Year 8, Crisis Era(1)

Distance of the Trisolaran Fleet from the Solar System: 4.20 light-years

Tyler had been jumpy lately. Despite the setbacks, the mosquito swarm plan eventually won PDC approval. Development of the space fighters began, but progress was slow due to a lack of advanced technologies. Humanity continued to improve on the technology of its stone age axes and clubs, inventing chemically propelled rockets. Tyler's supplemental project, the study of Europa, Ceres, and various comets, was odd enough that some people suspected that he had come up with it purely to add a sense of mystery to the overly direct main plan. However, since it could be incorporated into the mainstream defense program, he was allowed to start working on that as well.

So Tyler had to wait. He went home and, for the first time in his five years as a Wallfacer, led the life of a normal person.

The Wallfacers were subject to increasing scrutiny from the community. Whether they had asked for the role or not, they had been set up in the eyes of the masses as messiah figures. Accordingly, a Wallfacer cult sprang up. No matter how many explanations the UN and PDC issued, legends of their supernatural abilities circulated widely and grew increasingly fanciful. In science fiction movies, they were shown as superheroes, and, in the eyes of many, they were the sole hope for humanity. This gave the Wallfacers an enormous amount of popular and political capital that guaranteed things would go smoothly when they tapped huge amounts of resources.

Luo Ji was the exception. He remained in seclusion, never showing his face. No one knew where he was or what he was doing.

One day, Tyler had a visitor. Like the other Wallfacers, his home was under heavy guard, and all visitors had to pass stringent background checks. But when he first saw the visitor in the living room, he knew that the man would pass through easily, because it was obvious at a glance that he posed no threat to anyone. On this hot day he wore a wrinkled suit, a similarly wrinkled tie, and, more annoyingly, the sort of bowler hat no one wore anymore. He evidently wanted to present a more formal appearance for his visit, since he had probably never attended a formal occasion before. Pale and emaciated, he looked malnourished. His glasses sat heavily on his skinny, pale face, his neck hardly seemed able to support the weight of his head, and his suit looked practically empty, as if it was hanging on a rack. As a politician, Tyler saw at a glance that he belonged to one of those mean social classes whose poverty was more spiritual than material, like Gogol's petty bureaucrats who, despite their lowly social station, still worry about preserving that status and spend their whole lives engaged in uncreative, exhausting random tasks that they carry out exactingly. In everything they do, they fear making mistakes; with everyone they meet, they fear causing displeasure; and they dare not take the slightest glance through the glass ceiling to a higher plane of society. Tyler detested those people. They were utterly dispensable, and when he thought about how they made up the majority of the world that he wanted to save, it left a bad taste in his mouth.

The man walked gingerly through the living room door, but did not dare venture further. He seemed afraid of marking the carpet with the dirty soles of his shoes. He took off his hat and looked at the master of the house through his thick glasses as he bowed repeatedly. Tyler made up his mind to send him off as soon as he spoke his first sentence, for even if what the man had to say was important to him, to Tyler it was meaningless.

In a frail voice, the pitiful man uttered his first sentence. It struck Tyler like a bolt of lightning and so dazed him that he practically sat down on the ground. Every word was like a thunderclap.

"Wallfacer Frederick Tyler, I am your Wallbreaker."

* * *

"Who would have thought we'd one day be facing a battle map like this," Chang Weisi exclaimed as he looked at a one-to-one-trillion-scale chart of the Solar System displayed on a monitor large enough to be a movie screen. It was almost entirely dark, except for the tiny spot of yellow in the center that was the sun. The chart radius reached the middle of the Kuiper Belt. When it was displayed in its entirety, it was like looking down on the Solar System from a distance of fifty AU above the ecliptic plane. The chart accurately marked the orbits of planets and satellites, as well as the conditions of known asteroids, and it could display a precise sectional layout of the Solar System for any point in the next millennium. Now that positional markings for celestial bodies had been turned off, the chart display was bright enough that you could make out Jupiter if you looked closely enough. It was just an indistinct, tiny bright spot, but from this distance the other seven major planets were invisible.

"Yes, we are facing major changes," Zhang Beihai said. The military had just completed a meeting to assess its first space map, and now only the two of them remained in the spacious war room.

"Commander, I wonder if you noticed the eyes of our comrades when they saw this map," he said.

"Of course I noticed. It's understandable. They would have imagined a space map to be like what you find in popular science books. A couple of colored billiard balls rotating around a fireball. It's only when they're faced with one drawn to an accurate scale that they come to an appreciation of the vastness of the Solar System. And, whether they're air force or navy, the furthest their air and water craft can go doesn't even amount to one pixel on the big screen."

"It seems that looking at the battlefield of the future did not inspire a stitch of confidence or passion for battle in our comrades."

"And now we're back to defeatism."

"Commander, I don't want to talk about the reality of defeatism today. That's a subject for a formal meeting. What I'd like to discuss is … well…" He faltered, and smiled, a rare thing for someone who was usually so outspoken.

Chang Weisi turned away from the map and smiled back at him. "Seems you've got something highly unorthodox to say."

"Yes. Or something unprecedented, at least. I'm making a recommendation."

"Proceed. Get right down to the topic. Of course, you don't need encouragement for that."

