by Liu Cixin
“How long until this happens?” Yan Dong’s voice quavered.
“The light-filtering membrane will become ineffective, as you reckon time, hm, in about twenty years. Oh, why are we talking about things other than art again? Trivial, trivial! Okay, colleague. Goodbye. Enjoy the beauty I have left you!”
The ball of ice shot into the air, disappearing into the sky. According to the measurements of every major astronomical organization in the world, the ball of ice flew rapidly along a perpendicular to the ecliptic plane. Once it had accelerated to half the speed of light, it abruptly disappeared thirteen astronomical units away from the sun, as if it’d squeezed into an invisible hole. It never returned.
SECOND HALF
Monument and Waveguide
The drought had already lasted for five years.
Withered ground swept past the car window. It was midsummer and there was not a bit of green anywhere on the ground. The trees were all withered. Cracks like black spiderwebs covered the ground. Frequent dry, hot winds kicked up sand that concealed everything. Quite a few times, Yan Dong thought she saw the corpses of people who had died of thirst along the railroad tracks, but they might have just been fallen, dry tree branches, nothing to be afraid of. This harsh, arid world contrasted sharply with the silver Sea of Dreams in the sky.
Yan Dong licked her parched lips. She couldn’t bring herself to drink from her water flask. That was four days’ rations for her entire family. Her husband had forced it on her at the train station. Yesterday, her workmates had protested, demanding to be paid in water. In the market, nonrationed water grew scarcer and scarcer. Even the rich weren’t able to buy any…. Someone touched her shoulder. It was the person in the seat beside her.
“You’re that alien’s colleague, aren’t you?”
Since she’d become the low-temperature artist’s messenger, Yan Dong had also become a celebrity. At first, she was considered a role model and a hero. However, after the low-temperature artist left, the situation changed. One way of looking at things is, it was her work that had inspired the low-temperature artist at the Ice and Snow Arts Festival. Without that, none of this would have happened. Most people understood that this was utter nonsense, but having a scapegoat was a good thing. So, in people’s eyes she was eventually seen as the low-temperature artist’s conspirator. But fortunately, after the artist had left, there were bigger issues to worry about. People gradually forgot about Yan Dong. However, this time, even though she was wearing sunglasses, she had been recognized.
“Ask me to drink some water!” the man beside her said, his voice rasping. Two flakes of dry skin fell from his lips.
“What are you doing? Are you robbing me?”
“Be smart, or else I’ll scream!”
Yan Dong felt obliged to hand over her water flask. The man drained the flask in one swallow. The people around them watched this with shock on their faces. Even the train attendant who had been passing by stopped in the aisle and stared at him, stupefied. That anyone could be so wasteful was nearly beyond belief. It was like back in the Oceaned Days (what people called the age before the arrival of the low-temperature artist), watching a rich person eat a sumptuous dinner that cost one hundred thousand yuan.
The man returned the empty flask to Yan Dong. Patting Yan Dong’s shoulder again, the man said in a low voice, “It doesn’t matter. Soon, it’ll all be over.”
Yan Dong understood what the man meant.
*
The capital seldom had cars on its streets anymore. The rare few had all been retrofitted to be air-cooled. Using a conventional liquid-cooled car was strictly prohibited. Fortunately, the Chinese branch of the World Crisis Organization had sent a car to pick her up. Otherwise, she’d absolutely have had no way to reach their offices. On the way, she saw that sandstorms had covered all the roads with yellow sand. She didn’t see many pedestrians. For anyone dehydrated, walking around in the hot, dry wind was too dangerous.
The world was like a fish out of water, already begging for a breath.
When she arrived at the World Crisis Organization, Yan Dong reported to the bureau chief. The bureau chief brought her to a large office and introduced her to the group she would be working with. Yan Dong looked at the office door. Unlike the other ones, this one had no nameplate. The bureau chief said:
“This is a secret group. Everything done here is strictly confidential. In order to avoid social unrest, we call this group the Monument Division.”
