Cixin Liu - Death's End

“Let me get to the point,” a bald man interrupted Antonov. He was named A. J. Hopkins—or at least that’s what he called himself. His identity had been completely lost by the time he emerged from hibernation, and he refused to divulge any information about himself, not even bothering to make it up. This made it difficult for him to become a citizen of the new world—though his mysterious past also helped make him a competitive candidate. He and Antonov were considered to possess the most deterrent force. “In the eyes of the public, the ideal Swordholder looks like this: He should terrify the Trisolarans without terrifying the people of Earth. Since such a combination cannot exist, the people will lean toward someone who doesn’t terrify them. You don’t frighten them because you’re a woman, and a woman who seems angelic in their eyes, at that. These sissies are more naïve than even the children of our time; all they can see are superficial qualities…. Look, they all think everything is developing wonderfully, and we are on the cusp of achieving universal peace and love. Deterrence is no longer so important, so they want someone with a gentler hand holding the sword.”

“Isn’t it true, though?” Cheng Xin asked. Hopkins’s contemptuous tone annoyed her.

The six men didn’t answer her, but they exchanged glances with each other. Their gazes now looked even darker and colder. Standing in their midst, Cheng Xin felt as if she were on the bottom of a well. She shivered.

“Child, you’re not suited to be the Swordholder.” At sixty-eight, the speaker was the oldest of the candidates. Before hibernation, he had been South Korea’s vice minister of foreign affairs. “You have no political experience, you are young, you lack the judgment to evaluate situations correctly, and you don’t possess the requisite psychological qualities to be the Swordholder. All you have is kindness and a sense of responsibility.”

The last candidate, an experienced attorney, now spoke up. “I don’t think you really want to be the Swordholder. You must know what kind of sacrifices are required.”

This last speech silenced Cheng Xin. She had just learned what Luo Ji had endured during the Deterrence Era.

After the six candidates departed, AA said to Cheng Xin, “I don’t think what the Swordholder goes through can be called living. It’s worse than being in hell. Why would these Common Era men want that?”

“To be able to determine the fate of all of humanity and another race with a single finger is very attractive to some men from that era. Some devote their entire lives to pursue such power. They become obsessed with it.”

“Um, are you obsessed, too?”

Cheng Xin said nothing. Things were no longer simple.

“It’s hard to imagine a man so dark, so crazy, so perverted.” AA meant Wade.

“He’s not the most dangerous.”

This was true. Wade did not hide his viciousness deeply. The layers and layers of disguises that people of the Common Era wore to hide their real intentions and feelings were unimaginable to AA and contemporary humans. Who knew what was hidden behind the cold, expressionless masks worn by the six men? Who knew whether one of them might be another Ye Wenjie or Zhang Beihai? More terrifyingly, whether all of them were?

The beautiful world revealed its fragility to Cheng Xin, like a lovely soap bubble floating through a bramble bush: A single touch was enough to destroy everything.

A week later, Cheng Xin came to the UN Headquarters to attend the handover ceremony for the two planets in the DX3906 system.

Afterwards, the PDC chair spoke with her. On behalf of the UN and the Solar System Fleet, he asked her to declare her candidacy for the Swordholder. He explained that there was uncertainty about the six existing candidates. For any of them to be elected would lead to mass panic, as a considerable portion of the population believed each of the candidates to be a tremendous danger and threat. The consequences of electing any of them were unpredictable. In addition, all of the candidates distrusted Trisolaris and exhibited aggressive tendencies toward it. If one of them were elected, the second Swordholder might collaborate with the hardliners on Earth and in Fleet International to impose harsher policies toward Trisolaris and demand more concessions from them. Such a move might terminate the developing peace and scientific and cultural exchange between the two worlds, leading to disaster….

But Cheng Xin could prevent all of this.

After humanity ended its second cave-dwelling stage, the UN Headquarters moved back to its old address. Cheng Xin was familiar with it: The exterior of the Secretariat Building looked the same as three centuries ago, and even the sculptures on the plaza in front were perfectly preserved, as was the lawn. Cheng Xin stood and recalled that tumultuous night 270 years ago: the announcement of the Wallfacer Project; Luo Ji’s shooting; the chaotic crowd under the swaying spotlights; her hair blowing about in the turbulence from the helicopters; the ambulance departing with flashing red lights and shrill sirens… everything was as clear as yesterday. Wade stood with his back against the lights of New York City, and uttered the line that had transformed her life: “We’ll send only a brain.”

Without that statement, everything that was happening now would have nothing to do with her. She would be a common woman and would have died more than two centuries ago. Everything about her would have disappeared without a trace upstream in time’s long river. If she had been fortunate, her tenth-generation descendants would now be waiting for the selection of the second Swordholder.

But she was alive. She faced the crowd on the plaza. A hologram of her image floated above them like a colorful cloud. A young mother came up to Cheng Xin and handed her baby, only a few months old, to her. The baby giggled at her, and she held him close, touching her face to his smooth baby cheeks. Her heart melted, and she felt as if she were holding a whole world, a new world as lovely and fragile as the baby in her arms.

“Look, she’s like Saint Mary, the mother of Jesus!” the young mother called out to the crowd. She turned back to Cheng Xin and put her hands together. Tears flowed from her eyes. “Oh, beautiful, kind Madonna, protect this world! Do not let those bloodthirsty and savage men destroy all the beauty here.”

The crowd cried out in joy. The baby in Cheng Xin’s arms, startled, began to cry. She held the baby tighter.

Do I have another choice?

The answer came to her, brooking no doubt.

No. None at all.

There were three reasons.

First, being declared a savior was just like being pushed under the guillotine: There was no choice involved. This had happened to Luo Ji, and now it was happening to her.

Second, the young mother and the soft, warm bundle in Cheng Xin’s arms made her realize something. She understood for the first time her own feelings toward this new world: maternal instinct. She had never experienced such a feeling during the Common Era. Subconsciously, she saw everyone in the new world as her child, and she could not bear to see them come to harm. Before, she had mistakenly thought of it as a sense of responsibility. But, no, maternal instinct was not subject to rationalization; she could not escape it.

The third fact stood in front of her like an unscalable wall. Even if the first two reasons did not exist, this wall would remain: Yun Tianming.

This situation was a hell, a bottomless abyss, the same as the abyss Yun Tianming had plunged into for her sake. She could not back off now. She had to accept karma. It was her turn.