Going Home

Doma City. Beneath the Sacred Tree, crowds of people thronged, rows of devout faces turned upward toward the golden canopy. In their soundless language, they offered prayers that only they could comprehend among themselves. That immense psychic energy wove into a vast web. Though they had not established true face-to-face communion with the Tree of Ein Sof, the psychic energy uniting tens of thousands of souls was nevertheless an existence rivaling the divine. They sensed It. And they were becoming It. Leading the crowd in prayer, Dora suddenly opened her eyes and slowly rose from the tangled roots. Saqui, who had assumed the mantle of chieftain, had invested her as the new chief priestess. She had not refused, but she had set a timeline with him: She would lead the believers of the forest in prayer for a period of time, until the fourteenth sunset. "...The spirits of light have nested within the canopy. So long as you pray devoutly, the golden hue entwined around the boughs will never fade." The so-called spirits of light were the forest's 'fireflies.' Although the Doma tribe did not yet understand the mechanics behind this, when these little spirits gathered together, they genuinely brought visible vitality to the Sacred Tree. Watching Dora stand up, Saqui, leaning on his staff, walked toward her side with trembling steps. From priest to chieftain, he had been through so much over the past few months, and the wrinkles across his face looked ever more weathered. "Is it time?" The old man looked into the young woman's eyes, a trace of reluctance in his voice. Among the youth of the Doma tribe, she was the most gifted temple maiden, and the person he had most hoped would carry on his mantle. He had even considered passing the chieftainship to her when his life drew to a close, allowing her to lead their people toward continued prosperity in this forest. What a pity... Why did the Progenitors have to take her of all people? Looking at the reluctant elder, Dora nodded gently, speaking in a soft voice. "The Progenitors are calling for me. The day of parting has arrived, and I must bid you farewell." Saqui gave a soft sigh. "When will you return?" Dora answered truthfully, "Perhaps I will never return." The Progenitor had told her that once she went to the heavens, she would have to abide by the rules of the heavens. Once she left here, she would no longer be a Doma, nor even a Gaian. Saqui nodded. In the end, he kept his words of urging her to stay to himself, offering only a blessing. "Safe journey." Dora nodded, saying in heartfelt gratitude, "Thank you for your blessing... Also, I have something to give you." With that, she reached into her tunic, drew out a bundle of thinly shaved wooden slips, and placed them into Saqui's hands. Saqui froze for a moment, noticing rows of tiny tadpole-like marks carved into the slips. "...What is this?" His face filled with confusion, and he looked up at Dora. Dora said softly, "These are our characters, the most precious knowledge our forerunner did not have time to pass down to us... I have tried to complete them, but they are not yet fully pictorial or polished. Refining them will depend on you. "From now on, our history shall be carved onto stone slabs using these." She was confident the old man would understand them, just as she could read the symbols left by the Progenitor. This was an ability bestowed upon them by psionics. And what they needed to do was teach what they understood through psionics to those tribespeople who did not possess psionic power... until they eventually found a stable way to awaken psionics. Saqui solemnly took the wooden slips from Dora's hands and tucked them into his robes. "I will spend the rest of my life doing this. I give you my word." Dora said nothing, only embracing the old man before turning and walking away without looking back. The prayer and ritual were nearing their end; next came the selection of a new chief priest. The priests and temple maidens prostrating beneath the roots looked up curiously at Saqui standing atop them, waiting quietly for him to speak. Seeing him remain silent for a long time, an elder of the tribe walked up to him and asked in a low voice, "Where did she go?" Saqui answered slowly, "To another world." "An... another world?" The elder was stunned; that lay beyond his comprehension. Saqui himself could not imagine what kind of world it was, able only to piece together an understanding from scattered words of the past. "It is an infinitely prosperous world where all good people eventually go. She saved the forest, the Progenitors took her away, and she has ascended... We should bless her." Ascension... For the first time, this word appeared in the culture of the Doma. Carrying countless good wishes, the word was destined to be passed down through generations by the people dwelling in this forest. Not only did Doma City celebrate her ascension, but the various tribes of the forest also held grand sacrificial ceremonies in her honor. From that day forth, an additional holiday was marked on the calendar of the Forest People. The day Dora departed this land would be known by its inhabitants as the Ascension Festival... By a curious twist of fate, on the very day Dora left this world, the Qiu tribe, who had fled far into the mountains, finally emerged from the peaks under Qiu Ling's leadership. They were ravenous and battered with bruises, but fortunately