Year 3, Crisis Era(2)

When King Wen of Zhou next set foot onto the desolation of Three Body world, a small sun was rising. Although it did not give much heat, it lit the wasteland quite clearly. The wasteland was completely empty.

"Is there anyone here? Anyone?"

Then his eyes lit up as he saw someone riding a galloping horse from the horizon. Recognizing him at a distance as Newton, he ran toward him, waving wildly. Newton soon reached his side, reined in his horse, and, after dismounting, hurriedly adjusted his wig.

"What are you shouting for? Who restarted this damned place?"

King Wen didn't answer his question, but took his hand and said urgently, "Comrade, my comrade, listen to me. The Lord has not abandoned us. Or, rather, Its abandonment was for a reason, and It will need us in the future. It…"

"I know that," Newton said, impatiently brushing aside King Wen's hand. "The sophons sent me a message too."

"So that means that the Lord sent a message to lots of us at the same time. Excellent. The organization's contact with the Lord won't ever be monopolized again."

"Does the organization still exist?" Newton wiped away sweat with a handkerchief.

"Of course it exists. The Redemptionists totally collapsed after the global strike, and the Survivors split off and developed into an independent force. Only the Adventists are left in the org now."

"The strike purified the org. This is a good thing."

"Since you're here, you must be an Adventist. But you seem to be out of the loop. Are you on your own?"

"My only contact is with one other comrade, and he didn't tell me anything but this Web address. I barely escaped the awful global strike with my life."

"Your escape instincts were ably demonstrated during the Qin Shi Huang era."

Newton looked around. "Is it safe?"

"Of course. We're at the bottom of a multilevel maze, and it's practically impossible to discover. Anyone who managed to storm their way in here wouldn't be able to trace user locations. For security reasons, after the strike, the org put every branch into isolation with mutual contact kept to a minimum. We need a place to meet, and a buffer area for new members. This is more secure than the real world."

"Have you noticed that attacks on the organization in the real world have slackened considerably?"

"They're clever. They know the org is the only means of obtaining intelligence on the Lord, as well as the only opportunity of getting their hands on the technology that the Lord passes to us, even though there's only a minute chance of that happening. That's the reason they'll let the org continue to exist to a certain extent, but I think they'll come to regret it."

"The Lord isn't so clever. It doesn't even comprehend the ability to be clever."

"So It needs us. The existence of the org is valuable, and all comrades should know of this as soon as possible."

Newton mounted his horse. "Very well. I've got to go. I'll stay longer once I've verified that it's really secure here."

"I guarantee to you that it's absolutely safe."

"If that's true, then there'll be more comrades gathering here next time. Good-bye." Saying this, Newton urged his horse off into the distance. By the time its hoofbeats had dissipated, the small sun had become a shooting star, and a cloak of darkness descended upon the world.

* * *

Luo Ji lay limp on the bed, watching the woman put on clothes after a shower through eyes still hazy from sleep. The sun, already high in the sky, shone through the curtains and turned her into a graceful projected silhouette, like a scene from a black-and-white movie he had forgotten the name of. But what he needed to remember now was her name. What was she called? Keep calm. First, her last name: If it was Zhang, then she would be Zhang Shan. Or was it Chen? Then, Chen Jingjing … no, those were previous women. He thought about looking at his phone, but it was still in his pocket and he had tossed his clothes on the carpet. Besides, they had only known each other for a little while and he hadn't entered her number into his phone yet. The important thing now was not to have it be like that one time he'd asked outright—the consequences had been disastrous. So he turned to the television, which she had turned on and muted. On the screen, seated around a large round table, the UN Security Council was in session—wait, it wasn't the Security Council anymore, but he couldn't remember its new name. He was really out of it.

"Turn it up," he said. His words sounded distant without a term of endearment, but he didn't care about that now.

"You really seem to be interested." She sat combing her hair but didn't adjust the sound.

Luo Ji reached over to the bedside table and picked up a lighter and a cigarette and lit it as he stretched his bare feet out of his towel and wiggled his big toes in satisfaction.

"Look at you. You call yourself a scholar?" She watched his wriggling toes in the mirror.

"A young scholar," he added, "with few accomplishments. But that's because I don't put in the effort. I'm actually full of inspiration. Sometimes, what other people might spend a lifetime working on, I can figure out with a moment's thought.… Believe it or not, I was almost famous once."

"Because of that subculture stuff?"

"No, not that. It was another thing I was working on at the same time. I established cosmic sociology."

"What?"

"It's the sociology of aliens."

She snickered, then tossed her comb aside and began putting on her makeup.

"Don't you know about the celebrity tendency in academia? I could've been a star."

"Alien researchers are a dime a dozen these days."

"That's only after all this new crap came out," Luo Ji said as he pointed at the mute television, which was still showing the large table and the people seated round it. The segment was awfully long. Was it live? "Academics didn't use to study aliens. They sifted through piles of old paper and become celebrities that way. But later the public got tired of the cultural necrophilia of that old crew, and that's when I came along." He stretched his bare arms toward the ceiling. "Cosmic sociology, aliens, and lots of alien races. More of them than there are people on Earth, tens of billions! The producer of that Lecture Room television program talked about doing a series with me, but then it all actually happened, and then…" He swept a circle with a finger, and sighed.

She wasn't listening too closely to him, reading the subtitles on the television instead: "'We reserve all options in regard to Escapism…' What does that mean?"

"Who's talking?"

"It looks like Karnoff."

