Another sunset.
The sun, half hidden behind the mountains, dimmed gradually. The cantata of Planet Blue’s life continued as usual. Everything looked pretty much as it did that evening of conversation sixty-one Planet Blue years ago—about the same as forty Earth years.
Our protagonists, however, were no longer young.
Silver-haired 艾 AA, wrapped in a woven-grass mat and wearing a peaceful smile on her wrinkled face, lay unmoving in a long hole dug in the ground. She took up the left side of the hole, leaving the right side empty. Yun Tianming, his back bent with age, sat next to the grave, deep in thought.
This morning, his wife had finally shuffled off this mortal coil and entered the long sleep, and he was about to join her.
He recalled the first time he had seen her, so many years ago; he relived their first embrace, that night when they first revealed their hearts to each other, the years after filled with joy and labor; he recited the words they had carved into the cliffs last year: “We lived a happy life together.”
He remembered a benediction from years earlier, so long ago that it seemed to come from the beginning of history: “I wish you a happy life.”
Have I lived a happy life?
After a lonely childhood and youth, after the time of despair in the hospital, after an inhuman existence as a frozen brain plunging through the depths of space, he had endured decades of torture aboard the Trisolaran Fleet, a long nightmare that lasted tens of thousands of subjective years. Then came the even more excruciating experience of watching helplessly as his people were hunted to the verge of extinction. Finally, with the help of that magical ring, he left the Trisolarans and came to this star, where he and Cheng Xin had promised to meet.
But it was a different woman who greeted him. He learned of the complicated web fate had woven between them, fell in love with her, and then spent the second half of his life by her side.
Measured by material standards, the second half of his life wasn’t happy, either. They spent the first two years of their time together on Planet Blue in relative ease, but in the third year, the magical ring vanished.
The “ring” wasn’t solid; it was made of a glowing strand of insubstantial fiber. Like that mini-universe, the ring had been a gift from the Spirit.
Find the Lurker, and counter it … the ring will help you …
When he woke from a last nightmare involving the Spirit, he deciphered a few more of the ideabstractions planted in his mind by the Spirit. Perhaps triggered by his awakening mind, the magical ring suddenly appeared on his finger. Its silvery glow was like a memory of the Spirit itself.
He had spent several days figuring out how to operate the ring. It was controlled by his mind alone, and exhibited signs of being powered by incredible technologies. For example, the ring could open the entrance to the mini-universe; decipher and control the computer systems on the Trisolaran ship; modify the structure of the ship to endow it with unparalleled speed and other features; materialize any small objects he desired … In the end, he discovered only a tiny portion of its full capabilities. He knew that to unlock the full potential of the ring would require speaking to it in ideabstractions, an ability that he lacked.
That the Spirit had given him such a powerful tool was puzzling. Sure, the Spirit itself was probably just an artificial intelligence that needed his help to fight the mysterious Lurker. But why did the Spirit think he could shoulder such a burden? How could a single human being, not much more significant than a wisp of ionized gas in the grand universe, be expected to counter a devil that had destroyed godlike civilizations? It was absurd.
Slowly, more locked-away memories came back. Back then, as he lay half crazed, half comatose, he hadn’t agreed to the Spirit’s request. Even in his semiconscious state, he wasn’t so deluded as to think he could war against such a powerful dark civilization. He recalled the conversation between them.
Why are you telling me these things? I have no wish to be a Seeker.
I’m running out of time. With each passing second, I grow weaker. This universe is too sparsely populated. After I leave you, I don’t know when I’ll meet another life suitable for the task.
I’m not suitable. It’s an impossible task! I refuse.
I don’t need your assent.
I don’t understand …
You’ll understand eventually.
He had never understood what the Spirit meant. Once, he had thought that the Spirit had seen something deep in his mind suggesting that he would eventually agree to this impossible mission. By the time he finally left the Trisolarans behind, crossing the galaxy in his lightspeed ship, he had been full of courage and idealism, vowing to destroy this evil cosmic Satan. But in the end, the black domain trapped him on this tiny planet, and he had lost all will to fight, hoping only to find some happiness in the rest of his life with his beloved.
Maybe his change of mind was the reason the magical ring had disappeared? Or maybe something in this black domain planetary system defused the ring’s power? After all, E=mc2. If the speed of light decayed to only a few kilometers per second, perhaps energy was also greatly reduced. Tianming was no theoretical physicist and couldn’t work out the answer for himself. But in this world where light was incredibly slow, anything could happen. Even the all-knowing Spirit probably couldn’t have predicted everything.
The same phenomenon that took away the ring’s power was probably also responsible for draining all the power from his spaceship. After the disappearance of the ring, he and AA had no more access to advanced technology. For the last few decades, they had lived a preindustrial, no, almost a Stone Age existence.
Their only way out would have been to enter the mini-universe, but they had sealed off that path themselves.
Many years later, when Cheng Xin landed on this planet, her guesses regarding the life of Tianming and AA were partially correct. At first, AA refused to enter the mini-universe. After hearing Tianming’s story, the small universe seemed to her more like a tomb than a gift. She didn’t want to cross an ocean of tens of billions of years to witness the end of the universe. She had the premonition that if they entered the mini-universe, Tianming would be obsessed with the Spirit’s mission and go to the end of all that is known and unknown to fight against the Lurker and save this dimension-reduced cosmos. She refused to go in because she didn’t wish to see the man she loved accept an impossible task and collapse under the weight of failure.
Tianming, of course, couldn’t abandon her and enter the mini-universe by himself. And so they waited one day, then another.
Later, after the ring on Tianming’s finger vanished, it was impossible for AA to enter the mini-universe at all. The ring was the only way for Tianming to alter the entrance restrictions, and only he and Cheng Xin were authorized. AA would forever be kept out.
He thought it might be possible for him to enter the mini-universe and alter the authorization from within, but he dared not leave AA for even one moment. He knew that time flowed inside the mini-universe independently of the grand universe, and even if he came back out as soon as he entered, millions of years might have already passed. Waiting by the entrance for him, AA would have long turned to dust.
He couldn’t abandon her, and he feared being alone even more. The only choice was for them to grow old together on the planet.
In the third year of their time on Planet Blue, AA became pregnant. Without the protection of the magical ring, it was very difficult to ensure a healthy pregnancy. After two months, AA suffered a miscarriage; she lost so much blood that it was a miracle she survived. The experience injured her, and she couldn’t get pregnant after that.
Tianming thought this was a blessing in disguise. If they had children, without access to advanced technology, it would have been difficult for them to thrive on this desolate planet. Moreover, they would have to resort to sibling incest to reproduce, and genetic defects would accumulate. He could just imagine how, after a few generations, their descendants would have lost all traces of civilization and lived a nasty, brutish life no different from beasts. He shuddered at the very prospect.
And since he knew that several hundred light-years away, Galactic humans—the fortunate descendants of the crew of Gravity—were continuing and extending human civilization in new colonies, he didn’t feel that he had the duty of ensuring the survival of the species.
He and AA had loved each other and lived a life together. Was it a happy life?
Materially, they had lived like the most primitive tribes. Spiritually, their days had been filled with pain and terror: the terror of losing the other and having to go on, alone. When sleeping, they clutched each other; when awake, they never let the other out of sight. Even not seeing the other person for a few moments was a cause for panic; even the smallest cold in the other person felt like knives twisting in the heart. There was no seven-year itch in their marriage; each day, they gazed at each other’s faces in tenderness, no matter how wrinkled their skin grew or how white their hair turned, because they knew that each look might be the last.
Yet the pain and terror were also mixed with indescribable tenderness and sweetness. There was no love in the universe, no romance in the galaxy, that could compare to theirs.
Yes, they had lived a happy life.
But the last day had come. This morning, after AA fell asleep in his lap, she did not wake up again. She died peacefully, with a smile softening her face. He didn’t feel much sadness, knowing he was going to follow her soon.
There was nothing holding him to this world anymore. He should have died long ago—seven centuries earlier, to be exact, in that euthanasia room. He had been granted a reprieve of seven hundred years and lived a longer life than anyone, Cheng Xin excepted.
The only person who loves me in this world is dead. There’s nothing for me here.
For a few moments he had the thought of entering the mini-universe to get a look at that mysterious shelter from the ravages of time. But an old man’s fear seized him, and he was terrified at the thought of being parted from his wife in time and space, of dying alone at the end of the universe, not even having his wife’s corpse to comfort him. He was an old, dying man, weak, powerless. There was nothing he could do in the mini-universe. He wanted to go in peace. Curiosity died in him; he already knew too much.
He knew what the end of the universe would look like. Millions of glowing galaxies would flatten into a magnificent scroll, which would roll up into an endless silvery thread, which would shrink into a bright dot, and then wink out. Even the darkness would then vanish. There was nothing after “the end,” nothing.
He saw the future of the universe: There was no heat death, no big crunch, and certainly no new big bang. The universe would become nothing and disappear into the void. This was the truth about dimension reduction: The destruction of every dimension devoured an infinite amount of matter and energy, leading to nothingness.
Vanity of vanities; all is vanity.
He remembered a poem he read in college, a long time ago:
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
None of this had anything to do with him. In a few hours, he would join the meaninglessness that outlasts all, and no one would even be around to whimper for him.
