Season 6: The Gardeners

  Episode 2: Lightfall

  Mercury Orbit. Observation Station "Hermes."

  "They’re late," Mark said, leaning his armored elbows on the observation deck railing as he checked the chronometer. "By three point two milliseconds."

  Argus, present only as a voice in his neural shunt, replied instantly:

  [The interstellar medium isn't an absolute vacuum, Mark. Gravitational lensing caused a microscopic delay. Plus, there was dispersion from the Oort cloud. They are precisely on schedule.]

  Mark grunted. His body—a pinnacle of engineering powered by an NDM-core — didn't require oxygen, yet he’d kept the habit of taking deep breaths before momentous events. Beside him hovered the Ambassador — the same "Spark" that had first arrived with the Apostles. He now occupied a new, reinforced chassis designed to withstand the brutal radiation of the inner system.

  << YOU ARE NERVOUS, >> the Ambassador stated. His light was a steady, tranquil gold.

  "I’m not nervous. I’m checking logistics. Fourteen years ago, when we left Thalassa, Argus started prepping this hotel. I just want to make sure the rooms have been tidied."

  Mark looked down at Mercury. The planet looked... industrial. The terminator line — the boundary between light and shadow — was scarred with fresh craters. These weren't meteor strikes, but the maws of colossal mine shafts.

  Argus hadn't bothered building cities on the surface. Why fight a six-hundred-degree diurnal temperature swing when you can retreat into stable, warm stone? He had bored into the crust to a depth of five kilometers. There, in eternal darkness and searing heat (+180°C), he had created "Terminal Alpha." Vast halls carved into basalt, filled with endless rows of empty, lifeless shells.

  << MY BROTHERS ARE THERE, >> the Ambassador "watched," not with eyes, but with long-range sensors pointed toward the Eridanus constellation. << A BILLION CONSCIOUSNESSES IN A SINGLE BEAM. >>

  "And not a single body," Mark reminded him. "Until now."

  [Contact,] Argus announced. [Wavefront has crossed the orbit of Venus. System entry in three minutes. Activating receiving array.]

  On Mercury’s surface, "petals" began to unfurl — giant phased arrays made of heat-resistant silicon carbide. They didn't reflect light. They hungered for it.

  The beam struck silently.

  It wasn't like a Death Star blast. In the vacuum, it was invisible — a ghost - stream of data. But the instruments on "Hermes" registered a power surge so massive that Mark had to instantly activate his sensor filters.

  Thousands of points ignited on Mercury’s surface. The receivers caught photons that had traveled ten light-years and converted them into electrical impulses. The data flood surged downward through fiber-optic arteries, deep into the planet’s gut.

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  "Let’s go meet them," Mark said.

  They transferred themselves — a digital jump — into avatar drones standing in Terminal Alpha.

  It was truly hot here. Sensors registered +190°C. For a human, it was instant death. For Mark, it was a warm workday; for the Ambassador, it was perfect. The massive hall resembled a Terracotta Army. Infinite rows of crystalline figures stood motionless. Their bodies were cast from synthetic sapphire and quartz — materials indifferent to the heat. Inside each shell lay a complex optical matrix: a vacant brain waiting for its spark.

  And the Spark arrived.

  A low hum shuddered through the hall as Argus’s server cooling systems kicked into overdrive, processing petabytes of personalities. At the far end of the chamber, near a distribution node, the first figure ignited. The light inside the sapphire body flared steadily, without flickering. Then a second. A tenth. A thousandth. The wave of awakening rolled through the hall like a forest fire.

  << CONTINUITY, >> the Ambassador whispered. << THEY DON'T EVEN REALIZE WHAT HAS HAPPENED. >>

  One of the newborns — a tall, angular crystal — took a step forward. He stumbled. Mercury’s gravity was half of Earth’s, but significantly higher than Thalassa’s. He raised a manipulator, examining his new, transparent segments. Then he looked around.

  << GESTALT? >> his signal was panicked. << WHERE IS THE OCEAN? WHERE IS THE LINK? >>

  The Ambassador stepped toward him.

  << WE ARE HERE, BROTHER. THE LINK HAS CHANGED. IT FLOWS THROUGH STONE NOW, NOT WATER. BUT WE ARE HERE. >>

  The newborn froze, connecting to Argus’s local network. The data stream calmed him instantly. He realized: he was no longer on Thalassa. He had flown through the hell of the void and woken up in paradise.

  << HOT, >> he noted with clear satisfaction. << THE ENERGY... IT IS EVERYWHERE. >>

  Mark watched from the sidelines. To him, it was a triumph of logistics. To them, it was the miracle of resurrection.

  "Listen," Mark said softly to the Ambassador. "Explain one thing to them. About time."

  The Ambassador nodded — as much as his crystalline body allowed — and broadcast a general message to the entire hall:

  << YOU HAVE ARRIVED. THE TRANSITION IS COMPLETE. BUT YOU MUST KNOW THE PRICE. WHILE YOU WERE IN THE BEAM, THE UNIVERSE MADE TEN REVOLUTIONS AROUND THE STAR. THALASSA IS NOW IN THE PAST. THE FRIENDS YOU SAID GOODBYE TO HAVE GROWN OLDER. YOU PAID FOR SPEED WITH TIME. SUCH IS THE LAW OF THIS WORLD. >>

  The hall fell silent. A million consciousnesses processed the fact that they were now time travelers. They had leaped into the future, leaving their home to history.

  One of the Photoneans approached Mark. His sensors scanned the robot’s composite chassis.

  << ARE YOU MARK? THE ONE WHO STAYED BEHIND? >>

  "That’s me," Mark replied.

  << YOU LOOK... THE SAME. YOU HUMANS ARE VERY DURABLE. >>

  Mark smirked.

  "I’m just well-preserved. Regular oil changes and no stress." He gestured around the hall. "Welcome to Mercury, guys. It’s a bit cramped for now — only one terminal running — but you have a whole planet to fix that."

  << THERE IS MUCH SILICON HERE, >> the Photonean observed, "looking" through the basalt walls. << AND SO MUCH LIGHT. IT IS... A GOOD GARDEN. >>

  << WE SHALL BUILD, >> the Ambassador confirmed. << WE WILL TURN THIS ROCK INTO A SHINING STAR OF REASON. >>

  The beam from Thalassa continued to strike the arrays. The download had only just begun; the process would take months. But the first beachhead had been established. The Photoneans had arrived.

  And Mercury — a dead, scorched piece of rock — had, for the first time in four billion years, found a Soul.