“And then?”
“The second sign of the civilization’s senescence was the Age of the Machine Cradle.”
“What?”
“By then our machines no longer relied on their creators. They operated independently, maintained themselves, and developed on their own. The smart machines gave us everything we needed: not just material needs, but also psychological ones. We didn’t need to put any effort into survival. Taken care of by machines, we lived as though we were lying in comfortable cradles.
“Think about it; if the jungles of primitive Earth had been filled with inexhaustible supplies of fruits and tame creatures that desired to become food, how could apes evolve into humans? The Machine Cradle was just such a comfort-filled jungle. Gradually we forgot about our technology and science. Our civilization became lazy and empty, devoid of creativity and ambition, and that only sped up the aging process. What you see now is the God Civilization in her final dying gasps.”
“Then… can you now tell us the goal for the God Civilization in coming to Earth?”
“We have no home now.”
“But…” The Secretary-General pointed upward.
“The spaceships are old. It’s true that the artificial environment on the ships is more stable than any natural environment, including Earth’s. But the ships are so old, old beyond your imagination. Old components have broken down. Accumulated quantum effects over the eons have led to more and more software errors. The system’s self-repair and self-maintenance functions have encountered more and more insurmountable obstacles. The living environment on the ships is deteriorating. The amount of life necessities that can be distributed to individuals is decreasing by the day. We can just about survive. In the twenty thousand cities on the various ships, the air is filled with pollution and despair.”
“Are there no solutions? Perhaps new components for the ships? A software upgrade?”
God shook his head. “The God Civilization is in her final years. We are two billion dying men and women each more than three thousand years old. But before us, hundreds of generations had already lived in the comfort of the Machine Cradle. Long ago, we forgot all our technology. Now we have no way to repair these ships that have been operating for tens of millions of years on their own. Indeed, in terms of the ability to study and understand technology, we are even worse than you. We can’t even connect a circuit for a lightbulb or solve a quadratic equation…
“One day, the ships told us that they were close to complete breakdown. The propulsion systems could no longer push the ships near the speed of light. The God Civilization could only drift along at a speed not even one-tenth the speed of light, and the ecological support systems were nearing collapse. The machines could no longer keep two billion of us alive. We had to find another way out.”
“Did you ever think that this would happen?”
“Of course. Two thousand years ago, the ships already warned us. That was when we began the process of seeding life on Earth so that in our old age we would have support.”
“Two thousand years ago?”
“Yes. Of course I’m talking about time on the ships. From your frame of reference, that was three-point-five billion years ago, when Earth first cooled down.”
“We have a question: you say that you’ve lost your technology. But doesn’t seeding life require technology?”
“Oh. To start the process of evolving life on a planet is a minor operation. Just scatter some seeds, and life will multiply and evolve on its own. We had this kind of software even before the Age of the Machine Cradle. Just start the program, and the machines can finish everything. To create a planet full of life, capable of developing civilization, the most basic requirement is time, a few billion years of time.
“By traveling close to the speed of light, we possess almost limitless time. But now, the God Civilization’s ships can no longer approach the speed of light. Otherwise we’d still have the chance to create new civilizations and more life, and we would have more choices. We’re trapped by slowness. Those dreams cannot be realized.”
“So you want to spend your golden years on Earth.”
“Yes, yes. We hope that you will feel a sense of filial duty toward your creators and take us in.” God leaned on his walking stick and trembled as he tried to bow to the leaders of all the nations, and he almost fell on his face.
“But how do you plan to live here?”
“If we just gathered in one place by ourselves, then we might as well stay in space and die there. We’d like to be absorbed into your societies, your families. When the God Civilization was still in her childhood, we also had families. You know that childhood is the most precious time. Since your civilization is still in her childhood, if we can return to this era and spend the rest of our lives in the warmth of families, then that would be our greatest happiness.”
“There are two billion of you. That means every family on Earth would have to take in one or two of you.” After the Secretary-General spoke, the meeting hall sank into silence.
“Yes, yes, sorry to give you so much trouble…” God continued to bow while stealing glances at the Secretary-General and the leaders of all the nations. “Of course, we’re willing to compensate you.”
He waved his cane, and two more white-bearded Gods walked into the meeting hall, struggling under the weight of a silvery, metallic trunk they carried between them. “Look, these are high-density information storage devices. They systematically store the knowledge the God Civilization had acquired in every field of science and technology. With this, your civilization will advance by leaps and bounds. I think you will like this.”
The Secretary-General, like the leaders of all the nations, looked at the metal trunk and tried to hide his elation. “Taking care of God is the responsibility of humankind. Of course this will require some consultation between the various nations, but I think in principle…”
“Sorry to be so much trouble. Sorry to be so much trouble…” God’s eyes filled with tears, and he continued to bow.
After the Secretary-General and the leaders of all the nations left the meeting hall, they saw that tens of thousands of Gods had gathered outside the United Nations building. A white sea of bobbing heads filled the air with murmuring words. The Secretary-General listened carefully and realized that they were all speaking, in the various tongues of Earth, the same sentence:
“Sorry to be so much trouble. Sorry to be so much trouble…”
Two billion Gods arrived on Earth. Enclosed in suits made of their special film, they fell through the atmosphere. During that time, one could see the bright, colorful streaks in the sky even during the day. After the Gods landed, they spread out into 1.5 billion families.
Having received the Gods’ knowledge about science and technology, everyone was filled with hopes and dreams for the future, as though humankind was about to step into paradise overnight. Under the influence of such joy, every family welcomed the coming of God.
That morning, Qiusheng and his family and all the other villagers stood at the village entrance to receive the Gods allocated to Xicen.
“What a beautiful day,” Yulian said.