"Yes, Commander. Over the past five years, little progress has been made in basic planetary defense and space travel research. The preliminary technology in those two programs—controlled nuclear fusion and the space elevator—are still at square one, with no hope in sight, and there are all kinds of problems with higher-thrust chemical rockets. If things continue in this vein, then I fear a space fleet, even at the low-tech level, will remain science fiction forever."

"You chose high-tech, Comrade Beihai. You ought to be well aware of the rules of scientific research."

"Of course I'm aware of them. Research is a process of leaping forward, and qualitative change is only produced by long-term quantitative accumulation. Breakthroughs in theory and technology are mostly achieved in concentrated bursts.… Still, Commander, how many people understand the problem like I do? It's very likely that in ten or twenty or fifty years, or even a century, we still won't have any major breakthroughs in any scientific or technical field, and at that point, how far will defeatist thinking have developed? What spiritual and mental state will have taken hold in the space force? Commander, am I really taking this too far?"

"Beihai, what I most admire about you is that you always keep the long term in mind as you work. It's a rare thing among political cadres in this military. Please go on."

"Well, I can only speak from the scope of my own work. Working under the above assumptions, what sort of difficulties and pressures will be faced by our future comrades engaged in political and ideological work in the space force?"

"A grimmer question is, how many ideologically qualified political cadres will be left in the forces?" added Chang Weisi. "To contain defeatism, we first need to have a firm faith in victory ourselves. But this is certain to be more difficult in your hypothetical future."

"That's where my worry lies, Commander. When that time comes, political work in the space force won't be up to the task."

"Your recommendation?"

"Send reinforcements!"

Chang Weisi looked at Zhang Beihai for a few seconds, then turned back to the big screen. He moved the cursor and enlarged the sun until their epaulets reflected the sunlight.

"Commander, what I mean is…"

He raised a hand. "I know what you mean." Then he pulled back until the entire map was displayed, plunging the war room back into gloom, and then brought the sun forward again … and again and again as he thought, until at last he said, "Has it ever occurred to you that if political and ideological work in the space force is a complex and difficult task right now, it will considerably weaken today's work to hibernate the most outstanding political officers and send them to the future?"

"I realize that, Commander. I'm just voicing a personal suggestion. Big-picture thinking is, of course, up to my superiors."

Chang Weisi stood up and turned on the lights, illuminating the war room. "No, Comrade Beihai, this is a job for you now. Drop everything else. Starting tomorrow, you will focus on the Space Force Political Department, do some research into the other branches, and draft a preliminary report for the Central Military Commission as soon as possible."

* * *

The sun was setting behind the mountains when Tyler arrived. Exiting the car, he faced a vision of paradise: the softest light of the day shining on the snow peaks, the lake, and the forest, and Luo Ji and his family enjoying the otherworldly evening in the grass on the lakeshore. What first caught his eye was the mother, so young-looking, like an older sister to the one-year-old child. From a distance it was hard to make her out, but as he drew closer, his attention shifted to the child. If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, he wouldn't have believed that such an adorable little being actually existed. Like a stem cell of beauty, the embryonic state of all that is beautiful. Mother and child were drawing on a large sheet of white paper as Luo Ji stood off to one side watching with interest as he had in the Louvre, gazing from a distance at his beloved, now a mother. Moving closer still, Tyler saw in his eyes an infinite bliss, a happiness that seemed to permeate everything between mountain and lake in this Garden of Eden.…

Having just arrived from the grim outside world made the scene before his eyes feel unreal. He had been married twice but was now single, and the joys of family had meant little to him in his pursuit of a man's glory. Now, for the first time ever, he felt he had lived an empty life.

Luo Ji, captivated by his wife and child, only noticed Tyler when he had gotten quite close. Due to the psychological barriers erected by their common situation, there had been no personal contact between Wallfacers up to this point. But having spoken with him on the phone, Luo Ji showed no surprise at Tyler's arrival, and met him with polite warmth.

"Madam, please excuse the interruption," Tyler said with a slight bow to Zhuang Yan, who had come over with the child.

"Welcome, Mr. Tyler. We seldom have guests, so we are pleased that you could come." Her English was strained, but her voice retained a childlike softness and she still had that cool spring of a smile, which stroked his weary soul like an angel's hands. "This is our daughter, Xia Xia."

He wanted to hug the child, but was afraid of losing control of his feelings, so he simply said, "Seeing you two angels is worth the trip."

"We'll let you talk. I'll go and prepare dinner," she said as she smiled at the two men.

"No, that's not necessary. I just want to have a brief chat with Dr. Luo. I won't take up too much time."

Zhuang Yan warmly insisted that he stay for dinner, then left with the child.

Luo Ji motioned for Tyler to sit on a white chair in the grass. When he sat down, his whole body went limp, as if his tendons had been removed. He was a traveler who had at last reached his destination after a long voyage. "Doctor, it seems like you've been lost to the world for the past two years," Tyler said.

"Yes." Luo Ji remained standing. He swept a hand about him. "This is my everything."

"You are truly a smart man, and at least from one perspective, a more responsible man than me."

"What do you mean by that?" Luo Ji asked, with a puzzled smile.

"At least you haven't wasted resources.… So she doesn't watch TV either? I mean, your angel."

"Her? I don't know. She's always with Xia Xia these days, so I don't think she watches much."

"Then you really don't know what's happened out there over the past few days?"

"What happened? You don't look well. Are you tired? What can I get you to drink?"

"Anything," Tyler said, watching the last golden rays of the setting sun on the lake dazedly. "Four days ago, my Wallbreaker appeared."

