Death's End

The shuttle took off. In the view from the monitoring system, Cheng Xin saw the grass lit up by the flame from the thruster, and the blue grass scattering in every direction. As the shuttle rose up, the bright patch on the ground quickly dimmed, and soon, the ground sank back into starlight.

An hour later, the shuttle docked with Hunter in synchronous orbit. Hunter was tetrahedral in shape, like a tiny pyramid. The inside was very cramped and bare, and most of the space was taken up by the hibernation chamber, which had a maximum capacity for four.

Like Halo, Hunter was equipped with both a curvature engine and a fusion engine. When traveling between planets within the same system, only the fusion engine was used, because the curvature engine would have caused the ship to overshoot the target with no time for deceleration. Hunter left orbit and headed for Planet Gray, which appeared as a small spot of light. Out of consideration for Cheng Xin, Guan Yifan initially limited the acceleration to 1.5G, but Cheng Xin told him not to worry about her and just make the trip faster. He increased the acceleration, the blue flame emitted by the nozzles doubled in length, and the hypergravity increased to 3G. At this point, all they could do was to sit in the embrace of the acceleration seats. They were not able to move much, so Yifan switched the ship to surround-holographic display mode, and the ship’s hull disappeared. Suspended in space, they watched Planet Blue recede. Cheng Xin imagined the 3G gravity as coming from Planet Blue so that space separated into up and down, and they were flying up toward the galaxy.

It was possible to speak under 3G without too much trouble, so they began to converse. Cheng Xin asked Yifan why he had hibernated for so long. He told her that he had no duties during the long voyage searching for habitable worlds. After the two ships discovered the habitable World I, much of life consisted of opening up the world for settlement and constructing the basics. The first settlement resembled a small town from agrarian times, and the rough conditions did not permit any kind of scientific research. The new world’s government passed a resolution to let all scientists enter or remain in hibernation, to be awakened only when conditions permitted basic research. He was the only basic scientist aboard Gravity, although Blue Space had seven more. He was the last to be awakened of all the hibernators. Two centuries had passed since the day the two ships arrived at World I.

Cheng Xin was mesmerized by Yifan’s account of the new human worlds. But she noticed that while he discussed Worlds I, II, and IV, nothing was said about III.

“I’ve never been there. No one else has, either. Well, it’s more accurate to say that anyone who goes there cannot return. That world is sealed inside a light tomb.”

“A light tomb?”

“It’s a reduced-lightspeed black hole produced by the trails of lightspeed ships. Something happened on World III that caused them to think that their coordinates had been exposed. They had no choice but to turn their world into such a black hole.”

“We call such a place a black domain.”

“Ah, good name. As a matter of fact, the people of World III initially called it a light curtain, but outsiders referred to it as a light tomb.”

“Like a shroud?”{Translator’s Note: This is a wordplay in Chinese. 幕 (mu), or “curtain,” is a pun for 墓 (mu), or “tomb.”}

“That’s right. Different people see things differently. The inhabitants of World III said it was a happy paradise—though I don’t know if they still think that way. After the light tomb was completed, it was impossible for any message from that world to reach the outside. But I think people there are pretty happy. For some people, safety is the sine qua non for happiness.”

Cheng Xin asked Yifan when the new world first produced lightspeed ships, and was told it was a century ago. Judging by this, her interpretation of Tianming’s secret message had allowed Solar System humans to achieve this stage about two centuries ahead of Galactic humans. Even taking into account the time it took to open up the worlds for settlement, Tianming had accelerated progress by at least a century.

“He’s a great man,” Yifan said after hearing Cheng Xin’s account.

But the civilization of the Solar System hadn’t been able to seize this opportunity. Thirty-five precious years had been lost, probably due to her. Her heart no longer felt pain as she thought of this; all she felt was the numbness that indicated a dead heart.

Yifan said, “Lightspeed spaceflight was a tremendous milestone for humankind. It was like another Enlightenment, another Renaissance. Lightspeed flight fundamentally transformed human thinking and changed civilization and culture.”