by Cixin Liu
“Yes; now it is the world's tallest peak. Where there's a mountain, there will be someone to climb it,” Fan replied calmly.
“And how do you plan to climb it?” the First Mate asked.
“Isn't it obvious? Mountain climbing is something one does with hands and feet; so I will swim,” Fan said with a smile.
“Are you crazy?” the First Mate shouted. “How are you going to swim up a thirty-thousand-foot slope of water? It looks like a forty-five degree incline to me! That is going to be very different from climbing a mountain. You will have to swim non-stop; and if you stop, even for a moment, you'll be sliding down the side!”
“I will give it a try.” Fan would not be dissuaded.
“Let him go then,” the Captain flatly stated. “What better time than now to embrace our passions? How far is it to the foot of that mountain?”
“About a dozen miles,” someone answered.
“You can take one of the life-boats,” the Captain told Feng Fan. “Remember to take enough food and water.”
“Thank you!” Fan expressed his heartfelt gratitude.
“It looks like today fortune smiles upon you,” the Captain said with a wry smile, giving Feng Fan a slap on the shoulder.
“I believe so,” Fan replied. “Captain, there is one thing I haven't yet told you: One of the four climbers on Everest was my girlfriend. A single thought flashed through my mind when I cut that rope: I don't want to die; there is still another mountain to climb,” he said, pain and bright enthusiasm merging in his eyes.
“And,” the First Mate said, looking lost, “what do we do?”
“Full speed ahead and away from that storm; we'll take it a step at a time. One more day to live is one more day to live,” the Captain answered thoughtfully.
Feng Fan stood in the lifeboat, his gaze following the Bluewater as it sailed into the distance. Soon, the ship he had once seen as his home for life was well and truly out of reach.
Behind him, the mountain of water towered serenely under the blue glow of the alien sphere. Had he not seen it form, he could have easily been tricked into thinking that it had been there for millions of years. The ocean was very calm, its flat surface unruffled by waves. Feng Fan, however, could feel a breeze brush past his face; it was still weak, but it blew toward the looming waters. Raising the lifeboat's sail, he began his journey to the mountain. Soon, the wind picked up and his vessel's sail filled in its wake. The lifeboat's prow now cut the ocean's surface like a knife as it sped toward Fan’s goal.
In the end, the 12-mile journey took no longer than 40 minutes. As soon as Feng Fan began to feel the hull of his boat climb the slope of water, he bailed. Off the side of his vessel he leapt into the shining blue waters that were aglow with the light of the alien vessel above.
A few strokes later he had become the first person to climb a mountainside by swimming.
From where he was now, he could no longer see the summit. Lifting his head out of the water, all before him was an unending expanse of sloping water. He could almost image a titan beyond the horizon, lifting the ocean like a vast, watery blanket.
Feng Fan began to swim with a breaststroke, conserving as much energy as possible. The First Mate's warning was still fresh in his mind. A quick calculation told him that it would be about eight miles to the summit. On level water, his endurance would easily have allowed him to cover the distance, but here he would have to deal with the slope. If he stopped moving up, he would be slipping down. That alone would make reaching the summit almost impossible. It did not matter; the very act of even attempting to climb this watery Everest was a greater realization than he had ever dared hoped for in all of his mountaineering dreams.
As these emotions washed over him, Fan became aware of more physical sensations. He almost felt as if his body was gradually being pulled up along the slope. Swimming up seemed to demand no additional effort. Looking back, he could see the lifeboat that he had abandoned at the mountain's foot. Before leaving the vessel he had lowered its sail, yet it remained floating on the slope, strangely stationary. Fan gave it a try.
He ceased his strokes and began to carefully observe his surroundings. He was not sliding. Quite to the contrary, he was floating on the slope as if it did not exist at all! Fan slapped his forehead as he cursed his and the First Mate's foolishness: If the ocean's water on the slope did not flow downward, why would a person? Or a boat, for that matter?
