Death's End

Cheng Xin once again returned to the point in space where the Sun’s and the Earth’s gravities balanced each other out. A year had passed since the meeting with Yun Tianming, and she was far more relaxed for this trip. She was here as a volunteer for the Bunker Project simulation test.

Fleet International and the UN conducted this simulation jointly. Its goal was to test the effectiveness of the giant planets as barriers in the event of a solar explosion.

A supersized hydrogen bomb would play the role of the exploding sun. The power of nuclear bombs was no longer measured in TNT-equivalents, but this bomb’s yield would be approximately three hundred megatons. In order to more realistically simulate the physical conditions of a solar explosion, the hydrogen bomb was wrapped in a thick shell to mimic the solar material that would be thrown off by the explosion. The eight planets were modeled with fragments of asteroids. Of these, the four asteroids modeling terrestrial planets were around ten meters in diameter; the ones modeling the gas giants were far bigger, each around one hundred meters in diameter. The eight fragments were positioned around the hydrogen bomb at distances that replicated the relative distances of the planets, so that the entire system resembled a miniature Solar System. “Mercury,” which was closest, was about four kilometers from the “Sun,” and “Neptune,” which was farthest, was about three hundred kilometers away. The test was conducted at the Lagrangian point to minimize the effects of the Sun’s and the planets’ gravities so that the system could remain stable for some time.

Scientifically, this experiment wasn’t really necessary. Computer modeling based on existing data was more than adequate to produce results that could be trusted. Even if physical tests had to be done, they could have taken place in a laboratory. Though the scale would have to be smaller, careful design would have yielded considerable precision. As a science experiment, this large-scale simulation in space was clumsy to the point of being idiotic.

But the experimenters who had envisioned, designed, and implemented the simulation understood that the ultimate goal of this trial wasn’t science. It was actually an expensive propaganda effort to stabilize international faith in the Bunker Project. The trial had to be direct and visually impactful, so that it could be broadcast to the world.

After the total rejection of any further research into lightspeed spaceflight, conditions on Earth resembled the beginning of the Crisis Era. Back then, global defense against the Trisolaran invasion expended effort in two areas: one was the mainstream plan of constructing the Solar System’s defenses, and the other was the Wallfacer Project. Now, humankind’s mainstream survival plan was the Bunker Project, and the Black Domain Plan, like the Wallfacer Project, was a gamble filled with unknowns. The plans were carried out in parallel, but since only theoretical research was possible on black domains, limited resources were committed. The Bunker Project, on the other hand, extensively impacted all of human society, and great effort had to be expended to secure the public’s support.

It would have been sufficient to leave monitoring equipment behind the rocky fragments, in order to test the shielding effects of the “gas giants,” or perhaps animal subjects. But in order to ensure a sensational reaction, the organizers decided that live human subjects were necessary, and so a global effort was undertaken to recruit volunteers.

艾 AA was the one who suggested Cheng Xin send in an application. AA believed that this was an excellent opportunity to do some free marketing to burnish the Halo Group’s public image in preparation for entry into the Bunker Project. She and Cheng Xin also both understood that the trial had been planned carefully. It might look unsettling, but there was basically no danger.

Cheng Xin’s spacecraft stopped in the shadow of the fragment representing Jupiter. This irregular asteroid was shaped like a potato. It was about 110 meters long, with an average width of around seventy meters. Over a period of two months, the asteroid had been pushed from its home in the asteroid belt to here. During its voyage, some artistic engineer who had too much time on his hands had painted it with colorful bands similar to the ones on the real Jupiter, including the Great Red Spot. Overall, however, the painted asteroid did not resemble Jupiter, but some space monster with a Cyclopean red eye.

As on her last voyage, Cheng Xin’s spacecraft flew against the brilliant sun, but once it entered the shadow of the asteroid, everything darkened immediately, because there was no air in space to scatter the sunlight. The Sun on the other side of the asteroid might as well not have existed. Cheng Xin felt she was at the foot of a cliff at midnight.