The Three-Body Problem

The third attempt to unfold a proton into two dimensions began thirty Trisolaran hours later. This time, it was at night. From the ground, it was impossible to see the ring of the accelerator in space. Only the red glow from the heat sinks of the fusion reactors around it marked its location. Shortly after the accelerator was started, the science consul announced success.

People gazed up at the night sky. Initially, there was nothing to see. But soon, they saw a miraculous sight: The heavens separated into two pieces. Between the two, the pattern of the stars did not match, as though two photographs of the sky had been stacked together, with the smaller one overlaid on top of the big one. The Milky Way broke at the border between the two. The smaller portion of the star-studded firmament was circular, and it rapidly expanded against the normal night sky.

“That constellation in there belongs to the southern hemisphere!” the culture and education consul said, pointing at the expanding, circular patch of the sky.

As people exercised their imaginations to understand how stars that could be seen only from the other side of the planet were now superimposed over the northern hemisphere’s view, an even more astonishing sight appeared: At the edge of the expanding patch of the night sky from the southern hemisphere, a part of a giant globe appeared. The globe was brownish, and it was being revealed a stripe at a time, as though on a display with a very slow refresh rate. Everyone recognized the globe: On it were the clear outlines of familiar continents. By the time the entire globe came into view, it already occupied one-third of the sky. More details on the globe could be made out: the wrinkles of mountain ranges covering the brownish continents, the scattered cloud cover like patches of snow over the continents …

Someone finally blurted out, “That’s our planet!”

Yes, another Trisolaris had appeared in the sky.

Next, the sky brightened. Next to the second Trisolaris in space, the expanding circle of the night sky from the southern hemisphere revealed another sun. This was clearly the same sun that currently was shining over the southern hemisphere, but it appeared at only half the size.

Finally, someone figured it out. “It’s a mirror.”

The immense mirror that appeared over Trisolaris was the proton being unfolded, a geometric plane without any meaningful depth.

By the time the unfolding was complete, the entire sky had been replaced by the reflection of the night sky of the southern hemisphere. Directly overhead, the sky was dominated by the reflection of Trisolaris and the sun. And then the sky began to deform just above the horizon all around, and the reflections of the stars stretched and twisted as though they were melting. The deformation began at the edges of the mirror, but climbed up toward the center.

“Princeps, the proton plane is being bent by our planet’s gravity,” the science consul said. He pointed to the numerous spots of light in the starry sky. They looked as though people were waving flashlights up at the domed vault. “Those are electromagnetic beams being sent up from the ground to adjust the curvature of the plane under gravity. The goal is to eventually wrap the unfolded proton completely around Trisolaris. Afterwards, the electromagnetic beams will continue to hold up and stabilize this enormous sphere, like so many spokes. Thus, Trisolaris will be the workbench to secure the two-dimensional proton, and the work to etch electronic circuits on the surface of the proton plane can begin.”

The process of wrapping the two-dimensional proton plane around Trisolaris took a long time. By the time the deformation of the reflection reached the image of Trisolaris at the plane’s zenith, the stars had all disappeared because the proton plane, now curved around the other side of the planet, blocked them completely. Some sunlight continued to leak inside the curved proton plane, and the image of Trisolaris in this fun-house mirror in space was distorted beyond recognition. But, finally, after the last ray of sunlight was blocked, everything sank into the darkest night in the history of Trisolaris. As gravity and the electromagnetic beams balanced each other, the proton plane formed a gigantic shell in synchronous orbit around Trisolaris.

Bitter cold followed. The completely reflective proton plane deflected all sunlight back into space. The temperature on Trisolaris dropped precipitously, reaching levels comparable to the appearance of three flying stars, which had ruined many cycles of civilization in the past. Most of the population of Trisolaris dehydrated and were stored. A deathly silence fell over much of the darkness-enclosed surface. In the sky, only the faint light spots from the beams that held up the proton membrane flickered. Occasionally, a few other tiny, sharp lights could be seen in synchronous orbit: the spaceships etching circuits into the gigantic membrane.