The Wandering Earth: Classic Science Fiction Collection by Liu Cixin

by Cixin Liu

  Snatching up his clothes, a young man dragged Huabei out of bed.

  Numbed by cryo-weakness, Huabei collapsed on the floor, only to be kicked in the gut by a young woman of the group. The sharp point of her shoe's toe dug into his intestines, sending shooting pains through his abdomen and leaving him writhing on the cold hospital floor in agonizing contortions.

  Unmoved, the old man bent down and grabbed the anguished patient by the collar and with a powerful jerk, hauled Huabei to his feet. Raising him ramrod straight, the old man obviously intended to leave Huabei standing on his own, but seeing that that was not going to happen, the old man relaxed his grip. Huabei fell backwards onto the floor, knocking the back of his head.

  As the shock and pain of the impact sent flashes shooting before his eyes, he heard someone saying, “Well done! That bastard is finally beginning to repay his debt to society.”

  “Who are you?” Huabei asked, dizzy and weak. He was lying at the feet of these strange people, and looking up at them he felt as if he was staring at a band of terrible giants.

  “You should at least recognize me,” the old man said with a cold smile.

  Huabei stared up, but from his place on the floor, the man's face just looked disturbingly strange. It was all enough to send a chill up Huabei's already hurting spine.

  “I am Deng Yiwen's son, Deng Yang,” the man said, finally revealing his identity.

  The familiar name immediately jolted Huabei out of shock and into desperate action. Turning his aching body, he grabbed hold of the old man's trousers, and excitedly blurted, “Your father and I were colleagues and the best of friends! Don't you remember? You were in the same class as my son. Heavens, are you little Yang? I can't believe it; back then you –”

  “Get your dirty hands off of me!” Mr. Deng roared.

  The man who had dragged Huabei out of bed crouched down beside him. Leaning in, his eyes burned with cruel disdain as he snarled, “Listen, boy, your years in cryo-sleep count for nothing. He is now your elder, so show him the respect he is due.”

  “If Shen Yuan were still alive, he could be your father!” Mr. Deng exclaimed, drawing a round of laughter from the strange people staring down at Huabei. As they laughed, Mr. Deng introduced them in turn. He first pointed to the man crouching beside Huabei. “When he was a mere four-years-old, both of his parents were seared to death in the Core Breach Disaster.” He next pointed to the young woman. “This girl was made an orphan when her parents were vaporized in the Lost Bolt Catastrophe. At the time she was not yet two.”

  He turned to the others. “As for them, after they learned that their life's investments had come to nothing, some attempted suicide; others came to suffer from schizophrenia.” He gave a dramatic pause. “And as for myself, I was tricked by that bastard. I sacrificed my youth and my wealth to his thrice-damned project, now cursed by the entire world!”

  On the ground, Huabei shook his dizzy head in confusion. Obviously, he had not really understood a word he had just heard.

  “You are facing a tribunal,” the old man who was Deng Yang declared. “A tribunal of the victims of the Antarctic Doorstep! Even though every single citizen of our country has become its victim, it will be our singular pleasure to dole out your punishment. Of course, things would be more difficult in a regular court; and indeed, things have become even more complicated there than they were in your age. It is precisely for that reason that we cannot hand you over to the law. We will not again listen to judges and lawyers spout nonsense for years on end, only to then declare your innocence, like they did with your son. You will stand your true trial at our hands, and face your execution within the hour. You will soon find that dying of leukemia seventy years ago would have been the much gentler fate,” he promised as an intense glare smoldering in his aged eyes.

  A chorus of cruel cackles rose from the strangers surrounding Huabei. Then, two of them pulled him up by his arms and hauled him out through the door, his weak legs dragging across the floor. He had no strength to struggle or resist.

  “Mr. Shen, I have done all in my power,” Huabei heard Dr. Guo say as he was dragged out the door. He tried to turn his head to see her, to catch another glimpse of the one person his wife had told him he could trust, but to no avail; he had neither the strength nor the freedom of movement to turn his head. Huabei was left with only her words sending him off.