"He's saying that Escapism needs to be treated as harshly as the ETO, and that a guided missile needs to be dropped on anyone making a Noah's Ark."

"That's kind of harsh."

"No," he said forcefully. "It's the wisest strategy. I came up with it long ago. And even if it doesn't come to that, no one's going to fly away, anyway. You ever read a book by Liang Xiaosheng called Floating City?"

"I haven't. It's pretty old, isn't it?"

"Right. I read it when I was a kid. Shanghai's about to fall into the ocean, and a group of people go house to house seizing life preservers and then destroying them en masse, for the sole purpose of making sure that no one would live if everyone couldn't. I remember in particular there was one little girl who took the group to the door of one house and cried out, 'They still have one!'"

"You're just the sort of asshole that always sees society as trash."

"Bullshit. The fundamental axiom of economics is the human mercenary instinct. Without that assumption, the entire field would collapse. There isn't any fundamental axiom for sociology yet, but it might be even darker than economics. The truth always picks up dust. A small number of people could fly off into space, but if we knew it would come to that, why would we have bothered in the first place?"

"Bothered with what?"

"Why would we have had the Renaissance? Why the Magna Carta? Why the French Revolution? If humanity had stayed divided into classes, kept in place by the law's iron rule, then when the time came, the ones who needed to leave would leave, and the ones who had to stay behind would stay. If this took place in the Ming or Qing Dynasties, then I'd leave, of course, and you'd stay behind. But that's not possible now."

"I wouldn't mind if you took off right now," she said.

Which was, in fact, the truth. They had reached a mutual parting of ways. He had been able to reach this point with all of his previous lovers, never early or late. He was especially pleased with his control over the pace this time. He had known her for just one week, and the breakup proceeded smoothly, as elegantly as a rocket discarding its booster.

He backtracked to an earlier topic: "Hey, it wasn't my idea to establish cosmic sociology, you know. Do you want to know whose it was? You're the only one I'm going to tell, so don't get scared."

"Whatever. I can't believe most of what you say anyway, apart from one thing."

"Uh … forget it. What one thing?"

"Come on and get up. I'm hungry." She picked up his clothes from the carpet and threw them on the bed.

They ate breakfast in the main restaurant of the hotel. Most of the occupants of the tables around them looked serious, and at times they could catch snatches of conversation. Luo Ji didn't want to listen, but he was like a candle on a summer night. The words, like insects crowding around the flame, kept working their way into his head: Escapism, socialized technology, ETO, transformation to a wartime economy, equatorial base, charter amendment, PDC, near-Earth primary warning and defensive perimeter, independent integrated mode …

"Our age has gotten really dull, hasn't it?" Luo Ji said. He stopped cutting his egg and set down his fork.

She nodded. "I agree. I saw a game show question on TV yesterday that was really moronic. Hands on buzzers." She pointed a fork at Luo Ji in imitation of the host. "One hundred and twenty years before the doomsday, your thirteenth generation will be alive. True or false?"

Luo Ji picked up his fork again and shook his head. "It's not going to be any generation of mine." He folded his hands as if in prayer. "My grand family line will die out with me."

She gave a dismissive snort. "You asked me which of your lines I believe. That's the one. You've said it before. That's the sort of person you are."

So that's why she was leaving him? He didn't want to ask about it for fear of complicating the issue, but she seemed to read his thoughts, and said, "I'm that sort of person too. It's really annoying to see certain things about yourself in other people."

"Particularly in a member of the opposite sex," Luo Ji said, nodding.

"But if you need to justify it, it's perfectly responsible behavior."

"What behavior? Not having kids? Of course it is." Luo Ji pointed his fork at the people around them discussing economic transformation. "You know what sort of lives their descendants will be living? They'll be spending their days slaving away in the shipyards—the spaceship yards—and then they'll line up at the canteen, bellies rumbling as they hold out their lunch pails waiting for that ladle of porridge … and when they're older, it'll be Uncle Sam Wants … no, Earth Wants You, and it's off to find glory in the army."

"It'll be better for the doomsday generation."

"Retiring to face doomsday. How miserable. And besides, that last generation's grandparents might not get enough to eat. Still, even that future's not going to come to pass. Just look at how stubborn the people of Earth are. I bet they resist till the end, at which point the real mystery is how they'll eventually die."

They left the hotel after their meal and emerged into the warm embrace of the morning sun. The air had a sweetness that was intoxicating.

"I've got to learn how to live. If I can't swing that, it'll be a damn shame," Luo Ji said as he watched the passing traffic.

"Neither of us is gonna learn," she said, her eyes searching for a taxi.

"Then…" Luo Ji looked inquiringly at her. Evidently there would be no need to remember her name.

"Good-bye." She nodded in his direction, and then they shook hands and shared a quick kiss.

"Maybe we'll meet again." He regretted this as soon as he said it. Everything had been fine up till this point, so why risk causing trouble? But his concern was unnecessary.

"I doubt it." She turned quickly as she spoke, sending the bag on her shoulder flying into the air, a detail that Luo Ji repeatedly called to mind afterward in an attempt to determine whether or not it had been deliberate. It was a distinctive LV bag, and he had seen her send it swinging while turning around many times before. But this time the bag swung straight at his face, and when he took a step backward to dodge it, he stumbled over the fire hydrant behind him and fell flat on his back.

That fall saved his life.

