by Hao Jingfang
For the first time he saw with clarity that all that he had done on Earth, instead of resisting commercialization, had only strengthened it. He hadn’t challenged the logic of commerce but only provided more products for sale and purchase. He had honored the lone wolf as his totem, but now he realized that the wolf was fake, though the totemic power was real. Symbols meant imitation, and imitation meant consumption. The words he had thrown at Theon in accusation rebounded onto himself, and they struck as hard as he had meant them to. He was also a willing participant in the consumption economy, a manufacturer of desires. His creation was a language, and the language was not fundamentally very different from Theon’s enticements. He had never truly departed from the mold of his commercial society. He facilitated commerce, promoted the pursuit of symbolic pleasures, and his loyal fans bought his films and mementos. He had filmed scenes of poverty, and those images had enriched the wealthy. He asked for funds from those who sat in luxurious offices in skyscrapers, and then used those funds to capture lonely souls wandering outside. With those captured images, he then generated more money, which he handed to the people inside the skyscrapers. Round after round, he played his role in making the cycle spin. The subjects of his films didn’t see the films. He had never thought of showing his films for free, even though he thought the idea brilliant on Mars. But on Earth the very notion was absurd, impractical.
Eko looked at his own thin reflection. He examined his own language and analyzed how it reflected the light of the world. The result was disappointing. Formally, he seemed to have found the opposite of big business, but he had never thought about the light of the world. Isolated in a familiar language and context, he had never attempted to communicate between languages. He took delight in how different his own expressions were from the popular mode, but he didn’t devote enough effort to seeking something deeper beyond mere expression. He didn’t go to the big supermarket and refused to learn the language there; he and his followers took pride in such isolation and saw it as part of their own identity. But he wasn’t looking for the light of the world; all he cared about was the reflection in the mirror. He had never asked himself, if he only existed in opposition to a reflection, then how could his own image have an independent existence? He had thought it impossible for one language to be converted into another, and that there was no need for such exchange.
But reflections could only be connected through the medium of light, and languages needed translation only because of the needs of the world.
Eko pressed his palms against the glass and looked outside. Dawn was approaching. The wind rose and slackened. Sand struck the glass from time to time. The night was like a roiling ocean, and in the distance the mountains outlined the mournful land, simple, somber, and deep.
Conversation. Commerce. People had lost sight of which was more important. The first commercial exchanges served the purpose of starting a conversation, and now conversation only facilitated the goal of continuing commerce. When commerce was no longer necessary, it was easy to forget about conversation. The isolation of languages was the result of collusion; it brought profit, engendered hatred, gave birth to manufactured identities, and, above all, generated the desire to buy, buy, buy. Conversation was dying, but commerce grew ever more vibrant.
Only those who cared about the world cared about conversation. Eko thought about Luoying, thought about what she had said about the commonality of all humankind. The young woman was full of doubt and confusion, and her search was running into dead end after dead end. But at the moment of confrontation, she forgot about language; faced with a web of conflicts, she lifted her chin as the strongest of princesses. He had made her cry, but she had saved him.
Eko looked at the stars overhead, gazing down on him like gods. On Earth he had never seen them so bright. The thick atmosphere weakened starlight, and urban incandescence drowned out the stars that remained. He had almost no idea what stars really looked like; he had to imagine them instead.
The sharp roofs of Mars City cut through the night like the wings of giant birds. In the distance, glass tunnels, glowing blue, crisscrossed like lines arbitrarily placed over a canvas, bright and slender. The dust storm seemed to be growing, and he could see the tunnels tremble in the wind.
Eko turned on a screen and browsed the news programs from Earth from the last few days. He kept the sound off and saw images of thousands screaming and marching through the streets. The economic crisis on Earth had worsened during the last month. He had heard about it, but it wasn’t until now that he understood how serious it was.
The crisis stemmed from an economy built on language. Earth’s IP stocks had collapsed within a few days because the system of IP agents and resellers had grown too complicated. A single clever sentence could be wrapped in layers of packaging to become substance, and a single idea could be registered and inflated into a vast but empty shell. Buyers were no longer buying the idea itself; they were buying the chance to sell it to someone else. As ideas churned through this economy, rising in price with every exchange, inflation set in. Higher prices meant lower worth. This was a business without substance, a glowing golden balloon inflated by the race to sell something to someone else first.
Until one day a needle poked the balloon, and a single hole led to the collapse of all packaging. The world was shaken to its roots. Everyone took to the streets to protest and complain and vent their frustration.
Eko made his decision. He would promote the central archive on Earth. As a first step, he would put all his own films in it so that his teacher’s dream would advance. He wanted to construct a public space, a forum in which everyone was responsible for their own thoughts but no one would profit from their own language. Babel. What a grand and ambitious dream. When humankind was united in language, then the tower would reach heaven. All the media on Earth had been completely commercialized, and there was no more voice doubting commerce. Power and capital had reached an all-encompassing agreement in which one paved the road while the other drove everyone down it, and both profited and prospered in mutual defense. Even doubt was put into display cases for sale, while analysis and flattery competed with each other via packaging. Eko felt that he had to do something. He had never done anything like it and didn’t know if it was the right answer. But he knew that his teacher had been braver than he was. The step from dreamer to doer was the hardest step of all.
