Devourer

by Liu Cixin

  Humanity had asked the emissary of the Devourer Empire for technological assistance; after all, the lunar engines would not even have to be a tenth of the scale of the countless super engines of the Devourer.

  Fangs, however, refused, and instead quipped, “Don't assume that you can build a planetary engine just because you understand nuclear fusion. It's a long way from a firecracker to a rocket. Truth be told, there is no reason at all for you to work so hard at it. In the Milky Way, it is perfectly commonplace for a weaker civilization to become the livestock of a stronger civilization. You will discover that being raised for food is a splendid life indeed. You will have no want and live happily to the end. Some civilizations have sought to become livestock, only to be turned down. That you should feel uncomfortable with the idea is entirely the fault of a most banal anthropocentrism.”

  So humanity placed all their hope in the Eridanus Crystal, but again they were disappointed. The technology of the Eridanian civilization had developed along completely different lines from Earth's or that of the Devourer. Their technology was wholly based on their planet's organisms. The crystal, for example, was a symbiont to a kind of plankton that floated in their world's oceans. The Eridanians merely synthesized and utilized the unusual abilities of their planet's life forms without ever truly understanding their secrets. And so, without Eridanian life forms, their technology remained completely unworkable.

  After more than 50 valuable years were wasted, the despairing humanity suddenly produced an exceedingly eccentric scheme to propel the Moon. It was the Captain who first came up with this plan. At the time he had a leading role in the Moon propulsion program and had advanced to the rank of marshal. Even though his plan was unapologetically crazy, its technological demands were modest and humanity's available technology was fully capable of making it work; so much so, in fact, that many were surprised why no one had come up with it earlier.

  The new plan to propel the Moon was very simple. A large array of nuclear bombs would be installed on one side of the Moon. These bombs would for the most part be buried about two miles under the lunar surface. Their spacing would ensure that no bomb was destroyed by the blast of another. According to this plan, five million nuclear bombs were to be installed on the Moon's 'propulsion side'. Compared to these bombs, humanity's most powerful Cold War-era nuclear bombs were mere conventional weapons.

  When the time came to detonate these super powerful nuclear bombs under the lunar surface, the force of their explosions would be wholly incomparable to the nuclear tests of earlier ages, suffocated deep underground. These denotations would blow-off a complete stratum of lunar matter. In the Moon's low gravity, the exploded strata's rocks and dust would reach escape velocity. As they were launched straight into space, they would exert an enormous propulsive force on the Moon itself.

  If a certain number of bombs were detonated in rapid succession, this impulse could become a continuous propelling force, just as if the Moon had been fitted with a powerful engine. By detonating nuclear bombs in different places it would be possible to control the Moon's flight path.

  The plan would even go one step further, calling for not one, but two layers of nuclear bombs within the lunar surface. The second layer would be installed at a depth of about four miles. After the top layer had been completely used up, two miles of lunar matter would be stripped from the propulsion side of the Moon. The unceasing denotations would then smoothly transition to the second layer. This would double the duration for which the “engine” could propel the Moon.

  When the Girl from Eridanus heard of this plan, she came to the conclusion that humanity was truly insane. “Now I understand. If you had technology to match the Devourers, you might be even more savage than they are,” she exclaimed.

  Fangs, on the other hand, was full of praise. “Ha, ha! What a wonderful idea you worms managed to dream up. I love it. I love your vulgarity. Vulgarity is the highest form of beauty!” he commended humanity.

  “Absurd; how can vulgarity be beautiful?” the Girl from Eridanus retorted.

  “The vulgar is naturally beautiful and nothing is more vulgar than the universe! Stars burn manically in the pitch-black cold abyss of space; is that not vulgar? Do you understand that the universe is masculine? Feminine civilizations, like yours, are fragile, fine and delicate; a sickly abnormality in a tiny corner of the universe. And that is that!” Fangs replied.

  A hundred years had passed and Fangs' huge frame still brimmed with vitality. The Girl from Eridanus was still vivid and bright, but the Marshal felt the weight of years. He was 130, an old man.

