by Cixin Liu
Modern spacecraft no longer had physical controls—the controls were holographic projections—thus, the interior of the hull was completely empty. If a Common Era person came here for the first time, he or she would think this was an empty shell with nothing inside. But Cheng Xin immediately noticed three unusual objects, clearly new additions. These were three circles attached to the hull above the transparent part, colored green, yellow, and red, reminding her of traffic lights from the past. The fleet chief explained:
“These three lights are controlled by Sophon. Your meeting will be monitored throughout by the Trisolarans. As long as they believe the contents of your conversation are acceptable, the green light will stay on. If they wish to warn you about topics verging on the unacceptable, the yellow light will be lit.”
The fleet chief paused, and only after a long while, as though he had to prepare himself, did he explain the red light.
“If they think you’re being given information you may not receive, the red light will be lit.”
He turned around and pointed to the nontransparent part of the hull. Cheng Xin saw a small metallic attachment resembling a weight used on an ancient balance.
“This bomb is controlled by Sophon. It will detonate three seconds after the red light turns on.”
“What will be destroyed?” Cheng Xin asked. She wasn’t thinking of herself.
“Just our side of the meeting. You don’t need to worry about Tianming’s safety. Sophon has made it clear that even if the red light is lit, only this dinghy will explode; Tianming will not be harmed in any way.
“The red light may be lit during your conversation. However, even if the meeting completes successfully, the Trisolarans may decide, upon review of the conversation record, to turn on the red light. I’m going to tell you the most important part now—” The fleet chief paused again.
Cheng Xin’s gaze remained placid. She nodded at him, encouraging him to continue.
“You must remember that the lights will not be used as a traffic light. They may not warn you before deciding that you’ve stepped over the line. The green light may change to a red light immediately, without going through the yellow light.”
“All right. I understand.” Cheng Xin’s voice was soft, like a passing breeze.
“Other than the contents of the conversation, Sophon may also light the red light if she discovers recording equipment on the dinghy or some means of transmitting your conversation outside the dinghy. You may rest easy on this point. We’ve examined this dinghy repeatedly for recording devices, and we’ve eliminated all communications equipment. The navigation system isn’t even capable of keeping a log. Your entire journey will be directed by the shipboard AI system, which will not communicate with the outside world prior to your return. Dr. Cheng, please think through what I’ve said to be sure you understand the implications.”
“If I don’t return, then you get nothing.”
“I’m glad you see. This is what we want to emphasize. Do as they say, and only talk about private matters between the two of you. Do not mention other topics, not even through hints or metaphors. At all times, remember that if you don’t return, Earth gets absolutely nothing.”
“But if I do as you say and return, Earth will still get nothing. That is not what I want.”
The fleet chief looked at Cheng Xin, but not directly, only at her reflection on the transparent hull. Her image was superimposed against the universe, and her lovely eyes serenely reflected the stars. He seemed to see her as the center of the universe, the stars revolving around her. Once again, he forced himself to not dissuade her from taking a risk.
Instead, he pointed behind him. “This is a miniature hydrogen bomb. Under the old measurement system you’re familiar with, its yield is about five kilotons. If … it really has to happen, everything will end in a flash. You will not feel it.”
Cheng Xin smiled at the fleet chief. “Thank you. I understand.”
* * *
Five hours later, the dinghy began its journey. The hypergravity of 3G pressed Cheng Xin against the seat—this was the limit on the acceleration an individual without special training could bear. In a window that showed what was behind her, she saw the immense hull of the terminal station reflecting the fire from her dinghy’s drive. The tiny dinghy appeared as a spark flying out of a furnace, but the terminal station rapidly shrank, and soon turned into a tiny dot. Only the Earth itself, still imposing, took up half the sky.
