by Cixin Liu
The beautiful world revealed its fragility to Cheng Xin, like a lovely soap bubble floating through a bramble bush: A single touch was enough to destroy everything.
* * *
A week later, Cheng Xin came to the UN Headquarters to attend the handover ceremony for the two planets in the DX3906 system.
Afterwards, the PDC chair spoke with her. On behalf of the UN and the Solar System Fleet, he asked her to declare her candidacy for the Swordholder. He explained that there was uncertainty about the six existing candidates. For any of them to be elected would lead to mass panic, as a considerable portion of the population believed each of the candidates to be a tremendous danger and threat. The consequences of electing any of them were unpredictable. In addition, all of the candidates distrusted Trisolaris and exhibited aggressive tendencies toward it. If one of them were elected, the second Swordholder might collaborate with the hardliners on Earth and in Fleet International to impose harsher policies toward Trisolaris and demand more concessions from them. Such a move might terminate the developing peace and scientific and cultural exchange between the two worlds, leading to disaster.…
But Cheng Xin could prevent all of this.
After humanity ended its second cave-dwelling stage, the UN Headquarters moved back to its old address. Cheng Xin was familiar with it: The exterior of the Secretariat Building looked the same as three centuries ago, and even the sculptures on the plaza in front were perfectly preserved, as was the lawn. Cheng Xin stood and recalled that tumultuous night 270 years ago: the announcement of the Wallfacer Project; Luo Ji’s shooting; the chaotic crowd under the swaying spotlights; her hair blowing about in the turbulence from the helicopters; the ambulance departing with flashing red lights and shrill sirens … everything was as clear as yesterday. Wade stood with his back against the lights of New York City, and uttered the line that had transformed her life: “We’ll send only a brain.”
Without that statement, everything that was happening now would have nothing to do with her. She would be a common woman and would have died more than two centuries ago. Everything about her would have disappeared without a trace upstream in time’s long river. If she had been fortunate, her tenth-generation descendants would now be waiting for the selection of the second Swordholder.
But she was alive. She faced the crowd on the plaza. A hologram of her image floated above them like a colorful cloud. A young mother came up to Cheng Xin and handed her baby, only a few months old, to her. The baby giggled at her, and she held him close, touching her face to his smooth baby cheeks. Her heart melted, and she felt as if she were holding a whole world, a new world as lovely and fragile as the baby in her arms.
“Look, she’s like Saint Mary, the mother of Jesus!” the young mother called out to the crowd. She turned back to Cheng Xin and put her hands together. Tears flowed from her eyes. “Oh, beautiful, kind Madonna, protect this world! Do not let those bloodthirsty and savage men destroy all the beauty here.”
The crowd cried out in joy. The baby in Cheng Xin’s arms, startled, began to cry. She held the baby tighter.
Do I have another choice?
The answer came to her, brooking no doubt.
No. None at all.
There were three reasons.
First, being declared a savior was just like being pushed under the guillotine: There was no choice involved. This had happened to Luo Ji, and now it was happening to her.
Second, the young mother and the soft, warm bundle in Cheng Xin’s arms made her realize something. She understood for the first time her own feelings toward this new world: maternal instinct. She had never experienced such a feeling during the Common Era. Subconsciously, she saw everyone in the new world as her child, and she could not bear to see them come to harm. Before, she had mistakenly thought of it as a sense of responsibility. But, no, maternal instinct was not subject to rationalization; she could not escape it.
The third fact stood in front of her like an unscalable wall. Even if the first two reasons did not exist, this wall would remain: Yun Tianming.
This situation was a hell, a bottomless abyss, the same as the abyss Yun Tianming had plunged into for her sake. She could not back off now. She had to accept karma. It was her turn.
Cheng Xin’s childhood had been full of her mother’s love, but only her mother’s love. She had asked her mother where her father was. Unlike some other single mothers, her mother responded calmly. She said she didn’t know, and then, after a sigh, added that she wished she did. Cheng Xin had also asked her where she had come from, and her mother had told her she was found.
