The Wandering Earth: Classic Science Fiction Collection by Liu Cixin

by Cixin Liu

  “So are the Devourers, even though we no longer have a home,” Fangs had sympathetically answered, nodding his head.

  “So, will you allow a few of us to stay behind? If you permit, they will wait for the great Devourer Empire to spit out the Earth after it has finished consuming the planet. After waiting for the planet's transformed geology to settle, they will return to rebuild our civilization.”

  Fangs shook his gargantuan head. “When the Devourer Empire consumes, it consumes completely. When we are done, the Earth will be a Mars-like desolation. Your worm-technology will not be enough to rebuild a civilization.”

  The Secretary-General would not be dissuaded. “But we must try. It will assuage our souls, and it will be especially important for those of us in the Devourer Empire being raised as livestock. It will surely fatten them if they can think back on their distant home in this solar system, even if that home no longer necessarily exists.”

  Fangs now nodded. “But where will those people go while the Earth is being devoured? Besides Earth, we also will consume Venus. Jupiter and Neptune are too large for us to consume, but we will devour their satellites. The Devourer Empire is in need of their hydrocarbons and water. We will also take a bite out of the barren worlds of Mars and Mercury, as we are interested in their carbon dioxide and metals. The surfaces of all these worlds will become seas of fire.”

  The Secretary-General had an answer ready. “We can take refuge on the Moon. We understand that the Devourer Empire in any case plans to push the Moon out of orbit before consuming the Earth.”

  Fangs nodded. “That is right. Combined, the gravitational forces of Devourer and Earth will be very powerful. They could crash the Moon into our ring ship. Such a collision would be enough to destroy our empire.”

  The Secretary-General smiled ever so-slightly as he replied. “All right then; let a few of us live up there then. It will be no great loss to you.”

  “How many do you plan to leave behind?” Fangs queried.

  “The minimum to preserve our civilization, one-hundred thousand,” the Secretary-General answered flatly.

  “Well then, you should get to work,” Fangs concluded.

  “Get to work? What work?” the Secretary-General asked, perplexed.

  “Pushing the Moon out of its orbit. For us, that is always a great inconvenience,” Fangs answered dismissively.

  “But,” said the Secretary-General as he grasped his hair in despair as he meekly voiced his protest. “Sir, that would be no different than denying humanity our meager and pitiable request. Sir, you know that we do not possess such technological prowess!”

  “Ha, worm, why should I care? And besides, don't you still have an entire century?” Fangs concluded with a chuckle.

  CHAPTER

  6

  Planting the Bombs

  On the gleaming white plains of the Moon, a spacesuit-clad contingent stood next to a tall drilling tower. The emissary of the Devourer Empire stood somewhat apart, his giant frame another towering silhouette against the horizon. All eyes were firmly focused on a metal cylinder being slowly lowered from the top of the drilling tower down into the drill well below. Soon the cable was speeding into the well. On Earth 240,000 miles away, an entire world was glued to the unfolding events. Then came the signal; the payload had reached the bottom of the well. All observers, including Fangs, broke into applause as they celebrated the arrival of this historic moment.

  The last nuclear bomb that would propel the Moon had been put in place. A century had passed since the Eridanus Crystal and the emissary of the Devourer Empire had arrived on Earth. For humanity it had been a century of despair; a hundred years of bitter struggle.

  In the first half of the century, the entire Earth had zealously thrown itself at the task of constructing an engine that could propel the Moon. The technology needed to build such an engine, however, utterly failed to materialize. All that was accomplished was that the Moon's surface had gained a few scrap metal mountains, the remains of failed prototypes. Then there were also the lakes of metal, formed where experimental engines had melted under the heat of nuclear fusion.

  Humanity had asked the emissary of the Devourer Empire for technological assistance; after all, the lunar engines would not even have to be a tenth of the scale of the countless super engines of the Devourer.