Why worry about dusting
When the mirror is nothing?1
To bury AA and himself, Tianming spent the whole afternoon digging a grave. He was too old for such hard labor, and he was soon drenched in sweat and panting heavily, and he had to take many breaks. He thought of simply falling down where he was, but the thought of dying without a grave still seemed wrong to his human habits, even if he was only benefiting the worms of Planet Blue.
The sun sank in the west, and the fiery glow faded. Finally, the light went out. It was time.
Holding a snipped lock of 艾 AA’s hair in his left hand, Tianming crawled into the grave next to AA. With his right hand, he brushed the earth piled at the sides back into the grave to cover their lower bodies. Finally, with trembling hands, he took out a rusty piece of metal that he had taken from his rusty old spaceship.
He gazed up at the sky, where a few cold, bright stars winked from the gloom. None of them was the Sun, which had been extinguished more than three hundred years ago. As a young man, he had never thought the Sun would die before him.
But he also saw a twinkling, moving, silver speck, which he knew was Cheng Xin and Guan Yifan’s ship. For the last few decades, he often saw the ship orbiting their planet at this black domain’s reduced lightspeed. For them, these last few decades would be only a few minutes, or maybe even a few seconds.
One day, they’d land on Planet Blue, and maybe they’d discover the mini-universe. Would they enter and wait for the end of the universe?
Would they also become husband and wife and live out the rest of their lives like AA and he had?
No matter. By then even his bones would have turned to dust. He hoped that they would see the words AA and he had carved on the rocks.
It was time. With his last ounce of strength, he plunged the jagged piece of metal into his carotid artery and pulled it out. Blood burst from his body, carrying his life force into the soil of this planet.
They would become a part of this world forever.
Before losing consciousness, Tianming smiled at the sky. He gave his blessing to the woman he had once loved with all his heart and soul, a blessing she would never hear.
“I wish you a happy life.”
The end.
*
Vanity of vanities; all is vanity.
In the beginning was the void, and he was one with the void. But in the void, a voice from a long-ago memory appeared, growing gradually clearer.
… flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
He seemed to be in the church that his mother took him to occasionally in his childhood. Somehow, he had fallen asleep during the minister’s droning sermon. How long had he been asleep? Half an hour? Why didn’t his mother wake him?
There was light. The shapeless void turned into substantive darkness, and then the light pierced the darkness and diluted it. His hazy, confused mind still churning, he felt light filter through his eyelids. Something was shining at him.
He opened his eyes. The traces of his dream faded away. He found himself in a hole in the ground, and underneath the eerie, dark sky, a few scattered rays of starlight landed in his eyes.
No, not starlight. The source of the light was right next to him.
He lifted his arm. On his left ring finger was a translucent, glowing band.
Within the ring were smaller rings, and so on without end. But he felt no weight, because the ring was only a projection, without substance.
Finally, he remembered. It was his magical ring, which had somehow returned.
He remembered everything. This wasn’t his old church, but another planet, another time.
Light from the ring lit up half of his naked body. He felt that something was different, changed. He lifted up his head to look, and was stunned by what he saw.
Smooth skin, black hair, a muscular chest … and the feeling of inexhaustible strength. He looked and felt younger, healthier, more full of vim and vigor than he had ever felt in his life. He pulled his legs out from under the dirt covering them and found them bulging with muscles, like the legs found on Greek statues of Olympian athletes.
Amazed, he turned and saw the figure of the woman curled next to him. Silver-haired, half buried, skin so wrinkled that she resembled his grandmother. No one would believe she was his wife, and before he had fallen asleep, he had been just as aged and decrepit.
His hand shot up and felt the skin around his neck. It was perfectly smooth. No cuts; no scars.
Nothing at all.
He pressed his fingers against his neck, but he could not feel his arteries pulsing. Terrified, he moved his hand to his chest: no heartbeat.
He felt the impulse to gasp for breath, but he wasn’t breathing at all. He put the back of his hand against his forehead, and it felt as cold as the rocks on this alien planet.
Jumping up, he jogged around the grave. Everything felt normal—in fact, his movements were so smooth, so energetic, that it felt strange. When he was a young man, his sickly body had never obeyed him so well.
He ran toward a nearby lake. As soon as his brain had issued the order, the muscles of his body coordinated themselves to carry it out with utter efficiency. He ran as gracefully as a cheetah, as steady as an arrow. His legs carried him over the blue grass faster than the best sprinters in the history of the human race. A few seconds was enough for him to cover several hundred meters.
By the gentle glow from the ring, he looked into the pale-yellow lake.
He was eighteen again.
No, even at eighteen he had not looked this handsome or strong. He was another Apollo, full of a divine glow that came from within.
After a few seconds of stunned silence, he began to laugh. He laughed so hard that he thought tears would flow from his eyes, but he had no more tears.
He should have known. After the Spirit had invested so much in him, it certainly wouldn’t let him go so easily.
A delay of a few decades, a few centuries, even several millennia, was nothing to the Spirit. It had simply allowed him a brief respite to say good-bye to the world he was familiar with. Battles in the war he had been drafted into lasted billions of years; what was a human life span compared with that? It had patiently waited for him to die so that it could resculpt his body, so that the corruptible could be raised incorruptible, so that he could better serve its purpose.
He was immortal.
He recalled the mission assigned him by the Spirit, and he was happy to obey. There was no more doubt, fear, or hesitation. He was willing to devote the rest of his—however much time he had in this form—to this seemingly impossible enterprise.
He understood that this willingness wasn’t voluntary. He had been branded with some kind of inescapable mental seal by the Spirit. He could only obey, and do so happily.
Yet, other than that, he hadn’t lost his individuality or sense of self. He was still Yun Tianming. Only now did he understand what the Spirit meant when it had told him:
I don’t need your assent.
It truly didn’t need his assent; it had simply manufactured his assent.
Truth after truth awakened in his mind; he understood the causes of every step that led him here, but he was powerless to resist. He knew that he would become a loyal slave of the Spirit; he would dedicate himself to the realization of its breathtaking goal.
He stood up and dashed over the blue plain like a breeze, finding himself moments later standing next to a rocky outcropping carved with words. “We lived a happy life.” AA and he had worked hard last year to carve the words as a message for Guan Yifan and Cheng Xin, when they would return millions of years in the future.
The past had been nothing but a brief prelude; his life was only starting. Compared with what was to come, the last few decades and even the ten thousand years he spent dreaming were but a momentary flash.
There was a faintly glowing frame about the height of a human next to the rocky outcropping. The frame was empty, but he knew that a new world lay inside. As soon as he entered, he would leave Planet Blue behind forever.
How many worlds had he left? The Earth of the Common Era, the countless worlds he had dreamed, the Trisolaran Fleet … what was one more to the list?
At last, time had begun, again.
In the silent night, he hesitated before the door. Remembering something, he turned around and ran back to the grave to stare at the aged body within. He wanted to cry but his new body was incapable of tears. Determinedly, he pushed the rest of the soil piled next to the grave back into the hole, covering up the face of his wife forever.
After the hole was filled in, he placed a ring of rocks around the site so as to mark it, though he knew that he was unlikely to ever return. He was about to go to another—universe.
AA, I’m going to leave now. But know that you’ll be with me forever.
He stood before the grave for a long time, until the eastern sky glowed again with the promise of a new day, and then returned to the glowing frame.
This time, without hesitation, he stepped through and disappeared into the emptiness within.
And so Yun Tianming entered Universe 647, his universe, for the first time.
In this universe, the heavens had not yet divided from the earth, and all was primordial chaos. Light wasn’t yet distinct from darkness, and even time had not yet begun to flow.
Tianming stood at the other shore of the universe, gazing back at the “door” he had come through, but found to his surprise that the door had already vanished. He was wrapped up in a pale mist, suspended in midair, as though inside some unformed virtual reality. There was no depth in any direction, and he doubted if he still was made of matter.
But soon, a voice came to him—out of the void or out of his mind, he couldn’t tell. “Seeker Yun Tianming, welcome to Universe 647. I am its manager.” The voice was placid and neutral, devoid of any identifying characteristics. He couldn’t even tell if it was male or female.
Universe 647. Tianming smiled wryly. He couldn’t have been the only one selected by the Spirit. After so many billions of years, after so many dimensions, the Spirit must have touched hundreds of thousands of civilizations. Even if many, like the Trisolarans, were incapable of communicating through ideabstractions, surely many others were like him, and probably even exceeded him in capability. The Spirit must have given them the same mission.
What about the 646 universes before his? They must have all failed, or at least there was no sign that they would succeed yet.
The voice continued, “I have retrieved and reviewed your basic personal information. As the highest authority in this universe, you may determine all its basic parameters.”
“Basic parameters?” Tianming asked, his voice stiff. He was no longer used to communicating with anyone other than his wife.
“Such as number of dimensions, physical constants, distribution of matter, proportion of basic elements, and so on. But please note that the mini-universe has a limited energy reserve, and once the basic parameters are set, they cannot be altered. If you decide to set the number of dimensions to be less than three, your body will be immediately reduced in dimension in the tide of creation. Although your body has been restructured, such reduction will still lead to instant death. If you decide to set the number of dimensions to six or greater, the geometry of the resulting universe will be smaller than the space needed by your body, and you will be instantly crushed into high-dimensional fragments. I suggest you choose from three, four, or five.” The explaining voice was patient.