The special team had told Cheng Xin again and again that the flight itself would be routine, no more special than the airplane rides she used to take. The distance between the terminal station and the Lagrangian point was about 1.5 million kilometers, or one hundredth of an astronomical unit. This was considered an extremely short spaceflight, and the craft she rode in was well suited for such brief trips. Cheng Xin recalled that three centuries ago, one of the things that had lured her into aerospace engineering was a great accomplishment by humankind during the twentieth century: fifteen men had managed to step onto the moon. Their voyage had only been a fifth as long as the journey she was about to undertake.
Ten minutes later, Cheng Xin got to see a sunrise in space. The Sun slowly rose over the curved edge of the Earth. From such distance, the waves over the Pacific were invisible, and the ocean was like a mirror reflecting sunlight. The clouds appeared as soapy foam over the mirror. From this vantage point, the Sun appeared much smaller than the Earth, like a shining golden egg being birthed by this dark blue world. By the time the Sun had completely emerged from the curved horizon, the side of the Earth facing the Sun turned into a giant crescent. The crescent was so bright that the rest of the Earth merged into dark shadow, and the Sun and the crescent seemed to form a giant symbol hovering in space. Cheng Xin thought of the mark as symbolizing rebirth.
She knew that this could very well be her last sunrise. In the upcoming meeting, even if she and Tianming faithfully followed the rules around their conversation, there was a possibility that the distant Trisolarans would not permit her to live, and she wasn’t interested in following the rules at all. But she thought everything was perfect; she had no regrets.
As the dinghy progressed, the lit portion of the Earth expanded. Cheng Xin saw the outlines of the continents, and easily picked out Australia. It resembled a dry leaf floating in the Pacific. The continent was emerging from the shadow, and the terminator was right in the middle of the continent. It was morning in Warburton, and she thought of the desert sunrise seen by Fraisse from the edge of the wood.
Her dinghy swept over the Earth. By the time the curved horizon had finally disappeared over the edge of the viewport, acceleration stopped. As the hypergravity disappeared, Cheng Xin felt as though a pair of arms hugging her tightly had relaxed. The dinghy coasted toward the Sun, and the light from the Sun overwhelmed all the stars. The transparent hull adjusted and dimmed until the Sun was a disc whose brightness was no longer blinding. Cheng Xin reached out to adjust it even more, until the Sun resembled the full moon. She still had six more hours to travel. She drifted in weightlessness, drifted in the moonlight-like sun.
* * *
Five hours later, the dinghy turned 180 degrees and the engine came to life for deceleration. As the dinghy turned, Cheng Xin saw the Sun gradually move away, and then the stars and the Milky Way swept past her vision like a long scroll. By the time the dinghy stopped, the Earth was once again at the center of her view. It now looked about as big as the moon from the surface of the Earth, and the immensity it had displayed a few hours ago was gone. Now it looked fragile, like a fetus floating in blue amniotic fluid about to emerge from the warm womb and be exposed to the frigidity and darkness of space.
With the engine turned on, gravity returned to embrace Cheng Xin. The deceleration lasted about half an hour before the drive started to pulse for precision position maneuvers. Finally, gravity disappeared again, and everything became quiet.
This was the Lagrangian point. Here, the dinghy was a satel
lite of the Sun, orbiting in synch with the Earth.
Cheng Xin glanced at her watch. The voyage had been planned very well. She still had ten minutes before the meeting. The space around her was empty, and she struggled to empty her mind as well. She was preparing herself for the task of memorization: The only thing that could retain anything from the meeting was her brain. She had to turn herself into an emotionless audio and video recorder so that during the next two hours she could remember as much as possible of what she saw and heard.
She imagined the corner of space she happened to be in. Here, the Sun’s gravity overcame the Earth’s, reaching balance, so this place held an extra measure of emptiness compared to other spots in space. She was in this emptiness of zero, a lonely, independent presence that had no connections to any other part of the cosmos.… In this way, she managed to drive her complicated emotions out of her consciousness, until she achieved the blank, transcendent state she wanted.