  “It is all right,” she said. “Do not be too disappointed; these are hard times to live in.”

  Then he was out the door. As he crossed the threshold, he could hear one more shout from behind him: “Quick, close the door; turn up the air filter! Do you want us to choke to death?”

  The tone in her voice made it all too clear to Huabei that she was no longer concerned with his fate.

  Once out the door, he immediately understood the meaning of the doctor's words; there was an acrid smell in the air that burned his nose and made it hard to breathe. He was hauled on through the hospital corridors and out the front entry door. The people dragging him did not let up. With his arms over their shoulders, they relentlessly marched on.

  Finally outside, Huabei took a deep breath, expecting fresh air to flood his lungs. The air, however, was far from fresh. In fact, it was even fouler than it had been inside the hospital, constricting his throat and setting his lungs on fire. He was instantly wracked by violent and unremitting coughs.

  Just as he felt that he was about to asphyxiate, he heard someone next to him say, “Put a respirator on him; we don't want him dying on us before he makes it to his execution.” Huabei felt a hand putting something over his mouth and nose. Even though one foul smell was instantly replaced with another, he could at least finally breathe easy.

  The unseen stranger admonished another: “Hey, there's no need to give him a screen-hat. The UV won't have any chance to give him another round of leukemia in the short time that he'll be around.”

  Those words led to another round of cruel laughs. As they laughed, Huabei began to steady himself with panting breaths. After the tears of coughing and the sensation of asphyxiation had finally cleared, he raised his head and took his first look at the future.

  The first thing Huabei noticed were the people on the sidewalks; all of them were wearing the transparent respirator face masks and each and every head was covered by one of those large straw hats his kidnappers had just called a “screen-hat”. He also saw that everyone was wearing layers of clothes, even though the air was simmering with heat. Look as he might, he could not find an inch of skin exposed to the sun. Looking further afield, Huabei found himself at the bottom of a canyon-like landscape of skyscrapers, tall enough to pierce the clouds and they quite literally did. These towering buildings rose straight up into low-hanging, gray clouds that seemed to shroud the whole world. Scanning this claustrophobic sky, he found the dim orb of the Sun. Obscured by the hazy, dark clouds, its faint halo barely filtered through. It was then that he realized that these were no ordinary clouds, but endless, thick smog.

  “A magnificent time we live in, isn't it?” Mr. Deng asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

  The others again broke out into laughter, sounding like they were literally having the time of their life.

  Huabei was dragged toward a car waiting close by. The vehicle looked somewhat different from the cars he remembered, but it most certainly was an automobile. It was the size of a minibus, obviously capable of carrying all of them.

  Just then, two people walked past them. They were wearing some sort of helmet and their attire was very unlike anything Huabei had ever seen. But it only took a glimpse for Huabei to realize their identity, and he immediately shouted out, “Help! I am being abducted! Help!”

  The two police officers spun around and quickly appraised the situation. Seeing the patient gown on Huabei and his exposed arms, one of them asked, “Have you just awoken from cryo-sleep?”

  Huabei weakly nodded his head. “I am being abducted –”

  The other police officer no
dded. “Sir, this sort of thing is far too common. Many people are waking from cryo-sleep at the moment and resettling you all is putting a heavy strain on our society's social safety net; therefore you often become the victims of hostility and attacks.” He sounded much too calm for Huabei's comfort.

  “I think something different is going on ...” Huabei was about to explain, but the police officer cut him short with a wave of his hand.

  “Sir, you are safe now.”

  Then the officers turned to Mr. Deng and his band. “This gentleman is in obvious need of further treatment. The two of you take him back to the hospital. We will sort out what happened here. I am also notifying all seven of you that you will be taken into custody on kidnapping charges.” As he spoke, the officer activated a communicator on his wrist to call for backup.

