by Cixin Liu
“Do I remind you of that guy Tim Roth played in 'The Legend of 1900'?” Fan asked in return.
“Are you insinuating that if we ever scuttle the Bluewater, you plan on going down with the ship like he did?” the Captain countered, himself not sure if Fan was joking or not.
“I'll change ships. Oceanographic vessels always have a place for a geological engineer who'll never leave ship,” Fan replied.
The Captain returned to his original point. “That naturally begs the question: Is there something on land that keeps you away?”
“On the contrary,” Fan answered, “there is something that I yearn for.”
“And what's that?” the Captain asked, curious and now a bit impatient.
“Mountains,” Fan uttered, his gaze dissolving into a thousand-mile stare.
They were standing portside on the geological oceanographic research vessel the Bluewater, looking out onto the equatorial waters of the Pacific. The Bluewater had crossed the equator for the first time a mere year ago. Back then, they had given into the whimsy of marking the occasion with the ancient rite of the line-crossing ceremony. Their discovery of a manganese nodule deposit in the seabed, however, had left them crisscrossing the equator more times than any of them could possibly remember. Now, they had all but forgotten about the existence of that invisible divider.
As the Sun slowly set beyond the sea's western horizon, Fan noticed that the ocean was unusually calm. In fact, he had never seen it so quiet. It reminded him of the Himalayan lakes, perfectly still to the point of blackness, like the eyes of the Earth. One time, he and two of his team had sneaked a peek at a Tibetan girl bathing in one of those lakes. A group of shepherds had spotted them and given chase, blades drawn. When they had failed to catch them, the shepherds had resorted to slinging stones at them. The disconcertingly accurate bombardment had left Fan and his cohorts no other option than to surrender. The shepherds had sized them up and finally let them go.
Feng Fan recalled that one of them had muttered in Tibetan: “For outsiders, they sure could not run quickly up here.”
“You like the mountains? So that's where you grew up then?” The Captain ended Fan’s reminiscing.
“No, not at all,” Feng Fan explained. “People who live their entire life surrounded by mountains usually care nothing for them. They end up seeing the mountains as the thing that stands between them and the world. I knew a Sherpa who had scaled Everest forty-one times, but every time his team would get close to the peak, he'd stop and watch the others climb the final stretch. He just couldn't be bothered to make it to the top. And make no mistake about it; he could have easily pulled off both the northern and southern ascent in ten hours.
“There are only two places where you can really feel the true magic of the mountains: On the plains from far away and standing on a peak,” Feng Fan continued. “My home was the vastness of the Hebei Plain. In the West, I could see the Taihang Mountains, but between them and my home lay an immense expanse of perfectly flat land, without obstructions or markers. Not long after I was born, my mother carried me outside the house for the first time. My tiny neck could barely carry my head, but I already turned to the West and babbled my heart out. As soon as I learned to walk, I took my first tottering steps toward those mountains. When I was a bit older, I set out one early morning and walked along the Shijiazhuang-Taiyuan Railway. I walked until noon before my grumbling stomach made me turn back, yet the mountains still seemed endlessly far away. In school, I rode my bicycle toward the mountains, but no matter how fast I peddled, the mountains seemed to withdraw just as quickly. In the end, it never felt as if I had gotten even an inch closer to them. Many years later, far mountains would again become a symbol of my life. Like so many things in life that we can clearly see but never reach; a dream crystallized in the distance.”
“I visited there once,” the Captain noted, shaking his head. “The mountains are very barren, covered with nothing but scattered stones and wild grasses. You were doomed to be disappointed.”
“I wasn't. You and I feel very differently about these things. For me, all I saw was the mountain and all I wanted was to climb it. I really wasn't looking for anything on the mountain. When I climbed those mountains for the first time and I saw the plain stretch out below me, I felt like I had been reborn.” As Feng Fan finished, he realized that the Captain was paying no heed to his words; instead, he was looking to the sky, staring at the scattered stars.
“There,” the Captain said, pointing skyward with his pipe. “There shouldn't be a star there.”
But there was a star. It was very dim, barely visible.
“Are you sure?” Fan turned his gaze from the sky to the Captain. “Hasn't GPS done away with sextants? Do you really know your stars that well?”
“Of course I do,” the Captain answered. “It is one of the basics of knowing the craft of sailing.” Turning back to Fan, he again took up the topic at hand. “But you were saying ...”
Feng Fan nodded. “Later at the university, I put together a mountaineering team and we climbed a few seven-thousand-footers. Our final climb was Everest.”
The Captain carefully studied Feng Fan before finally saying, “I thought so! It really is you! I always thought that you looked familiar. Did you change your name?”
“Yes, I used to be called Feng Huabei,” the now-marine geologist admitted.
“Some years ago you caused quite the stir. Was what the media said about you true then?” the Captain asked.
“The gist of it. In any case, those four climbers certainly are dead because of me,” Fan said glumly.
Striking a match to relight his pipe, the Captain continued. “I reckon that being the leader of a mountaineering team is not that different from being a captain: The hardest part is not learning when to fight on, but understanding when to back down.”
