by Cixin Liu
This was because the proposed probe had no way to decelerate. Even taking into account the fact that the Trisolaran Fleet would be decelerating, the probe and the fleet would pass by each other at a relative speed of around 5 percent of lightspeed (assuming the probe wasn’t captured by the fleet). The window for gathering intelligence would be extremely small. Since the small mass of the probe made active sensors such as radar impractical, the probe was limited to passive sensing, mainly of electromagnetic signals. Given the advanced state of Trisolaran technology, it was almost certain that the enemy would not be using electromagnetic radiation, but media such as neutrinos or gravitational waves—techniques beyond the current state of human technology.
Moreover, due to the presence of sophons, the plan for sending a probe would be completely transparent to the enemy, making its chances of successfully gathering any valuable intelligence nonexistent. Considering the enormous investment required to implement such a plan, the benefits were too minuscule. Most of the plan’s value was purely symbolic, and the great powers were simply insufficiently interested. The other three permanent members of the PDC voted yes only because they were interested in the propulsion technology.
“And the PDC is right,” said Wade.
Everyone silently mourned the Staircase Program. Cheng Xin was the most disappointed, but she comforted herself that as a young person with no record of achievements, having gotten this far on her first original idea wasn’t too bad. Certainly, she had exceeded her own expectations.
“Ms. Cheng, you look unhappy,” Wade said. “Apparently you think we’re going to back off from the Staircase Program.”
Everyone now stared at Wade, speechless.
“We’re not going to stop.” Wade stood up and paced around the conference room. “From now on, whether it’s the Staircase Program or any other plan, you do not stop until I tell you to stop. Understand?” He dropped his habitual indifferent tone and screamed like a crazed wild animal. “We’re going to advance! Advance! We’ll stop at nothing to advance!”
Wade was standing right behind Cheng Xin. She felt as if a volcano had erupted behind her, and she cringed and almost screamed herself.
“What’s our next step?” asked Vadimov.
“We’re going to send a person.”
Wade had resumed his calm, emotionless voice. Still in shock at his explosion, it took a while before those in the room understood what Wade meant. He wasn’t talking about sending someone to the PDC, but out of the Solar System. He was proposing sending a live scout to the bleak, frigid Oort Cloud one light-year away to spy on the Trisolaran Fleet.
Wade kicked the leg of the conference table and sent his chair flying backwards so that he could sit behind everyone as they continued to discuss. But no one spoke. It was a repeat of the meeting a week ago when he had first brought up the idea of sending a probe to the Trisolaran Fleet. Everyone tried to chew over his words and unravel the riddle. Shortly, they came to see that the idea wasn’t as ridiculous as it seemed at first.
Hibernation was a relatively mature technology. A person could complete the voyage in suspended animation. Assuming the person weighed 70 kilograms, that left 110 kilograms for the hibernation equipment and the hull—which would resemble a coffin. But what then? Two centuries later, when the probe met the Trisolaran Fleet, how would they wake this person up, and what could he or she do?
These thoughts revolved inside the heads of everyone present, but no one spoke up. But Wade seemed to be reading everyone’s minds.
“We need to send a representative of humanity into the heart of the enemy,” he said.
“This would require the Trisolaran Fleet to capture the probe,” Vadimov said. “And to keep our spy.”
“This is very likely.” Wade looked up. “Isn’t it?” Those inside the conference understood that he was speaking to the sophons hovering around them like ghosts. Four light-years away, on that distant world, other invisible beings were also “attending” their meeting. The presence of the sophons was something that people tended to forget. When they remembered it, besides fright, they also felt a kind of insignificance, as though they were a swarm of ants under the magnifying glass of some playful, cruel child. It was very difficult to maintain confidence when one realized that whatever plans one came up with would be known by the enemy long before they were even explained to the supervisor. Humanity had to struggle to adjust to this kind of warfare, in which they were completely transparent to the enemy.
But now, Wade seemed to have changed the situation slightly. In his scenario, the enemy’s knowledge of the plan was an advantage. The Trisolarans would know every detail about the trajectory of the probe, and could easily intercept it. Even though the sophons allowed the Trisolarans to learn about humanity, surely they would still be interested in capturing a live specimen for up-close study.
In traditional intelligence warfare, sending a spy whose identity was known to the enemy was a meaningless gesture. But this war was different. Sending a representative of humanity into the Trisolaran Fleet was, by itself, a valiant gesture, and it made no difference that the Trisolarans would know the individual’s identity ahead of time. The PIA didn’t even need to figure out what the spy had to do once he or she got there: As long as the person could be safely and successfully inserted into the fleet, the possibilities were endless. Given that the Trisolarans were transparent in thought and vulnerable to stratagems, Wade’s idea became even more attractive.
We need to send a representative of humanity into the heart of the enemy.
Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time
Hibernation: Man Walks for the First Time Through Time
A new technology can transform society, but when the technology is in its infancy, very few people can see its full potential. For example, when the computer was first invented, it was merely a tool for increasing efficiency, and some thought five computers would be enough for the entire world. Artificial hibernation was the same. Before it was a reality, people just thought it would provide an opportunity for patients with terminal illnesses to seek a cure in the future. If they thought further, it would appear to be useful for interstellar voyages. But as soon as it became real, if one examined it through the lens of sociology, one could see that it would completely change the face of human civilization.