Not too far ahead of the dinghy, a sophon began to unfold into lower-dimensional space. Cheng Xin saw a sphere about three or four meters in diameter appear a few meters in front of the dinghy. The sphere blocked the Earth and took up most of her view. The surface of the sphere was perfectly reflective, and Cheng Xin could clearly see the reflection of her dinghy and herself. She wasn’t sure if the sophon had been lurking inside the dinghy or if it had just arrived.
The reflection on the surface of the sphere disappeared as the sphere turned translucent, like a ball of ice. At times, Cheng Xin thought it resembled a hole dug in space. Next, countless snowflake-like bright spots floated up from deep within the sphere, forming a flickering pattern on the surface. Cheng Xin recognized that this was just white noise, like the random snow seen on a television screen when there was no reception.
The white noise lasted about three minutes, and then a scene from several light-years away took its place. It was crystal clear, with no signs of distortion or interference.
Cheng Xin had entertained countless guesses as to what she would see. Maybe she would only have voice and text; maybe she would see a brain floating in nutrient fluid; maybe she would see Yun Tianming whole. Though she believed that this last possibility was practically impossible, she tried to imagine the environment Tianming would be living in. She thought of innumerable scenarios, but none was like what she actually saw.
A golden field of wheat bathed in sunlight.
The field was about a tenth of an acre. The crop looked to be doing well, and it was time for the harvest. The soil appeared a bit eerie: pure black, and the particles sparkled in the sunlight like innumerable stars. A common shovel was stuck into the black soil next to the field of wheat. It looked perfectly ordinary, and even the handle appeared to be made of wood. A straw hat woven from wheat stalks hung from the top of the shovel—it looked old and well used, and loose stalks stuck out of the worn rim. Behind the wheat field was another field planted with something green, probably vegetables. A breeze passed through, and the wheat rippled.
Above this dark-soiled scene was an alien sky—a dome, to be exact, formed of a knotty mess of intertwined pipes, some thick, some thin, all of which were leaden gray in color. Among the thousands of pipes, two or three glowed red. The light from them was very bright, making them appear as incandescent filaments. The exposed portions of these pipes illuminated the fields and apparently provided the source of energy for the crops. Each illuminated pipe only shone briefly before dimming, to be replaced by another pipe that lit up elsewhere. At each moment, two or three pipes were on. The shifting lights caused the shadows in the field to shift constantly as well, as though the sun were weaving in and out of clouds.
Cheng Xin was taken aback by the chaotic arrangement of the pipes. It wasn’t the result of carelessness; on the contrary, to create this kind of utter chaos required great effort and design. The arrangement seemed to find even the hint of a pattern to be taboo. This suggested an aesthetic utterly at odds with human values: Patterns were ugly, but the lack of order was beautiful. Those glowing pipes gave the entire knotty mess a kind of liveliness, like sunlight glanced through clouds. Cheng Xin even wondered whether the arrangement was meant to be an artistic representation of the sun and clouds. But the next moment, she felt the arrangement evoking a giant model of the human brain, and the flickering, glowing pipes represented the formation of each neural feedback loop.…
Rationally, she had to reject these fantasies. A far more likely explanation was that the entire system was nothing more than a heat dissipation device, and the farm fields below only took advantage of the lights as a side effect. Going by appearance alone, and without understanding its operation, Cheng Xin intuited that the system showed a kind of engineering ideal that could not be understood by humanity. She felt mystified, but also mesmerized.
A man walked toward her from deep within the wheat field. Tianming.
He wore a silver jacket, made out of some kind of reflective film. It looked as old as his straw hat, but was otherwise unremarkable. Cheng Xin couldn’t see his pants due to all the wheat, but they were likely made of the same material. As he came closer, Cheng Xin got a better look at his face. He looked young, about the same age as when they had parted three centuries ago. But his physique looked more fit, and his face was tanned. He wasn’t gazing in Cheng Xin’s direction; instead, he pulled off an ear of wheat, rubbed it in his fingers, blew away the husk, and then tossed the grains into his mouth. He emerged from the field still chewing. Just when Cheng Xin wondered whether Tianming knew she was there, he looked up, smiled, and waved at her.
