Death's End

On the plane two thousand kilometers away, the light emitted by the two-dimensionalized pinnace and crewmen had already gone out. Compared to collapsing from four dimensions to three, the fall from three dimensions to two gave off much less energy. Two two-dimensional structures were revealed clearly by the starlight. On the two-dimensionalized pinnace, it was possible to see the details of three-dimensional structures unfolded in two dimensions—the crew cabin, the fusion reactor, and so on—as well as the curled-up figure of the crewman in the cabin. In the figure of the other crewman, the bones and blood vessels could be clearly discerned, as well as all the body parts. During the process of falling into two dimensions, every point on a three-dimensional object was projected onto the plane in accordance with precise geometric principles, and so these two figures turned out to be the most complete and precise images of the original three-dimensional pinnace and people. All the internal structures were now laid out side by side in two dimensions with nothing hidden. The projection process, however, was very different from that used in engineering drawings, and so it was difficult to visually reimagine the shapes’ original three-dimensional structure. The greatest difference from engineering drawings lay in the fact that the two-dimensional unfolding occurred at every scale: All the original three-dimensional structures and details were laid out in parallel in two dimensions, and the result replicated, in some measure, the effect of viewing the three-dimensional world from four-dimensional space. This closely resembled drawings of fractals: No matter how much you zoomed in on a part of the image, it would get no less complex. However, fractals were theoretical concepts—actual representations were inevitably limited by the resolution, and after zooming in a number of times, the images lost their fractal nature. The complexity of the two-dimensionalized three-dimensional objects, on the other hand, was real: The resolution was at the level of fundamental particles. On the monitoring terminal of Revelation, the eye could only see a limited resolution, but the complexity and number of details already made the viewers dizzy. This was the universe’s most complicated image; staring at it for too long would drive one mad.

Of course, the pinnace and the crewmen no longer possessed any thickness.

It was unclear how large the plane had spread by now; only those two images indicated its presence.

Revelation slid faster toward the plane, toward that abyss whose thickness was zero.

“Everyone, don’t be sad. No one will be able to escape from the Solar System, not even a bacteria or virus. All of us will become a part of this grand picture.” 白 Ice now looked calm and stoic.

“Stop accelerating,” said Vasilenko. “What difference does a few minutes make? Let’s at least breathe easier at the end.”

Revelation’s engine shut off. The plasma column at the stern of the ship disappeared, and the ship drifted, powerless, in space. In reality, the ship was still accelerating toward the two-dimensional patch of space, but since the ship moved along with the surrounding space, those inside could not feel any gravity from acceleration. They enjoyed the weightlessness and took deep breaths.

“You know what I’m thinking of? Needle-Eye’s pictures from Yun Tianming’s fairy tales,” 白 Ice said.

Only a few people aboard Revelation knew about Yun Tianming’s secret message. Now, in a flash, they all understood the meaning of this detail in the stories. It was a simple metaphor, and there were no bearing coordinates because it was so direct. Yun must have thought he was taking a great risk to put such an obvious metaphor into his stories, yet he had to try because the message was so important.

He probably thought that with the knowledge of Blue Space

and Gravity’s discoveries, humanity would understand the metaphor. Unfortunately, he had overestimated their ability to comprehend.

The inability to decipher this key piece of information led humanity to place all their hopes in the Bunker Project.

It was true that both dark forest strikes humans had witnessed involved photoids, but they ignored a salient fact: Those two target planetary systems were structured differently from the Solar System. The star known as 187J3X1 had three giant Jupiter-like planets, but they all orbited extremely close to their sun. Their average distance from the sun was but 3 percent of the distance from Jupiter to the Sun, even closer than Mercury’s orbit. Since they almost brushed up against their sun, the solar explosion destroyed them completely, and they could not have been used as barriers. The Trisolaran system, on the other hand, had only one planet, Trisolaris.