“But if I had backed down then, it would have been very hard to get another shot at it,” Fan immediately replied. “You probably know that mountain climbing is a very costly undertaking, and we were just college students. It was not easy for us to find sponsors.” He paused, taking a deep breath. “The guides we hired had refused to go on and so it took much longer than anticipated before we set up the first base camp. The forecast predicted a storm, but we studied the images and maps and came to the conclusion that we still had at least twenty hours before it would hit. By then, our team had already set up the second camp at twenty-six thousand feet and so we thought that we could make it to the peak if we just set out immediately. You tell me, how could we have backed down then? We never even contemplated giving up, and so continued our ascent.”
“That star is getting brighter,” the Captain said, looking up again.
“Of course it is; the sky is getting darker,” Fan retorted dismissively.
“This seems different,” the Captain noted. “But go on.”
“You probably know what happened next: When the storm hit, we were close to the so-called ‘Chinese Ladder’ of the Second Step on a vertical rock face that rises from twenty-eight thousand five-hundred feet. The peak was almost within reach, and save for a strand of cloud rising from the other side of the summit, the sky was still perfectly blue. I can still clearly remember thinking that the peak of Everest looked like a knife's edge cutting open the sky, drawing forth its billowing, pale blood.” Fan paused at the memory before returning to his tale. “It only took moments before we lost all visibility; when the storm hit us out of nowhere, it whipped up the snow. Everything was shrouded in impenetrable white that left only murky darkness. In a dread instant, I felt the other four members of my team blown off the cliff. They were left hanging by my rope. And all I was clinging to was my ice ax wedged into a crack in the wall. It simply could not have held the weight of five. I acted on instinct, cutting the buckle strap that held the rope. I let them fall.” He paused again, swallowing hard. “They still haven't found the remains of two of them.”
“So four died instead of all five,” the
Captain noted dryly.
“Sure, I acted in accordance to the mountaineering safety guidelines. Even so, it remains my cross to bear.” Fan paused again, this time distracted by something other than his memories. “You are right; there is something strange about that star. It definitely is getting brighter.”
“Never mind,” the Captain said. “Does your current…” he paused, pursing his lips, “…shall we say condition, have anything to do with what happened then?”
“Do I have to spell it out? You must remember the overwhelming condemnations and the crushing contempt the media heaped on me back then,” Fan reminded. “They said that I acted irresponsibly, that I was a selfish coward, that I sacrificed my four companions for my own life.” He was clearly still pained. “I thought that I could at least clear myself of that last accusation, so I donned my climbing gear and put on my mountain goggles. Ready for a climb, I went to my university's library and scaled a pipe straight up to its roof. I was just about to jump when I heard the voice of one of my teachers; I hadn't noticed him come up to the roof behind me. He asked me if I was really willing to let myself off the hook that easily and if I was just trying to avoid the much harsher punishment awaiting me. When I asked what he meant he told me that of course it would have to be a life as far away as possible from mountains. To never again see a mountain – would that not be a harsher punishment?
“So I did not jump. Of course, I attracted even more ridicule, but I knew that what my teacher had told me was right: It would be worse than death for me. To me, mountain climbing had been my life; it was the only reason I studied geology. To now live a life, eternally separated from the object of my passion, tormented by my own conscience – it really felt just. That was the reason why I applied for this job after graduation, why I became the geological engineer of the Bluewater. On the ocean,” he said with a sigh, “I am as far as I can be from mountains.”
The Captain stared blankly for a long moment, at a loss for words. Finally, he came to the conclusion that it would probably be best to just leave it be. Conveniently, something in the sky above abruptly forced a change of topic. “Take another look at that star,” he said, an edge in his voice.
“Heavens,” Fan exclaimed as he, too, looked up. “It is turning into something!”
The star was no longer a dot, but had become a small but rapidly expanding disk. In the blink of an eye it had turned into a striking sphere in the sky, glowing with blue light.
A flurry of rapidly approaching footsteps drew their gaze back down to deck. It was the First Mate, running straight towards them.
He was barely within earshot when he in one breath called to the Captain, “We have just received message; an alien ship is approaching Earth! We can clearly see it from our position on the equator! Look, there it is!”
The three of them looked up only to see that that small sphere had continued its rapid expansion. It had already ballooned to the size of the Moon.
“All stations have ceased their regular broadcasts and are now reporting on it!” the First Mate rattled on. “The object had been spotted earlier, but they have just now confirmed its true nature. It is not responding to any of our attempts to hail it, but its trajectory shows that it is being propelled by some immense force, and it is hurtling straight toward Earth! They say it is as big as the Moon!” He held an ear-piece to his head, listening intently.
Above, the alien sphere was no longer the size of the Moon; it was now easily 10 times as big, looming large in the heavens. It appeared much closer than the Moon. With a finger firmly on his ear-piece, the First Mate continued, “... they say that it has stopped. It is now in geosynchronous orbit twenty-two thousand miles above the Earth. It has become a geostationary satellite.”
“A geostationary satellite? Are you saying it is just going to hang above us?” the Captain shouted.
“It is! Over the equator, right above us!” the First Mate confirmed.