What incredible power is this?! Tianming understood now that the Spirit, which claimed to have ten dimensions, probably also existed in a mini-universe isolated from the grand universe, only projecting itself into the three-dimensional universe. This was also probably its secret for not being reduced in dimension as the grand universe changed, and also the source for its ability to remain absolutely still while everything else moved.
A ten-dimensional universe outside the universe! What kind of existence is that?
Tianming thought over his choices, and said, “I prefer a three-dimensional universe, with gravity set to one G … Oh, could I create life?”
“You can re-create any life-form in my databank. I can construct an ecosystem for you, but it will be subject to the limitations of the basic parameters of the universe.”
“Perfect. I’d like a sky, earth, a sun, houses and some fields … and some trees. Just like a rural farm on Earth. Do you know what I mean?”
“Yes,” said the manager.
He felt the sensation of weight, and his feet touched solid ground. The sky was overhead, and the sun generously showered the earth with golden light. A cluster of white houses stood not too far away, and a copse of trees swayed in the breeze next to them. The quivering leaves sheltered the houses in shade.
“That was quick!”
“This is the normal speed of the universe,” came the answer. It would be a long while before Tianming understood the real meaning behind those words.
He gazed into the distance and saw himself on the horizon. He looked to the left, right, behind—his image could be seen in each direction, extending in columns into infinity.
“This universe is rather small in size. You can view it as a cube with each edge being one kilometer in length. The universe is completely self-contained and topologically a 3-sphere—in other words, no matter in which direction you head, you’ll return to the starting point after one thousand meters.”
“This really is a universe!” Tianming said in admiration.
“Of course. Also, in order to facilitate communication, I can appear to you in human form. You can now determine my basic parameters, such as figure, voice, personality, form of address, and so on.”
“How do I do that?” Tianming had never been big on designing avatars in video games, and he dreaded the task.
“Just think about who you want me to be, and I’ll be them.”
“Oh, that’s easy.” Tianming relaxed. “After so many years, I’ll finally get to see another human being.”
He thought over the possibilities. He wasn’t willing to endow this alien manager with the form of Cheng Xin or AA, but he didn’t know other people well. Still, there was one “person” he was very familiar with, who had in fact been born from his mind in the first place. And that “person” was as alien as this manager.
“How about Ran Asa—no, Sophon?”
“Are you sure?”
“Um … let me think about this—”
“There’s no need,” interrupted the manager. “I’ve already examined your mental activities, and I know you will be sure.”
Before he could protest, the door to one of the white houses opened and out stepped a feminine figure. Long hair draped over her shoulders, and her every movement was charged with allure. She was indeed the robot, both murderous and beautiful, Sophon.
Sophon crossed the field gracefully and bowed deeply before him. It was a while before Tianming could take his eyes away.
“Why … why aren’t you dressed?”
“You tell me!” Sophon winked at him. “You didn’t give me the parameters!”
*
Tianming sat in the living room, gazing around curiously. Sophon, who was now dressed in a gorgeous kimono, knelt on a tatami mat opposite him and carefully manipulated the implements of the tea ceremony. For a moment, Tianming experienced the illusion that he was back in the Deterrence Era at the tea ceremony where Cheng Xin had met Sophon for the first time; he had of course admired Sophon’s performance from afar back then.
“Since your body is still new, you can’t exchange ideabstractions with me directly. We’re limited to human language for now, for which I apologize,” said Sophon.
“You’re not the real Sophon,” Tianming muttered, getting back to the present.
“You already know that,” Sophon said. Her smile was as mysterious as the Mona Lisa’s.
“But you really do look just like her.”
“That’s to be expected. The intelligent module—that’s your ring—contains all the data from the Trisolaran Fleet. When the Master encountered the fleet for the first time, it scanned the ships and gathered all the data in their computers, including the parameters for Sophon. Other than the fact that I’m far more intelligent and have a different basic design, I am physically an exact copy of Sophon. Are you satisfied?” Sophon grinned.
Tianming thought of something. “Does that mean you have all information concerning Earth as well?”
“Of course. That’s trivial for the Master. For example, we have the complete genetic code of the seeds you brought with you to the Trisolaran Fleet.” Sophon extended a finger and pointed at a corner of the room, where he saw a bag of seeds. Now he understood how this mini-universe could duplicate an Earth farm so accurately. The greenery he saw wasn’t an illusion or a model, but real trees and crops re-created based on the genetic information of Earth flora.
Tianming was delighted by this surprise. He knew how advanced the Trisolaran system for sharing information was, and that meant that the mini-universe now contained all information known to Earth and Trisolaris. If Cheng Xin and Guan Yifan came in here and saw all this, surely they’d also be overjoyed …
But what did they have to do with him? He was only a tool now, nothing more.
“This ‘Master’ you speak of … is it the Spirit?”
“Yes, the Spirit is the spirit of the Master, but for us, it’s the same thing as the Master.”
“Okay. So what is your relationship to the Master or the Spirit?”
“I am nothing more than a program created by the Master, and you are my master.” Sophon was finished with the tea ceremony and presented a cup to him with both hands. “This is why I can speak to you using your language, but the Master can only communicate with you through ideabstractions.”
“Those ideabstractions! I almost died.”
“That’s not surprising. Most intelligent life-forms are incapable of receiving ideabstractions, because their mental capacities are limited and cannot be uplifted. The use of ideabstractions serves as a threshold for selecting Seekers.”
“Seekers?”
“They’re charged by the Master to find the Lurker.”
“I see. How many Seekers are there?”
“There used to be many, but few are left now. You’re likely the very last one. Universe 647 is the very last mini-universe that can be given to an intelligent life-form. You’re very lucky.”
“Why did the Master give me this universe?” Tianming accepted the teacup.
“To free you from the constraint of the speed of light so that you can traverse every corner of the grand universe in your search for the Lurker.”
Tianming had expected this; he knew that the Master wasn’t going to just give him a personal paradise and allow him to live the rest of his life in peace. Still, he was shocked by the extent of the Master’s power.
“What about time? Could I travel to the past of the grand universe?” Tianming asked with barely suppressed excitement. If it was possible to travel to any point in time, including the past, then how many mistakes could be fixed, and how much of life could be relived!
“The mini-universe follows its own timeline, completely independent of the flow of time in the grand universe. But the moment you entered the mini-universe, an absolute reference point in the grand universe’s time was established. We can’t reach any point before the absolute reference point, but we can go to any point in the grand universe’s time after the absolute point. However, I suggest that you don’t go to any point too far in the future. If the grand universe at that point has entered the two-dimensionalized era, you will be flattened as soon as you enter the grand universe and thus be annihilated.”
“What happened to the other six hundred and forty-six mini-universes?” Tianming stared at the tea leaves unfurling in his cup, still unable to believe that he was discussing the profoundest questions of the universe with an algorithm in the midst of a tea ceremony.
Sophon smiled. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know the answer. It’s impossible for an observer inside one mini-universe to know the exact conditions inside a different mini-universe. I do, however, know that most of the Seekers inside the other six hundred and forty-six mini-universes have returned to the grand universe to carry out the mission the Master assigned them. Unfortunately, most of them have perished, and none have succeeded.”
“Then some Seekers have survived?”
“Most of the mini-universes came from epochs in the grand universe’s past when it possessed more dimensions. Thus, their inhabitants could no longer function in the grand universe after it was reduced to three dimensions. Only nineteen mini-universes have been active in the grand universe since it was reduced to three dimensions, and of those, only a few are still operational. I don’t know what has become of them.”
“Are there any other humans who have become Seekers?” Tianming asked, hoping that he would have at least one other member of his species as a companion.
“As far as I know, no. But a Seeker on the verge of death could pass on their mission to any other sentient being, and so theoretically, other humans could have become Seekers. Of course, the probability of such a thing is virtually nil.”
Disappointed, Tianming took a sip of tea. “So why was I picked?”
“You were indeed not the Master’s first choice. However, the Master was running out of time and getting weaker by the day. Three is the lowest number of dimensions the universe could possess for the Master’s projection to exert an effect. Once the universe is reduced to two dimensions, though the Master can still project itself into it, such a projection will be without intelligence and incapable of stopping the Lurker. The universe will be doomed.”
“Ah, so I guess the Master is not omnipotent after all.”
Sophon ignored his mocking tone. “The Master’s powers are sufficient to remake the universe. But … the Master is only a surviving consciousness from the perfect ten-dimensional universe. After the destruction of that perfect universe, the Master survived in a mini-universe and repeatedly projected itself into the reduced-dimension universe to seek out other consciousnesses and converse with them in ideabstractions. Without finding a suitable candidate to carry out the key steps of its plan, the Master’s powers cannot be expressed to their fullest extent.”
“Did you just say that the Master is in a mini-universe? What really is a mini-universe?”
“A fragment of the ten-dimensional universe. All mini-universes are fragments of the original, perfect universe.”
“How is that possible?” Tianming was astonished.
“The origin of the mini-universes isn’t a mystery. Fundamentally, they are simply small collections of matter. But to partition the material of each mini-universe from the rest of the grand universe requires extremely large amounts of energy—a mini-bang, if you will—as well as the complete unfurling of every dimension in matter. Only when the universe was ten-dimensional were there sufficient power and dimensions to create mini-universes and give them existence independent of the grand universe. After the collapse of that Eden, no civilization in theory should be able to create mini-universes.”
