Rebirth: Starting from Lighting Up the Tech Tree

Chapter 291 Triton 1

Time is a strange thing in deep space.

After Pioneer left Mars orbit, the first number Shen Yiming wrote in his daily log wasn't the date, but the distance: how many kilometers were left to Triton. This number started at 700 million, decreasing by 30 million each month. He wrote it for a full twenty months. Today, that number became zero.

The first four words of the 612th log entry are only.

"We've arrived."

Triton, Neptune's largest moon, has a diameter of 2,700 kilometers and a surface temperature of -235 degrees Celsius. Viewed from the Pioneer's porthole, Triton appears as a frozen, pale pink sphere. Black plumes from ice volcanic eruptions have left hundreds of kilometers of streaks across the pink ice surface, resembling the claw marks left by some long-extinct giant creature.

Tan Yue pressed his face against the porthole and stared for a full five minutes. Then he wrote a line in his log: "I've seen hundreds of photos of planets in my life. None of them made me feel cold. This one does."

The orbit insertion was completed manually by Ji Beihang.

Triton's gravity is less than four-thousandths that of Earth, and without the atmosphere to help slow it down during orbital insertion, the probe relied entirely on fine-tuning by its engines. Ji Beihang propelled the Pioneer probe into a polar orbit 400 kilometers above Triton. The orbital insertion accuracy was less than twenty meters. He wrote a sentence in his operations log.

"Ten thousand hours of flight time. This one hour is the most worthwhile."

Huo Zheng glanced at the data: "The error is twelve meters smaller than the one on Mars."

"No one is broadcasting live from Mars this time."

A chuckle came from inside the cabin. Shen Yiming didn't laugh. He stared at the mesh panel. The signal strength of the seventh node had increased by three orders of magnitude per minute over the past minute. It had awakened.

The seventh node is buried deep beneath the ice shell of Triton. 0.3 seconds after Pioneer entered orbit, the seventh node completed a synchronization handshake with all nine nodes of the Web. At that instant, the energy output of all nine Web nodes simultaneously experienced a pulse peak. The peak value was thirty-seven times the normal level.

Zuo Cheng witnessed this process on Blue Star.

On the system panel, all nine nodes of the web simultaneously turned gold on the star map. They weren't lit up one by one, but all nine together. Then the icon for the seventh node changed from gray to gold. Immediately afterwards, a system notification appeared.

"The seventh node, the Titan-class data relay station, has been activated. Physical verification of all nodes in the Weaving Solar System Inner Network is complete."

Chen Hao stood behind him, his voice soft: "All nine are lit."

"It's all lit up."

Zuo Cheng opened the system notes for the seventh node. The first line of the notes made him stop in his tracks.

The seventh node is not an ordinary data exchange station. It is the only node in the solar system's web equipped with a "deep-space broadcast array." The array points in three directions: Proxima Centauri, Barnard's Galaxy, and Sirius. These three star systems are the three web node planets closest to the solar system, respectively.

The next line of the system notes states it quite clearly: The Deep Space Broadcasting Array is the only interstellar signal transceiver in the Solar System Web. The activation of the seventh node means that the "mouth" of the Solar System Web has been opened. From this moment on, the Solar System Web can send active signals to other web nodes, instead of just receiving background noise.

Zuo Cheng projected the notes onto the main screen. Yu Ying saw it from the other end of the office. She didn't speak, but her fingers paused on the desk.

Then the panel lit up again.

The budding progress of the eleventh branch jumped from 31% to 51%. After surpassing the 50% threshold, a new function lit up on the system panel.

"The Sprout Active Acceleration feature has been unlocked."

The instructions are simple: consuming points accelerates the germination process. Every 10 points advances the germination rate by 1%. The current germination progress is 51%, requiring 49% to activate, with a theoretical requirement of 490 points.

Zuo Cheng stared at the feature in silence for a moment. This was the first time the system had offered the option to exchange points for progress. Previously, all branches had to grow naturally through event triggers. He had waited for countless turning points before activating the first ten branches. Now the system was telling him: the road ahead no longer required waiting. You have obtained the key to acceleration.

Yu Ying walked to his side.

"Four hundred and ninety points. How many do you have?"

"That's enough. But not now."

Why?

"Because the seventh node has just opened its eyes. Let it finish watching first."

Shen Yiming's voice came through the web channel. The delay was 0.04 milliseconds, as clear as their conversation on Earth three years ago. The distance of thirty astronomical units had no effect on the sound.

"The seventh node's data port is open. Tan Yue is performing the first data transmission. The deep space broadcast array's passive receive mode is also running. Which one would you like to see first?"

"Let's check the reception first."

"receive."

The first passive scan of the deep-space broadcast array lasted seventy-two hours. The scan results were divided into three data segments. The first segment came from the direction of Centaurus. A heartbeat signal. Sixty times stronger than seven months ago. Not a one-off pulse, but a continuous periodic broadcast. The period was accurate to forty-two hours and seventeen minutes. The frequency remained constant. The power remained constant. Like something knocking on a wall in the dark every now and then. The second segment came from the direction of Barnard's Galaxy. A weak carrier signal. The signal existed, but its content was unreadable. The third segment came from the direction of Sirius. The channel was empty.

Zuo Cheng labeled the three data segments on the star map. He wrote a line of text next to the heartbeat signal.

"It's not noise. It's not residue. It's a node in a web periodically broadcasting its coordinates to the entire universe."

After reviewing the data, Yu Ying whispered a sentence.

"It's been broadcasting for at least tens of millions of years. Waiting for someone to answer."

Zuo Cheng moved the cursor to the heartbeat signal in the direction of Centaurus. It's 4.2 light-years away. If the Deep Space Broadcast Array actively transmits the signal, it would take more than four years to arrive. However, if the quantum entanglement channel is established after all nine nodes of the web are activated, the delay could be zero.

A supplementary explanation pops up on the system panel: The state of the quantum entanglement communication channel between the web nodes depends on whether the receiving node is in active mode. The current state of the web nodes in the Centaurus direction is unknown. An active handshake may wake up the other node.

Zuo Cheng didn't act immediately. He placed his palm on the control panel, looking at the markers in three directions on the star map. One was jumping. One was drifting. One was empty.

Forty-two hours and seventeen minutes later, the heartbeat signal from the direction of Centaurus reappeared. This time, the signal-to-noise ratio of the deep-space broadcast array was ninety times that of seven months ago. The signal not only existed, but was also clear enough to read the coded structure.

Tan Yue transmitted a signal decoding analysis back from the seventh node. The heartbeat signal was not a random pulse. It was a repeating binary sequence. The sequence was 2,048 bits long, broadcast cyclically, and had a zero error rate.

The binary sequence, when translated into the Founder's Code, consists of only six characters.

"Node 177. Please respond."

Zuo Cheng read the sentence three times. Then he picked up a pen and drew a line on the star map. From the Sun to Centaurus. Forty-two trillion kilometers. At one end of the line was the first human to hear the neighbor's voice. At the other end of the line was a voice that had waited for at least tens of millions of years.

He wrote a sentence offline.

"We heard you. The answer is on its way."