Late spring, April. The night in the Beijing suburbs still carried a chill, somewhat like the distant Gandalin. Yan Ran had always felt that the rooftop terrace was the closest place to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. He often came up alone, sat in the southwest corner, smoked, and gazed at the red Betelgeuse—after all, it was closer to Gandalin. "Men today do not see the moon of old; the moon of old once shone on men of old." Yan Ran often wondered whether the "ancients" of the Ordovician period 450 million years ago had also liked to look up at the stars. Which era's sky had been more beautiful? How did Mercury's night sky differ from Earth's? Poets must have been rare on Mercury, for there was no moon—only after they came to Earth could they have sighed, "By the river, who first saw the moon? In what year did the river moon first shine on a man?" Had it not been for that flash of light from the depths of the cosmos, they would surely have left behind more classic songs. And had he not opened that door, he would probably still be on some mountaintop in Gandalin, holding a telescope and photographing the stars. Humans are always optimistic out of blindness and fearful because of the unknown.
Politicians had no interest in the poetry of the trilobite era. They cared far more about the economic and military gains that prehistoric advanced technology might bring. Even mastering room-temperature superconductor technology alone could produce incalculable economic and military value and create an overwhelming advantage over other nations. The research team rapidly expanded from the original six people to nearly two hundred, and the scale continued to grow. According to different research directions, it was divided into superconducting materials group, physics group, communications technology group, computer and information technology group, terahertz technology group, geology group, aerospace group, and astrophysics group. A lieutenant general of the army served as chief engineer, the titan of superconductivity Academician Zhao Zhidong served as chief scientist, and an eleven-member scientific advisory committee was established, with Academician Zhong Yuan also among them. Considering Yan Ran's special status as the discoverer, he was still appointed head of the geology group. A certain leader had repeatedly objected, but the committee rejected every objection on the grounds that Yan Ran's doctoral background in Earth information science and technology was of great importance to the research. Yet Yan Ran believed he had been allowed to stay mostly because of Zhong Yuan's persistence. In this country that believed in collectivism, the value of the individual had always been downplayed—just as the event was called the "Yan Ran Discovery" abroad but the "Ordovician Discovery" at home.
The breakthrough in research lay in reading the data from the superconducting memory bodies. Yet the excited scientists soon discovered that the two "hard drives" were encrypted. As soon as a 6.85 THz uplink electronic signal was input, the "twin-star welcome screen" disappeared and two strings of intertwined colored glass beads rolled slowly across the screen, flashing with light from time to time. Computer experts speculated that this might be the memory body's login window. Cracking the "primitive people's" login password became the primary task. But they were clearly far harder to deal with than the Navajo. The decryption work remained stalled.
After listening to Zou Fatty lecture all morning on the principles of superconducting terahertz radiation, Yan Ran could no longer stand the flying spittle and went out for a smoke to disinfect. This was a military research institute; security was stricter than at the geology institute. Temporary smoking areas had been set up at the end of every floor. Yan Ran pushed open the door and saw a burly middle-aged officer standing at the window with his back to the entrance, smoking. The man heard the sound, turned around, and before Yan Ran could slip away called out loudly:
"Is that Yan Ran? Come in, come in."
Yan Ran had no choice but to walk in, greeting him with slight embarrassment. "General Du, good day. You came to smoke in person?"
"Hahaha…" Du Jingming laughed heartily. "My assistant doesn't smoke. Here, have one of mine."
Yan Ran hurriedly took the cigarette and lit it himself, taking a deep drag to calm his nerves. This was the first time he had experienced the powerful aura of this rising-star general. He was the only lieutenant general in the entire army at the full corps level. His crisp military uniform and gleaming stars made Yan Ran, in his red-checkered shirt and white sneakers, feel a little awkward.
"How's everything going? Are you getting used to all the rules here?"
"Pretty good, pretty good." Yan Ran gave a perfunctory reply. He glanced at the colorful ribbons of merit on Du Jingming's chest and suddenly found a topic. "General Du, what do those badges on your chest mean?"
"Those are qualification badges—also called pay stubs." Du Jingming pointed at his chest and joked, "They consist of rank badges, service-year badges, and decorative badges. The rank badge corresponds to my duty grade—the two gold stars in the middle of the first row indicate full corps level, and it also determines the total number of rows. I have five rows. Service-year badges show my years of service; there are six types: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 10 years, with one colored vertical bar per year. I enlisted at eighteen and have twenty-eight years of service. The white decorative badges are just fillers—nothing special."
"It sounds quite complicated."
"Heh, I'll teach you a trick: first look at the number of rows, then the color of the rank badge. More rows means higher rank; brighter rank-badge color means higher position. If the rows are the same, look at the stars on the rank badge—two stars for full duty, one for deputy. Because of special historical reasons, our military uses a dual-track system of rank and duty grade. Ranks have three grades and ten levels; duty grades have fourteen levels. The correspondence is more complex than DNA base pairing, so it's more reliable to look at the rank badges."
Two strings of colored glass beads tangled in Yan Ran's mind, gradually transforming into a rotating DNA double helix. Perhaps the "primitive people" had not posed a mathematical problem after all, but a biological one.
