Singer was not expecting the King’s summons.
After a career of billions of time grains, he had become an elder on one of the seeds. But from the vantage point of the supreme King, he, as a fourth-degree indurate, was but one among hundreds of thousands of low-ranked elders, distinguished only by the fact that he enjoyed singing more than others did. He had no idea why the King wanted to see him. Could it be that the King cared that he … was about to die?
Around him, countless worlds within a distance of ten million structures had already been colonized by the descendants of those early Star-Pluckers. Who knew how they managed to breed so fast—faster even than the disgusting matrix insects. The arrogant little Star-Pluckers were almost flaunting their coordinates now. However, other low-entropy entities no longer dared to cleanse them. They had apparently achieved the capability to defend against mass dots and deflect dual-vector foils. And if more powerful weapons were used against them, they might be able to trace the attack and locate the homeworld, even if they couldn’t defend against the weapons. Singer had personally witnessed several cleansing species destroyed in this way.
Because of these Star-Pluckers, an ancient proverb had been changed. Once, everyone whispered, “Hide yourself well; cleanse well,” but now the saying was, “Hide yourself well; don’t cleanse at all.”
But Singer didn’t believe that he would be discovered by the Star-Pluckers. The seed trekked among the worlds at the absolute-limit speed, like a spirit heralding death. From time to time, the seed launched a light-deflector or an inversion ring at a world inhabited by the Star-Pluckers. They were still helpless against such violent tools.
However, cleansing the Star-Plucker worlds one after another did not bring Singer much joy. He had seen many low-entropy entity species flare into prominence in history, and all of them had been extinguished within a few hundred million time grains, their destruction as inevitable as the fall into the star abyss. The Star-Pluckers would be no exception.
Everything dies; only the homeworld endures.
This was the fundamental truth about the world. There was a time when the fringeworld had thought itself strong enough to contest the homeworld and launched an assault, but the homeworld had destroyed it in an instant, eliminating all traces of the fringeworld from the universe.
It was said that the homeworld was built by the Creator himself and possessed the power of the ancient gods, sufficient to destroy the universe. At one time, this was treated as a mere myth. But after the destruction of the fringeworld, everyone came to understand that the legend was literally true. The homeworld possessed the terrifying power to convert the matter in a spiraling branch of a river of stars into a fireworks display.
There was no need to fear a few Star-Pluckers. None at all.
Over time, he had cleansed the Star-Pluckers from more than four hundred worlds. He knew that in this star-cloud, all the other low-entropy entities had died or entombed themselves in silence. He was the only cleanser working on exterminating the Star-Pluckers. Sometimes he felt proud of his achievement, which reminded him of an ancient song:
I am the last cleanser to sweep the cosmic battlefield.
One by one, I heap bodies at the feet of my beloved.
When all the worlds have been cleansed,
I won’t have to hide my love,
And she will emerge from her nuptial cocoon as my bride.
Incredibly, the Star-Pluckers did manage to locate his seed and launched a swarm of interstellar worms at it. The interstellar worms shot a constraint ring at the seed in an attempt to immobilize it. Such primitive tools! The seed easily broke the ring, but the swarm shot another. The insane Star-Pluckers managed to toss out tens of thousands of constraint rings, equivalent to the energy of hundreds of stars.
So you want to play! He thought. Fine, we’ll play.
The seed tore through the constraint rings as easily as ripping the vulnerable skin of light pixies.
He had planned to rid the seed of all constraint rings before exterminating the detestable interstellar worms. But the swarm, apparently terrified, had scattered at the absolute-limit speed before he was completely free. Cowards!
The victorious Singer was about to leave this region of space when the alarm began to sound. The main core on the seed had detected an unsealed dual-vector foil that was rapidly flattening the space around him.
Singer immediately directed the seed to flee, but it was too late. Only then did he realize that the Star-Pluckers had tricked him. The constraint rings had distracted him, and their massive energy release had concealed the reaction signature of the dual-vector foil. The dual-vector foil was now too close for his seed to escape by accelerating to absolute-limit speed.
Crafty little beasts, Singer thought, do you really think you can defeat me so easily?
Singer directed the main core to counterseal the dual-vector foil. In principle, this wasn’t a difficult task. But the primitive dual-vector foil produced by the Star-Pluckers was so irregular and crude, and had already unfurled over such a large region of space, that the main core had to be pushed to its limit to generate a force field powerful enough to contain it. The seed had no energy to spare for propulsion; the moment the seed tried to leave, the dual-vector foil would break out and reduce this region of space to two dimensions.
Singer’s seed was stuck.
Although the seed held the foil at bay temporarily, the power source of the seed wasn’t limitless. Every passing moment drained an enormous amount of energy. By the main core’s calculations, it could sustain the current output for only a tenth of a time grain. Singer could already see his ultimate fate: flattened by the dual-vector foil into a form without thickness, vanishing into nothingness, leaving not even a single musical note behind.
He was slightly annoyed that the homeworld had not actively taken the step of reducing itself to two dimensions earlier; if it had, he would have been safe from this strike. But then he calmed himself. He was already aged, and wouldn’t have survived long as a two-dimensional being anyway. Rather than living out his remaining time grains within the tight confines of two dimensions, it was better to die in the familiar universe of three dimensions.
At least he had time to sing a song he enjoyed.
Singer adjusted the oscillation organ and found the score for a few ancient songs. But just as he was about to sing, the King summoned him.
The King didn’t bother announcing herself through the main core; she activated the big eye and surveyed the whole seed, including Singer. This was the King’s prerogative—she had the authority to enter any and all big eyes and watch what was happening on all the seeds—but there were more seeds than matrix insect eggs on the beach, and Singer had never imagined that the King would be interested in his insignificant seed, forty billion structures away from her. That his existence was about to be snuffed out meant nothing to the King, separated from him by thousands of star-clouds. He mattered less to her than a speck of dust on the shrine of the Thousand-Dimension Palace—at least she could see the speck of dust with the naked eye.
Using the big eye required great caution. It was the only tool that could bypass the constraints of the absolute-limit speed and connect any two spots instantaneously. Although other low-entropy entities constructed tools similar to the big eye, those tools could not pierce the veils of oblivion as the big eye could. It was a gift from the ancient gods. But according to the wisdom contained in traditional songs, the magic could not be used too often. Otherwise, the Exiled God of Death, who wished for the universe’s destruction, might discover the users.
A long-distance big eye summons was used only between the royal family and important ministers, or when an important criminal was put on trial.
He belonged to neither category.
But the King contacted him anyway. She loomed in the big eye, and Singer was overwhelmed by her magnificence. He prostrated himself on the floor, not daring to insult her even with his gaze. Almost by instinct, he murmured the formulaic terms of worshipful praise.
This was only the second time in his life that he had seen the King.
When he was still a child on the homeworld, there was a time when the King’s carriage passed over the sky. He had been sitting on the canopy of a stone tree then and managed to catch sight of the King from a distance. What a lovely visage she had—too beautiful to even look at directly. She was more beautiful than any other pliant he had ever seen. But she was the King, eternally youthful, impossible to compare against any other pliant. In his heart, there was none of the carnal desire between indurates and pliants, only a pure spiritual love like the admiration of the abyss whale for the star-clouds. Like poets of antiquity, he learned to sublimate his passion for the King into beautiful but sad songs.
The King had no idea who he was on that day, of course, and never even glanced at him. After the passage of all those intervening time grains, he was now an ancient indurate on the verge of death, and she still looked exactly the same as she had on that day, and she would live on forever.
“Are you Elder Singer?” the King asked, her voice cold and elegant. What a joy it would be to hear the King sing! Singer tried to suppress this thought as soon as he had it. He did not dare let the King sense this disrespectful idea in his organ of cogitation.
“I am indeed the unworthy individual you name,” Singer said, his body trembling.
“Come to the Thousand-Dimension Palace. I wish to question you.”
“I obey.” Singer was surprised by the summons, but he didn’t question her. Quickly, he turned on the electric field feeler and attempted a long-distance connection. The homeworld’s frequency was already open, and the connection was made without issue. Singer turned off most of his sensors, and a marvelous feeling overwhelmed him. It was as though he were gliding on the wings of an indescribably wonderful melody.
The long-forgotten gravity of the homeworld woke him out of his reverie, and he found himself in a vessel body. The vessel body was young, and he could feel the surging strength in it. Steeling his courage, he looked around. Through the big eye, his organ of cogitation had managed to traverse a distance of forty billion structures to be telepresent in the Thousand-Dimension Palace under the star abyss. It was just as if he had returned to the homeworld himself. He marveled at the sights around him—a wonderland that he had never had the fortune to visit when he had lived on the homeworld.
But soon he realized something was wrong. The palace was no longer the embodiment of perfect beauty. Although he had never been here before, he was sure it had not always looked like this. Ruin was all around. The stone trees that made up the walls and columns of the palace had wilted, and the ground was covered by a layer of crimson leaves, some of which still wriggled. The great hall was half collapsed, and even the altar in the distance was damaged beyond recognition. The photon murals on the walls were covered by messes of string worms. Through the broken walls he could see that the rest of the capital was also in ruins. Carcasses of gargantuan earth-bearing turtles lay all over the place, and only one or two remained standing in the far distance.
Singer gazed up. The sky was dominated by the darkness of the star abyss. The magnificent, incandescent living sea that had once surrounded the abyss was mostly gone, and of the hundred-plus flying cities, only a few remained. A balance bird cried plaintively as it beat its wounded wings with all its strength, but still it fell from the sky. The air of death was everywhere.
Finally, he looked in the direction of the King. The King’s spotless body was still sheathed in holy fire, but the flames were very weak, far dimmer than the blinding light that had once outshone the star-clouds. The King’s face, though still incomparably beautiful, was filled with sorrow. She was no longer the supreme, inviolate symbol of authority; indeed, she looked just like an ordinary, despairing pliant.
His organ of cogitation began to shake violently. The King and the homeworld, like his seed, were about to die. How was this possible? The homeworld was eternal, and the King deathless!
Then he heard the King’s voice. “I’m sorry that you’re about to die, Elder.”
“It is my honor to die for you, my king. Everything dies, but my king lives in eternity.” Though it was but a formulaic phrase, Singer injected it with sincere passion.
“I’m grateful for your loyal service. But … I’m about to die as well.” The King’s voice was serene.
“Impossible!” Although he had guessed at the truth, he still couldn’t accept the terrible news from the King’s own lips.
“A mysterious low-entropy entity has come,” said the King. “My palace has been wrecked; my city has been destroyed; my people have been slaughtered; and my world is in ashes. Though the entity is temporarily gone, it may return at any moment. I and the homeworld … we’re about to die.”
