Cixin Liu - The Three-Body Problem

“Very good,” Pan said. He turned to the software company vice president and the power company executive. “The two of you are no longer welcome at this meet-up, and you are no longer appropriate players for Three Body . Your IDs will be deleted. Please leave now. Thank you.”

The two stood up and looked at each other; then glanced around, confused, and left.

Pan held out his hand to the remaining five, shaking each person’s hand in turn. Then he said, solemnly, “We are comrades now.”

The fifth time Wang Miao logged on to Three Body , it was dawn as usual, but the world was unrecognizable.

The great pyramid that had appeared the first four times had been destroyed by the tri-solar syzygy. In its place was a tall, modern building, whose dark gray shape was familiar to Wang: the United Nations Headquarters.

In the distance were many more tall buildings, apparently dehydratories. All had completely reflective mirror surfaces. In the dawn light they appeared as giant crystal plants growing out of the ground.

Wang heard a violin playing something by Mozart. The playing wasn’t very practiced, but there was a special charm to it, as though saying: I play for myself . The violinist was a homeless old man sitting on the steps in front of the UN Headquarters, his fluffy silver hair fluttering in the wind. Next to his feet was an old top hat containing some scattered change.

Wang suddenly noticed the sun. But it rose in the opposite direction from the dawn light, and the patch of the sky around it was still completely dark.

The sun was very large, its half-risen disk taking up a third of the horizon. Wang’s heart beat faster: Such a large sun could only mean another great catastrophe. But when Wang turned around, the old man continued to play as though nothing odd was happening. His silver hair shone brilliantly in the sun, as though it was on fire.

The sun was silvery, just like the old man’s hair. It cast a pale white light over the ground, but Wang couldn’t feel any warmth from the light. He gazed at the sun, which had now completely risen. On the giant silver disk he could pick out lines like wood grains: mountain ranges.

Wang realized that the disk did not emit light. It only reflected the light from the real sun, which was on the other side of the sky, below the horizon. What had risen wasn’t a sun at all, but a giant moon. The giant moon moved briskly up the sky at a pace that could be detected by the naked eye. In the process, it gradually waned from a full to a half moon, and then a crescent. The old man’s soothing violin strains drifted on the cold morning breeze. The majestic sight of the universe was like the music made material. Wang was intoxicated.

The giant crescent now fell into the dawn light and grew much brighter. When only two glowing tips remained above the horizon, Wang imagined them as the tips of the horns of a titanic bull rushing toward the sun.

“Honored Copernicus, rest your busy feet here a while,” the old man said, after the giant moon had set. “Then after you’ve appreciated some Mozart, perhaps I can have some lunch.”

“If I’m not mistaken…” Wang looked at the face full of wrinkles. The wrinkles were long and their curves gentle, as though they were trying to create a kind of harmony.

“You’re not. I’m Einstein, a pitiful man full of faith in God, though abandoned by Him.”

“What is that giant moon? I’ve never seen it the previous times I was here.”

“It’s already cooled off.”

“What?”

“The big moon. When I was little it was still hot. When it rose to the middle of the sky, I could see the red glow from the central plains. But now it’s cold…. Haven’t you heard about the great rip?”

“No. What’s that?”

Einstein sighed and shook his head. “Let’s not speak of it. Forget the past. My past, civilization’s past, the universe’s past—all of it too painful to recall.”

“How did you get to be like this?” Wang searched in his pocket and found some change. He bent over and dropped the money into the hat.

“Thank you, Mr. Copernicus. Let’s hope that God doesn’t abandon you, though I don’t have much faith in that. I feel that the model you and Newton and the others created in the East with the help of the human-formation computer was very close to being correct. But the little bit of error left was like an uncrossable chasm for Newton and the others.

“I’ve always believed that without me, others would have discovered special relativity eventually. But general relativity is different. The bit that Newton lacked was the effect on planetary orbit from the gravitationally induced curvature of space-time described by general relativity. Though the error caused by it was small, its impact on the results of the computation was fatal. Adding the correction factor for perturbation from space-time curvature to the classical equations would yield the right mathematical model. The amount of computational power required far exceeds what you accomplished in the East, but is easily provided by modern computers.”

“Have the results of the computation been confirmed by astronomical observations?”

“If that had occurred, do you think I’d be here? But from the perspective of aesthetics, I must be right and the universe must be wrong. God abandoned me, then others abandoned me as well. I’m wanted nowhere. Princeton dismissed me as a professor. UNESCO wouldn’t even have me as a science consultant. Before, even if they had begged on their knees, I wouldn’t have wanted the position. I even thought of going to Israel to be president, but they changed their minds and said I was nothing but a fraud….”

Einstein began playing again, picking up right where he had stopped. After listening to him for a while, Wang strode toward the UN building.

“There’s no one in there,” Einstein said, still playing. “All the members of the General Assembly session are behind the building attending the Pendulum Initiation Ceremony.”

Wang walked around the building and was greeted by a breathtaking sight: a colossal pendulum that seemed to stretch between the sky and the earth. In fact, Wang had seen it peeking out from behind the building, but he didn’t know what he was seeing.

The pendulum resembled those constructed by Fu Xi to hypnotize the sun god during the Warring States Period, back when Wang Miao first logged on to Three Body . But the pendulum before him had been completely modernized. The two pillars holding up the pendulum were made of metal, each as tall as the Eiffel Tower. The weight was also made of metal, streamlined, with a smooth, mirrorlike, electroplated surface. The pendulum line, made of some ultrastrong material, was so thin as to be almost invisible, and the weight seemed to float in the air between the two towers.

Below the pendulum was a crowd of people dressed in suits, probably the leaders of the various countries attending the General Assembly session. They gathered in small cliques and talked amongst themselves quietly, as though waiting for something.

“Ah, Copernicus, the man who crossed five eras!” someone shouted. The others welcomed him.

“You’re one of those who saw the pendulums of the Warring States Period with your own eyes!” A friendly man shook and held Wang’s hand. Someone introduced the man as the secretary general of the UN, from Africa.

“Yes, I did see them,” Wang said. “But why are we building another one now?”

“It’s a monument for Trisolaris, as well as a tombstone.” The secretary general looked up at the pendulum. From down here, it appeared as big as a submarine.