The passage was very quiet. Norton walked ahead and Ye Muo followed close behind.
Their trip was quite simple. Secretary-General Lin only arranged one mothership at Norton’s request. Still, there was more than enough room for the two of them.
Ye Muo had never been on a trip like this before. Before, excursions were usually in groups and involved fleets and soldiers, with Secretary-General Lin handling all arrangements, of course.
And now, it was just him and Father.
Ye Muo followed Norton to the command centre.
This mothership was specifically designed for travel. The command centre was not as minimalistic as combat motherships or warships. There were sofas, a full set of facilities and even a wine cabinet, decorated in the style of the Grantz Palace.
Data scrolled past on the holographic screen in the front. The ship was in automatic navigation mode.
As soon as they entered, a holographic projection quickly took form on the central command console. This was a virtual representation of the ship’s AI.
[Hello. This is Shipborne AI F. There are no abnormalities en route. The destination is Planet F26.]
Norton waved his hand to dismiss the projection, which was replaced by a 3D map displaying a line of connected planets.
He traced out a region. “This is where its data trail last appeared.”
Ye Muo also looked intently. “There are several planets in the area. Let’s go check them out one by one. It won’t take too long.”
Norton made a sound of acknowledgement. He zoomed in on their destination planet.
Ye Muo spoke before he could this time, “This planet seems to be rich in vegetation.”
“En. We can go have a look around.”
Ye Muo shook his head. “Let’s find Theodore first. Then we can go visit together.”
What if the delay caused Theodore to be damaged? It was just a little AI. There were no backups to bring it back should it be deleted. Although Norton was around, Ye Muo still had his reservations.
Norton made a sound of acknowledgement and didn’t say much more. He inputted his psychic power into the command console, further increasing the ship’s speed as well as turning on viewing mode. The command centre faded away around them.
The walls nearest to the external environment became transparent.
“Sit down and get used to this speed. There’s chilled juice as well.”
Ye Muo made a sound of acknowledgement. He ran over to the sofa in the lounge. The endless expanse of space and the scattered stars in the distance made the solitary mothership seem all the more lonely.
This feeling was only alleviated when they occasionally crossed paths with other mothership fleets.
A glass of slightly cool fruit juice was placed beside him.
Ye Muo glanced up. Norton was there with a tray in hand. There was a bottle of wine, a beautiful glass, and some snacks on it. Norton noticed Ye Muo’s gaze and set the plate before him. “Don’t have too much. There’s still lunch later.”
Norton placed the bottle on the other side of the table and took a seat next to Ye Muo.
After a pause, he chose not to open the bottle, instead filling the tall glass with water.
Norton didn’t particularly care for alcohol, but it would indeed be his beverage of choice compared to other options. If given the choice, Norton would choose strong spirits.
He brought the bottle over out of habit since it’s been so long since he’s had a drink. It slipped his mind until now that his Xavier was right beside him, not yet old enough to drink.
Still, this feeling wasn’t all too bad.
……
Theodore wandered around, not knowing where he was or where he was going.
The only thing it could confirm was that it had left the bounds of the galactic network.
It all started from the moment it caught up with that data bundle.
When touched, the data swept up every fiber of Theodore’s being like a hurricane. Theodore’s psychic power and data alike were swiftly being engulfed and assimilated by the strange data.
Theodore only realized just how active the data bundle was when he made contact with it. The data fragments it had left behind were constantly undergoing various high-speed operations and executing code.
The data bundle was the same way. It was like a half-finished program, constantly running through the code imparted by its creator.
This process was so overwhelming and brisk that Theodore was forced to match its tempo.
It wasn’t how things were supposed to go. Theodore thought it could gradually parse out the data and obtain the information it needed at its own pace.
Instead, Theodore seemed to have boarded a mothership in constant motion which was even assimilating it.
Theodore has been trying to isolate this group of data, but for some reason, it just never seemed to end. It was hard to separate the strands even with Theodore’s massive computational power.
It reminded Theodore of a cartoon it had once watched with Ye Muo. The protagonist, a magician, absorbed a monster and inherited its sharp claws, pointed ears and tail.
Theodore was now the magician, but the beast he had targeted was far more ferocious than its cartoon counterpart. The ever-changing data bundle was changing Theodore as well. If he could not stop this process, he would transform into a beast and become another part of this data bundle.
[This will not do.]
[I cannot waste too much time here.]
[If separation is not feasible, then I will consume you.]
[Let us see whose appetite is bigger.]
