The Big Book of Science Fiction

by The Big Book of Science Fiction (retail) (epub)

  “Of course,” Li Bai answered, giving Yiyi a puzzled look.

  “Just imagine: cut her open with a sharp knife, take out her internal organs, gouge out her eyeballs and brains, pick out each of her bones, separate all the muscles and adipose tissues according to their original locations and functions, then tie all the blood vessels and nerves into two bundles, and finally spread out a large piece of white cloth and lay out everything on it in anatomical order. Would you still regard that as pretty?”

  “How can you think of such things when you are drinking? It’s disgusting!” Li Bai’s brows knitted.

  “How’s it disgusting? Isn’t it the technology you are so devoted to?”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “Nature in the eyes of Li Bai is the girl you see now at the riverside. The same nature in a pair of technologically oriented eyes is the bloody components lined up in an orderly fashion on the white cloth. In other words, technology is anti-poetic.”

  “It seems you are ready to give me some advice?” Li Bai commented thoughtfully, stroking his beard.

  “I still don’t think you have any chance of surpassing Li Bai, but I can point you in the right direction for your efforts: technology has clouded your eyes, concealing the beauty of nature from you, so the first thing you should do is to forget all about your super technology. Since you were able to transplant all your memories into your current brain, you must be able to delete a part of them too.”

  Li Bai looked up and exchanged a glance with Big-tooth, and both of them burst out laughing. Big-tooth told Li Bai, “My god, I warned you about these devious bugs, it’s easy to fall into their traps if you aren’t careful.”

  “Ha-ha…devious but fun,” Li Bai replied, turned back to Yiyi, and said sneeringly, “You really think I’m here to admit defeat?”

  “You haven’t managed to surpass the pinnacle of human poetic art. That’s a fact.”

  Li Bai suddenly lifted a finger and pointed to the river. “How many ways are there to walk to the riverbank?”

  Yiyi stared at Li Bai for a few seconds, baffled. “It would seem there’s…just one.”

  “No, two. I can also walk in this direction.” Li Bai pointed in the direction opposite to the river. “If I set off straight ahead that way, I can reach this shore after circling the Devourer Empire’s outer ring and crossing the river. I could even take a round trip of the Milky Way and get back that way. This is easy with our technology. Technology can surpass all! I am now compelled to take the alternative route.”

  Yiyi thought long and hard, before finally shaking his head in puzzlement. “Even if you have the technology of the gods, I still can’t imagine what the alternative route to surpass Li Bai is.”

  Li Bai stood up and said, “It’s simple. The two ways to surpass Li Bai are: one, to write poems that surpass his; two, to write every possible poem!”

  Yiyi felt even more confused, but Big-tooth, standing to the side, had a look of dawning comprehension.

  “I will write every possible pentasyllabic and heptasyllabic poem, which was Li Bai’s strong suit. I’ll also compose all possible lyrics to the common classical tunes! You still don’t understand?! I’m going to try out all the possible combinations of Chinese characters within these prosodic frames.”

  “Oh, great! A great project!!” Big-tooth cheered in excitement.

  “Is that difficult?” Yiyi asked dumbly.

  “Of course it is. Extremely difficult! Even if we use the largest computer in the Devourer Empire for the operation, it might still not be completed before the universe ends!”

  “There shouldn’t be that many…,” Yiyi said doubtfully.

  “Of course there are that many!” Li Bai nodded smugly. “But with the quantum computation technology which your people are far from fully grasping, it can be done within an acceptable time frame. I will then write all the poems, both those already written and those that might be written in the future. Mark my words—all that might be written! That will certainly include poetry that surpasses the greatest work of Li Bai. In fact, I will bring an end to the art of poetry: any poet thereafter, till the end of time, will become a mere plagiarist. No matter how highly regarded their work is, it will definitely be found in my enormous storage base.”

  Big-tooth suddenly emitted a low howl of alarm. His gaze at Li Bai turned from excitement to shock: “An enormous…storage base? My venerable god, you aren’t really saying that you are going to…to store every single poem composed by the quantum computer, are you?”

