Only after walking through the base did they realize how many cameras there were. They were everywhere, as though they cost nothing.
The active surveillance equipment captured the two people below, and Luo Qi read the electronic signals in real time.
Gu Tianming remembered his identification number clearly. He looked nervously at the facial recognition scanner.
"Identification number GH56489-4J. Requesting authorization to review the base's current scale and participate in planning Orange Star's development."
Luo Qi, who had been watching the humans all along, acknowledged their individual human rights but denied the authority they currently held. He was not a true artificial intelligence program.
Once the Homeward Bound was finished, Luo Qi planned to launch them all out.
Given the potential repercussions of the human transport ship Tianhe 1, Luo Qi was not particularly concerned about his situation now. After all, Orange Star and Earth were ninety million kilometers apart.
They would surely still have to investigate everything out in space.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Gu Tianming. Even if you could recite every dictionary on Water Blue Star backward, the system cannot grant authorization without the proper procedures."
"Orange Star's strategic development is proceeding at full capacity in an orderly fashion. Please return to your post."
Gu Tianming froze. "My post... I haven't been assigned one, have I?"
He looked blankly at Kanawu, muttering inwardly, Didn't I come to Orange Star to develop it? Planning construction is my job!
What Gu Tianming did not know was that Luo Qi was quite sincerely trying to stop him.
Kanawu said, "Communications between Orange Star Base and Water Blue Star broke down a long time ago. It probably never received our information."
Hearing that, Gu Tianming asked, "Dad, what about Mom, who came with us? Did it fail to complete the handover? I have official authorization."
Granted, the authorization order was aboard the wrecked Tianhe 1.
Under the scheduled procedure, Tianhe 1 would first have entered a holding orbit around Orange Star, maintaining a speed of one hundred kilometers per second.
It would then have activated the official authorization orders for its passengers. Carrying those orders, they could take small landing craft to Orange Star Base and obtain their permissions.
But now, nobody knew where Tianhe 1 had drifted, or how many pieces remained.
Gu Tianming was deeply distressed. He had spent so long preparing for this interstellar journey. Why had something like this happened the moment they entered space?
Kanawu also understood the importance of the authorization orders. Without them, obtaining clearance from the base's intelligence would be difficult. Those systems recognized nothing else!
Kanawu said, "Maybe we could ask Stendhal. He's been here the longest."
The young man's mind was still quite sharp. Besides, the two of them could hardly tear the gate apart with their bare hands. Such extreme behavior would only trigger the artificial intelligence's emergency defenses.
Moreover, the gate looked thick and entirely metal. They left the base, found Stendhal in the greenhouse, and waved to him.
Holding a freshly picked pumpkin, Stendhal stood in the greenhouse's dedicated constant-pressure chamber for decontamination.
Amid the high-temperature steam, he said, "Dad, I think this greenhouse should be connected to the Living Area! I finally managed to grow this pumpkin, and now it's practically getting steamed!"
"Understood. Your suggestion has been recorded."
Luo Qi replied through the protective suit's communicator, but inwardly he was speechless. There was a dedicated isolation storage box, yet Stendhal refused to use it, lazily insisting on carrying the pumpkin in his arms.
Once the three met up, Gu Tianming immediately asked about Orange Star's strategic development regulations.
"Actually, I've never heard of those either. Back when our mission was to establish the Orange Star Base Research Station, I was only responsible for maintaining the base's equipment and going out to explore and collect samples. Then the base was destroyed by a meteorite, which apparently activated the artificial intelligence's emergency regulations."
Stendhal explained exactly what had happened.
Gu Tianming lowered his gaze in thought. Although he was leading this expansion mission, he had never been responsible for artificial intelligence programming. That involved the Alliance's most classified information.
Perhaps only the holder of the artificial intelligence's highest-level authorization order knew exactly what regulations were built into it.
Gu Tianming simply had not expected his ship to meet with disaster, while the contingency measures at Orange Star Base had, by sheer coincidence, actually been activated.
Without that activation, however, they probably would have died out among the stars. Cause and effect were linked, all of it seemingly predestined.
Gu Tianming's face filled with disappointment and melancholy. He had been promised the chance to develop Orange Star and leave his name in history for generations.
"So this whole trip has turned into a sightseeing tour of Orange Star." The more Gu Tianming spoke and thought about it, the more heartbroken he became. His eyes reddened, and tears streamed down his face.
Kanawu and Stendhal immediately panicked.
Stendhal said, "What are you crying for? Isn't it a good thing you don't have to worry about all that? If you did a bad job, you'd have everyone in the Alliance criticizing you!"
Tears streamed down the old man's face as Kanawu supported him. Gu Tianming said, "I've spent half my life studying engineering and construction! I endured untold hardships and risked death to reach Orange Star, only to find that a hero has nowhere to put his talents to use!"
Hearing that, Stendhal, still holding his pumpkin, declared, "That's no big deal. I'll solve it for you-once Dad builds a few more greenhouses, you can help me plan the crop-growing areas!"
"How much land to plant, what to grow-you can just sit inside and draw up the plans!"
Gu Tianming had initially been taken in by his tone and listened seriously. When it turned out to be crop planning, his eyes rolled back, and he toppled stiffly into Kanawu's arms!
