Rebirth: Starting from Lighting Up the Tech Tree

Chapter 289 Deep Space

Two weeks have passed since the Pioneer left the Earth-Moon system.

Over the past two weeks, Shen Yiming has sent back more than two hundred logs. Each one was handwritten by him in zero gravity, scanned into electronic format, and transmitted back to Earth via the Celestial Interplanetary Network. The logs are numbered from 1 to 217.

The title of log number 218 consists of only two words.

Deep space.

Zuo Cheng tapped on the display screen at the Deep Space Tracking and Control Center. The handwriting was more illegible in zero gravity than on the ground, with some strokes appearing to float. The first sentence made him stop typing.

"The darkness here is different from the darkness we see on Earth. Darkness on Earth is the absence of light. The darkness here is something that exists. It has always been there. It's just that no one has seen it before."

Zuo Cheng read it three times and forwarded it to Yu Ying.

Yu Ying was recuperating at home, her daughter Zuo Weiyang lying in a high chair in her arms. She replied to a message on her online chat: "The fact that he could write this means he's starting to adapt. Those who aren't adapting only talk about black. Those who are adapting can describe what black is."

Zuo Cheng: You write better than him.

Yu Ying: I have one more thing to do than him: I'm a boss in a baby chair, and my time is fragmented.

The six people aboard the Pioneer have found a strange routine over the past two weeks.

Ji Beihang spent two hours every day sitting in front of the manual control console, simulating various emergency maneuvers. He also practiced during autopilot cruise. Once, Huo Zheng passed by the cockpit, glanced at his screen, and said, "The spaceship isn't broken." Ji Beihang didn't turn around: "Once it breaks down, you'll know why you need to practice." Huo Zheng didn't reply; he understood.

Wenya analyzed blood samples from six people using a centrifuge in the medical pod. After the data came out, she stared at the screen in silence for a long time before sending a report to Shen Yiming. The rate of bone density loss was 30% slower than predicted by ground simulations. Shen Yiming read the reply: "Artificial gravity is better than expected?" Wenya replied with three words: "Or it's the effect of the mesh. We've been calibrated, so we can't do a control experiment." Shen Yiming replied: "Sample size: six; control group: zero. Accept the results, but not the conclusions. Continue to observe." Wenya added a question mark at the end of the experiment log.

Tan Yue writes a daily journal entry titled "The Universe Seen Through a Window." The first entry is about the sun; he watched from the porthole as it transformed from a fiery ball dominating his field of vision into an ordinary bright star. The thirty-seventh entry is about Jupiter; the Pioneer spacecraft flew past the outer edge of Jupiter's gravitational field, and he could see the Great Red Spot with the naked eye. In his journal, he writes: "I can tell you in technical terms that the Great Red Spot is an anticyclonic storm that lasted for three hundred years, with a diameter 1.3 times that of Earth. But I can also tell you that it looks like an eye looking at you. Data tells you what it is. The window tells you what it looks like. These two things cannot be substituted for each other."

Lu Yunfei sends signals to Earth daily using a woven consciousness network, calculating the latency. On Earth, 0.04 milliseconds. In near-Earth orbit, 0.04 milliseconds. Passing through lunar orbit, 0.04 milliseconds. Forty-eight million kilometers away, it's still 0.04 milliseconds. The conclusion is simple: distance has no effect on the consciousness network. This isn't a communication method; it's a state of being. Whether you're in the network or not has nothing to do with where you are.

Yu Ying read the report and remained silent for a long time. Then she asked Zuo Cheng: "Distance is invalid, so what about time?"

Zuo Cheng understood what she meant. Distance had no effect on the consciousness network; the delay could only come from one direction. No one could bypass the direction of time. He replied, "Don't think about this now. You have more important tasks." Yu Ying glanced down at her arms. Zuo Weiyang was sleeping, her fists still habitually clenched.

Huo was performing his first on-orbit maintenance aboard the Pioneer. A plasma engine's cooling pump bearing was experiencing a minor vibration. He donned his extravehicular activity suit, opened the engine bay's maintenance panel, and replaced the faulty component in forty minutes. All the procedures were exactly the same as those he had performed on the two thousand engines he'd repaired on land. The only difference was that he glanced out the porthole. Forty-eight million kilometers away, Earth appeared as small as a pea. At the end of his maintenance log, he wrote: "Two thousand engines repaired, this one is the furthest from the maintenance base. Luckily, I brought spare parts."

Shen Yiming reported for him: Ground, recorded. Spare parts inventory reduced by one. Huo Zheng replied: Ground received. Then he sent the maintenance log to his wife, with a message: Today's work was the same as before. Tightened a bolt, replaced a bearing. The difference was, after I finished, I glanced out the window. That little blue dot was home.

Zuo Cheng would switch to the Web Perception interface every day to check the status of the Pioneer.

Starting the day before yesterday, he noticed a pattern. All nine nodes of the network were sending weak synchronization pulses to the Pioneer. The frequency was constant, with each node sending one pulse every thirty seconds. He sent the pulse data to Yu Ying.

Yu Ying spent two days analyzing the data and came to a conclusion, sending back a graph of nine superimposed curves with the caption: "This is not a beacon signal. This is a network paving the way for the Pioneer."

Zuo Cheng stared at the nine overlapping curves and suddenly realized something. The Web wasn't observing the Pioneer. The Web was paving the way for the Pioneer. Each node was emitting a weak electromagnetic thrust, a force that, combined, was insufficient for any instrument to detect. Yet, it existed. The Web was using the resources of the entire solar system to adjust the energy distribution along the path the Pioneer would take.

Yu Ying added a message: It's picking it up. Every path starts with a direction, then the path itself.

Zuo Cheng remained silent for a long time before replying with four words: "It's paving the way."

Yu Ying said: Yes. And the road being paved isn't going to Haiwei No. 1. It's being paved in a more distant area.

At this moment, Zuo Cheng's system panel lit up.

The budding progress of the eleventh branch jumped from 4% to 14% in two weeks, more than ten times the growth rate of any previous branch. System notification: The deep interaction between the interstellar travel branch and the web is accelerating the formation of the next branch. A new notification then appears: The name of the eleventh branch has been unlocked: Interstellar Communication.

The functional previews of the six blades appeared simultaneously, like six unlit lamps. Quantum entanglement communication. Gravitational wave modulation. Full-link access to the web. Interstellar latency compensation. Extra-distance extension of the consciousness network. Inter-interstellar civilization communication protocol. The ultimate meaning of these technologies is only one: to enable people on the 177 web node planets to communicate in real time. Not with signals, but with the web itself.

Zuo Cheng projected a preview of the six blades' functions onto the office wall. The six blades were arranged in a row, each emitting a faint light. Zuo Weiyang lay in the baby chair in Yu Ying's arms, her eyes still unfocused, her little face facing the six points of light on the wall.

Yu Ying glanced down at her daughter, then at the six blades on the wall. She said, "Perhaps by her generation, interstellar communication won't be technology, it will be everyday life."

Zuo Cheng took a virtual leaf from the wall and gently placed it next to his daughter's high chair. The leaf on the system panel remained unchanged, just a ball of light.

"This is the first one. Dad will save the remaining five for you."

Zuo Weiyang clenched her small hand in the air. Just like that night in the delivery room, her fist was clenched tightly.

It's as if she can grasp the light.