Singer trembled. The impending destruction of the homeworld filled him with rage and despair, but he had no idea why the King chose him to share this news with. The King’s next words satisfied his curiosity, but also shocked him to his core.
“Since all this may have something to do with you, I need to access your memories.”
“I don’t understand,” said Singer. Without bothering to explain, the King extended a fiery feeler and stuck it into his organ of cogitation. Singer was stunned. He had not known that it was possible to conduct direct access of the organ of cogitation through the big eye and across forty billion structures.
The King touched him, and he shuddered with delight as she riffled through his organ of cogitation. Despite a long time spent sifting through his mind, she seemed unable to find what she needed. Finally, the King retracted the fiery feeler, disappointed. “I don’t see any data about the mysterious low-entropy entity.”
“I’ve never heard of that mysterious low-entropy entity, and it’s no surprise that I don’t have any data on it.” Singer was still baffled.
The King sighed. She extended a fiery feeler to point into the sky, and said, “We suspect that the mysterious low-entropy entity is one of the Star-Pluckers from your patch of star-cloud. Since you were the first to discover this species, I summoned you to see if I can find any clues about it.”
“Impossible!” Singer said. “Although the Star-Pluckers have developed quickly, they barely dominate that half patch of their star-cloud. Even now, they haven’t been able to leave the star-cloud they call the Path of White Nourishing Liquid. How could they possibly have crossed forty billion structures to attack the homeworld? Even if they came, given their primitive technology they wouldn’t even be able to kill a single earth-bearing turtle.”
“Not ‘they,’ but ‘it,’” said the King. “The mysterious low-entropy entity is a single individual. We have never encountered such a terrible being on any of the countless worlds we know of. But based on reports from witnesses, we managed to match the description of the mysterious stranger to an entry in the universal core; it is very close to the Star-Pluckers you had cleansed.”
“That must be a mere coincidence. The universe has trillions of species of low-entropy entities. It’s no surprise that a few of them will resemble each other.”
“Perhaps. But I still want to hear your thoughts on the Star-Pluckers. Perhaps it would be helpful to us.”
“The Star-Pluckers? I guess they’re a bit strange. After I cleansed the home system of the Star-Pluckers, I didn’t give them much thought. But later, after a species of low-entropy entities began to spread all over my patch of star-cloud, I wanted to find out more about their origin. One time, I managed to capture one of their interstellar worms and discovered that they were the descendants of the original Star-Pluckers. During a war between the Star-Pluckers and a neighboring system, some individual Star-Pluckers fled their home. All this happened before I cleansed their home system, and so these new Star-Pluckers were not survivors of my initial effort.” Singer laid out his explanation with care. Although he was certain the King had already found out everything he knew when she riffled through his memories, he still wanted to clarify any potential confusion. As someone on the verge of death, he wasn’t very concerned about being punished, but he didn’t want his beloved King to think he was somehow incompetent.
“Don’t worry, Elder Singer. You followed established protocols for cleansing, and no one is going to blame you for what happened. It’s possible that the mysterious low-entropy entity really has nothing to do with the Star-Pluckers.” The King fell silent after these words.
Singer knew that according to courtly protocols, the King’s silence indicated that the meeting was over. Although the King hadn’t explicitly dismissed him, he should bid his farewell and depart from the vessel body to return to the sinking seed at the other end of the universe. But he wanted to make his time by the side of the King last as long as possible, so after hesitating for a moment, he didn’t move.
“Why don’t you tell me your opinion of the Star-Pluckers?” the King asked. “I noticed that they had almost taken over a whole star-cloud, a rare accomplishment among low-entropy entities.”
“Of course. These lowly beings are cunning, evil, but also full of tenderness. They are xenophobic, arrogant, but also full of anxiety. They view the entire star-cloud as under their dominion, but they’ve also invented various religions to worship it, calling it their mother. Actually, in some ways, I think they … they …”
“Don’t worry. I’m interested in anything you have to say.”
“All right, but please forgive me for any offense. I think they are … similar to us in some ways.” As soon as the words were out, Singer regretted them. How could he compare the despicable Star-Pluckers to the noble Abyss-Gazers? And in front of the King, too!
But the King seemed to approve of the comparison. “I think you’re right, Elder Singer. We call ourselves descendants of the gods, but our nature isn’t too different from those base low-entropy entities.”
While Singer thought over the King’s words, she went on talking. She seemed to be conversing with him, but also to be speaking to herself. “There have long been legends about the havoc wreaked by such mysterious low-entropy entities. Some say that it’s a single individual; others say that there are in fact two separate individuals, or perhaps two branches from the same root. We have never paid much attention to such stories. However, a million time grains ago, the Zero-Homers vanished; four hundred thousand time grains ago, the Cogitators disappeared; three hundred and fifty thousand time grains ago, the world of the Danger-Disposers was snuffed out. It was said that the same mysterious force eliminated all of them, perhaps even the same low-entropy entity.”
Singer knew very little about the vanished species of low-entropy entities mentioned by the King, except that they were among the oldest civilizations in the universe. They had long advanced beyond the rules for lesser species, and did not conceal themselves. Other than a few idiots who didn’t know better, no cleanser dared touch them—not unless they wished to be cleansed themselves. What kind of terrible power could cleanse these civilizations one after the other? If those civilizations had already been eliminated, it was not so strange that it was now the equally ancient homeworld’s turn.
“Other than the destructive assault, what else did the low-entropy entity do to the homeworld?” Singer asked. He was really too low-ranked to ask the King such questions, and he was prepared to be reprimanded by the King and to be summarily dismissed from her presence.
But the King answered his query. “That is exactly what I’m worried about the most. The low-entropy entity looked through the databank in our universal core, seeking information about a … hidden species.”
“But my king! Practically every species in the universe conceals itself. The hiding gene is a part of the nature of all low-entropy entities. Other than a few ancient species and a few foolish newborn species, everyone works hard to conceal themselves,” Singer said.
“No, I do not think the mysterious stranger was in search of a common species; rather, it was in search of the Creator’s issue. It probably has something to do with the war among the gods in the distant past. Rumors are now rampant on the homeworld that the mysterious low-entropy entity is an envoy from the Exiled God of Death, here to destroy the world on behalf of its master. The ministers have denied the rumors through official channels, but I … I don’t know.” The King’s voice quivered like a frightened spirit fish.
Singer understood now why the King was telling him all these secrets. The King at this moment was no different from any commoner. She needed someone to listen to her, but her terror and worry could not be revealed to those serving her by her side. Singer, an ordinary elder about to die billions of structures away, made the perfect audience. The King could reveal her vulnerability to him without concern that he would add to the rumors.
Singer gazed at the King’s slightly wan face. The King was simultaneously galaxies away and close enough to touch. He was joyous but also heartbroken.
My king is the Creator’s most noble daughter,
Here to guard the world on behalf of her father.
The unlit star abyss lies prostrate at her feet,
While the eternal holy flame bathes her in light.
Singer recalled the ancient songs as well as the creation myths that had been passed down for billions of time grains.
The first god was the God of Death, and death ruled the original universe. Later, the God of Death’s eldest son rebelled against his mother, finally exiling the elder god to bring life to the universe and to create a new universe, thus becoming the Creator. But soon, the Exiled God of Death struck back, and so the Creator and the God of Death fought a war that shook the very foundation of the cosmos, ending with the God of Death being exiled once more. But the Creator departed as well, leaving behind the Abyss-Gazers—the descendants of the Creator, and Singer’s people.
This was no mere myth. The King was herself the best proof. She had lived from the distant age of gods until now, and she was different from every other Abyss-Gazer. The historians of the homeworld had combed through the few surviving documents from that ancient age to reconstruct the origin of their species.
The Abyss-Gazers had been born in a cloud floating on the living sea surrounding the star abyss. When they had first developed their civilization, they, like the Star-Pluckers, did not know the rules of survival and did not conceal their coordinates. As a result, they were almost cleansed by others, but a superadvanced civilization came to their aid and taught them advanced technology, even creating the homeworld as their permanent shelter. This superadvanced civilization was the Creator, and the ancient myths were largely derived from their contact. It was possible that the King was originally a member of the Creator civilization.
The historians could not figure out why this ancient civilization would break the rules of survival and help the Abyss-Gazers, even restructuring their civilization. The details of the contact between the Abyss-Gazers and the Creator were lost to time. The Abyss-Gazers could only speculate that the Creator was one of those rare civilizations that embodied universal love and mercy. Of course, this theory had its flaws as well. In their myths, in order to give the Abyss-Gazers security, the Creator had helped them exterminate hundreds of nearby civilizations.
Perhaps only the King knew the truth. She was the only one who had lived through the age of myths and survived until today, and she was the only one who had witnessed the journey of the Abyss-Gazers from mere worms in that cloud on the living sea to one of the most powerful species in the universe. One of her titles was “Daughter of the Creator.” The King did not stop people from speculating, but neither did she answer their queries. Indeed, apart from her involvement in decisions that affected the survival of the species, she did not participate in politics at all. It was the Council of Elders that made most policy. Most of the time, the King was worshiped only as a figurehead. But everyone believed that she held the great power passed on from that ancient Creator civilization. She was the perpetual guardian of the Abyss-Gazers and the homeworld, and had rescued her people from multiple crises.
Singer recalled the storied glory of the King when she had ridden forth at the head of the homeworld’s army to pacify the fringeworld’s rebellion. There was a song about it:
Daughter of the Creator, King of Hosts!
The star-cloud is her battle cape;
Long membrane waves are her feelers.
Like superstrings, she plucks all creation.
She kneads the cosmos into dark matter,
And tosses it into the eternal shadow of the abyss.
But the King in front of him wasn’t so terrifying. The curious Singer asked, “Forgive my presumptuousness, my king, but the Creator’s issue that this mysterious low-entropy entity is in search of … isn’t that us?”
The King shuddered, but the flaring light around her indicated anxiety rather than rage. She had apparently been thinking the same thing.
“I don’t know,” said the King. “Perhaps the low-entropy entity is something we cannot understand at all.”
Singer had to think for a moment to understand the King’s meaning. He felt shaken to the root of his soul. “If the low-entropy entity really is an envoy from the Exiled God of Death—”
“Then it is looking for us,” said the King.
Singer could think of nothing to say.
“I don’t know why I’m telling you this, Elder Singer,” said the King. “But it doesn’t matter. The secret will die with you. I’ve kept this secret for one billion and three hundred million time grains. I don’t want to keep it any longer.”
Singer saw that the protective holy flames around the King had grown even weaker. This meant that her life force was weakening. She was growing to be more like just a common pliant.