Tianming took another sip of tea and nodded thoughtfully. Something as incredible as mini-universes couldn’t be common. If any civilization could create them after developing to a certain stage, then the grand universe would have long since been partitioned entirely into such mini-universes by now.
“Is the goal of the Master to re-create the perfect ten-dimensional universe?”
“You already know the answer to that.” Sophon bowed slightly. Tianming could tell what she didn’t say, but implied: Aren’t you also devoted to the achievement of this sublime goal?
“True. But I don’t know enough. In order for me to serve the Master well, you must tell me everything. Why do I need to find the Lurker? How does that help with the recovery of the ten-dimensional universe?”
Sophon straightened up and her mien turned serious. “The Lurker is the Master’s only enemy and the reason your services are needed. The Master isn’t worried about any of the other innumerable civilizations and intelligences in the universe. As soon as the Master wills it, it can initiate the process of dimension reversal. But the Lurker is of great concern to the Master. The Lurker, being also from the ten-dimensional universe, is the only one with the power to thwart the Master, and is also the only one capable of preventing the dimension reversal.”
“What’s dimension reversal?” asked Tianming.
“At the macro level, the grand universe right now is in a three-dimensional state. Higher dimensions still exist, but are imprisoned within the quantum realm as a result of the fundamental structure of matter in the three-dimensional universe. Dimension reversal is a process that takes advantage of vacuum decay to split existing matter at the most basic level so that fundamental particles could follow their natural state and reassemble in higher dimensions, thereby re-creating the ten-dimensional universe.” Sophon gently lifted the lid to the tea bowl and covered it again, as though she were discussing a simple task.
But Tianming understood the implication of those words. From the vantage point of his low-dimensional existence, dimension reversal would destroy everything. Other than fundamental particles, nothing would survive the process. He was utterly awestruck by the Master’s power.
Sophon sensed his unease. “The Master will only be eliminating the degradation of Nature by artifice, returning it to its natural state.”
“Would dimension reversal restore … the flattened Solar System and Earth?” Tianming asked.
“I’m sorry, but that’s not possible.” Sophon smiled and gently shook her head, like a teacher facing a particularly slow student. “The three-dimensional Solar System is itself the result of degradation. Dimension reversal would restore the world to its original state. It won’t be three-dimensional or four-dimensional, but ten-dimensional.”
Tianming’s last ray of hope extinguished. “If the Master possesses such power, why hasn’t the Master started the process?”
“It’s not that simple. The Lurker has established a special kind of barrier throughout the universe. If the Master is careless and initiates dimension reversal while these barriers are in place, the Master’s location would be revealed.”
“Special barriers …” A light went on in Tianming’s head. “Wait! Do you mean … the sophon blind zones?”
“That’s right.” Sophon nodded. “Humans have long speculated about the nature of sophon blind zones, but most of your theories are far off the mark. In fact, the blind zones were not set up expressly for the purpose of inducing the so-called dark forest state, although that ended up being a minor side effect. The real purpose of the blind zones is to detect the superstring waves emitted by the Master’s energy reactions. As soon as the Master initiates dimension reversal, the Lurker would be able to locate the Master and destroy it.”
Tianming was speechless. He couldn’t accept the fact that the dark forest state, which had destroyed both the Earth and Trisolaris, and governed the behaviors of countless other civilizations in the universe, was nothing more than a minor “side effect” of minefields laid by two vast forces at war.
“But I thought the Master is concealed within a mini-universe. How could the Lurker attack it?” Tianming asked.
Sophon patiently explained. “All the universes—the grand one as well as all the mini ones—are located on the supermembrane—” She saw Tianming’s puzzled look. “Sorry. The supermembrane is the ultimate foundation for the cosmos, and I can’t give you an in-depth explanation right now. A mini-universe must be located close to the grand universe on the supermembrane because otherwise it would be impossible for one to project onto the other and form a connection. Thus, the most highly advanced civilizations in the grand universe are capable of striking at mini-universes over the supermembrane if they can locate them.”
“How … do the attacks work?”
“Mainly by taking advantage of differences in universal potential energy. The details are probably beyond you at this point, but occasionally the mass of selected galaxies is converted to pure energy and then directed onto the supermembrane.” Sophon sipped at her tea nonchalantly, as though she were explaining something as trivial as “You have to wait until the water is boiling before adding tea leaves.”
“How is that possible? That would involve hundreds of billions of stars over tens of thousands of light-years and billions of civilizations! You must be speaking hypothetically.”
“Not at all. Exploratory strikes of the kind I spoke of have occurred many, many times. The Lurker is capable of altering the gravitation configuration within a galaxy and, by manipulating Cherkoff forces, cause all the stars to rapidly fall into the center of the galaxy, where the Steffankin effect results in a supermassive black hole that is capable of deforming space to penetrate the barriers between universes. The energy is then directed against the supermembrane for the transuniversal strike. These types of attacks have led to heavy losses for us. The Master once possessed twelve copies. Before the grand universe degraded to three dimensions, the Lurker was able to destroy seven of those copies, and then, during the early days of the three-dimensional universe, four more were destroyed. Only a single copy is left now.”
“Are you telling me that the Lurker has already converted four galaxies in the three-dimensional universe into pure energy?” Tianming was shocked.
Sophon smiled, as though taking pity on his lack of imagination. “Not four, but hundreds of thousands. It isn’t easy for a transuniversal strike to hit the target, and the energy from most of these galactic conversions was wasted. Actually, long ago, scientists on Earth discovered the remnants of galaxies that were subjected to this treatment and the accompanying secondary radiation.”
“What? I’ve never heard of such a thing!”
“You have. Way back in the Common Era, human scientists discovered some unusual astronomical structures. They looked like stars, but they emitted more energy than entire galaxies and were orders of magnitude brighter than galaxies. Scientists were puzzled by them and dubbed them ‘quasars.’”
“Wh—” Tianming forgot that he had a mouthful of tea and spat it all over Sophon’s face. “I’m sorry! But you’re telling me that the quasars are all …” Tianming was utterly amazed by the nature of the conflict he had been drafted into. The flattening of the Solar System had once seemed impossibly wondrous to him, but compared with the struggle between these two ancient titans, it seemed no more than a war between ants.
Sophon cleaned her face with a napkin, and then added, “Quasars are nothing. There are more wonders than you can imagine. Humans had long been puzzled by many oddly shaped galaxies and could offer no explanation for their structure. These irregular galaxies are all the remnants of the Lurker’s energy-extraction efforts dating back to the early days of the three-dimensional universe.”
Tianming contemplated this new information silently for a few moments. “All right … but if the Lurker is so powerful, why does it need to conceal itself?”
“It is still situated within the grand universe. From its ten-dimensional mini-universe, the Master is capable of performing a dimension reversal on any single spot in the grand universe as soon as it has the coordinates; of course, such a ‘spot’ could be as large as thousands of light-years across. There is absolutely no defense against such a transuniversal attack in the grand universe. Without concealing itself, the Lurker would have been eliminated long ago by the Master.
“In reality, during the early days of the three-dimensional universe, the Master did succeed in destroying the Lurker’s control center by initiating dimension reversal. But the Master didn’t realize that the Lurker had a backup control center, and the Lurker took advantage of the lapse to destroy multiple copies of the Master and halted the dimension-reversal process. This early war resulted in the basic topography of the three-dimensional universe; regions where dimension reversal had occurred became empty ‘holes’ a hundred million to three hundred million light-years across. In these holes, besides spatial dimensions that had been twisted beyond recognition, all the matter had been turned into dark matter. The regions of the universe unaffected by the halted dimension reversal formed a lattice packed with galaxies.”
One after another, the solutions to cosmological puzzles that had once plagued human scientists were revealed. The truth made Tianming tremble, but he was now only a pawn that had advanced into enemy territory in this cosmic Great Game. He had no choice but to press ahead.
“Let me summarize the situation,” Tianming said. “The Master lives somewhere on the supermembrane beyond the grand universe. If the Lurker found out the coordinates of the Master, the Lurker would be able to destroy it. Similarly, the Lurker is concealed in the depths of the grand universe. If the Master discovered its location, it would also be able to eliminate the Lurker. Am I right?”
“Yes,” said Sophon.
“However, if either side made a mistake and launched an ill-aimed strike, the error would reveal the attacker’s location to the other side, thereby leading to its own destruction. And thus we have a stalemate.”
“Exactly,” said Sophon. “So the dark forest state does exist, though not at the level of billions of civilizations who are strangers to one another, but at the level of two opponents who are intimately familiar with each other.”
“So … what can I do then?” Tianming gave a wry smile. What can an ant accomplish in a battle between two armies?
Sophon’s response came quickly. “You must find the Lurker before the universe decays into two dimensions. The Master can only project itself into the grand universe from time to time like a ghost. It also cannot create more than nine projections, because otherwise the Lurker would be able to calculate the precise location of the Master’s mini-universe on the supermembrane from the coordinates of the various projections. Thus, the Master needs intelligent beings like you to become Seekers and help us.”
Sophon’s voice now grew more enthusiastic. “This is no easy mission, but you will have at least tens of billions of years to accomplish it. Besides, the Master has endowed you with this incorruptible body and given you that ring you’re wearing. As long as you have that ring, you can return to this mini-universe at any time.”
“All right. What other clues do you have concerning the Lurker?”
“Not much. Right now, we just suspect that a mysterious group called the ‘Zero-Homers’ might have something to do with the Lurker.”