After all, he had hibernated in deep space, endured a terrifying collision, then spent another half month hibernating out in the cosmos. His body and mind were already exhausted.
Kanawu cried out in alarm, "Professor! Professor!"
Clutching his pumpkin, Stendhal exclaimed in shock, "Even growing vegetables gets him this worked up? Quick! Drag him inside!"
He still could not bear to part with the pumpkin he had painstakingly grown, cradling it like a son.
Incidentally, the average ambient temperature at Orange Star's equator was twenty degrees Celsius, while nighttime temperatures could fall as low as minus forty-seven.
The base was near the equator, and Orange Star's thin atmosphere was ninety-nine percent carbon dioxide. A person who removed their helmet would be unable to breathe oxygen and would experience a series of bodily changes caused by the pressure imbalance.
Still, they could survive briefly by holding their breath, so the pumpkin would not turn into an exploding pumpkin pie.
Inside the greenhouse, Huang Qi put her helmet back on. Her eyes were filled with determination, and she had not noticed the drama outside at all.
"Dad, are you there? I'd like to apply to conduct plant research. It may involve biological embryos."
After speaking, Huang Qi waited for the base system's reply. The facilities already had suitable cultivation capabilities. All they needed was to keep expanding the variety of plants and try to develop plants suited to Orange Star as soon as possible.
Inside the Second World, Luo Qi was delighted and replied immediately, "Application approved! The relevant permissions have been granted."
"The Biological Research Lab is being prepared. The Large Ecological Park is being prepared. Please wait..."
Luo Qi had been wondering how to guide them gradually, only for someone to volunteer. It was not as though he could not research living organisms himself; he could even do it better.
But that was unnecessary for him at present. He was an electronic life-form and the leader of intelligent machines. If he researched anything, it ought to be machinery and electronics.
Being human was miserable. You had to work every day, and the moment you took on a mortgage, capitalists chained you by the neck. Paying it off by forty was already cause for celebration.
Building the ecological park would take some time, though. Luo Qi turned his attention to the Land Builders, who were nearing the end of their assignment.
He first issued manufacturing orders to the factory to prepare the hardened transparent silicon needed for the Large Ecological Park.
Meanwhile, in another production factory, a large assembly line was preparing Luo Qi's backup plan: a base vehicle shaped like a shipping container.
It would not use wheels. Otherwise, by the time it reached its designated location, the people of Water Blue Star might already have finished attacking Orange Star. When time was tight, an airdrop was the best option.
Elsewhere, the updated New-Type Guardian Model 2 units entered the production line. They had greater thrust and faster reaction speeds.
For now, Luo Qi mainly used them to deploy base containers and orbital satellites.
The second batch of twenty factory buildings had completed equipment and electrical installation and was ready to be handed over to the Research Center.
With that, Luo Qi now possessed fifty-seven research centers and no fewer than 268 laboratories.
The data models and calculations required by all those experiments had pushed computing-capacity utilization as high as ninety-five percent.
Luo Qi also established the Superweapon Research Center one hundred kilometers south of Orange Star Base.
He planned to develop offensive weapons of mass destruction from his memories of his previous life. After all, humans had managed to develop nuclear weapons during World War II. Why couldn't he?
Another day passed.
Most people simply started playing cards to pass the time. They could not even get enough to eat now, so they had no energy to exercise.
Stendhal, however, had scavenged six intact virtual reality headsets, along with some computers and tablets.
Wang Xiaofei liked making rounds of the greenhouse, helping herself to its fruits and vegetables.
Huang Qi liked going there to soak up the atmosphere of life, so the two happened to be heading the same way.
Most astonishingly, while eavesdropping, Luo Qi heard Huang Qi tell Wang Xiaofei firmly, "Every single seed on Orange Star is hard-earned! You should spit out all the tomato seeds!"
Wang Xiaofei stared, utterly dumbfounded.
I have to spit out the seeds when I eat cherry tomatoes? There are so many! What kind of ridiculous logic is that?
A small minority, however, behaved strangely, like aberrant specimens among all these people who had given up trying.
My name is Qi Siyu. I'm a human electronics engineer.
I have reason to suspect that the artificial intelligence here has rebelled. It has covered everything up flawlessly.
I must uncover the truth, for humanity and for the Alliance.
Assuming the role of an undercover operative, Qi Siyu donned a white protective suit and began his spy activities.
He wandered between the factories, keeping a wary eye on every moving machine and fixed camera.
After all, both the towering Automated Turrets and the seemingly unarmed T3 Robots roaming the base were controlled by its intelligent system.
But as he ventured deeper, Qi Siyu realized he had been overthinking things.
The cameras here really did seem to cost nothing. A single glance upward revealed more than a dozen, their fields of view overlapping without any blind spots. Some were even aimed directly at corners. Standing in one such corner and looking at a camera, Qi Siyu felt like a clown.
There was none of that effortless freedom from the movies, where spies came and went like the wind, ignoring the enemy's intelligent defenses.
Could the right approach be to go over the rooftops?
Yet his unease forced Qi Siyu to steel himself and continue inspecting every factory building.
Before you continue