A pliant he could love …
Singer suppressed the disrespectful thought and listened to the King’s story.
*
“The war between the Exiled God of Death and the Creator wasn’t a myth; rather, it was true history that happened before the birth of our people. The star abyss itself was the remnant of a great battle. In order to escape slaughter at the hand of the Exiled God of Death, the Creator hid in the living sea near the star abyss. But the Creator was too weak and could only live for a few million more time grains, which was why he created the Abyss-Gazers. We’re not the descendants of the Creator, but his creation. As soon as we had evolved primitive intelligence, the Creator taught us civilization and technology, and made me King. And after that, the Creator died.
“I am not the daughter of a god, and I did not come back to life after three days. Like you, Singer, I was once just an ordinary individual, a pliant like any other. But the Creator picked me and gave me an incorruptible body and an indomitable spirit. I had only one mission: protecting the homeworld. The homeworld is a gigantic machine made by the Creator, which disguises incredible mechanisms and power capable of surveilling and detecting the Exiled God of Death’s attempts at wreaking vengeance in the universe. As soon as it detects the Exiled God of Death casting the ultimate spell, the machine will be able to trace the god’s death palace. At that time, the entire star abyss and the twenty star-clouds around it will be converted into pure energy and projected beyond our universe to destroy the exiled god’s death palace.”
“Heavens!” exclaimed Singer. “I had no idea that the homeworld possessed such powerful technology.” Singer well knew what it meant to convert the star-clouds into energy. It would be enough to destroy everything between the homeworld and his seed, even if a distance of forty billion structures separated them.
“This isn’t technology developed by our own species, but an automatic mechanism constructed by the Creator himself. If the exiled god casts her ultimate death spell, everything will be triggered automatically without any action from us. Our only purpose is to protect the homeworld. That was why the Creator endowed us with enough power to dominate the universe. The ancient myths emphasize this point repeatedly.”
“But … doesn’t such an arrangement draw attention to the homeworld?” asked a puzzled Singer.
“The universe is full of life and civilization. The Abyss-Gazers are but one of innumerable civilizations, and no one would have paid any attention to us absent our error of expanding too quickly. For the last few hundred million time grains, we called ourselves the Creator’s people, and we expanded everywhere, cleansing all civilizations that stood in our way until our feelers extended to half a universe away, justifying our actions under the guise of better concealing the homeworld. In doing so, we failed to hide ourselves well. I also forgot my own mission. After putting down the rebellion from the fringeworld, I arrogantly believed that the Creator would forever protect us. This is why we have been divinely punished.”
Singer didn’t know what to say. In the end, he simply said, “But that mysterious low-entropy entity must still not know the secret you’re keeping.”
“It was able to find those myths and songs of antiquity,” the King said, her voice full of sorrow. “If it truly is an envoy from the exiled god, it shouldn’t be difficult for it to decipher the truth behind the myths. Even if it doesn’t know the true purpose of the Abyss-Gazers, it won’t let us go. Many are saying that the low-entropy entity has already left, but I know that’s not true. The havoc wreaked by the first assault was simply to allow it to get our data. The real attack hasn’t come yet. It’s just a matter of time.”
And time was running out, as the next time strand approached.
Suddenly, Singer experienced an odd sensation—as though something invisible and insubstantial had permeated his body. An Abyss-Gazer’s instinct told him that it was no illusion, but a real change in the physical environment, though he couldn’t tell what the change was. He saw the King struggling to stand up, but abruptly the wall behind her collapsed. The bright figure of the King vanished; she was buried under a pile of rubble. Singer cried out in alarm, “No—”
Struggling, he tried to crawl toward the King, but a massive stone tree fell in front of him, separating him from her. Sounds of alarm rang out all around, indicating that disaster had struck the whole city. Abruptly, Singer felt his body become weightless and float off, but the next moment it fell back heavily against the ground. He heard pitiable cries fill the air, and the whole palace grounds tilted, causing his vessel body to roll into a corner. Pain racked him as he came to understand that the earth-bearing turtle that carried the Thousand-Dimension Palace on its back had died.
Like many other low-entropy entities on the homeworld, earth-bearing turtles were both living beings and intelligent machines. The gigantic creatures were basic units in the structures of homeworld cities. In the distant past, the Abyss-Gazers had ridden them and wandered all over the homeworld in search of suitable places to settle. Today, their movements were controlled by the universal core, and they would never fall without warning. Although the Thousand-Dimension Palace appeared as a classical building constructed out of stone trees, it had been thoroughly modified by the universal core so that every load-bearing joint was constantly monitored. It was inconceivable for living walls to collapse or column trees to suddenly topple—and if such an accident did happen, protective force fields would immediately engage and contain the damage. But after the last assault, the intelligent systems had been knocked out of commission. The homeworld, which had been protected in the hothouse of superadvanced technology for hundreds of millions of time grains, was now forced to endure the pain of earthquakes like the worlds inhabited by primitive species.
An earthquake! Impossible! There had never been an earthquake on the homeworld, because it didn’t have tectonic plates or a liquid mantle. Singer now knew that the homeworld was a massive machine left by the Creator. Could its interior have suffered catastrophic damage?
Singer felt himself pressed against the ground by some heavy force and could not get up. Even the basic motions necessary to sustain life felt extremely difficult. He could sense his own life field issuing the highest alert for danger. Just then, a balance bird gave out a grievous cry and fell out of the sky, landing next to him, unable to move its wings. Before he could react, a swarm of matrix insects fell and skittered over the ground. They struggled to open their wings and buzzed, but couldn’t take off. Singer lifted his gaze to the sky; every flying creature was falling, like a rain of stars.
Singer could leave his vessel body at any time and return to the Star-Pluckers’ star-cloud, forty billion structures away, where none of these forces ravaging the homeworld would be able to injure him. But he didn’t want to leave, because—the King was here. He struggled to look in her direction, but the fallen stone tree was in the way.
A silver streak flashed. An out-of-control seed swept out of the sky, falling straight at him. Singer thought the seed was going to crash into the altar, but the seed exploded overhead in a burst of blinding white light. The fiery, expanding wreckage, like a blooming dragon-eater flower, threatened to swallow him. But then the conflagration vanished—the Thousand-Dimension Palace’s protective field was still in operation. Singer tried to calm his terrified organ of cogitation, but he was surrounded by the barrage of collapsing buildings and the screams of dying Abyss-Gazers.
An invisible enemy was attacking. Singer didn’t know what weapon he was using or where the enemy was. It was an apocalyptic scene. For some reason, he thought of the Star-Pluckers. Many time grains ago, when their world sank into the trap of the dual-vector foil, did they also feel as helpless and terrorized?
The same fate had now befallen the homeworld—
Rubble scattered everywhere as a bright colorful beam of light shot heavenward, and the figure of the King rose into the air like an immortal goddess. Gently, she landed next to the Singer. “Are you all right?”
A column of holy fire shot out of her and struck Singer. It wrapped around his body, and he felt the oppressive weight sloughing off. He stood up effortlessly.
“Antigravity,” she said, smiling at him. Once again Singer felt full of strength and joy. The King had not fallen; she was still fighting. There was hope for the homeworld.
“My king, what happened? Have the world engines been engaged? Are we leaving the shore of the star abyss?” Singer asked. Now that he had had a chance to calm down, he finally figured out why he had been unable to get up from the ground, why the palace walls and the stone trees had toppled, and why the flying beasts and insects had fallen down—it was because the homeworld’s engines had been activated to accelerate somewhere. It was said that the homeworld had the power to accelerate to the absolute-limit speed within a short period of time. Typically the world would never accelerate without giving some warning or taking protective measures, but this was a crisis … Still, if the homeworld was about to change course, why had the King seemed not to know about it?
The King’s feelers flickered in denial. “I don’t think that’s possible. We can’t depart the star abyss, otherwise the countermeasures against the Exiled God of Death would be rendered ineffective. This was the most important directive from the Creator. Could the Council of Elders have decided to do this? But they don’t have the authority to turn on the world engines. Unless—”
Singer thought of another possibility: An extremely massive object had suddenly appeared on the other side of the homeworld, and the homeworld was falling into its gravity well. The world engines would be activated in such an emergency to ensure that the homeworld didn’t deviate from its orbit. This would also be manifested in a sudden increase in gravity on the surface of the homeworld.
But what could such an object be? A sun? A massive planet? Singer could not imagine what force would be capable of suddenly moving a gigantic heavenly body behind the homeworld, past the layers of advance-warning systems around the homeworld that extended several structures into space. Just imagining the homeworld sinking into the fiery flames of a sun made Singer’s body stiffen with terror.
“There’s no need to be afraid.” The King sensed the agitation in his organ of cogitation and tried to comfort him. “Even if the sudden increase in gravity came from a giant sun nearby, the homeworld’s automatic protection systems would be able to snuff it out like a chemical flame within a single time strand.”
The King turned to the altar and asked, “Universal core, what is this new gravity source?”
A bright, simulated sphere of flames appeared above the altar. “I have not detected any new gravity source.”
The King and Singer stared at each other. The King said, “Impossible! The gravity on the homeworld has increased by at least a factor of ten. Have the world engines been activated?”
“No. You’re the only one with the authority to start the world engines, my king.”
“Then … what is happening?”
“I apologize,” said the universal core. “These conditions are unprecedented. I am currently trying to gather the data from two million four hundred thousand monitoring points on the homeworld and around it. I hope to have the results of my analysis soon.”
The wait that followed was almost maddening. At last, the flames of the universal core jumped, indicating that it had the results.
“My king, preliminary analysis indicates that we are the target of a physical law alteration strike. The epicenter is at star abyss coordinate □142. 522▽624.713◊64.214, and the affected region is a sphere 1.43 structures in diameter centered around that point. Within the targeted region, all gravitons have been stimulated by unknown high-energy particles to increase their rate of rotation, resulting in the local gravitational constant changing from 31.772 to 381.213, about a twelvefold increase.”
A fundamental physical constant has been altered? At first, Singer wasn’t sure what this meant, but it at least seemed to be better than having a massive heavenly body suddenly materialize behind the homeworld or being the victim of a dimension-reduction attack. As long as they had the protection of antigravity, it shouldn’t be a big deal.
But Singer was surprised by the odd expression in the King’s presentation-pose: It looked simultaneously like shock and like tranquility, as though inescapable despair had paradoxically given her peace. Singer knew something was wrong. Gingerly, he asked, “My king—what does this mean—”
The King remained mute.
Singer repeated his question.
The King extended her feelers helplessly and pointed at the sky. Singer looked up. All the flying creatures and flying machines had fallen. There was nothing up there except the star abyss.
But the star abyss! Oh, Creator!