  At the time, the Devourer had just passed the orbit of Pluto. It was awakening after its long journey of 60,000 years from Epsilon Eridani. In the dark of space its huge ring lit up with brilliant lights and its immense society began its works, preparing to plunder the solar system.

  After the Devourer had plundered the peripheral planets, it flung itself onto a precipitous trajectory toward Earth.

  CHAPTER

  7

  Humanity’s First and Last Space War

  The acceleration of the Moon away from Earth had begun.

  The Moon was hanging in the sky of Earth's day side when the first bombs were detonated. The flash of every explosion briefly lit up the Moon in the blue sky, giving it the appearance of a giant silver eye frantically blinking in the heavens. When night fell on Earth, the one-sided flashes of the Moon still shone the light of human handiwork to the surface 25,000 miles below. A pale silver trail following the Moon's back side was now visible. It was composed of the rocks blasted into space from the Moon's surface. Cameras installed on the propulsion side of the Moon showed strata of rock being blasted into space like billowing floodwaters. The waves of rock quickly faded smaller in the distance, becoming thin strands trailing the Moon. Turning toward the Earth's other side, the Moon circumscribed an accelerating orbit.

  Humanity's attention, however, was now squarely focused on the great and terrible ring that had appeared in the sky: The Devourer's approach loomed over the Earth. The enormous tides its gravity evoked had already destroyed Earth's coastal cities.

  The Devourer's aft engines flashed in a circle of blue light as it engaged in final orbital adjustments as it approached. It eventually perfectly matched the Earth's orbit around the Sun, while at the same time aligned its axis of rotation with Earth's. Having completed these adjustments, it ever so slowly began to move toward the Earth, ready to surround the planet with its huge ring body.

  The Moon's acceleration continued for two months. In this time a bomb had exploded within its surface every two or three seconds, resulting in an almost incomprehensible total of 2.5 million nuclear explosions. As it entered into its second orbit around the Earth, the Moon's acceleration had forced its once circular orbit into a distinctly elliptical shape. As the Moon moved to the far end of this ellipse, Fangs and the Marshal arrived on its forward-facing side, away from the exploding bombs. The Marshal had expressly invited the alien emissary for this occasion.

  As they stood on the lunar plain surrounded by craters, they felt the tremors from the other side shake deep beneath their feet. It almost seemed as if they could sense the powerful heartbeat of Earth's satellite. In the pitch-black sky beyond, the Devourer's giant ring dazzled with its brilliant light, its huge shape consuming half the sky.

  “Excellent, Marshal-worm, most excellent indeed!” Fangs applauded, his voice full of sincere praise. “But,” he continued, “you should hurry. You only have one more orbit to accelerate. The Devourer Empire is not accustomed to waiting for others. And I have another question: The cities you built below the surface a decade ago are still empty. When will their inhabitants arrive? How can your spaceships transport one-hundred thousand here from Earth in only one month?”

  “We will bring no one here,” the marshal calmly replied. “We will be the last humans to stand on the Moon.”

  Hearing this, Fangs twisted his body in surprise. The Marshal had said 'W
e', meaning the 5,000 officers and soldiers of Earth's space force. They formed a perfect phalanx on the crater-covered lunar plain. At the front of the phalanx a soldier brandished a blue flag.

  “Look, this is our planet's banner. We declare war upon the Devourer Empire!” the Marshal announced defiantly.

  Fangs stood dumbfounded, more confused than surprised. Immediately his body began to reel as he was thrown onto his back as the Moon's gravity suddenly surged. Fangs was knocked prone to lunar ground, stunned beyond any thought of movement. All around him lunar dust kicked up by his massive fall slowly began to drift to the ground.

  But the dust was quickly thrown up again, stirred by massive shock waves reverberating from the other side of the Moon. These shocks soon left the entire plain covered in a layer of white dust.