Returning to his bed, he lay down with arms and legs outstretched. His hand touched the screen on the headboard and the still scene there disappeared, replaced by Vera, the virtual concierge. She looked exactly the same as the first time he met her, with the same dress and the same sweet smile.
He gave her his account and password, but instead of opening a door and welcoming him inside she shook her head, looking perplexed.
Eko understood that his account had been deleted. He would never have another chance to enter the central archive, to visit Babel, or to browse an atelier.
Still lying in bed, he raised his chin until he could see Vera, upside down, on the headboard. He tried to converse with her, but her unchanging smile contrasted sharply against the depressing night. He tried to imagine the space behind the door: nine systems, an infinite amount of storage.
The Sunlight System; the Air System; the Water System; the Biology System; the Land System; the Astronomy System; the Security System; the Art System; the Flight System. Such simple and primitive names, redolent of the nostalgia of an imagined pastoral past. Like nine thick vines, they entwined and grew and supported each other in a virtual world. In this world, every language could be read, like an impossible library. Someone had once said that if heaven exists, it must be in the form of a library.
He twisted the tiny sphere by the frame and adjusted the transparent walls of the room to a light green, then light yellow, light red, light purple, and through the cycle until they were transparent again. He looked up at the stars glowing overhead like watching gods.
He finished watching the last film of
Arthur Davosky. In a voice-over, his teacher explained that he was retelling an old Chinese parable. In that parable, a man went to visit another city and saw that the people there walked with an elegance that he admired greatly. He tried to imitate their dance-like gait, but despite putting in all his effort, he couldn’t copy their steps correctly. When he tried to return home, however, he found that he had forgotten how to walk the way he used to.
This is the saddest parable in the whole world, said Davosky. It’s sad because it’s true.
Eko lay still on the bed. The wind outside had stopped. He remembered that there was no rain on Mars, and no thunderstorms. It was only his imagination. He lay still without making any sound.
When the first rays of dawn peeked over the horizon, he was asleep.
AN ENDING SERVING AS A BEGINNING
The last time Eko saw Luoying was three days after Luoying’s performance, which was also the day before the departure of the Terran delegation. She was still in the hospital under the care of Dr. Reini.
The Terran delegation had dismantled their displays for the world’s fair, and everyone had already packed for their impending departure. Eko took advantage of a brief break during the morning to go to the hospital to visit Luoying.
Mars City was sending off the Terran delegation in style. Balloons in the colors of the two planets hung over the streets, and the Expo Center was strewn with colorful streamers. The empty Grand Hall was being prepped as the site of the farewell banquet, and large screens lining the streets played congratulatory messages from leaders of both worlds. The superficial warmth disguised the tense crisis below the surface.
Luoying’s suite, being far from the bustle of the city, was unbuffeted by these crosscurrents. A quotidian quality permeated the air. Bright sunlight limned the white lilies in gold, relaxing music played, and time seemed to stop.
Eko sat down next to Luoying’s bed. He thanked her solemnly, which Luoying brushed off as nothing. He had come to her aid twice when she had fallen, she reminded him—once in virtual space, another in actual. Eko apologized for his earlier rashness, and she smiled, telling him not to worry about it. Eko explained that he had a small gift for her.
“What is it?” she asked, curious.
He took out a chip from his bag and inserted it into a pair of holographic glasses.
She put them on and entered a space at once familiar and strange. It was as though she had arrived on the other shore of time. She saw the Grand Theater, the audience, and herself. She was watching herself dance. The music was familiar, as were the steps, and she even recognized the feeling of the humid air. Her figure was in the middle of the stage, the focus of everyone’s attention. Her observing self was just another member of the audience.
Slowly, step by step, she approached the dancing self, so close that she could reach out and touch her. She wanted to reach out, but in the end she restrained herself. She knew she wasn’t really there.
In this drama the audience was the protagonist. Even though everyone around her was watching her dancing self, she understood that the observing self was the true center. She watched her other self. The other self had not seen herself, while the observing self had. She thought the other self was dancing so that the observing self could see. She was like a transparent soul standing with all the others around the stage, watching until the music was over. She was comforted. The performance was complete, at least once.
Luoying took off the glasses. Eko sat next to the bed, calmly looking at her. She had to take some time to adjust to the bright sunlight.
“How do you like it?”
“It’s wonderful. Thank you. Really, thank you.”
He smiled. “It’s nothing. I’m glad you liked it.”
“I’ve never seen myself like that.”
“Me neither.”
Both let the silence linger.
Eko was thinking about Theon’s hint about Luoying back on Maearth. Theon had suggested that he manufacture some romance involving Luoying. A scene at the end involving a parting of lovers, combined with her identity, her beautiful, lovelorn face, and a translucent dress, would have guaranteed successful sales on the web, an instant classic.