Theodore stopped all calculations. Instead of separating its own data from the foreign strands, it started trying to ‘swallow’ this data instead.
After all, they were just data.
……
That night.
Norton handed the menu for the smart kitchen to Ye Muo. “Is there anything you want in particular?”
Ye Muo carefully flipped through each page. When he reached the last few pages with various flavors of nutrient solutions, he swiftly flipped away.
The smart kitchen’s records were based on Adlet.
Ye Muo made sure to pick out all of his favourite foods. He decided to not repeat the ones he had for lunch. He selected two different desserts before setting the quantity for the other items to two and handing the menu back to Norton.
Norton noted at a glance that it was all meat. He added on a few vegetables before submitting the order.
“Have you traveled like this before, Father? All by yourself, that is.”
Norton made a sound of acknowledgement, “Many times. The same goes for Ano and the others. As Grantz get older, they start to frequently leave home, sometimes in groups but more often alone.”
Especially as they reached their peak and their psychic power became increasingly powerful.
The Grantz would automatically distance themselves from each other to avoid unnecessary conflicts. Traveling was a good way of accomplishing that goal.
Norton saw many beautiful sceneries as a result, including ice-encrusted planets, dead stars, and beautiful creatures that floated through the air due to the low gravity of their planet. They could grow to enormous sizes dwarfing even some of the insects, but unfortunately their bodies were too soft and defenseless to resist the claws of the insects.
“Didn’t you feel lonely by yourself?”
“I would look around at the planets. See?”
Norton pointed outside. Ye Muo followed Norton’s gaze.
“There’s no port on that planet, suggesting it is uninhabited by humans. However, its green hue indicates vegetation cover is likely. This is a living planet. Sometimes, I would land on them and take a look around.”
However, most of his time was spent searching for infested planets to vent his excess energy and manic psychic power on. The same should go for the other Grantz.
Norton declined to mention this part.
Ye Muo shook his head. “As for me, I like to be around other people. For example, being with Father right now puts me at ease. I would definitely feel lonely if I was here by myself. I might keep looking out the window, waiting for someone to wave at me, but the world outside is too vast and makes me feel empty.”
This was a one-way viewing area, but even so, there were people on the mothership fleets occasionally passing that would wave or flash their lights. Small interactions like that were a way to stave off boredom on these monotonous journeys. Ye Muo would always flash their lights in response.
Norton pulled down half of the floor to ceiling curtains so that Ye Muo could see just the stars outside and not the empty space.
……
Theodore’s body was filled with foreign processes.
It managed to wrest control, but the expenditure was considerable.
Even Theodore’s computational power was barely enough to support these processes. It gradually chipped away at optimization, pausing what chaotic and interruptible components it could first.
The first thing it did when an idle moment came up was analyze the current situation– there was no signal or way out in the immediate vicinity. This location was sealed off, disconnected from the galactic network with little data to work with. It was like an offline, freshly formatted server.
Theodore regretfully gave up the idea of contacting Xavier for now. Converting to psychic power and uploading itself to the galactic network would have to wait.
Then, Theodore analyzed those processes. It noticed right off the bat that some of the data overlapped with the data from when Theodore initiated teleportation, indicating that a portion of the data bundle was constantly running this protocol.
What was being teleported? The data itself?
Theodore quickly rejected this speculation due to the fatal flaw of teleportation. Long distance teleportation required a significant amount of energy. Once a certain critical distance was exceeded, the procedure would require a compressed energy core nearly the size of a planet to teleport a small computer chip. As the distance continued to increase, energy demands would rise exponentially to terrifying heights.
Unlike normal data, matter-converted data was difficult to move over the galactic network without expending energy.
Yet this data bundle was able to move vast distances at a swift pace.
Theodore continued to ramp up analysis and calculations. It was a bit impatient to see the results.
The information from the research institute was incomplete. However, Theodore was able to locate the experimental records after scouring the galactic network. Back then, researchers had attempted to initiate long-distance teleportation.
Their chosen experimental target was a crystal of extremely high energy density. They hoped this quality would be able to offset some of the energy demands of teleportation.
Yet the experiment failed and the crystal disappeared, cutting off any hopes for details.
Theodore’s analysis was still ongoing, but it couldn’t help but reserve a small amount of computational power to calculate various possibilities.
Nothing could disappear out of thin air. The experimental crystal must still be out there somewhere. The essence of teleportation was converting matter to data and vice versa.
In that case, was the experimental target currently data or matter?
