by Liu Cixin
“Yes, but I wanted to tell you … in the end, I’m the best candidate.”
“Mikhail, humankind isn’t just some abstraction. To love humanity, you must start by loving individual persons, by fulfilling your responsibility to those you love. It would be absurd to blame yourself for it.”
“Thank you, Cheng Xin. You deserve your gift.” Vadimov looked up at Cheng Xin’s star. “I would love to give my wife and daughter a star.”
A bright point of light appeared in the sky, then another. Their glow cast shadows on the ground. They were testing nuclear pulse propulsion in space.
* * *
The process of selecting a subject for the Staircase Program was fully underway, but the effort imposed little direct pressure on Cheng Xin. She was asked to perform some basic tasks such as examining candidates’ knowledge of spaceflight, a primary requirement. Since the pool of candidates was limited to terminally ill patients, it was almost impossible to find someone with the requisite expertise. The PIA intensified efforts to identify more candidates through every available channel.
One of Cheng Xin’s college classmates came to New York to visit her. The talk turned to what had happened to others in their class, and her friend mentioned Yun Tianming. She had heard from Hu Wen that Tianming was in the late stages of lung cancer and didn’t have much time left. Right away, Cheng Xin went to Assistant Chief Yu to suggest Tianming as a candidate.
For the rest of her life, Cheng Xin would remember that moment. Every time, she had to admit to herself that she just didn’t think much about Tianming as a person.
Cheng Xin needed to return to China for business. Since she was Tianming’s classmate, Assistant Chief Yu asked her to represent the PIA and discuss the matter with Tianming. She agreed, still not thinking much of it.
* * *
After hearing Cheng Xin’s story, Tianming slowly sat up on the bed. Cheng Xin asked him to lie down, but he said he wanted to be by himself for a while.
Cheng Xin closed the door lightly behind her. Tianming began to laugh hysterically.
What a fucking idiot I am! Did I think that because I gave her a star out of love, she would return that love? Did I think that she had flown across the Pacific to save me with her saintly tears? What kind of fairy tale have I been telling myself?
No, Cheng Xin had come to ask him to die.
He made another logical deduction that made him laugh even harder, until it was hard to breathe. Based on Cheng Xin’s timing, she could not know that he had already chosen euthanasia. In other words, if Tianming hadn’t already chosen this path, she would try to convince him to take it. Maybe she would even entice him, or pressure him, until he agreed.
Euthanasia meant “good death,” but there was nothing good about the fate she had in mind for him.
His sister had wanted him to die because she thought money was being wasted. He could understand that—and he believed that she genuinely wanted him to die in peace. Cheng Xin, on the other hand, wanted him to suffer in eternity. Tianming was terrified of space. Like everyone who studied spaceflight for a living, he understood space’s sinister nature better than the general public. Hell was not on Earth, but in heaven.
Cheng Xin wanted a part of him, the part that carried his soul, to wander forever in that frigid, endless, lightless abyss.
Actually, that would be the best outcome.
If the Trisolarans were to really capture his brain as Cheng Xin wished, then his true nightmare would begin. Aliens who shared nothing with humanity would attach sensors to his brain and begin tests involving the senses. They would be most interested in the sensation of pain, of course, and so, by turn, he would experience hunger, thirst, whipping, burning, suffocation, electric shocks, medieval torture techniques, death by a thousand cuts.…
Then they would search his memory to identify what forms of suffering he feared the most. They would discover a torture technique he had once read in a history book—first, the victim was whipped until not an inch of his skin remained intact; then the victim’s body was tightly wrapped in bandages; and after the victim had stopped bleeding, the bandages would be torn off, ripping open all the wounds at once—then send signals replicating such torture into his brain. The victim in his history book couldn’t live for long in those conditions, but Tianming’s brain would not be able to die. The most that could happen was that his brain could shut down from shock. In the eyes of Trisolarans, it would resemble a computer locking up. They’d just restart his brain and run another experiment, driven by curiosity, or merely the desire for entertainment.…
He would have no escape. Without hands or body, he would have no way to commit suicide. His brain would resemble a battery, recharged again and again with pain.
