by Cixin Liu
As early as primary school, Misha would quietly spend the entire night alone in his small room. Levchenko had thought he was reading at first, but by chance he discovered that his son was standing in front of the window, unmoving, watching the stars.
“Papa, I like the stars. I want to look at them all my life,” he told his father.
On his eleventh birthday, Misha asked his father for a present for the first time: a telescope. He’d been using Levchenko’s military binoculars to stargaze before then. Afterward, the telescope became Misha’s only companion. He could stand on the balcony and watch the stars until the sky lightened in the east. A few times, father and son stargazed together. The marshal always turned the telescope toward the brightest-looking star, but his son would shake his head disapprovingly. “That one’s not interesting, Papa. That’s Venus. Venus is a planet, but I only like stars.”
Misha didn’t like any of the things that the other kids liked, either. The neighbor’s boy, son of the old paratrooper chief of staff, snuck out his father’s pistol to play with, and ended up shooting his own leg by accident. The general of the staff’s children thought no reward better than their papa taking them to the company firing range and letting them take a shot. But that affinity seemed to have completely skipped over Misha.
Levchenko found his son’s apathy for weapons unsettling, almost intolerable, to the point where he reacted in a way that embarrassed him to think of to this day: Once, he’d quietly set his Makarov semiautomatic on his son’s writing desk. Not long after he returned from school, Misha came out of his room with the pistol. He held it like a child, his hand closed carefully around the barrel. He set the gun gently in front of his father and said, evenly, “Papa, be careful where you put it next time.”
On the topic of Misha’s future, the marshal was an understanding man. He wasn’t like the other generals around him, determined that their sons and daughters would succeed them in the military. But Misha really was too distant from his father’s work.
Marshal Levchenko wasn’t a hot-tempered man, but as the commander in chief of the armies, he’d castigated more than one general in front of thousands of troops. He’d never lost his temper at Misha, though. Misha walked silently and steadily along his chosen path, giving his father little cause for concern. More importantly, Misha seemed to be born with an extraordinary aloofness from the world that at times elicited even Levchenko’s reverence. It was as if he’d carelessly tossed a seed into a flowerpot only for a rare and exotic plant to sprout. He had watched this plant grow day by day, protecting it carefully, awaiting its flowering. His hopes had not fallen short. His son was now the most renowned astrophysicist in the world.
By this time, the sun had entirely set behind the pine forest, the white snow on the ground turning pale blue. Marshal Levchenko collected his thoughts and returned to the underground war room. All the personnel for the war meeting had arrived, including important commanders from the Western and Caucasus military districts.
Outnumbering them were the electronic-warfare commanders, all the ranks from captain to major general, most newly returned from the front. In the war room, a debate was raging between the Western Military District’s ground- and electronic-warfare officers.
“We correctly determined the enemy assault’s change in direction,” Major General Felitov of the Taman Division said. “Our tanks and close air support had no problems with maneuverability. But the communications system was jammed beyond belief. The C3I system was almost paralyzed! We expanded the electronic-warfare unit from a battalion to a division, from a division to a corps, and invested more money in them these two years than we invested in all the regular equipment. And we get this?!”
One of the lieutenant generals commanding electronic warfare in the region glanced at Kalina. Like all the other officers newly returned from the front line, her camo uniform was stained and scorched, and traces of blood still stuck to her face. “Major Kalina has done noteworthy work in electronic-warfare research, and was sent by the General Staff to observe the electronic battle. Perhaps her insights may better persuade you.” Young Ph.D. officers like Kalina tended to be fearlessly outspoken toward superiors. They were often used as mouthpieces for tough words, and this was no exception.
Kalina stood. “General Felitov, that’s hardly the case! Compared to NATO, the investment we’ve put into our C3I is nothing.”
“What about electronic countermeasures?” the major general asked. “If the enemy can jam us, can’t you jam them? Our C3I was useless, but NATO’s worked like the wheels were greased. Just look at how quickly the enemy was able to change the direction of their attack this morning!”