Meanwhile, the following was taking place on the street in front of them: Two cars collided head on, but before the noise of the impact had subsided, a Polo swerved to avoid the crash and came hurtling toward where the two of them were standing. Luo Ji's fall turned into a successful dodge. Only the front bumper of the Polo brushed one of his feet, the one that was still elevated, nudging his body into a ninety-degree turn on the ground so that he faced the back end of the car. He didn't hear the heavy thud of the other impact, but then he saw the woman's body soar over the top of the car and fall behind it on the road like a boneless rag doll. As it tumbled, the trail of blood it left behind on the ground seemed like it ought to mean something. As he stared at the bloody symbol, Luo Ji finally remembered her name.

* * *

Zhang Yuanchao's daughter-in-law was about to give birth. She had been moved into the delivery room while the rest of the family gathered in the waiting room outside, where a television was playing a video of mother and baby wellness information. It all gave him a feeling of warmth and humanity that he had never felt before, a lingering coziness of a past Golden Age being eroded by the ever worsening era of crisis.

Yang Jinwen came in. Zhang Yuanchao's first thought was that he was taking this opportunity to patch up their relationship, but Yang Jinwen's expression told him that wasn't the case. Without so much as a greeting, Yang Jinwen dragged him from the waiting room into the hallway. "Did you really buy into the escape fund?" he asked.

Zhang Yuanchao ignored him and turned to go, as if to say, That's none of your business.

"Look at this," Yang Jinwen said, handing him a newspaper. "It's today's." The top headline stood out in black before his eyes:

SPECIAL UN SESSION PASSES RESOLUTION 117, DECLARES ESCAPISM ILLEGAL

Zhang Yuanchao carefully read through the start of the article underneath:

By an overwhelming majority, a special session of the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution declaring Escapism a violation of international law. In strong language, the resolution condemned the division and turmoil that Escapism has created within human society, and described Escapism as a crime against humanity in the eyes of international law. The resolution called on member states to enact legislation as soon as possible to put a stop to Escapism.

In a statement, the Chinese delegate reiterated the stance of the Chinese government regarding Escapism and said that it firmly supports UN Resolution 117. He conveyed the Chinese government's pledge to take immediate action to establish and improve legislation, and to adopt effective measures to stop the spread of Escapism. He concluded by saying, "We must cherish the unity and solidarity of the international community in this time of crisis and uphold the principle, recognized by the international community, that all humanity has an equal right to survival. The Earth is the common home of its people, and we must not abandon her."

"Why … why are they doing this?" he stammered.

"Isn't it obvious? Put a little thought into it, and you'll realize that escape into the cosmos was never going to work. The critical question is who gets to leave, and who has to stay. This isn't ordinary inequality. It's a question of survival, and no matter who gets to leave—elites, the rich, or ordinary people—so long as some people get left behind, it means the collapse of humanity's fundamental value system and ethical bottom line. Human rights and equality have deep roots. Inequality of survival is the worst sort of inequality, and the people and countries left behind will never just sit and wait for death while others have a way out. There will be increasingly extreme confrontations between the two sides until there's world chaos, and then no one goes! The UN resolution is quite wise. How much did you spend, Lao Zhang?"

Zhang Yuanchao scrambled for his phone. He called Shi Xiaoming's number, but it was unreachable. His legs threatened to give out, and he slid down the wall to sit on the ground. He had spent 400,000 yuan7.

"Call the police! There's one thing that that Shi kid doesn't know: Lao Miao looked up his daddy's work unit. The scammer won't get away."

Zhang Yuanchao just sat there shaking his head. He said with a sigh, "Sure, we can find him, but the money's long gone. What'll I say to my family?"

There was the sound of crying, and then a nurse shouted, "Number nineteen. It's a boy!" Zhang Yuanchao bounded off into the waiting room as everything else suddenly became insignificant.

In the thirty minutes that he had been waiting, ten thousand new babies had come into the world, babies whose combined cries formed a tremendous chorus. Behind them was the Golden Age, the good times that began in the 1980s and ended with the Crisis. Ahead of them, humanity's arduous years were about to unfold.

* * *

All Luo Ji knew was that he was locked in a tiny basement room. The basement was deep, and he had felt the descent of the elevator (one of those rare old-style elevators with a manually operated lever) even as the mechanism confirmed his sensations, counting backward to negative ten. Ten levels below ground! Once again he took stock of his small room. The twin bed, simple furnishings, and an ancient wooden writing desk gave the place the look of a guard room, not a prison cell. Clearly no one had been here for quite some time, and although the bedclothes were new, the rest of the furniture was covered in dust and gave off a dank, musty smell.

The door opened and a stocky middle-aged man entered. He nodded wearily at Luo Ji. "Dr. Luo, I'm here to keep you company, but since you've just come over I don't expect you're climbing the walls just yet."

Just come over. The phrase grated—surely "sent down" would have been more accurate. Luo Ji's heart sank. His guess had been confirmed, it seemed: Although the men who had brought him here had been polite, it was clear he had been arrested.

"Are you a policeman?"

The man nodded. "Used to be. Name's Shi Qiang." He sat down on the bed and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. The smoke wouldn't have any place to dissipate in this sealed room, Luo Ji thought, but he didn't dare say anything. As if reading his mind, Shi Qiang looked around and said, "There ought to be a ventilation fan." Then he pulled a cord next to the door, and a fan started humming. It was pretty rare to see a pull-cord switch. Luo Ji also noticed an obsolete red rotary phone lying in a corner, covered in dust. Shi Qiang handed him a cigarette, which he accepted after a moment's hesitation.