This wasn’t a lie. Cheng Xin really had been found. Her mother had never married, but one night, while on a date with her boyfriend at the time, she saw a three-month-old baby abandoned on a park bench, along with a bottle of milk, a thousand yuan, and a slip of paper with the baby girl’s birthday. Her mother and the boyfriend had intended to bring the baby to the police, who would have turned the baby over to the city’s civil affairs department, who would have sent her to an orphanage.
Instead, her mother decided that she wanted to bring the baby home and go to the police in the morning. Perhaps it was the experience of being a mother for a night, or some other reason, but the next morning, she found that she couldn’t send the child away. Every time she thought of parting from the young life, her heart ached, and so she decided to become the child’s mother.
The boyfriend left her because of this. During the following decade, she dated four or five other men, but all of them ended up leaving her because of Cheng Xin. Later, Cheng Xin found out that none of the men had explicitly objected to her mother’s decision to keep her, but if any of them ever showed a trace of impatience or lack of understanding, her mother broke up with him. She refused to let any harm come to Cheng Xin.
When she was little, Cheng Xin never thought her family was incomplete. Instead, she thought it just the way it should be: a small world made up of mother and daughter. The small world possessed so much love and joy that she even suspected that adding a father would be extraneous. Later, she did miss having a father’s love—at first, only a vague sensation, but later a growing ache. And that was when her mother did find a father for her, a very kind man full of love and a sense of responsibility. He fell in love with Cheng Xin’s mother in large part because of how much she loved Cheng Xin. And so a second sun appeared in Cheng Xin’s life. She felt that her small world really was complete, and so her parents did not have another child.
Later, Cheng Xin left her parents to go to college. After that, her life was like a runaway horse that carried her farther and farther until, finally, not only did she have to part from them in space, but also time—she had to be sent to the future.
That night when she left her parents for the last time would be carved in her mind forever. She had lied to her parents and said that she’d be back the next day—she couldn’t bear to say good-bye, and so she had to leave without saying anything. But they seemed to know the truth.
Her mother had held her hand and said, “My darling, the three of us are together because of love.…”
Cheng Xin spent that night standing in front of her parents’ window. In her mind, the night breeze and the twinkling stars and everything else repeated her mother’s last words.
Three centuries later, she was finally ready to do something for love.
“I will be a candidate for the Swordholder,” she said to the young mother.
Deterrence Era, Year 62
Gravity, in the Vicinity of the Oort Cloud
Gravity had been pursuing Blue Space for half a century.
It finally approached its target. Only three AU separated the hunter and the hunted. Compared to the 1.5 light-years that the two ships had traversed, this was mere inches.
A decade ago, Gravity had passed through the Oort Cloud. This region, about one light-year from the sun at the edge of the Solar System, was the birthplace of comets. Blue Space and Gravity were the first hum
an spaceships to cross this border. The region didn’t feel anything like a cloud, though. Once in a while, a frozen ball of dirt and ice—a tailless comet—passed tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of kilometers away, invisible to the naked eye.
Once Gravity left the Oort Cloud behind, the ship entered true outer space. From here, the sun appeared as just another star behind the ship. It lost its reality and became like an illusion. In every direction, all one could see was a bottomless abyss, and the only objects whose existence could be ascertained by the senses were the droplets flying in formation with Gravity. The droplets flanked the ship at a distance of about five kilometers, just visible to the naked eye. Those aboard Gravity liked to gaze at the droplets with telescopes as a source of comfort in the endless emptiness. Observing the droplets was, in a sense, just looking at themselves. The mirrorlike surface of the droplets reflected an image of Gravity. The dimensions were a bit distorted, but due to the perfect smoothness of the surface, the image was particularly clear. With sufficient magnification on their telescopes, the observers could even pick out the porthole, and themselves in it, in the reflection.