  Fangs, however, refused, and instead quipped, “Don't assume that you can build a planetary engine just because you understand nuclear fusion. It's a long way from a firecracker to a rocket. Truth be told, there is no reason at all for you to work so hard at it. In the Milky Way, it is perfectly commonplace for a weaker civilization to become the livestock of a stronger civilization. You will discover that being raised for food is a splendid life indeed. You will have no want and live happily to the end. Some civilizations have sought to become livestock, only to be turned down. That you should feel uncomfortable with the idea is entirely the fault of a most banal anthropocentrism.”

  So humanity placed all their hope in the Eridanus Crystal, but again they were disappointed. The technology of the Eridanian civilization had developed along completely different lines from Earth's or that of the Devourer. Their technology was wholly based on their planet's organisms. The crystal, for example, was a symbiont to a kind of plankton that floated in their world's oceans. The Eridanians merely synthesized and utilized the unusual abilities of their planet's life forms without ever truly understanding their secrets. And so, without Eridanian life forms, their technology remained completely unworkable.

  After more than 50 valuable years were wasted, the despairing humanity suddenly produced an exceedingly eccentric scheme to propel the Moon. It was the Captain who first came up with this plan. At the time he had a leading role in the Moon propulsion program and had advanced to the rank of marshal. Even though his plan was unapologetically crazy, its technological demands were modest and humanity's available technology was fully capable of making it work; so much so, in fact, that many were surprised why no one had come up with it earlier.

  The new plan to propel the Moon was very simple. A large array of nuclear bombs would be installed on one side of the Moon. These bombs would for the most part be buried about two miles under the lunar surface. Their spacing would ensure that no bomb was destroyed by the blast of another. According to this plan, five million nuclear bombs were to be installed on the Moon's 'propulsion side'. Compared to these bombs, humanity's most powerful Cold War-era nuclear bombs were mere conventional weapons.

  When the time came to detonate these super powerful nuclear bombs under the lunar surface, the force of their explosions would be wholly incomparable to the nuclear tests of earlier ages, suffocated deep underground. These denotations would blow-off a complete stratum of lunar matter. In the Moon's low gravity, the exploded strata's rocks and dust would reach escape velocity. As they were launched straight into space, they would exert an enormous propulsive force on the Moon itself.

  If a certain number of bombs were detonated in rapid succession, this impulse could become a continuous propelling force, just as if the Moon had been fitted with a powerful engine. By detonating nuclear bombs in different places it would be possible to control the Moon's flight path.

  The plan would even go one step further, calling for not one, but two layers of nuclear bombs within the lunar surface. The second layer would be installed at a depth of about four miles. After the top layer had been completely used up, two miles of lunar matter would be stripped from the propulsion side of the Moon. The unceasing denotations would then smoothly transition to the second layer. This would double the duration for which the “engine” could propel the Moon.

  When the Girl from Eridanus heard of this plan, she came to the conclusion that humanity was truly insane. “Now I understand. If you had technology to match the Devourers, you might be even more savage than they are,” she exclaimed.

  Fangs, on the other hand, was full of praise. “Ha, ha! What a wonderful idea you worms managed to
dream up. I love it. I love your vulgarity. Vulgarity is the highest form of beauty!” he commended humanity.

  “Absurd; how can vulgarity be beautiful?” the Girl from Eridanus retorted.

  “The vulgar is naturally beautiful and nothing is more vulgar than the universe! Stars burn manically in the pitch-black cold abyss of space; is that not vulgar? Do you understand that the universe is masculine? Feminine civilizations, like yours, are fragile, fine and delicate; a sickly abnormality in a tiny corner of the universe. And that is that!” Fangs replied.

  A hundred years had passed and Fangs' huge frame still brimmed with vitality. The Girl from Eridanus was still vivid and bright, but the Marshal felt the weight of years. He was 130, an old man.

  At the time, the Devourer had just passed the orbit of Pluto. It was awakening after its long journey of 60,000 years from Epsilon Eridani. In the dark of space its huge ring lit up with brilliant lights and its immense society began its works, preparing to plunder the solar system.

  After the Devourer had plundered the peripheral planets, it flung itself onto a precipitous trajectory toward Earth.