  Mr. Deng rushed forward to stop him. “Please, a moment, officer! We are no thugs persecuting cryo-sleepers. Take a closer look at him; doesn't he look familiar?”

  Both police officers moved in and carefully began to study Huabei's face. As they briefly lifted his respirator, the light of recognition flashed across their eyes. “He,” an officer exclaimed in surprise, “he looks just like Mi Xixi!”

  “It is not Mi Xixi. He is Shen Yuan's father!” Mr. Deng revealed dramatically.

  The eyes of the two police officers immediately widened in disbelief. Their shocked gazes jumped from Mr. Deng to Huabei and back again. From their expression, they might just as well have been staring at a ghost and its keeper. The Core Breach Orphan pulled the officers to the side and began to speak in low tones. As he implored them, the two officers repeatedly looked up and over to Huabei; and as they did, their expressions began to change. The final glance they shot him filled Huabei with despair. It was obvious to him that the police had been won over to Deng Yang's cause.

  The officers finally returned, but they were now no longer even looking Huabei in the eye. Observing the perimeter, one of the police officers stood sentry while the other walked straight up to Mr. Deng and said in a hushed but forceful voice, “We saw nothing. The public must absolutely not be made aware of his presence or we'll have a riot on our hands.”

  Cold terror gripped Huabei's heart. What the officer had said was chilling enough, but the way he had blatantly disregard him as he spoke was even worse. Huabei could just as well have been another lamppost for all the attention the officer paid him, or maybe a dumpster.

  His kidnappers bundled Huabei into the car and when they were all seated, started the vehicle. As soon as the car's engine revved up its windows tinted, preventing the Sun from shining in and him from looking out. The car was self-driving and completely devoid of any visible means of manual control. No one spoke as they took to the road.

  For no other reason than to break the suffocating silence, Huabei blurted, “Who is Mi Xixi?”

  “A movie star,” the Lost Bolt Orphan sitting next to him advised. “He is famous for playing your son. Shen Yuan and alien monsters are the media's villains of the day. ”

  Huabei shifted uneasily, trying to edge away from her. As he did, his arm accidentally pushed into a button below the car window. Immediately the window's tint cleared. Looking outside, Huabei gasped in shock as he realized that the car was making its way onto an enormous and bewilderingly complex circular highway overpass. The overpass was jam-packed with cars, each less than six feet from the next. There was a good reason for Huabei's shock: By no means was this a traffic jam. Even though the distance between them demanded otherwise, each of these cars was driving at full speed, zooming along at easily 60 miles per hour!

  It made the entire overpass look like an insanely whirring wheel of cars. Just then, Huabei realized that their car was heading toward an intersection. There was no sign that the vehicle was slowing its dizzying speed. And indeed, it hit the flow of traffic at full speed, right into a gap that opened the moment it hurtled in. Gaps like this one constantly opened in the intersection's traffic allowing the onrushing traffic to seamlessly merge. It all moved almost too quickly for the human eye to follow. Huabei had long understood that the cars were being operated by auto-pilot; now he realized that their AI allowed them to utilize the highway to its limit.

  Someone reached over from behind him and the window re-tinted.

  “You really want to kill me for something that I know absolutely nothing about?” Huabei finally protested.

  Mr. Deng, who was sitting in the front, turned his head. Almost apathetically he answered, “Well, then I guess I'll just have to tell you.”

  CHAPTER

  3

  The Antarctic Doorstep

  “People strong in imagination are often weak in body and action; while the strong, who grasp the reins of history, all too commonly lack imagination,” the old man told him. “Your son was one of the few who had it all. For the most part, reality was just a small island in the vast ocean of his fantasies, but when he set his mind to it, he could turn his world upside down and inside out, making his fantasy the island and reality the ocean. He was a remarkable sailor of both of those oceans...” he added enigmatically, lost in his own thoughts.

  “I understand my son,” Huabei interrupted. “There is no need to waste my remaining time with superficialities.”