Most of the one hundred-plus officers and crew aboard Gravity didn’t experience this solitude because they had spent the majority of the past fifty years in hibernation. During routine cruising, only about five to ten crew members needed to be on duty. As the crew rotated through hibernation, each person was usually on duty for three to five years.
The entire pursuit was a complex game of acceleration between Gravity and Blue Space. First of all, Blue Space couldn’t just accelerate continuously, as doing so would cost it precious fuel and ultimately deprive it of mobility. Even if it managed to escape Gravity, it would be committing suicide in the endless empty desert of outer space if it exhausted its fuel. Although Gravity had more fuel onboard than Blue Space, it had constraints of its own. Since it needed to be prepared for a return voyage, its fuel reserves had to be divided into four equal parts: the acceleration away from the Solar System; the deceleration before its destination; the acceleration toward the Solar System; and the deceleration before arriving at the Earth. Thus, the portion available for acceleration during the pursuit amounted to only one-quarter of the fuel. Based on calculations of Blue Space’s previous maneuvers and intelligence gathered by the sophons, Gravity had an accurate idea of Blue Space’s fuel reserves, but the latter had no information about the former’s stores. Thus, in this game, Gravity knew all the cards held by Blue Space, while Blue Space struggled in ignorance. During pursuit, Gravity consistently maintained a speed higher than Blue Space, but neither ship approached their maximum velocities. Moreover, twenty-five years after the start of the chase, Blue Space stopped accelerating, perhaps because it had used up all the fuel it dared.
During the half century of the hunt, Gravity repeatedly hailed Blue Space, explaining that running was meaningless. Even if the crew of Blue Space somehow escaped the hunters from Earth, the droplets would catch up and destroy them. But if they returned to Earth, they would receive a fair trial. They had the option to greatly shorten the pursuit by surrendering. But Blue Space ignored these entreaties.
A year previously, when Gravity and Blue Space were thirty AU apart, something not entirely unexpected occurred: Gravity and the two accompanying droplets entered a region of space where the sophons lost their quantum ties to home, terminating real-time communications with Earth. Gravity had to communicate with Earth through only neutrinos and radio. Transmissions from Gravity now took a year and three months to reach the Earth, and the ship had to wait an equally long time to receive a reply.
Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time
More Indirect Evidence for the Dark Forest: Sophon-Blind Regions
Near the beginning of the Crisis Era, as Trisolaris sent sophons toward the Earth, it also launched six sophons at near-lightspeed to explore other regions of the galaxy.
All of these sophons soon entered blind regions and lost contact with home. The longest-lasting one managed to get seven light-years away. Additional sophons launched later met with the same fate. The closest blind region, only about 1.3 light-years from Earth, was the one encountered by the sophons that accompanied Gravity.
Once the quantum entanglement between sophons was broken, it could not be restored. Any sophon entering a blind region was lost forever.
Trisolaris remained mystified by the kind of interference the sophons received: Perhaps it was a natural phenomenon, or perhaps it was “man”-made. Scientists from both Trisolaris and Earth leaned toward the latter explanation.
Before being blinded, the sophons were able to explore only two nearby stars with planets. Neither system exhibited signs of life or civilization. But Earth and Trisolaris both came to the conclusion that their desolation was precisely why the sophons were allowed to approach.
Thus, even deep into the Deterrence Era, the universe at large remained hidden from the two worlds by a mysterious veil. The existence of these blind regions seemed to provide indirect proof for the dark forest nature of the universe: Something was preventing the cosmos from becoming transparent.
Deterrence Era, Year 62
Gravity, in the Vicinity of the Oort Cloud
Losing the sophons was not fatal to Gravity’s mission, though it did make the job much harder. Before, the sophons could enter Blue Space at will and report on everything that was going on; now Blue Space appeared to Gravity as a sealed box. Moreover, the droplets lost real-time communications with Trisolaris and had to rely on the onboard AI. This led to unpredictable results.