Luo Ji stopped pouring the wine, and after a moment's silence, said, "So soon?"

Tyler nodded heavily. "That's the first thing I said to him, too."

* * *

"So soon?" Tyler said to the Wallbreaker. He tried to keep his voice calm but it ended up sounding feeble.

"I'd liked to have come sooner, but I thought I'd collect more comprehensive evidence, so I'm late. I am sorry," the Wallbreaker said. He stood behind Tyler like a servant and spoke slowly, with a servant's humility. His final sentence even contained a meticulousness and thoughtfulness, the understanding that an executioner shows to his victim.

Then a suffocating silence took hold. At last Tyler screwed up the courage to look at the Wallbreaker, who then asked respectfully, "Sir, shall I go on?"

Tyler nodded but averted his gaze. He sat down on the sofa and did his best to calm down.

"Thank you, sir." The Wallbreaker bowed again, his hat still in hand. "First, I'll briefly describe the plan you've shown to the outside world: Using a fleet of nimble space fighters carrying hundred-megaton-class superbombs, your fighters will assist Earth's fleet by executing a suicide strike on the Trisolaris Fleet. Perhaps I've oversimplified, but that's basically it, right?"

"There's no point in discussing this with you," Tyler said. He had been considering whether to terminate the conversation. The moment the Wallbreaker revealed himself, Tyler's intuition as a politician and strategist informed him that the other man was the victor, but at this point he would be lucky if his mind had not been laid entirely bare.

"If that's the case, sir, then I don't have to go on, and you can arrest me. But you surely must know that regardless of what happens, your true strategy, and all of the evidence used to prove my hypothesis, will make the news across the world tomorrow, or maybe even tonight. At the cost of the rest of my life I stand before you today, and I hope that you will value my sacrifice."

"You may continue," Tyler said with a wave of his hand.

"Thank you, sir. I am truly honored, and I will not use up too much time." The Wallbreaker bowed again. A humble respect so rarely seen among modern people seemed to be in his blood, able to manifest at any time, like a noose gradually tightening around Tyler's neck. "Then, sir, was my rendition of your strategy just now correct?"

"It was."

"It was not," the Wallbreaker said. "Sir, pardon my saying it, but it was not correct."

"Why?"

"Given humanity's technological capabilities, the most powerful weapons we are likely to possess in the future are super hydrogen bombs. In a space-battle environment, the bombs must be detonated in direct contact with their target to be capable of destroying enemy ships. Space fighters are nimble and can be deployed in large numbers, so sending the fighter fleet in for swarmlike suicide strikes is undoubtedly the best option. Your plan is eminently reasonable. All of your behavior, including trips to Japan, China, and even the mountains of Afghanistan in search of space kamikaze pilots with a spirit of self-sacrifice, and your plan to put the mosquito fleet under your direct control once that search failed, was also entirely reasonable."

"What's wrong with that?" Tyler asked, sitting up on the sofa.

"Nothing's wrong with that. But that's just the strategy you presented to the outside." The Wallbreaker bent down, drew near to Tyler's ear, and continued speaking in a soft voice. "Your true strategy had small alterations. For quite a long time, you had me stumped. It was agonizing for me, and I nearly gave up."

Tyler realized that he had a death grip on a sofa handle, and tried to relax.

"But then you gave me the key to unlock the whole puzzle. It was such a good fit that for a moment I doubted my good fortune. You know what I'm referring to: Your study of several bodies in the solar system, Europa, Ceres, and the comets. What do they have in common? Water. They all possess water, and in large quantities! On their own, Europa and Ceres have more water than in all of the oceans on Earth.…

"Rabies sufferers fear the water and can go into spasms at the mere mention of the word. I imagine you have similar feelings right now."

The Wallbreaker drew close to Tyler and spoke directly into his ear. His breath was not the least bit warm, but felt like a ghostly wind flavored with the grave. "Water," he whispered, as if talking in his sleep. "Water…"

Tyler remained silent, his face like a statue's.

"Is there any need for me to continue?" the Wallbreaker asked, standing up.

"No," Tyler said in a low voice.

"But I'll continue anyway," the Wallbreaker said, almost gleefully. "I'll leave historians with a complete record, even if history won't endure for much longer. And an explanation for the Lord as well, of course. Not everyone has the keen intellect of the two of us, able to grasp the whole from the merest part. Particularly the Lord, who may not even understand a complete explanation." He raised up a hand, as if acknowledge the Trisolaran listeners, and laughed. "Forgive me."

Tyler's features slackened, and then his bones seemed to melt. He slumped into the sofa. He was finished, and his spirit no longer inhabited his body.

"Now then. Setting aside the water, let's talk about the mosquito swarm. Its first attack target will not be the Trisolaran invaders, but Earth's own space force. This hypothesis is a bit of a reach based on the barest of signs, but I maintain that it is correct. You went around the world seeking to establish a kamikaze force for humanity, but your efforts failed. You anticipated this, but from this failure you were able to obtain two things you desired. One was total despair in humanity—this, you have achieved fully. The second I'll discuss in a moment."

The blade fell.

"After traveling the world you became utterly disillusioned with modern humanity's dedication. You also became convinced that Earth's space force did not stand a chance of defeating Trisolaris via standard combat. You therefore hatched a strategy even more extreme. In my opinion, this is a very faint hope, and an immense risk. Nevertheless, the principles of the Wallfacer Project dictate that in this war, the safest bet is to take a risk."

