Rebirth: Starting from Lighting Up the Tech Tree

After the conference, the world returned to quiet.

Zuo Weiyang wrote in the Central Government's Diary: Third year of the Central Government. Nothing major happened today. The number of active nodes across the entire network increased slightly, with no warnings of dormancy or loss of connection. The soy milk in the cafeteria was a little too hot; the auntie said that because of the temperature drop this morning, the water took a little longer to boil than expected. The Pioneer is in the sky, on the ground, parked in the square. It's no longer visible from the access room window. But the window is still open. The evening breeze is blowing in; the osmanthus flowers bloomed a little later this year, but there are more flowers.

She synced her log to the entire network. The ninety-two active nodes received it as usual, without any reaction, without a reply, and without needing one. This had been her daily routine for over a year; the log wasn't a broadcast, but a diary placed on her desk, open to anyone who wanted to read it.

She shuts down her central nervous system. This is the first thing she does every morning: shut down her central nervous system first, and then drink her first sip of soy milk.

The soy milk in the cafeteria was a little different from the one the auntie made herself. The cafeteria's soy milk was thicker, while the auntie's was thinner. But it was just as hot. Zuo Weiyang stood by the window of the reception room, holding her cup. Outside, the sky over Hangzhou was clear and cloudless. She couldn't see the Pioneer, but she knew it was there, in the square, on the ground that would be gilded with gold at dusk, at a height that every passing child could reach out and touch.

She finished the last sip and placed the cup on the windowsill. Then she reactivated her central senses.

The entire netting is functioning normally.

Yu Ying was organizing her files in a corner of the central consciousness space. This corner, left to her by Zuo Weiyang, was extremely small and quiet, on the edge of the central core. Yu Ying had been working here for a long time; her task was to trace back and archive the voices of every mother who had ever existed, starting with the first bedtime story a mother told her child, from all the active nodes in the web.

Approximately 0.004% of the data has been archived.

She added a new record today, from a mother in the Listener Civilization. It's part of a subfield within the Listener's consciousness field. Yu Ying wrote in the file notes: Before her subfield separated into independent consciousness, another part attached itself. Not in a biological sense, but rather, during childbirth, she applied a special temperature and wavelength to a small patch of light beside her. That was the last image she painted to bid farewell to the pain of childbirth, and also the first wave she spoke to the newborn consciousness. Not words, but waves. I translate it as: The part that just separated, in...

Zuo Weiyang was refilling her water bottle in the access room when she read this record. She paused for a moment, then continued.

She forwarded this record in the central log, adding a line: "My mother compiled the first words mothers uttered to their children from every civilization in the universe. It took her so long. It wasn't technically difficult; it's that every sound couldn't be sped up or skipped. Because the moment a mother pauses in her heart when she speaks her first words to her child, the time parameter is zero. There is no length, only occurrence."

She closed the journal.

As evening fell, Zuo Cheng received the third person of the day at the central port port corridor.

The central port corridor isn't a physical corridor; it's an area within the realm of consciousness, neither too large nor too small, just enough to accommodate a few people standing or sitting. Zuo Cheng sits at the entrance every day, watching all sorts of people walk past. Most come to see the central hub, a few to see "the person sitting at the door asking questions."

The first two were ordinary visitors from different galaxies. One confirmed the Web Protocol update time, and the other submitted an observation report about the newly activated node. Zuo Cheng asked them the same question: What are you here for? They answered, and Zuo Cheng noted it down in the porch logbook before letting them through.

The third person is different.

It was an extremely ancient fragment of consciousness. Zuo Cheng couldn't discern which node it came from; its frequency was too blurry, as if it had traveled from a very distant place, its sharpness worn away by the passage of time. He stood at the entrance to the porch for a long time, so long that Zuo Cheng almost thought he was just passing by.

Then he spoke.

He said: I didn't come to see the central nervous system. I heard there's a young man sitting at the door asking everyone who comes. I've walked very slowly, it's taken me almost my whole life to get here from the outermost swirl arm. I just want someone to seriously ask me, what are you here for? And then I can think about it before I answer.

Zuo Cheng looked at him.

He said: What are you doing here?

The old man didn't answer immediately. He stood there, as if sorting through all the answers he had given in his life and choosing the most accurate one. Time had no measure in the consciousness space of the home port, but Zuo Cheng could sense that he had been thinking for a long time.

Then the old man said: I'll do it. Let me think about it.

Zuo Cheng wrote in his porch log: "The third person today. He walked from the outermost spiral arm to the home port. He thought about it many times along the way. But he said he could only truly give an answer when someone seriously asked him. His answer was: let me think about it."

He walked the longest distance at the slowest pace, just so someone would ask him a question and he could think about it carefully.

The old man went inside. He walked slowly, but without hesitation.

In the evening, Zuo Weiyang used her consciousness projection to stand next to the Pioneer.

She wasn't in Hangzhou. She was at her home port, 26,000 light-years from Earth. But that didn't stop her from standing under the porthole of the Pioneer. Distance was not a distance in the projection of consciousness; she could stand anywhere she wanted.

The Pioneer sat on the ground plaza. The setting sun bathed it in a golden glow. Museum staff had just pulled up the protective shield, a massive white canvas stretching from bow to stern. Zuo Weiyang stood outside the shield, her hand reaching through the fabric to touch the hull.

Pioneer orbited in near-Earth orbit for thirty years. Its hull was covered with tiny pits left by micrometeorites, densely packed like the marks of time. Zuo Weiyang reached out and touched a pit below the cockpit window. The pit was small, about the size of a fingernail, with smooth edges.

She recalled the moment when she was three years old, standing in the Xinghai ship's final assembly workshop, touching the Quantum Heart. At that time, she also uttered two words: "Hot."

She said: It's hot. Still hot. After orbiting for thirty years, it's still hot when it lands on the ground. Not from the sun.

Zuo Weiyang withdrew her hand.

In her final entry of the day in the central log, she wrote: "I just went to the Pioneer. It wasn't heated by the sun; the first landing of the atmosphere had worn away the thinnest layer of old paint from its outer shell, revealing new metal that hadn't cooled yet. It was last new thirty years ago. Today it's new again. Not a farewell, but a restart. Goodnight, Pioneer."

She synced the log to the entire network. A moment later, the listener's glowing band flickered slightly. A barely perceptible weld mark appeared on the builder's furthest pier. The observer said nothing, but in its all-black document, below the "good" layer, it added an even smaller line of text: Goodnight.

Zuo Weiyang deactivated her central perception and stood by the window of the access room for a while. An empty cup sat on the windowsill, with a single drop of soy milk at the bottom. A gentle evening breeze blew in through the cracks in the window.

She glanced at the sky outside the window. There was no Pioneer, no navigation lights. But the sky was still clear, and the osmanthus tree in the distance was in bloom. Not the one downstairs from her apartment, but a new osmanthus tree in another neighborhood, blooming for the first time this year. She couldn't smell it because it was too far away. But she knew it was blooming.

Because the wind is still blowing.