After Hao Ren left Tannagost, he did not return home directly, instead he teleported to Kuiper Station. He docked his spacecraft in his own special port and watched the staff in the port bustle around busily for registration as well as facilities preparation through the screen of external monitors. A translucent shadow stood beside him, looking at the screen with a curiously. "Is this my home port?" she asked.
This translucent shadow was Nolan. She spent one week at the Crapple Research Station to adapt to her new 'body' and learned a lot about the daily operations of Petrachelys. Although she was not familiar with the work, she was now basically a qualified operation assistant.
The mastery of such a complex knowledge in just one week should be attributed to Nolan's present life form: her ability to learn was now no longer tied to the limitation of human's body. Data terminal already unbolted the performance shackles of this AI girl. With the help of the mainframe of the spacecraft, Nolan was fast at mastering new knowledge. In the past week, she spent only a fraction of her time learning new knowledge and put more time and energy into adapting herself to new life.
"You're basically docked here when I don't have any mission," Hao Ren said while pointing to the port outside, "still remember the procedure you've learned? Don't forget to send the identification code and receive the boot signal. You are the official spacecraft of Xi Ling Empire. If you don't follow the procedure, it can cause a lot of trouble."
"Got it, you've said it several times," Nolan said and put her hands on her hips, then looked at the starry sky at the other end of the port, "but it would be boring to stay here..."
"You want to go out?" Hao Ren raised his eyebrows and asked. After one week of getting along, Nolan was not as cold and detached as she was when they first met, and some of her thoughts were easily guessed. "Okay, how about this. You can move freely within the Galaxy. Don't go too far— so I can call you back whenever I have a new mission. There's a map of the Galaxy's power distribution and a civilizations list in your navigation star chart. Don't disturb their order… Well, doesn't matter, there's a security agreement anyway. "
Nolan blinked and said, "Within the Galaxy… and you said don't go 'too far'?!"
She did not expect Hao Ren to be so generous: she thought it would be nice if she could stroll about one hundred and eighty light-years around.
Before Hao Ren said anything, the data terminal on the console muttered, "For your current performance, it's just a walk. Most parts of the universe are empty. Even if you press the accelerator hard, you probably won't bump into anything. "
"Oh. I haven't experienced real space yet. I just ran a few times around the gravitational circle of the star when I was at the Crapple Research Station... I'm suddenly looking forward to it!"
The data terminal smiled and said, "Hey, you have to get used to it as soon as possible. You have to get used to the feeling of being a spacecraft. When I became a human for the first time, I also experienced a lot of things. The worldview is a wonderful thing…"
"Stop talking nonsense." Hao Ren pulled the data terminal out of the console slot and waved goodbye to Nolan. "I'll go back to earth first. If you have any questions here, just contact me."
When everyone had left, Nolan was left alone on the deserted bridge. But it was just her holographic image standing here. Nolan could not feel anything from her own senses. Her real senses came from the spacecraft. The hundreds of-meter-long metal beast was docked at the port of Kuiper station. Nolan tried to concentrate, and once again felt the peculiar experience that this unfamiliar body brought her. She could feel the vast space that she was in, she could feel the humans and the robots walking around not far away, she could sense the energy turbulence in the nearby port facility, and she could even sense that in another port dozens of kilometers away, another spacecraft was leaving.
Nolan was trying to perceive all this as much as she could, imagining her body immersed in the wave of information in the real world. She 'opened her eyes' and used countless external monitors on the spacecraft to see the scene in front of her, confirming the place over and over again.
This was the real world. No reincarnation, no virtual world, no script. The whole universe was really moving around her. Everything was so real and reliable, and there was no need to worry that they would suddenly disappear. Nolan, the girl who had gone through ten thousand years of rebirth, finally realized the thing she had hoped for in her dreams countlessly: waking up from a dream and facing reality.
However, she had lost the ability to touch the real world. All she could feel was the precise, icy numbers: 0.96g, 27℃, 96.35kpa. These numbers came from the countless sensors of Petrachelys. Each sensor was more precise and complex than a biological nerve. She browsed through the data and felt no temperature or weight. Her judgment on them was just either 'normal' or 'abnormal'.
"I have to adapt to life as a spacecraft," Nolan said and sighed, or more precisely, the holographic projection 'sighed'. She focused on the stars in the distance and thought to herself, "Let's go and see the stars."
The Petrachelys sent out a signal of departure. After the automated response system of Kuiper station responded, it drifted briskly to the starry sky outside the port. In the distance, several busy port staff looked curiously at the spacecraft, wondering why it had to leave so soon. At this moment, they heard Nolan's voice. "I'm going for a walk. Please prepare some polishing wax and wax my lower belt armor when I come back."
Nolan decided to be a good spacecraft start from today, starting with self-maintenance.
The port staff were looking at each other. A young employee pressed his hat and asked, "The inspector's spacecraft never spoke before, did it?"
"Don't ask any unnecessary question," a senior staff said, looking serious, "all the things in the Xi Ling Empire have their own personalities. Get the polishing equipment ready!"
Two days after returning to Earth from the Plane of Dreams, Hao Ren had returned to normal life, so did his tenants. Most of them had gone through big storms, no matter how much trouble they had gone through, they would always be able to go on with their life when they back home. But still, the event of Zorm left a deep impression on everyone, and they were talking about it for two days.
There was a Zorm, and will there be more planets like Zorm that were protected by the guardians?
Hao Ren was fiddling with the data terminal on the table who was showing the holographic projection Raven 12345. He reported his experience in the Plane of Dreams, and now the communication between them was about to end.
"Preserving the diversity of civilizations is also the daily work of the inspectors," Raven 12345 said with a smile on her face, seemed to be in a good mood, "and the more civilization we preserved, the easier it is to find the clues of the Goddess of Creation."
"Next I plan to expand the searching scale in the plane of dreams. Maybe there are other guardians who keep their sanity survived. I want to bring them together and, if possible, rebuild the Guardian Corps of the Star of Creation." Hao Ren was talking about his grand ideas. Although these ideas did not seem to be possible at the moment, he was full of confidence. "The Guardians who keep their sanity have accepted the order of the Goddess of Creation. Whether they complain or not, they will help to stop those crazy Firstborns and the brain monsters. So if we can rebuild the Guardian Corps, it should be able to make the Plane of Dreams safer."
"Well… And probably there will be guardians who know something about the Wall of Reality," Raven 12345 nodded and said, "you take care of it. You have proven your ability. You're such a genius!"
"Well, thanks for the compliment. Anything else?"
"Yes—next time don't let your daughter jump in front of the camera. It makes me dizzy."
Hao Ren looked down and saw that Lil Pea was jumping on the table. The little girl looked up at the Raven 12345's face floating in the air, and then focused on the data terminal: She was waiting for them to end the conversation so she could keep pushing the data terminal all over the house.
Hao Ren waved goodbye to Raven 12345 and then ended the communication. At the same moment, data terminal yelled at them, "I have something to talk to you two…"
And then it was taken away by Lil Pea before it could finish the sentence.
Hao Ren was watching Lil Pea fiddling with her big toy happily and then leaned back in his chair.
"Rebuild the Guardian Corps... Is it a little too early to think about it?"