Cixin Liu - The Three-Body Problem

That’s 1108:21:37 , Wang thought.

short-long-long-long-long, short-long-long-long-long, long-long-long-long-long, long-long-long-short-short, long-long-long-short-short-short, short-short-long-long-long, short-long-long-long-long, long-long-long-short-short-short, short-short-short-long-long, long-short-short-short-short—that’s 1108:21:36.

The countdown continued at the scale of the universe. Ninety-two hours had already elapsed, and only 1,108 hours remained.

Sha paced back and forth anxiously, pausing from time to time to look at the sequence of numbers Wang was writing down. “Can’t you tell me what’s going on?” he shouted.

“I can’t possibly explain this to you, Dr. Sha. Trust me.” Wang pushed away the pile of papers filled with waveforms. As he stared at the sequence of numbers, he said, “Maybe the three satellites and the observatory are all malfunctioning.”

“You know that’s impossible!”

“What if it’s sabotage?”

“Also impossible! To simultaneously alter the data from three satellites and an observatory on Earth? You’re talking about a supernatural saboteur.”

Wang nodded. Compared to the idea of the universe flickering, he would prefer a supernatural saboteur. But Sha then deprived him of this last glimmer of hope. “It’s easy to confirm this. If the cosmic microwave background is fluctuating this much, we should be able to see it with our own eyes.”

“What are you talking about? The wavelength of the cosmic microwave background is seven centimeters. That’s five orders of magnitude longer than the wavelength of visible light. How can we possibly see it?”

“Using 3K glasses.”

“Three-K glasses?”

“It’s a sort of science toy we made for the Capital Planetarium. With our current level of technology, we could take the six-meter horn antenna used by Penzias and Wilson almost half a century ago to discover the cosmic microwave background and miniaturize it to the size of a pair of glasses. Then we added a converter in the glasses to compress the detected radiation by five orders of magnitude so that seven-centimeter waves are turned into visible red light. This way, visitors can put on the glasses at night and observe the cosmic microwave background on their own. And now, we can use it to see the universe flicker.”

“Where can I find these glasses?”

“At the Capital Planetarium. We made more than twenty pairs.”

“I must get my hands on a pair before five.”

Sha picked up the phone. The other side picked up only after a long while. Sha had to expend a lot of energy to convince the person awakened in the middle of the night to go to the planetarium and wait for Wang’s arrival in an hour.

As Wang left, Sha said, “I won’t go with you. What I’ve seen is enough, and I don’t need any more confirmation. But I hope that you will explain the truth to me when you feel the time is right. If this phenomenon should lead to some research result, I won’t forget you.”

Wang opened the car door and said, “The flickering will stop at five in the morning. I’d suggest you not pursue it after this. Believe me, you won’t get anywhere.”

Sha stared at Wang for a long time and then nodded. “I understand. Strange things have been happening to scientists lately….”

“Yes.” Wang ducked into the car. He didn’t want to discuss the subject any further.

“Is it our turn?”

“It’s my turn, at least.” Wang started the engine.

An hour later, Wang arrived at the new planetarium and got out of the car. The bright lights of the city penetrated the translucent walls of the immense glass building and dimly revealed its internal structure. Wang thought that if the architect had intended to express a feeling about the universe, the design was a success: The more transparent something was, the more mysterious it seemed. The universe itself was transparent; as long as you were sufficiently sharp-eyed, you could see as far as you liked. But the farther you looked, the more mysterious it became.

The sleepy-eyed planetarium staffer was waiting by the door for Wang. He handed him a small suitcase and said, “There are five pairs of 3K glasses in here, all fully charged. The left button switches it on. The right dial is for adjusting brightness. I have a dozen more pairs upstairs. You can look as much as you like, but I’m going to take a nap now in the room over there. This Dr. Sha must be mental.” He went into the dim interior of the planetarium.

Wang opened the suitcase on the backseat of his car and took out a pair of 3K glasses. It resembled the display inside the panoramic viewing helmet of the V-suit. He put the glasses on and looked around. The city looked the same as before, only dimmer. Then he remembered that he had to switch them on.

The city turned into many hazy glowing halos. Most were fixed, but a few flickered or moved. He realized that these were sources of radiation in the centimeter range, all now converted to visible light. At the heart of each halo was a radiation source. Because the original wavelengths were so long, it was impossible to see their shapes clearly.

He lifted his head and saw a sky glowing with a faint red light. Just like that, he was seeing the cosmic microwave background.

The red light had come from more than ten billion years ago. It was the remnants of the big bang, the still-warm embers of Creation. He could not see any stars. Normally, since visible light would be compressed to invisible by the glasses, each star should appear as a black dot. But the diffraction of centimeter-wave radiation overwhelmed all other shapes and details.

Once his eyes had grown used to the sight, Wang could see that the faint red background was indeed pulsing. The entire sky flickered, as if the universe was but a quivering lamp in the wind.

Standing under the flashing dome of the night sky, Wang suddenly felt the universe shrink until it was so small that only he was imprisoned in it. The universe was a cramped heart, and the red light that suffused everything was the translucent blood that filled the organ. Suspended in the blood, he saw that the flickering of the red light was not periodic—the pulsing was irregular. He felt a strange, perverse, immense presence that could never be understood by human intellect.

Wang took off the 3K glasses and sat down weakly on the ground, leaning against the wheel of his car. The city at night gradually recovered the reality of visible light. But his eyes roamed, trying to capture other sights. By the entrance of the zoo across the street, there was a row of neon lights. One of the lights was about to burn out and flickered irregularly. Nearby, a small tree’s leaves trembled in the night breeze, twinkling without pattern as they reflected streetlight. In the distance, the red star atop the Beijing Exhibition Center’s Russian-style spire reflected the light from the cars passing below, also twinkling randomly….

Wang tried to interpret the flickers as Morse code. He even felt that the wrinkles in the flags flapping next to him and the ripples in the puddle on the side of the road might be sending him messages. He struggled to understand all the messages, and felt the passing of the countdown, second by second.

He didn’t know how long he stayed there. The planetarium staffer finally emerged and asked him whether he was done. But when he saw Wang’s face, sleep disappeared from the staffer’s eyes and was replaced by fear. He packed up the 3K glasses, stared at Wang for a few seconds, and quickly left with the suitcase.

Wang took out his mobile and dialed Shen Yufei’s number. She picked up right away. Perhaps she was also suffering from insomnia.