  Fangs realized the frequency of nuclear explosions on the other side of the Moon had abruptly increased several times over. Judging by the sharp increase of gravity, he could infer that the Moon's acceleration must have increased several times as well. Rolling over, he retrieved a large hand-held computer from a pocket in the front of his spacesuit. On it he brought up the Moon's current orbital trajectory. Immediately he realized that this tremendous increase of acceleration would take the Moon out of orbit. The Moon would break free of Earth's gravity and shoot off into space. A flashing red line of dots showed its predicted course.

  It was on collision course with the Devourer.

  Discarding his computer without a second thought, Fangs slowly raised himself to his feet. Straining his neck against the explosive increase in gravity, he peered through the billowing clouds of lunar dust. Standing in front of him was Earth's army, still upright, stalwart like standing stones.

  “A century of conspiracy and deceit,” Fangs mumbled under his breath.

  The Marshal just nodded in agreement. “You now realize that it is too late,” he pointed out gravely.

  Fangs spoke after a long sigh. “I should have realized that the humans of Earth were a completely different breed from the Eridanians. Life on their world had evolved symbiotically, free of natural selection and of the struggle for survival. They did not even know what war was.” He halted, digesting what had happened. “We let that guide our assessment of Earth's people. But you, you have ceaselessly butchered one another from the day that you climbed down from the trees. How should you be easily conquered? I …,” Again he paused. “It was an unforgivable dereliction of duty!”

  When the Marshal spoke, his steady, level tone explained further what Fangs was realizing. “The Eridanians brought us vast quantities of vital information. The information included the limits of the Devourer's ability to accelerate. It is this information that formed the basis of our battle plan. As we detonate the bombs that change the Moon's trajectory, its maneuvering acceleration will come to exceed the Devourer's acceleration limit three-fold. In other words,” he said, “it will be thrice as agile as the Devourer. There is no way that you can avoid the coming collision.”

  “Actually, we were not completely off-guard,” Fangs said. “When the Earth began producing large quantities of nuclear bombs we began to constantly monitor their whereabouts. We made sure that they were installed deep within the Moon, but we did not think ...” Fangs continued, but it was musing to himself than replying.

  Behind his visor the Marshal smiled faintly. “We aren't so stupid as to directly attack the Devourer with nuclear bombs,” he said. “We know that the Devourer Empire has been steeled by hundreds of battles. Earth's simple and crude missiles would certainly have one and all been intercepted and destroyed. But you cannot intercept something as large as the Moon. Perhaps the Devourer, with its immense power, could have eventually broken or diverted the Moon, but it is far too close for that now. You are out of time.”

  Fangs snarled. “Crafty worms. Treacherous worms, vicious worms.” He shook his head, bristling. “The Devourer Empire is an honest civilization. We put all things out in the open, yet we have been cheated by the deceitful treachery of the Earth-worms.” He gnashed his huge teeth as he finished speaking, his fury almost goading him to lock his giant claws around the Marshal. The soldiers and their rifles aiming right at him, however, stayed his talons. Fangs had not forgotten that his body, too, was but flesh and blood. One burst of bullets would end him.

  With his eyes firmly fixed on Fangs, the Marshal stated, “We will leave and you, too, should make your way off the Moon, otherwise you will surely be killed by the Devourer Empire's nuclear weapons.”

  The Marshal was very right. Just as Fangs and the human space forces left the Moon's surface, the interceptor missiles of the Devourer struck. Both sides of the Moon now flashed with brilliant light. The forward facing side of the Moon, too, exploded as huge waves of rocks were blasted into space. All around the Moon, lunar matter was violently scattered in all imaginable directions. Seen from the Earth, the Moon, on its collision course with the Devourer, looked like a warrior, wild hair ablaze with rage. There was no force that could have stopped it now! Wherever on Earth this spectacle was visible, seas of people erupted into feverish cheers.

  The Devourer's interception action did not continue for long and soon ceased. It realized that it had been completely meaningless. In the moments in which the Moon would close the short distance between them, there was no way to divert its course or to destroy it.

  The explosions of the Moon's nuclear propulsion had also ceased. It was now fast enough and Earth's defenders wanted to preserve enough nuclear bombs to carry out any last minute maneuvers. All was silent.