Tianming frowned. “The Zero-Homers?”
“That’s what they call themselves. They’ve been very influential during the last few hundred million years. Maybe they’re a civilization, or maybe they’re formed from multiple civilizations. The Master doesn’t know much about them other than that they wish to reset the universe and return it to the Edenic Age.”
“Um … isn’t that the same thing the Master wants?”
“But their approaches are polar opposites. The Zero-Homers believe that in order to restore the universe to ten dimensions, it must first be reduced to zero dimensions, at which point it would cycle back to ten dimensions. This is utter nonsense. Zero dimensions means absolute death, where no civilization can survive. Either these individuals are idiots who know nothing about the principles of dimension recovery, or they are manipulated by the Lurker from behind the scenes. Or maybe both.”
“Where are they?”
“We don’t know where the Zero-Homers are from. During the last few hundred million years, they constructed bases in multiple galaxies. The closest base is found in the Milky Way Galaxy’s Wild Duck Cluster—also known to you as Messier 11, or NGC 6705—and the farthest one is about seven billion light-years away. But as far as this mini-universe is concerned, all these bases are equally close. I suggest that you go to the Wild Duck Cluster first. The Zero-Homers there have been very active in the Milky Way recently. At the cosmic scale, you are practically from the same neighborhood. I’m sure you’d be able to communicate more easily.”
“Practically the same neighborhood? Surely you jest—wait! I remember now. Aren’t these the same bastards who generated those death lines on Planet Gray around DX3906?”
“I don’t have anything about that in my databank,” said Sophon. “But if you’re talking about death lines … yes, that does seem likely.”
“Perfect! I’d love to settle a score with them.” The memory of how the Zero-Homers had been responsible for trapping him on Planet Blue for decades enraged him, but soon his anger dissipated. “The Wild Duck Cluster is huge. Once I get there, what am I supposed to do?”
“Another Seeker is already there. Perhaps it will help you.”
Tianming’s eyes brightened at the good news. “How do I find it?”
“The Master needs your help for that. According to the Master, Mini-Universe 589’s Seeker was there and left some signs, but then it disappeared and ceased all communications with the mini-universe. This is an extremely unusual event. The Master wants you to go find the Seeker, who may possess information that we need.”
“What kind of … entity is the Seeker from Mini-Universe 589?”
“I’m not sure,” admitted Sophon. “It’s extremely energy-intensive to transmit information across the supermembrane, and so I have only the most crucial bits. Mini-Universe 589 is one of the few mini-universes still active, and the Master had handed it out when the grand universe was still four-dimensional. The Seeker in possession of the mini-universe was probably an intelligent creature from the four-dimensional universe that had then been reduced to three dimensions, or maybe it was a successor to the original Seeker. It should also have a ring like yours. Once you arrive at the Wild Duck Cluster, you can read the message the Seeker left, or you can try to initiate contact through the ring. But the specifics have to wait until you get there. When do you want to leave?”
“Wait! Let’s talk about going there in a minute. I still have another question,” said Tianming. “Why did this war start? Why did the Lurker destroy that perfect ten-dimensional universe?”
“Not even the Master knows,” said Sophon. “But I can transmit the ideabstractions about that time to you. Perhaps you can figure out the answer yourself.”
Tianming stiffened. Sophon hurried to reassure him. “Don’t worry! Your body and brain have been modified by the Master to be capable of receiving basic ideabstractions. They won’t hurt you.”
Compelled by curiosity, Tianming gritted his teeth and nodded. Sophon smiled, stood up to walk in front of Tianming, bowed, and said, “Get ready.” Then she held him by the shoulders and gazed into his eyes.
Tianming gazed back into her eyes, which seemed like two bottomless whirlpools that pulled him in. In a moment, he was overwhelmed by an endless ocean of images and concepts.
*
Receiving an ideabstraction must rank among the most wonderful experiences in the universe. To Tianming, the storm of information was like a tempest-tossed sea that threatened to drown him. But unlike his previous encounters, a force soon lifted him above the ocean of information and then bathed his mental landscape in bright sunlight. Suddenly, everything became clear. All ideas, forms, and images were endowed with a unifying meaning. Connected to each other, combined into basic units of logic and grammar, and then layered upon one another, the ideabstraction elements assembled into a whole that encompassed millions of concepts at once. This was an understanding that surpassed any of his past experiences, when he had glimpsed but the barest outlines. This time, he understood everything from top to bottom, inside out.
He saw the origin of the universe: From a single dot, an infinity of matter and energy emerged. No, at this moment, matter was energy, and there was no distinction between the two. In a flash, the ten-dimensional universe appeared. Tianming finally saw perfection itself.
Words were inadequate. Light could travel from one end of the universe to the other without the passage of time. There were no limits on speed. From every corner of the ten-dimensional universe, billions of life-forms appeared. Because of the infinite velocity of light, life throughout the universe conversed, forming a unified whole. Intelligence evolved, followed by civilization, science, culture, art, and all advanced to perfection in an instant.
Only now did Tianming understand what Sophon had meant by “This is the normal speed of the universe,” back at the beginning of their conversation.
Sophon’s voice reverberated in this marvelous universe, providing additional gloss for the ideabstractions. “The ten-dimensional universe was a world of light. The entire universe was constructed upon energy exchange between photons. All particles and antiparticles were formed from photons, and their mutual annihilation resulted in yet more photons. Thus, everything occurred at the speed of light, which was infinite. Even more marvelously, because particles and antiparticles balanced each other out, the total energy level of the universe was zero. This was an incredible state of symmetry, and the foundation of the emergence of intelligence in the ten-dimensional universe.”
Matter, life, sentience, civilization … in this Edenic universe, everything was part of the same whole. All matter possessed life, and all life possessed sentience, and all sentience existed in a state of harmonious civilization. Unlike the three-dimensional universe, in which lonely stars hung in the vast emptiness of space, the entire universe was a living being. All life was but a part of this one grand Life, and all intelligence but a component of the highest Intelligence. The dark forest state was an impossibility for this transcendent being of unified matter and spirit.
Tianming felt awe at the root of his soul. This was the original form of the Master. The ten-dimensional universe was itself alive.
Sophon offered more explanations. “The Master is not an individual like a human being; rather, it is the sum of an infinite number of self-aware consciousnesses. Every consciousness shares the awareness of every other consciousness as well as the presence of the universe itself, and yet each possesses an independent will. This is a state of existence simply unimaginable by humans: individual presence absolutely, seamlessly harmonized with the universe, akin to the geometric construction of the Spirit you saw.”
Finally, Tianming understood the Master’s yearning and craving to recover that perfect Edenic Age. How could anyone who had experienced the vibrancy of that world tolerate the emptiness and crudeness of the three-dimensional universe? He found it even more incomprehensible that the Lurker would wish to destroy such a beautiful world in harmony. How vicious and crazed was such evil!
Then he witnessed the moment of destruction.
In a particular corner of this world, the gentle light of life suddenly went out, leaving behind a tiny patch of darkness, as though a single drop of ink had marred a fresh sheet of white paper. The darkness, at first insignificant, did not remain confined, but began to spread at lightspeed. Since the speed of light was infinite, the darkness also spread at infinite speed. The entire ten-dimensional universe plunged into darkness.
Although the destruction took place within an infinitesimal slice of time, the events comprising it took place in a specific, clear order. Through the ideabstractions, Tianming was able to decipher the details. It was a transformation impossible to describe with languages devised within the three-dimensional universe. An analogy, however inadequate, would be a picture that had been built from countless domino tiles standing on their ends; all the tiles had fallen, but the “flattened” picture remained discernible.
The universe had collapsed from ten dimensions to nine. A traitorous child of the Edenic Age had committed matricide against the source of its life.
“Of the infinite number of consciousnesses that collectively formed the Master, a single consciousness suddenly launched a rebellion, leading to the dimension reduction of the universe.” Sophon’s voice was tinged with rage. “Caught off guard, the Master could neither stop the revolt nor understand it. If a child still within the womb decided to attack the mother from within, how could the mother have been prepared for it? And that was how the Lurker succeeded.”
But just before the process of dimension reduction completed, what was left of the ten-dimensional universe fought back with all remaining strength. Where darkness met light, blindingly bright rays flashed; if one were to compare the glow of the Milky Way to this incandescence, it would be like comparing a candle to the full power of the sun. In this final apocalyptic battle for the fate of the ten-dimensional universe, Tianming received an ideabstraction emitted by the Lurker, a war cry of despair:
This universe is too small. I need a grander universe!
Tianming could not understand what this meant. How could a nine-dimensional universe be bigger than a ten-dimensional universe?
Then he saw some fragments separate from the collapsing ten-dimensional universe amid the fiery light of the final battle, and vanish. He knew that he was observing the Master and its mini-universes.
“The Master tried to halt the dimension reduction, but it was too late. It could only break off some pieces of the grand universe and turn them into independent mini-universes so as to preserve a ray of hope. Fortunately, each fragment also contained a copy of all the Master’s information.”
Tianming understood now that the Master was the soul of the ten-dimensional universe, or, perhaps more accurately, the last fragment of that soul. This was why it was so dedicated to the goal of dimension reversal: Recovering that lost paradise would also allow it to recover itself.