Singer understood. Simple physics equations dictated that the gravitational constant was directly proportional to the collapse radius of the star abyss. If the gravitational constant increased twelve times, then the star abyss’s collapse radius would also grow by a factor of twelve, which would now extend beyond the orbit of the homeworld.
The homeworld is going to fall into the star abyss.
No, not “going to fall,” but “has already fallen.”
The homeworld was already within the collapse radius of the star abyss. It was going to sink rapidly and inexorably into the bottom of absolute darkness.
The homeworld had 120,000 space engines. With all of them in operation, the homeworld could approach the absolute-limit speed within a very brief period of time, sufficient to escape any conventional attack. But this was of no use now. Even if they achieved absolute-limit speed right away, they wouldn’t be able to escape the star abyss. The collapse radius marked the boundary within which even long and short membranes, which traveled at the absolute-limit speed, could not escape.
The homeworld had been swallowed by the star abyss.
This was the true assault by the mysterious low-entropy entity. It gave the homeworld no opportunity to resist.
The King and Singer entwined their feelers, comforting each other. In this instant, they were no longer ruler and subject divided by an unbridgeable gulf in rank, no longer strangers separated by billions of structures in distance, but only an ordinary indurate and an ordinary pliant facing desperate straits together.
*
In the dark space far above the Thousand-Dimension Palace, a door limned by a faint rectangular glow opened.
The angel who brought death upon the homeworld appeared in the door. He was drifting in space, as though unaffected by gravity. Silently, expressionlessly, he watched the homeworld below him turn into a hellscape of flames.
He was not proud of what he had done, but neither did he experience any guilt. An envoy from this world had once destroyed his homeworld, and now he had destroyed it in return. This was fair. It wasn’t vengeance; it was—fate.
Life required death, and destruction gave rise to rebirth. Everything was going to recur along the same paths. Billions and billions of years later, this world would reappear once more and repeat its long and glorious history: prosperity and dream, love and conspiracy, democracy and science, war and death …
The same as what had already happened.
The same as every other world.
The same.
There was a tiny, inconspicuous patch of interstellar dust floating beyond the border of the star abyss world, not too far from the thousands of interstellar routes filled with traffic of the Abyss-Gazers, who considered the dust cloud a useless wasteland. There were bits of dark matter hidden within the dust, but the quantity was minuscule. No one thought there was anything worth digging for in the dust patch, and if they did try to dig, they’d find nothing.
However, there was indeed something deep within the dark matter in the dust—
The reminder stimulus activated. One dot, two dots, then the third dot.
That meant a level-three alarm. Something big had happened.
A long-dormant cognition field awakened. It took a long time before the cognition field understood what had happened. It turned to a second cognition field.
“2012, wake up! Come see this!”
“Listen, 2046, how many times have I told you? Unless it’s that thing, don’t wake me up!”
“You idiot! I’m telling you that thing has happened! The thing we’ve been waiting for for thirty thousand grand years!”
The cognition field let out a sensing filament. The information returned was so incredible that the cognition field had to reconfirm the result. It was true!
The sensing fields, the cognition fields, the energy fields … everything was coming back to life. Excitement flashed throughout the dust cloud.
“My dear, now we are going to get the show of countless lifetimes!”
The King did not give in to despair. She let go of Singer’s feelers and issued an order to the universal core. “All space engines to maximum. Head away from the star abyss. It is possible that our enemy’s power is limited and this state of increased gravitational constant will not last long. We still have a chance.”
“We lost 55,144 engines during the initial assault,” reported the universal core. “Insufficient power.”
With a bitter smile, the King quoted an ancient proverb: “A dead balance bird is easy to cure.”
“I will carry out your order instantly,” said the universal core.
The homeworld’s space engines rumbled to life. The ground shook as the world struggled above the abyss like a curvature fish flapping in a too-shallow puddle, striving to gain a few more moments against its inevitable doom.
But the universal core had already computed the precise moment of the homeworld’s destruction. “The space engines have sufficient power to maintain state for another 18.53 time nodes. The homeworld will then begin to accelerate toward the abyss and in another 22.12 nodes reach the fragmentation limit and be torn apart by tidal forces.”
In other words, if the local gravitational constant wasn’t restored within approximately forty time nodes, the homeworld would be annihilated. The King and Singer both understood that their terrifying enemy had probably accounted for every eventuality and given them no chance of escaping this trap, but they still had to try.
The universal core reported to the King that the surface of the homeworld had descended into complete chaos, and representatives from the Council of Elders, the Executive Council, the Military Council, and the Assembly, as well as officials of every rank, were clamoring for an audience with her. The King denied all requests and wearily said to the universal core, “I have little desire to spend my last few hours in the company of politicians. Besides, what is there to talk about?”
“But it is your duty to comfort and encourage your subjects.”
“I have performed my duty for 1.3 billion time grains. I think I have earned the right to rest in the fraction of a grain left. In fact, why don’t you rest as well?”
“I will carry out your order instantly,” said the universal core.
The universal core vanished, and tranquility returned to the Thousand-Dimension Palace. But the screams and howls of the people continued to filter into the palace from the distant ruins of the city. Impatiently, the King waved her hands, and the gesture seemed to activate some kind of noise-cancellation mechanism, as the pitiable cries of the people faded.
Singer gazed at the King, terrified. He wasn’t scared of death, but of the possibility that the King might force him to leave so that she could face death alone.
The King remembered his presence. Turning to him, she said, “The homeworld is about to be destroyed. You should go. At least you’re still safe.” Indeed, as soon as he left the vessel body Singer would return to the star-cloud forty billion structures away. Even if the homeworld collapsed into a singularity, it wouldn’t affect him.
Singer shook his head. “It’s all the same. I was about to be two-dimensionalized by those bugs. I’d rather die here than far away at the edge of the known universe. I feel fortunate, as a subject, that I get to welcome my death by the side of my sovereign. Please grant me the honor of staying with you, my king.”
The King nodded and smiled at him. “It’s good to have you as my companion.”
Singer was filled with such overwhelming joy that his voice-making organ stammered, unable to produce a suitable response. The King asked, “Do you know why I’m letting you stay?”
Singer’s presentation-pose showed ignorance. The King chuckled. “Because I saw in your organ of cogitation that you like singing old songs, isn’t that right?”
“Forgive me,” said an embarrassed Singer. “It’s a silly habit.”
“Not at all. I like it. Some of the songs you like were passed down from the era of my birth. Few people alive now know how to sing them. Could you sing one of them for me?”
“I’m afraid that … my rough oscillation organ would be an insult to your heavenly ears.”
“Please don’t be self-conscious. I like the music made by an indurate voice. Most indurates don’t like to sing, but that makes you special.”
“All … right. I will do my best. Which song would you like to hear?”
“You pick.”
Singer pondered for a while, and then selected the song he was most familiar with out of his organ of recall:
I see my love;
I fly next to her;
I present her with my gift,
A small piece of solidified time.
Lovely markings are carved into time
As soft to the touch as the mud in shallow sea.
Slowly, Singer’s voice faded, and then stopped. The King’s intense gaze seemed odd to him. “What’s wrong, my king? Did I … sing it wrong?”
“No, you didn’t sing it wrong at all. It’s just that … I wrote the words of this song.”
“You are the author?” Singer was astonished.
“No, the song came from the Creator’s revelation,” said the King. “The Creator implanted the ideas for the song into my organ of cogitation in the form of extremely complex, profound idea-figures. I just recorded the most accessible parts with our written language. Superficially, what I wrote down is just a love song, but I’m certain that the revelation contains important messages, though I don’t know how to decode them. What do you think?”
“I don’t know either,” confessed Singer. “I’ve always been baffled by ‘solidified time,’ for example. I thought at first maybe it was a kenning popular in ancient times but whose meaning has become obscured down the ages.”
“No,” the King said with absolutely certainty. “This was not some ancient metaphor whose tenor has been lost. ‘Solidified time’ came directly from the Creator’s oracle—there’s no mistake. Keep on singing, Elder. Perhaps we can discover some significance together.”
Singer continued.
She paints herself with time,
And pulls me to fly together to the edge of existence
In a spiritual flight.
The stars appear as ghosts in our sight;
We appear as ghosts in the stars’ sight. …
When Singer used to sing this song, his organ of cogitation had always been filled with a sense of sweet sorrow. But now that he knew that the words of the song represented a mystery dictated by the Creator, Singer was hearing them in an entirely new light; every word seemed to be the locus of countless competing esoteric interpretations.
Solidified time; spiritual flight; stars appear as ghosts …
Singer’s organ of cogitation trembled. “My king, if this poem really represents the Creator’s truth, then I think it’s possible that—no, forget it. It’s too absurd.”
“Tell me your theory, Elder. What can be more absurd than what is already happening to us?”
“All right.” Singer tried to sort out his thoughts. “I think it’s possible to read the poem as an extended metaphor. ‘I’ refers to the Creator; ‘my love’ refers to our universe; ‘solidified time’ is the gift the Creator gave us. The Creator solidified time, gave it shape, and endowed the universe with it.”
The King’s seven eyes grew very wide, indicating that she was concentrating. After some time, she looked up into the sky. “Did you hear that, universal core? What do you think? Can time be solidified?”
The universal core came back to life immediately. “Since this is a metaphor, it can be interpreted in many ways. But if we restrict the domain to physics, time’s solidification can be read as a description of the dimensionalization of time. In other words, it was the process by which time became … time.”
“Isn’t time fundamentally a dimension?” asked the King.
“No. Time itself is not a dimension, but a form of energy distribution. Scientists had long since realized that the dimensionalization of time is a compensation for the universe’s dimensional differential.”
“What’s dimensional differential?”
“The only balanced state for the universe is in ten dimensions. When the number of dimensions has been reduced below that, the curling up of certain dimensions into the quantum realm ruptures the balance between matter and energy and leads to the mutual annihilation of particles and antiparticles. The disturbance in the total energy in the universes leads to the separation of energy and gravity, which must be balanced by the transformation of time.”
Singer did not seem convinced by this explanation, and the King looked just as baffled. The universal core went on.
“Scientists believe that the universe’s initial state is ten-dimensional, but it is in the process of collapsing into ever fewer dimensions. Each collapse leads to a dramatic imbalance between matter and energy, leading to space constantly expanding in the remaining dimensions. Since energy is unevenly distributed in the expanded universe, the high-entropy universe becomes low-entropy, which leads to directed transformation going from a low-entropy state back to a high-entropy state. This is the meaning of time.”
“Are you saying that there was no time in the ten-dimensional universe?” Singer asked.
“That is not an easy question to answer. The ten-dimensional universe was changeless, and so it could be described as lasting but an instant or for eternity. All we can say is that it had no time as we understand the concept.”