Entering the office, Yan Dong realized the people here were all somewhat eccentric: Some had hair that was too long. Some had no hair at all. Some were immaculately dressed, as if the world weren’t falling apart around them. Some wore only shorts. Some seemed dejected, others abnormally excited. Many oddly shaped models sat on a long table in the middle of the office. Yan Dong couldn’t guess what they might be for.
“Welcome, Ice Sculptor.” The head of the Monument Division enthusiastically shook Yan Dong’s hand after the bureau chief’s introduction. “You’ll finally have the opportunity to elaborate on the inspiration you received from the alien. Of course, this time, you can’t use ice. What we want to build is a work that must last forever.”
“What for?”
The division head looked at the bureau chief, then back at Yan Dong. “You still don’t know? We want to establish a monument to humanity!”
Yan Dong felt even more at a loss with this explanation.
“It’s humanity’s tombstone,” an artist to her side said. This person had long hair and tattered clothes, and gave the impression of decadence. One hand held a bottle of sorghum liquor that he’d drunk until he was somewhat tipsy. The liquor was left over from the Oceaned Days and now much cheaper than water.
Yan Dong looked all around, then said, “But … we’re not dead yet.”
“If we wait until we’re dead, it’ll be too late,” the bureau chief said. “We ought to plan for the worst case. The time to think about this is now.”
The division head nodded. “This is humanity’s final work of art, and also its greatest work of art. For an artist, what can be more profound than to join in its creation?”
“Fucking, actually…. Much more,” the long-haired artist said, waving the bottle. “Tombstones are for your descendants to pay homage to. We’ll have no descendants, but we’ll still erect a fucking tomb?”
“Pay attention to the name. It’s a monument,” the division head corrected solemnly. Laughing, he said to Yan Dong, “However, the idea he put forth is very good: He proposed that everyone in the world donate a tooth. Those teeth can be used to create a gigantic tablet. Carving a word on each tooth is sufficient to engrave the most detailed history of human civilization on the tablet.” He pointed at a model that looked like a white pyramid.
“This is blasphemy against humanity,” a bald-headed artist shouted. “The worth of humanity lies in its brains, but he wants to commemorate us with our teeth!”
The long-haired artist took another swig from his bottle. “Teeth…. Teeth are easy to preserve.”
“The vast majority of people are still alive!” Yan Dong repeated solemnly.
“But for how long?” the long-haired artist said. As he asked this question, his enunciation suddenly became precise. “Water no longer falls from the sky. The rivers have dried. Our crops have utterly failed for three years now. Ninety percent of the factories have stopped production. The remaining food and water, how long can that sustain us?”
“You heap of waste.” The bald-headed artist pointed at the bureau chief. “Bustling around for five years and you still can’t bring even one block of ice back from space.”
The bureau chief laughed off the bald-headed artist’s criticism. “It’s not that simple. Given current technology, forcing down one block of ice from orbit isn’t hard. Forcing down one hundred, up to one thousand blocks of ice is doable. But forcing back all two hundred thousand blocks of ice orbiting the Earth, that’s another matter completely. If we use conv
entional techniques, a rocket engine could slow a block of ice enough that it would fall back into the atmosphere. That would mean building a large number of reusable high-power engines, then sending them into space. That’s a massive-scale engineering project. Given our current technology level and what resources we’ve stockpiled, there are many insurmountable obstacles. For example, in order to save the Earth’s ecosystem, if we start now, we’d need to force down half the blocks of ice within four years, an average of twenty-five thousand per year. The weight of rocket fuel required would be greater than the amount of gasoline humanity used in one year during the Oceaned Days! Except it isn’t gasoline. It’s liquid hydrogen, liquid oxygen, dinitrogen tetroxide, unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine, and so on. They need over a hundred times more energy and natural resources to produce than gasoline. Just this one thing makes the entire plan impossible.”
