by Cixin Liu
“A useless piece of paper,” he said, and handed it back to her. “If you’re smart, you should drop the price and resell it right away. Otherwise you’ll end up with nothing.”
But Cheng Xin wasn’t bothered by his cynicism—she had already known what he was going to say. She knew very little about Wade except his work history: service in the CIA, then deputy secretary of Homeland Security, and finally here. As for his personal life, other than the fact that he had a mother and his mother had a kitten, she knew nothing. No one else did, either. She didn’t even know where he lived. He was like a machine: When he wasn’t working, he was shut down somewhere unknown.
She couldn’t help but bring up the star to Vadimov, who enthusiastically congratulated her. “Every girl in the world must be jealous,” he said. “Including all living women and dead princesses. You’re certainly the first woman in the history of humankind to be given a star.” For a woman, was there any greater happiness than to be given a star by someone who loved her?
“But who is he?” Cheng Xin muttered.
“Shouldn’t be hard to guess. He must be rich, for one thing. He just spent a few million on a symbolic gift.”
Cheng Xin shook her head. She’d had many admirers and suitors, but none of them were that wealthy.
“He’s also a cultured soul. Stands apart from the crowd.” Vadimov sighed. “And he just made a romantic gesture that I’d call fucking ridiculous if I read it in a book or saw it in a movie.”
Cheng Xin sighed as well. A much younger Cheng Xin had once indulged in rose-tinted fantasies that the Cheng Xin of the present would mock. This real star that appeared out of nowhere, however, far exceeded those romantic dreams.
She was certain that she knew no man like that.
Maybe it was a secret admirer from afar who, on impulse, decided to use a tiny part of his vast wealth to indulge in a bit of whimsy, to satisfy some desire she would never understand. Even so, she was grateful.
That night, Cheng Xin climbed onto the top of One World Trade Center, eager to see her new star. She had carefully reviewed the materials that accompanied the deed explaining how to find it. But the sky in New York was overcast. The next day and the day after were the same. The clouds formed a giant teasing hand that covered her gift, refusing to let go. But Cheng Xin wasn’t disappointed; she knew she had received a gift that couldn’t be taken away. DX3906 was in this universe, and it might even outlast the Earth and the Sun. She would see it, one day.
She stood on the balcony of her apartment at night, gazing up at the sky and imagining her star. The lights of the city below cast a dim yellow glow against the cloud cover, but she imagined her star giving the clouds a rosy glow.
In her dream, she flew over the star’s surface. It was a rose-colored sphere, but instead of scorching flames, she felt the coolness of a spring breeze. Below her was the clear water of an ocean, through which she could see swaying, rose-colored clouds of algae....
After she woke up, she laughed at herself. As an aerospace professional, even in her dreams she couldn’t forget that DX3906 had no planets.
On the fourth day after she received the star, Cheng Xin and a few other PIA employees flew to Cape Canaveral to attend the launch ceremony for the first batch of missiles. Achieving orbit required taking advantage of the Earth’s spin, and the ICBMs had been moved here from their original deployment bases.
The trails left behind by the missiles gradually faded against the clear night sky. Cheng Xin and Vadimov reviewed the observation guide for her star. Both had had some training in astronomy, and soon they were looking at the approximate location. But neither could see it.
Vadimov took out two pairs of military-issue binoculars. With them, it was easy to see DX3906. After that, even without the binoculars, they could find the star. Cheng Xin stared at the faint red dot, mesmerized, struggling to comprehend the unimaginable distance between them, struggling to translate the distance into terms that could be grasped by the human mind.
“If you put my brain on the Staircase Program probe and launched it at the star, it would take thirty thousand years to get there.”
Cheng Xin heard no response. When she turned around, she saw that Vadimov was no longer looking at the star with her, but leaning against the car and looking at nothing. She could see that his face was troubled.
“What’s wrong?”
Vadimov was silent for some time. “I’ve been avoiding my duty.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m the best candidate for the Staircase Program.”
After a momentary shock, Cheng Xin realized that Vadimov was right: He had extensive experience in spaceflight, diplomacy, and intelligence; he was steady and mature.... Even if they were able to expand the pool of candidates to include healthy individuals, Vadimov would still be the best choice.
“But you’re healthy.”
“Sure. But I’m still running from my responsibility.”
“Have you been pressured?” Cheng Xin was thinking of Wade.
“No, but I know what I must do; I just haven’t done it. I got married three years ago, and my daughter just turned one. I’m not afraid to die, but my family matters to me. I don’t want them to see me turned into something worse than a corpse.”
“You don’t have to do this. Neither the PIA nor your government has ordered you to do this, and they can’t!”
“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 expose 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 tha
t 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.”