by Cixin Liu
After the troops had left, an eerie calm fell over the control room. Kachica climbed toward the window. Rulley followed her. As the two ants reached the windowsill, they saw a strange scene: Dawn was about to break, the waning crescent of the Moon still hanging in the sky. Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, the angle of the Moon's sickle shifted, and as it moved, its light grew brighter, intensifying until its silvery glow burnt like an arc of bright lightning, blindingly brilliant. Everything on Earth, including the ant swarms scattering across the wasteland below, was cast in stark light clearer than the brightest day.
“What was that? Did the Sun just grow brighter?” Rulley asked, curious.
“No, Marshal. It is the second coming of a new sun. The Moon is glowing with its light. That Sun came to Laurasia and it is burning that continent as we speak,” Kachica stated gravely.
“Then the Gondwanan sun should rise soon,” Rulley noted, almost relaxed.
“If only it would. Come!” Kachica challenged.
Glaring light rose in the west, quickly consuming all. Before being vaporized by the exploding heat, the two ants saw a brilliant sun rapidly rise on the western horizon, its blinding orb swiftly swelling as it ascended. In the end, it filled half the sky, burning all on Earth in the blink of an eye.
The coast from where the antimatter explosion emanated was thousands of miles away and so it took many minutes for the shock wave to reach them. Long before it ever did, all had already ended in fire.
It was the last day of the Cretaceous.
CHAPTER
9
The Long Night
The coming winter lasted for 3,000 years.
One noon ever so slightly warmer, two Gondwanan ants chose to climb out of their deep ant hill and onto the surface. The faint Sun glowed dimly in the gray, lifeless sky. The Earth below was covered in densely packed ice and snow, with only the occasional rocky outcrop breaking the endless white, seeming all the more prominent in this indistinct land. In the distance, the far mountains, too, were covered in white.
The first ant turned, sizing up a giant skeleton nearby. Skeletons like this littered the ground, all white, just like the rest of the world. Seen from afar they were hard to make out, but from the ants' vantage, the pale bones stood in stark contrast to the murky skies.
“I heard that they were called dinosaurs,” the first ant said.
The other ant turned, now looking at the skeleton as well. “Did you listen to them speak of the Age of Legend yesterday?”
“I did; they said that many thousands of years ago, ants lived in a glorious age.” The first ant nodded its antenna.
“Yes, they said that back then ants did not live in holes under the earth, but in cities on the surface, and that ants weren't born by the Queen back then. It truly must have been an Age of Legend,” the other ant agreed.
“In the tales, the Age of Legend was brought about by ants and dinosaurs working together. The dinosaurs did not have nimble hands and so the ants did all the fine work for them; the ants did not have flexible minds and so the dinosaurs thought up unbelievable technology,” the first ant continued wistfully.
“In the Age of Legend, ants and dinosaurs created many great machines and they built huge cities. They were like gods,” the other ant added excitedly.
“Do you understand the part of the legends where the world gets destroyed?” the first ant asked.
“Not really. It all seems rather complicated: War broke out in the dinosaur world and then a war broke out between the ants and the dinosaurs.” The other ant paused, doing her best to remember the details. “And then two suns appeared on the Earth.”
The first ant had begun to tremble in the cold wind. “Oh, it would be great if we could have a new sun right about now!”
“You don't understand!” the other ant replied with strong pheromones. “Those two suns were terrible; they burnt everything on Earth to crisp!”
“Then why is it so cold now?” The first ant did not seem convinced.
“That is very complicated. It seems to be like this: After those new suns appeared, the world was incredibly hot for a short while. It is even said that close to the suns, the very Earth itself was melted to magma! Then, however, the dust that the explosion of the new suns had stirred up came to block the light of the old Sun and the entire world cooled, becoming much colder than ever before,” the other ant explained. “And it remains like that. The dinosaurs were big fellows and so they naturally all died in this terrible age. Some of us ants, however, tunneled into the earth and so survived.”
“I have heard that not too long ago ants could read. Now, none of us remain who could study the old books,” the first ant noted.
“We have fallen. If it goes on like this, the ants will soon lose all their knowledge and become nothing but small, cave-dwelling, foraging insects.” the other said melancholically.
“What would be wrong with that? In these hard times, knowing little would seem just as well to me,” the first ant said, shrugging her antenna.
“That’s true,” the other ant said resignedly.
For a few moments all fell to white and gray silence.
“Is it possible that one day, when the Earth is warm again, some other animal will be able to bring about another Age of Legend?” the first ant finally asked.
“Possibly. I would think that such an animal would need both a large enough brain and nimble enough hands,” the other ant mused.
“Right, but it shouldn't be big like the dinosaurs. They ate too much and that made life difficult for everyone,” the first ant said with a nod.
“But they shouldn't be small like we are or their brains won't be big enough,” the other ant said.
“Oh, could such a miraculous creature ever emerge?” the first ant asked in clear disbelief.
The other ant answered the final question somewhat wistfully. “I would think so. Time is endless and what can emerge, I tell you, will some day emerge from its depths.”
