Лю Цысинь - Hold Up the Sky

“Where’s the god?” Yi Yi asked.

“He’s the two geometric objects, of course. Gods like to keep it nice and simple.”

As they approached, Yi Yi saw that the plane was the size of a soccer field. The spaceship descended upon the plane thruster side down, but the flames left no marks on the surface, as if the plane were nothing but an illusion. Yet Yi Yi felt gravity, and the jarring sensation when the spaceship touched down proved that the plane was real.

Bigtooth must have come here before; he opened the hatch without hesitation and walked out. Yi Yi’s heart seized up when he saw that Bigtooth had simultaneously opened the hatches on both side of the airlock, but the air inside the chamber didn’t howl outward. As Bigtooth walked out of the ship, Yi Yi smelled fresh air from inside his pocket. When he poked his head out, a soft, cool breeze caressed his face. This was ultra-advanced technology beyond the comprehension of either humans or dinosaurs. Its comfortable, casual application astounded Yi Yi, in a way that pierced the soul more deeply than what humanity must have felt in its first encounter with Devourers. He looked up. The sphere floated overhead against the backdrop of the radiant Milky Way.

“What little gift have you brought me this time, Emissary?” asked the god in the language of the Devourers. His voice was not loud, seeming to come from a boundless distance away, from the deep void of outer space. It was the first time Yi Yi had found the crude language of the dinosaurs pleasing to the ear.

Bigtooth extended a claw into his pocket, caught Yi Yi, and set him down on the plane. Yi Yi could feel the elasticity of the plane through the soles of his feet.

“Esteemed god,” Bigtooth said. “I heard you like to collect small organisms from different star systems, so I brought you this very entertaining little thing: a human from Earth.”

“I only like perfect organisms. Why did you bring me such a filthy insect?” said the god. The sphere and the plane flickered twice, perhaps to express disgust.

“You know about this species?” Bigtooth raised his head in astonishment.

“Not intimately, but I’ve heard about them from certain visitors to this arm of the galaxy. They made frequent visits to Earth in the brief course of these organisms’ evolution, and were revolted at the vulgarness of their thoughts, the lowliness of their actions, the disorder and filth of their history. Not a single visitor would deign to establish contact with them up to the destruction of Earth. Hurry and throw it away.”

Bigtooth seized Yi Yi, rotating his massive head to look for a place to throw him. “The trash incinerator is behind you,” said the god. Bigtooth turned and saw that a small, round opening had appeared in the plane behind him. Inside shimmered a faint blue light….

“Don’t dismiss us like that! Humanity created a magnificent civilization!” Yi Yi shouted with all his might in the language of the Devourers.

The sphere and plane again flickered twice. The god gave two cold laughs. “Civilization? Emissary, tell this insect what civilization is.”

Bigtooth lifted Yi Yi to his eye level; Yi Yi could even hear the gululu of the dinosaur’s giant eyeballs turning in their sockets. “Bug-bug, in this universe, the standard measure of any race’s level of civilization is the number of dimensions it can access. The basic requirement for joining civilization at large is six or more. Our esteemed god’s race can already access the eleventh dimension. The Devouring Empire can access the fourth dimension in small-scale laboratory environments, and only qualifies as a primitive, uncivilized tribe in the Milky Way. You, in the eyes of a god, are in the same category as weeds and lichen.”

“Throw it away already, it’s disgusting,” the god urged impatiently.

Having finished speaking, Bigtooth headed for the incinerator’s aperture. Yi Yi struggled frantically. Numerous pieces of white paper fluttered loose from his clothing. The sphere shot out a needle-thin beam of light, hitting one of the sheets, which froze unmoving in midair. The beam scanned rapidly over its surface.

“Oh my, wait, what’s this?”

Bigtooth allowed Yi Yi to dangle over the incinerator’s aperture as he turned to look at the sphere.

“That’s… my students’ homework!” Yi Yi managed laboriously, struggling in the dinosaur’s giant claw.

“These squarish symbols are very interesting, and the little arrays they form are quite amusing too,” said the god. The sphere’s beam of light rapidly scanned over the other sheets of paper, which had since landed on the plane.

“They’re Ch-Chinese characters. These are poems in Classical Chinese!”

“Poems?” the god exclaimed, retracting its beam of light. “I trust you understand the language of these insects, Emissary?”

“Of course, esteemed god. Before the Devouring Empire ate Earth, we spent a long time living on their world.” Bigtooth set Yi Yi down on the plane next to the incinerator, bent over, and picked up a sheet of paper. He held it just in front of his eyes, trying with effort to distinguish the small characters on it. “More or less, it says—”

“Forget it, you’ll distort the meaning!” Yi Yi waved a hand to interrupt Bigtooth.

“How so?” asked the god interestedly.

“Because this is a form of art that can only be expressed in Classical Chinese. Even translating these poems into other human languages alters them until they lose much of their meaning and beauty.”

“Emissary, do you have this language in your computer database? Send me the relevant data, as well as all the information you have on Earth history. Just use the communications channel we established during our last meeting.”

Bigtooth hurried back to the spaceship and banged around on the computer inside for a while, muttering, “We don’t have the Classical Chinese portion here, so we’ll have to upload it from the Empire’s network. There might be some delay.” Through the open hatchway, Yi Yi saw the morphing colors of the computer screen reflected off the dinosaur’s huge eyeballs.

By the time Bigtooth got off the ship, the god could already read the poem on one sheet of paper with perfect modern Chinese pronunciation.

“You’re a fast learner!” Yi Yi exclaimed.

The god ignored him, silent.

Bigtooth explained, “It means, the star has set behind the orbiting planet’s mountains. A liquid river called the Yellow River is flowing in the direction of the ocean. Oh, the river and the ocean are both made of the chemical compound consisting of one oxygen atom and two hydrogen atoms. If you want to see further, you must climb further up the edifice.”

The god remained silent.

“Esteemed god, you visited the Devouring Empire not long ago. The scenery there is almost identical to that of the world known to this poem’s author bug-bug, with mountains, rivers, and seas, so…”

“So I understand the meaning of the poem,” said the god. The sphere suddenly moved so it was right above Bigtooth’s head. Yi Yi thought it looked like a giant pupilless eye staring at Bigtooth. “But, didn’t you feel something?”

Bigtooth shook his head, confused.

“That is to say, something hidden behind the outward meaning of that simple, elegant array of square symbols?”

Bigtooth looked even more confused, so the god recited another Classical poem:

Bigtooth hurried eagerly to explain. “This poem means, looking in front of you, you can’t see all the bug-bugs who lived on the planet in the distant past. Looking behind you, you can’t see all the bug-bugs who will live on the planet in the future. So you feel how time and space are just too big and end up crying.”