Kalina gave a pained smile. “Speaking of jamming the enemy, General Felitov, don’t forget that in your sector, your people forced their own electronic-warfare unit to turn off their jammers at gunpoint!”
“What happened out there?” Marshal Levchenko asked. Only then did the others notice his arrival and stand to bow.
“It was like this,” the major general explained. “Their jamming was worse for our own communication and command system than NATO’s! We could still maintain some wireless transmission through NATO’s jamming. But once our forces turned on their own jammers, we were completely smothered!”
“But don’t forget, the enemy would have been completely smothered too!” Kalina said. “Given our army’s available electronic countermeasures, this was the only possible strategy. At this time, NATO has already widely adopted technologies like frequency hopping, direct-sequence spread spectrum, adaptive nulling systems, burst transmission, and frequency agility.* Our frequency-specific aimed jamming was completely useless. Full-spectrum barrage jamming was our only option.”
A colonel from the Fifth Army spoke up. “Major, NATO exclusively uses frequency-specific aimed jamming too, with a fairly narrow range of frequencies. And our C3I system widely incorporates the technologies you mentioned as well. Why would their jamming be so effective against us?”
“That’s easy. What systems are our C3I built upon? Unix, Linux, even Windows 2010, and our CPUs are made by Intel and AMD! We’re using the dogs they raised to guard our own gate! Under these circumstances, the enemy can quickly figure out, say, the frequency-hopping patterns used for our intelligence reports, while using more numerous and more effective software attacks to strengthen the effects of their jamming. The Main Command suggested the widespread adoption of a Russian-made operating system in the past, but met heavy opposition from the ranks. Your division was the most stubborn holdout of all—”
“Yes, yes, we’re here today to resolve precisely that problem and conflict,” Marshal Levchenko interrupted. “I call this meeting to order!”
Once everyone was seated in front of the digital battle simulator, Marshal Levchenko called over a staff officer. The young major was tall and skinny, his eyes squinted into slits, as if they had trouble adjusting to the war room’s brightness. “Let me introduce Major Bondarenko. His most obvious trait is his severe myopia. His glasses are different from other people’s—their lenses rest inside the frame, while his stick out. Ha, they’re as thick as the bottom of a teacup! This morning they got smashed when the major’s jeep was hit in an airstrike, which is why we don’t see them now. I think he lost his contacts too?”
“Marshal, it was five days ago at Minsk. My eyes only became like this in the last half year. If it happened earlier, I wouldn’t have been admitted into Frunze Military Academy,” the major said stolidly.
No one knew why the marshal had chosen to introduce the major like this, though a few chuckled in the audience.
“Since the beginning of the war,” the marshal continued, “events have shown that despite Russian losses on the battlefield, our aerial and ground weapons aren’t far behind the enemy’s. But in the field of electronic warfare, we’ve been unexpectedly left in the dust. Many events in the past contributed to this situation, but we’re not here to point fingers. We’re here to state this: In
our situation, electronic warfare is the key to taking back the initiative in the war! We must first admit that the enemy has an advantage in this area, perhaps an overwhelming advantage. Then we must work within our army’s hardware and software limitations to create an effective plan of battle. The goal of this plan is to even out our and NATO’s electronic-warfare capabilities within a short period of time. Maybe you all think this is impossible—our military planning since the end of the last century has been based on the assumption of a limited-scope war. We really haven’t done enough research for an invasion on all fronts by as powerful an enemy as the one we’re facing right now. In our dire situation, we have to think in a completely new way. The central command’s new electronic-warfare strategy, which I’m introducing next, will demonstrate the results of this mode of thinking.”
The lights went out, the computer screens and digital battle simulator dimmed, and the heavy anti-radiation doors shut tightly. The war room was plunged into total darkness.