The captain of Gravity decided that he could no longer afford to wait. He ordered Gravity to accelerate further.
As Gravity approached, Blue Space hailed the hunters for the first time, proposing a plan: Blue Space would load two-thirds of the crew—including the main suspects—onto pinnaces and send the pinnaces to Gravity if the remainder of the crew was allowed to continue their voyage into deep space aboard Blue Space. This way, a vanguard and seed for the human race would be preserved in space, keeping alive the hope for further exploration.
Gravity vehemently denied this request. The entire crew of Blue Space was suspected of murder, and all had to be tried. Space had transformed them until they were no longer members of the human race. Under no circumstances could they be allowed to “represent” humanity in space exploration.
Blue Space apparently realized the futility of running and of resisting. If only a human spaceship pursued them, then they at least stood a chance if they fought. But the two droplets changed the strategic calculus. Before them, Blue Space was nothing but a paper target, and there was no chance of escape. When the two ships were only fifteen AU apart, Blue Space announced its surrender and began to decelerate at maximum power. The distance between the two ships shrank rapidly, and it seemed that the long hunt was at last coming to an end.
Gravity’s crew emerged from hibernation and readied the ship for combat. The vessel, once silent and deserted, was once again filled with people.
Those who had been awakened faced the prospect of both a target nearly at hand and the loss of real-time communications with Earth. This loss did not pull them spiritually closer to the crew of Blue Space. To the contrary, like a child who was separated from her parents, the crew distrusted the parentless wild children even more. Everyone wished to capture Blue Space as quickly as possible and return home. Even though both crews were in the cold vastness of space, voyaging in the same direction at approximately the same speed, the natures of their voyages were completely different. Gravity had a spiritual anchor, while Blue Space was adrift.
* * *
In the ninety-eighth hour after the crew’s emergence from hibernation, Dr. West, Gravity’s psychiatrist, received his first patient. This visit from Commander Devon surprised the doctor. According to his records, Devon had the highest stability score of anyone aboard. Devon was in charge of the military police aboard Gravity, and it would be his responsibility to disarm B
lue Space and arrest the crew once it was caught. Gravity’s male crew members belonged to the last generation from Earth who still looked masculine, and Devon had the most masculine appearance among them. He was sometimes even mistaken for a Common Era man. He had often spoken out in favor of taking a hard line toward the suspects, suggesting that the death penalty ought to be revived.
“Doctor, I know that you’ll keep my confidence,” Devon said carefully. His tone was in marked contrast to his usual hard-edged style. “I know that what I’m about to say will sound funny.”
“Commander, in my professional capacity, I wouldn’t laugh at anyone.”
“Yesterday, at approximately stellar time 436950, I left Conference Room Four and followed Passageway Seventeen back to my cabin. As I approached the Intelligence Center, a sublieutenant came toward me—or, at least, a man dressed in the uniform of a Space Force sublieutenant. At that time, except for crew members on duty, everyone should have been asleep. But I didn’t think it was so strange to meet someone in the passageway. Except…” Devon shook his head and his eyes lost focus, as though trying to recall a dream.
“What was wrong?”
“The man and I passed by each other. He saluted me, and I glanced at him.…”
Devon stopped again, and the doctor nodded for him to continue.
“He was … he was the commander of the marines from Blue Space, Lieutenant Commander Park Ui-gun.”
“You mean Blue Space, our prey?” West’s tone was calm, betraying no hint of surprise.
Devon didn’t answer the question. “Doctor, you know that as part of my duties, I’ve been monitoring the interior of Blue Space through the real-time images transmitted by the sophons. I know the crew of that ship better than I know the crew here. I know what Lieutenant Commander Park Ui-gun looks like.”
“Maybe it was someone from our ship who looks like him.”
“No, there’s no one—I know everyone onboard. Also … after the salute, he passed by me without any expression. I stood there, stunned. But by the time I turned around, the passageway was empty.”