  “What’s the point of deleting them after composition? Of course I’m going to store them! It’ll be one of the artistic milestones my race leaves to the universe!”

  The shock in Big-tooth’s eyes now turned to horror. He extended his huge claws, his legs crooked, as if he were falling to his knees in front of Li Bai. He sounded on the verge of tears too. “Don’t…My venerable god, you shouldn’t do this!!”

  “What struck such terror in you?” Yiyi looked up and asked, astonished by Big-tooth’s reaction.

  “You idiot! Don’t you know that atomic bombs are made of atoms? That storage device will be made of atoms too, and its storage cell cannot be made finer than the atomic level! Do you know what atomic-level storage is like? It means all the books by humankind could be accommodated within the size of a needlepoint! Not that tiny stack of books you have now but all the books on Earth before it was devoured!”

  “Oh, this does sound possible. I heard that the number of atoms in a glass of water is larger than the number of glasses of water contained in the Earth’s oceans. So? He can take the needle with him after the poems are composed,” Yiyi said, pointing to Li Bai.

  Big-tooth was mad with rage. He paced rapidly back and forth for a short while before regaining a slight bit of equanimity. “Fine, fine, let me ask you: how many characters do you think there would be in total, if all the poems that fit the pentasyllabic and heptasyllabic metres as well as the common lyrical tunes are written out, as the god plans?”

  “Not many, maybe around two to three thousand. Classical poetry is the most concise form of art.”

  “Fine. I’ll show you, you idiot bug, just how concise it is!” Big-tooth said as he walked to stand by the table, pointing with his claw to the go board on it, “What do you call this stupid game? Oh, right, go. How many intersect points are there on the board?”

  “With nineteen rows and columns, three hundred sixty-one intersect points in total.”

  “Very well. On each intersection, you can either put a black piece, put a white piece, or leave it open, so altogether three states to choose from. This way, you can see each go game as a nineteen-line, three-hundred-sixty-one-character poem made up of just three Chinese characters.”

  “This comparison is fantastic.”

  “So, if you exhaust all the combinations of these three characters in poems of this format, how many poems will you have in total? Let me tell you: three to the power of three hundred sixty-one, or rather, hmm…let’s see, ten to the power of one hundred seventy-two.”

  “Is that…a lot?”

  “Idiot!” Big-tooth spit this word out a third time. “The total number of the atoms in the whole universe is just…argh—” He was too angry to continue.

  “How many?” Yiyi still wore his dense look.

  “Just ten to the power of eighty!! You idiot bug—”

  Only then did Yiyi show a hint of surprise. “You mean if one atom stores one poem, there’s still no way of saving all the poems composed by the quantum computer? Not even if we exhaust all the atoms in the universe?”

  “Far from enough! Insufficient by ten to the power of ninety-two to be exact!! Besides, how can a single atom store a poem? The number of atoms required for one poem in a storage device made by human bugs may be larger than your total population. As for us, the technique for storing single-digit binary data within a single atom is still in the experimental stage….Alas…”

  “Ambassador
, your views on this matter are too shallow and lack imagination. That’s one of the reasons for the slow development and advance of technology in the Devourer Empire,” Li Bai said, smiling. “A quantum storage device built according to the Multistate Superposition of Quanta can save those poems with just a small amount of matter. Of course, quantum storage is not very stable, so in order to permanently save the poems, it still has to be combined with traditional storage technology. In spite of this, the mass required for producing such a storage device is very small.”

  “How much would that be?” Big-tooth asked, looking as if his heart was pounding in his throat.

  “Approximately ten to the power of fifty-seven atoms—a tiny amount, tiny.”

  “This…this is just about the mass of the whole solar system!”

  “Yes, including all the solar planets, and, of course, the Devourer Empire too.” This last line of Li Bai’s was said matter-of-factly, but in Yiyi’s ears it was like thunder in a clear blue sky. On the other hand, Big-tooth, surprisingly, seemed to have calmed down: having been long tormented by an inkling of impending doom, one actually experiences a sense of relief when disaster finally strikes.