Du Jingming noticed his distraction and smiled. "Sorry, I got a bit messy."
Yan Ran snapped back, repeatedly saying he understood, thanked General Du, and hurried back to the office. He opened the extracted "login interface" on the computer and excitedly discovered that, just as he had guessed, there were twenty-three groups of forty-six colored beads in total. The first twenty-two groups had matching pairs of the same color, but the final pair was different—one red, one blue. Human somatic cells have twenty-three pairs of chromosomes: twenty-two pairs of autosomes shared by both sexes, and one pair of sex chromosomes that differ—XY for males, XX for females. Could the "colored glass beads" correspond to human chromosomes? Was this a coincidence? Even if the memory bodies had truly been made by humans in the Ordovician, after 450 million years, multiple mass extinctions, and biological explosions, how much similarity could remain between modern humans and prehistoric humans? Yet, in Zou Fatty's words, with these two "trilobite eggs," nothing was impossible.
The geology group's laboratory was like a grand opium den in Istanbul, while the computer group's lab was like a shady internet café outside the Fifth Ring Road—practically a forbidden zone for humans. Yan Ran found the disheveled He Fan behind a pile of messy monitors. Monkey greeted him while deftly dragging over a chair and sweeping everything on it to the floor, enthusiastically inviting his guest to sit. Yan Ran eyed the dried instant-noodle broth on the seat with some hesitation, but the other man's warm hospitality made refusal impossible. He perched on half a buttock and got straight to the point, explaining his idea.
"Chromosome banding," Monkey blurted out, eyes shining.
"What does that mean?"
"Chromosomes are composed of centromeres, telomeres, long arms, short arms, etc. Each chromosome differs in size, shape, and centromere position. After G-banding staining, they display alternating light and dark transverse bands along the axis—unique banding patterns, like fingerprints, that can be used to identify and distinguish chromosomes. Simply put, chromosome banding technology digitizes chromosomes, making them easy to process with information technology."
"Aren't you a computer science PhD?" Yan Ran was puzzled.
"I did my undergrad and master's in bioengineering. The job market was bad, so I switched to computers—money comes faster. Looks like only a cross-disciplinary talent like me can understand you, haha!" After his moment of smugness, Monkey turned serious. "Savior, I am your locksmith."
He Fan made two keys: one "portrait" key composed of high-definition images of the twenty-three pairs of human chromosomes, and one "digital" key built from 1,000-band high-resolution chromosome banding digital data. Zheng Da finished debugging the equipment, pressed Yan Ran into the chair, pointed at the "Enter" key, and said, "Boss, your turn this time."
At 5:23 p.m. on April 29, with the emission of a 6.85 THz uplink signal, Yan Ran used the second key to open the door to the Ordovician civilization.
However, the prehistoric civilization's greeting gift to humanity was not a blessing spanning hundreds of millions of years, but an urgent disaster warning. On the left shoulder of Orion, a violently erupting star spewed a brilliant beam of light from its tilted rotational axis, streaking across the vast cosmos straight toward the solar system. The instant it touched, the entire star system trembled. Earth instantly turned from blue to purple; then the purple atmosphere and white water vapor were blown into space. The side facing the beam began to burn, flames spreading rapidly with Earth's rotation. The side facing away turned dark red. Earth was boiled. More than twenty minutes later the beam extinguished. The entire solar system was unrecognizable: Mercury was swallowed directly by the Sun's ejected flames; Venus for the first time revealed its scorching surface long hidden by its dense atmosphere; Saturn's beautiful rings became a glowing red fire circle, roasting the shivering gas giant…
After the alarm and data playback ended, the screen went dark for several minutes before restarting. A俯瞰 planet appeared in the center—blue oceans encircling the ancient Gondwana, Laurentia, Baltica, and Siberia continents, peaceful and serene. That was Earth in the Ordovician. At the center of Gondwana, a pyramid-shaped prism flashed continuously—perhaps a memory-body interaction button.
"That erupting star is Betelgeuse in Orion," Yan Ran broke the silence.
…
The conference room's large screen produced an even more shocking playback. The 3D-cinematic disaster scene left everyone breathless. Du Jingming stood with arms folded, silent. After nearly ten minutes, when the committee experts' chatter had thinned a little, he exchanged a glance with Zhao Zhidong, stood up, and quietly waited for everyone to settle. Du Jingming's opinion was concise and clear:
First, set the alarm aside for now; let the astronomy group verify it through observation. Second, the computer and communications groups must urgently confirm whether the memory bodies contain a built-in translation system. Third, establish a linguistics and science group to decipher the prehistoric script as soon as possible. Fourth, raise the secrecy level immediately; from today onward, all institute personnel are prohibited from unauthorized external contact or communication—implement the highest secrecy protocol.
The meeting ended at eleven p.m. Feeling somewhat oppressed, Yan Ran left Zou Fatty and Zheng Da behind and went alone to the rooftop for fresh air. He had just sat down and taken two puffs when he heard footsteps behind him. Turning, he saw Du Jingming—this was their second "chance encounter" of the day.
"General Du, good evening!"
