Лю Цысинь - Hold Up the Sky

“So, how about we name this work together? Call it— Ring of Dreams, perhaps?”

Yan Dong considered this. Slowly, she shook her head. “No, it came from the sea or, rather, was sublimated from the sea. Not even in our dreams could we conceive that the sea possessed this form of beauty. It should be called— Sea of Dreams. ”

“ Sea of Dreams… very good, very good. We’ll call it that, Sea of Dreams. ”

Then, Yan Dong remembered her mission. “I’d like to ask, before you leave, can you return Sea of Dreams to become our actual seas?”

“Have me personally destroy my own work? Ridiculous!”

“Then, after you leave, can we restore the seas ourselves?”

“Of course you can. Just return these blocks of ice and everything should be fine, right?”

“How do we do that?” Yan Dong asked, her head raised. All of humanity strained to hear the answer.

“How should I know?” the low-temperature artist said indifferently.

“One final question: As colleagues, we all know that works of art made from ice and snow are short-lived. So Sea of Dreams …”

“ Sea of Dreams is also short-lived. A block of ice’s light-filtering membrane will age. It’ll no longer be able to block heat. But they will dissolve differently than your ice sculptures. The process will be more violent and magnificent. Blocks of ice will vaporize. The pressure will cause the membrane to burst. Every block of ice will turn into a small comet. The entire ring of ice will blur into a silver fog. Then Sea of Dreams will disappear into that silver fog. Then the silver fog will scatter and disappear into space. The universe can only look forward to my next work on some other distant world.”

“How long until this happens?” Yan Dong’s voice quavered.

“The light-filtering membrane will become ineffective, as you reckon time, hm, in about twenty years. Oh, why are we talking about things other than art again? Trivial, trivial! Okay, colleague. Goodbye. Enjoy the beauty I have left you!”

The ball of ice shot into the air, disappearing into the sky. According to the measurements of every major astronomical organization in the world, the ball of ice flew rapidly along a perpendicular to the ecliptic plane. Once it had accelerated to half the speed of light, it abruptly disappeared thirteen astronomical units away from the sun, as if it’d squeezed into an invisible hole. It never returned.

SECOND HALF

Monument and Waveguide

The drought had already lasted for five years.

Withered ground swept past the car window. It was midsummer and there was not a bit of green anywhere on the ground. The trees were all withered. Cracks like black spiderwebs covered the ground. Frequent dry, hot winds kicked up sand that concealed everything. Quite a few times, Yan Dong thought she saw the corpses of people who had died of thirst along the railroad tracks, but they might have just been fallen, dry tree branches, nothing to be afraid of. This harsh, arid world contrasted sharply with the silver Sea of Dreams in the sky.

Yan Dong licked her parched lips. She couldn’t bring herself to drink from her water flask. That was four days’ rations for her entire family. Her husband had forced it on her at the train station. Yesterday, her workmates had protested, demanding to be paid in water. In the market, nonrationed water grew scarcer and scarcer. Even the rich weren’t able to buy any…. Someone touched her shoulder. It was the person in the seat beside her.

“You’re that alien’s colleague, aren’t you?”

Since she’d become the low-temperature artist’s messenger, Yan Dong had also become a celebrity. At first, she was considered a role model and a hero. However, after the low-temperature artist left, the situation changed. One way of looking at things is, it was her work that had inspired the low-temperature artist at the Ice and Snow Arts Festival. Without that, none of this would have happened. Most people understood that this was utter nonsense, but having a scapegoat was a good thing. So, in people’s eyes she was eventually seen as the low-temperature artist’s conspirator. But fortunately, after the artist had left, there were bigger issues to worry about. People gradually forgot about Yan Dong. However, this time, even though she was wearing sunglasses, she had been recognized.

“Ask me to drink some water!” the man beside her said, his voice rasping. Two flakes of dry skin fell from his lips.

“What are you doing? Are you robbing me?”

“Be smart, or else I’ll scream!”

Yan Dong felt obliged to hand over her water flask. The man drained the flask in one swallow. The people around them watched this with shock on their faces. Even the train attendant who had been passing by stopped in the aisle and stared at him, stupefied. That anyone could be so wasteful was nearly beyond belief. It was like back in the Oceaned Days (what people called the age before the arrival of the low-temperature artist), watching a rich person eat a sumptuous dinner that cost one hundred thousand yuan.

The man returned the empty flask to Yan Dong. Patting Yan Dong’s shoulder again, the man said in a low voice, “It doesn’t matter. Soon, it’ll all be over.”

Yan Dong understood what the man meant.

The capital seldom had cars on its streets anymore. The rare few had all been retrofitted to be air-cooled. Using a conventional liquid-cooled car was strictly prohibited. Fortunately, the Chinese branch of the World Crisis Organization had sent a car to pick her up. Otherwise, she’d absolutely have had no way to reach their offices. On the way, she saw that sandstorms had covered all the roads with yellow sand. She didn’t see many pedestrians. For anyone dehydrated, walking around in the hot, dry wind was too dangerous.

The world was like a fish out of water, already begging for a breath.

When she arrived at the World Crisis Organization, Yan Dong reported to the bureau chief. The bureau chief brought her to a large office and introduced her to the group she would be working with. Yan Dong looked at the office door. Unlike the other ones, this one had no nameplate. The bureau chief said:

“This is a secret group. Everything done here is strictly confidential. In order to avoid social unrest, we call this group the Monument Division.”

Entering the office, Yan Dong realized the people here were all somewhat eccentric: Some had hair that was too long. Some had no hair at all. Some were immaculately dressed, as if the world weren’t falling apart around them. Some wore only shorts. Some seemed dejected, others abnormally excited. Many oddly shaped models sat on a long table in the middle of the office. Yan Dong couldn’t guess what they might be for.

“Welcome, Ice Sculptor.” The head of the Monument Division enthusiastically shook Yan Dong’s hand after the bureau chief’s introduction. “You’ll finally have the opportunity to elaborate on the inspiration you received from the alien. Of course, this time, you can’t use ice. What we want to build is a work that must last forever.”

“What for?”

The division head looked at the bureau chief, then back at Yan Dong. “You still don’t know? We want to establish a monument to humanity!”

Yan Dong felt even more at a loss with this explanation.

“It’s humanity’s tombstone,” an artist to her side said. This person had long hair and tattered clothes, and gave the impression of decadence. One hand held a bottle of sorghum liquor that he’d drunk until he was somewhat tipsy. The liquor was left over from the Oceaned Days and now much cheaper than water.

Yan Dong looked all around, then said, “But… we’re not dead yet.”