There would be no end.
He howled with laughter.
Cheng Xin opened the door. “Tianming, what’s wrong?”
He choked off his laugh and turned still as a corpse.
“Tianming, on behalf of the UN-PDC Strategic Intelligence Agency, I ask you whether you’re willing to shoulder your responsibility as a member of the human race and accept this mission. This is entirely voluntary. You are free to say no.”
He gazed at her face, at her solemn but eager expression. She was fighting for humanity, for Earth.… But what was wrong with the scene all around him? The light of the setting sun coming through the window fell against the wall like a pool of blood; the lonesome oak tree outside the window appeared as skeletal arms rising out of the grave.…
The hint of a smile—an agonized, melancholic smile—appeared at the corners of his mouth. Gradually, the smile spread to the rest of his face.
“Of course. I accept,” he said.
Crisis Era, Years 5–7
The Staircase Program
Mikhail Vadimov died. While crossing the Harlem River on I-95, his car slammed through the guardrails on the Alexander Hamilton Bridge and plunged into the water below. It took more than a day before the car could be retrieved. An autopsy revealed that Vadimov had been suffering from leukemia; the accident was the result of retinal hemorrhages.
Cheng Xin mourned Vadimov, who had cared for her like a big brother and helped her adjust to life in a foreign country. She missed his generosity most of all. Though Cheng Xin had attracted notice with her intelligence and seemed to shine brighter than Vadimov—despite the fact that she was supposed to be his aide—he had never shown any jealousy. He had always encouraged her to display her brilliance on bigger and bigger stages.
Within the PIA, there were two types of reaction to Vadimov’s death. Most of the technical staff, like Cheng Xin, grieved for their boss. The intelligence specialists, on the other hand, appeared more displeased by the fact that Vadimov’s body had not been retrieved in time, rendering his brain unusable.
Gradually, a suspicion grew in Cheng Xin’s mind. It seemed like too much of a coincidence. She shuddered the first time the idea surfaced in her mind—it was too frightening, too despicable to be endured.
She consulted medical specialists and learned that it was possible to intentionally induce leukemia. All you had to do was to place the victim in an environment with sufficient radiation. But getting the timing and dosage right was no trivial matter. Too little would not induce the illness in time, but too much would kill the victim with radiation sickness, possibly damaging the brain. Timing-wise, based on the advanced state of Vadimov’s illness, the scheme against him would have to have begun right around the time the PDC started to promote euthanasia laws around the world. If there was a killer, he was extremely skilled.
Secretly, Cheng Xin swept Vadimov’s office and apartment with a Geiger counter, but discovered nothing unusual. She saw the picture of Vadimov’s family he kept under his pillow: His wife was a ballerina eleven years younger than him, and their little daughter … Cheng Xin wiped her eyes.
Vadimov had once told Cheng Xin that, superstitiously, he never left family photos on desks or nightstands. Doing so seemed to him to ex
pose them to danger. He kept the pictures hidden and only took them out when he wanted to look at them.
Every time Cheng Xin thought of Vadimov, she also thought of Yun Tianming. Tianming and six other candidates had been moved to a secret base near PIA Headquarters to undergo a final series of tests, after which one of them would be picked.
Since meeting Tianming back in China, Cheng Xin’s heart had grown heavier over time, until she sank into a depression. She recalled the first time they met. It was just after the start of their first semester in college, and all the aerospace engineering students took turns introducing themselves. She saw Tianming sitting by himself in a corner. From the moment she saw him, she understood his vulnerability and loneliness. She had met other boys who were isolated and forlorn, but she had never felt like this: as though she had stolen into his heart and could see his secrets.