The gravitational pull down the incline was being neutralized by the giant sphere's mass. The further up he climbed, the less he would feel of Earth's gravity. It meant that the slope's angle would not matter one bit. As far as gravity was concerned, there was neither a watery slope nor a mountain in the ocean. The forces acting on him would be no different from those on the level ocean.
He now knew this mountain would be his.
He continued to swim upward. As he climbed, he felt his strokes gradually become less and less exerting. In large part, this was due to his body growing lighter, making it easier and easier to come up for air. Around him, Fan could see another sign of the reduced gravity: The higher he got, the slower the ocean's spray fell. This phenomenon was mirrored in the undulations and movements of the waves. They, too, grew ever slower the higher he swam. The harshness of the open sea had all but left them, leaving the waves softer and gentler than normal gravity would ever allow.
It was by no means calm, however. The wind was picking up and bands of waves had begun to rise on the watery slope. Freed from much of Earth's gravity, these billows rose to considerable heights. However, they did not roll up the slope as full-bodied waves, but as thin slices of water that twisted in on themselves as they gently collapsed. In a strange way they reminded Fan of exquisitely thin wood shavings sliced from the ocean by an invisible planer. The waves did nothing to hinder his progress. In fact, it was quite the opposite; sweeping toward the summit, they actually pushed him along as he continued his climbing swim.
As the pull of gravity grew ever weaker, even stranger things happened: Instead of pushing him, Fan was now being gently thrown along by the waves. In the blink of an eye he felt himself leaving the water and flying over the ocean's surface, only to be caught by another wave a moment later, and then it was up into the air again. The gentle yet powerful hands of the ocean carried him along, rapidly passing him upward and onward. He soon discovered that under these strange conditions the butterfly stroke was best suited to expediting his already rapid ascent.
Around him the wind had picked up even more strength. Gravity's grip on Feng Fan, on the other hand, was becoming weaker and weaker. The waves up here easily reached 30 feet in height before falling as if in slow motion. These huge billows were also gentler than they had ever been, softly rolling into one another; they did not even make a sound as they fell. The only remaining noise was the howling of a growing cyclone.
Fan's ever-lighter body was leaping from wave crest to crest. As he jumped again, he suddenly realized that he was spending more time in midair than he was in the water. Up here, he could hardly tell if he was swimming or floating. Numerous times the thin waves would come to completely envelope him, rolling him into a tunnel formed by the slowly tumbling waters. The gently roiling roof of these tunnels glowed in blue light. Through the thin, watery roof he could see the light's source – the giant alien sphere hanging in the sky. The wave tunnel distorted the ship's form; to Feng Fan it looked as if he was seeing it through teary eyes.
He glanced at the waterproof watch he wore on his left wrist. He had been climbing for a mere hour and at this hope-defying speed it would only take that long again for him to reach the summit.
It made Fan think of the Bluewater. Considering the current wind speeds, the tempest was only moments away from unleashing its fury. There was no way that the ship would be able to outrun the coming cyclone. In a flash it occurred to Fan that the Captain had made a fatal mistake: He should have turned the Bluewater straight toward the water mountain. As the gravity exerted no
pull down the slope, the ship could have sailed up to the peak just as easily as it sailed the level ocean, and the peak would be the eye of the storm – safe and calm! No sooner had he realized this than he pulled the walkie-talkie from his lifejacket. He tried to reach her, but the Bluewater would not respond.
By now, Feng Fan had mastered the skill of leaping from wave crest to crest. He had been climbing like this for about 20 minutes, making it two-thirds of the way to the top. From here, the perfectly round summit already seemed within reach. It glittered in the softly glowing light of the alien spaceship above. To Fan the Summit looked just like an alien world, waiting for him. At that moment the whistling of the wind suddenly turned to a sharp howl. This terrifying noise seemed to come from all directions and it was accompanied by a sudden increase in the wind's strength. Fifty-foot waves – even 100-foot waves – thin as sheets, rose high; but they never fell, torn apart by the cyclone's gale in midair. Looking up, Feng Fan could see that the slope above him was covered in the spray of broken wave crests, dancing a crazed, wind-whipped dance over the ocean's surface. Illuminated by the glow of the alien sphere, the chaotic splashes shone with dazzling white light.
