn’t mind saving some money and paying with his body. I haven’t learned that trick yet.”

After the silence, everyone showed a knowing smile, except for Finger, who looked at Caesar angrily, like a dog whose dog food was taken away.

“What’s wrong with you?” Caesar was a little confused.

“We’re all risking our lives, but where’s my $450,000?” Finger shouted. “Master Caesar Gattuso, you have to treat everyone equally!”

Rebalco stepped into the medical bay, which was located below deck in a hidden location.

A bearded crew member was operating on the operating table. Though not wearing a white coat, he was indeed the ship’s doctor. Before boarding the YAMAL, he had been a special forces field medic, the kind who, armed with a submachine gun in one hand and a scalpel in the other, routinely removed bullets from wounded soldiers while under fire, and the sight of mutilated bodies were commonplace. Today, however, his expression was grave, and he occasionally took a sip of the vodka next to the operating table, perhaps to calm his nerves.

He was using a dark red laser beam to cut through one of the remains, from head to toe, piece by piece, each piece no more than a centimeter thick.

Rebalco watched from a distance and felt a little nauseous. The stacked slices of human body looked like cuts of beef, their blood vessels, nerves, and organs clearly visible. The temperature in the medical cabin was very low, so the slices would not thaw. After the slices were cut and scanned, the computer would generate a 3D model of the person, revealing the cause of death.

“It is okay for you to feel disgusted by this Captain, you should go drink some fine wine with those distinguished guests.” The doctor took off his goggles and stretched his neck. This job was by no means easy; it was a challenge both physically and mentally.

“It’s still unclear how they died?” asked Rebalco.

“It will take several hours to complete the 3D model, but the conclusion is already there: they froze to death,” said the doctor.

This conclusion sounded all too plausible. If you found a group of frozen people on the ice, the first thing you’d think was that they’d frozen to death. But Rybalko still ordered a doctor to perform a thorough autopsy to determine the true cause of death.

Before freezing to death, people usually curl up to conserve their last bit of heat. After a period of hypothermia, which can last from a few hours to a dozen minutes, their body temperature drops to around 25 degrees Celsius, and they die. Many of these people died standing straight, as if the Grim Reaper had walked over to them and breathed a breath of icy air, freezing them to death in an instant.

Schneider did not ask Rebalco’s men to perform an autopsy, but simply asked them to store the remains in a low-temperature cabin, but Rebalco secretly kept this one.

“Look at this piece,” the doctor said.

Rebalco approached the operating table. The doctor showed him a slice that should be from near the deceased’s chest. The outline of the heart was vaguely visible, and the myocardium was wrapped in frozen blood.

“His heart was still in a contracted state, which means that at the moment before his death, his heart was still beating strongly. The ice crystals in the blood and cell fluid are not formed gradually. If the temperature is gradually lowered, the ice crystals will destroy the cell walls, but all his cells are intact. If this kind of quick freezing is to be done in a laboratory, he would have to be thrown into a large tank of liquid nitrogen alive.” said the doctor.

“He was frozen in the time it takes for his heart to beat once,” Rebalco said. “Such a cold environment exist on Earth?”