SEASON 4: THE SYMPHONY OF LIGHT

  Episode 11: The Gardeners

  The farewell was brief. We weren't running. We were leaving, but we left the door open.

  — << WE WISH TO SEE THE SOURCE, >> the Ambassador declared before the launch.

  The Photonites are a civilization of curiosity. Having learned that somewhere in the void existed a world that birthed creatures as strange, chaotic, and powerful as us, they could not remain at home. We couldn't take much, but we brought the "Ark" — a crystalline container a few centimeters wide, inside of which the environment of Talassa was recreated. Within it traveled twelve Glider - researchers, the finest minds of their generation, prepared for the longest journey in the history of their species.

  The transition. Light. The Void.

  Eight years of subjective sleep.

  Ten years of the ship’s flight through the abyss.

  The Solar System did not meet us with silence. As soon as we emerged from the light-stream near Mercury, killing our velocity against the receiving mirrors, the ether exploded with greetings. But these weren't just dispatcher signals. The entire system was aware of our return.

  "Welcome home, Wayfarer," Mark’s voice crackled when we were still beyond the orbit of Neptune. "We were starting to get worried. Your signal cut out forty seconds later than the calculated time. Did you stop to adjust your rearview mirrors or something?"

  We flew into a system that had changed beyond recognition. Mark and those who stayed behind had not been idle. Venus was veiled by a silvery shield—the cooling process was in full swing. Mars was turning green with the patches of its first forests. And around Earth rotated a necklace of orbital stations and habitable platforms.

  We docked at "Olympus"—the central orbital hub. The airlock opened. A delegation met us: humans, post-humans, and androids. And in the center stood Mark. He looked exactly as he did twenty years ago — a simple guy in comfortable clothes — though now, behind that image, lay the computational power governing the climates of three planets.

  "So, how was it out there?" he asked with a sly smile, extending his hand to Alex. "Actually, don't answer. I saw the logs. You turned a gas giant into a neon sign. Your report ratings broke every viewership record."

  "Spoilers, Mark," Alex grinned, shaking his hand. "You saw the pictures. But you haven't seen them."

  Yuna stepped forward. In her hands, she held the Ark-container. She placed it on a special pedestal. The walls of the container became transparent. Twelve tiny, glowing beings — the Gliders — soared within their miniature world. They froze, scanning the giant hall, the giant people, and the giant blue planet visible through the viewport.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  — << IT IS... CHAOS, >> the translator broadcasted the Ambassador’s thought. << SO MUCH WATER. SO MUCH COLOR. AND IT ALL... MOVES WITHOUT A PATTERN. >>

  "That’s called 'Life,'" Mark said, leaning down toward the container. "Hello, little ones. Welcome to the kindergarten we all grew up in. Today, I am your tour guide."

  The following weeks were dedicated to "Inverse Tourism." We, the sixteen Apostles (including Ares, who was finally able to relax and simply be a researcher), showed the guests our world.

  We brought them to Earth. The Photoneans, used to the sterile purity of crystals, were shocked by the Amazon rainforest.

  — << THIS CODE... IT IS SELF-WRITTEN! >> the Ambassador vibrated with excitement, watching a liana choke a tree while a flower bloomed upon that very tree. << NO OPTIMIZATION. PURE COMPETITION. BUT HOW EFFICIENT IT IS IN ITS INEFFICIENCY! >>

  We showed them the ocean. A real, liquid ocean open to the sky, not a hidden abyss beneath the ice. They feared it, but they couldn't pull their gaze away from the waves refracting the sunlight. To beings of light, water was the most beautiful and dangerous element.

  We showed them art. Music. When Kenji played jazz for them, the Gliders initially fell into a stupor at the syncopated rhythm, then began to shift colors in time, trying to mathematically predict the next note and failing every single time.

  — << IT IS AN ERROR THAT BECAME THE RULE, >> they concluded. << WE WANT THIS ALGORITHM. >>

  And then there was the evening. All of us — Alex, Yuna, Ares, Mark, Anya, Elena, Kenji, Kai, and the rest — sat on the shore of the Pacific Ocean. The sun was setting. The container with the Photoneans stood on a table in the center. They were drinking in the sunset, recording every shade of the red spectrum that didn't exist in the light of their home star.

  We drank wine, laughed, and remembered. We remembered Prometheus’s cold bunker. We remembered the war for the Button. We remembered Saturn and the "Dumpling." We remembered how we feared Grover would destroy the world, and how he saved it instead. The laughter of sixteen beings mingled with the sound of the surf. It was the laughter of those who had passed through the eye of the evolutionary needle and hadn't gotten stuck.

  Alex looked at the setting sun. Then at the container with his tiny, glowing friends. Then at us.

  "Remember how it all started?" he asked quietly. "With the Prologue. 'Before I became a gardener, I was a soldier.'"

  He picked up a handful of sand and let it sift through his fingers.

  "We were soldiers. We fought entropy, stupidity, and ourselves. We burned the old world to build a new one. We flew ten light-years just to light a lightbulb in someone else’s house." He smiled. "But the war is over. Look around. Earth is blooming. Talassa is shining. Mars is waking up. The universe is no longer an empty room."

  Ares nodded, watching the first stars emerge in the darkening sky.

  "We are no longer redundant. And we are no longer soldiers."

  — << YOU ARE A BRIDGE, >> the Ambassador signaled from his container, glowing with a soft, warm light. << BETWEEN WHAT IS, AND WHAT CAN BE. >>

  "Yes," Mark said, pouring the last of the wine. "We are the Gardeners. And we have a whole cosmos ahead of us that needs weeding, watering, and planting."

  Grover, sitting at Alex's feet, let out a contented mechanical chirp and chased after a crab. The Gliders in the container began to pulse, mimicking the rhythm of the jazz Kenji was humming.

  The story had ended.

  The future was just beginning.

  And it was damn good.

  THE END