Death's End

The metal hemisphere below the bench was studded with tubes of various thicknesses, all aimed at the invisible center of the sphere, causing the machine to look like a naval mine studded with Hertz horns. Apparently, the arrangement was designed to concentrate some kind of energy at the center.

The hemisphere above the bench, in contrast, was made of transparent glass. The two hemispheres together formed a whole divided by the metal plane, contrasting simple transparency with complex opacity.

Looking down through the glass dome, Cheng Xin could see a small rectangular metallic platform whose sides measured only a few centimeters, about the size of a pack of cigarettes, and whose surface was smooth and reflective like a mirror. The platform under the glass dome was like a tiny, delicate stage; and the complicated mechanism below the plane the orchestra that would accompany the performance, though it was unimaginable what that performance would be.

“Let’s allow a physical part of you to experience this grand moment,” Wade said. Bi Yunfeng lifted the glass dome as Wade walked over to Cheng Xin and held up a pair of scissors. Cheng Xin tensed, but did not shy away. Carefully, assisted by a tool on the platform, Wade lifted a strand of her hair and cut off a small section at the end. He held the hair clipping with the tool, examined it, and concluded it was still too long. He cut the clipping in half so that the remaining piece was only about two or three millimeters long, almost invisible. Wade walked over to the side of the opened glass dome and carefully placed the hair on the smooth metal platform. Although Wade was over a hundred years of age and had only one hand, his movements were precise and steady, showing no tremors.

“Come, watch carefully,” Wade said.

Cheng Xin leaned down to look through the glass dome. She could see her hair resting against the smooth stage. There was a red line down the middle of the stage, and the hair was on one side of it.

Wade nodded at Bi Yunfeng, who opened a control window in the air and activated the machine. Cheng Xin looked down and saw that a few tubes connected to the machine began to glow red, reminding her of the glimpse she had caught of the inside of the Trisolaran spaceship. She heard a rumbling but didn’t feel any heat. She returned her gaze to the small platform and felt some invisible disturbance spread out from the platform, brushing across her face like a light breeze. She couldn’t be sure it wasn’t just an illusion.

She saw that her hair had moved to the other side of the red line, but she hadn’t seen it move.

After another series of rumblings, the machine stopped.

“What did you see?” Wade asked.

“You spent half a century to move a three-millimeter section of hair two centimeters,” said Cheng Xin.

“It was curvature propulsion,” Wade said.

“If we used the same technique to continue to accelerate the hair, it would be moving at lightspeed in about ten meters,” Bi Yunfeng said. “Of course we can’t achieve this now, and we dare not try it here. If we did, this bit of hair, moving at lightspeed, would destroy Halo City.”

Cheng Xin pondered the strand of hair that had been moved two centimeters by curving space. “You are saying that you’ve invented gunpowder and managed to make a firecracker, but the ultimate goal is to make a space rocket. A thousand years may separate those two achievements.”

“Your analogy is flawed,” Bi Yunfeng said. “We have invented the equation relating energy to mass, and we’ve discovered the principle of radioactivity. The ultimate goal is to make the atom bomb. Only a few decades divide those two achievements.”

“In fifty years, we should be able to construct curvature propulsion spaceships capable of lightspeed flight. This will require massive amounts of technical testing and development work. We have to lay our cards on the table now so that the government can back off and give us the environment necessary to carry out these tasks.”

“But your current approach will make you lose everything.”

“Everything depends on your decision,” Wade said. “You must think that we’re helpless against the power of that fleet out there. Not so.” He gestured at the door. “Come in.”

A group of forty or fifty armed men filed in and soon filled the hall. They were all young men dressed in black space camouflage, and their presence seemed to make the hall dimmer. They wore military-issue lightweight space suits that seemed no different from ordinary military uniforms, but they could enter space as soon as they put on helmets and life-support backpacks. Cheng Xin was astonished, however, to see the weapons they carried: rifles, from the Common Era. Perhaps they were newly made, but the design was ancient and entirely mechanical, with manual bolts and triggers. The ammunition they carried confirmed this: Everyone wore two crossed bandoliers filled with glistening yellow cartridges.