Feng Fan stared at this huge sphere in the sky; it seemed almost transparent, suffused with an unfathomable blue light. Looking at it left Fan with the strange impression of staring right up at an orb of seawater. There was the feeling of profound mystery, an intense anticipation that would grip him every time the sampling probe was raised from the seabed. Looking up now, he experienced a very similar sensation. It was as if some long-forgotten remnant of time immemorial had returned to the surface.
“Look, the ocean!” the Captain shouted, wildly thrusting his pipe aft-ward. “What is happening to the ocean?” He was the first to break free from the hypnotic power the giant sphere seemed to exert over all of them.
Where he pointed, the ocean's horizon had begun to bend, curving upward like a sine wave. This huge swell of rising water rapidly grew taller and taller. It was as if a titanic yet invisible hand was reaching down from space to scoop up the ocean.
“It’s the spaceship's mass! Its gravity is pulling at the ocean!” Feng Fan exclaimed, rather surprised that he still had enough of his wits about him to understand what was happening. The ship's mass was probably equivalent to that of the Moon, but it was 10 times closer! It was fortunate that it had only entered a geosynchronous orbit. The water it was pulling would be held in one spot. If the spaceship moved, it would send a gravitational tidal wave across the world so large that it could easily ravage continents and destroy cities.
This colossal flood had by now swelled up to the heavens, rising as a flat-topped cone. Its body shone with the blue glow of the ship above, even as its edges burned with the bright crimson fire of the setting Sun, now hidden behind the towering waves. The stark, cold air at the cone's top chilled the froth, sending forth streams of misty clouds. These clouds quickly bled away in the night sky, almost as if the dark heavens had been cut open. Feng Fan felt his heart stir with memories as he took it all in. His mind drifted toward the day of the climb...
“Give me its height!” the Captain shouted, jerking him back to the here and now.
A mere minute later, someone called out, “Almost thirty-thousand feet!”
Before them was the most terrifying, most awesome, and most magnificent sight humanity had ever faced. All on deck stood transfixed by its spell.
“It must be destiny ...” Feng Fan mumbled, mesmerized more than most by its grandeur.
“What did you say?” the Captain loudly demanded, his eyes still fixed on the rising waters.
“I said that this must be destiny,” Fan repeated.
It was – it had – to be destiny. He had gone to sea to avoid mountains, to put as much distance between them and him as humanly possible; and now he was in the shadow of a mountain that eclipsed even Everest by almost a thousand feet. It was the world's tallest mountain.
“Port five! Full ahead! We need to get out here now!” the Captain commanded the First Mate.
“Out of here? Is it dangerous?” Feng Fan asked, confused.
“The alien spaceship has already created a huge area of low pressure. Right now a gigantic cyclone is taking form. I tell you, this could be the greatest tempest the world has ever seen. If it catches the Bluewater, we will be ripped straight out of the water and tossed about like a leaf in a storm. I just pray we will be able to outrun it,” the Captain explained, sweat clearly visible on his brow.
Just then the First Mate signaled them all to be quiet. Covering his ear-piece with one hand, he listened intently, and then said, “Captain, the situation is much worse than that! They are now saying that the aliens have come to destroy Earth! With nothing but its enormous mass, their ship is doing much, much worse than just raising a storm; it is about to spring a leak in Earth's atmosphere!”
“Leak? Leak to where?” the Captain asked, his eyes wide.
The First Mate explained what he had just heard over the radio. “The spaceship's gravity will puncture the upper layers of the atmosphere. Earth's atmosphere will be like a pricked balloon, its air escaping through that puncture, right into space! All of Earth's atmosphere will disappear!”
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“How long do we have?” the Captain asked, confronted with horror after horror.
“The experts say that it will only take a week or so for the atmospheric pressure to fall to a lethal level,” the First Mate reported mechanically, but his wild eyes betrayed his panic. “They say that when the pressure falls to a certain point, the oceans will begin to boil.” He continued, his voice beginning to break. “Heavens, that would be like ...” His head shook as he heard further news. “All of Earth's major cities have fallen into chaos. Humanity has lost all semblance of sanity. Everywhere people are rushing into hospitals and factories, pillaging all the oxygen they can get their hands on.” His eyes continued to widen. “Wait, now they are saying that Cape Canaveral is being overrun by a crazed mob trying to get its hands on the liquid oxygen used in the rocket fuel.” The First Mate's spirit appeared to slump along with his body. “Oh, it’s all over!”
“A week? That doesn't leave us enough time to make it home,” the Captain said steadily. It seemed that his composure had returned. With a quick flick of his fingers, he re-lit his pipe.
“Right, there's no time to make it home …” the First Mate echoed, his voice now devoid of all emotion.
“If that is what it's going to be, we might as well get on with it and make the best of the time we have left,” Feng Fan noted, a sudden edge of enthusiasm in his voice. His entire body was readying to the occasion, flush with the energy of excitement.
“And what is it that you want to do?” the Captain asked.
“Climb a mountain,” Fan answered with a smile.
“Climb a mountain? Climb…?” The First Mate's face suddenly twisted from puzzlement to outright shock. “That mountain?” He gasped, pointing at the mountain of water looming above them.