When they had lit their cigarettes, Shi Qiang said, "It's early yet. Shall we chat?"

"Ask away," Luo Ji said, head down as he exhaled a cloud of smoke.

"Ask what?" Shi Qiang said, looking at Luo Ji in surprise.

Luo Ji jumped up from the bed and tossed the cigarette aside. "How can you suspect me? You've got to know it was just a traffic accident! The two cars collided, and then she was hit by the one behind them as it tried to avoid the crash. It's plain as day." He held out his hands, at a loss for words.

Shi Qiang raised his head and looked at him, his tired eyes suddenly alert, as if an invisible malice, honed with practice, were hidden behind the smile he usually wore. "You said that, not me. My superiors don't want me to say anything more, and I don't know anything more. To think I was worried we wouldn't have anything to talk about. Come, sit down."

Luo Ji didn't sit down. He got in Shi Qiang's face and continued: "I'd only known her for a week. We met at a bar next to the university, and when the accident happened I couldn't even remember her name. Tell me, what could there possibly have been between us to lead your thoughts in that direction?"

"You couldn't even remember her name? No wonder you didn't care at all when she died. You're pretty much the same as another genius I know." He chuckled. "The wonderful life of Dr. Luo, meeting a new woman every time you turn around. And what women they are!"

"Is that a crime?"

"Of course not. I'm just jealous. I've got one rule in my work: Never make moral judgments. The guys I've got to deal with, they're the real deal. If I go and nag them, 'Look at what you've done! Think about your parents, and about society…' and so on, I might as well be slapping them across the face."

"I'd rather talk about her, Officer Shi. Do you really believe I killed her?"

"Look at you, bringing up the issue on your own. Saying you may have killed her, even. We're just having a casual chat. What's your hurry? You're new at this, that much is clear."

Luo Ji stared at Shi Qiang, and for a moment the hum of the fan was the only audible sound. Then he cackled and picked up his cigarette. "Luo, my man," Shi Qiang said. "Luo, my boy. Destiny's brought us together. You know, I've been involved in sixteen cases that ended in the death penalty. I personally escorted nine of them."

Luo Ji handed a cigarette to Shi Qiang. "I'm not going to let you escort me. So, if you'll be so good as to notify my lawyer."

"Excellent, my boy," Shi Qiang said, clapping Luo Ji on the shoulder. "Decisiveness is a trait I admire." Then he drew up close to him and said, through a cloud of smoke, "You can come across all sorts of things, but what's happened to you is really…" He trailed off. "Actually, I'm here to help. You know how the joke goes: On the way to the execution ground, a condemned criminal complained that it was going to rain, and the executioner said, 'What have you got to worry about? We're the ones who've got to go back through it!' That's the attitude you and I ought to have for what comes next. Well, then. There's still some time before we get going. Might as well get some sleep."

"Get going?" Again, Luo Ji stared at Shi Qiang.

There was a knock at the door, and then a keen-eyed young man entered and dropped a suitcase on the ground. "Captain Shi, it's been moved ahead. We're leaving now."

* * *

Zhang Beihai gently pushed open the door to his father's hospital room. Half-reclining against a pillow on the bed, his father looked better than he had imagined. The golden rays of the setting sun that shone in through the window gave his face some color and made him look less like a man at death's door. Zhang Beihai set his hat on the coatrack by the door and took a seat beside his father's bed. He didn't ask about his condition, because the old soldier would give him a straight answer, and he didn't want a straight answer.

"Dad, I've joined the space force."

His father nodded but said nothing. For father and son, the silence conveyed more information than words. Growing up, his father had used silence rather than speech to educate him, and words were merely the punctuation between the silences. It was his silent father who had made him into the man he was today.

"Just like you thought, they're building the space fleet on a naval foundation. They believe space warfare will be closest in form and theory to naval warfare."

His father nodded. "Very good."

"So what should I do?"

I've finally asked it, Dad. The question I spent a sleepless night gathering the resolve to ask. I hesitated just now when I saw you, because I know it's the question that will disappoint you the most. I remember when I finished grad school and joined the fleet as a cadet lieutenant, you told me, "Beihai, you've got a long way to go. I say that because I can still easily understand you, and being understandable to me means that your mind is still too simple, not subtle enough. On the day I can no longer read you or figure you out, but you can easily understand me, that's when you'll finally have grown up." And then I grew up like you said, and you could no longer so easily understand your son. I know you must have felt at least some sorrow at that. But your son is indeed becoming the kind of person you'd hoped for, someone not particularly likeable, but capable of succeeding in the complicated and dangerous realm of the navy. For me to ask this question surely means that the training you've given me for three decades has failed at the crucial juncture. But Dad, tell me anyway. Your son is not as great as you imagine. Tell me, just this once.

"Think some more," his father said.

Fine, Dad. You've given me an answer. They've told me quite a lot, those three words, more than could be said in thirty thousand. Believe me, I'm listening to them with my whole heart, but I still need you to be clearer, because this is far too important.

"And after I've thought?" Zhang Beihai asked, gripping the bedsheet with both hands. His palms and forehead were laced with sweat.

Dad, forgive me. If I disappointed you the last time, then let me go further, go back to being a kid once more.

"Beihai, all I can say is to think long and hard first," his father replied.

Thank you, Dad. You've made it very clear, and I understand.

Zhang Beihai let go of the sheet and grasped his father's bony hand. "Dad, I'm not going to sea anymore. I'll come and see you all the time."