they had neither lost their way nor abandoned hope. The rolling roar of the tides battered everyone's ears—they finally laid eyes on the great ocean spoken of by the Progenitors! "The sea!" Rushing out onto the sandy beach, Qiu Ling was as excited as a child, bellowing back at his dumbfounded kin, "It's the sea from the prophecy!" The boundless, endless blue shook pairs of bewildered eyes; the awe in people's hearts needed no words. At this moment, even the most hesitant among them believed in the infinitely fertile land their leader had spoken of— "We will establish a foothold here to gather food! And salt! To prepare for crossing into an even wider world! Trust me, as long as we keep following the prophecy, there are even richer lands waiting ahead of us!" Full of vigor, Qiu Ling called out instructions, directing one group of tribesmen into the nearby woods to chop timber, and another group to scour the area for berries. He himself sat down by the shore, pondering how to pull something edible from the sea. The sun rose and fell; in the blink of an eye, a day had passed. Though he hadn't managed to catch any fish from the sea, the clever, resourceful Qiu Ling hadn't come away empty-handed either. He successfully roasted a crab! This was likely the very first time the 'upright apes' of this planet had tasted the delicacy known as crab. And as for these delicious little creatures, they were practically inexhaustible along this fertile beach, in numbers beyond count! Wisps of smoke drifted into the sky as the Qiu people built bonfires along the shoreline. An entire mountain range separated this place from the territory of the Forest People; no one from the forest could possibly see them here. They finally no longer had to fear that fire would draw pursuers, and at last, they could eat cooked food. Resting around the bonfires, the people sang songs celebrating their victory, carving the legend of their leader conquering the ocean onto the stone slabs they had brought from the Forbidden Forest Valley. This journey would be far longer than any of them could imagine, and the epics that could be carved onto stone slabs would stretch beyond their wildest dreams. Along the way, they would discover new scripts, new words, and new mediums and tools for recording and transmitting information. Some might fall behind, staying behind willingly or out of necessity in villages established along the route. Yet most would follow their leader onward, traveling to the ends of the world in search of their legendary home... ... Having said farewell to her family, Dora returned to her tree hollow to pack a few personal belongings and gifts from her tribespeople, then headed for the research vessel parked on the outskirts of Doma City. When she arrived near the ship, Ye Shi, clad in his power armor, was dismantling the solar panels and drone charging stations previously deployed outside. "Are you taking these down as well?" Walking up beside the silvery machinery, Dora leaned down and asked curiously. "Of course." Lifting the last packed storage crate, Ye Shi chuckled. "Otherwise, a thousand years from now, when your people dig these up, it'll be mighty hard to explain where this stuff came from." Dora asked in confusion, "Can't you just tell them?" Ye Shi shook his head. "It's not time yet. Besides... some things aren't as simple as you think." In a sense, human civilization had already paid the price for rash Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The newborn Alliance would likely adhere to non-interventionism for a long time to come, leaving these natives to evolve naturally in their own home, in their own way. As long as they didn't blow up their own planet, the Alliance probably wouldn't interfere in their internal affairs again. "We'll leave those troublesome matters to the folks who like looking for trouble. We're ready to depart." Hauling the last crate back into the research vessel, Ye Shi stood at the hatch and waved to her. Apprehensive, she followed him, stepping through the hatch into the interior of the research vessel. The silvery-white walls looked like works of art, and everything that met her eyes felt wondrous and strange. "Do you... live here usually?" "How could that be?" Ye Shi couldn't help laughing out loud. "This is called a research vessel. Jiang Xuezhou should've explained that to you, right?" Dora nodded blankly. The other Progenitor had indeed told her that this was a kind of boat that could fly in the sky. But what was a boat? To the forest tribes, the farthest place they had ever traveled was the eastern mountains. Though there was no shortage of wide rivers in the forest, they usually controlled plant growth to form bridges to cross them. Thus, let alone boats, they didn't even have a concept of bridges as man-made constructs. In a sense, while psionics had granted them much, it had also constrained them in many ways. It was hard to say whether that was a good thing or a bad thing; only further observation would tell. Just then, Jiang Xuezhou's voice came through the comm channel, startling Dora, who had been touching and inspecting the seats. "Ye Shi! Are you two ready yet? If you are, I'm taking off with the research vessel!" "All set." Ye Shi flashed an 'OK' gesture toward the camera, then signaled Dora to follow his lead and fasten her seatbelt. "Like this... is this right?" The snug constriction against her body made Dora feel