Rebirth: Starting from Lighting Up the Tech Tree

Han Lu stood her last shift at the top-floor control center of the 402 headquarters in Hangzhou. She had worked there for over thirty years. Today, she retired. Of the thirty-seven screens in the control hall, only the middle one was lit, displaying a real-time star map of Blue Star with a tiny gold marker. That was Zuo Weiyang's coordinates in the central consciousness space of the home port—not physical coordinates, but home.

Han Lu stared at the gold marker. There was no farewell, no ceremony. She had emptied her desk the night before; in the drawer were a few old notebooks, a pen she'd used for most of her life, and an empty soy milk cup. She'd initially intended to throw the cup away, but then put it back.

She looked at the lamp on the table. Decades ago, in a secret letter to Zuo Cheng, she had written that the lamp would never go out. Since that day, the lamp had never gone out.

She reached out and turned off the light. She turned it off for a second, then turned it back on. "Not off," she said. "It's time to change the light bulb."

A young girl walked in. She had short hair, dark eyes, and wore a dark coat, similar in style to the one Han Lu wore when she first entered 402. She didn't knock, because Han Lu had told her not to. She stood in the doorway.

Teacher Han, I'm here to take the light.

Her name is Yin Xin. Born in the enclave of Proxima Centauri, she trained on Earth for several years. As a child, she waved when the Pioneer flew overhead. During her interview, Han Lu asked her why she wanted to work in telemetry and tracking. Yin Xin said she stood on her balcony every night waiting for the Pioneer to flash, and later the Star Sea flew even brighter. One day, she suddenly wondered who was watching the spaceship when it flashed in the sky. Later, she learned it was the people at the telemetry and tracking center. She didn't want to just watch from her balcony.

Han Lu didn't say much at the time, but simply hired her.

Later, Han Lu saw Yin Xin's first duty log. The log only had two words: As usual.

The day Han Lu saw those two words, she sat alone in the office for a long time.

She picked up the lamp from the table. It wasn't anything valuable, just an ordinary old-fashioned lamp. The edges of the lamp base had worn down to the metallic patina, and there was a very faint scratch on the lampshade, from when she tightened the bulb once, made with her fingernail.

"You don't need to keep this lamp on the brightest setting all the time," she said, handing it to him. "Just dim it a little before you leave each night, just enough to see the golden mark on the star chart."

Yin Xin accepted it with both hands. Okay.

Han Lu wrote her final words on the last page of the control log. She sat at the control panel, using the same black pen she'd used for most of her life, writing each word carefully. Her handwriting wasn't much different from what she'd written on the incubator's whiteboard decades ago.

Today's track: Pioneer is on the ground, Starship is extending outwards from its home port. All network nodes are synchronized normally. Central log is normal today. Soy milk is at the perfect temperature.

The successor, Han Lu. She served for most of her life. Her reason for leaving wasn't that she couldn't do the work anymore, but that she wanted to go downstairs to see the osmanthus flowers. The osmanthus flowers had bloomed anew this year.

The successor, Yin Xin. She waved when the Pioneer passed by as a child. In the same spot, with the same gesture.

She closed her journal and stood up. She didn't look back.

It was evening when Han Lu walked out of the control center. The motion-sensor lights in the corridor turned on automatically, just like every day for the past few decades. She took the elevator down to the first floor, walked through the lobby, and exited through the main door. The sycamore tree at the entrance was still there, and the osmanthus tree was on the other side. She stood under the osmanthus tree, not looking at her phone, not checking the time. She looked up at the sky.

The sky wasn't completely dark yet. The first star in the east was already shining. It wasn't a spaceship, a satellite, but a star. She hadn't looked up at the stars like this for many years. Before, in the control center, she saw stars on screens, points of light on star charts, golden markers, and flight paths. Today, she was looking at stars without coordinates.

She stood under the tree and sent a message to Zuo Cheng.

The lights have been handed over. The successor is Yin Xin, a child who, like you, used to look up at the spaceship every evening. She can't see the Pioneer anymore, but she can see the Xinghai. She says the Xinghai is brighter. I said not brighter, but farther. Distant things shine in the heart. The lights in the telemetry and control center have also been handed over; they haven't gone out, just had a new bulb. The soy milk auntie has retired too, but she taught her daughter to make soy milk at the same temperature. Tomorrow is the start of new soy milk, don't complain about the heat. The old auntie is watching. The last page of the telemetry and control log is finished; it's just routine now.

She didn't wait for a reply after she finished speaking. She put her hands in her coat pockets and slowly walked back along the sidewalk.

When Zuo Cheng received the message on the port's porch, the quantum light stream surrounding the port had just completed its rotation. He sat on the chair on the porch and read Han Lu's message.

He looked back at the Tree of Weaving. The canopy of the osmanthus tree swayed gently in the breeze of the Mother Harbor's consciousness field. A new leaf had appeared on the branch closest to the root. It wasn't the arrival of a new civilization, but a thought that flashed through Han Lu's mind the moment she handed over the lamp. She remembered the day she first entered the incubator decades ago, standing at the door and knocking. The person inside said, "Come in." One of the light bulbs by the door was broken and flickering. She said, "The light is broken." The person inside said, "It's time to change the bulb."

That thought was automatically captured by the central lower layer and stored in the new leaf. Han Lu didn't know. Zuo Cheng did.

He wrote a line in today's notes page of the porch log: Today Han Lu retired. She handed over the lamp. The lamp didn't go out.

He closed the journal. The quantum light stream at the home port continued to rotate. The corridor outside the porch was deserted. A breeze blew in from the other end of the corridor, carrying the faint scent unique to the underlayer of the woven fabric, like the aroma of turning the pages of an old book.

Zuo Cheng reopened Han Lu's message and read it again. He paused for a moment when he read that her successor had waved to him when he was a child. He closed the message when he read that the new soy milk was at the same temperature.

He didn't reply to Han Lu. He knew she didn't need it. At the end of her message, she didn't write "waiting for you to come back," nor "goodbye." She wrote, "The osmanthus flowers have bloomed anew this year."

He sat on the porch and turned his gaze back. The color of the light stream outside the window was changing from deep blue to warm gold. That was the home port simulating a sunset; the central hub had set up this program in the first year after connecting to Zuo Weiyang. So, every now and then, the home port would turn the quantum light stream to warm gold.

Zuo Cheng gazed at the warm, golden light. He thought he could smell the fragrance of osmanthus. Not from the port, but from the paper in his pocket. The paper was a copy of the golden circles Zuo Weiyang had drawn when she was three years old; it had been folded and kept in his shirt pocket for so long that the edges were worn soft. He didn't take the paper out, but simply pressed it gently through the fabric. The paper was still there.

The wind continued to blow from the other end of the corridor. Zuo Cheng added another line at the very bottom of the porch log.

Han Lu came by today. She was the first person I met at the incubator. Today she retired. She handed over the light. Her successor is Yin Xin, who, like her decades ago, is a child who would look up at the spaceship at dusk. Aunt Soy Milk retired, and her daughter took over. Tomorrow, it's new soy milk, at the same temperature.

Han Lu didn't look back when she left today. She didn't need to, because she knew the light was still on. Not the same one as before. Not the brightest setting. But bright enough to clearly see the gold markings. That was enough.

That's enough. Not just enough, that's more than enough.

it is good.