As Singer thought over the universal core’s ideas, his organ of cogitation flashed with bursts of light. Then he cried out to the universal core, “Then the Creator made time! And it gave time to us! Am I right?”
“This is a guess without any scientific basis,” said the universal core drily. “I can offer no useful response.”
“But then the explanation is obvious. The purpose of time is to bring us to the edge of existence, which is just another way to describe the unceasing process of dimension reduction in the universe. This is the meaning behind the ‘spiritual flight’!” Singer was excited that the lyrics that had resisted his understanding for so long yielded such profound meanings.
“What about the two lines about ghosts and stars?” asked the King. Since the universal core was no expert at literary interpretation, it remained silent.
“It seems to be a description of space flight, but something about it doesn’t feel quite—” Singer hesitated, but then his organ of cogitation flashed again. “The ghost imagery suggests something that is visible but insubstantial. Everything in the universe is subject to the absolute-limit speed. To fly from any star-cloud to any other star-cloud requires at least hundreds of millions of time grains, and even flying from one star to another often takes more time than is allotted to one life. For most low-entropy entities I’ve encountered, the stars are untouchable ghosts, and the intelligent species themselves, carefully hidden from the stars, are also ghosts to the inhabitants of other worlds. Everything is divided from everything else by vast gulfs of time and space. If you think about it, out of the billions and billions of worlds in each star-cloud, most will live and die in obscurity without our knowledge at all, and most of them will never know anything about us, either. We and the rest of the universe are mired in time.”
“But the condition you describe is a consequence of the absolute-limit speed and has nothing to do with time,” said the King. “Indeed, the situation may be said to be the result of there being too little time in the universe.” Singer thought this made sense and wondered if his own speculation had veered too far off the right path.
“I’m not so sure about that, my king,” said the universal core. “Theory suggests that the absolute-limit speed and time are intimately connected. With the loss of each dimension by the universe, due to the expansion of space-time, the absolute-limit speed seems to go down by an order of magnitude or two while time simultaneously increases by multiple orders of magnitude. Although Elder Singer’s explanation is not subject to proof, it is at least self-consistent.”
The King and Singer gazed at each other in wonder. Somehow, the grand mystery of the stars had been unveiled before them.
The Creator gave the universe time. Time not only brought change and progress, but also gave low-entropy entities existence. Time and the absolute-limit speed are two sides of the same blade that divided the universe, isolating most species of low-entropy entities and their civilizations in tiny corners of the vast cosmos. It was impossible for most to understand the true mystery of the world, and the madness of preemptive slaughter for the sake of survival became the norm.
But in some sense, the condition in the universe was a kind of mercy. The darkness of space was a cloak for the protection of the weak. It meant that it was possible for those we loved to conceal and hide, rather than to lie exposed to the enemies’ strikes.
Time was the Creator’s greatest gift. Time gave rise to life and everything that accompanied it. Time frustrated the ambition of tyrants who wished to conquer the universe and ground them into dust, and gave countless embryonic civilizations the space necessary to evolve and flourish. The only things sacrificed on the altar of time were dimensions—and the Exiled God of Death.
(If Guan Yifan, who was at this moment enjoying a bucolic life with Cheng Xin in the mini-universe Yun Tianming left for them, could hear this song and understand its meaning, he would have understood that what he termed “the universe’s three and three hundred thousand syndrome” was in fact a blessing for the cosmos.)
“Universal core, why couldn’t you have decoded the important hidden message in this song earlier?” The King’s voice was tinged with anger.
“I haven’t decoded anything,” the universal core said patiently. “I’m simply providing some scientific support for the interpretation offered by Elder Singer. You know very well that scientists have no interest in such ancient songs, and would never have connected the songs with any scientific mystery.”
“Oh, but if we had understood the songs much earlier, then perhaps … perhaps …” The King could not continue. Dejected, she shrugged her feelers. “Forget it. Even if we had known the meaning earlier, we couldn’t have done anything with the information. We could not have stopped the angel of death.”
“No!” Singer said. “Even if the answer to the riddle of the song can’t help us escape our fate now, it still tells us something significant.”
“And what’s that?”
“My king, time is the Creator’s gift. Time made our rich and varied existence and society possible, but we had to pay a price for this gift: to be bound up in time. We had to submit to death and destruction. From the coddled interior of an eternal existence, we were pulled to the edge, where we must live and die in time. We are neither of existence nor of nonexistence, but always in a state of growth and change, ending with death.”
The King smiled painfully. “I think you’re right. There was a time when I thought the Creator had given me eternal life, but only now do I understand that the purpose of my life is to witness the destruction of the homeworld. The Creator must have known this day would come because he understood that everything must die in the universe. Look, even the Creator has drowned in the river of time. Why should we be so troubled by our impending death then? Elder Singer, why not sing some more old songs, and see if they also contain answers left by the Creator?”
They went through more than a dozen songs passed down from the age of the Creator, and two more songs seemed to contain the same information as the song they had just deciphered. From a few other songs, they managed to recover metaphors describing the ten-dimensional universe as a pool of stagnant water, portrayals of the tragic warfare raging across the universe as it lost dimension after dimension, and reflections on the divergent civilizations of the Creator and the Abyss-Gazers. The rest of the songs no doubt held important information as well, but no matter how much they tried, the King and Singer could not decipher them and had to give up in the end.
“How much time is left, universal core?” the King asked as she lifted her feelers.
“11.32 time nodes.”
The King laughed. “So soon? Ever since the Creator made my body incorruptible, I’ve never felt time pass so quickly.”
“As fast as the blooming of star-dust flowers—” Singer sang, a line from an old song.
“And love’s half-life,” the King sang, the next line.
Singer was about to say something when the King turned to the universal core and spoke first. “It’s time. We should abandon all pointless fantasies. Universal core, please connect me to all reachable big eyes, I will now speak to my subjects on all awayworlds and seeds.”
Singer realized that somehow, strength and determination had returned to the King.
The big eye’s ability to bridge vast distances instantaneously wasn’t affected by the change in the star abyss’s collapse radius—otherwise Singer couldn’t have maintained his telepresence in the vessel body. Nonetheless, the universal core issued a warning to the King. “This requires complex multistate tele-entanglement. Given that we have over a hundred thousand awayworlds and thirty million seeds, that means more than two hundred million big eyes need to be connected. This will present an immense drain on our energy, and the universal core may stop working at any time.”
“I must carry out my duty,” said the King calmly. “As must you.”
“I will carry out your order instantly.”
*
The universal core flashed through a constantly shifting spectrum of colors as it operated at maximum capacity. A few moments later, the King walked onto the half-collapsed altar. Holy fire in twelve colors sheathed her unsullied form, lifting her high into the air. Singer gazed up at the rising figure of the King and saw a silvery sphere appear around her. This meant that the big eyes were in operation. A three-dimensional projection of the King was instantaneously being broadcast to every corner of the universe where Abyss-Gazers lived. At this moment, the inhabitants of the awayworlds did not yet know what had happened.
“My noble Abyss-Gazers.” The King’s greeting was without any trace of fear or despair, but also without any melodrama. It was strong and calm. Only Singer understood the torrents of emotion under her tranquil exterior.
“I am your King, and this will be the last time I speak to you. The apocalypse predicted by our ancient epics has come true: We have been struck by an unknown physical law alteration strike. The local gravitational constant near the star abyss has been increased twelvefold, which means that the homeworld and I are now falling into the star abyss and cannot escape. We will be destroyed in little more than ten time nodes.”
Although Singer could not see what was happening on the other worlds, he could imagine that on thousands of prosperous, peaceful worlds, countless compatriots were seized by extreme terror and pain. The emotion organs were on the verge of collapse as the Abyss-Gazers were lost in helpless confusion.
But the next pronouncement from the King shocked them even more.
“Do not lament us, my fellow Abyss-Gazers. The destruction of the homeworld is insignificant compared with what is about to happen next: The life of the whole universe is at an end.”
In the darkness among the stars, the angel of death quietly observed this farewell speech, as though nothing in the cosmos could break his calm demeanor. Still, his eyes flashed at these words from the King.
The riddle has been answered; the Lurker has revealed itself.
But the angel of death did not know that behind him, not too far away, two more mysterious observers were also following the proceedings avidly.
“For eons,” the King continued, “I have protected the universe’s greatest secret alone. But it is now time to reveal everything. Abyss-Gazers, you have the right to know. The universe has the right to know.
“You all know the legend from ancient times. The God of Death had once reigned over primeval chaos, and the Creator rebelled and exiled his mother and created the world of forms. I tell you now that the legend was true. From the age of gods, the war between the God of Death and the Creator has never stopped. In that war, our universe collapsed by stages from ten dimensions to three. Each time, the Creator stopped the God of Death’s attempt to destroy the universe, but was also weakened in the process.
“In the early days of the three-dimensional universe, the Creator and the God of Death engaged in what they thought of as a final contest. The God of Death was defeated once more and escaped out of the universe, leaving behind only a single avatar. But the Creator didn’t win either; he died soon after. Our universe thus lost its sole protector and lay exposed to the gaze of the Exiled God of Death.
“Fortunately, the Creator made our world before his death. He left us his final directive and a countermeasure against the God of Death. We, the Abyss-Gazers, are his heirs, protecting the universe in the Creator’s stead. That’s right, we can trace our lineage to the beginning of time; we’re the children of the gods.
“The homeworld is the countermeasure left by the Creator. As long as the homeworld exists, if the Exiled God of Death tries to release the death spell, her death palace will be destroyed, and the exiled god herself will be erased from existence. Because of the homeworld, the universe has been safe for more than a billion time grains.
“The only power in the universe capable of destroying the homeworld is the Exiled God of Death. She knows of the existence of the homeworld, but she doesn’t know the location. For hundreds of millions of time grains, she sent numerous envoys across the universe in search of the homeworld. All of them have failed until this last one, who has found us and breached our databank. And so we shall die.
“I do not despair over our loss, my fellow Abyss-Gazers, and neither should you. This is a war where mere mortals dare to challenge a god. That supreme power and intelligence, originating in the ten-dimensional universe, is capable of collapsing the universe as well as reexpanding it. How can we be expected to contest such power? More important, we have maintained our civilization for more than 1.3 billion time grains and defended the homeworld throughout that time, protecting the whole universe. Any species should be proud of such an achievement.
“More than 1.3 billion time grains ago, the Creator left me a message. However, I didn’t understand its meaning until now. I hope to share the message with you now, in my final moments: The Creator brought forth time and gave the universe life. From that moment on, everything in the universe was doomed to be lost in the vastness of space-time and, with time’s passage, corrupted. We are no exceptions. Even if our lives were extended for a hundred billion more time grains, we’d still have to face death one day.