  CHAPTER

  7

  Humanity’s First and Last Space War

  The acceleration of the Moon away from Earth had begun.

  The Moon was hanging in the sky of Earth's day side when the first bombs were detonated. The flash of every explosion briefly lit up the Moon in the blue sky, giving it the appearance of a giant silver eye frantically blinking in the heavens. When night fell on Earth, the one-sided flashes of the Moon still shone the light of human handiwork to the surface 25,000 miles below. A pale silver trail following the Moon's back side was now visible. It was composed of the rocks blasted into space from the Moon's surface. Cameras installed on the propulsion side of the Moon showed strata of rock being blasted into space like billowing floodwaters. The waves of rock quickly faded smaller in the distance, becoming thin strands trailing the Moon. Turning toward the Earth's other side, the Moon circumscribed an accelerating orbit.

  Humanity's attention, however, was now squarely focused on the great and terrible ring that had appeared in the sky: The Devourer's approach loomed over the Earth. The enormous tides its gravity evoked had already destroyed Earth's coastal cities.

  The Devourer's aft engines flashed in a circle of blue light as it engaged in final orbital adjustments as it approached. It eventually perfectly matched the Earth's orbit around the Sun, while at the same time aligned its axis of rotation with Earth's. Having completed these adjustments, it ever so slowly began to move toward the Earth, ready to surround the planet with its huge ring body.

  The Moon's acceleration continued for two months. In this time a bomb had exploded within its surface every two or three seconds, resulting in an almost incomprehensible total of 2.5 million nuclear explosions. As it entered into its second orbit around the Earth, the Moon's acceleration had forced its once circular orbit into a distinctly elliptical shape. As the Moon moved to the far end of this ellipse, Fangs and the Marshal arrived on its forward-facing side, away from the exploding bombs. The Marshal had expressly invited the alien emissary for this occasion.

  As they stood on the lunar plain surrounded by craters, they felt the tremors from the other side shake deep beneath their feet. It almost seemed as if they could sense the powerful heartbeat of Earth's satellite. In the pitch-black sky beyond, the Devourer's giant ring dazzled with its brilliant light, its huge shape consuming half the sky.

  “Excellent, Marshal-worm, most excellent indeed!” Fangs applauded, his voice full of sincere praise. “But,” he continued, “you should hurry. You only have one more orbit to accelerate. The Devourer Empire is not accustomed to waiting for others. And I have another question: The cities you built below the surface a decade ago are still empty. When will their inhabitants arrive? How can your spaceships transport one-hundred thousand here from Earth in only one month?”

  “We will bring no one here,” the marshal calmly replied. “We will be the last humans to stand on the Moon.”

  Hearing this, Fangs twisted his body in surprise. The Marshal had said 'We', meaning the 5,000 officers and soldiers of Earth's space force. They formed a perfect phalanx on the crater-covered lunar plain. At the front of the phalanx a soldier brandished a blue flag.

  “Look, this is our planet's banner. We declare war upon the Devourer Empire!” the Marshal announced defiantly.

  Fangs stood dumbfounded, more confused than surprised. Immediately his body began to reel as he was thrown onto his back as the Moon's gravity suddenly surged. Fangs was knocked prone to lunar ground, stunned beyond any thought of movement. All around him lunar dust kicked up by his massive fall slowly began to drift to the ground.

  But the dust was quickly thrown up again, stirred by massive shock waves reverberating from the other side of the Moon. These shocks soon left the entire plain covered in a layer of white dust.

  Fangs realized the frequency of nuclear explosions on the other side of the Moon had abruptly increased several times over. Judging by the sharp increase of gravity, he could infer that the Moon's acceleration must have increased several times as well. Rolling over, he retrieved a large hand-held computer from a pocket in the front of his spacesuit. On it he brought up the Moon's current orbital trajectory. Immediately he realized that this tremendous increase of acceleration would take the Moon out of orbit. The Moon would break free of Earth's gravity and shoot off into space. A flashing red line of dots showed its predicted course.