  In the cold quiet of space, the Devourer and Earth's satellite floated toward each other in complete tranquility. The distance between the two rapidly decreased. As it dwindled to 30,000 miles, the control ship of Earth's Supreme Command could already see the Moon overlapping the giant ring of the Devourer. From there it looked like a ball bearing in a track.

  Up to this point the Devourer had not made any changes to its trajectory. It was easy to understand why: The Moon could have easily matched any premature orbital maneuver. Any meaningful evasive action would have to be taken in the final moments before the Moon's impact. The two cosmic giants were almost like ancient knights in a joust. They were charging toward one another, galloping across the distance separating them, but the victor would only be decided in the blink-of-an-eye before they made contact.

  Two great civilizations of the Milky Way held their breath in rapt anticipation, awaiting that final moment.

  At 22,000 miles, both sides began their maneuvers. The Devourer's engines were first to flare, shooting blue flames more than 5,000 miles out into space. It began its evasion. On the Moon, nuclear bombs were once again ignited, ferociously detonating with unprecedented intensity and frequency. It carried out its adjustments, matching its course to ensure a collision. Its arcing tail of debris clearly described its change of direction. The blue light of the Devourer's 5,000 mile flames merged with the silver flashes of the Moon's nuclear blasts; it was the most magnificent vista ever to grace the solar system.

  Both sides maneuvered like this for three hours. The distance between them had already shrunk to 3,000 miles when the computer displays showed what no one in the control ship dared believe: The Devourer was changing course with an acceleration speed four times greater than the limit the Eridanians had claimed possible!

  All this time they had unreservedly believed in this limit. They had made it the foundation of Earth's victory. Now, the nuclear bombs remaining on the Moon no longer had the capacity to make the necessary adjustments to give chase. Calculations showed that in three short hours, even if they did all they could, the Moon would brush pass the Devourer, falling short by 250 miles.

  One last burst of dizzying flashes washed over the control ship, exhausting all of the Earth's nuclear bombs. At almost exactly the same moment, the Devourer's engines fell silent. In a deathly quiet the laws of inertia told the final verses of this magnificent epic: The Moon scraped past the Devourer's
side, barely missing. Its velocity was so high that the Devourer's gravity could not catch it, only twisting its trajectory as it zoomed past. After the Moon had passed the Devourer, it silently sped away from the Sun.

  On the control ship the Supreme Command, too, fell into a deathly silence. Minutes passed.

  “The Eridanians have betrayed us,” a commander finally whispered in shock.

  “The crystal was probably just a trap set by the Devourer Empire!” a staff officer shouted.

  In an instant the Supreme Command fell into utter chaos. All but one began to scream and shout, some to vent their utter despair, others to conceal it. All were on the verge of hysteria. A few of the non-military personnel wept; others tore the hair from their heads. Spirits stood teetering on the verge of the abyss, ready to fall forever.

  Only the Marshal remained serene, standing quietly in front of a large screen. He slowly turned and with one simple question calmed the chaos. “I would ask all of you to pay attention to one detail: Why did the Devourer cut its engine?”

  Pandemonium was immediately replaced by deep thought. Indeed, after the Moon had used its last nuclear bomb; the enemy had no reason to shut down its engine. They had no way of knowing whether or not there were any bombs left on the Moon. Furthermore, there was the danger of the Devourer's gravity catching the Moon. Had the Devourer continued to accelerate, it could have easily extended the distance to the Moon's trajectory. It could have – should have – made it farther than those tiny, barely adequate 250 miles.

  “Give me a close up of the Devourer's outer hull,” the Marshal commanded.

  A holographic image was displayed on the screen. It was a picture being transmitted by a miniature, high-speed reconnaissance probe flying 300 miles above the Devourer's surface. The splendidly illuminated surface of the Devourer came into clear view. In awe they beheld the massive steel mountains and canyons of its giant ring body slowly turn past their view. A long black seam caught the Marshal's attention. In the past century, he had become very familiar with every detail of the Devourer's surface, but he was absolutely certain that that gap had not existed before. Quickly others, too, noticed it.