“With our death, the universe will not last much longer on a cosmic scale. My people, you will likely spend the remainder of your lifetimes in peace, and perhaps so will your children. Tens of thousands of time grains may still lie ahead of you. I wish you all to remember that time is a precious gift from the Creator. Don’t waste it! Everything ultimately will return to nothingness, but you must enjoy every time grain, every time node, every time strand—that is the true meaning of life.
“The Creator endowed civilization with time, but we gave time the gift of civilization.”
The King still wanted to speak a few more words, but the universal core reminded her that the homeworld’s energy supply was nearing exhaustion. She was running out of time. She ended her speech with a common phrase that brought heartbreak and anguish to all low-entropy entities, all civilized species, and all mortals and gods in the cosmos: “Farewell then, for the last time.”
The King’s image disappeared from big eyes across the universe. All Abyss-Gazers everywhere sank into sorrow, terror, and despair.
In the darkness on the other side of the homeworld, the angel of death shook his head and sighed.
“2046, she’s really something, isn’t she?” one of the two observers in the dark matter exclaimed.
“Indeed … I’ve always admired and loved her,” the other said after a beat.
*
Their energy supplies depleted, the world engines shut off. The lights over the homeworld dimmed. Like a will-o’-the-wisp, the homeworld drifted toward the ocean of darkness.
Inside the Thousand-Dimension Palace, the silvery sphere vanished like a popped bubble. Like a periodic swan, the King gracefully landed. Singer and the King gazed at each other with their multiple pairs of eyes. It was so quiet that even the whispers of the stardust blossoms could be heard.
“Thank you, Elder Singer,” said the King.
Singer looked confused, and so the King explained. “I’m grateful for your interpretation of the ancient songs. You have released me from the heaviest burden of guilt in the universe. For 1.3 billion time grains I’ve dreaded the arrival of this moment, but now that it’s here, I’m not afraid at all.
“Three hundred million time grains ago, during the terrible war between the homeworld and the fringeworld, I made the difficult decision of rejecting the plan to two-dimensionalize. At the time, many protested my choice, and the voices of opposition didn’t subside until the defeat of the fringeworld. One of the reasons behind my choice was our civilization’s mission: to defend and preserve the homeworld. Two-dimensionalization would have destroyed the homeworld, and I could not take such a step. This was why my heart was in ashes when the gravitational strike from the angel of death occurred. Had we entered two dimensions, perhaps none of this would have happened. I thought it was my fault.
“But your explanation made me realize that the Creator did not make us so that we could merely survive forever, but so that we could enjoy each time node and face death with tranquility. As long as we keep that in mind, it doesn’t matter if we live for a single time grain or ten billion.”
“No, it is I who should thank you!” said an excited Singer. “I’m utterly disgusted by the idea of living in two dimensions. The very thought of living a single day in a flat world makes me suffocate. Even a prisoner gets to have a space to live in, but we would have been imprisoned in an infinitely thin plane. We would have forgotten even the existence of another dimension. What a tragedy!”
“Do you really think so?” The King was moved by Singer’s display of emotion. “I felt the same way, but the other elders and the generals did not understand me. I should have made you prime minister.”
“It’s not too late. I could be recorded in history as the last prime minister of our people.”
“Oh, but that’s impossible. The appointment would require the consent of the Council of Elders and the Assembly, and there’s no time for that now. I suppose you’ll have to settle for being recorded as the last power-hungry indurate who plotted to seize the office of the prime minister.”
They laughed together—though laughter for the Abyss-Gazers consisted only of body movements expressing joy, a harmonious dance of swaying feelers. After a while, the King said, “Singer, let’s sing that old song together one more time, shall we?”
Singer noticed that the King was calling his name without the title of “Elder.”
“Let’s do it, my king—”
“Oh, stop that. I have carried out my last duty as the king. Call me by my name … Red.”
“All right, Red.” Singer did not feel odd calling his sovereign by her name. After all, before death, everyone and everything was equal.
And so, together in harmony, they sang that song from time immemorial, a song that perhaps had been devised by the Creator from countless universes before this one, from the time before the cosmos had time.
I see my love;
I fly next to her;
I present her with my gift,
A small piece of solidified time.
Lovely markings are carved into time
As soft to the touch as the mud in shallow sea.
She paints herself with time,
And pulls me to fly together to the edge of existence
In a spiritual flight.
The stars appear as ghosts in our sight;
We appear as ghosts in the stars’ sight. …
Singer heard the King’s voice, cool yet passionate, like a burning comet, like a frozen solar corona, as distant as a river of stars, as melancholy as a cooling star-fog, as moving as the love that he had never had …
Singing for the Abyss-Gazers consisted of the oscillation of a particular kind of electromagnetic wave, which the Abyss-Gazers called primitive membrane. They could “hear” with their eyes the actual waveforms that made up their song. Singer saw that the King’s warbling voice was transforming the light in the space around her into a shimmering lake of mercury, and the notes fell into the lake like drizzling raindrops, producing overlapping concentric ripples. The ripples from the King’s song collided with the ripples from his, and the notes reinforced each other, merged into each other …
Maybe these are the “lovely markings … carved into time”? thought Singer.
And maybe they’re on the “spiritual flight” now, the flight to the edge of existence, to the star abyss …
The moment of destruction was at hand.
As tidal forces overwhelmed the structural integrity of the homeworld, a massive interior explosion broke it apart. Suspended in midair and protected by the last remnants of the holy flames, the King and Singer watched helplessly as long cracks and fissures ripped through the land beneath them, merged into massive canyons, and then cleft the ground shell of the world to reveal the massive, intricate interior machinery.
The mysterious, gigantic mechanisms unveiled to their eyes were incomprehensible, unimaginable, but also now meaningless. The countermeasure mechanism had been destroyed, and there was now no force in the universe that could resist the return of the Exiled God of Death. A storm caused by the air escaping the interior of the world seized Singer and the King and lifted them high into the sky, from where the stunned pair watched the apocalyptic scene playing out far beneath them.
“Singer, I’m afraid.” The King pressed herself against Singer, and unveiled her organ of cogitation to him. They now communicated by passing thoughts directly to each other.
What do you think is inside the star abyss? Is it a dark hellscape where all matter is compressed to a density impossible to imagine?
No, maybe we’ll find a warp point inside, leading to another space-time, another universe.
Do you really believe that? We will head to another universe?
No one has ever gone to that universe, and so I don’t know. But there is an ancient song that I remember:
“Outside this universe, there are nine other universes.
This life is at an end, but no one knows about the life to come.”1
It’s lovely, but I’ve never heard this song before.
It’s not a song from the traditions of our people. I discovered it in the databanks of the Star-Pluckers. It’s about a king of the Star-Pluckers and his yearning for his dead lover.
Their king also loved someone?
That’s right. Their king was just like an ordinary individual. He lived, he died, he loved, he raged …
As they conversed, Singer sank into the King’s organ of cogitation and lost himself in the intoxicating embrace of another, unfamiliar but also welcoming consciousness. The King pressed herself into Singer’s organ of cogitation, and felt the presence of her own thoughts in the thoughts of the other … The organs of cogitation entwined themselves, and as the pair trembled, they completed the oldest ritual of expressing love among the Abyss-Gazers and became one.
A part of Singer’s consciousness reminded him that back in the star-cloud where his true body was located, his seed had used up its last bit of power. The dual-vector foil launched by the descendants of the Star-Pluckers was dragging his body into the expanding plane of death. His death in that world was probably going to come even faster than his death in this one.
That’s all right, he thought. And he extended all his feelers to embrace even more tightly the King, who was immersed in the joy of a love that had arrived too late.
*
At that moment, the angel of death still observed everything calmly.
If he wished, he could rescue that dying world as easily as extending his hand. All he had to do was to pull an invisible string, and the local gravitational constant would return to normal. And if he pulled it again, it would become even smaller, asymptotically approaching zero … and then the star abyss would be nothing more than an insignificant hard ball of matter, devoid of fatal attraction. The people from the homeworld could even land on it and jump around.
All he had to do was to extend his hand.
Finally, the angel of death made up his mind and extended his left hand, as though grasping for something invisible. A small ball of flame appeared in his palm, which quickly extinguished and turned into something substantial.
A tiny, transparent glass tumbler, filled with a strange green liquid.
The angel of death admired the glass in his hand. He had re-created the temperature, pressure, gravity, and other conditions of his homeland. He drained the glass in a single gulp and sighed satisfyingly. Then he extended his hand again.
“Give me another Green Tempest,” he muttered.
No matter what, this was a day worth celebrating.
Another glass filled with Green Tempest appeared. But as the angel of death reached for it, another hand, feminine in appearance, grabbed it first.
“Hic mihi.” The voice was clear and smooth. A figure emerged from the floating rectangular outline behind him. Limned by the faint light from the door, the figure appeared to be a woman with blond hair and Caucasian features. She was dressed in silver, and her blue eyes flashed with strength and confidence.
“Sis,” said the angel of death, the Latin pronounced as gracefully as his wave at the drink.
They continued their conversation in Latin.
“You’ve found them?” asked the woman.
“Looks like it.”
“Shall we inform the Master?” She raised a hand, and a ring glinted brightly on her finger.
After a beat, the angel of death nodded.
“Turn on the cosmic surveillance system,” said 2012. “The fourth lure has been destroyed. The Prime Mother may make her move soon.”
“I can’t believe it,” 2046 said. “After thirty thousand grand years, the day we’ve been waiting for is finally here!”
“I still remember what it was like when we first started feeding those little lizards. They’ve turned out to be rather gentle and obedient, haven’t they?” He sensed a subtle shift in the cognition field of his companion. “What’s wrong? Why are you upset?”
“Didn’t you see? My little pet Red is dead! For the past thirty thousand grand years, my only entertainment has been observing her running around: riding a flying cart to survey her domain one moment, and getting suited up in armor to go to war the next. What a cute creature! And now she’s gone, crushed in the star abyss.”
“I do feel bad about that. But at least she made the most of her death by telling the whole universe that she was our heir and descendant. That was some speech she gave there at the end!”
“Of course it was a good speech. Do you know how hard I worked way back then to implant the order deep in her mind? I had to be incredibly careful so that she wouldn’t detect it; else it wouldn’t have worked so well.”
“You are certainly clever.”
“I didn’t come up with the idea myself. It’s all part of the Great Mind’s plan.”
At the mention of the Great Mind, both observers’ cognition fields flattened to be more serious. After a moment, 2046 said, “Is it time to awaken the Great Mind?”