  It was on collision course with the Devourer.

  Discarding his computer without a second thought, Fangs slowly raised himself to his feet. Straining his neck against the explosive increase in gravity, he peered through the billowing clouds of lunar dust. Standing in front of him was Earth's army, still upright, stalwart like standing stones.

  “A century of conspiracy and deceit,” Fangs mumbled under his breath.

  The Marshal just nodded in agreement. “You now realize that it is too late,” he pointed out gravely.

  Fangs spoke after a long sigh. “I should have realized that the humans of Earth were a completely different breed from the Eridanians. Life on their world had evolved symbiotically, free of natural selection and of the struggle for survival. They did not even know what war was.” He halted, digesting what had happened. “We let that guide our assessment of Earth's people. But you, you have ceaselessly butchered one another from the day that you climbed down from the trees. How should you be easily conquered? I …,” Again he paused. “It was an unforgivable dereliction of duty!”

  When the Marshal spoke, his steady, level tone explained further what Fangs was realizing. “The Eridanians brought us vast quantities of vital information. The information included the limits of the Devourer's ability to accelerate. It is this information that formed the basis of our battle plan. As we detonate the bombs that change the Moon's trajectory, its maneuvering acceleration will come to exceed the Devourer's acceleration limit three-fold. In other words,” he said, “it will be thrice as agile as the Devourer. There is no way that you can avoid the coming collision.”

  “Actually, we were not completely off-guard,” Fangs said. “When the Earth began producing large quantities of nuclear bombs we began to constantly monitor their whereabouts. We made sure that they were installed deep within the Moon, but we did not think ...” Fangs continued, but it was musing to himself than replying.

  Behind his visor the Marshal smiled faintly. “We aren't so stupid as to directly attack the Devourer with nuclear bombs,” he said. “We know that the Devourer Empire has been steeled by hundreds of battles. Earth's simple and crude missiles would certainly have one and all been intercepted and destroyed. But you cannot intercept something as large as the Moon. Perhaps the Devourer, with its immense power, could have eventually broken or diverted the Moon, but it is far too close for that now. You are out of time.”

  Fangs snarled. “Crafty worms. Treacherous worms, vicious worm
s.” He shook his head, bristling. “The Devourer Empire is an honest civilization. We put all things out in the open, yet we have been cheated by the deceitful treachery of the Earth-worms.” He gnashed his huge teeth as he finished speaking, his fury almost goading him to lock his giant claws around the Marshal. The soldiers and their rifles aiming right at him, however, stayed his talons. Fangs had not forgotten that his body, too, was but flesh and blood. One burst of bullets would end him.

  With his eyes firmly fixed on Fangs, the Marshal stated, “We will leave and you, too, should make your way off the Moon, otherwise you will surely be killed by the Devourer Empire's nuclear weapons.”

  The Marshal was very right. Just as Fangs and the human space forces left the Moon's surface, the interceptor missiles of the Devourer struck. Both sides of the Moon now flashed with brilliant light. The forward facing side of the Moon, too, exploded as huge waves of rocks were blasted into space. All around the Moon, lunar matter was violently scattered in all imaginable directions. Seen from the Earth, the Moon, on its collision course with the Devourer, looked like a warrior, wild hair ablaze with rage. There was no force that could have stopped it now! Wherever on Earth this spectacle was visible, seas of people erupted into feverish cheers.

  The Devourer's interception action did not continue for long and soon ceased. It realized that it had been completely meaningless. In the moments in which the Moon would close the short distance between them, there was no way to divert its course or to destroy it.

  The explosions of the Moon's nuclear propulsion had also ceased. It was now fast enough and Earth's defenders wanted to preserve enough nuclear bombs to carry out any last minute maneuvers. All was silent.

  In the cold quiet of space, the Devourer and Earth's satellite floated toward each other in complete tranquility. The distance between the two rapidly decreased. As it dwindled to 30,000 miles, the control ship of Earth's Supreme Command could already see the Moon overlapping the giant ring of the Devourer. From there it looked like a ball bearing in a track.