"Of course, this was only the beginning. Your betrayal of humanity would be a long process, but you had time on your side. In the following months and years, you were prepared to engineer events that would add to the wall you erected between yourself and the human race. Your despair would gradually grow and your sorrow intensify, and you would leave the human world further and further behind, growing closer and closer to the ETO and Trisolaris. In fact, you took your first steps on this road when you urged mercy for the ETO at the PDC hearing not long ago. That wasn't just for show, though. You truly need them to endure. You need members of the ETO to pilot your space fighters in the Doomsday Battle. It is a matter of time and patience, but you would succeed, because the ETO also needs you. It needs your assistance, and the resources you possess. It wouldn't be difficult to turn over the mosquito fleet to the ETO, so long as it was kept a secret from the outside world. And if it were discovered, you could claim that it was all part of the plan."

Tyler did not seem to be listening to the Wallbreaker. He sat on his sofa with his eyes half-closed, looking fatigued, as if he had already given up and was beginning to relax.

"Very well. Let's talk about the water now. In the Doomsday Battle, the ETO-controlled mosquito fleet would likely launch a sneak attack on Earth's fleet and then flee to the Lord's fleet. Because they had just demonstrated their disloyalty to earth, Trisolaris might be willing to let them join the fleet, but the Lord would not be so fast to accept the turncoat army. A sufficiently meaningful gift would be required to win them over. What would the Lord need that the Solar System possesses? Water. On their four-century voyage, most of the water in the Trisolaran Fleet would be used up. As they approached the Solar System, dehydrated Trisolarans on board would need to be rehydrated. Since the water used for this would become part of their bodies, clean water would certainly be preferred to the stale water that had been recycled innumerable times on the ship. The mosquito fleet would offer the Lord an iceberg formed out of huge quantities of water obtained from Europa, Ceres, and the comets. I'm not certain of the specifics—I expect you don't know right now either—but let's say tens of thousands of tons.

"This giant chunk of ice would be propelled by the mosquito group. The mosquito fleet would likely draw very close to the Lord's fleet when presenting the gift, at which point the second consequence of the failure of your attempt to build a kamikaze force would be put to use. That failure prompted your very logical request for independent control of the entire mosquito fleet. When Earth's fleet draws close to the Lord's fleet, you would take over control of the fighters from the ETO pilots and switch them to drone mode, ordering the fighters to strike their chosen targets. The superbombs would be detonated at point-blank range, annihilating all of the Lord's ships.

The Wallbreaker straightened up and, leaving Tyler's side, approached the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the garden. The hellish wind he had blown into Tyler's ear dissipated, but not before the chill had penetrated his body.

"An outstanding plan. That's not a lie. But certain oversights are inexplicable. Why were you so eager to pursue the study of water-bearing heavenly bodies? The technology to extract and transport water in quantity does not exist right now, and engineering-side R&D could take years or even decades. Even if you felt you had to start right away, why not toss in a few targets that don't contain water—the moons of Mars, for instance? If you had done so, although it wouldn't have prevented me from eventually exposing your plan, it would have vastly increased the difficulty. How could a great strategist such as yourself overlook such simple tricks? On the other hand, I do recognize the pressure you are under."

The Wallbreaker placed a gentle hand on Tyler's shoulder, and Tyler felt a flash of tenderness, as of an executioner for his victim. He was even a little moved.

"Don't beat yourself up. You did well enough, really. I hope history remembers you." The Wallbreaker removed his land, a flush of restored energy on his formerly wan and sickly face. He stretched out his arms. "Well, Mr. Tyler, I'm done. Call your people."

Tyler, his eyes still shut, said without energy, "You may leave."

When the Wallbreaker opened the door, Tyler croaked out a final question: "If what you say is true, so what?"

The Wallbreaker turned back toward him. "So nothing. Mr. Tyler, regardless of whether or not I've broken your plan, the Lord does not care."

* * *

Luo Ji was rendered speechless for a long while after hearing Tyler's account.

When an ordinary person spoke with one of them, they would always be thinking, He's a Wallfacer, his words can't be trusted, and those suggestions would present a barrier to communication. But when two Wallfacers spoke with each other, the suggestions that existed in both minds cross-multiplied those communication barriers. Such an exchange, in fact, rendered anything either side said meaningless, so that communication itself lost all significance. This was why there had been no private interaction between Wallfacers.

"How do you evaluate the Wallbreaker's analysis?" Luo Ji asked to break the silence, even though he knew there was no point to the question.

"He guessed right," Tyler said.

Luo Ji wanted to say something, but what? What could be said? They were both Wallfacers.

"That was my true strategy," Tyler went on. He evidently had a strong desire to speak and didn't care whether or not his listener believed him. "Of course, it's still in the preliminary stages. The technology alone is quite difficult, although I expected a gradual resolution to all of the theoretic and technical issues over the course of four centuries. But judging from the enemy's attitude toward the plan, it wouldn't make any difference. They don't care, and that's the height of contempt."

"And that was…?" Luo Ji felt like a machine for meaningless dialogue.