Cheng Xin liked confident, optimistic boys, boys who were like sunlight, warming themselves as well as the girls with them. Tianming was the very opposite of her type. But she always had a desire to take care of him. In their interactions she was careful, fearful of hurting him, even if unintentionally. She had never been so protective of other boys.
When her friend had come to New York and Tianming’s name came up, Cheng Xin discovered that although she had tucked him away in a distant corner of her memory, his image was surprisingly clear when she recalled him.
One night, Cheng Xin had another nightmare. She was again at her star, but the red sea algae had turned black. Then the star collapsed into a black hole, a lightless absence in the universe. Around the black hole, a tiny, glowing object moved. Trapped by the gravity of the black hole, the object would never be able to escape: It was a frozen brain.
Cheng Xin woke up and looked at the glow of New York’s lights against her curtain. She understood what she had done.
From one perspective, she had simply passed along the PIA’s request; he could have said no. She had recommended him because she was trying to protect the Earth and its civilization, and his life had almost reached its end—had she not arrived in time, he would be dead. In a way, she had saved him!
She had done nothing that she ought to be ashamed of, nothing that should trouble her conscience.
But she also understood that this was how someone could sell their mother to a whorehouse.
Cheng Xin thought about hibernation. The technology was mature enough that some people—mostly terminally ill patients seeking a cure in the future—had already entered the long sleep. Tianming had a chance. Given his social status, it would be hard for him to afford hibernation, but she could help him. It was a possibility, an opportunity that she had taken from him.
The next day, Cheng Xin went to see Wade.
As usual, Wade stared at his lit cigar in his office. She rarely saw him perform the tasks that she associated with conventional administration: making phone calls, reading documents, attending meetings, and so forth. She didn’t know when, if ever, Wade did these things. All she could see was him sitting, deep in thought, always deep in thought.
Cheng Xin explained that she thought Candidate #5 was unsuitable. She wanted to withdraw her recommendation and ask that the man be removed from consideration.
“Why? He has scored the best in our tests.”
Wade’s comment stunned Cheng Xin and chilled her heart. One of the first tests they conducted was to put each candidate under a special form of general anesthesia that caused the person to lose feeling in all parts of the body and sensory organs but remain conscious. The experience was intended to simulate the conditions of a brain existing independent of the body. Then the examiners assessed the candidate’s psychological ability to adapt to alien conditions. Of course, since the test designers knew nothing about conditions within the Trisolaran Fleet, they had to fill out their simulation with guesses. Overall, the test was quite harsh.
“But he has only an undergraduate degree,” Cheng Xin said.
“You certainly have more degrees,” said Wade. “But if we used your brain for this mission, it would, without a doubt, be one of the worst brains we could have chosen.”
“He’s a loner! I’ve never seen anyone so withdrawn. He doesn’t have any ability to adjust and adapt to the conditions around him.”
“That is precisely Candidate #5’s best quality! You’re talking about human society. Someone who feels comfortable with this environment has also learned to rely on it. Once one is cut off from the rest of humanity and finds oneself in a strange environment, one is very likely to suffer a fatal breakdown. You’re a perfect example of what I’m talking about.”
Cheng Xin had to admit that Wade’s logic was sound. She probably would suffer a breakdown from the simulation alone.
She certainly knew that she had no clout to get the top administrator of the PIA to give up on a candidate for the Staircase Program. But she didn’t want to give up. She steeled herself. She would say whatever was necessary to save Tianming.
“He’s made no meaningful attachments in life. He has no sense of responsibility to humanity, or love.” After saying this, Cheng Xin wondered if there was some truth to it.
“Oh, there is definitely something on Earth he’s attached to.”
Wade’s gaze remained on the cigar, but Cheng Xin could feel his attention being deflected from the cigar’s lit tip onto her, carrying with it some of the flame’s heat. To her relief, Wade abruptly changed the subject.
“Another excellent quality of Candidate #5 is his creativity. This makes up for his lack of technical knowledge. Did you know that an idea of his made one of your classmates into a billionaire?”