He had failed to carry out Theon’s instructions. Yet, he somehow managed to put her in a position where she had to claim she liked him. The whole thing was absurd. He didn’t want to tell her any of this, but he was glad he had given her an authentic film that she would treasure.
Luoying, on the other hand, was thinking about memory. She had been feeling weak the last few days as she lay recuperating, but now she found a spark of strength. She was beginning to reevaluate the meaning of memory. Many had told her that, with a film of herself, she could possess the past. Anytime she wanted, she could study it, remember it, live in it. She had once also believed that memory was a way to return to the past.
But today, when she saw her holographic self, she suddenly realized that the point of memory was in fact to close off the past. Once her memory had been entrusted to something tangible, she could go on to be a different person without worrying about change, about losing the past, about negating her yesterday. Her past self had found its separate existence, and she was free to go on her own way.
They looked at each other, neither able to find a way to speak of the thoughts occupying their minds. And so they said nothing.
In the end Eko smiled. “All the footage I shot of you is on there. I’m not taking any of it with me. You don’t need to worry.”
Luoying wasn’t sure what he meant by saying that she needn’t worry. But she saw the sincerity in his face. She smiled back.
They spoke casually about the world’s fair. It was a friendly conversation but not very deep. Luoying’s long, dark lashes contrasted with her pale face, while Eko’s curly hair covered his forehead and made his sunken eyes seem even more angular and dark.
“You’re leaving first thing tomorrow morning?” she asked.
“That’s right. I have to be at the press conference this afternoon and then the banquet tonight … so I probably won’t have a chance to visit you again.”
“Safe travels!”
“Can we stay in touch after I go back?”
“I don’t know,” said Luoying. “Grandfather told me that they were still discussing the terms for interplanetary communications.”
“I think there must be many things about Mars that I misunderstood. I hope to have a chance to ask you more questions.”
“I’d like that. There are many things I don’t understand either.”
They said goodbye to each other, neither mentioning the fact that they might never speak again. It was a warm and bright morning, and they both refrained from disrupting that warmth. Eko nodded at her from the door of her suite before leaving. Luoying watched as he strode down the corridor resolutely, like a sailing ship heading into the boundless sea.
* * *
The next morning Luoying went to the skydeck of the hospital to watch the departure of the Terran delegation. Rudy accompanied her and sat with her in the brightening dawn.
Sunlight, almost parallel with the ground, divided the red soil sharply with shadows. Half of the land was a dark brown, and the other half bright gold. The straight edges of the shadows slid inch by inch over the rough rocks like curtains being pulled aside to reveal sculptures. In the distance the edges of cliffs and mountains glinted sharply.
The peaceful air made them both forget to speak.
At length Luoying broke the silence. “What was the final result of the negotiations?”
Rudy laughed lightly. “It’s very favorable to us.”
“How so?”
“Well, first, two hydraulic engineers will be staying behind to teach us the technology for the sluice gates. And … we didn’t have to give up much.”
“They didn’t demand nuclear fusion engines?”
“No. They gave up on that.”
“Why?”
Rudy’s smile was sly. “Because ou
r fusion technology requires advanced technology for fission waste products and seawater processing. On Earth, nuclear energy development is most advanced in Europe, but the best seawater processing tech is controlled by the Americans. Neither wants to share their technology with the other, worried about their profits in the future. If the Chinese and the Russians were willing to cooperate, they’d probably be able to master it as well, but they can’t stand each other … Delegates from the smaller countries especially didn’t want the big countries to get fusion engines, since they were worried it would end up becoming a threat to them. In the end, the whole delegation gave up the request.”
“So what did they ask for instead?”
“Two things: the magnetic moment walls in the Grand Theater, and the tube trains. They’ve been after the tube trains for a while, and it was part of the last two rounds of negotiations as well. Earth is full of skyscrapers, and tube trains would be a very efficient way to get between them compared to airplanes and cars. As for the theater walls, it was mainly the result of private contact between me and a man named Theon.”
“Theon?” Luoying seemed to realize something. “So the theater visit that day—”
“Yes, I arranged that.” Rudy looked very pleased with himself. “Though I think war is nothing to be afraid of, Grandfather is against it, and so I had to think of a scheme. Even I was surprised that it worked. Theon is even more influential than I thought. I almost underestimated him as merely an entertainer, but it seems that the economic crisis on Earth has a lot to do with him. Anyway, we made out like bandits by giving them the technology for the theater instead of fusion.”
Luoying looked thoughtful. After a moment she asked, “What about Uncle Juan?”
“For now, he has to put his plans for war on hold.” Rudy smiled enigmatically. “But as you know, in matters of foreign policy … Never mind.”
Rudy was in a plain cotton shirt instead of the uniform that he had been wearing throughout the Terrans’ visit. He put both his hands on his knees and tapped one foot as though following the beat of some inaudible music.