"The day after the Wallbreaker's visit, a complete analysis of my strategy was posted online. The material ran into the millions of words, most of it obtained through sophon monitoring, and it caused a sensation. The day before yesterday, the PDC called a hearing on the issue, at which it resolved the following: 'Wallfacer Plans may not contain anything that poses a threat to human life.' If my plan actually existed, then its execution would be a crime against humanity. It must be stopped, and its Wallfacer punished by law. Notice how they invoke crimes against humanity, a term that's being thrown around more than ever these days? But the resolution concluded by saying, 'According to the basic principles of the Wallfacer Project, the evidence available to the outside world may just be a part of the Wallfacer's strategy of deception and cannot be used to prove that the Wallfacer has actually developed and is executing this plan.' So I won't be charged."

"I'd thought as much," Luo Ji said.

"But at the hearing, I declared that the Wallbreaker's analysis was correct, and that my strategy was indeed the mosquito swarm. I asked to be tried in accordance with national and international law."

"I can imagine their reaction."

"The PDC's rotating chair and all the permanent member representatives looked at me with that Wallfacer smile on their face, and the chair declared the meeting adjourned. Those bastards!"

"I know the feeling."

"I had a total breakdown. I fled out of the hall and into the square outside, shouting, 'I am Wallfacer Frederick Tyler! My Wallbreaker exposed my strategy! He was right! I'm going to attack the Earth fleet with the mosquito swarm! I'm anti-human! I'm a devil! Punish me and kill me!'"

"That was a meaningless act, Mr. Tyler."

"What I hate the most is the expression people have when they look at me. A crowd of people surrounded me in the square, their eyes revealing the fantasies of children, the reverence of the middle-aged, and the concern of the elderly. All of their eyes said, 'Look, he's a Wallfacer. He's at work, but he's the only one in the world who knows what he's doing. See what a great job he's doing? He's pretending so well. How will the enemy know what his real strategy is? That great, great, great strategy that only he knows and that will be the salvation of the world…' Complete and utter crap! Those idiots!"

At last Luo Ji decided to remain silent, and merely smiled wordlessly at Tyler.

As Tyler stared at him, a thin smile wavered on his pale face and then developed into full-blown hysterical laughter. "Ha! You're smiling the Wallfacer smile! A smile from one Wallfacer to another! You think I'm at work. You believe I'm acting the part, and you think I'll save the world!" He cackled again. "How did we end up in such a hilarious situation?"

"This is a vicious cycle we'll never be free of, Mr. Tyler," Luo Ji said, and sighed softly.

Tyler's laughter stopped abruptly. "Never be free? No, Dr. Luo, there's a way out. There really is a way, and I'm here today to tell it to you."

"You need a break. Rest here for a few days," Luo Ji said.

Tyler nodded slowly. "Yeah, I need a break. We're the only ones who understand each other's pain, Doctor. That's why I've come." He looked up. The sun had set a while ago, and the Garden of Eden had grown indistinct in the twilight. "This is paradise. Can I go for a walk alone by the lake?"

"You may do whatever you like here. Take it easy, and I'll call you to dinner in a while."

Tyler walked down to the lake, leaving Luo Ji to sit down, sunken in heavy thoughts.

For five years, he had bathed in an ocean of happiness. The birth of his Xia Xia in particular had made him forget everything about the outside world. The love of his wife and child blended together and intoxicated his soul, and, in this gentle home isolated from the rest of the world, he had fallen deeper and deeper into an illusion: Perhaps the outside world really was something akin to a quantum state, and did not exist unless he observed it.

But it was a state that could no longer endure now that the abominable outside world had burst into his Garden of Eden to confuse and frighten him. His thoughts shifted to Tyler, whose last words still resounded in his ears. Was it really possible for Wallfacers to break free of the vicious cycle, to shatter the iron shackles of logic…?

He jerked to his senses and ran toward the lake. He wanted to shout, but was afraid of scaring Zhuang Yan and Xia Xia, so he just ran as fast as he could through the quiet twilight, the swish of his feet against the grass on the hillside the only sound. But into this rhythm a soft crack inserted itself.

The sound of a gunshot from the lake.

Luo Ji returned home late that evening after the child was sound asleep. Zhuang Yan asked softly, "Did Mr. Tyler leave?"

"Yes. He's gone," he said wearily.

"He seemed worse off than you."

"Yes. That's because he didn't take an easy path.… Yan, have you watched TV recently?"

"No. I…" She paused, and Luo Ji knew what she was thinking. With the outside world growing more serious by the day, and the gap widening between life here and life outside, the difference made her uneasy. "Is our life really part of the Wallfacer plan?" she asked, looking at him with that same innocent face.

"Of course. What is there to doubt?"

"But can we truly be happy when all humanity is unhappy?"

"My love, your responsibility when all of humanity is unhappy is to make yourself happy. With Xia Xia, your happiness gains a point, and the Wallfacer plan gains a point toward its success."

Zhuang Yan stared silently at him. The language of facial expressions she had envisioned in front of the Mona Lisa five years ago seemed to have been partially realized between her and Luo Ji. More and more, he could read her mind through her eyes, and what he read now was, How can I believe that?