Cheng Xin had indeed seen this in Tianming’s background file—so she did know someone really rich, after all. But she didn’t believe for a minute that Hu Wen was the one who had given her the star. The very idea was ridiculous. If he liked her, he would buy her a fancy car or a diamond necklace, not a star.
“I had thought none of the candidates were anywhere near being suitable, and I was running out of ideas. But you’ve reaffirmed my faith in #5. Thank you.”
Wade finally lifted his eyes to look at Cheng Xin with his cold, predatory smile. As before, he seemed to take pleasure in her despair and pain.
* * *
But Cheng Xin didn’t lose all hope.
She was attending the Oath of Allegiance Ceremony for Staircase Program candidates. According to the Space Convention, as amended post-Crisis, any person using resources of the Earth to leave the Solar System for economic development, emigration, scientific research, or other purposes must first take an oath pledging loyalty to humanity. Everyone had thought this provision would not be invoked until far in the future.
The ceremony took place in the UN General Assembly Hall. Unlike the session announcing the Wallfacer Project a few months ago, this ceremony was closed to the public. Besides the seven Staircase Program candidates, the only attendees were Secretary General Say, the PDC rotating chair, and a few observers—including Cheng Xin and other members of the PIA working on the Staircase Program—who filled the first two rows of seats.
The ceremony didn’t take long. In turn, each candidate put his or her hand on the UN flag held up by Secretary General Say and recited the required oath to be “loyal to the human race for all time, and to never perform any act that harms humanity’s well-being.”
Four candidates were lined up before Yun Tianming—two Americans, a Russian, and a British man—and two more stood behind him: another American, and another Chinese. All the candidates looked sickly, and two had to use wheelchairs. But all looked to be in good spirits—not unlike oil lamps giving off a final burst of light before burning out.
Cheng Xin looked at Tianming. Since the last time she had seen him, he looked thinner and more pallid, but appeared very calm. He didn’t look back in her direction.
The first four candidates’ oaths went off without a hitch. One of the Americans, a physicist in his fifties with pancreatic cancer, struggled up
from his wheelchair and climbed onto the rostrum by himself. The candidates’ voices echoed in the empty hall, frail but full of dedication. The only interruption in the routine was the British man asking whether he would be allowed to take his oath on a Bible. His request was granted.
It was Tianming’s turn. Though Cheng Xin was an atheist, at that moment she wished she could grab the Bible from that man and pray to it: Tianming, please take the oath, please! I know you’re a responsible man. You’ll be faithful to the human race. Like Wade said, there are things here that you cannot bear to part with.…
She watched as Tianming mounted the dais, watched as he walked in front of Secretary General Say, and then squeezed her eyes shut.
She didn’t hear him repeat the oath.
Tianming picked up the blue UN flag from Say and lightly draped it on the lectern next to him.
“I will not take the oath. In this world, I feel like a stranger. I’ve never experienced much joy or happiness, and didn’t receive much love. Of course, these can all be attributed to my faults—”
His tone was placid, as though he was reviewing his own life. Cheng Xin, sitting below the dais, began to tremble as though waiting for an apocalyptic judgment.
“—but I will not take this oath. I do not affirm any responsibility to the human race.”
“Then why have you agreed to be in the Staircase Program?” asked Say. Her voice was gentle, as were her eyes on Tianming.
“I want to see another world. As for whether I’ll be faithful to humanity, it will depend on what kind of civilization I see among the Trisolarans.”
Say nodded. “Your oath is entirely voluntary. You may go. Next candidate, please.”
Cheng Xin shook as though she had fallen into an ice cellar. She bit her bottom lip and forced herself not to cry.
Tianming had passed the final test.
Wade, who was sitting in the front row, turned around to look at Cheng Xin. He took delight in even more despair and pain. His eyes seemed to speak to Cheng Xin.