Cixin Liu - The Three-Body Problem

“You’re a special case. Usually, they don’t bother those engaged in applied research. Maybe the material you’re developing really scares them.”

“Then what should I do?”

“Go to work and keep up your research. That’s the best way to strike back at them. Don’t worry about that shitty countdown. If you want to relax a bit after work, play that game. If you can beat it, that might help.”

“That game? Three Body ? You think it’s connected to all this?”

“Definitely connected. I know that several specialists at the Battle Command Center are playing it, too. It’s no ordinary game. Someone like me, fearless out of ignorance, can’t play it. It has to be someone knowledgeable like you.”

“Anything else?”

“No. But if I find out more I’ll let you know. Keep your phone on, buddy. Keep your head screwed on straight, and if you get scared again, just remember my ultimate rule.”

Da Shi drove away before Wang had a chance to thank him.

Wang Miao returned home, stopping on the way to buy a V-suit. His wife told him that people from work had been trying to get ahold of him all day.

Wang turned on his phone, checked his messages, and returned a few calls. He promised he’d be at work tomorrow. At dinner, he followed Da Shi’s advice and drank some more.

But he didn’t feel sleepy. After his wife went to bed, he sat in front of the computer, put on his new V-suit, and logged into Three Body .

Desolate plain at dawn.

Wang stood in front of King Zhou’s pyramid. The snow that had once covered it was gone, and the blocks of stone were pockmarked by erosion. The ground was now a different color. In the distance were a few massive buildings that Wang guessed were dehydratories, but they were of a different design than the ones he had seen last time.

Everything told him that eons had passed.

By the faint dawn light, Wang looked for the entrance. When he found it, he saw that the opening had been sealed by blocks of stone. But next to it, there was now a staircase carved into the pyramid leading all the way to the apex. He looked up and saw that the top had been flattened into a platform. The pyramid, once Egyptian in style, now resembled an Aztec one.

Wang climbed up the stairs and reached the apex. The platform looked like an ancient astronomical observatory. In one corner was a telescope several meters high, and next to it were a few smaller telescopes. In another corner were a few strange instruments that reminded him of ancient Chinese armillary spheres, models of objects in the sky.

His attention was drawn to the large copper sphere in the center of the platform. Two meters in diameter, it was set on top of a complex machine. Propelled by countless gears, the sphere slowly rotated. Wang noticed that the direction and speed of its rotation constantly shifted. Below the machine was a large square cavity. By the faint torchlight within, Wang saw a few slavelike figures pushing a spoked, horizontal wheel, which provided the power to the machine above.

A man walked toward Wang. Like King Wen when Wang had first encountered him, the man had his back against the sliver of light on the horizon, and he appeared to Wang as a pair of bright eyes floating in the darkness. He was slender and tall, dressed in a flowing black robe, his hair carelessly knotted on top of his head with a few strands waving in the wind.

“Hello,” the man said. “I’m Mozi.” [23] Translator’s Note: Mozi was the founder of the Mohist school of philosophy during the Warring States Period. Mozi himself emphasized experience and logic, and was known as an accomplished engineer and geometer.

“Hello, I’m Hairen.”

“Ah, I know you!” Mozi grew excited. “You were a follower of King Wen back in Civilization Number 137.”

“I did follow him here. But I never believed his theories.”

“You’re right.” Mozi nodded at Wang solemnly. Then he moved closer. “During the three hundred and sixty-two thousand years you’ve been away, civilization has been reborn four more times. These civilizations struggled to develop through the irregular alternation of Chaotic Eras and Stable Eras. The shortest-lived one got only halfway through the Stone Age, but Civilization Number 139 broke a record and developed all the way to the Steam Age.”

“You’re saying that people from that civilization found the laws governing the sun’s motion?”

Mozi laughed and shook his head. “Not at all. They were just lucky.”

“But the effort to do so has never ceased?”

“Of course not. Come, let us see the efforts of the last civilization.” Mozi led Wang to a corner of the observatory platform. The ground spread out beneath them like an ancient piece of leather. Mozi aimed one of the smaller telescopes at a target on the ground and gestured for Wang to look. Wang looked through the eyepiece and saw a strange sight: a skeleton. In the dawn light it gave off a snow-white glint and appeared to be very refined.

Astonishingly, the skeleton stood on its own. Its posture was graceful and elegant. One hand was held below the chin, as though stroking a long-missing beard. Its head tilted slightly up, as though questioning sky and earth.

“That’s Confucius,” Mozi said. “He believed that everything had to fit li, the Confucian conception of order and propriety, and nothing in the universe could be exempt from it. He created a system of rites and hoped to predict the motion of the sun with it.”

“I can imagine the result.”

“Right you are. He calculated how the sun would follow the rites, and predicted a five-year Stable Era. And you know what? There was indeed a Stable Era… lasting a month.”

“And then one day the sun just didn’t come out?”

“No, the sun rose that day as well. It rose to the middle of the sky, and then went out.”

“What? Went out?”

“Yes. It gradually dimmed, became smaller, and then went out all of a sudden. Night fell. Oh, the cold. Confucius stood there and froze into a column of ice. And there he remains.”

“Was there anything remaining in the sky after the sun went out?”

“A flying star appeared in that location, like a soul left behind after the sun died.”

“You’re sure that the sun really disappeared suddenly, and the flying star appeared just as suddenly?”

“Yes, absolutely. You can check the historical annals. It was clearly recorded.”

“Hmmm…” Wang thought hard about this information. He had already formed some vague ideas about the workings of the world of Three Body . But this bit of news from Mozi overturned all his theories. “How can it be… sudden?” he muttered in annoyance.

“We’re now in the Han Dynasty—I’m not sure if it’s the Western Han or the Eastern Han.”

“You’ve stayed alive until now?”

“I have a mission: observing the precise movements of the sun. Those shamans, metaphysicians, and Daoists are all useless. Like those proverbial bookish men who could not even tell types of grains apart, they do not labor with their hands, and know nothing practical. They have no ability to do experiments, and they’re immersed in their mysticism all day long. But I’m different. I know how to make things.” He pointed to the numerous instruments on the platform.

“Do you think these can lead you to your goal?” Wang nodded specifically at the giant copper sphere.

“I have theories, too, but they’re not mystical. They’re derived from a large number of observations. First, do you know what the universe is? It’s a machine.”

“That’s not very insightful.”