Sun of China
PREFACE
Ah Quan took the small bundle from his mother's trembling hands. It contained a pair of sturdy cloth shoes she had made for him, three steamed buns, two sets of heavily patched clothing, and 50 yuan. His father squatted by the side, slowly dragging puffs of smoke from his pipe.
“Quan is leaving us. Would it kill you to give him a smile for the road?” his mother chided
But his father would not be moved from his stoic, sullen silence.
“Don't let him go. Won't you just give him the money to build a house and marry?” Quan's mother continued her admonishment.
“Just go! Here, there, everywhere; they're all going out into the world. We could just as well have raised a litter of puppies!” It almost sounded as if his father was sobbing, but there were no tears. He did not even look up.
Ah Quan did. Before him he saw the village of his birth, the lanes, houses, and fields of his childhood. Everything here was parched. His home was a place of endless drought.
The dryness had made everyone in the village completely reliant on rainwater gathered in cisterns to meet their daily needs. Ah Quan's family was too poor to afford one made of cement and so they had to manage their needs with a simple earthen cistern. This meant that on hot days their water would begin to reek. In past years, heating had made it potable, even if it always remained somewhat bitter and more than a little pungent. This summer, however, despite their best efforts the water from their cistern had given them diarrhea. They had heard from a local army doctor that poisonous minerals in the ground had dissolved into the water.
Ah Quan lowered his head again, glancing at his unmoving father. He began to walk away and never turned back. He knew that his father would not look up, even now. It was his father's reaction to grief. Ah Quan had seen him squat in silence, as he did now, many times before. Sullenly smoking, his father would remain inert, just as if he himself had become nothing but a lump of earth, one with the yellow soil.
But A
h Quan could still see his father's face; or, perhaps better put, walk on it.
Before him stretched the vastness of Northwest China and everywhere he looked he could see yellow-brown barrenness, broken by the cracks erosion had wrought. And what else was there to the face of an old farmer? It was no different from anything else here: Trees, the soil, houses, people – all were black, yellow, and wrinkled.
Ah Quan could not see the eyes of this giant face stretching to the horizon, but he did feel their presence. Those massive eyes were staring at the sky. When they were young, their gaze had been brimming with desperate longing for rain; now aged, only dull emptiness remained in their stare. In fact, this giant face must have been eternally empty and dull. He could not imagine that this lump of earth had ever been young.
A dry wind blew, covering the small road out of the village in yellow dust. Ah Quan walked this road, taking the first step into his new life.
It was a road that would lead him places he could never have even dreamed of.
chapter
1
First Goal in Life: Drink some water that is not bitter; Make some money
“Oh, so many lights!” Ah Quan gasped in awe as he arrived. Night had already fallen over the large collection of unauthorized collieries and small kilns that made up the mining area.
“Those? Now in the city; that's many lights,” Guoqiang countered. Guoqiang was from Ah Quan's village. He had left many years prior and he had come to pick up Ah Quan when he arrived at the mines.
Ah Quan followed Guoqiang to a worker's shed for the night. As they ate their supper, he realized with surprise and shocked delight that the water was pleasantly sweet! Somewhat bemused at Ah Quan's reaction, Guoqiang told him that a deep well had been dug in the mining area; of course they had access to potable water.
But he also said something else: “Now in the city; that's sweet water!”
When the time came to sleep, Guoqiang handed him a firmly wrapped package to use as a pillow. Opening it to have a look, he saw black plastic tubes. Exploring further he found yellow sticks inside. They looked like soap.
“Explosives,” Guoqiang drowsily explained before rolling on his side and snoring off to sleep.
Ah Quan saw that Guoqiang was using a “pillow” just like the one he had given him. He also noticed a large pile of them under the bed. A bundle of detonating caps hung above.
Later, Ah Quan learned that there were enough explosives in that shack to wipe out his village lock, stock and barrel! Guoqiang was the explosives technician of the mine.
Working in the mine was very hard and extremely exhausting. Ah Quan mined coal, pushed carts, and mounted pit props. At the end of every day he was dead tired, but grueling labor did not scare him; growing up he had learned to bear many hardships. What did frighten him were the conditions in the pit. It reminded him of digging in a dark anthill. At first it was a waking nightmare, but he soon got used to this, too. They were paid per kilo of coal and he could earn 250 yuan every month. When the going was good, he could even make 300. Ah Quan was very satisfied.
But what satisfied Ah Quan most of all was the water here. At the end of the first day, his body had been completely blackened by the coal and he had gone to the washroom together with the other miners. As he entered he saw people using bowls to scoop water out of a large pool. They then dumped the water over their heads, letting it stream down their bodies. At their feet the off-wash flowed away in black streams.
Ah Quan stared at them, utterly dumbfounded. Oh, mother! he shouted in his head, how can they use water, this sweet water, like that? It was the sweet, abundant water that made this world of black a place of beauty without equal in Ah Quan's eyes.
Guoqiang, however, badgered him to move on, on to the city. He himself had previously gone there to find work, but charges of stealing from a construction site had led to him being sent back to his registered home as an unsanctioned migrant. Even so, Guoqiang guaranteed, Ah Quan would be able to earn much more in the city, and furthermore, he would not have to work himself to death, as in the mine.
