The Three-Body Problem Part 12

"And it looks like you have come at an opportune time. According to the model universe, a four-year-long Stable Era is about to begin. Emperor Wu of Han has just issued the order to rehydrate based on my prediction. Let's wait for sunrise!"

Mozi brought up the game's interface and slightly increased the rate of pa.s.sage of game time. A red sun rose above the horizon, and the numerous frozen lakes and ponds scattered over the plain began to melt. These lakes had been covered by dust and had merged into the dun ground, but now they turned into numerous mirrors, as though the earth had opened many eyes. From up so high, w.a.n.g couldn't see the details of rehydration, but he could see more and more people gathered on the sh.o.r.es of the lakes like swarms of ants coming out of their nests in spring. The world had once again been revived.

"Do you not want to join this wonderful life?" Mozi asked, pointing to the ground below. "When women are first revived, they crave love. There is no reason for you to stay here any longer. The game is over. I am the winner."

"As a piece of machinery, your model universe is indeed incomparable. But as for its predictions.... May I use your telescope to observe something?"

"Please." Mozi gestured at the large telescope.

w.a.n.g walked up to the instrument and paused. "How can I use it to observe the sun?"

Mozi retrieved a black, circular piece of gla.s.s. "Use this smoked gla.s.s filter." He inserted it in front of the eyepiece.

w.a.n.g aimed the telescope at the sun, now halfway up the sky. He was impressed by Mozi's imagination. The sun did indeed look like a hole through which a sea of fire could be seen, a small view into a much larger whole.

But as he examined the image in the telescope more closely, he realized that the sun was different from the sun he was used to in real life. The sun here had a small core. He imagined the sun as an eye. The core was like the eye's pupil, and though it was small, it was bright and dense. The layers surrounding it, by contrast, appeared insubstantial, wispy, gaseous. The fact that he could see through the outside layers to the core indicated that those layers were transparent or translucent, and the light from those layers was likely just scattered light from the core.

The details in the image of the sun stunned w.a.n.g. He was once again a.s.sured that the game designers had hidden a vast amount of data within the superficially simple images, just waiting to be revealed by players.

As w.a.n.g pondered the meaning of the sun's structure, he became excited. Because time in the game was now pa.s.sing quickly, the sun was already in the west. w.a.n.g stood, adjusted the telescope to aim at the sun again, and tracked it until it dipped below the horizon.

Night fell, and the bonfires across the plains mirrored the sky full of stars. w.a.n.g took off the smoked gla.s.s filter and continued to scan the skies. He was most interested in the flying stars, and shortly found two. He only had time to observe one of them briefly before it was dawn again. So he inserted the filter and continued to observe the sun....

In this manner w.a.n.g performed astronomical observations for more than ten days, enjoying the thrill of discovery. Indeed, the fact that time within the game had been sped up helped with the observations, as the motion of celestial bodies became more apparent.

On the seventeenth day of the Stable Era, five hours after the predicted time for sunrise, the world was still under cover of dark night. Mult.i.tudes thronged at the foot of the pyramid, their innumerable torches flickering in the chill wind.

"The sun will probably not rise again. It is like at the end of Civilization Number 137," w.a.n.g said to Mozi.

Mozi stroked his beard and smiled confidently. "Do not fret. The sun will rise soon, and the Stable Era will continue. I've already learned the secret of the motion of the universal machine. My predictions cannot be wrong."

As though confirming Mozi's words, the sky over the horizon brightened with dawn's first light. The crowd around the pyramid shouted in joy.

The silvery light brightened far more rapidly than usual, as though the rising sun wanted to make up for lost time. Soon, the light covered half the sky, even though the sun was still below the horizon. The world was already as bright as midday.

w.a.n.g looked toward the horizon and saw it giving off a blinding glare. The glowing horizon arched upward and became a curve that spread from one edge of his visual field to the other. He soon realized that he wasn't seeing the horizon, but the edge of the rising sun, an incomparably immense sun.

After his eyes adjusted to the bright light, the horizon reappeared in its old place. w.a.n.g saw columns of black smoke rising in the distance, especially clear against the glowing background of the solar disk. A fast horse rushed toward the pyramid from the direction of the rising sun, the dust from its hooves forming a distinct line across the plains.