His father smiled but shook his head: "This isn't anything serious. Concentrate on your work."

They spoke for a while longer, first of family matters, and then about the establishment of the space force, with his father contributing lots of ideas of his own, including advice for Zhang Beihai's future work. They imagined the shape and size of space battleships, debated the weaponry of space warfare, and even whether Mahan's theory of sea power applied to space battles.…

But there was little significance in their conversation, just father and son taking a verbal stroll together. The significance was in the three lines their hearts exchanged:

"Think some more."

"And after I've thought?"

"Beihai, all I can say is to think long and hard first."

Zhang Beihai said good-bye to his father. As he was leaving the room, he turned back at the door to look at him, shrouded in shadow now that the light of the setting sun had departed. His eyes pierced the shadows and noticed one last scrap of illumination on the wall opposite. Although it was about to fade, this was the time when the setting sun was at its most beautiful. The last rays of sunlight shone, too, on the waves that rolled endlessly on the angry ocean and in shafts of light that pierced the jumbled clouds in the west and cast enormous golden bands on the water's surface like petals fallen from heaven. Beyond the petals, dark clouds loomed over a world black as night as a thunderstorm hung between heaven and earth like the curtain of the gods, and only periodic lightning lit the snowlike spray thrown up by the waves. In one golden band, a destroyer struggled to lift its prow from the trough, and then broke through the wall of the wave with a thunderous crash, the spray greedily absorbing the light like a giant roc stretching enormous glittering wings to the sky.

Zhang Beihai put on his cap, which bore the insignia of the Chinese Space Force. He said to himself, Dad, we think alike. This is my good fortune. I won't bring you glory, but I'll give you rest.

* * *

"Mr. Luo, please change into this," said the young man, who knelt down to open a suitcase upon entering the room. Though the man seemed entirely polite, Luo Ji couldn't shake a certain discomfort, like he had swallowed a fly. But when he saw the clothing the man took out, he realized that he wouldn't be wearing a convict's uniform: It looked like an ordinary brown jacket. He took it and inspected the thick material. Shi Qiang and the young man put on similar jackets in different colors.

"Put it on. It's comfortable and it breathes. Not like the old stuff we used to wear, which was sticky as hell," Shi Qiang said.

"Bulletproof," the young man said.

Who would want to kill me? Luo Ji thought as he changed jackets.

The three of them left the room and followed the corridor to the elevator. The ceiling was lined with rectangular metal ductwork and they passed several heavy, sealed doorways. Luo Ji noticed a faint slogan on one of the mottled walls. Only part of it was visible, but he knew the whole slogan: "Dig deep tunnels, keep vast stores of grain, don't seek hegemony."8

"Civil Air Defense?" he asked.

"Not the ordinary kind. Defense against the atom bomb, but it's obsolete now. Back in the day, you had to be someone special to get in here."

"So we're at … the Western Hills?" Luo Ji asked, but Shi Qiang and the young man did not reply. Luo Ji had heard stories about the secret command center. They entered the old-style elevator and began to ascend immediately, accompanied by a tremendous scraping. The operator was a People's Armed Police soldier armed with a submachine gun. This seemed to be his first time at this job, and he had to fiddle with the controls a bit before the elevator finally stopped at floor -1.

Exiting the elevator, Luo Ji saw that they were in a large hall with a low ceiling, like an underground parking garage. A number of different cars were parked here, some of them with engines on, filling the air with noxious exhaust. People were standing beside the lines of cars or walking among them. With only one light in a distant corner turned on, the place was dim and the people dark shadows. Only when they passed the lamplight did Luo Ji see that they were fully armed soldiers. Some were shouting into radios, trying to be heard over the engine noise. Their voices sounded tense.

Shi Qiang led Luo Ji through the two lines of cars, with the young man close behind. The lamplight and red taillights shining though the gaps in the cars cast an ever-changing pattern of color on Shi Qiang's body and reminded Luo Ji of the dim bar where he had met the woman.

Shi Qiang led Luo Ji to one car, opened the door, and had him get in. The car was roomy, but the edges of its abnormally tiny windows revealed the thickness of the car's body. A reinforced vehicle with tinted glass in its small windows, probably as an antibomb measure. The car door was ajar, and Luo Ji could hear Shi Qiang and the young man talking.

"Captain Shi, they called just now to say they've been over the route. All guard positions have been set up."

"The route is too complicated. We've only been able to do a couple of quick runs through the whole thing. Not enough for comfort. And about the guard positions—it's like I said, you've got to think like them. If you were on their side, where would you be hiding? Consult with the experts from the People's Armed Police again. Hey, what's the plan for the handoff?"

"They didn't say."

Shi Qiang raised his voice. "Morons. They can't leave such an important part up in the air."

"Captain Shi, it looks like the brass want us to follow along the entire way."

"I can follow along my entire life, but since there's got to be a handoff once we're there, there needs to be a clear demarcation of responsibilities. There's got to be a line. Anything that happens before it is on us, and afterward on them."

"They didn't say…" The young man sounded uncomfortable.

"Zheng, I know you've been feeling sorry for yourself since Chang Weisi got promoted. Hell, it's like we don't even exist to his former subordinates. But we should have some self-respect. Who the fuck are they? Have they been under fire, or have they ever fired at anyone? That crew used so many high-tech tricks in the last operation it was like a circus. They even brought out the airborne early warning system. But in the end, who did they use to find the meeting place? Us. That won us some cred. Zheng, it took a lot of convincing to get the lot of you over here, but I wonder if that might not end up causing you harm."