Luo Ji pondered this for a long time, and finally said, "Yan, everything has an ending. The sun and the universe will die one day, so why should humanity believe that it ought to be immortal? Listen, this world is paranoid. Fighting a hopeless war is a fool's errand, so look at the Trisolar Crisis from a different perspective and leave your cares behind. Not just the ones involving the crisis, but everything else from before that. Use the time that's left to enjoy life. Four hundred years! Or, if we refuse the Doomsday Battle, then nearly five hundred. That's a fair amount of time. Humanity used the same period to go from the Renaissance to the information age, and in the same space could create a carefree, comfortable life. Five idyllic centuries without needing to worry about the distant future, where the sole responsibility is to enjoy life. How wonderful.…"

He realized that he had spoken unwisely. Claiming that the happiness of her and the child were part of the plan added another layer of protection to her life by making her happiness into a responsibility. This was the only way to ensure that she maintained a balanced mind in the face of the cruel world. He could never resist her eternally innocent eyes, so he didn't dare look at her when she questioned him. But now, because of the Tyler factor, he had involuntarily told the truth.

"When you say that, are you being a Wallfacer?" she asked.

"Yes, of course I am," he said, to fix the situation.

But her eyes said, You really did seem to believe that!

UN Planetary Defense Council, Wallfacer Project Hearing #89

At the start of the hearing, the rotating chair spoke to strongly urge that Luo Ji be required to attend the next hearing, arguing that refusal to participate was not part of the Wallfacer plan because the PDC's supervisory authority over the Wallfacers trumped the Wallfacers' own strategic plans. The proposal was unanimously adopted by all permanent member representatives, and with the emergence of the first Wallbreaker and the suicide of Wallfacer Tyler in mind, the other two Wallfacers attending the meeting heard the unspoken implications of the chairman's words.

Hines spoke first. His neuroscience-based plan was still in its infancy, but he described the equipment he was envisioning as a basis for further research. He called it the Resolving Imager. Based on computed tomography and nuclear magnetic resonance, it operated by scanning in all cross sections of the brain at once, which required cross sectional accuracy on the scale of the internal structure of brain cells and neurons. This would bring the number of simultaneous CT scans to several million, to be synthesized by computer into a digital model of the brain. Other technical requirements were even greater: The scan needed to be conducted at a rate of twenty-four frames per second to produce a dynamic synthetic model that could capture all brain activity at a neuron-level resolution, making it possible to precisely observe thought activity in the brain, or even replay all neural activity throughout the thinking process.

Then Rey Diaz described the progress of his plan. After five years of research, the digital star model for super-high-yield nuclear weapons had been completed and was now being thoroughly debugged.

Next, the PDC scientific advisory panel presented a report on its feasibility study of the two Wallfacers' plans.

The advisory panel felt that although there were in theory no obstacles to Hines's Resolving Imager, the technical difficulties far exceeded current conditions, and modern CT scanning was about as far from RI technology as black-and-white film was from modern high-definition cameras. Data processing presented the biggest technical hurdle to the RI device, because scanning and modeling an object the size of the human brain with neuron-level precision required power that was unavailable to modern computers.

The obstacle to Rey Diaz's stellar bomb was the same: present computing power was insufficient. After inspecting the calculations required by the completed portion of the model, the panel's expert group felt that the most powerful of today's computers would take twenty years to model a hundredth of a second of the fusion process. Since the model would need to be run repeatedly in the course of research, practical application was an impossibility.

The panel's chief computer scientist said, "Right now, computer technology based on traditional integrated circuits and Von Neumann architecture is nearing the limit of its technological development. Moore's law is going to collapse. Of course, we can still squeeze out the last few drops of lemonade from these traditional electronic and technological lemons. In our opinion, even given the present deceleration in supercomputer progress, the computing power required by the two plans is still achievable. It just requires time. Optimistically, twenty to thirty years. Those goals, if they are reached, will represent the peak of human computing technology, and any further progress will be difficult. With frontier physics under sophon lockdown, the next-gen and quantum computers that we once dreamed of are now very unlikely to be realized."

"We've reached the wall that the sophons have erected across our scientific road," the chair said.

"Then there's nothing that we can do for twenty years," Hines said.

"Twenty years is the most optimistic estimate. As a scientist, you ought to know what cutting-edge research is like."

"Then the only thing to do is hibernate and wait the arrival of capable computers," Rey Diaz said.

"I've decided to hibernate, too," Hines said.

"If that's the case, then I will ask the two of you to greet my successor in twenty years," the chair said with a smile.

The mood of the hearing relaxed. Now that the two Wallfacers had decided to enter hibernation, the hearing's participants sighed with relief. The emergence of the first Wallbreaker and his Wallfacer's suicide had dealt a heavy blow to the entire project. Tyler's suicide in particular had been a foolish act. If he had lived, people would still be in doubt about whether the mosquito swarm had really been his plan. His death was tantamount to a final confirmation of the existence of the terrible plan. He had vaulted out of the vicious cycle at the cost of his life, prompting increasing murmurs of criticism of the Wallfacer Project among the international community. Public opinion demanded further restrictions on Wallfacer power, but the very nature of the Wallfacer Project meant that too many restrictions would make it difficult for the Wallfacers to conduct their strategic deceptions, rendering the entire project meaningless. The Wallfacer Project possessed a leadership structure that human society had never before seen, and it required time to adjust and adapt to it. It was clear that the hibernation of the two Wallfacers would provide a buffer period for that to take place.

A few days later, in a top-secret underground structure, Rey Diaz and Hines entered hibernation.

