To Hold Up the Sky

by Cixin Liu

  Above our heads came scraping sounds, and I looked up and saw, in the light of the mining lanterns, a fissure open up in the rock where the support had just been removed. Before I had time to react, it fell in, and huge chunks of holographic stone fell through me to the ground with a loud crash. Everything vanished in a cloud of dust.

  “This accident is called a cave-in,” the teacher’s voice sounded beside me. “Be careful. Harmful stones don’t always come from up above.”

  Before she even finished, a section of rock wall next to us toppled over, falling a fair distance in a single piece, as if a giant hand from the ground had pushed it over, before finally breaking up and raining down as individual stones. We were buried under holographic rocks with a crash, and our headlamps went out. Through the darkness and screams, I heard the teacher’s voice again.

  “That was a methane outburst. Methane is a gas that builds to immense pressure when sealed in a coal seam. What we saw just now was what happens when the rock walls of the work zone can’t hold back that pressure and are blown out.”

  The lights came back on, and we all exhaled. Then I heard a strange sound, at times as loud as galloping horses, sometimes soft and deep, like giants whispering.

  “Look out, children! A flood is coming!”

  We were still processing what she said when a broad surge of water erupted from a tunnel not far away. It quickly swamped the entire work zone. The murky water reached our knees, and then was waist-high. It reflected the light of our headlamps to shine indistinct patterns on the rocky ceiling. Wooden beams stained black with coal dust floated by, and miners’ helmets and lunch boxes.… When the water reached my chin, I instinctively held my breath. Then I was entirely underwater, and all I could see was a murky brown where my headlamp shone, and air bubbles that sometimes floated up.

  “Mine floods have many causes. Whether it’s groundwater, or if the mine has dug into a surface water source, it’s far more life-threatening than a flood above ground,” the teacher said over the sound of the water.

  The holographic water vanished and our surroundings returned to normal. Then I noticed an odd-looking object, like a big metal toad puffing out its stomach. It was huge and heavy. I pointed it out to the teacher.

  “That’s an anti-explosion switch. Since methane is a highly flammable gas, the switch suppresses the electric sparks that ordinary switches create. That’s related to what we’ll see next, the most terrifying mining danger of all…”

  There was another loud crash, but unlike the previous two times, it seemed to come from within us, bursting through our eardrums to the outside, as huge waves contracted our every cell, and in the searing waves of heat, we were plunged into a red glow emitted from the air around us that filled every inch of space in the mine. Then the glow disappeared, and everything plunged into darkness.

  “Few people have actually seen a methane explosion, since it’s hard to survive one in the mines.” The teacher’s disembodied voice echoed in the darkness.

  “Why did people used to come to such a terrible place?” a student asked.

  “For this,” the teacher said, holding a chunk of black rock into the light from our headlamps, where its innumerable facets sparkled. That was the first time I saw solid coal.

  “Children, what we just saw was a mid-twentieth-century coal mine. There were a few new machines and technologies after that, such as hydraulic struts and huge shearers, which went into use in the last two decades of the century and improved conditions somewhat for the workers, but coal mines remained an incredibly dangerous, awful working environment. Until…”

  It turned dull after that. The teacher lectured us on the history of gasified coal, which was put to use eighty years ago, when oil was nearly exhausted and major powers mobilized troops to seize the remaining oil fields. The Earth was on the brink of war, but it was gasified coal that saved the world.… We all knew this, so it was boring.

  Then we toured a modern mine. Nothing special, just all those pipes we see every day, leading out from underground into the distance, although it was the first time I went inside a central control building and saw a hologram of the burn. It was huge. And we saw the neutrino sensors and gravity-wave radar monitoring the underground fire, and laser drills … all pretty boring, too.

  The teacher recounted the history of the mine, and said that over a century ago, it had been destroyed in an uncontrolled fire that burned for eighteen years before going out. In those days our beautiful city was a wasteland where smoke blotted out the sky, and all the people had left. There were many stories of the cause of the fire; some people said it had been started by an underground weapons test, and others said it was connected to Greenpeace.

  We don’t have to be nostalgic for the so-called good old days. Life in those days was dangerous and confusing. But we shouldn’t be depressed about today, either. Because today will one day be referred to as the good old days.

  People really were stupid in the past, and they really had a tough time.

  CONTRACTION

  TRANSLATED BY JOHN CHU

  The contraction will start one hour, twenty-four minutes, seventeen seconds before sunrise.

  It will be observed in the auditorium of the country’s largest astronomical observatory. The auditorium will receive images sent back from a space telescope in geosynchronous orbit, then project them onto a gigantic screen about the size of a basketball court. Right now, the screen is still blank. There aren’t many people here, but they are all authorities in theoretical physics, astrophysics, and cosmology, the few people in the world who can truly understand the implications of the moment to come. Waiting for that moment, they sit still, like Adam and Eve, having just been created from mud, waiting for the breath of life from God. The exception is the observatory head, impatiently pacing back and forth.

  The gigantic screen isn’t working and the engineer responsible for maintaining it hasn’t shown up yet. If she doesn’t show up in time, the image coming from the space telescope can be projected only on the small screen. The historic sense of the moment will be ruined.