The long-haired artist nodded. “In other words, doomsday is not far away.”
The bureau chief said, “No, not necessarily. We can still adopt some nonconventional techniques. There is still hope. While we’re working on this, though, we must still plan for the worst.”
“This is exactly why I came,” Yan Dong said.
“To plan for the worst?” the long-haired artist asked.
“No, because there’s still hope.” She turned to the bureau chief. “It doesn’t matter why you brought me here. I came for my own purpose.” She pointed to her bulky travel bag. “Please take me to the Ocean Recovery Division.”
“What can you do in the Ocean Recovery Division? They’re all scientists and engineers there,” the bald-headed artist wondered.
“I’m a research fellow in applied optics.” Yan Dong’s gaze swept past the artists. “Besides daydreaming along with you, I can also do some practical things.”
*
After Yan Dong insisted, the bureau chief brought her to the Ocean Recovery Division. The mood here was completely different from the Monument Division. Everyone was tense, working on their computers. A drinking fountain stood in the middle of the office. They could take a drink whenever they wanted. This was treatment worthy of kings. But considering that the hope of the world rested on the people in this room, it wasn’t so surprising.
When Yan Dong saw the Ocean Recovery Division’s lead engineer, she told her, “I’ve brought a plan for reclaiming the ice blocks.”
As she spoke, she opened her travel bag. She took out a white tube about as thick as an arm, followed by a cylinder about a meter long. Yan Dong walked to a window that faced the sun. She stuck the cylinder out the window, then shook it back and forth. The cylinder opened like an umbrella. Its concave side was plated with a mirror coating. That turned it into something like a parabolic reflector for a solar stove. Next, Yan Dong pushed the tube through a small hole at the bottom of the paraboloid, then adjusted the reflector so that it focused sunlight at the end of the tube. Immediately, the other end of the tube cast an eye-stabbing point of light on the floor. Because the tube lay flat on the floor, the point was an exaggerated oval.
Yan Dong said, “This uses the latest optical fiber to create a waveguide. There’s very little attenuation. Naturally, an actual system would be much larger than this. In space, a parabolic reflector only about twenty meters in diameter can create a point of light at the other end of the waveguide with a temperature of over three thousand degrees.”
Yan Dong looked around. Her demonstration hadn’t produced the reaction she’d expected. The engineers took a look, then returned to their computer screens, paying her no mind. It wasn’t until a stream of dark smoke rose from the point of light on the antistatic floor that the nearest person came over and said, “What did you do? I doubt it’s hot.”
At the same time, the person nudged back the waveguide, moving the light coming through the window away from the focal length of the parabolic reflector. Although the point was still on the floor, it immediately darkened and lost heat. Yan Dong was surprised at how adept the person was at adjusting the thing.
The lead engineer pointed at the waveguide. “Pack up your gear and drink some water. I heard you took the train. The one to here from Changchun is still running? You must be extremely thirsty.”
Yan Dong desperately wanted to explain her invention, but she truly was thirsty. Her throat burned and it was painful to speak.
“Very good. This is a really practical plan.” The lead engineer handed Yan Dong a glass of water.
Yan Dong drained the glass of water in one gulp. She looked blankly at the lead engineer. “Are you saying that someone has already thought of this?”
The lead engineer laughed. “Spending time with aliens has made you underestimate human intellect. In fact, from the moment the low-temperature artist sent the first block of ice into space, many people have come up with this plan. Afterward, there were lots of variants. For example, some used solar panels instead of reflectors. Some used wires and electric heating elements instead of waveguides. The advantage is that the equipment is easy to manufacture and transport. The disadvantage is the efficiency is not as high as waveguides. We’ve been researching this for five years now. The technology is already mature. The equipment we need has mostly been manufactured.”
“Then why haven’t you carried the plan out?”