"Captain Shi, don't say that."

"It's a troubled world. Do you get that? Morality isn't what it used to be. Everyone foists their bad luck off onto other people, so you've got to be on your guard.… I'm going on like this because I'm worried about how long I'm going to last. I'm afraid that all of it's going to land in your lap."

"Captain Shi, you've really got to think about your illness. Didn't the higher-ups schedule you for hibernation?"

"I've got to get lots of things taken care of first. Family, work. And do you think I'm not worried about the lot of you here?"

"Don't worry about us. With your condition, you can't put it off. Your teeth were bleeding out again this morning."

"That's nothing. I've got good luck. You should know. Three of the guns I've been shot at with were duds."

The cars at one end of the hall were beginning to pull out. Shi Qiang got in and closed the door, and when the neighboring car started to move, their car followed. Shi Qiang pulled the curtains closed on either side, and the opaque divider between the back and front seats totally obscured Luo Ji's view of the outside. As they rode, Shi Qiang's radio chirped endlessly, but Luo Ji couldn't make out the comments Shi Qiang was replying to in clipped sentences.

When they had ridden a short way, Luo Ji said to Shi Qiang, "Things are more complicated than you said."

"That's right. Everything's complicated now," Shi Qiang said perfunctorily, his attention still focused on the radio. They spoke no more for the rest of the trip.

The ride was smooth and unbroken, and after about an hour they came to a stop.

When Shi Qiang got out of the car, he motioned to Luo Ji to wait inside, and then closed the door. Luo Ji heard a rumbling that seemed to come from above the vehicle. After a few minutes, Shi Qiang opened the door again and had Luo Ji get out, at which point he realized they were at an airport. The rumbling had turned thunderous. He looked up to see two helicopters hovering overhead, oriented in opposite directions like they were monitoring the open area. In front of him was a large aircraft that looked like a passenger plane, except that there was no insignia on any part he could see. An airstair stood in front of the car door, and Shi Qiang and Luo Ji took it up to the aircraft. When Luo Ji glanced back out the door after they entered, the first thing that caught his eye were the fighter jets lined up on a distant apron, which informed him that this wasn't a civilian airport. Closer in, he saw the cars from their convoy and the soldiers that had exited their vehicles in a ring around the plane. The sun was setting, casting a long shadow down the runway ahead of the plane, like a giant exclamation point.

Luo Ji and Shi Qiang entered the cabin. Three men in black suits welcomed them and took them past the forward cabin, which was totally empty but resembled a passenger plane with four rows of seats. In the middle cabin, Luo Ji saw a fairly spacious office, and another suite through whose half-open door he glimpsed a bedroom. The furnishings were unremarkable but neat and orderly, and apart from the green safety belts on the sofa and chairs you wouldn't have known you were on a plane. Luo Ji knew that there were very few charter planes of this kind in the country.

Two of the three men who led them in vanished through a door to the rear cabin, leaving behind the youngest one, who said, "You can sit anywhere you like, but you need to buckle up, not just on takeoff and landing but throughout the entire flight. If you sleep, then buckle the sleep-belt too. Nothing that's not fixed in place can be left out in the open. Stay in your seat or bunk at all times, and if you must move about, please inform the captain first. This is an intercom button. There's one at every seat and every bunk. Hold it down to talk. If there's anything you need, please use it to call us at any time."

Luo Ji looked in confusion at Shi Qiang, who said, "The plane may execute some special maneuvers."

The man nodded. "Correct. Please let me know if you have any problems. Call me Xiao Zhang. I'll bring you dinner when we're in the air."

After Xiao Zhang left, Luo Ji and Shi Qiang sat on the sofa and fastened their seatbelts. Luo Ji looked about him. Apart from the round windows and the slightly curved walls they were set into, the room seemed so conventional and familiar that it felt a little strange to be wearing seatbelts in an ordinary office. But soon the noise and vibration of the engine reminded him he was aboard a plane taxiing down the runway, and a few minutes later the engine noise changed and the two of them were pressed back into the sofa. Then the ground vibrations disappeared and the office floor took on a slant. As the plane climbed, the sun, which had already dipped below the ground, returned through the window, just as the same sun had sent the day's final rays of sunlight into the hospital room of Zhang Beihai's father just ten minutes before.

* * *

By the time Luo Ji's plane reached the coast, Wu Yue and Zhang Beihai were once again looking over the unfinished Tang, ten thousand meters below. This was the closest he would ever get to the two soldiers.

As on their previous visit, Tang's enormous frame was shrouded in the dim light of dusk. The showers of sparks on the hull didn't seem quite as plentiful, and the lamps illuminating the ship had dimmed substantially. And this time, Wu Yue and Zhang Beihai no longer belonged to the navy.

"I heard the General Armaments Department has decided to terminate the Tang project," Zhang Beihai said.

"What's that got to do with us?" Wu Yue said coldly, his eyes sweeping from Tang to the last bits of sunset in the west.

"You've been in a bad mood since joining the space force."

"You should know the reason. You can always read my thoughts, sometimes more clearly than I can, and then you remind me what it is I'm really thinking about."

Zhang Beihai turned to Wu Yue. "You're depressed about joining what's inevitably a losing war. You're jealous of that final generation that will be young enough to fight in the space force at the end and be buried in the cosmos together with their fleet. Devoting a lifetime of effort to a hopeless endeavor is hard for you to accept."