The crowd parted before the horse, and w.a.n.g heard the rider scream at the top of his lungs: "Dehydrate! Dehydrate!"

Following the rider was a herd of cattle, horses, and other animals. Their bodies were on fire and they moved across the ground like a burning carpet.

Half of the gigantic sun's disk was now above the horizon, taking up much of the sky. The earth seemed to slowly sink down against a brilliant wall. w.a.n.g could clearly make out the fine structures on the surface of the sun: eddies and surging waves filling the sea of flames; sunspots floating along random paths like ghosts; the corona lazily spreading out like golden sleeves.

On the ground, both those who had already dehydrated and those who hadn't began to burn like countless logs thrown into the belly of a furnace. The flames that consumed them were even brighter than glowing charcoal in a furnace, but were quickly extinguished.

The giant sun continued to rise and soon filled most of the sky. w.a.n.g looked up and felt his perspective s.h.i.+ft. Suddenly he was no longer looking up, but down. The surface of the giant sun became a fiery earth, and he felt himself falling toward this brilliant h.e.l.l.

Lakes and ponds began to evaporate, and puffs of white steam rose up like mushroom clouds. They rose, spilled open, and dispersed, covering the ashes of the dead.

"The Stable Era will continue. The universe is a machine. I created this machine. The Stable Era will continue. The universe..."

w.a.n.g turned his head. The voice belonged to Mozi, who was already on fire. His body was encased within a column of tall, orange flame, and his skin crinkled and turned into charcoal. But his two eyes still shone with a light that was distinct from the fire consuming him. His two hands, already burning pieces of charcoal, held up the cloud of swirling ashes that had once been his calendar.

w.a.n.g was burning up as well. He lifted his two hands and saw two torches.

The sun briskly moved to the west, revealing the sky behind it. It soon fell below the horizon, and the ground seemed to rise against the brilliant wall this time. A dazzling sunset swiftly turned to night, as though a pair of giant hands had pulled a black cloth over a world that had turned to ash.

The earth glowed with a dim red light like a piece of charcoal just retrieved from a furnace. For a brief moment, w.a.n.g saw the stars, but soon steam and smoke hid the sky and covered everything on the red-glowing earth. The world sank into a dark chaos. A red line of text appeared: Civilization Number 141 fell into ruin in flames. This civilization had advanced to the Eastern Han Period.

The seed of civilization remains. It will germinate and again progress through the unpredictable world of Three Body. We invite you to log on in the future.

w.a.n.g took off the V-suit. After his mind had calmed down a bit, he again had the thought that Three Body was deliberately pretending to be merely illusory, while in fact possessing some deep reality. The real world in front of him, on the other hand, had begun to seem like the superficially complex, but in truth rather simple, Along the River During the Qingming Festival.

The next day, w.a.n.g went to the Nanotechnology Research Center. Other than some minor confusion due to his absence the day before, everything was normal. He found work to be an effective tranquilizer. As long as he was absorbed by it, he was no longer bothered by his nightmarish worries. He deliberately kept himself constantly busy the whole day and left the lab only after it was dark.

As soon as w.a.n.g left the Research Center building, the nightmarelike feeling caught up to him. He felt like the starry sky was a magnifying gla.s.s that covered the world, and he was a tiny insect below the lens with nowhere to hide.

He had to find something to occupy himself. Then he thought of Yang Dong's mother Ye Wenjie and drove to her home.

Ye was alone at home. When w.a.n.g entered, she was sitting on the sofa reading. w.a.n.g noticed that her eyes were both myopic and presbyopic, and she had to switch gla.s.ses both when she read and when she looked at something far away. She was very happy to see w.a.n.g, and said that he looked much better than the last time he had come to see her.

w.a.n.g chuckled. "It's all because of your ginseng."

Ye shook her head. "What I gave you wasn't very good. We used to be able to find really high-quality wild ginseng around the base. I once found one about this long.... I wonder what it's like there now. I heard that it's deserted. Well, I guess I'm really getting old. These days, I'm always thinking about the past."

"I heard that you suffered a lot during the Cultural Revolution."