All this was based on a single idea: Tomorrow will be better.
This was a relatively new faith, a product of the last few centuries before the Crisis. Previously, such an idea of progress would have been laughable. Medieval Europe was materially impoverished compared to the Classical Rome of a thousand years earlier, and was more intellectually repressed. In China, the lives of the people were worse during the Wei, Jin, and Southern and Northern Dynasties compared to the earlier Han Dynasty, and the Yuan and Ming Dynasties were much worse than the earlier Tang and Song Dynasties. But after the Industrial Revolution, progress became a constant feature of society, and humanity’s faith in the future grew stronger.
This faith reached its apex on the eve of the Trisolar Crisis. The Cold War had been over for some time, and though problems such as environmental degradation persisted, they were merely unpleasant. The material comforts of life improved at a rapid pace, and the trend seemed to accelerate. If one surveyed people about visions of the future, they might give different answers for how things would be in ten years, but few would doubt that in another hundred years, humanity would be living in paradise. It was easy to believe such a thing: They could just compare their own lives with the lives of their ancestors a hundred years earlier!
If hibernation were possible, why would you linger in the present?
When examined from the perspective of sociology, the biotechnology breakthrough of human cloning was far less complicated than hibernation. Cloning raised moral questions, but they mostly troubled those with a moral view influenced by Christianity. The troubles brought about by hibernation, on the other hand, were practical, and affected the entire human race. On
ce the technology was successfully commercialized, those who could afford it would use it to skip to paradise, while the rest of humanity would have to stay behind in the comparatively depressing present to construct that paradise for them. But even more worrisome was the greatest lure provided by the future: the end of death.
As modern biology advanced apace, people began to believe that death’s end would be achievable in one or two more centuries. If so, those who chose hibernation were taking the first steps on the staircase to life everlasting. For the first time in history, Death itself was no longer fair. The consequences were unimaginable.
The situation was akin to the dire conditions of post-Crisis Escapism. Later, historians would call it Early Escapism or Time Escapism. Thus, even pre-Crisis, governments around the world suppressed hibernation technology more zealously than cloning technology.
But the Trisolar Crisis changed everything. In a single night, the paradise of the future turned into a hell on Earth. Even for terminal patients, the future no longer appealed: By the time they woke up, perhaps the world would be bathed in a sea of fire, and they wouldn’t even be able to find an aspirin.
Thus, after the Crisis, hibernation was allowed to develop without constraints. Soon, the technology became commercially viable, and the human race possessed the first tool that allowed them to traverse large swaths of time.
Crisis Era, Years 1–4
Cheng Xin
Cheng Xin went to Sanya on Hainan Island to research hibernation.
This tropical island seemed an incongruous site for the largest hibernation research center, which was operated by the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences. While it was the middle of winter on the mainland, spring ruled here.
The hibernation center was a white building hidden behind lush vegetation. About a dozen test subjects inside engaged in experimental, short-term hibernation. So far, no one had been put into hibernation with the intent of crossing the centuries.
Cheng Xin first asked whether it was possible to shrink the equipment necessary to support hibernation down to one hundred kilograms.
The director of the research center laughed. “One hundred kilograms? You’d be lucky getting it down to one hundred metric tons!”
The director was exaggerating, but only slightly. He showed Cheng Xin around the center, and Cheng Xin learned that artificial hibernation didn’t exactly match its public image. For one thing, it didn’t involve ultra-low temperatures. The procedure replaced the blood in the body with an antifreeze cryoprotectant, then brought the body temperature down to minus-fifty-degrees Celsius. Relying on an external cardiopulmonary bypass system, the body’s organs maintained an extremely low level of biological activity. “It’s like standby mode on a computer,” said the director. The entire system—hibernation tank, life-support system, cooling equipment—weighed about three metric tons.
As Cheng Xin discussed possible ways to miniaturize the hibernation setup with the center’s technical staff, she was startled by a realization: If the body’s temperature must be maintained around minus-fifty-degrees Celsius, then in the frigid conditions of outer space, the hibernation chamber needed to be heated, not cooled. In the long journey through trans-Neptunian space in particular, outside temperature would be close to absolute zero. In contrast, minus-fifty-degrees Celsius was like the inside of a furnace. Considering that the journey would take one to two centuries, the most practicable solution was radioisotope heating. The director’s claim of one hundred metric tons was thus not too far from the truth.
Cheng Xin returned to PIA Headquarters and gave her report. After synthesizing all relevant research results, the staff again sank into depression. But this time, they gazed at Wade with hope.
“What are you all looking at? I’m not God!” Wade surveyed the conference room. “Why do you think your countries sent you here? To collect a paycheck and to give me bad news? I don’t have a solution. Finding a solution is your job!” He kicked the leg of the conference table, and his chair slid back farther than ever. Ignoring the conference room’s non-smoking rule, he lit up a cigar.