"Do you have any advice?"

"No. Technofetishism and technological triumphalism are deeply rooted in your mind, and I learned long ago that I can't change you. I can only try to minimize the harm that sort of thinking can cause. Besides, I don't think it's impossible for humanity to win this war."

Wu Yue dropped his cold mask and met Zhang Beihai's gaze. "Beihai, you used to be a practical person. You opposed building Tang, and on multiple occasions, on the record, voiced doubts about building a blue-water navy, arguing that it was incompatible with our national strength. You believe that our naval forces ought to remain in coastal waters under the support and protection of shore-based firepower, an idea ridiculed as a turtle-shell strategy by the young hotheads, but you've persisted in it.… So where do you get your confidence in a space victory from now? Do you really believe that wooden boats can sink an aircraft carrier?"

"After independence, the newly founded navy used wooden boats to sink Nationalist destroyers. And even earlier, there were times when our army used cavalry to defeat tanks."

"You can't seriously think those miracles count as ordinary military theory."

"On this battlefield, terrestrial civilization won't need to follow commonplace, ordinary military theory." Zhang Beihai held up a finger. "One exception is sufficient."

Wu Yue shot him a mocking smile. "I'd like to hear how you'll achieve this exception."

"I don't know anything about space warfare, of course, but if you want to compare it to a wooden boat versus a carrier, then I think it's just a matter of having the courage to act and the confidence in a victory. A wooden boat could carry a small squad of divers who'll wait in the carrier's path. When the enemy draws near, they'll dive in and the boat will leave. Then when the carrier comes close, they'll attach a bomb to the bottom of the hull and sink the carrier.… Of course this would be exceedingly difficult, but it's not impossible."

Wu Yue nodded. "Not bad. People have tried it before. In the Second World War, the British did that as part of the effort to sink the Tirpitz, only they used a minisub. In the 1980s, during the Malvinas War, a few Argentine special forces soldiers took Italian limpet mines into Spain and attempted to blow up a British warship docked in the harbor at Gibraltar. You know what happened to them."

"But what we have is not just a small wooden boat. A one- or two-thousand-ton nuclear bomb can be made small enough for one or two divers to take underwater, and when it's attached to the underside of a carrier, it won't just sink it, it'll blow the whole carrier to smithereens."

"Sometimes you've got a fantastic imagination," Wu Yue said with a smile.

"I've got confidence in our victory." Zhang Beihai looked out at Tang, the distant shower of welding sparks reflected in his pupils like two small flames.

Wu Yue too looked out at Tang, and a new vision took hold of him: The ship was no longer a ruined ancient fortress but a prehistoric cliff with a multitude of deep caves carved into it, and the scattered sparks were flickering firelight in those caves.

* * *

After takeoff and all through dinner, Luo Ji refrained from asking Shi Qiang anything about where they were headed, or what exactly had happened, reasoning that if Shi Qiang was going to tell him anything, he would already have come out with it. Once, he unbuckled his seat belt and got up to look out the cabin window, even though he knew he would see nothing through the darkness, but Shi Qiang followed him and pulled down the window shade, saying that there was nothing to see out there.

"Why don't we chat for a while longer, and then go to sleep. What do you say?" asked Shi Qiang as he drew out a cigarette, then quickly put it back, remembering he was on a plane.

"Sleep? So this is a long flight?"

"Who cares? It's a plane with beds. I say we take advantage of them."

"You're only responsible for taking me to my destination, right?"

"What are you complaining for? We've still got to make the return trip!" Shi Qiang grinned broadly, as if immensely pleased with himself. Cutting humor seemed to give him pleasure. But then he turned more serious: "I don't know much more about your trip than you do. Besides, it's not yet time for me to tell you anything. Take it easy. There'll be someone at the handoff to explain things to you."

"I've been guessing for hours, but I've only come up with one possible explanation."

"Let me hear it, and let's see if it's the same as what I'm thinking."

"The woman who died was an ordinary person, so that means her social or family connections had to be something special." Luo Ji didn't know anything about her family, just like his previous lovers. He wasn't interested, and forgot whatever they told him.

"Who? Oh, that lover of yours? Put her out of your mind, since you don't care anyway. Or, if you want, why not compare her name and face to some famous figures?"

Luo Ji's mind flipped through comparisons, but nothing matched.

"Luo, my man, can you bluff?" Shi Qiang asked. Luo had noticed a pattern in how he addressed him. When he was joking, he called him "my boy," but when he was a little more serious, it was "my man."

"Do I need to bluff against someone?"

"Of course you do.… So how about I teach you how to bluff? Of course, I'm not a master of it either. My work is more along the lines of breaking scams. Here, I'll tell you a few tricks for the interrogation room. You might find it useful later to figure out what's going on. Naturally, these are just the most basic, common ones. It's hard to explain anything more complicated. We'll start with the gentlest one, which happens to be the simplest: The List. That means drawing up a whole list of questions connected to the case, and then asking them one by one and recording the subject's answers, and then starting over again from the top and recording those answers too. Questions can be asked repeatedly if necessary, and then you can compare the transcripts of the answers and find out if the subject is lying about something, since the answers will be different every time. The technique is simple, but don't look down your nose at it. No one who hasn't undergone training in counter-interrogation techniques will be able to pass it, so the most effective way of dealing with The List is simply to remain silent." Shi Qiang fiddled unconsciously with his cigarette as he spoke, but then put it away again.