  “Aren’t you able to transform pure energy into matter?” Big-tooth asked.

  “You should know how much energy would be required for such an enormous mass. It is unthinkable even for us. We’d better make use of what’s readily available.”

  “It would seem His Majesty’s concern wasn’t groundless,” Big-tooth muttered to himself.

  “Oh, yes,” Li Bai said, delighted. “I made it clear to the Devourer Emperor two days ago that this grand Ring-world empire will be used for an even greater purpose. All dinosaurs should be proud of this.”

  “My venerable god, you will see how the Devourer Empire feels,” Big-tooth answered darkly. “There is another question: Compared with the sun, the mass of the Devourer Empire is negligible. Is it necessary to destroy a civilization that has been evolving for thousands of years for this infinitesimal fragment of matter?”

  “I completely understand your doubts. You have to bear in mind that to extinguish, cool down, and dismantle the sun would take a long time. The quantum computation of poetry will have started before that and we will have to save the results in real time, so as to free up the operation memory of the quantum computer for further computation. Thus, the matter immediately available from planets and the Devourer Empire for producing the storage device is essential.”

  “I understand. The last question, my venerable god: Is it necessary to save all the combinations and results? Why not install a decision-making program at the output end to eliminate the poems that are not worth keeping? To my knowledge, classical Chinese poetry has to follow strict prosodic rules. If we eliminate all the poems that do not fit the prosodic schema, the end quantity will be much reduced.”

  “Prosody? Pffft…” Li Bai shook his head scornfully. “It is a constraint against inspiration. Ancient-style poetry in China before the Southern and Northern Dynasties was not bound by prosody and even for the strictly regulated new-style poetry after the Tang period, a lot of renowned classical poets departed from the prosodic rules and came up with outstanding mixed-style poems. So in this ultimate poetry composition exercise, I won’t consider prosody.”

  “But, you still have to consider the content of the poems, don’t you? Ninety-nine percent of the computation output will be utterly meaningless. What’s the point of saving such random matrixes of Chinese characters?”

  “Meaning?” Li Bai shrugged. “Ambassador, the meaning of a poem does not depend on your approval, nor mine, nor anyone else’s. It is determined by time. Many works of poetry that were meaningless in their own times later became unparalleled masterpieces. Many of the current or future masterpieces must also have been meaningless once upon a time. I am going to compose all poems. Who knows which one of them will be selected by the great passage of time as supreme billions and billions of years from now?”

  “This is ridiculous!!” Big-tooth roared, his hoarse voice startling the few birds in the distant shrubs. “If it goes according to the Chinese character corpus of the human bugs, the first poems produced by your quantum computer will be like this: ‘Ah Ah Ah Ah Ah / Ah Ah Ah Ah Ah / Ah Ah Ah Ah Ah / Ah Ah Ah Ah Alas.’ Are you telling me that this will be chosen as a masterpiece by the great passage of time?!”

  Yiyi, who had remained silent all the while, exclaimed in delight, “Wow! This has no need of being selected by the great passage of time! It’s already a masterpiece now. The first three lines along with the first four characters of the last line express a sense of marvel at the magnificence of the universe, while the last character is the ‘eye,’ the focal point, of the poem, containing the poet’s lamentation, after appreciating the vastness of the universe, at the fleetingness of life against the infinity of time and space.”

  “Aha…” Li Bai stroked his beard and chuckled with delight. “Well done, Yiyi bug! It’s a wonderful poem. Ha-ha…” As he spoke, he picked up the gourd and filled Yiyi’s wine bowl.

  Big-tooth slapped Yiyi with his giant claw and sent him hurtling. “Damned bug. I know you are happy now. But don’t you forget. If the Devourer Empire is destroyed, your kind can’t live either!”

  Yiyi had tumbled as far as the river shore before he finally managed to pick himself up, his face covered with sand, his mouth wide open, from both pain and joy. He was really happy. “Ha-ha, this is great. This universe is damned unbelievable!” he yelled heartily.