Ah Quan hesitated, but just as he was weighing what he had been told, Guoqiang had an accident in the pit. That day, Guoqiang was checking on a misfire when it exploded. As he was brought out of the pit, Ah Quan saw that Guoqiang was riddled with rock fragments embedded deep in his body.
As Guoqiang drew his last breath, he turned to his friend. “Ah Qua...” he rasped, “go to the city… there are more lights…”
chapter
2
Second Goal in Life: Go to the city with more lights and sweeter water; Make more money
“Here the night is as bright as day!” Ah Quan exclaimed in admiration. What Guoqiang had told him had turned out to be true. There really were many, many more lights in the city.
He was following Erbao, carrying a shoe-shiner’s box on his back. They were on their way to the railway station on the main street of the provincial capital city. Erbao had come to the big city from a neighboring village and he had once worked together with Guoqiang. When Ah Quan first arrived, he had hoped to find him at an address Guoqiang had given him, but with no success. In the end he had had to go to great lengths to meet up with Erbao. When he finally found him, he learned that he no longer worked on construction sites, but instead now shined shoes.
Erbao had just been on his way back home on some business when Ah Quan found him and had been happy to let him accompany him. Erbao was sharing a small apartment with a few colleagues and shortly after they arrived there, Erbao showed Ah Quan the ropes. After that they were off again, with Ah Quan following Erbao, the box on his back.
Ah Quan could not have had less faith in his new employment. He had thought about it on the way. Sure, repairing shoes made sense, but shining shoes? Who would spend two yuan to have their shoes shined? Or even five yuan if they used better shine? People would have to be wrong in the head to even consider it.
Once at the station, however, business arrived before they even had the time to properly set up. When they finished at eleven in the evening, Ah Quan had made 28 yuan! Erbao, on the other hand, looked very unhappy as they made their way home. Grumpily he noted that business had been bad. Ah Quan could only take these words to imply that he had stolen Erbao’s customers from him.
“What's the metal box under that window?” he asked as they walked home, pointing at a building across from them.
“Air-conditioning,” Erbao replied. “It's nice and cool like early spring in there.”
“The city really is great!” Ah Quan exclaimed, wiping the sweat from his face.
“Life is hard here. Making enough for a bowl of rice may be easy enough, but you can forget about marrying and settling down,” Erbao said, pointing at the building with his chin. “An apartment in there easily costs a thousand per square foot!”
Stupefied, Ah Quan had to ask: “What's a square foot?”
Shaking his head, Erbao silently eyed him with disdain.
Ah Quan shared the rent for a simple apartment with about a dozen others. All but one of them had come from the countryside to find work or to ply their petty trades. One of them, however, the one squeezed onto a crammed bunk next to Ah Quan, was different; he was a real city person, even though he did not come from this city. In there, he really was no different from any of them; he ate the same as everyone else, and like the others, he would cool off in the evening wearing nothing but shorts. But every morning he would deck himself out in Western-style clothes and, as he walked out the door, seemed to become a different person. He reminded Ah Quan of a golden phoenix, flying out of a chicken coop. His name was Lu Hai.
The others did not dislike him. The reason for the tolerance they showed him was something he had brought with him. That something looked like a large umbrella to Ah Quan, although this umbrella was used to reflect light and its interior was intensely reflective. The device could be inverted and placed in the Sun. Set like this, it sported a bracket that could hold a pot of w
ater above its parabola. The bottom of the pot would be heated by the reflected light and the water was quickly brought to a boil. Ah Quan later learned that it was a “solar cooker”. They all used this thing to boil water when preparing their meals and in doing so ended up saving a significant chunk of change. When there was no Sun, however, it was useless.
The so-called solar-cooker's “umbrella” had no ribs. It was just one thin, smooth surface. Ah Quan had stood enrapt in complete confusion when he had first seen Lu Hai close the umbrella. It was plugged into a wall socket by a thin electrical wire. To fold it, Lu Hai pulled this plug, causing it to immediately flop to the ground, sprawling open. In an instant the umbrella transformed into what looked like a silvery width of cloth. Ah Quan carefully picked up the strange material to examine it more closely. It was very supple and glossy and so light that it did not seem to weigh anything at all. On it, his reflection looked downright bizarre, iridescently twisting and turning on a surface that reminded him of the colorful shell of a soap bubble. As he eased his grip, Ah Quan immediately felt it silently slipping through his fingers back to the ground. It looked as if pliant quicksilver was dripping from his hands. When Lu Hai plugged it back into the wall socket, the silvery spread began to languidly unfurl, like some strange metallic lotus bloom. Soon it had returned to its round, inverted umbrella shape. When Ah Quan touched its surface now, it was thin and firm. Giving it a light tap he was able to produce a pleasant, metallic ring. This surface was now very strong indeed, easily supporting a pot or kettle full of water.
Lu Hai explained it to Ah Quan. “It is a kind of nano-material. The surface is very smooth and clear and therefore highly reflective. It is also very robust and, most importantly, soft and malleable under normal conditions, but rigid when exposed to a weak electrical current.”