intensely uncomfortable, but she obediently bore with it and didn't unbuckle. "Yep, just like that." Seeing her looking so uncomfortable, Ye Shi had half a mind to help her, but remembering that a certain jealous lover was still floating up in orbit, he could only quietly pretend not to see it. Tough it out. It'll be over in a bit anyway. A gentle electronic chime sounded through the comm channel, and pale-blue text began scrolling across the holographic display. It seemed Jiang Xuezhou had been genuinely bored out of her mind during his secluded cultivation, even going so far as to create this kind of passenger pre-flight announcement. Ye Shi rested the back of his head against the safety seat and took a deep breath. Finally— They were going home! [The vessel is now entering the pre-flight phase. Passengers, please remain seated and keep your seatbelts fastened—] [5...] [4...] [3... 2... 1—] [Engines ignited.] The instant the electronic chime finished, an immense thrust surged from beneath the seats, propelling the research vessel skyward. The violent vibrations gave Dora a fright, but seeing Ye Shi calmly resting with his eyes closed, she quickly put her mind at ease. After flying for a while, the vessel neared the edge of the clouds. At that point, Ye Shi, leaning back in his safety seat, opened his eyes. "Actually, this research ship didn't shake this much before... By the way, are you curious what the forest you lived in looks like from above?" Dora nodded hastily. "I want to see." Ye Shi swiped his index finger lightly through the air, and the pale-blue holographic screen promptly projected the view beneath the research vessel onto the center of the display. Watching the emerald-green forest shrink into a curved surface, while the sun that had already slipped behind the mountains was 'dragged' back over the edge of the horizon, Dora's eyes widened in sheer disbelief, her stunned expression beyond words. Ye Shi didn't disturb her, letting her watch as the forest grew smaller and smaller until its edges were blurred by the thick atmosphere. Neither spoke a word the entire way. Activating its antigravity system, the research vessel accelerated along the edge of the atmosphere, leaping into the deep cosmos like a dragonfly skimming the water's surface, and slowly approached the Orion missile cruiser hovering in geostationary orbit. Gazing at that towering fortress of steel, Dora's eyes went so wide they looked ready to pop from their sockets, and she gasped: "The Heavenly Palace!" "Another Heavenly Palace... Actually, this one shares quite a history with yours," Ye Shi said with a grin, his thoughts drifting back two hundred years. Who could have imagined that the Orion and the Gemini, which had mutually destroyed each other two centuries ago, would eventually reunite in such a manner? Passing through the fractured hull, the Gemini touched down successfully inside the Orion. Seeing Ye Shi unbuckle his seatbelt, Dora copied his actions, undoing hers, and hurriedly ran to open the door, only to be stopped by Ye Shi just as she reached it. "Don't get ahead of yourself. Put on this 'spacesuit.'" As he spoke, Ye Shi tossed an EVA spacesuit into her hands. He then showed her how to wear the gear and how to run a verbal diagnostic check on the equipment. With the final preparations finally complete, he evacuated the air from the cabin before opening the research vessel's hatch. Seeing Ye Shi standing at the doorway, Jiang Xuezhou, who had long been waiting outside the hatch, could no longer contain her longing and threw herself into his arms with teary eyes. "Ye Shi!" Getting whacked in the chin by her bulbous space helmet made Ye Shi wince in pain, but he bit back any snark and gently patted her back. "Sorry to keep you waiting." Standing beside the research vessel, Dora stared dumbfounded at the hugging Progenitors, then shifted her gaze toward a round-bellied robot off to the side. The robot raised an arm and took the initiative to greet her: "Hello." It was just a simple greeting, yet it froze Dora in her tracks, a frightened expression even creeping onto her face. Noticing her reaction, Jiang Xuezhou hopped off Ye Shi's shoulder and coughed lightly. "Its name is Little Koala... It's the child of an engineer on this starship." "Little... Koala?" Dora stared blankly at Little Koala, taking quite a while before stammering out a sentence in the Human Alliance language: "Why... can I not feel your soul?" "Hmm... why indeed?" Little Koala didn't seem particularly bothered by the question, stroking its nonexistent chin with a clunky mechanical hand. "Probably because I'm not human." "It seems psionics only works on organic organisms..." Stroking her chin, Jiang Xuezhou nodded thoughtfully. "Interesting... I wonder if androids have that kind of thing." "Androids?" Dora tilted her head, looking puzzled. Truth be told, she didn't even understand what a 'robot' or even a 'machine' was; she merely took it for some formidable kind of magic. Seeing Dora's bewildered expression, Jiang Xuezhou generously explained, "A type of robot virtually indistinguishable from a human. Not only are they highly realistic in appearance, but they can even think like humans... Don't worry about it; I'll teach you the meanings of all these technical terms later. Hey, tell us your impressions first! What does it feel like coming up into the sky for the first time? Is it what you imagined?" As