* * *

Luo Ji found himself in an ominous dream. He dreamt he was walking the halls of the Louvre. It was a dream he had never had before, because the past five years of bliss had given him no cause to dream of previous joys. In this dream, he was alone with the loneliness that had been absent for five years. His every footstep reverberated through the palace halls, and something seemed to leave him with every reverberation, until at last he dared not take another step. In front of him was the Mona Lisa. She no longer smiled, but looked on him with compassion in her eyes. When his footsteps stopped, the sound of the outdoor fountains trickled in and gradually grew louder, at which point he awoke to find that the sound was coming from the real world. It was raining.

Luo Ji reached out to hold his beloved's hand, and discovered that his dream had become a reality.

Zhuang Yan was gone.

He rolled out of bed and entered the nursery, where a lamp was softly glowing, but Xia Xia wasn't there. On the little bed, tidily made up, was one of Zhuang Yan's paintings, a favorite of both of theirs. It was practically blank, and from a distance it looked like a sheet of paper. Closer in, you could see fine reeds in the lower left, and in the upper right the traces of a vanishing goose. In the blank center were two infinitesimally tiny people. But now, a graceful line of text had been added to it:

My love, we're waiting for you at doomsday.

It was bound to happen sooner or later. Could such a dream life last forever? It was bound to happen, so don't worry. You're mentally prepared for it, Luo Ji told himself, but a wave of dizziness came over him. As he picked up the painting and went toward the living room, his legs quavered and he felt as if he was floating.

The living room was empty, but the embers in the fireplace glowed a hazy red that made everything look like melting ice. The rain continued outside. It was to the same sound of rain that she had walked out of his dreams five years ago, and now she had returned to them, taking their child with her.

He picked up the phone to call Kent, but then he heard soft footsteps outside. A woman's footsteps, but not Zhuang Yan's. Even so, he tossed the phone down and went outside.

Luo Ji immediately recognized the slender figure standing on the porch in the rain, even though he could only see a silhouette.

"Hello, Dr. Luo," Secretary General Say said.

"Hello … Where are my wife and child?"

"They're waiting for you at doomsday," she said, repeating the words in the painting.

"Why?"

"This is a PDC resolution, to let you work and fulfill your Wallfacer responsibilities. No harm will come to them, and children are better suited to hibernation than adults."

"You've kidnapped them! That's criminal!"

"We did not kidnap anyone."

Luo Ji's heart quaked at the implications of Say's statement, and he pushed them out of his mind rather than face that reality. "I said that having them here was part of the plan!"

"But after a thorough investigation, the PDC decided that it was not part of the plan, and so took steps to prompt you to get to work."

"Even if it's not kidnapping, you took away my child without my consent, and that's against the law." When he realized who he was including in "you," his heart quaked again and he leaned back feebly against the pillar behind him.

"True, but it is well within acceptability. Do not forget, Dr. Luo, that this and all of the resources you have tapped do not fall under existing legal frameworks, so the UN's actions in the present time of crisis can be justified under the law."

"Are you still working on behalf of the UN?"

"Yes."

"You were reelected?"

"Yes."

He wanted to change the subject to avoid facing the cold facts, but he failed. What will I do without them? What will I do without them? his heart asked over and over. Finally it slipped out of his mouth as he slid down the pillar to the ground. It felt like everything was collapsing around him, turning to magma from the top down, except that this time the magma was burning and pooled inside his heart.

"They're still here, Dr. Luo. They're waiting for you safe and sound in the future. You've always been a sober person, and you must become even more sober now. If not for all humanity, then for your family." Say looked down at the ground, where Luo Ji sat beside the column on the brink of a breakdown.

Then a gust of wind blew rain onto the porch. Its refreshing chill and Say's words managed to cool the fire raging in Luo Ji's heart to an extent.

"This was your plan from the beginning, wasn't it?"

"Yes, but this step was taken only when there was no other choice."

"So she was … When she came, was she really a woman who did traditional painting?"

"Yes."

"From the Central Academy of Fine Arts?"

"Yes."

"Then was she…"

"Everything you saw was the real her. Everything you knew about her was true. Everything that made her her: Her past life, her family, her personality, and her mind."

"You mean she really was that kind of woman?"

"Yes. Do you really think she could have faked it for five years? That's how she really was. Innocent and gentle, like an angel. She didn't fake anything, including her love for you, which was very real."

"Then how could she carry out such a cruel deception? To never let anything slip for five years?"

"How do you know she never let anything slip? Her soul was shrouded in melancholy from the first time you saw her on that rainy night five years ago. She didn't hide it. That melancholy stayed with her for five years like an ever-present background music that never stopped the whole time, and that's why you didn't notice."

Now he understood. When he first saw her, what had it been that had touched the softest place in his heart? That made him feel like the entire world was an injury to her? That made him willing to protect her with his life? It was that gentle sadness concealed within her clear, innocent eyes—a sadness that, like the light in the fireplace, shone gently through her beauty. It was indeed an imperceptible background music that had quietly permeated his subconscious and pulled him step by step into the abyss of love.

"I can't find them, can I?" he asked.

"That's right. Like I said, this is a PDC resolution."

"Then I'll go with them to doomsday."

"You may."

Luo Ji had imagined he would be turned down, but—just as when he had given up his Wallfacer status—there was practically no space between his statement and Say's reply. He knew that things weren't as easy as that. He asked, "Is there a problem?"