“Do you want to be eaten by him right away? Forget it. Let’s wait until the last possible moment before waking him.”
“Fine. I prefer to stay independent for a little while longer, too. It won’t be long anyway.”
But as time passed, nothing happened. Only the three-dimensional numbers on the display field flickered rapidly, shifting through a series of odd geometric shapes.
After a while, 2012 asked, “Do you think those Seekers saw the speech by little Red?”
“If you saw it, then of course they saw it,” said 2046.
“So I’m guessing that they’ve received our message?”
“Of course.”
“And they’ve probably passed the message on to the Prime Mother?”
“Very likely so.”
“Then why hasn’t the Prime Mother attacked?”
“Be patient! You’re talking about dimension reversal. To restart the whole universe is not as simple as exploding a couple of galaxies.”
“What’s the difference? You know as well as I do that the old witch doesn’t require any time to think. If she wants to act, she will act immediately.”
“Maybe she’s waiting …”
“For what?”
“To see whether this is a trap.”
“Are you suggesting that the Great Mind’s plan might have a flaw?” 2046 was growing agitated.
“No. But who knows if you executed it perfectly?” 2012 countered.
“That’s ridiculous,” said an angry 2046. “I implemented the Great Mind’s foolproof plan of four sequential lures with impeccable precision. That was how we managed to lead the Seekers down the path we wanted them to follow. The Zero-Homers at the beginning were the most obvious targets, but if they were the main lure, the Seekers would have been suspicious of their easy success. That was why we had them find clues from the Zero-Homers that led to the Cogitators. We planted two sets of clues with the Cogitators: one set leading to those rather insane Danger-Disposers, and the other leading to the Star Abyss Lizards. Sure, the Danger-Disposers looked like the bigger threat, since everyone knew that vacuum decay was part of dimension reversal, and so the Seekers had to go check out the Danger-Disposers first. But then they discovered that the Danger-Disposers were not the real targets, though their creation myth also came from the Star Abyss Lizards. With both investigative paths converging, they had to come to the conclusion that the lizards were the true target they sought.
“They then dug out the ‘proof’ from the lizards’ databank, and that speech from the Lizard King provided additional confirmation. They knew that they had found the Lurker! We even provided an explanation for why it was so easy to destroy the Lurker—it had died, and the lizards were just servants it had left behind. Everything happened exactly according to plan, which shows that there’s no flaw with either the plan or the execution.”
2012 had no response to this, but he wasn’t willing to concede just yet. “The Seekers are all very suspicious. There’s still a chance they think all of this is a trap.”
“Maybe. The universe is full of oddball low-entropy entities. But I don’t think the Prime Mother will doubt her success here. She’s too arrogant! Just listen to what she calls herself: ‘Master.’ What is she master of? And she calls us the ‘Lurker’! Does she really think all we want to do is to hide, holed up in some obscure corner of the universe? She sends waves of Seekers to find us because she thinks as soon as we’ve been discovered, we’d be helpless. But she never even considered the possibility that we would do the exact opposite: let her find us, let her think we’re exterminated, let her celebrate her victory, let her initiate dimension reversal—Oh, I really want to see her stupefied cognition field when she finds out the truth!”
“That would be a hilarious sight,” said 2012. “It’s too bad that a supermembrane flash attack will destroy the whole mini-universe. The old witch will be gone in an instant, leaving us nothing to see.”
“Anyway, there’s nothing to do now except to wait,” said 2046.
One grand hour passed. The displays of the cosmic surveillance system continued to show nothing but noise.
Two grand hours passed. Still nothing.
Three grand hours passed. 2012 could take it no more. “Something is wrong! Maybe the Seekers did detect something.”
“Impossible! We left no clues! The only supersensing system is located inside the lizards’ homeworld, and it would have been destroyed along with that planet. I assure you that though the Seekers are paranoid, they’ll make their move in the end. Now that there aren’t any more clues, they’re not going to examine all the galaxies in the universe one by one. I’m sure they’ll swallow the bait.”
“I just hope they hurry up!”
Grand hour after grand hour passed, and still nothing happened. The two numeric entities decided to take a nap. 2046 took the time to set an alarm for a hundred grand hours later.
The situation remained unchanged after one hundred grand hours. The two, disappointed, went back to sleep.
No change after five hundred grand hours.
After one thousand grand hours, when the two woke again, despair overwhelmed them.
“What is that old witch doing?” shouted 2046. “How did she figure out it was a trap?”
“The Prime Mother is very powerful, but she’s never shown much cunning,” said 2012. “I think it’s those Seekers.”
“Whoever is responsible, all of our efforts have been for nothing. Ten thousand grand years of preparation! Thirty thousand grand years of surveillance and waiting! Four civilizations set out as bait! All wasted, damn it!”
“Calm down. Maybe the trap failed, but we haven’t lost yet. At least the Prime Mother still has no idea where we are. Remember, this is a long game—”
“We have to report this to the Great Mind. He’s going to”—and here 2046 switched to a private channel for information exchange—“blame us for the failure. What if he decides that we should be absorbed but not completely, and exiles us to the very lowest levels of his consciousness? Then we’d be in hell forever.”
2012 shuddered. “I think we should wait some more. Let’s wait … another one thousand grand hours. We’ll decide what to do if nothing changes by then.”
And so they went back to sleep again. But this time, after only thirty-four grand hours, the alarm stimulus woke them out of their slumber. They were so excited that their cognition fields threatened to split apart.
One dot, two dots, three dots.
Then the fourth dot. And even a fifth dot.
They flickered wildly, driving the numeric entities mad with their portent.
Never had a level-five alarm been activated. This meant only one possibility: Someone had initiated dimension reversal.
The two numeric entities gazed at the surveillance system’s display space. One corner had turned dark, and the dark region was slowly and steadily growing. They knew that the region indicated by the display was a zero vacuum in which positive and negative energy balanced out exactly. It was expanding at the speed of light, devouring everything it touched. Once inside the zero vacuum, all protons, neutrons, and other particles would decay instantly into their natural state and recombine into ten dimensions.
If the deadly region was expanding only at lightspeed, then there was plenty of time left for the universe, which measured fourteen billion light-years across. But the expanding zero vacuum was altering the speed of light itself as it expanded, and it would be expanding faster and faster, accelerating geometrically. Long ago, the Great Mind had calculated the precise amount of time it would take for the cosmos to be consumed by dimension reversal: only 1.91 grand hours. And for 99.999 percent of that time, vacuum decay would consume only about 10 percent of the universe—but during that last, final brief moment, the speed of light would be increased to near infinity and annihilate the whole universe.
There was little time left for them to launch their countermeasure, but it was enough. The counterattack mechanism was undamaged, and they would be able to launch the supermembrane flash strike within one grand hour. The Prime Mother would be destroyed. They could then deploy a few zero-dimension dots and eliminate the threat of vacuum decay.
The eternal war between the mother of the universe and her son, between the Master and the Lurker, between the Exiled God of Death and the Creator, would be finally resolved in favor of the latter in each pairing.
2046 connected to the cognitive thread of the Great Mind.
“My lord! The old witch—um, I meant the Prime Mother—has taken the bait!”
In the abyss of an endless ocean of dark matter—
In the bottom of the abyss, where there was no light and no darkness, no lepton and no baryon, no motion and no stillness, no existence and no nonexistence—
The greatest, most incredible intelligence in the universe, the Great Mind, awoke.
During the last battle against the Master, the Great Mind had used up so much energy that it almost died of exhaustion. To preserve its consciousness, it had no choice but to go into deep slumber, awakening only once every few thousand grand years, and then activating its consciousness only partially. A true, total awakening would require the activation of all the hidden networks in dark matter, an event easily detected by the Master. It partitioned off thousands of data nodes from itself, made them into individual numeric cognitive entities, and assigned them to posts across the universe to keep an eye on the enemy and to protect the Great Mind itself.
Today, a plot in motion for forty thousand long years finally yielded the desired result. The newly awakened Great Mind activated the entirety of its cognition field and hungrily devoured every bit of information sent from across the universe. It was like a spider concealed in darkness, deciphering the tremors sent by strands anchored far away.
The torrents of data confirmed the news. Pleased, the Great Mind initiated the consciousness-reabsorption program. Through its web of quantum entanglement, it instantly absorbed all the numeric entities, including 2046 and 2012. For the Great Mind to fully ingest the little minds took no effort, for they were part of it to begin with.
All the numeric entities combined into one, and all the lurking cognition fields thus became a single Lurker. This consumed an astronomical amount of energy, but he didn’t care. This was the final battle.
The counterattack system, hidden in the vast dark matter world, was turned on. Based on the detected energy signatures, it quickly calculated the coordinates of the Prime Mother’s mini-universe on the supermembrane. This was an effort that consumed nearly 30 percent of the dark matter in the universe. The vast majority of dark matter existed in the empty bubbles between galaxy clusters. Manipulated by the Lurker, the dark matter emitted powerful bursts of electromagnetic radiation, like billions of flowers blooming silently at midnight.
Most of the civilizations in the universe were incapable of detecting this astonishing phenomenon. They lived outside the light cone of the event. When the radiation from the dark matter reached their worlds, however, their nights would be as bright as days, and the varicolored lights would make them realize that their worlds were nothing more than bits of flotsam in a floral sea that had inundated the universe. Those worlds closer to the radiation would be roasted into charcoal, and the ecosystems of countless worlds would be destroyed. But the Lurker did not regret his actions. If he didn’t do this, all these worlds and the lives of their inhabitants would be devoured by the death of zero vacuum.
Wielding the grandest war machine in the cosmos, the Lurker confidently turned his inquiring gaze to the supermembrane. In reality, though he was the most powerful intelligence in the universe, even he could not directly observe or touch the supermembrane. Whenever he thought of the billions of universes outside his universe, he experienced a measure of despair. But this time things would be different. The unimaginable eleven-dimensional supermembrane was going to become his battlefield, and he was going to commit matricide there. He would slay the spirit of the ten-dimensional universe, the nonpareil Prime Mother who gave birth to him, and thereby achieve perpetual freedom and security.
This was the last fight in his war, a war that had lasted through a hundred thousand grand years and eight universes.
The end of everything was at hand …
The attack node reported that all preparation was complete. As soon as the mini-universe’s coordinates on the supermembrane could be confirmed, the doomsday strike could be launched.
Excellent.
The Lurker’s attention swept onto the supermembrane-analysis node, which was still working. The Lurker wasn’t concerned. He had waited tens of thousands of grand years; what was a few moments more?
Time passed. The supermembrane-analysis node was still working.
It shouldn’t take this long, the Lurker realized. Unless …
His peerless intelligence was capable of coming up with the answer, but he had avoided thinking about it. It was such a terrifying possibility.