she said this, Jiang Xuezhou's eyes sparkled with keen interest, leaning in close as though she had discovered some intriguing specimen. Dora offered an embarrassed smile and turned her gaze toward the viewport beside them. After a moment, she shared what was on her mind: "To be honest... it's quite unbelievable." "For example?" "For example... it's so dark." Pulling her gaze back from the profound gloom of deep space, Dora looked again at the Progenitor wearing the bulbous helmet and thick suit, saying self-consciously, "I thought the stars in the heavens would be brighter... Do you usually live here?" "Of course not. We live on another star five light-years away," Ye Shi chimed in with a smile, patiently explaining. "As for the darkness... that's because we're too close to this planet, so the light from the other stars is drowned out. Once we get farther away, it'll be better." Dora nodded blankly, casting her eyes toward that emerald-green planet. So all along, she had lived upon a star, and the star she lived on was merely one among tens of thousands across the galaxy. "What does 'five light-years' mean?" "It means the distance light takes five whole years to travel... Ah, right, that year refers to Earth years, not years here," Ye Shi suddenly remembered that the orbital period here differed from Earth's, adding a quick clarification. "So that's how it is..." Dora fell silent for a long time without speaking, then let out a soft murmur of wonder. "I never imagined the forest we lived in was so tiny, nor that we wouldn't have noticed at all that the ground beneath our feet was spherical... I always thought it was flat." Jiang Xuezhou quipped, "It's completely normal that you couldn't figure it out. Barring any accidents, it would probably take your people several centuries or even one or two millennia to understand that." Dora didn't reply, simply staring fixatedly at the emerald-green planet, her heart divided between the joy of knowing the truth and deep sorrow. The questions she had once been unable to grasp or fathom had all resolved themselves the moment she stepped into the starry sky. Yet what grieved her was that her people would have to wander within this labyrinth for a very, very long time... And not just her people, but also the Qiu who had departed the forest. She remembered the youth's name was Qiu Ling. He had sworn to measure the land beneath his feet with his own two legs; she wondered how far he had journeyed by now. If the world was a sphere, didn't that mean there was no such thing as an 'edge of the world'? From the very beginning, he had been pursuing something doomed to yield no result, and he would likely walk this path endlessly until the end of his life. That was simply too pitiable... Noticing Dora's prolonged silence, Ye Shi casually asked out of concern, "What are you thinking about?" After a quiet moment, Dora looked toward the two Progenitors and spoke in a mildly confused voice: "I was thinking... why can't we tell them all of this? That the world is vast, that we live on a star, and that the ground is round..." Ye Shi and Jiang Xuezhou exchanged a glance. The latter wore a nuanced expression, scratched at her helmet, and said after a moment, "Do you feel like you've been kept in the dark?" Dora rushed to clarify, "I never thought that. I just felt... perhaps we could join you. Even though we are still ignorant and weak right now, we could learn from you, and sooner or later we could surely be of help to you." Jiang Xuezhou explained patiently, "Actually, we've considered the point you're raising, but it's far too early to talk about that." Dora asked blankly, "Why?" "As for why... how should I put it..." Jiang Xuezhou felt a headache coming on and cast a pleading look at Ye Shi. Seeing that Jiang Xuezhou was at a loss for words, Ye Shi thought for a moment, looked into Dora's eyes, and answered: "Because... the universe is darker than you imagine. You merely happened to see the beam of light that caught your eye, so you mistakenly assumed the whole universe was bright—but it's really not. "What if I told you that our world isn't as wonderful as you imagine? We have problems that leave us at our wits' end, and I can say with certainty that you wouldn't be able to solve them, just as you wouldn't be able to digest the technology we could give you... Are you certain that having your people join us outright would truly be a good thing?" Dora was struck speechless. This truly lay beyond the scope of her understanding. Furthermore, she was struck by the realization that reality seemed to be just that. She hadn't even arrived in the Progenitors' world, yet standing in the heavens for the first time, she already felt a pang of disillusionment. Perhaps having the Progenitors descend might not truly be a blessing. In this regard, the Progenitors saw much farther than she did. "...It's actually possible for you to foster a civilization of your own, and perhaps even inspire us to resolve problems we both face. But if you try to skip all those steps and directly become us... I don't think that would be a good thing for either of us." Watching Dora, who seemed to have grasped his point, Ye Shi continued: "You can take this question with you to our world. Once you reach the wasteland, you'll naturally understand what I mean. "Besides, when that time comes, there will be people to discuss with you how our two worlds ought to coexist..."