“Hello, Cheng Xin!” he said. In his eyes was pure joy, a very natural kind of joy, like a farm boy working in the fields greeting a girl from the same village who had come back from the city. The three centuries that had passed did not seem to matter, and neither did the several light-years separating them. They had always been together. Cheng Xin had never imagined this. Tianming’s gaze caressed her like a gentle pair of hands, and her high-strung nerves relaxed slightly.
The green light above the viewport came on.
“Hello!” Cheng Xin said. A wave of emotion that had traversed three centuries surged deep within her consciousness, like a volcano preparing to erupt. But she decisively blocked off all emotional outlets, and silently repeated to herself: Memorize, just memorize, memorize everything. “Can you see me?”
“Yes.” Tianming smiled and nodded, and tossed another grain of wheat into his mouth.
“What are you doing?”
Tianming seemed taken aback by the question. He waved at the field. “Farming.”
“For yourself?”
“Of course. How else would I get to eat?”
The Tianming in Cheng Xin’s memory looked different. During the Staircase Project, he was a haggard, weak, terminal patient; before then, he was a solitary, alienated college student. But though the Tianming of the past had sealed his heart to the outside world, he had also exposed his state in life—it was possible to tell, at a glance, what his basic story was. The Tianming of the present revealed only maturity. One couldn’t read his story at all, though he certainly had stories, stories that probably offered more twists, strange events, and spectacular sights than ten Odysseys. Three centuries of drifting alone in the depths of space, an unimaginable life among aliens, the countless tribulations and trials endured in body and spirit—none of these had left any mark on his body. All that was left was maturity, a sunlit maturity, like the swaying stalks of golden wheat behind him.
Tianming was a victor in life.
“Thank you for the seeds you sent,” Tianming said. His tone was sincere. “I planted them all. Generation after generation, they’ve done well. I couldn’t get the cucumbers to grow though—they’re tough.”
Cheng Xin chewed over Tianming’s words. How does he know that I sent him the seeds? Did they tell him? Or …
“I thought you would have to grow them using aeroculture and aquaculture. I never thought there would be soil on a spac
eship.”
Tianming bent down and picked up a handful of black soil, letting the particles seep out from between his fingers. The soil sparkled as it fell. “This is made from meteoroids. Soil like this—”
The green light went off and the yellow light went on.
Apparently, Tianming could see the warning as well. He stopped, smiled, and raised a hand. The expression and gesture were clearly intended for those listening in. The yellow light went off and the green light went on again.
“How long has it been?” Cheng Xin asked. She deliberately asked an ambiguous question that could be interpreted many ways: how long he’d been planting; or how long his brain had been implanted in a cloned body; or how long ago the Staircase probe had been captured; or something else. She wanted to leave him plenty of room to pass on information.
“A long time.”
Tianming’s answer was even more ambiguous. He looked as calm as before, but the yellow light must have terrified him. He didn’t want Cheng Xin to be hurt.
“At first I knew nothing about farming,” said Tianming. “I wanted to learn by watching others. But, as you know, there are no real farmers anymore, so I had to figure it out myself. I learned slowly, so it’s a good thing that I don’t eat much.”
Cheng Xin’s earlier guess had been confirmed. What Tianming was really saying was very clear: If the Earth still had real farmers, he would have been able to observe them. In other words, he could see the information gathered by the sophons on Earth! This at least showed that Tianming had a close relationship with Trisolaran society.
“The wheat looks really good. Is it time for the harvest?”
“Yes. This has been a good year.”
“A good year?”
“Oh, if the engines are operating at high power, then I have a good year, otherwise—”
The yellow light came on.
Another guess had been confirmed. The mess of pipes in the ceiling really was some kind of cooling system for the engines. Their light came from the antimatter propulsion system on the ship.