The nine-dimensional universe then appeared among the ideabstractions. It was a broken version of the ten-dimensional universe, like a cracked egg. As in the Chinese myth in which various parts of the god Pangu’s body turned into the sun, the moon, the mountains, and the rivers after his death, the nine-dimensional universe was formed from the dead body of the ten-dimensional universe. Though it was now but a lifeless corpse, it remained the battlefield over which countless lives fought. Yes, a battlefield. This universe was a city in ruins, torn by war and confusion.
“The history of the nine-dimensional universe was a continuation of the ten-dimensional universe. Unlike dimension reduction for lower-dimension universes, the unified life of the ten-dimensional universe did not die after being reduced to nine dimensions; rather, the consciousnesses split and became divided from one another, turning into countless parallel civilizations. Most of them, however, kept the memory and civilization inherited from the ten-dimensional universe, and a large number of them came together to try to revive the ten-dimensional universe. But some of them were deceived and seduced by the Lurker and joined the enemy camp.”
Deceived? How? Tianming could not understand it.
As Tianming continued to interpret the ideabstractions, he saw that in the nine-dimensional universe, although light was still traveling at an incredible speed, capable of almost traversing the universe from one end to the other within one second, lightspeed was no longer infinite. Wars could no longer be completed instantaneously, but had to be resolved over a complicated series of steps. Attempts at dimension reversal and dimension reduction often occurred at the same time, leading to fantastic bursts of light. Finally, after a bright flash that was impossible to describe, all light vanished from the universe.
“During this period, the mutual annihilation of particles and antiparticles theorized by your cosmologists occurred. Due to the breakdown of the universe’s basic symmetry and the reduction in the speed of light, all antiparticles and virtually all particles were annihilated, leaving behind only about one-billionth of the particles, which formed today’s universe. The energy released by the mutual annihilation of particles and antiparticles then caused the universe’s rapid expansion.”
“But why were there more particles than antiparticles?” Tianming asked. He remembered that this was a tough puzzle for cosmologists.
“The dimension reduction destroyed the balance in the universe. As one of the dimensions vanished, a large number of antiparticles decayed into neutrinos, which led to the strange phenomenon of what you call parity violation,” said Sophon.
As the particles and antiparticles annihilated each other, another shocking dimension reduction occurred. Darkness descended, and, as millions of civilizations cried out in despair, the universe, like a deflating balloon, lost another dimension. Soon, the nine-dimensional universe was replaced by the eight-dimensional universe.
The eight-dimensional universe was strange; the entire universe was a gigantic hyperspherical solid, crisscrossed by billions upon billions of tunnels and caves (all eight-dimensional, of course). To employ an inadequate three-dimensional image: It resembled a piece of Swiss cheese. In the caves of the eight-dimensional universe, civilization after civilization, having survived dimension reduction, revived, and they began to struggle against each other. Although the speed of light in this universe was even slower, war still proceeded rapidly. Within but a brief moment, walls as thick as ten thousand light-years were drilled through, and caves as large as several galaxies were filled in. Of course, these were just estimates in Tianming’s mind; it was really not possible to measure size in eight dimensions using comparisons and units drawn from three dimensions.
The war caused the universe to collapse further, into seven dimensions, resulting in a world far simpler in structure than before. A six-dimensional “plane” divided the universe into two halves: One half was solid, and the other half empty space. All the civilizations in the universe were spread over this six-dimensional plane billions of light-years across, but the plane was itself billions of times more complex than the three-dimensional universe. Like the predecessor universes, the seven-dimensional universe was caught in the warfare between the various civilizations from the moment of its birth. Of these civilizations, few were survivors from the Edenic Age of ten dimensions. New, native civilizations were dominant. The dark forest state became the norm, and civilizations fought mercilessly. Dimension weapons were widely employed in every corner of the universe, leading to yet another dimension reduction.
“The nine-, eight-, and seven-dimensional universes were all continuations of the ten-dimensional universe,” Sophon said. “The two warring camps fought through these three successive ages, but with each reduction in dimension, the side of the Master weakened further. Of course, the Lurker’s side also weakened, but overall, the situation favored beings in that camp. The goal of the Lurker was to reduce dimensions, and the Lurker and its followers were prepared for it. Even if the use of dimension weapons reduced their dimensions, it simply pushed the war into the next universe.”
In the six-dimensional universe, it was almost impossible to see any traces of the original, ancient civilizations. This universe had a particularly odd structure: a vast energy sea on which an archipelago of billions of islands made of dark matter floated—six-dimensional islands and a six-dimensional sea. Each island was tens of thousands of light-years across, and while the interior of any of them could be considered a separate universe, the islands were also millions of light-years apart. The energy sea and the dark matter islands all evolved a multitude of different civilizations, and the heroic and magnificent battles between them were far more astonishing than any fantasy or science fiction. The fire phoenix that rose from the energy sea, the shade dragon that circled the islands, the flower kingdoms that danced on the winds … the victories achieved by these civilizations were as awe-inspiring as the power of the gods, and their eventual destruction was as pitiable as the swan’s final song.
Dimension reduction, reduction, still more reduction.
The five- and four-dimensional universes were very similar to the current three-dimensional universe in most ways, other than the difference of having extra dimensions. The basic structure of each was a vast, dark space in which faint energy flames formed systems based on mutual gravitational attraction. The speed of light and other limits suffered further reductions. By now, the time required to go from one end of the universe to the other was no longer measured by seconds or minutes, or even days and months, but tens of millions of years. The vast gulfs between worlds caused civilizations to be permanently divided from each other, and the triumph of the dark forest state, the gift of the Lurker, was complete. Every mature civilization concealed itself in the darkness, ready to launch a fatal strike against any prey that revealed itself, though each also lived under the perpetual terror of becoming prey to a stronger hunter.
Universes were born and died; civilizations rose and fell like the tides. After eons measured only by the grains of sand on the shore of the Ganges, a bug named Yun Tianming watched it all.
Finally, Tianming looked away from Sophon’s eyes. Though his modified body tolerated the buffeting ideabstractions far better than in the past, he still felt so weak that he could barely speak. It wasn’t so much exhaustion of the flesh as of the mind.
“I don’t understand. Why did the Lurker say ‘This universe is too small’?” Tianming muttered.
Sophon shook her head in puzzlement. “Not even the Master understands that. But you don’t need to understand it to complete your mission. The Lurker cannot be … reasoned with.”
Tianming nodded. Someone who would destroy the perfection of the ten-dimensional universe could not be subject to reason.
Tianming walked outside the house. The door of the mini-universe—a rectangle outlined by faint lines—appeared in the distance. He walked toward it, with Sophon following silently. When he arrived at the door, Tianming turned to Sophon. “How much time has passed in the grand universe?”
“Time in this mini-universe is independent of the passage of time in the grand universe. In some sense, you can think of time in the grand universe as being paused at the moment you entered here. We could also adjust the ratio between the two timelines as you like. But as I mentioned, don’t head for the distant future in the grand universe. By then, the universe may already have been reduced to two dimensions. We already don’t have much time left.”
“How much time do we have?”
“No more than fifteen billion years.”
Tianming smiled wryly. It was absurd to hear fifteen billion years described as “not much time.” Just a day earlier, he had thought the seven centuries he had skipped across was everything.
He had once lived a nightmare that lasted thousands of years; compared with what was to come, though, that was nothing. He was facing a nightmare that might last billions of years, from which he would never awake.
His resolve slackened in the face of such an unimaginable future in the vast darkness between the stars. There was someone he wanted to see. He had not wanted to show his frail, dying self to that woman, who was likely still full of the promise of youth, but the situation was now different.
“Could I wait a bit? I would like to wait until … they come here.”
Sophon of course knew who he meant by “they.”
“That wouldn’t be a problem,” she said, “as long as you don’t wait more than a hundred million years. If you like, you could live here for many years before leaving. Or you could adjust the flow of time so that you get to see them sooner.”
Tianming’s sense of joy didn’t last long. He had, after all, spent a whole lifetime with another woman. To see Cheng Xin after his wife’s death, and after Cheng Xin and Guan Yifan had probably fallen in love, seemed inappropriate. He would feel like a third wheel.
Is Cheng Xin the person I truly love? Or 艾 AA? Or even Ai Xiaowei, who died long ago?
Tianming shook his head in bafflement. None of these questions would have been relevant had it not been for those death lines, which interrupted the happy life he could have led with Cheng Xin. Slowed-down light and eons separated them. They stood at the source and mouth of time’s river, gazing, searching, seeking, but would never see each other. If only they had lived in the ten-dimensional universe, where the speed of light was infinite—
Wait!
A barely formed thought emerged in Tianming’s mind, soon coming into focus: a key point whose familiarity had caused him to ignore its significance until now.
“How long has the three-dimensional universe existed?” He gazed at Sophon intently.
“About thirteen billion, eight hundred and ninety-four million years,” said Sophon.
“How long did the four-dimensional universe exist?”
“About one million years.”
“What about the five-dimensional universe?”
“One hundred thirty-one years.”
“And the six-dimensional universe?”
“Nine days and eleven hours.”
“Seven-dimensional?”
“Two minutes and three seconds.”
“Eight-dimensional?”
“Twelve milliseconds.”
“Nine-dimensional?”
“Thirty-one nanoseconds.”
Tianming suppressed his rising excitement, and asked the final question: “What about the ten-dimensional universe?”
Unexpectedly, Sophon was silent for a moment before she said, “Forever. There was no time in the ten-dimensional universe.”