"You heard it from Ruishan, didn't you?" Ye waved her hand, as though trying to wave away a strand of spider silk. "In the past, it's all in the past.... Last night, Ruishan called me. He was in such a hurry that I had a hard time understanding him. All I got was that something seemed to have happened to you. Xiao w.a.n.g, let me tell you: By the time you're my age, you'll realize that everything you once thought mattered so much turns out to mean very little."

"Thank you," w.a.n.g said. He once again felt the warmth that he had missed. In his current state, his mental stability depended on two pillars: this old woman, who had weathered so many storms and become as gentle as water, and s.h.i.+ Qiang, the man who feared nothing because he knew nothing.

Ye continued. "As far as the Cultural Revolution is concerned, I was pretty lucky. Just when I thought I had nowhere to go, I found a place where I could survive."

"You mean Red Coast Base?"

Ye nodded.

"That was truly an incredible project. I used to think it was just made-up rumors."

"Not rumors. If you want, I can tell you some of what I experienced."

The offer made w.a.n.g a little worried. "Professor Ye, I'm only curious. You don't need to tell me if it's not appropriate."

"It's no big deal. Let's just imagine that I'm looking for someone to hear me talk."

"You could go visit the senior center. You wouldn't be lonely if you went there occasionally."

"Many of those retirees were my colleagues back at the university, but somehow I just can't mix with them. Everyone likes to reminisce, but no one wants to listen, and everyone feels annoyed when someone else tells a story. You're the only one who's interested in Red Coast."

"But for you to tell me about those things ... isn't that prohibited?"

"That's true-it's still cla.s.sified. But after that book was published, many others who were there also began to tell their stories, so they're like open secrets. The person who wrote that book was very irresponsible. Even if we put aside his agenda, the content of that book was often inaccurate. I should at least correct those errors."

Then Ye Wenjie began to tell w.a.n.g about what happened to her during her years at Red Coast.

12.

Red Coast II Ye wasn't given a real job immediately after entering Red Coast Base. Under the watchful eyes of a security guard, she was only allowed to perform a few technical tasks.

Back when she was still a second-year in college, Ye had already known the professor who would end up being her thesis advisor. He had told Ye that to do astrophysics research, it was useless to excel at theory without knowledge of experimental methods and observational skills-at least, that was true in China. This was very different from her father's view, but Ye tended to agree with her professor. She had always felt that her father was too theoretical.

Her advisor was one of the pioneers of Chinese radio astronomy. Under his influence, Ye developed a great interest in radio astronomy as well. Thus, she taught herself electrical engineering and computer science, the foundation for experiments and observations in the field. During the two years when she was a graduate student, the two of them had tested China's first small-scale radio telescope and had acc.u.mulated a great deal of experience in the area.

She hadn't expected the knowledge would one day be useful at Red Coast Base.

Eventually, Ye was a.s.signed to the Transmission Department to maintain and repair equipment. She quickly became an indispensable part of their operations.

Initially, this confused her a bit. She was the only person at the base who wasn't in a military uniform. And given her political status, everyone kept their distance. She had no way to ward off the loneliness other than devoting herself to work. However, this wasn't enough to explain why they relied on her so much. This was, after all, a key defense project. How could the technical staff here be so mediocre that she, who had not majored in engineering and who had no real working experience, easily took over their jobs?

She learned the reason soon enough. Contrary to appearances, the base's staff was composed of the best technical officers from the Second Artillery Corps. She could study all her life and have no hope of catching up to those excellent electrical and computer engineers. But the base was remote, the conditions were poor, and the main research work of the Red Coast Project was already completed. All that was left was maintenance and operation, so there was little opportunity for achieving any interesting technical results. Most people did not want to be indispensable, because they understood that in highly cla.s.sified projects like this, once someone was put into a core technical position, it would be very difficult for him to be transferred out. Thus, all of them tried to deliberately hide their technical competence as they went about their jobs.

Yet, they couldn't appear too incompetent. So if the supervisor said to go east, they would work hard to move west, purposely playing the fool. Their hope was to put the following thought into the supervisor's head: This man is working hard, but he's limited in his skills. There's no point in keeping him, because he'll only get in the way. Many really did successfully obtain transfers through this method.

Under such conditions, Ye gradually became a key technician at the base. But the other reason that she could achieve this position puzzled her, and for that she could find no explanation: Red Coast Base-at least the parts that she had contact with-had no real advanced technology at all.

