Rebirth: Starting from Lighting Up the Tech Tree

The central operation has entered its second year.

That day, the acoustic detection array at the homeport did not receive the Web standard signal. It was not the Founders' code, not a universal protocol across interstellar civilizations, and not any known communication standard already included in the central database. The signal repeated at an extremely slow pace, approximately once every two homeport standard heartbeat cycles, sending back and forth without interruption.

Shen Yiming displayed a partially parsable sequence on the main display screen.

"This signal has been going on for more than two standard years," he said. "It's not shouting, it's knocking. The sound of knocking. Three knocks each time. My initial guess is that it's using a very primitive but effective nonwoven quantum channel. It's not encrypted, and it has little to do with the difficulty of decoding. It's completely incompatible with woven networks. Except for goodwill."

Yu Ying remotely accessed the consciousness space of the home port. She spent several Blue Star standard days deriving the encoding structure, deducing it layer by layer from the metadata. On the first day, she confirmed that it was not noise; on the second day, she confirmed that it was artificially encoded; on the third day, she found the periodic pattern; and on the fourth day, she deciphered the first complete piece of information.

On the night the translation was completed, Shen Yiming appended the entire derivation process to the end of the log number. He said it wasn't the most complex decoding he'd ever done, but it was certainly the longest knocking sound he'd ever heard. The quantum clock of the signal source was so inaccurate that it could only be considered a toy by weaving standards. But that toy had been maintained by the same hands for countless years, without ever stopping.

When the translation appeared in the Central Diary, Zuo Weiyang was drinking her third cup of soy milk of the day in the reception room.

"Is anyone there? We're the seventh. We've learned how to make a quantum clock. We're listening in your direction. We hear the wind. Not natural wind. It's people. Are you there? The seventh."

Zuo Weiyang put down her cup. She read the sentence again. Seventh. He called himself Seventh. Because he had counted. Before him, there were winds blowing from six directions; he was only the seventh to find this place.

She didn't use the central automated response program. Instead, she used her own consciousness field to slowly weave a signal from the core of the home port, perfectly mirroring the other party's rhythm. Extremely slow. Extremely steady. Each pulse was spaced a breath apart. As slow as the signal sent by the seventh. Not the speed of a web-weaving protocol, but the speed of a human being.

"Someone's here. We heard you knock three times. This is Weaving the Net. Not just one person. It's all those in the wind. Received. Seventh."

The moment the message appeared on the home port bulletin board, responses from all ninety-two active civilizations across the entire network flooded into the central log in an extremely short time.

It's not a long essay. Three words for each person.

"I heard you."

This single "heard" made Zuo Weiyang remain seated in the access room. Han Lu later told others that she rushed in to take a look and saw Zuo Weiyang sitting there, her eyes red, but no tears falling. She was simply watching the scrolling screen of the central log, watching the same word, written in their respective codes and languages, flood into the channel from over ninety civilizations.

The wanderer waited for an echo in seven hundred million years of darkness. The warning jointly signed by the last seven survivors of the brown dwarf before the end of their civilization still sits in the archives of the home port. Number 048 has stood for 1.2 billion years, proving its existence with a daily "I am here." The cup of tea that remains says it hasn't gone cold yet. Number 114's four hundred and seventy billion consciousnesses were sealed away as a gift for thirty million years. Number 027 activates an artificial aurora once a day as sunrise.

The furthest one now. The entire net heard it at the same time.

The builders left a message in the central logbook. They said they've already stretched the bridge from the current edge all the way to the seventh gate. It's not a promise; construction has already begun.

The light from the Listener's civilization didn't cover that far, but the reply said it could be extended. It didn't say how it could be extended, only that it was possible.

For the first time, viewers left comments longer than six words. They wrote a long paragraph, then concluded by saying, "Were you seen before? It doesn't matter. You are now."

The word "present" at node 048 was posted on the last line of the reply. Like every time in the past 1.2 billion years, it was as short as a single second. But Zuo Weiyang knew that this "present" was different from all the previous ones. Because this time it wasn't a confession to the past; it was the first "present" uttered to the ninety-third civilization.

Zuo Cheng wrote a note in the central log check column.

"Today, the home port received a knock at the door from 30,000 light-years away, a knock that had been going on for countless years. We returned. The entire network heard it. I checked the path this signal took to enter the central hub. It didn't apply, didn't verify, didn't pass any checkpoints. It just knocked. Knocked long enough. The door opened. Review conclusion: No review required. Notification: Send a 'good' to Seventh. P.S.: His name is Seventh. Because he told me his name is Seventh."

Zuo Weiyang wrote in the Central Log: Not a new node, but a new neighbor. Neighbors don't need to apply. Neighbors just need to knock. Knock, and the door opens. Today, someone used a handmade quantum clock to knock three times in the direction of the wind for who knows how many years. We are in the wind. The door is open. He entered.

She archived the seventh signal, selecting "Weaving Civilization Community" in the archive category. Then, she manually entered a new category label in the remarks section.

It is neither active, nor dormant, nor connected.

It's right at my doorstep.

Shen Yiming wrote down the day's events in his diary.

"New Path Log Appendix. Signal Source: Extremely outer edge of the Milky Way spiral arm, more than 30,000 light-years from home port. Civilization self-name: Seventh. Declaration: We have learned to make a quantum clock. We heard the wind. We knocked on the door. Web Reply: Received. Full Web Reply: Heard. Note: When I wrote my first log decades ago, I never imagined I would one day write such a sentence. We are no longer searching for other civilizations in the universe. It is other civilizations that, after making a quantum clock, followed the sound of the wind and found us."

In the evening, Zuo Weiyang did not turn off the receiving channel.

She sat by the window in the access room, a window facing the evening sky over Hangzhou. The Pioneer hadn't flown by today. But there was an extremely slow, faint light in the sky—not a tracking light, but an echo traveling from 30,000 light-years away. The final strike of their quantum clock, the seventh time, had been amplified at home and translated into visible light. The light streaked across the sky above Hangzhou, silent, but everyone saw it.

She wrote her last sentence of the day on the first page of the Central Daily Journal.

"The Star Chart has been updated. Today, the number of nodes has increased from all the previous ones to one. It's not an official number. It's called Seventh. Because he told me his name is Seventh. He stood outside the door for who knows how many years, striking the clock he made himself in the direction of the wind. We opened the door today. The door wasn't locked. It never has been locked. It's just that the wind was too strong before, and no one heard the knocking. Now the wind has stopped. Seventh. Come in. The soy milk is still hot."