“Of course,” Tianming murmured. “Infinite speed, infinite efficiency, everything completed from the start, finished in an instant without the passage of any time … It was a universe without time.
“No time, no motion, to change, to process … the start was also the end! An instant was eternity! There were no real, vibrant lives, only stacks of frozen pictures. This was a world … of death.”
“I don’t understand,” said Sophon. “I don’t understand what you’re saying at all. A perfect world has no need for time. Time consists of … nothing more than annoying delays.”
“You think that way because you serve the Master,” Tianming said. “Just like him, time is your blind spot. You don’t live within time, and thus you can never see time itself. Let me tell you a myth of Earth.”
“I know all the myths from Earth,” said Sophon, clearly unimpressed.
“I doubt you truly understand them all, however. Otherwise you would have understood the motivation of the Lurker. In Greek mythology, this is how the world began:
“Ouranos, the god of the sky, mated with Gaia, the goddess of the earth, and gave birth to many gods. But Ouranos loathed these children, and pushed them back into Gaia’s womb with his phallus. Heaven and earth were thus joined together and could not be separated. Later, Gaia, pained by Ouranos’s oppressive embrace, called on her children to slay their father. In the end, her son Chronos cut off Ouranos’s penis, thus separating father from mother, dividing sky from earth, and allowed the gods to be born. Life then came into the universe.”
“That is a primitive, vulgar story recorded in Hesiod’s Theogony,” Sophon said, her lips curled in disgust. “What does it have to do with the ten-dimensional universe?”
“Since you’re well versed in all the tales of Earth civilization, you ought to know that ‘chronos’ means time. The myth is a metaphor; time is the beginning of everything. The Lurker needed time. A universe without time would be too small no matter what. The Lurker could not stand it and had to reduce the dimensions of the universe. With each lost dimension, time stretched out tens of thousands of times. The Lurker wasn’t crazy, and it wasn’t even evil. It simply wants one thing: time.
“For the Lurker, the lost dimensions were amply compensated for by the gain in time. It, or at least a part of it, was transferred into time. This was the net benefit of dimension reduction: Without the degradation in dimensions there would have been no time.”
Sophon looked thoughtful. “I’ve never thought of it that way. But we did discover early on that time itself seemed to be a compensatory effect of the diminished speed of light.”
“Just as Chronos split the heavens from earth, time divided the universe, and destroyed the eternal, changeless being that was the ten-dimensional universe. After that, all civilizations had to exist within the limits of time and space. The universe became the infinite unknown. With time came hope, anticipation, surprise, remembrance, oblivion … and above all, freedom.”
“These are meaningless,” said Sophon drily. “Eternity is the only existence.”
“That wasn’t how the Lurker felt. It was suffocating under the ten-dimensional universe, with its perfect symmetry and eternal immutability. As the dimensions collapsed, more and more consciousnesses, separated from the unity of the Edenic Age, came to believe in the Lurker’s cause and joined its legion. Risking annihilation, they wanted to join time and to call for yet more time. This was the reason the Master failed, don’t you see?
“They need time. Other than the Master, all living beings need time.”
“But I know that time is also the source for most of humanity’s tragedies,” Sophon countered. “For example, without time, you and Cheng Xin would still be together.”
Tianming gave a sorrowful smile. “But without time, there wouldn’t have been any happiness for us. I would be without that summer of telling Weiwei stories, without that hour spent with Cheng Xin by the lake, without the thousand years spent in magnificent dreams, without the four decades when 艾 AA and I lived as husband and wife. Without time, perhaps I wouldn’t even have consciousness.”
“Mere hypotheticals,” said Sophon. “Even if you’re right, the Lurker already had time in the nine-dimensional universe. Why did it continue the degradation?”
“I can only guess,” said Tianming. His rebirth had made his mind particularly acute and clear. “The Lurker created time through dimension reduction, but it was also overwhelmed by time. Once it had opened the magic box, it could no longer stop. In time, there was birth but also death. Of course it wouldn’t be satisfied by a few milliseconds, days, years. It didn’t want to die in time, but to last forever, and so it had to reduce dimensions again and again. It did so both to avoid the Seekers and to gain more time. Later, when other civilizations appeared, they also joined this game. The universe turned into the dark forest, and dimensional strikes were but one of the weapons. Every civilization, in order to last longer, chose to reduce the universe’s dimensions.
“As the game continued, each successor universe lasted ten thousand times longer than the last one, at the price of yet another precious dimension. By the time we reach the zero-dimensional universe, it would be an emptiness possessing nothing but time.”
Tianming shuddered. Such a universe was another universe dominated by death. The dark forest was bracketed by the perfect beauty of death and the emptiness of death. True life could only exist in the cruel and severe dark forest; death was the required condition for life.
“That is why the Master must stop it!” Sophon brought the conversation back on track. “The Lurker is insane. It wants to sacrifice the entire universe on the altar of time. If the universe is reduced to zero dimensions, nothing can be done. By then there will be no life or intelligence. And even if anything could exist in such a universe, it would be stuck in infinite time. Even a billion billion years would be but a second in this interminable prison sentence.”
“But the Master lives outside of the universe,” said Tianming. “Why doesn’t it initiate dimension reversal when the universe is in zero dimensions? By then I’m sure even the Lurker will have been destroyed in that world, and nothing will be able to stop the Master.”
“You’re wrong. Since there are no dimensions in such a world, it will be independent of the supermembrane. The Master will not be able to find it. When such a thing happens to a universe, it is said to have evaporated, which happens on the supermembrane from time to time. I bet the evaporated universes were ruined by the time-worshipers in those universes. That is why you must help us and stop the Lurker in the three-dimensional universe.”
Tianming shook his head. “I must have a reason. I can’t see why I should fight to stop one kind of death only to replace it with another.”
“You shouldn’t need a reason. I know that the Master has already imbued you with its will. You only have to carry out this will.” Sophon sounded a bit puzzled.
“That’s right. You have this mental seal.” Tianming’s face twisted in pain as he held his head, struggling to think. Sophon understood that it was because the Master’s will was forcing him to comply and did not disturb the man, waiting for him to surrender. But in a few seconds, Tianming lifted his face. “The Master’s mental seal cannot control me. From this moment on, I am free.”
Sophon almost jumped out of her skin from shock. She looked at Tianming warily. “How … is that possible? No intelligence has ever been able to escape the Master’s mental shaping. What happened?”
“Let me tell you what happened. The Master’s ability to impose its will is based on an appeal to reason and requires an absolutely flawless conceptual foundation. But if the premises contain a fatal error, then the power of the Master’s seal vanishes. The Master is perfect and rarely makes an error, and that is why it has such faith in this technique for control. But it did commit a fatal error in this case. Because it doesn’t understand the meaning of time, it doesn’t understand the fundamental flaw in the ten-dimensional universe, which is not a perfect world at all. The Master ordered me to recover the perfect world, but now that I know such a world does not exist, the Master’s order has lost its meaning. I have already dissolved its directive in my mind, and from now on, I will not need to obey any person or power.”
Sophon remained silent, though she was looking at Tianming with a strange expression. Tianming backed up a step, concerned that she was going to retaliate against him.
But after a while, Sophon smiled helplessly. “Don’t worry. I won’t do anything to harm you. The Master never imagined you would disobey, and so my only programming is to obey all your orders. You’re very special. Of the six hundred and forty-seven individual intelligences who have been gifted mini-universes, you are far from the most intelligent. Yet you’re the only one who has been able to resist the authority of the Master. It’s incredible.”
“I have the Trisolarans to thank for that,” said Tianming. “The decades of torture they subjected my brain to taught me much. Even under the seemingly irresistible pressure of the Master’s flood of ideabstractions, I was able to preserve a small black box in my mind for reflection. Otherwise my self would have long since been overwhelmed by it, and I would have become its tool.”
“Since I’m faced with such an unprecedented situation, I have to compute whether we can give you a reason to help us.”
Sophon closed her eyes and seemed to meditate. Tianming stared at the projection of the two of them on the horizon, waiting quietly. Sunlight bathed the two strange figures, one male and one female. Finally, Sophon’s eyelids snapped open, revealing two bright orbs. “I can indeed give you a reason.”
Tianming looked at her suspiciously, and Sophon grinned at him. “A little earlier you asked whether dimension reversal could recover the Solar System and the Earth, remember?”
“Yes, and you said it was impossible.”
“That was only half the answer. The complete answer is this: To recover only the Solar System and the Earth is impossible, but if we recover everything, we will certainly be able to recover your star system, your home world.”
Tianming’s eyes brightened. “What do you mean by ‘everything’?”
Sophon spoke slowly and deliberately. “Dimension reversal will allow each particle to follow its nature and return to its original state, release all dimensions that are currently curled up within the quantum realm, and rebuild the ten-dimensional universe. Even the Master cannot arbitrarily decide the form of the world after dimension reversal. The only choice is to absolutely, completely, comprehensively recover the original state, without deviating one iota.”
Tianming felt that he still wasn’t understanding her.
Sophon elaborated. “Even the timeless ten-dimensional universe follows the laws of nature and is consistent with the demands of cause and effect. If everything is returned to its original state, then everything will evolve thence along the same tracks as before.”
“Oh!” Tianming suddenly understood. “Are you saying—”
“Yes, the ten-dimensional living consciousness will be formed in an instant, and simultaneously, the Lurker will rebel. The universe will again descend into nine dimensions as before, and then, as the war rages on, into eight, seven, six … until it turns into your universe.