“I had the lights turned off.” The marshal’s voice came through the darkness.
A minute passed in dark and silence.
“How’s everyone feeling?” Marshal Levchenko asked.
No one answered. The cloying darkness left the officers feeling as if they were at the bottom of a dark sea. It even felt hard to breathe.
“General Andreyev, tell it to us.”
“Like it felt on the battlefield these few days,” the commander of the Fifth Army said, eliciting a wave of quiet laughter from the darkness.
“Everyone else empathizes with him, I think,” said the marshal. “Of course you do! Think of it—nothing but static in your headsets, solid white on your screens, not a clue as to your orders or the battlefield around you. That same feeling! The darkness presses down until you can’t breathe!
“But not everyone feels like that. How are you, Major Bondarenko?” asked Marshal Levchenko.
Major Bondarenko’s voice came from one corner of the room. “It’s not so bad for me. Everything was a blur around me anyway back when the lights were on.”
“Maybe you even feel an advantage?” asked Marshal Levchenko.
“Yes, sir. You may have heard the story of the New York blackout, where blind people led everyone out of the skyscrapers.”
“But General Andreyev’s sentiments are understandable. He’s eagle-eyed, a legendary marksman—when he drinks, he uses his revolver to take the caps off his bottles at ten-odd meters. Wouldn’t it be interesting to picture him having a gun duel with Major Bondarenko at this moment?”
The darkened war room once again sank into silence as the officers considered this.
The lights turned on. Everyone narrowed their eyes, less because of the discomfort of the sudden brightness, and more for the shock of what the marshal had just implied.
Marshal Levchenko stood up. “I think I’ve explained our army’s new electronic-warfare strategy: large-scale, full-spectrum barrage jamming. With regard to EM communications, we’re going to let both sides enjoy a blacked-out battlefield!”
“This will cause our own battlefield command system to completely break down!” someone said fearfully.
“NATO’s will too! If we’re going to be blind, let’s both be blind. If we’re going to be deaf, let’s both be deaf. We can then reach equal footing with the enemy’s electronic-warfare capabilities. This is the central tenet of our new strategy.”
“But what are we supposed to do now, send messengers on motorcycles to transmit orders?”
“If the roads are bad, they’ll have to ride horses,” Marshal Levchenko said. “Our rough prediction shows that this kind of full-spectrum barrage jamming will cover at least seventy percent of NATO’s battlefield communication network, meaning that their C3I system will suffer a complete breakdown. Simultaneously, we’ll be leaving fifty to sixty percent of the enemy’s long-range weapons useless. The best example is with the Tomahawk satellite-guided missile. Missile guidance has changed a lot since last century. Before, it primarily navigated using onboard TERCOM with a small-scale radar altimeter, but now these methods are only used in end-stage guidance, while most of the launch process relies on a GPS system. General Dynamics and McDonnell Douglas Corporation thought this change was a big step forward, but the Americans trust their EM wave guidance from space too well. Once we disrupt the GPS transmission, the Tomahawk will be blind. The dependency on GPS exists in most of NATO’s long-range weapons. Under the battlefield conditions we’ve planned, we’ll force the enemy into a traditional battle, allowing us to fully utilize our strengths.”
“I’m still unsure about this,” the commander of the Twelfth Army sent from the eastern front said anxiously. “Under these battlefield communication conditions, I’m not even sure my division can smoothly reach the western front from the east.”
“Of course it will!” said Marshal Levchenko. “The distance was nothing even for Kutuzov, in Napoleon’s time. I don’t believe the Russian army needs wireless to do it today! The Americans should be the ones spoiled rotten by modern equipment, not us. I know that an EM blackout over all the battlefield will put fear in your hearts. But you have to remember, the enemy will feel ten times your fear!”