"I came to keep you company for a smoke." Du Jingming sat down beside him and asked casually, "Can you see Betelgeuse?"
Yan Ran pointed toward the southwest horizon. "There, that red star near the horizon."
Du Jingming gave a noncommittal "Oh," unsure whether he had actually looked, and continued on his own: "Good that it's there—that's what it looked like 640 years ago. Humanity can currently observe the universe only through visible light, infrared, or other electromagnetic waves. Even if Betelgeuse has already exploded, we won't see it for another 640 years."
"Yes. The speed of light limits our observational capability. There's no other way, is there?"
"There will be. I study high-energy physics. At the micro scale many possibilities exist, but in the macro world humanity is still confined to the electromagnetic spectrum. Your discovery will definitely bring us a breakthrough." Du Jingming lit another cigarette and passed one to Yan Ran. "Let me tell you a little story. On January 12, 2010, during the Haiti earthquake, I was participating in the eighth peacekeeping mission as a police officer and personally experienced the quake and the rescue. Although it was only magnitude 7.0, the hypocenter was very shallow—less than eight kilometers—and the epicenter was only fifteen kilometers from the capital Port-au-Prince, so casualties were heavy. On the 20th we were conducting rescue in the small town of Léogâne when local refugees told us that on the day of the quake someone had found a one-meter black iron sphere in the collapsed rocks by the sea—perfectly smooth, no damage whatsoever. The Americans' noses are sharp too; on the 19th they sent a Marine helicopter and snatched the sphere away before any other rescue forces arrived. After the relief mission I made a special trip to the site and, with a guide's help, found a few photos on a local teacher's phone."
Yan Ran took the phone and was shocked to discover that although the photo resolution was low, it was enough to confirm that the sphere was almost identical to the large superconducting memory body.
"We were luckier than them—you found two metallic spheres." Du Jingming took the phone back, his tone turning resolute. "We must hurry. We cannot afford to lose this game."
"You're worried the Americans have already cracked the memory bodies?"
"I'm not worried about them. I'm worried about something bigger. But we'll have results soon."
Yan Ran understood Du Jingming's concern perfectly. Losing control of the situation was what this type of strong man feared most. They were good at driving, but they dreaded the void.
"Yan Ran, I have a suggestion you might consider." Du Jingming stood up, his tone lightening. "You should pay more attention to planetary geology—it will definitely come in handy later. Let's go rest. Perhaps when you wake up there will be good news."
Yan Ran had always felt he and Du Jingming were not the same kind of person. He pursued the essence of science; Du pursued science's "power." Yan Ran slept straight through until two o'clock the next afternoon, waking with the exhaustion of someone recovering from a serious illness. Han Ting brought a pack of cigarettes and two pieces of news. First, the National Astronomical Observatory had not yet detected any signs of Betelgeuse exploding—of course they wouldn't have. Second, He Fan and Zheng Da had worked through the night and found the memory body's built-in translation system; they had already translated the alarm information. The prehistoric civilization's script bore similarities to Chinese characters—it was a three-dimensional script containing pronunciation, meaning, and time, one dimension more than Chinese. Linguists had begun studying it.
According to the preliminary decoded information, the experts sketched a rough outline: to permanently preserve data, the superconducting memory bodies used an extremely precise "printed circuit" to store and read information and incorporated a high-precision "atomic clock." When the memory body was excited by a specific terahertz laser frequency, the output circuit would match the data circuit according to the time-circuit signal formed by the atomic clock's decay, sending disaster alarms or other data. The memory bodies' cosmic disaster early-warning system stored space-disaster events within the next billion years that posed fatal threats to Earth. According to the "atomic clock" time, the system automatically matched the Type II supernova explosion of Betelgeuse in Orion, which occurred roughly around 1626 CE, with 250 years remaining until the gamma-ray burst reached Earth. The prehistoric civilization had used the different energy levels and types of neutrinos released by Betelgeuse's carbon-burning shell, neon-burning shell, and oxygen-burning shell to calculate the exact time of its explosion. The entire process from carbon fusion to silicon fusion and finally explosion lasted about 700 years, while neutrinos from Betelgeuse to Earth took about 640 years. Thus, with neutrino detection technology, they could predict the explosion 60 years in advance. Before the gamma-ray burst traveled the 640 light-years to Earth, humanity would have a total buffer of roughly 700 years. The committee had already planned to upgrade the Jiangmen and Daya Bay Neutrino Detectors according to the memory bodies' technical guidance to enable detection of Betelgeuse's neutrinos.
Regarding the differences in data stored by the two superconducting memory bodies, the committee re-standardized the naming: the large sphere was designated the Earth Memory Body, the small sphere the Mercury Memory Body. The Earth Memory Body primarily preserved the prehistoric civilization's social forms, political systems, ideology, religion, and cultural arts; the Mercury Memory Body primarily preserved its science, technology, philosophy, and military fields. At the same time, the committee also redefined the naming of event times: the time when an event was observed via light (electromagnetic waves) was called "light-speed time," and the time when it was observed via neutrinos was called "neutrino time."
The gap between neutrino time and light-speed time was the ultimate paradise of life. For the first time, humanity had broken free of the shackles of lightspeed.