bigabreads Chapter 292 The World Under the Ice
Chapter 292 The World Under the Ice
On the fourth day after the seventh node was activated, the data port released the first batch of archived data.
This wasn't a network operation log, nor a routing table update record. This data had been sealed beneath Triton's icy shell for at least 200 million years. Tan Yue spent three days completing the preliminary index, and the first summary sent to the ground consisted of only one sentence.
"Beneath Triton's icy shell isn't rock. It's an ocean. A liquid ocean that has existed for 4.5 billion years."
Zuo Cheng read that sentence twice in the control center. Then he opened Tan Yue's complete data.
The ice shell is approximately 80 kilometers thick. Beneath the ice shell lies a liquid water ocean, over 200 kilometers deep, directly covering the silicate core. The total volume of this ocean is about one-third of the ocean on Earth. Water temperature: Tidal heating and radioactive decay keep the ocean floor temperature around 4 degrees Celsius.
Even more striking data comes from the chemical composition of the ocean.
The water contains high concentrations of ammonia and dissolved organic carbon. There are over four hundred types of organic carbon, including seventeen amino acids used in Blue Star proteins. The types of amino acids are highly consistent with those found in the early oceans of Blue Star, but the concentrations are three orders of magnitude higher.
Tan Yue wrote a passage in his diary.
"This ocean is not a breeding ground for life. This ocean is a supermarket for life. The shelves are full of everything, except for one customer who will walk in. The problem is, this supermarket has been open for 4.5 billion years, and not a single customer has ever entered. Why?"
Yu Ying reviewed the data simultaneously on Earth. Zuo Cheng asked her the same question.
"Four and a half billion years. There are oceans. There are amino acids. Why is there no life?"
Yu Ying's answer was brief.
"It's possible. We just haven't found it yet. Or maybe we found it but didn't recognize it."
Zuo Cheng remained silent for a while. Liquid water exists on more than just Earth in the solar system, but only the water on Earth has learned to reflect its own image.
Tan Yue's second batch of data was transmitted back that evening.
This is the second part of the archive at Node Seven. It contains long-term observational records from the Founding Civilization. The records span from 230 million to 180 million years ago, a period of 50 million years. The object of observation was not Triton itself, but the entire solar system.
The record contains a complete "Potential Assessment Report of Solar System Civilizations".
The report categorizes the life potential of celestial bodies in the solar system into five levels. The highest level—civilization-level potential—is represented by only one object in the entire report.
Blue Star.
The report refers to Earth as "Rocky Planet Number Three." The assessment is based on a single line: the atmosphere's oxygen content has reached the explosion threshold, and carbon-based photosynthesis is about to begin. The predicted window for a civilizational explosion is between 150 million and 200 million years.
This report was written 200 million years ago.
Its predicted time window covers the entire history of Earth from the Cambrian explosion to the emergence of humankind. Cambrian. Dinosaurs. Homo sapiens. Agriculture. Industry. Information. Pioneer. Humans sailed an iron-hulled ship to Neptune's moon and then, beneath its icy shell, read a note written to them by their creators two hundred million years ago.
Yu Ying projected the final evaluation report onto the screen.
At the end of the assessment report was a line of encrypted text. The encryption level was the highest among the founders' codes, and only the Webmaster could read it. Zuo Cheng decoded that line of text.
"The civilization potential of the third rocky planet has been confirmed. However, we have observed an unstable factor in its ecosystem. The intelligent life on this planet periodically develops a self-destructive tendency during its evolution. The sixth host, Homo sapiens, nearly went extinct due to a supervolcano 70,000 years ago. The seventh host, the Aquamans, perished due to rising sea levels 12,000 years ago. Warning: If the eighth host also develops the same tendency, it is recommended to grant them web-weaving privileges before they reach interstellar travel capabilities. We did not consider that the seeds might consume themselves when we planted them."
After reading this line, Zuo Cheng remained silent for a longer time than Yu Ying had expected.
Then he wrote a sentence next to the report.
"Thank you for your concern. But our generation doesn't have time to eat ourselves. We're busy building spaceships."
Yu Ying looked at the line of words, and the corner of her mouth twitched slightly. It wasn't a smile, but a deeper kind of agreement than a smile.
Wenya's data was transmitted back at 3 a.m.
She discovered an anomaly while analyzing the chemical composition of the ejecta from Triton, an ice volcano. Each eruption of the ice volcano brings trace minerals from the ocean floor to the surface. The isotopic ratio of one of these minerals did not match that of naturally occurring minerals in the solar system. The abundance of uranium-235 was only three-thousandths of the natural value.
This is spent nuclear fuel residue.
It wasn't a nuclear weapon, it was a nuclear reactor. Someone operated a nuclear reactor on the ocean floor of Triton at least a billion years ago.
Wenya pushed the data into the web.
After receiving the message, Yu Ying stared at the screen in silence for almost a minute. Then she sent a message in the team chat.
"The seventh node is not a natural node. It was built on the ruins of an older facility."
Zuo Cheng saw the message while he was at the monitoring and control center. He opened the system panel, which had automatically reclassified the data for the seventh node. The category name was only two words: Founder Archives.
The system notes appear in the description column.
"The Founders are not myths, but recorders. They have recorded the rise and fall of host species seven times over four billion years. You are the eighth. The first to live long enough to read these records."
Zuo Cheng opened the index of the Founders' Archives. Two new entries were added: Observation Record of the Seventh Node, 230 to 180 million years ago, assessment of the potential of the solar system civilization; Remains of the Seventh Node's underlying facilities, approximately one billion years ago, containing nuclear reactor remains, builders unknown.
Shen Yiming sent a voice message from Pioneer.
"Tan Yue said he wanted to stay on Triton. He wasn't joking. He said this ocean might be the closest place to life in the solar system, even closer than Earth. Because life on Earth has already blossomed, but life here is still waiting for spring. He wants to wait until spring comes."
Zuo Cheng replied with two sentences.
"Tell him to wait. Spring will come. But not today."
Pioneer continued its operation in orbit around Triton. Tan Yue took dozens of photos of the ice volcano. Wen Ya continued analyzing ice shell samples. Huo Zheng tightened a few more bolts. Ji Beihang drew a new course in the cockpit, heading towards the Kuiper Belt.
Zuo Cheng reread the Founder's warning late at night. "The seed will devour itself." He juxtaposed this warning with the heartbeat signal from Centaurus. On one side was the Founder's worry from two hundred million years ago. On the other was a voice waiting for at least tens of millions of years, forty-two trillion kilometers away. Worrying was unnecessary. Humanity didn't need to be worried about. Humanity needed to be responded to.
He opened the control interface of the deep space broadcast array. The channel was established. The quantum entanglement link was completed at the nine-node golden synchronization. He didn't input anything.
It's not time yet. Let's finish the journey ahead. Let's finish building the ship first.
Zuo Cheng wrote a line in the system log.
"The eighth host. The first time, I survived long enough to read the records. The third time, I stood atop the icy shell of a new planet, looking down. What I saw below was no longer darkness, but an ocean that had waited for 4.5 billion years without a customer. We are not customers. We are deliverymen. The goods are spring. The address is the universe. The delivery is on its way."