  Professor Ding Yi walks into the hall.

  The scientists all come to life. They stand in unison. Aside from the universe itself, only he can hold them all in awe.

  As usual, Ding Yi holds everyone beneath his notice. He doesn’t greet anyone and he doesn’t sit in the large, comfortable chair prepared for him. Instead, he strolls aimlessly until he reaches a corner of the auditorium, where there’s a large glass cabinet. He admires the large clay plate, one of the observatory head’s local treasures, propped up inside. It’s a priceless relic of the Western Zhou era. Carved onto its surface is a star atlas as seen by the naked eye on a summer night several thousand years ago. Having suffered the ravages of time, the star atlas is now faint and blurred. The starry sky outside the hall, though, is still bright and clear.

  Ding Yi digs out a pipe and tobacco from his jacket pocket. Self-assured, he lights the pipe, then takes a puff. This surprises everyone, because he has severe tracheitis. He’s never smoked before and no one has ever dared to smoke around him. Furthermore, smoking is strictly prohibited in the auditorium, and that pipe produces more smoke than ten cigarettes.

  However, Professor Ding is entitled to do anything he wants. He founded the unified field theory, realizing Albert Einstein’s dream. The series of predictions his theory has made about space over a vast scale have all been confirmed by actual observations. For three years, as many as a hundred supercomputers ran a mathematical model of the unified field theory nonstop and obtained a result that was hard to believe: The universe that had been expanding for about fourteen billion years would, in two years, start collapsing. Now, out of those two years, there’s only one hour left.

  White smoke lingers around his head. It forms a dreamlike pattern, as if his incredible ideas are floating out of his mind.…

  Cautiously, the observatory head approaches Ding Yi. “Professor Ding, the governor will be here. Pe
rsuading her to accept the invitation wasn’t easy. Please, I beg you, use the influence you have so that she’ll increase our funding. Originally, we weren’t going to bother you with this, but the observatory is out of funds. The national government can’t give us any more money this year. We can only ask the province. We are the main observatory for the country. You can see what we’ve been reduced to. We can’t even afford the electric bill for our radio telescope. We’re already trying now to figure out what to do about this.” The observatory head points to the ancient star atlas plate Ding Yi has been admiring. “If selling antiquities weren’t illegal, we would have sold it long ago.”

  At that moment, the governor and her entourage of two enter the auditorium. The exhaustion on their faces drags a thread of the mundane into this otherworldly place.

  “My apologies. Oh. Hello, Professor Ding. Everyone. So sorry for being late. This is the first time it hasn’t been pouring outside in days. We’re still worried about flooding. The Yangtze River is close to its 1998 record high.”

  Excitedly, the observatory head welcomes the governor and brings her to Ding Yi. “Why don’t we have Professor Ding introduce you to the idea of universal contraction.…” He winks at Ding Yi.

  “Why don’t I first explain what I understand, then Professor Ding and everyone else can correct me. First, Hubble discovered redshifts. I don’t remember when. The electromagnetic radiation that we measure from a galaxy is shifted toward the red end of the spectrum. This means, according to the Doppler effect, galaxies are receding from us. From that, we can draw this conclusion: The universe is expanding. We can also draw another conclusion: About fourteen billion years ago, the big bang brought the universe into being. If the total mass of the universe is less than some value, the universe will continue to expand forever; if it is greater than that value, then gravity will gradually slow the expansion until it stops and, eventually, gravity will cause it to contract. Previous measurements of the amount of mass in the universe suggested the first alternative. Then we discovered that neutrinos have mass. Moreover, we discovered a vast amount of previously undetected dark matter in the universe. This greatly increased the amount of mass in the universe and people changed their minds in favor of the other alternative, that the universe will expand ever more slowly until it finally starts to contract. All the galaxies in the universe will begin to gather at the gravitational center. At the same time, due to the same Doppler effect, we will see a shift in stars’ electromagnetic radiation toward the blue end of the spectrum, namely a blueshift. Now, Professor Ding’s unified field theory has calculated the exact moment the universe will switch from expansion to contraction.”

  “Brilliant!” The observatory head claps his hands a few times flatteringly. “So few leaders have such an understanding of fundamental theory. I bet even Professor Ding thinks so.” He winks again at Ding Yi.

  “What she said is basically correct.” Ding Yi slowly knocks the ash from his pipe onto the carpet.

  “Right, right. If Professor Ding thinks so—” The observatory head beams with happiness.

  “Just enough to show her superficiality.” Ding Yi digs more tobacco out of his coat pocket.

  The observatory head freezes. The scientists around him titter.

  The governor smiles tolerantly. “I also majored in physics, but the last thirty years, I’ve forgotten practically all of it. Compared to you all here, my knowledge of physics and cosmology, I’m afraid, isn’t even superficial. Hell, I only remember Newton’s three laws.”

  “But that’s a long way from understanding it.” Ding Yi lights his newly filled pipe.