"Ask them. It's a charter flight, so they ought to allow smoking," Luo Ji said.

Shi Qiang had grown excited while speaking and seemed a little put out at Luo Ji's interruption. It occurred to Luo Ji that he might be serious, or else he had an odd sense of humor. Shi Qiang pressed the red intercom button beside the sofa, and Xiao Zhang told him he could do what he liked. So the two of them lit up.

"The next technique is only half-gentle. You can reach the ashtray—it's fixed in place, you've just got to pull it up. Right. This technique is called Black and White. It requires the cooperation of lots of people and is a little more complicated. First, the bad cops come out, at least two of them on most occasions, and they're really nasty to you. Some of them verbally and others physically, but they're all mean. There's a strategy to it: not just to make you afraid, but more importantly to make you feel alone, to make you feel like the whole world wants to consume you. Then the good cop comes out, just one, and he's got a kind face, and he stops the bad cops and tells them that you're a human being, that you've got rights, so how can they treat you that way? The bad cops tell him to beat it, that he's affecting their work. The good cop persists, and says, 'You can't do this!' The bad cops say, 'I always knew you didn't have the stones for this work. If you can't handle it, then get lost.' The good cop shields you with his body, and says, 'I'm going to protect his rights, and protect justice under the law!' The bad cops say, 'Tomorrow you're out of here, just you wait!' Then they leave in a huff. So it's just the two of you left, and the good cop wipes off your blood and sweat and tells you not to be afraid, and that you have the right to be silent! Then, as you can imagine, he becomes your one friend in the world, so when he draws you out, you aren't silent anymore.… This technique is most effective against intellectuals, but it differs from The List in that it loses its effect when you're aware of it."

He spoke animatedly and seemed about to take off his seat belt and stand up. Luo Ji was seized by dread and despair and felt as if he had fallen into an ice pit. Noticing his discomfort, Shi Qiang stopped. "Well, then, let's not talk about interrogation, even if it might be useful to you. You can't take it in all at once. Besides, I was going to tell you how to trick people, so just remember this: Real shrewdness means not letting any shrewdness show. It's not like in the movies. The truly astute don't sit in the shadows all day striking a pose. They don't show off that they're using their brains. They look all carefree and innocent. Some of them are tacky and mawkish, others careless and unserious. What's critical is not to let others think you're a person of interest. Let them look down on you or dismiss you and they won't feel you're an obstacle. You're just a broom in the corner. The pinnacle of this is to make them not notice you at all, as if you don't exist until the moment right before they die at your hands."

"Will I ever have the need or opportunity to become that sort of person?" Luo Ji broke in to ask.

"Like I said, I know no more about this than you do. But I've got a premonition that you need to become such a person. Luo, my man, you've got to!" Shi Qiang grew excited again and clapped him on the shoulder with enough force to make him wince.

Then they sat in silence watching the clouds of smoke curl upward to the ceiling, where they were sucked away into a crack.

"Screw it. Let's hit the sack," Shi Qiang said as he ground out his cigarette in the ashtray. He shook his head with a smile. "I've been going on like an idiot. When you think back on this, don't laugh at me."

In the bedroom, Luo Ji took off his bulletproof jacket and wrapped himself in the safety sleeping bag. Shi Qiang helped him tighten the straps holding it to the bed, and then set down a small vial on the bedside cabinet.

"Sleeping pills. Take them if you can't sleep. I asked for alcohol, but they said there isn't any."

Shi Qiang reminded Luo Ji that he should notify the captain before getting out of bed, then turned to leave.

"Officer Shi," Luo Ji called after him.

At the door, Shi Qiang half-turned back to look at him. "I'm not any sort of cop. The police aren't involved in this thing. Everyone calls me Da Shi."

"Well then, Da Shi, when we were talking just now, I noticed the first thing you said. Or, I guess, the first thing you said in reply to me. I said, 'the woman,' and you didn't realize for a moment who I was talking about. That means that she's not a major part of this case."

"You're one of the calmest people I've ever met."

"The calmness comes from cynicism. There's not much in the world that can make me care."

"Whatever it is, I've never seen someone who could stay calm in a situation like this. Forget all that stuff I said before. I just like to kid around about things."

"You're just looking for something to hold my attention so that you can smoothly complete your mission."

"If I've set your imagination going, I apologize."

"What do you think I should think about now?"

"In my experience, any thinking is liable to go off the rails. You should just go to sleep."

Shi Qiang left. After he closed the door, the room was dark except for a small red lamp at the head of the bed. The ever-present background rumble of the engine was particularly conspicuous, as if the infinite night sky on the other side of the wall was emitting a deep hum.

Then Luo Ji felt that it wasn't an illusion, that the sound really was coming from some far-off place outside. He unbuckled the sleeping bag and crawled out, then pushed up the shade over the window by the bed. Outside, the moon was shining on a sea of clouds, a vast ocean of silver. Luo Ji realized that above the clouds were other things shining with a silver light, four ramrod-straight lines that caught the eye against the backdrop of the night sky. They were extending at the same speed as the plane, and their trailing ends faded out and blended into the night like four silver swords flying over the clouds. Luo Ji looked back at the tips and noticed that the silver lines were being drawn out by four objects with a metallic glint. Four fighter jets. It wasn't hard to guess that another four were on the other side of the plane.

Luo Ji pulled down the shade and burrowed back into the sleeping bag. He closed his eyes and willed his mind to relax. He didn't want to sleep, but to wake up from his dream.

* * *