  “Any other questions, Ambassador?” As Big-tooth shook his head, Li Bai continued, “So I’ll leave tomorrow. The day after, the quantum computer will activate the poetry writing software and the ultimate poetry composition will commence. At the same time, the operation to extinguish the sun and dismantle the planets and the Devourer Empire will also start.”

  “My venerable god, the Devourer Empire will complete the preparations for battle this evening!” Big-tooth stood at attention and announced solemnly.

  “Good, very good indeed. The coming days will be interesting. But before all this happens, let’s finish up this bottle.” Li Bai nodded, pleased, and picked up the wine gourd. After pouring his liquor, he watched the great river now shrouded in the dusk as he savoured, “A wonderful poem, the very first one, ha-ha…the first one is already a wonderful poem.”

  THE ULTIMATE POETRY COMPOSITION

  The poetry composing software was actually very simple; it would require just two thousand lines of program code in the human-created C language, plus a not-too-big database storing all Chinese characters. When this software was activated on the quantum computer (a giant transparent prism suspended in space) in Neptune’s orbit, the ultimate poetry composition began.

  Only then did the Devourer Empire realize that Li Bai was just an individual member of that super-civilization, which went against the former assumption by the dinosaurs that a society evolved to that technological level would have melded into a single consciousness. The five super-civilizations encountered by the Devourer Empire in the past ten million years had all been like that. Li Bai’s kind had retained the existence of individuals and this partly explained their extraordinary understanding of art. When the poetry composition started, many other individuals of Li Bai’s kind leaped from all over outer space into the solar system to start the storage device production project.

  Humans in the Devourer Empire could see neither the quantum computer in space, nor the newcomers from the godly race. From their point of view, the process of the ultimate poetry composition equated to an increase or decrease of the number of suns in space.

  A week after the poetry composing software was activated, the godly race successfully extinguished the sun, so the number of suns in the sky was reduced to zero. However, the termination of nuclear fusion inside the sun led to a loss of support for its outer shell; the sun quickly collapsed into a nova, whereby the dark night was soon relit. The thing was that this new sun was a hundred time
s brighter than the original one, which burnt the plant life on the surface of the Devourer to fumes. The nova then extinguished itself too, and exploded again after a while, so the cycle of extinguishing and exploding came and went, as if the sun were a cat with nine lives, struggling on and on. Yet the godly race was actually quite proficient in killing off stars, so they easily extinguished the nova over and over again, maximizing the fusion of matter into the heavy elements required for making the storage device. The sun finally breathed its last when the nova was extinguished the eleventh time. By then, the ultimate poetry composition had already been going on for three Earth months. Prior to that, when the nova showed up for the third time, other suns had appeared in space. These suns lit and went out one after another at different spots in space, with as many as nine new suns in the sky at one time. These suns resulted from the power released by the dismantling of planets by the godly race. Since the glare from the sun gradually faded, people had problems distinguishing the real sun from the others.

  The dismantling of the Devourer Empire started five weeks into the poetry composition. Before that, Li Bai had put forward a suggestion to the Empire: the godly race could relocate all the dinosaurs to a world at the other end of the Milky Way where a civilization much more backward than the godly race lived. That civilization had yet to achieve existence in pure energy form, but it was a lot more advanced than the Devourers. Once the dinosaurs arrived, they would be reared as domestic fowl, living a jolly life with no want of food and raiment. The dinosaurs, however, angrily rejected this idea, preferring to perish with dignity than to submit to a humiliating existence.

  Li Bai then made another proposition: let humans return to their mother planet. Actually, the Earth had been dismantled too, most of it being used on the storage device, but the godly race had built a hollow Earth for humankind from a small portion of the leftover matter. The size of the hollow Earth was more or less the same as the original planet but its mass was only 1 percent of the latter. It was not exactly the case that the Earth had been hollowed out, since there was no way that the layer of fragile rock on the original surface of the Earth could be used for the new crust, whose material probably originated from the Earth core. In addition, the intersecting lines on it, which looked like latitude and longitude lines, were fine but strong reinforcement rings made from degenerated neutron matter produced when the sun collapsed.