  The observatory head shakes his head, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

  “Professor Ding, we live in two completely different worlds.” The governor sighs. “My world is a practical one. No poetry. Bogged down with details. We spend our days bustling around like ants, and like ants, our view is just as limited. Sometimes, when I leave my office at night, I stop to look up at the stars. A luxury that’s hard to come by. Your world is brimming with wonder and mystery. Your thoughts stretch across hundreds of light-years of space and billions of years of time. To you, the Earth is just a speck of dust in the universe. To you, this era is just an instant in time too short to measure. The entire universe seems to exist to satisfy your curiosity and fulfill your existence. To be frank, Professor Ding, I truly envy you. I dreamed of this when I was young, but to enter your world was too difficult.”

  “But it’s not too difficult tonight. You can at least stay in Professor Ding’s world for a while. See the world’s greatest moment together,” the observatory head says.

  “I’m not so lucky. Everyone, I’m extremely sorry. The Yangtze dykes are ready to burst. I must go right away to make sure that doesn’t happen. Before I go, though, I still have some questions I’d like to ask Professor Ding. You’ll probably find these questions childish, but I’ve thought hard about them and I still don’t understand. First question: The sign of contraction is the universe changing from redshift to blueshift. We will see light from all the galaxies shift toward blue at the same time. However, right now, the farthest galaxies we can observe are about fourteen billion light-years away. According to your calculations, the entire universe will contract at the same moment. If that’s the case, it should be about fourteen billion years before we can see the blueshift from them. Even the closest star system, Alpha Centauri, should still need four years.”

  Ding Yi slowly lets out a puff of smoke. It floats in the air like a shrinking spiral galaxy.

  “Very good. You can understand a little. It makes you seem like a physics student, albeit still a superficial one. Yes, we will see all the stars in the universe blueshift at the same time, not one at a time from four years to fourteen billion years from now. This is due to quantum effects over a cosmic scale. Its mathematical model is extremely complex. It’s the most difficult idea in physics and cosmology to explain. I have no hope of making you understand it. From this, though, you’ve already received the first revelation. It warns you that the effects produced from the universe contracting will be more complex than what people imagine. Do you still have questions? Oh, you don’t have to go right away. What you have to take care of is not as urgent as you think.”

  “Compared to your entire universe, the flooding of the Yangtze River is obviously not worth mentioning. But while the mysterious universe admittedly has its appeal, the real world still takes priority. I have other questions, but I really must go. Thank you, Professor Ding, for the physics lesson. I hope everyone sees what they want to see tonight.”

  “You don’t understand what I mean,” Ding Yi says. “There must be many workers battling the flood right now.”

  “I have my responsibilities, Professor Ding. I must go.”

  “You still don’t understand what I mean. I’m saying those workers must be extremely tired. You can let them go.”

  Everyone is dumbstruck.

  “What … let them go? To do what? Watch the universe contract?”

  “If they aren’t interested, they can go home and sleep.”

  “Professor Ding, surely you’re joking!”

  “I’m serious. There’s no point to what they’re doing.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of the contraction.”

  After a long silence, the governor points at the ancient star atlas plate displayed in the corner of the auditorium: “Professor Ding, the universe has been expanding all along, but from ancient times until today, the universe that we can see hasn’t changed much. Contracting is the same. The extent of humanity in space-time, compared to that of the universe, is negligible. Besides the importance to pure theory, I don’t believe the contraction will have any effect on human life. In fact, after one hundred million years, we still won’t observe even a tiny shift caused by contraction, assuming we’re still around.”

  “One and a half billion years,” Ding Yi says. “Even with our most accurate instruments, it wi
ll be one and a half billion years before we can observe the shift. By then, the sun will already have gone out. We probably won’t be around.”

  “And the complete contraction of the universe needs about fourteen billion years. Humanity is a dewdrop on the great tree of the universe. During its brief life span, it absolutely cannot perceive the maturing of the great tree. You surely don’t believe the ridiculous rumors from the internet that the contraction will squash the Earth flat!”

  A young woman enters, her face pale and her gaze gloomy. She’s the engineer responsible for the gigantic screen.

  “Miss Zhang, this is inexcusable! Do you know what time it is?” The flustered observatory head rushes to her as he shouts.

  “My father just died at the hospital.”

  The observatory head’s anger dissipates instantly. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. Can you take a look…”

  The engineer doesn’t say any more. She just walks silently over to the computer that controls the screen and sinks herself into diagnosing the problem. Ding Yi, biting his pipe, walks over to her slowly.

  “If you truly understood the meaning of the universe contracting, your father’s death wouldn’t grieve you so much.”

  Ding Yi’s words infuriate everyone there. The engineer stands suddenly. Her face grows red with fury. Tears fill her eyes.

  “You’re not from this world! Perhaps compared to your universe, fathers aren’t much, but mine’s important to me. They’re important to us ordinary people! And your contraction, that’s just the frequency of light that can’t possibly be weaker in the night sky changing a little. Without precise instruments to amplify it over ten thousand times, no one can see even the change, not to mention the light in the first place. What is the contraction? As far as ordinary people are concerned, it’s nothing! The universe expanding or contracting, what’s the difference? But fathers are important to us. Do you understand?”