  “Anyway,” Mr. Deng continued, “you could have never expected to what heights Shen Yuan would climb and how much power he would come to hold. It allowed him to make his most twisted fantasies a reality. It is a pity that we did not see the danger sooner. Perhaps others like him had come before, but they only grazed the Earth. They were like comets, disappearing into the vastness of space without ever unleashing their destructive potential upon our world. Unfortunately, history provided your son with the opportunity to turn his twisted fantasies into just that kind of disaster.

  “Five years after you entered cryo-sleep, the global struggle for the lands of Antarctica led to its first conclusion,” Mr. Deng said. “It was decided that the continent would be developed in a joint global effort, but each of the major powers also managed to carve out a large, exclusive economic zone on the Antarctican territory for itself. The powers did all they could to ensure that their economic zone would thrive and also to expedite the development of its resources. It was believed that this rush for Antarctica's riches would be the only hope for the great powers to finally shake off the long economic stagnation caused by their ruined environments and the depletion of their natural resources. 'The future lies on the top of the world' was a popular slogan back then.

  “It was during this time that your son developed his insane idea,” Mr. Deng said in a chilly tone. “He claimed that his plan would really put Antarctica on China's doorstep, making travel to Antarctica as convenient as traveling from Beijing to Tianjin. This was not meant as a metaphor, but as hard fact. The journey was to last no longer than the forty-five minute trip to Tianjin and it was to use less energy and create less pollution. It all began with a now famous TV address. Back then, the entire country burst into laughter. It seemed to be pure comedy gold. But they were all silenced when they were confronted with the amazing truth that his plan was actually feasible! It was the seed of an idea that would germinate into the disastrous Antarctican Doorstep project.” As he finished this part of the story Mr. Deng fell into an inexplicable silence.

  “Go on. What was the idea?” Huabei urged him to continue.

  “You will come to understand it,” Mr. Deng answered, his voice as cold as ice.

  “Then at least tell me what my role in all of this is supposed to be,” Huabei pleaded, desperate for answers.

  “Because you are Shen Yuan's father; is it not obvious?” Mr. Deng's tone lost none of its iciness.

  “Has the future regressed to the feudal ideas of hereditary determinism?” Huabei asked, unsure whether to sound sarcastic or appalled.

  “Of course not.”

  Huabei would not have been surprised to see icicles around Mr. Deng's lips at the tone.

  “But your son's o
wn words on countless occasions made it clear to everyone that you, in fact, determined your progeny's fate. When he became world famous, he professed that his ideas and his entire personality had for the most part been shaped by his father when he was but a small child. In his later years, he always said, where no more than an opportunity to fill in the details. He made it very clear: The originator of the idea for the Antarctic Doorstep was his father.”

  “What? Me? Antarctica?” Huabei was completely flabbergasted. “A doorstep? This is simply –”

  “Listen up, this is my final point,” Mr. Deng interrupted. “You also provided the technical foundation for the Antarctic Doorstep.”

  “What do you mean?” Huabei almost shouted the question, agitated and annoyed.

  “The new solid state materials, of course,” Mr. Deng replied, unmoved. “Without them, the Antarctic Doorstep would have remained but a dream. With them, it was almost instantly transformed into twisted reality.”

  Huabei shook his head in confusion; he could not for the life of him imagine how materials made of the super dense solid state matter could possibly put the Antarctic on China's doorstep.

  Just then, the car stopped.

  CHAPTER

  4

  The Gate of Hell

  Stepping out of the vehicle, Huabei was greeted by a very peculiar hill. The entire thing was a strange rusty color and completely barren. He could not see a single blade of grass or lonely flower anywhere on its surface.

  Mr. Deng cocked his head toward the hill. “That is an iron hill.” Seeing the shock in Huabei's eyes, he decided to reinforce the fact. “This is a large lump of iron.”

  Bewildered, Huabei looked all around for some explanation, but all he saw were several more of these strange hills in the immediate vicinity, rusted mounds rising above the vast surrounding plain. It made the entire place look like an alien landscape.