Finally, Feng Fan made his last leap. A thin, hundred-foot wave carried him into the air. It was torn to slivers by the powerful wind the moment he left its crest and he found himself falling toward a band of waves slowly rolling in front of him. The waves looked like giant, transparent wings slowly unfurling as if to embrace him. Just as Fan's outstretched hands reached the waves, they shattered into white mist, their glittering crystal film ripped apart by the violent winds. A strange noise that sounded disturbingly like laughter accompanied the bizarre spectacle. It was also the very moment that Feng Fan stopped falling; his body was now light enough to float. The manically twisting ocean below slowly began to grow more distant as he was thrown into the air like a feather in a hurricane.
Almost weightless, Fan was turned and swirled in the twisting air. Dizzy, he felt as if the glowing alien sphere was spiraling around him. When he finally managed to begin steadying himself, he realized with a start that he was actually swirling through the air above the summit of the water mountain!
From up here, the bands of giant waves rolling up the mountain looked to be no more than long lines. Spiraling toward the peak, they made the mountain look like a titanic watery whirlwind. Feng Fan felt his circles above the peak become smaller and smaller, all the while his speed accelerating. He was being carried directly into the heart of the cyclone.
The moment Fan arrived at the exact eye of the storm, he felt the wind suddenly weaken. The invisible hand of air that had been holding him suddenly let go and he fell toward the water mountain, straight into the faint blue glow of the summit.
He plummeted deep into the mountain before he felt himself floating upward again. He was surrounded by darkness and in mere moments the fear of drowning beset him. With mounting panic, Fan suddenly realized that he was in mortal peril: The last breath he had gulped before he fell had been at 30,000 feet! At that height he would have hardly breathed in any oxygen at all, and in the minimal gravity here, he would only rise very slowly. Even if he swam up with all his strength, he feared that the air in his lungs would not be enough to carry him back to the surface.
Feng Fan was gripped by an eerie sense of deja vu. He felt himself returned to Everest, completely in the dark, enshrouded by the swirling snow of the storm, utterly overwhelmed by mortal fear. Within this darkest moment, Fan found a light in the black; several silvery spheres were floating upward next to him. The largest of these spheres was about three feet in diameter. Looking at them, he suddenly realized that they were made of air! The weak gravity had allowed giant bubbles of oxygen to form in the ocean. With all the strength he could muster, he thrust himself at the largest bubble. No sooner had his head pierced the silvery shell than he was immediately able to draw breath again. As he slowly recovered from the dizziness the lack of oxygen had induced, Fan found himself enveloped by the air bubble. Yet again he was in a space of air completely surrounded by water. Looking up, he could see the ripple of the surface shimmer through the top of his bubble. Floating upward, he noticed a sudden drop in the water pressure, causing his bubble to rapidly expand. As the bubble grew, Feng Fan could not shake the impression that he was caught in a crystal party balloon, floating into the sky.
The blue shimmer of the waves above slowly grew brighter and brighter, until finally its glare was so strong that he was forced to avert his gaze. Just then the bubble burst with a soft pop. Fan had reached the surface; and he was going further, the weak gravity launching him a good three feet into the air. His drop back to the surface was not sudden, but a gentle descent.
As he fell, Feng Fan noticed countless beautiful watery orbs gently dropping alongside him. These orbs greatly varied in size, the largest being roughly the size of a soccer ball. All shone and glittered with the blue light of the gigantic sphere above. As Fan looked more closely, he saw that they in fact contained layers upon layers, making them sparkle with crystal light. These orbs were splashes of water cast from the ocean as he had broken its surface. The low gravity had allowed their surface tension complete freedom to shape their form. Reaching out, Fan touched one of the orbs. The sphere shattered with a strange metallic ring that was wholly unlike any sound he had ever imagined water producing.
