Ten-year-old Little Fifth Ao Xing’s earnest question echoed across the quiet front porch of the [Galactic Flying Courtyard]. And through the open broadcast microphones, straight into forty-eight point eight trillion living rooms across all 10,000 Star Systems!
Down on Branch Planet #36, Iron-Root Star, seven-year-old Gu Xiaomei, who was sitting at the cafeteria table in Iron-Root Central Elementary School holding a hopscotch chalk stone in her hand. Looked up at the sky-screen and nodded her red yarn pigtails vigorously:
“Yeah! Young Patriarch Big Brother Nian promised to teach me how to play Galactic Hopscotch on the Flying Courtyard lawn after school. But Village Head Grandpa Tie says an ordinary iron cargo ship takes forty years just to fly from Iron-Root Star to the Central Star-Cluster!
By the time I get there for our after-school playdate, I’ll already be a forty-seven-year-old auntie!”
Up on the porch of the [Galactic Flying Courtyard], Gu Changsheng looked down at ten-year-old Ao Xing, a warm, approving smile curving his lips.
Little Fifth hit the nail right on the head, Gu Changsheng thought. What good is uniting ten thousand star systems into one big family if cousins living in different star sectors can’t even come over for an afternoon playdate or Sunday dinner? Tyrants keep star systems isolated so nobody can help their neighbors; a real family builds safe, cheap public transit right to every front door.
