by Cixin Liu
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 Blue 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.”
“When did you wake up from hibernation?”
“Three years ago. I needed to keep an eye on the activities onboard our target. Before that, I was also among those aboard who had stayed out of hibernation the longest.”
“Then you must have experienced the moment when we entered the sophons’ blind region.”
“Of course.”
“Before that, you spent so much of your time watching those aboard Blue Space that I think you probably felt as though you were on Blue Space rather than Gravity.”
“Yes, Doctor. I did often feel that way.”
“And then, the surveillance images were cut off. You couldn’t see anything over there anymore. And you were tired.... Commander, it’s simple. Trust me: This is normal. I suggest you get more rest. We have plenty of people now to do the work that needs to be done.”
“Doctor, I’m a survivor of the Doomsday Battle. After my ship exploded, I was curled up in a life pod the size of your desk, drifting in the vicinity of Neptune’s orbit. By the time I was rescued, I was close to death, but my mind was still sound, and I never suffered any delusions.... I believe what I saw.” Devon got up and walked away. He turned around at the cabin door. “If I meet that bastard again—doesn’t matter where—I’m going to kill him.”
Some time after that, an accident happened in Ecological Area #3—a nutrient tube ruptured. The tube was made of carbon fiber, and as it wasn’t subject to pressure, the probability of a malfunction was very low. Ecological Engineer Ivantsov passed through the aeroponically grown plants, as dense as a rainforest, and saw that others had already shut off the valve leading to the ruptured tube and were cleaning up the yellow nutrient broth.
Ivantsov stopped dead when he saw the ruptured tube.
“This... is caused by a micrometeoroid!”
Someone laughed. Ivantsov was an experienced and prudent engineer, and that made his outburst even funnier. All the ecological areas were buried in the center of the ship. Ecological Area #3 was tens of meters away from the nearest section of the exterior hull.
“I worked more than a decade in external maintenance and I know what a micrometeoroid strike looks like! Look, you can see the typical signs of high-temperature ablation around the edges of the rupture.”
Ivantsov closely examined the
inside of the tube; then he asked a technician to cut off a ring of material around the rupture and magnify it. The chatter died down as everyone stared at the 1000x image. There were tiny black particles, a few microns in diameter, embedded in the wall of the tube. The particles twinkled like unfriendly eyes in the magnified image. They all knew what they were looking at. The meteoroid must have been about one hundred microns in diameter. It had shattered as it went through the tube, its broken pieces winding up embedded in the wall opposite the breach.
As one, they looked up.
The ceiling above the ruptured tube looked smooth and undamaged. Furthermore, above the ceiling, tens, maybe hundreds more bulkheads of various thicknesses separated this place from space. An impact-breach in any of these bulkheads would have triggered a high-level alert.
But the micrometeoroid had to have come from space. Based on the condition of the rupture, the micrometeoroid had struck the tube at a relative velocity of thirty thousand meters per second. It would have been impossible to accelerate the projectile to such speed from within the ship, much less from within the ecological area.
“It’s like a ghost,” a sublieutenant named Ike muttered, and left. His choice of words was meaningful: About ten hours earlier, he had seen another, bigger ghost.
Ike had been trying to fall asleep in his cabin when he saw a round opening appear in the wall opposite his bed. It was about a meter across, and occupied the space where a Hawaiian landscape had hung. It was true that many of the bulkheads on the ship could shift and transform so that doors could appear anywhere, but a circular opening like this was impossible. Moreover, the cabin walls of mid-level officers were made of metal and could not deform this way. A closer examination by Ike revealed that the edge of the opening was perfectly smooth and reflective, like a mirror.
Although the hole was strange, Ike was rather pleased by it. Sublieutenant Vera lived next door.
Verenskaya was the AI system engineer aboard Gravity. Ike had been trying to get the Russian beauty to go out with him, but she hadn’t shown any interest. Ike still remembered his latest attempt two days ago.
He and Verenskaya had just gotten off duty. As usual, they walked back to the officers’ quarters together, and as they reached Verenskaya’s cabin, Ike tried to invite himself in. Verenskaya blocked her door.
“Come on, sweetheart,” Ike said. “Let me in for a visit. It’s not very neighborly to never invite me over. They’ll think I’m not a real man.”
Verenskaya looked askance at Ike. “Any real men on this ship would be too worried about our mission to think about getting into the pants of every woman around them.”
“What’s there to worry? After we catch those murderers, there will be no more danger. Happy times will be here!”
“They’re not murderers! Without deterrence, Blue Space would be humankind’s only hope. Yet we’re now hunting them down, allied with the enemies of the human race. Don’t you feel ashamed?”
“Um... baby, if you feel this way... how did you...”
“How did I get to join this mission? Is that what you want to say? Why don’t you go to the psychiatrist and the captain to report me? They’ll put me in forced hibernation and kick me out of the fleet after we return. That’s just my wish!” Verenskaya slammed the door in his face.
However, now Ike had a perfect excuse to enter Verenskaya’s cabin. He unbuckled his weightlessness belt and sat up in his bed, but stopped when he saw that the bottom half of the round opening made the top of the cabinet against the wall disappear as well. The edge of what remained of the cabinet was also perfectly smooth and reflective, like the edge of the opening itself. It was as if some invisible knife had cut through the cabinet and everything inside, including the stacks of folded clothes. The mirrorlike surface of the cross-section ran up against the edge of the round opening, and the whole reflective surface looked like a portion of the inside of a sphere.