"No. This time it really is fine. You know, since the birth of the Wallfacer Project there has always been dissent within the international community. Out of their own interests, most countries have supported some of the Wallfacers while opposing others, so there was always going to be a side that wants to be rid of you. Now that the first Wallbreaker is out and Tyler has failed, forces opposed to the project have grown more powerful and have driven its supporters to a stalemate. If at this point you proposed going directly to doomsday, it would be a compromise plan acceptable to both sides. But, Dr. Luo, are you truly willing to do that while humanity is fighting for survival?"

"You politicians sound off about humanity at the drop of a hat, but I can't see humanity. I can only see individuals. I'm just one individual, an ordinary person, and I can't take on the responsibility of saving all of humanity. I just want to live my own life."

"Very well. But Zhuang Yan and Xia Xia are two of those individuals. Don't you want to fulfill your responsibility to them? Even if she hurt you, I can see you still love her. And there's the child, too. From the moment Hubble II finally confirmed the Trisolaran invasion, one thing has been certain: Humanity will fight to the end. When your beloved and your child awaken in four centuries, doomsday and the flames of war will be upon them, but by that time you'll have lost your Wallfacer status and will be powerless to protect them. They will only be able to share a hellish existence with you while you await the final annihilation of the world. Is that what you want? Is that the life you want to give your wife and child?"

Luo Ji said nothing.

"If you won't think of anything else, then just imagine that Doomsday Battle four centuries from now, and the look in their eyes when they see you! What sort of a person will they see? A man who abandoned the woman he loves most, together with all of humanity? A man unwilling to save all of the world's children? A man who wouldn't even save his own child? Are you, as a man, capable of withstanding their gaze?"

Luo Ji bent his head in silence. The sound of the nighttime rain falling on grass and lake was like myriad entreaties from another time and space.

"Do you really believe that I can change all of that?" Luo Ji asked, raising his head.

"Why not try? Of all the Wallfacers, you may have the greatest hope of success. I've come today to tell you that."

"Go on, then. Why?"

"Because out of all of humanity, you are the only person that Trisolaris wants dead."

Leaning against the pillar, Luo Ji stared at Say, but saw nothing. He struggled to remember.

Say went on. "That car crash was meant for you. It just accidentally hit your girlfriend."

"But that really was an accident. That car changed direction because two other cars collided."

"They had been planning that for a long time."

"But I was just an ordinary person back then, with no special protection. It would've been simple to kill me. Why go to such lengths?"

"To make the murder look like an accident, so as not to attract any attention. They almost succeeded. There were fifty-one traffic accidents that killed five people in the city that day. But a scout hidden within the ETO provided an intelligence report confirming that the ETO had orchestrated the attempt on your life. And what's most frightening is this: The order came from Trisolaris itself, conveyed to Evans through the sophons. To this date, that is the only assassination they've ever ordered."

"Me? Trisolaris wants to kill me? For what reason?" Again, Luo Ji felt displaced from himself.

"I don't know. No one knows, now. Evans may have known, but he's dead. He was evidently the one who added the requirement to the assassination order that it not attract attention. That only reinforces your importance."

"Importance?" Luo Ji shook his head with a wry smile. "Look at me. Do I really look like someone with superpowers?"

"You don't have superpowers, so don't let your thoughts go in that direction. It'll only lead you astray," Say said, gesturing emphatically. "You had no special powers in your prior research, be they supernatural abilities or extraordinary technical skills within the known laws of nature. Or, at least, none that we have been able to discover. That Evans required that the assassination not attract attention demonstrates this point as well, because it proves that your ability can be acquired by others."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"We were afraid of influencing whatever it is you have. Too many unknowns. We felt it best to let things ride."

"I'd once had a notion to work on cosmic sociology, because…" Then a small voice deep within him said, You're a Wallfacer! This was the first time he had heard that voice. He also heard another nonexistent sound: the buzzing of the sophons as they flew about him. He even thought he saw a few blurry, firefly-like points of light. So for the first time, he acted like a Wallfacer and swallowed his words, saying only, "Is that relevant?"

Say shook her head. "Probably not. As far as we are aware, that's just the topic of a research application that never actually went forward, much less obtained any results. Besides, even if you had done the research, we wouldn't expect you to come up with results any more valuable than any other researcher."

"And why is that?"

"Dr. Luo, we're speaking frankly here. As I understand it, you're a failure of a scholar. You perform research not out of any thirst for exploration, nor out of a sense of duty and mission, but simply as a way to make a living."

"Isn't that the way things are these days?"

"There's nothing wrong with that, of course, but you exhibit all kinds of behaviors unbecoming a serious and dedicated scholar. Your research is utilitarian, your techniques opportunistic, you seek out sensationalism, and you have a history of embezzling funding. Character-wise, you're cynical and irresponsible, and you harbor a mocking attitude toward a scholar's vocation.… We're actually well aware of the fact that you don't care about the fate of the human race."

"And that's why you would stoop to such despicable means to coerce me. You've despised me all along, haven't you?"

"Under normal circumstances, a man like you would never be tasked with such an important duty, but there is this one overriding detail: Trisolaris is afraid of you. Be your own Wallbreaker. Find out why."

When Say finished, she stepped off the porch, got into the waiting car, and disappeared into the rainy mist.

Standing there, Luo Ji lost his sense of time. Gradually, the rain stopped and the wind picked up, blowing the night sky free of clouds, revealing the snow peaks, and letting the bright round moon bathe the world in silvery light.

Before going back inside, Luo Ji took one last look at the silver Garden of Eden, and his heart said to Zhuang Yan and Xia Xia, My love, wait for me at doomsday.