The attendees turned their attention back to the new hibernation experts in the room. None of them said anything, but they made no effort to disguise the anger and frustration of professionals faced with ignorant zealots who were asking for the impossible.
“Maybe…” Cheng Xin looked around hesitantly. She was still unused to MD.
“Advance! We stop at nothing to advance!” Wade spewed smoke at her along with the words.
“Maybe … we don’t need to send a live person.”
The rest of the team looked at her, looked at each other, and then turned to the hibernation experts. They shook their heads, uncertain what Cheng Xin meant.
“We could flash-freeze a person to minus-two-hundred-degrees Celsius or below, then launch the body. We wouldn’t need life support or heating systems, and the capsule holding the body could be made very small and light. The total mass should not exceed one hundred and ten kilograms. For us, such a body is a corpse, but that may not be the case for Trisolarans.”
“Very good,” Wade said, and nodded at her. This was the first time he had praised one of his staff since she had known him.
One of the hibernation experts said, “You’re talking about cryopreservation, not hibernation. The biggest barrier to reanimating a flash-frozen body is preventing cell damage from ice crystals during the thawing process. It’s like what happens to frozen tofu: When you defrost it, it turns into a sponge. Oh, I guess most of you haven’t had frozen tofu.” The expert, who was Chinese, smiled at the confused Western faces around him. “Now, maybe the Trisolarans know techniques to prevent such damage. Perhaps they can restore the body to normal temperature within an extremely short period of time: a millisecond, or even a microsecond. We don’t know how to do such a thing, at least not without vaporizing the body in the process.”
Cheng Xin wasn’t paying much attention to this discussion. Instead, she was focused on one thing: Who would this minus-two-hundred-degree corpsicle that would be shot into deep space be? She was trying her hardest to advance without regard for consequences, but she couldn’t help but shudder at the thought.
* * *
The latest version of the Staircase Program was brought back to the current PDC session for a vote. Private discussions between Wade and the delegates of the various nations called for optimism. Since the plan, as modified, would represent the first direct contact between humanity and an extraterrestrial civilization, its meaning was qualitatively different from merely sending a probe. Moreover, the person sent to the Trisolarans could be said to represent a ticking bomb implanted in the heart of the enemy. By skillfully using humanity’s absolute superiority in tricks and ruses, he or she could change the course of the entire war.
Since the special session of the General Assembly was going to announce the Wallfacer Project to the world tonight, the PDC session was delayed by more than an hour. PIA personnel waited in the lobby outside the General Assembly Hall. During previous PDC sessions, only Wade and Vadimov were allowed to attend, while others had to remain outside, waiting to be summoned if their specific area of technical expertise was needed. But this time, Wade asked Cheng Xin to accompany him and Vadimov to the PDC session itself, a high honor for a lowly technical aide.
After the General Assembly finished its announcement, Cheng Xin and the others watched as a man surrounded by a swarm of reporters passed through the lobby and left the building through another exit—clearly one of the just-revealed Wallfacers. Since everyone from the PIA was focused on the Staircase Program, most weren’t interested in the Wallfacers, and only a couple of them left the building to catch a glimpse of the man. Thus, when the famous assassination attempt of Luo Ji occurred, no one from the PIA heard the gunshot; they only saw the sudden commotion through the glass doors. Cheng Xin and the others ran outside and were immediately blinded by the bright searchlights from helicopters hovering overhead.
“Oh my God, one of the Wallfacers has been killed!” One of her colleagues ran over. “I heard that he was shot several times. In the head!”
“Who are the Wallfacers?” asked Wade. His tone indicated no particular interest.
“I’m not too sure either. I think three of them are from the pool of well-known candidates. But this fourth one, the one who was shot, was one of your people.” He pointed at Cheng Xin. “But no one had heard of him. He’s just some guy.”
“In this extraordinary time, no one is ‘just some guy,’” Wade said. “Any random person could suddenly be handed a heavy responsibility, and anyone important could be replaced at any time.” He looked at Cheng Xin and Mikhail Vadimov in turn. Then a PDC secretary called him aside.
“He’s threatening me,” Vadimov whispered to Cheng Xin. “He threw a fit yesterday and told me that you could easily replace me.”
“Mikhail, I—”
Vadimov held up his hand to stop her. The bright searchlight from one of the helicopters shone through his palm and revealed the blood under his skin. “He wasn’t joking. Our agency does not need to follow normal HR procedures. You’re steady, calm, hardworking, and also creative; you display a sense of responsibility far above your official position. This is a rare combination of qualities in someone your age. Xin, really, I’m glad that you could replace me—but you can’t do quite what I can do.” He looked around at the chaos surrounding them. “You won’t sell your mother to a whorehouse. You’re still a child, when it comes to that aspect of our profession. My fervent hope is that you will always remain so.”
Camille marched over to them holding a stack of paper. Cheng Xin guessed that it was the interim report on the feasibility of the Staircase Program. Camille held up the document for a few seconds, but instead of handing it over to either of them, she slammed it against the ground.
“Fuck them all!” Camille screamed. Even with the helicopters thundering overhead, a few onlookers turned to stare. “Fucking pigs don’t know how to do anything except fuck around down here in the mud.”