Ike pushed against the bed and lifted off in the weightlessness. Looking through the opening, he almost screamed in fright. This must be a nightmare!
Through the hole, he could see that a part of Verenskaya’s bed, pushed up against the cabin wall, had also disappeared. Verenskaya’s lower legs had been cut off. Although the cross section of the bed and the legs were also smooth and reflective, as though covered by a layer of mercury, he could see Verenskaya’s muscles and bones through it. But Verenskaya seemed all right. She was still in deep sleep, and her firm breasts slowly moved up and down as she breathed. Normally, Ike would have admired such a sight, but right now he only felt a supernatural fright. When he calmed down and looked closer, he saw that the cross-section of Verenskaya’s legs and bed also formed a spherical surface that matched the round opening.
He was looking at a bubble-shaped space about a meter in diameter, which erased everything within its path.
Ike picked up a violin bow from the nightstand, and, with a trembling hand, poked it into the bubble. The part of the bow extended inside the bubble disappeared, but the bow hair remained taut. He pulled the bow back and saw that it was undamaged. But he was still glad that he hadn’t tried to go through the hole—who knew if he would emerge from the other side unharmed?
Ike forced himself to be calm and tried to think of the most rational explanation for the eerie sight. Then he made what he thought was a wise decision: He put on his sleep cap and lay back down on the bed. He buckled his weightlessness belt back on and set the sleep cap for half an hour.
He woke up after half an hour, and the bubble was still there.
So he set the sleep cap for an hour. When he woke up this time, the bubble and the hole in the wall were gone. The Hawaiian landscape was back on the wall and everything was as it was before the incident.
But Ike was worried about Verenskaya. He dashed out of his cabin and stopped in front of Verenskaya’s door. Instead of ringing the doorbell, he pounded on the door. His mind was filled with the terrifying vision of Verenskaya, close to death, lying on the bed with her legs cut off.
It took a while before the door opened, and a not-completely-awake Verenskaya demanded to know what he wanted.
“I came to see if you are... all right.” Ike’s gaze shifted down, and he saw that Verenskaya’s beautiful legs were perfect below the hem of her nightgown.
“Idiot!” Verenskaya slammed the door shut.
After returning to his cabin, Ike put his sleep cap on and set it for eight hours. As for what he had seen, the only wise thing to do was to shut up and say nothing. Due to Gravity’s special mission, the crew’s psychological state—especially that of the officers—was subject to constant monitoring. There was a special psychological monitoring corps aboard, comprising more than a dozen crew members out of the full complement of just over a hundred. Some crew members had wondered whether Gravity was a stellar ship or a psychiatric hospital. And then there was also the annoying civilian psychiatrist West, who thought of everything in terms of mental disorders and illnesses and blockages, until one could come to the conclusion that he would subject a clogged toilet to psychiatric analysis. The mental screening process onboard Gravity was extremely strict, and even slight mental disorders would result in the sufferer being forced into hibernation. Ike was terrified of missing the upcoming historical encounter between the two ships. If that happened, when the ship returned to Earth in half a century, the girls back home would not see him as a hero.
But Ike did feel a slight diminution in his dislike for the psych corps and Dr. West. He had always thought of them as making mountains out of molehills, but he had never imagined that people could suffer such realistic delusions.
Compared to Ike’s minor delusion, Petty Officer Liu Xiaoming’s supernatural encounter would be considered quite spectacular.
Liu was performing a routine exterior hull inspection. This involved piloting a small pinnace at a certain distance from Gravity and examining the hull for any abnormalities, such as evidence of meteor strikes. This was an ancient, outdated p
ractice no longer strictly necessary and rarely performed. The ship was full of sensors that monitored the hull continuously; any problems would be detected right away. Also, the operation could only be done when Gravity was coasting instead of accelerating or decelerating. As the ship approached Blue Space, frequent acceleration and deceleration was necessary for adjustments. This was one of those rare windows when the ship was coasting again, and Petty Officer Liu was ordered to take advantage of the opportunity.
Liu piloted the pinnace out of the bay in the middle of the ship and smoothly glided away from Gravity until he was at a distance where he could see the whole ship. The giant hull was bathed in the light from the galaxy. Unlike when most of the crew was in hibernation, light spilled from all the portholes, making Gravity seem even more magnificent.
But Liu noticed something incredible: Gravity was shaped like a perfect cylinder, however, right now, its tail ended in an inclined plane! The ship was also much shorter than it should be—about 20 percent shorter, to be exact. A giant, invisible knife had cut off Gravity’s tail.
Liu shut his eyes, then opened them a few seconds later. The tail was still missing. He felt chilled to the bone. The giant ship before him was an organic whole. If the tail were suddenly gone, the power distribution systems would suffer a catastrophic failure, and the ship would shortly explode. But nothing of the sort was happening. The ship cruised along without trouble, as though suspended in space. No alerts of any kind came from his earpiece or were shown on his screens.
He pressed the switch for the intercom and got ready to give a report, but shut off the channel before saying anything. He recalled the words of an old spacer who had been at the Doomsday Battle: “Your intuition is unreliable in space. If you must act based on intuition, count from one to one hundred first. At least count from one to ten.”
He closed his eyes and began to count. When he got to ten, he opened his eyes. The tail was still missing. He closed his eyes and continued to count, his breath coming faster now, but he struggled to remember his training, and forced himself to calm down. He opened his eyes when he reached thirty, and this time he saw the complete Gravity. He closed his eyes again, sighed, and waited until his heartbeat slowed down.