Over time, as Ye continued to work at the Transmission Department, the restrictions on her were gradually relaxed, and even the security guard a.s.signed to watch her was called off. She was allowed to touch most components of Red Coast's systems, and could read the relevant technical doc.u.ments. Of course, there were still areas forbidden to her. For example, she wasn't allowed near the computer control systems. However, Ye discovered that the impact of those systems on Red Coast was far smaller than she had imagined. For instance, the Transmission Department's computers consisted of three machines even more primitive than DJS130.24 They used c.u.mbersome magnetic core memory and paper input tape, and their longest uptime did not exceed fifteen hours. She also saw that the precision of Red Coast's targeting system was very low, probably not even on par with that of an artillery cannon.

One day, Commissar Lei came to speak with Ye. By this time, Yang Weining and Lei Zhicheng had swapped places in her eyes. During those years, Yang, as the highest-ranked technical officer, did not enjoy a high political status, and outside of technical matters he had little authority. He had to be careful with his subordinates, and had to speak politely even to the sentries, lest he be deemed to have an intellectual's resistant att.i.tude toward thought reform and collaboration with the ma.s.ses. Thus, whenever he encountered difficulties in his work, Ye became his punching bag. But as Ye gained importance as a technical staff member, Commissar Lei gradually shed his initial rudeness and coldness and became kind toward her.

Commissar Lei said, "Wenjie, by now you're pretty familiar with the transmission system. This is also Red Coast's offensive component, its princ.i.p.al part. Can you give me your views of the system as a whole?"

They were sitting at the lip of the steep cliff on Radar Peak, the most secluded spot on the base. The cliff seemed to drop straight off into a bottomless abyss. At first, the spot had frightened Ye, but now she liked to come here by herself.

Ye wasn't sure how to answer Commissar Lei's question. She was only responsible for maintaining and repairing equipment and knew nothing about Red Coast as a whole, including its operation, targets, and so on. Indeed, she wasn't allowed to know. She wasn't even permitted to be present at the transmission. She pondered the question, began to speak, and stopped herself.

"Go ahead, speak your mind," Commissar Lei said. He ripped out a blade of gra.s.s next to him and played with it absent-mindedly.

"It ... is just a radio transmitter."

"That's right, just a radio transmitter." The commissar nodded, satisfied. "Do you know about microwave ovens?"

Ye shook her head.

"They are a luxury plaything of the capitalist West. Food is heated by the energy generated from absorbing microwave radiation. At my previous research station, in order to precisely test the high-temperature aging of certain components, we imported one. After work, we would use it to warm mantou bread, bake a potato, that sort of thing. It's very interesting: The inside heats up first while the outside remains cold."

Commissar Lei stood up and paced back and forth. He was so close to the edge of the cliff that it made Ye nervous.

"Red Coast is a microwave oven, and its heating targets are the enemy's s.p.a.ce vessels. If we can apply microwave radiation at a specific power level of one-tenth of a watt to one watt per square centimeter, we'll be able to disable or destroy many electronic components of satellite communications, radar, and navigation systems."

Ye finally understood. Even though Red Coast was only a radio transmitter, that didn't mean it was conventional. The most surprising aspect was its transmission power: as high as twenty-five megawatts! This wasn't just more powerful than all communication transmissions, but also all radar transmissions. Red Coast relied on a set of gigantic capacitors. Because the power requirements were so high, the transmission circuits were also different from conventional designs. Ye now understood the purpose of such ultrahigh power in the system, but something seemed wrong right away. "The emission from the system seems to be modulated."

"That's right. However, the modulation is unlike that used in conventional radio communications. The purpose isn't to add information, but to use s.h.i.+fting frequencies and amplitudes to penetrate possible s.h.i.+elding by the enemy. Of course, those are still experimental."

Ye nodded. Many of her questions had now been answered.

"Recently, two target satellites were launched from Jiuquan. The test attacks by Red Coast were completely successful. Temperature inside the satellites reached nearly a thousand degrees, and all instruments and photographic equipment onboard were destroyed. In future wars, Red Coast can effectively strike at the enemy's communication and reconnaissance satellites, like the KH-8 spy satellites on which the American Imperialists rely, as well as the KH-9, which are about to be launched. The lower-orbit spy satellites of the Soviet Revisionists are even more vulnerable. If necessary, we even have the capacity to destroy the Salyut s.p.a.ce station of the Soviet Revisionists and the Skylab station that American Imperialists plan on launching next year."