Other than the orbs, the summit of the water mountain was altogether tranquil, the waves rushing in from all sides undoing each other into nothing but broken swell. This was, beyond all doubt, the eye of the storm, the only place of quiet in a world gone mad. The calm was offset by a titanic background howl – the screaming of the cyclone. Looking into distance, Feng Fan found himself, along with the entire mountain of water, to be in a massive “well”. The walls of this well were made of the swirling, frothing waters of the cyclone. These impenetrable masses of water and wind slowly turned around the water mountain. Looking upward, Fan saw that they appeared to reach straight into space. Shining through the mouth of the well was the alien sphere. Like a giant lamp hanging in space, its light illuminated all within the well. Gazing up, Fan could see strange clouds forming around it. They looked liked fibers, trailing a loose net around the alien vessel. These strands of cloud shone brightly, as if glowing from within. Fan could only guess that they were made of ice crystals formed by the Earth's atmosphere, escaping into space. Even though they appeared to surround the spaceship, there actually had to be a good 20,000 miles between the web and the blue sphere. If his guess was right, the atmosphere had already begun to leak and the mouth of this giant, swirling well was nothing other than the fatal hole in Earth's shell.
It did not matter, Fan thought to himself. I have reached the summit.
CHAPTER
2
Words on the Mountaintop
Suddenly, the all-pervading, ambient light changed. Flickering, it began to dim. Looking up again, Feng Fan saw that the alien sphere's blue light had disappeared. It suddenly occurred to him what that light had been: It was the background light of an empty display; the entire body of that huge alien sphere was one gigantic screen. Just then, this massive screen began to display an image. It was a picture taken from a great height and it revealed a person floating in the ocean, his face turned skyward. That person was Feng Fan. Thirty seconds ticked past, then the image disappeared. Fan had immediately understood its meaning; the aliens had shown that they could see him. It truly made Fan feel like he was standing on the roof of the world.
Two lines of text appeared on the screen. They contained all the alphabets and characters Fan had ever seen. Recognizing the words for “English”, “Chinese”, and “Japanese”, he surmised that they must spell out the names of all the world's languages. He also spotted a dark frame quickly moving between the different words. It all appeared rather familiar. His guess was soon proven right, as he discovered that this frame actually did follow his gaze! He fixed his eyes on the characters for “Chinese”, caus
ing the dark frame to stop over them. He blinked once, but there was no response.
Maybe it needed a double-click, Fan thought and blinked twice. The dark frame flickered and the giant sphere's language menu closed. In its stead, a huge word appeared in Chinese.
>> Hello!
“Hello!!” Fan shouted his response into the sky. “Can you hear me?”
>> We can hear you; there is no need to shout. We could hear the wings of a mosquito anywhere on Earth. We picked up the electromagnetic waves leaking from your planet and so learned your languages. We want to have a little chat with you, the text on the sphere now read.
“Where do you come from?” Fan asked, his voice now considerably lower.
A picture appeared on the surface of the giant sphere, showing a dense cluster of black dots. These dots were connected by a complicated web of lines. The sheer intricacy of the picture made Fan's head swim. It obviously was some sort of star map. Sure enough, one of these dots began to glow in a silver light, growing brighter and brighter. Unfortunately, Feng Fan could not really make heads or tails of it, but he was confident that it would already have been recorded elsewhere. Earth's astronomers would be able to understand it. The sphere soon displayed characters again, but the star map did not disappear. Instead, it remained in the background, almost like some sort of alien desktop.
>> We raised a mountain. You came and climbed it.
“Mountain climbing is my passion,” Fan answered.
>> It is not a question of passion; we must climb mountains.
“Why?” Fan asked. “Does your world have many mountains?” He realized that this was hardly humanity's most pressing issue, but he wanted to know. Everyone he knew considered mountaineering an exercise in foolishness, so he might as well talk about it with aliens. After all, they had just professed that they were prone to climb; and after all, he had gotten this far all by himself.