* * *
Watching Kalina disappear among the other camo-clad officers as they exited the war room, Marshal Levchenko felt apprehension rise in his heart. She was returning to the front, and her unit was stationed right in the middle of the enemy’s most concentrated firepower. Yesterday, during his five minutes of communication with his son a hundred million miles away, the marshal had told him that Kalina was perfectly well. But she nearly hadn’t come back from this morning’s battle.
Misha and Kalina had met at one of the military exercises. The marshal had been eating dinner with his son one night, silently as usual, Misha’s late mother looking on from her picture frame. Suddenly, Misha had said, “Papa, I recall that tomorrow is your fifty-first birthday. I should give you a gift. I thought of it when I saw the telescope; that was a wonderful present.”
“How about you give me a few days of your time?”
Son quietly raised his head to look at father.
“You have your own work, and I’m happy for you. But surely it’s not unreasonable for a father to want his son to understand his life’s work! How about you come with me to observe the military exercises?”
Misha smiled and nodded. He smiled very rarely.
It had been the largest Russian war game of the century. Misha showed little interest in the torrent of steel-armored vehicles rumbling past them on the highway that night before it started; the moment he was off the helicopter, he ducked into the tent to assemble the newly arrived battle maps with clear tape in his father’s stead. The next day, Misha didn’t show the slightest interest through all the exercises. Marshal Levchenko had expected that. But one incident gave him all the reassurance he could ever want.
The exercise scheduled for the morning was a tank division assaulting high ground; Misha sat with some local officials on the north side of the observation station. The station was safely out of range, but in order to satisfy the curiosity of the local officials, it had been placed much closer to the action than before.
Tu-22 bombers soared in formation above, heavy aerial bombs fell like rain, and the hilltop exploded into an erupting volcano. Only then did the officials understand the difference between movies and a real battlefield. As the ground quaked and the hill shook, they pressed themselves flat against the table and covered their heads with their arms, some even crawling under the table with shrieks. But the marshal saw that Misha alone sat with his back straight, the same cool expression on his face, calmly watching the terrible volcano as the light of the explosions flashed across his sunglasses. Warmth flooded into Levchenko’s heart then. In the end, son, you have a soldier’s blood in your veins!
That night, father and son walked along the practice field. In the distance, the headlamps of armored vehicles densely sprinkled the valleys an
d plains with stars. The faint smell of gunpowder smoke still lingered in the air.
“How much did it cost?” Misha asked.
“The direct cost was about three hundred million rubles.”
Misha sighed. “Our task group wanted a third-generation evolving star model to work with. We couldn’t get a grant of three hundred fifty thousand for expenses.”
Marshal Levchenko at last said what he’d long wanted to tell his son. “Our two worlds are too far apart. Your stars are all four light-years away at the least, yes? They don’t have any bearing on the armies and wars on Earth. I can’t claim to know much about what you do, though I’m very proud of you all the same. But as an army man, I just want my son to appreciate my own profession. What father wouldn’t feel the greatest happiness telling his son about his campaigns? But you’ve never cared for my work, when really, it’s the foundation and safeguard for your own. Without an army strong enough and big enough to keep the country safe, fundamental science research like yours would be impossible.”
“You’ve got it backward, Papa. If everyone were like us and spent all their life on exploring the universe, they’d understand its beauty, the beauty that lies behind its vastness and depth. And someone who truly understood the innate beauty of space and nature would never go to war.”
“That thinking’s as childish as you can get. If appreciation of beauty could prevent war, we’d never be short of peace!”
“Do you think it’s easy for humanity to understand this kind of beauty?” Misha pointed at the night sky, a sea of shining stars. “Look at these stars. Everyone knows they’re beautiful, but how many grasp the deepest nuances of their beauty? All these countless celestial bodies are so glorious in their metamorphosis from nebula to black hole, so vast and terrible in their explosive power. But do you know that a few elegant equations can accurately describe all of it? Mathematical models created from the equations can near perfectly predict everything a star does. Even mathematical models of our own planet’s atmosphere are orders of magnitude less precise.”