An engineer next to them said, “With this plan, the Earth will lose twenty-one percent of its water. Either during propulsion as vaporized steam or during reentry from high-temperature dissociation.”
The lead engineer turned to that engineer. “We don’t know that yet. The latest American simulations show, below the ionosphere, the hydrogen produced by high-temperature dissociation during reentry will immediately recombine with the surrounding oxygen into water. We overestimated the high-temperature-dissociation loss. The total loss estimate is around eighteen percent.” She turned back to Yan Dong. “But this percentage is high enough.”
“Then do you have a plan to bring back all of the water from space?”
The lead engineer shook her head. “The only possibility is to use a nuclear fusion engine. But, right now, on Earth, controlled nuclear fusion isn’t within our capabilities.”
“Then why aren’t you acting more quickly? You know, if you dither around, the Earth will lose one hundred percent of its water.”
The lead engineer nodded. “So, after a long time of hesitation, we’ve decided to act. Soon, the Earth will be in for the fight of its life.”
Reclaiming the Oceans
Yan Dong joined the Ocean Recovery Division, in charge of receiving and checking the waveguides that had been produced. Although this wasn’t a core posting, she found it fulfilling.
One month after Yan Dong arrived at the capital, humanity’s project to reclaim the oceans started.
Within one short week, eight hundred large-scale carrier rockets shot into the sky from every launch site in the world, sending fifty thousand tons of freight into Earth orbit. Then, from the North American launch site, twenty space shuttles ferried three hundred astronauts into space. Because launches generally followed the same route, the skies above the launch sites all had a single rocket contrail that never dispersed. Viewed from orbit, it seemed like threads of spider silk stretching up from every continent into space.
These launches increased human space activity by an order of magnitude, but the technology used was still twentieth-century technology. People realized, under existing conditions, if the entire world worked together and risked everything on one attempt, it could do anything.
On live television, Yan Dong and everyone else witnessed the first time a deceleration propulsion system was installed on a block of ice.
To make things less difficult, the first blocks of ice they forced back weren’t the ones that rotated about their own axes. Three astronauts landed on a block of ice. They brought with them the following equipment: an artillery-shell-shaped vehicle that could drill a hole into the block of ice, three waveguides, one expeller tube, and three folded-up parab
olic reflectors. It was only now that anyone could get the sense of the immense size of a block of ice. The three people seemed to land on a tiny crystalline world. Under intense sunlight in space, the giant field of ice under their feet seemed unfathomable.
Near and far, innumerable similar crystalline worlds hung in the black sky. Some of them still rotated about their own axes. The surrounding rotating and nonrotating blocks of ice reflected and refracted the sunlight. On the ice the three astronauts stood on, they cast a dazzling pattern of ever-changing light and shadow. In the distance, the blocks of ice in the ring looked smaller and smaller, but gathered closer and closer together, gradually shrinking into a delicate, silver belt twisting toward the other side of the Earth. The closest block of ice was only three thousand meters away from this one. Because it rotated about its minor axis, in their eyes, such a rotation had a breathtaking momentum, as though they were three tiny ants watching a crystalline skyscraper collapsing over and over again. Due to gravity, these two ice blocks would eventually crash into each other. The light-filtering membranes would rupture and the blocks of ice would disintegrate. The smashed blocks of ice would quickly evaporate in the sunlight and disappear. Such collisions had already happened twice in the ring of ice. This was also why this block was the first block of ice to be forced back.
First, an astronaut started the driller vehicle. As the drill head spun, crumbs of ice flew out in a cone-shaped spray, twinkling in the sunlight. The driller vehicle broke through the invisible light-filtering membrane. Like a twisting screw, it dug into the ice, leaving a round hole in its wake. Along with the hole that stretched into the depths of the ice, a faint white line could be seen in the ice itself. Once the hole reached the prescribed depth, the vehicle headed out toward another part of the ice. It then bored another hole. At last, it drilled four holes in total. They all intersected at one point deep in the ice.