“Your Milky Way will again coalesce, and your sun will again appear in a corner of the galaxy. The Earth and the other planets will reappear, bathed by the same sunlight. On Earth, the first life will again form in the primitive sea on a day identical to the one four billion years ago. The long process of evolution will lead to multicellular organisms. The first amphibians will climb onto land. Reptiles will spread over the whole planet, and then an asteroid will kill off the dinosaurs. An undistinguished monkey will climb down from the trees, create civilizations, states, religions, science … and your homeland will, like other nations, be reborn. Ancient emperors will again reign over all-under-heaven, and war and rebellions will follow. The poets will again recite their famous lines, and the scientists will struggle over the same puzzles. Ye Wenjie will again invite the Trisolarans to invade; Luo Ji will again deduce the laws of the dark forest; Cheng Xin will again become the Swordholder … and just as before, you will be reborn on the same second of the same minute of the same hour of the same day. Everything will … happen again.”
“Happen … again,” Tianming murmured. He was utterly amazed by this simple but incredible idea.
“Yes, everything will repeat itself, including the tiniest details. When you see Cheng Xin or Ai Xiaowei again, they’ll be wearing the same clothes, and speak to you with the exact same words. When you converse with Cheng Xin by the lake, the same breeze will caress your hair, and the same misty rain will fall around you. On the day you’re scheduled for your euthanasia, Cheng Xin will stop the procedure at the same moment, not one second earlier or later. You will dream the same dreams, and then rescue Cheng Xin from the same shot fired by Wade. You will meet the Master’s spirit, and once again come to Planet Blue, fall in love with 艾 AA. Even your kisses will be in the same poses … Finally, twenty or a hundred billion years later—who knows how long it has been—you will stand here again facing me, having this very conversation. Of course, neither you nor I will remember any of this.”
“That’s … that’s—”
“That’s the result of my computations.”
“What is the point of repeating everything exactly?”
“The point? I can’t answer that. But since every iteration is exactly the same as the iteration before, we can deduce that if the first time has meaning, then each subsequent repetition will also have meaning.”
“Then is the goal of the Master to let the history of the universe repeat endlessly? The ten-dimensional universe will last but an instant, to be followed by ten billion years of dimension reduction? And then everything will reset, so that the destruction can play out all over again?”
“You forget that time does not exist for the Master. The eternal ten-dimensional universe is no different from its eternal recurrence. Once is the same as forever.”
Tianming laughed hysterically. “I once thought the Lurker was without reason, but the Master is even more so. The end of the universe is not nothingness, but a film playing on eternal loop.”
Abruptly, he stopped laughing, as another terrifying possibility occurred to him. “If everything will repeat in the exact same way, then it must also have happened already, perhaps even countless times. We are probably only the latest incarnations of an endless, identical sequence of Sophons and Tianmings.”
He stared at the projections of him and Sophon on the horizon; that distant Tianming was also staring at another projection of himself on his horizon; and that invisible Tianming must also be staring at an even farther Tianming … ad infinitum. Every image was in fact himself.
“It’s very possible,” said Sophon calmly.
“Do you … does even the Master not know?”
“Remember that after dimension reversal, even the Master must start all over without any memories of the last universe.”
“Fine. Are you telling me that the chance to repeat everything again exactly the same way is the reason for me to help you?”
“That’s right.”
“Then my answer is simple: No. Absolutely not. A long time ago, I saw an idiotic series of anime episodes called ‘Endless Eight,’ in which the content of every single episode was almost exactly the same. A young girl—about as crazy as the Master, I’d say—took over the world and made everyone repeat the same sequence of actions without the memory of having done them. The same plot points looped over and over, recurring thousands of times, until the series showed virtually the same story eight times. I was so mad that I wanted to smash my computer. Do you think I’m interested in making this universe as dumb as that cartoon?”
“You’re only talking about superficial similarities,” Sophon said, completely ignoring Tianming’s outrage. “If this universe is a cartoon, there is no audience who want to smash the computer—well, at least you and I aren’t the audience. Like the characters in that anime, you won’t have any memory of things repeating. Even if you repeat the same actions and words, each iteration will feel to you unique and completely fresh. Remember what I said: If the first time has meaning, then each subsequent repetition will also have meaning.”
Gradually, Tianming calmed down and chewed over Sophon’s words. He admitted to himself that she had a point.
The intolerable rage brought on by seeing the same thing happen over and over was an effect of memory. Without memory, there would be no repetition. Look at bacteria, bugs, and most lower organisms: Generation after generation, they live the same lives as their ancestors, repeating everything virtually unchanged. But life isn’t meaningless for them. If a man lived a life of joy, why would he refuse to live it exactly the same one more time? He would be born again, learn to walk again, learn to talk again, go to school again, kiss his beloved again … it would not be meaningless.
What about him, though? He had once thought his own life worthless, had thought himself responsible for unforgivable crimes, had wanted to commit suicide time after time … but after everything he had been through, did he still think his own life was wasted? Would he really not want to live one more time? Would he not want to see the nervous Ai Xiaowei knock on his door? Would he not want to sit by the lake with Cheng Xin, stealing glances at her eyes? Would he not want to buy a DVD featuring Ran Asakawa for the first time, his heart leaping with excitement? Would he not want to experience the happy, long dream again? Would he not want to kiss 艾 AA’s lips on that memorable evening on Planet Blue?
Of course he would! Like the Master, even if he had to wait millions of years, even if he had to suffer countless setbacks and unimaginable pain, so long as he could lose himself in those magical moments again, he was willing to go through the cycle twice, thrice, a thousand thousand times.
And he knew that life on Earth and human civilization, born in original sin and infinite suffering, would make the exact same choice as he.
“You’re right,” Tianming said in the end. “You’ve given me a good reason, a fucking good reason.”
*
Tianming left his mini-universe and returned to the grand universe. He was on his way to find the unknown Seeker, traversing the billion-light-year dark forest like a ghost, visiting innumerable civilizations intent on concealing themselves, all in service of his impossible mission—to find the most deeply hidden Lurker among the hidden civilizations.
Before he left, he instructed Sophon to add Guan Yifan to the list of those allowed to enter the mini-universe. He knew that Guan Yifan and Cheng Xin were eventually going to come to the mini-universe, and he told Sophon not to tell them that he had been there already. He wanted her to act like the real Sophon and did not want to mar their happiness with his own shadow.
“Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” So let Guan Yifan and Cheng Xin have the joy that belongs to them, and let Yun Tianming have … nothing.
Still, he handed the lock of AA’s hair to Sophon before he left. “If I return here before the end of the grand universe, will you be able to clone her? I don’t want to have to wait for the life span of the universe to see her again.”
“That’s a simple technical problem. I can clone her right now.”
“No, please wait until my return. A clone will not be the same as her … previous incarnation. I don’t know how to face this brand-new AA—” Somehow, he felt that this woman whose fate had already been entwined with his through two lifetimes would still return to him in the future in some way. The universe was grand, but life was grander. Perhaps they would see each other again …
“Oh, why can’t you come with me?” Tianming asked. He knew nothing about his new duties, and if Sophon could come with him, it would certainly make everything easier.
“Fundamentally, I’m just the management system for this mini-universe. If I leave, the mini-universe will collapse,” said Sophon. “But if you can find the Seeker in Universe 589, it should be able to help you.”
Tianming nodded. With a last glance at this paradise that he was not fated to enjoy, he turned and left. His figure disappeared through the rectangular outline and appeared among the stars of a bright cluster about six thousand light-years away.
He no longer needed a spaceship, because he was a spacecraft himself. Apart from superficial appearance, his body no longer had any similarity with biological humans. Indeed, other than the fact that he still possessed human memories and thoughts, he was practically the same as Sophon: a robot constructed out of pure energy. Like a biological human, he was also made from cells. But each cell in his body was a nanomachine more complicated than any known computer. His body was even capable of curvature propulsion and traversed the vast universe at the rate of 300,000 kilometers per second.
*
After a break that wasn’t a break at all, a signal appeared. But it wasn’t Tianming.
Sophon opened her eyes. She knew instantly that 18.9 million years had elapsed in the grand universe.
Tianming hadn’t returned, but two others with the right authorization had.
Although Sophon had no time sense, she understood what 18.9 million years meant to humans.
Perhaps Tianming had long since turned to fragments and dust, and would never return. After all, no matter how much his body had been enhanced and reconfigured, it was no match for black holes, quasars, and neutron stars. Or perhaps he was still trudging through some distant world, seeking the faintest traces of the Lurker; or perhaps he was simply taking his pleasure in some corner of the universe, his mission long forgotten …
As a robot bound to her programming, Sophon was not disappointed, worried, scared, or even curious, and she certainly wouldn’t feel sorrow for a Yun Tianming that had perhaps long since disintegrated. All these emotions were irrelevant for her. She was simply going to follow Tianming’s instructions and carry out her duties.
She left the house, walked over the fields, and came to the tree under which not long—that is, 18.9 million years—ago she had seen Yun Tianming, and bowed deeply to the curious man and woman she found there.
“The universe is grand, but life is grander. Fate has indeed directed us to meet again.”
1 Translator’s Note: A koan by Master Huineng (638–713 CE), the Sixth and Last Patriarch of Chan Buddhism.