Rebirth: Starting from Lighting Up the Tech Tree

Thirty-seven hours after the Starsea departed from its home port, Su Kuang's left fingertip remained glued to the self-made route key slot on the side of the control panel. The key was something he'd made in his Proxima Centauri enclave using a sample of the home port's core protocol and a discarded quantum entangled fiber. It wasn't particularly sophisticated. But the moment it was inserted, the Starsea's main control system logged, "Third key in place."

The first one belongs to Zuo Cheng. The second one is the osmanthus seed that Yu Ying put into the dragon bone crevice on the day Zuo Weiyang was born.

The third one is stuck in the hole.

Su Kuang withdrew his hands and placed them on his knees. They were approaching a node that had been silent for tens of millions of years, following a flight path that no one had ever flown before.

Ji Beihang sat on the right. He didn't say "You did the right thing" or "Keep on course." He just occasionally turned his head to look out the window.

"The gravitational field ahead is consistent with the central navigation system. We will reach line-of-sight in twenty minutes." Shen Yiming's voice came from the communications pod.

Su Kuang didn't reply immediately. He glanced at Ji Beihang first. Ji Beihang was looking out the window.

"receive."

Eighteen minutes later, the target appeared on the main control screen: the fourth planet in a G-type star system. A ring of dust surrounded the edge of its pale yellow atmosphere. There were no city lights, no orbital facilities, and no signs of human intervention on its surface.

The 101st dormant node in the web. It has remained a gray dot on the home port star map for tens of millions of years.

Su Kuang executed the remote activation procedure for the node. He had practiced it hundreds of times in the simulator. But the wake-up signal in the simulator was faked using a teaching data packet. Now, this planet was real.

He loaded the sequence into the Quantum Heart control link. His index finger hovered over the confirmation button for a fraction of a second. He pressed it.

Within the Quantum Heart, an extremely thin beam of light pierced the boundary of the spatial compression bubble, stretching into a thin silver line. It arrived at the core of the web-weaving node above the planet's orbit a fraction of a second later.

On the main control screen, the gray dot trembled for a moment. It stabilized less than half a second later.

The self-check process is initiated. The code, compiled tens of millions of years ago, is unlocked layer by layer, not for emergency unlocking, but rather like a slow, deliberate process of the owner taking out the key when returning from a long absence.

"The node has been activated."

Node 101 on the full-network star map lights up again.

Shen Yiming paused for three seconds. "Node status confirmed. All green. Data port open. Last record of the host civilization: 'We don't know who will come, but the door is unlocked. Please enter.'"

Su Kuang did not respond. He pulled up remote sensing data of the planet's surface; the city's outline was still there. About 70% of the street grid was covered by sandstorms. Half of the roof of one of the large domed structures had collapsed, and traces of vegetation around it indicated that it had once been a greenhouse.

There was a small patch of reflection on the eastern edge of the greenhouse. It wasn't metal or glass; it was the reflection from the surface of organic debris, like the waxy layer left on the underside of a dried leaf.

"Requesting entry into synchronous orbit. I'd like to go down and take a look."

Ji Beihang turned and glanced at him. "The geostationary orbit parameters are already in the preset list."

Su Kuang was stunned. The preset list. Ji Beihang had put it in.

Su Kuang put on his lightweight exploration suit and stepped into the airlock. As the inner door closed, Ji Beihang appeared at the other end of the corridor.

"I extracted the first drop from the quantum field when I activated the node."

"I know," Ji Beihang said. "Go."

Su Kuang landed on the eastern edge of the greenhouse ruins. The wind came from the east, carrying dust and a salty smell. The outer shell of his spacesuit rustled softly as sand particles struck it.

He found the reflective patch. A section of bioengineered fiber, covered in sand yet still elastic, like the epidermal tissue of a plant root. Sensors showed that trace amounts of water molecules remained inside the fiber, the last bit of moisture locked in the cell walls.

Shen Yiming flipped to the route log number #00047. "This is the first node to activate the new route. It's not that we passed through it, it's that we awakened it. The Starsea has made its first appearance as the weaver."

Accessing the indoor area. Zuo Weiyang wrote in the Central Log: "First stop on the new route. Node 101 of the Web has awakened. It left the door open. Today, the Star Sea pushed the door open. There was no danger behind the door, only a potted plant that hadn't been watered in a long time, half-withered but with its roots still intact. Central Log: The first potted plant in the Node 101 greenhouse has started watering again. Not for technical reasons, but for responsibility."

She added a line at the end: "The new captain watered the plant. Not with water, but with the road. The third key he inserted between the first and second keys wasn't metal, nor a quantum field. He knelt down, picked up a bare leaf from the ground, and said, 'I brought a sip of water.'"

She closed her journal and opened the window. There were no navigation lights outside. The Pioneer had flown past on the other side of the hub that evening. She didn't wave. She just stood there for a moment. Because there was also someone on that new route ship standing by the window in the cockpit, looking out.

They are not at the edge of the atmosphere of the same planet, but they belong to the same universe.