"Commissar! What are you telling her?" Someone spoke behind Ye. She turned and saw that it was Yang Weining, who stared at Commissar Lei severely.

"This is for work," Commissar Lei said, and then left. Yang glanced at Ye without saying anything and followed Lei. Ye was left all by herself.

He's the one who brought me here, but he still doesn't trust me, a disconsolate Ye thought. She was worried about Commissar Lei. At the base, Lei had more authority than Yang, since the commissar had the final vote on most important matters, but the way he rushed away with Yang seemed to indicate that he felt the chief engineer had caught him doing something wrong. This convinced Ye that Lei had made a personal decision to tell her about the true purpose of the Red Coast Project.

What will happen to him as a result of this decision? As she gazed at Commissar Lei's burly back, Ye felt a wave of grat.i.tude. For her, trust was a luxury that she dared not wish for. Compared to Yang, Lei was closer to her image of a real military officer, possessing a soldier's frank and forthright manners. Yang, on the other hand, was nothing more than a typical intellectual of the period: cautious, timid, seeking only to protect himself. Even though Ye understood him, the wide gulf already between them grew wider.

The next day, Ye was transferred out of the Transmission Department and a.s.signed to the Monitoring Department. At first, she thought this was related to the events of the day before, an attempt to move her away from the core of Red Coast. But after arriving at the Monitoring Department, she realized that this was more like the heart of Red Coast. Even though the two departments shared some resources, such as the antenna, the technology level of the Monitoring Department was far more advanced.

The Monitoring Department had a very sophisticated and sensitive radio receiver. A ruby-based traveling-wave maser25 amplified the signals received by the gigantic antenna, and in order to minimize interference, the core of the reception system was immersed in liquid helium at -269 degrees Celsius. Periodically, a helicopter came to replenish the supply of liquid helium. The reception system was thus capable of picking up very faint signals. Ye couldn't help but imagine how wonderful it would be to use the equipment for radio astronomy research.

The Monitoring Department's computer system was also much bigger and more complex than the one at the Transmission Department. The first time she entered the main computer room, Ye saw a row of cathode ray tube displays. She was stunned to see programming code scrolling across each of them, and the operators were free to edit and test the code using the keyboard. When she learned programming in college, the source code was always written on the grids of special programming paper, then transferred to paper tape using a typewriter. She had heard of input using a keyboard and screen, but this was the first time she had seen it.

The software available astonished her even more. She learned about something called FORTRAN, which allowed you to program using a language close to natural language. You could even type mathematical equations directly into the code! Programming in it was several times more efficient than programming in machine code. And then there was something called a database, which allowed for easy storage and manipulation of vast amounts of data.

Two days later, Commissar Lei sought Ye out for another talk. This time, they were in the main computer room of the Monitoring Department, in front of the row of green-glowing screens. Yang Weining sat close by, not part of their conversation, but also not willing to leave, which made Ye very uncomfortable.

"Wenjie," Commissar Lei began, "let me explain the work of the Monitoring Department to you. Simply put, the goal is to keep an eye on enemy activities in s.p.a.ce, including intercepting communications between enemy s.p.a.ce vessels and the ground, and between the s.p.a.ce vessels themselves; collaborating with our telemetry, tracking, and command centers to determine the orbits of enemy s.p.a.ce vessels and provide data for Red Coast's combat systems. In other words, the eyes of Red Coast are here."

Yang interrupted, "Commissar Lei, I don't think what you're doing is a good idea. There's no need to tell her these things."

Ye glanced at Yang and anxiously said, "Commissar, if it's not appropriate for me to know, then-"

"No, no, Wenjie." The commissar held up a hand to stop Ye from speaking. He turned to Yang. "Chief Yang, I'm going to tell you the same thing I did before. This is for work. For Wenjie to perform her duties better, she must be told the purpose of her work."

Yang stood up. "I will report this to our superiors."

"That is your right, of course. But do not fret, Chief Yang. I will a.s.sume responsibility for all consequences."