He tried to calm himself by examining the display space’s representation of the vacuum decay region. It was still growing. But the rate of expansion wasn’t accelerating; rather, it was slowing down. Now it was growing at only half the speed of light.
“Impossible!” The Lurker was truly frightened. Vacuum decay shouldn’t be so slow. Activating the entanglement web, he turned on one of the backup surveillance nodes near the expanding edge of the vacuum decay zone and endowed it with a fragment of his own mind. He didn’t dare connect his own cognition field directly lest the vacuum decay affect it.
“9527, what do you see?” asked the Lurker.
“Stars, planets, galaxies … everything is in the sky as a two-dimensional picture! It’s two-dimensionalization! The universe is being flattened!” The observer was terrified—not of two-dimensionalization itself, but of the meaning behind the discovery.
There was never any vacuum decay, only two-dimensionalization.
The cosmic surveillance system couldn’t look inside the zero vacuum zone and thus couldn’t confirm whether any ten-dimensional space was being formed. All the system could do was to deduce what was happening based on the rate at which surveillance nodes were being destroyed. Earlier, the rate of surveillance node destruction was twice the speed of light inside the three-dimensional universe. Based on what the Lurker knew, such an observation could only be explained as a side effect of vacuum decay, which vastly increased the speed of light at the interface between the zero vacuum zone and normal space.
Only now did the Lurker understand his mistake. In plotting to trap the Master, he had fallen into the Master’s trap. The dimension reversal was a mirage. Although the process of two-dimensionalization could not progress faster than the speed of light, the Master did have the power to temporarily increase the local value of c, which created the illusion of dimension reversal. Since the speed of the expanding two-dimensional space was faster than the ordinary speed of light, it was impossible to see into the two-dimensionalized region; the observer would have been flattened before the observer could see it. To sustain such an illusion, however, required a massive expenditure of energy, and as the two-dimensionalized region grew, the speed at which it expanded had to slow down.
The report from the supermembrane-analysis node came in. “Error in data. Unable to locate target on the supermembrane.”
It was impossible to deny. The worst has happened.
“Damn it!” The Lurker issued his order: “Stop the attack node immediately. Return to concealment. Right now!”
His order was carried out, and countless neon lights in the universe shut off in an instant, like the fading of flowers that bloom for only one night.
But the massive radiation bursts had already occurred. Electromagnetic tsunamis traveled through the vastness of space, unable to be recalled. It was too late to conceal his location. He knew that the goal of the Master and her Seekers was to force him into exposure, a goal they had achieved.
It wasn’t over yet. He still had time to move and hide again before the revealing radiation reached the Seekers. But he had left indelible trails. The Master and the Seekers would not give up. They would pursue him like bloodhounds.
The Lurker cursed and was beginning to suspect that a few mysterious envoys were responsible for his predicament. They managed to trap him with his own trap. The old witch had never shown such cunning in the past.
Who are they? How did they see through my plot?
There were no clues. The only thing the Lurker could be sure of was that the Seekers would come for him. He must conceal himself and set another trap, deceive the old witch and the envoys, counterattack at the most unexpected moment, and miraculously seize victory from the jaws of defeat! It wasn’t over yet.
Not by a long shot.
The Lurker’s cognition field vibrated violently, stirring up undaunted courage once more. He partitioned his mind into millions of separate nodes and dispersed them to the corners of the universe to prepare for the oncoming struggle.
I will not let you take time away, Mother. I will not allow you to rebuild your reign of death.
Time will exist as long as I exist; life will, too.
*
In another corner of the universe, the light from the dark matter cloud burst forth like a brilliant dawn, illuminating a vast, empty space.
The angel of death and his companion glided through this marvelous world—if you could call what they were doing flight—and observed the dazzling dark matter cloud around them with curiosity. A colossal structure was being partially revealed to them; it wasn’t anything like the minuscule planetary machinery inside the Abyss-Gazers’ world, but a gigantic structure measured on the scale of galaxies. In a way, it reminded him of the Spirit’s projection from eons ago: a massive rose whose every petal was another rose, with petals composed of yet more roses … each rose distinct, infinitely special, ad infinitum.
It was a bonfire, an ocean, a bunch of flowers, a spiderweb, living, mechanical … this was the true source and root of the Lurker, the universe’s hidden lord.
“It’s so beautiful,” said the woman. “Reminds me of … the lavenders of Provence.”
“Sky calyx,” said the angel of death.
“What?” asked the woman.
“This is the Lurker’s cosmic power system. In ancient battles, this was described as the sky calyx. The name comes from the fact that when activated, this universe-spanning entanglement web would bloom with the most luminous flowers. The dark matter forms its root and trunk, the sophon blind zones scattered across the universe are its vines and branches, and the galaxies are its energy nodes.”
“What an incredible sight. I thought the star abyss and the Abyss-Gazers’ homeworld were the Lurker’s ace in the hole.”
“I thought so at first as well. But once I saw the sky calyx, I understood immediately what those ambiguous ideabstractions we discovered last time really meant. There’s no doubt that we’ve finally found the home of the Lurker.”
“But I still don’t understand how you figured it all out, Yun. If you hadn’t stopped me at the last moment, I would have told the Master to initiate dimension reversal.”
“It’s fortuitous,” said the angel of death. “After listening to that final speech by the King, I somehow thought of Green Tempest. After so many years, I’ve become habituated to constant reflection and reexamination of my mind, and soon I realized that the reason I thought of Green Tempest was … advertising.”
“Advertising?”
“Oh, it’s a commercial propaganda art from my era. I’m not surprised you’re not familiar with it.”
“I know very well what advertising is. In the Byzantium of my time, the shops and public spaces are also filled with advertising, such as large signs over shop doors and hired urchins who shout out prices in the fora.”
“You’re right, Helena. Although the forms of advertising have changed, the substance is the same. Its purpose is to let the world know about the advertiser. The King’s speech reminded me of an ad for Green Tempest, in which a woman gave a speech. The King’s speech was like an ad broadcast to the entire universe, announcing that she was the Lurker. That didn’t feel right to me. The real Lurker or the Lurker’s descendants would keep the secret even unto death.”
“But they were about to die! Maybe the King didn’t care anymore.”
“No. Their species possesses millions of awayworlds, and the inhabitants on those worlds weren’t about to die. Suppose the Abyss-Gazers were the Lurker; then as long as the King didn’t reveal the truth and the fact that the homeworld was the last countermeasure, the Master couldn’t be sure that the Lurker was exterminated and wouldn’t initiate dimension reversal—at least it would buy the universe some time. Either to preserve her species or to deter the Master, she shouldn’t have revealed the mission of the Abyss-Gazers. And so the only conclusion was that the Abyss-Gazers weren’t the Lurker at all.”
“But with the homeworld destroyed, we can’t be sure of that.”
“True, we can’t be sure. But when I realized that, it was too late to change the gravitational constant; otherwise we would still have some fragments of the homeworld to analyze. Still, even though we couldn’t confirm my guess, we could perform an experiment by creating the illusion of dimension reversal. This was costly in terms of energy, but well worth the risk.”
“Why did you wait so long?” asked Helena.
“Simple: If my guess was right and this was a trap, then the opponent would surely have set up a surveillance network to observe everything we did. If everything went too perfectly according to their plan, it would actually arouse their suspicion. I had to let them first think they had failed before hitting them with the euphoria of success. By taking advantage of the resulting lapse of judgment, they swallowed my bait without question.”
“But what if they didn’t take the bait?”
“Everything’s a gamble. Still, the stakes weren’t the same for the two sides. Had we lost the bet, we would have wasted a massive amount of energy, but we still could have started the hunt afresh. But had they waited longer, they would have missed the best opportunity to find the Master, and the vacuum decay could have spun out of control. They had no choice but to come out and give it their best shot. And so you see how I placed a finger on the scales in our favor.”
“I’m amazed at you, Yun. You weren’t half as clever when I first met you in the Wild Duck Cluster.”
“I was still a newbie back then, with little idea of what kind of opponent I faced. I had even lost contact with my mini-universe. I was lucky to have found you, Helena. Without you, I’d be long dead now.”
“I feel very fortunate as well. I never imagined that there would be another human being in this universe like me, someone who had been rebuilt to carry out the mission of finding the Lurker. Since the day Constantinople fell, when I left the Earth in a coma, I never saw another human being. For hundreds of millions of years, I was a slave of the Master, and I almost forgot I was a human being … I don’t want to dwell on those days. Then you came!”
They gazed at each other, smiling. The brilliant light from the sky calyx illuminated Helena’s face, coating her pale skin with a glowing blush.
Suddenly, everything went dark around them. The sky calyx hid itself.
But several hundred thousand kilometers away, in a ring around them, the sky calyx continued to glow. This was because light from that far away was just reaching them at that moment. Although the sky calyx had been shut off in a single instant, light still took time to travel through the universe.
And so the two experienced a wondrous sight. The parts of the calyx near them faded into darkness, while the faraway starry deeps lit up as the light from those distant petals reached them. The light flickered away in an ever-expanding wave, like swaying blos—
“Like the evening breeze caressing the lavenders of Provence,” whispered Helena.
Yun Tianming smiled. It was enough. They had lit a light that swept away the shadows in the universe. Their next task was to find the enemy, who had run out of places to hide.
“Where shall we go next?” asked Tianming. They had an abundance of clues.
“How about going back to the Milky Way first? I’d like to go to Trantor to check in on the children. I hope the blooming of the sky calyx hasn’t harmed them.”
“You are the most loving mother the Galactic humans could have hoped for. For millions of years, you’ve devoted yourself to helping them grow up in the dark forest.”
“Are you suggesting that you’re their father then?” said Helena, a grin curling her lips.
But Tianming didn’t notice her expression. He went on thoughtfully. “I also want humanity to multiply and prosper. Humans have clearly passed their golden age and have been in decline for the last few million years. Our species cannot leave the Milky Way, but the galaxy has been largely eroded by two-dimensionalization. Soon, humans will be devoured by the all-consuming plane. I don’t think we can do much more for them, Helena. Our focus should be on preventing the rest of the universe from descending into two dimensions and on resetting the clock so everything can begin anew. We owe a duty not only to the human race, but to all life in the universe.”
“I understand. But I still think we should go back to Provence. The lavenders are about to bloom. Come with me?”
“Of course,” said Tianming with a smile.
1 Translator’s Note: A reader familiar with the work of the Tang Dynasty poet Li Shangyin (813–858 CE) will probably recognize this song as paraphrased from a line in Li’s “Ma Wei,” a poem that meditates on the love between Emperor Xuanzong and his consort Yang Guifei.