Death's End

Ding Yi continued, “At the beginning of the crisis, when the sophons were interfering with the particle accelerators, a few people committed suicide. At the time, I thought what they did made no sense. Theoreticians should be excited by such experimental data! But now I understand. Those people knew more than I did. Take Yang Dong, for instance. She knew much more than I did, and thought further. She probably knew things we don’t even know now. Do you think only sophons create illusions? Do you think the only illusions exist in the particle accelerator terminals? Do you think the rest of the universe is as pure as a virgin, waiting for us to explore? Too bad that she left with everything she knew.”

“If she had talked with you more back then, perhaps she wouldn’t have chosen to go.”

“Perhaps I would have gone with her.”

Ding Yi dug a pit in the sand and watched as the sand on the rim flowed back in like a waterfall. “If I don’t come back, everything in my room is yours. I know that you’ve always liked those Common Era things I brought.”

“That’s true, especially those tobacco pipes…. But I don’t think I’ll get them.”

“I hope you’re right. I also have some money—”

“Please, Professor!”

“I want you to use it to pay for hibernation. The longer the better—of course, that’s assuming you want to. I have two goals in mind: One, I want you to go look at the endgame for me—the endgame for physics. Two… how do I say this? I don’t want you to waste your life. After others have decided that physics actually exists, there will still be plenty of time for you to go do physics.”

“That… seems like something Yang Dong would say.”

“Maybe it’s not nonsense.”

Bai Aisi noticed that the pit Ding Yi had dug in the desert was rapidly expanding. They stood up and backed away as the pit continued to grow, getting deeper as well as wider. Soon, the bottom disappeared in shadows. Sand flooded into the pit in torrents, and soon, the diameter of the pit was close to a hundred meters, and a nearby dune was swallowed up. Bai Aisi ran toward the car and got into the driver’s seat; Ding Yi followed into the passenger seat. Bai Aisi noticed that the car was moving slowly toward the pit, dragged along by the sand underneath. He turned on the engine and the wheels began to turn, but the car continued to slide backwards.

Ding Yi laughed that sinister laugh again. “Heh heh heh heh… ”

Bai Aisi turned the electric motor to the highest setting and the wheels spun madly, throwing up sand everywhere. But the car still moved toward the pit like a plate pulled along on a tablecloth.

“Niagara Falls! Heh heh heh heh…”

Bai Aisi looked back and saw a sight that made his blood curdle: The pit now took up his entire field of vision. The whole desert was swallowed up by it, and the world was like a giant pit whose bottom was an abyss. At the rim, flowing sand poured in and formed a spectacular yellow sandfall. Ding Yi wasn’t exactly right in his description: The Niagara Falls were minuscule compared to this sandfall of terror. The sandfall extended from the near edge of the pit all the way to the far edge on the horizon, forming an immense sandfall ring. The sand torrents rumbled as if the world itself were coming apart. The car continued to slide toward the pit, faster and faster. Bai Aisi floored the accelerator and leaned his weight into it, but there was no effect.

“You fool. Do you really think we can escape?” Ding Yi said while still laughing sinisterly. “Escape velocity! Why don’t you calculate the escape velocity? Are you thinking with your butt? Heh heh heh heh…”

The car tumbled over the rim and dropped in the sandfall. The sand raining down around them seemed to stop as everything plunged into the abyss. Bai Aisi screamed with utter terror, but he couldn’t hear himself. All he heard was Ding Yi’s wild laughter.

“Hahahahaha… There’s no table untouched at the dinner party, and there’s no virgin untouched in the universe… waheeheeheehee… wahahahaha…”

—————

白 Ice woke from his nightmare and found himself covered in cold sweat. Around him, more droplets of sweat hung suspended in air. He floated for a while, his body stiff, and then dashed out of his cabin and headed for Vasilenko’s cabin. It took a while before the door opened, as Vasilenko was also sleeping.

“General! Do not keep that thing, that thing they call a slip of paper, in the spaceship! No, I mean, don’t allow Revelation to hover around it. We should leave immediately, and get as far away as possible!”

“What have you discovered?”

“Nothing. It’s my intuition.”

“You don’t look so good. Exhaustion? I think you’re worrying too much. That thing… I don’t think it’s anything. There’s nothing inside. It should be harmless.”

白 Ice grabbed Vasilenko by the shoulders and gazed into his eyes. “Don’t be arrogant!”

“What?”

“Don’t be arrogant. Weakness and ignorance are not barriers to survival, but arrogance is. Remember the droplet!”