Ball Lightning

by Cixin Liu

  “Did you see how lightning struck the helicopter piloted by that captain?” I interrupted her to ask.

  She paused, and then shook her head. “No one saw it. The aircraft was blown to pieces, and we only found part of the scattered wreckage.”

  “Then have you seen how other people have been killed by lightning?”

  She shook her head a second time.

  “So you’ve definitely never seen how a person is killed by ball lightning.”

  She looked at me with concern. “Are you feeling okay?”

  “I’ve seen it,” I said, doing my best to suppress my stomach cramps. “I’ve seen ball lightning kill. It killed my parents. I watched them turn to ash in a split second, and then the two human-shaped columns of ash collapse at a gentle touch of my finger. Back then I didn’t even tell the police, and they filed my parents’ case under ‘missing persons.’ For so many years I’ve kept it hidden in my heart and haven’t told a soul. But that night two years ago on the Skyway on Mount Tai, I told it to you. I’d never have thought you would draw this kind of inspiration from it.”

  She seemed flustered. “Please let me explain. I didn’t want to hurt you. I am truly sorry.”

  “It doesn’t matter. When I go back I’ll report to my superiors on what I’ve learned today and your intention to cooperate, but as for myself, I have no interest in lightning weapons.”

  Lin Yun and I spent the trip back to the city in silence.

  *

  “I never thought you’d be one to have a nervous breakdown!”

  Back at the Institute, Gao Bo was highly displeased with me. He did not know about my past, and I did not want to tell him.

  “But what you’ve found out is very valuable. I’ve learned through other channels that the military has indeed terminated lightning weapons research, but the stoppage was only temporary. Judging from the investment those two experimental systems received, the project remains highly regarded. They’re looking for a new research direction, and ball lightning really is an excellent idea. But that project requires an even greater investment, so neither we nor the military can ramp up easily in the short term. Still, we can proceed with theoretical preparations first. I can’t give you any money for this project right now, but I can give you time and effort, and you can come up with a few mathematical models with various theoretical perspectives and boundary conditions, so that when conditions are right, we can take all of the promising models and test them at the same time. Of course, the first thing to do is to firm up collaboration with the military.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t want to make weapons.”

  “I never took you for a pacifist.”

  “I’m not any -ist. It’s not complicated. I just don’t want to see ball lightning turn anyone else to ashes.”

  “You’d rather wait for the day when someone else will turn us to ashes?”

  “I said it wasn’t that complicated! Everyone has their own psychological minefield. I don’t want to touch mine. That’s all.”

  Gao Bo gave a sly grin. “The nature of ball lightning determines that research must involve weapons. Are you simply going to abandon the chase you swore you’d devote your life to?”

  As the realization hit me, I was at a sudden loss for words.

  After work, I went back to my dorm and lay on the bed, my mind a blank. There was a knock at the door, and I opened it to find Lin Yun. She was dressed like a college student and looked far younger than she did in uniform.

  “I’m really sorry about yesterday,” she said. She looked sincere.

  “I’m the one who should say sorry,” I said awkwardly.

  “With the terrible experience you had, it’s understandable that you’d feel such revulsion at my idea. But we must make ourselves strong for the cause.”

  “Lin Yun, I’m not sure we’re working for the same cause.”

  “Don’t say that. All of the major scientific advances this century—aerospace, nuclear energy, computers—are the result of scientists and military personnel, two groups on different paths, combining what their different goals had in common. The common point of our goals is very clear: artificial production of ball lightning. It’s just that for you that’s an endpoint, and for me it’s just the beginning. I didn’t come to explain my goals to you, since we’re unlikely to find common ground. I came to help reduce your disgust at lightning weapons a little.”

  “You’re welcome to try.”

  “Okay. Your first thought as far as lightning weapons are concerned is killing—what we call ‘destroying the enemy’s effective strength.’ If you think carefully about this, though, you’ll realize that even if the production of lightning weapons is entirely successful, they won’t be any more capable than conventional weapons. If the target is a large volume of metal, then a Faraday cage effect will be produced, creating a shield and resulting in a partial or complete reduction in damage to those inside. So lightning weapons aren’t as cruel to life as they might appear. In fact, they might be the best weapons system for achieving victory at the least cost to enemy lives.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “What targets suffer greatest damage from lightning weapons? Electronics systems. When the electromagnetic pulse induced by lightning exceeds 2.4 gauss, permanent damage will be caused to integrated circuits, and at greater than 0.07 gauss, there will be interference with computers. The transient pulse induced by lightning is pervasive, and even without a direct strike, lightning can deal a devastating blow to particularly sensitive microelectronics. And it strikes targets with incredible precision, making it a weapon capable of destroying all circuits in the enemy’s weapons systems without touching any other parts. If those systems are fried, then the battle is over.”

  I said nothing, mulling over her words.

  “Your revulsion has been reduced a little, I imagine. Next, I’ll give you a clearer look at your own goal. The study of ball lightning isn’t fundamental science. Weapons systems are its only possible application. Apart from weapons research, who’s going to fund your project? You can’t possibly believe you can create ball lightning with just a pencil and paper.”

  “But we’ve still got to rely on pencil and paper right now.” I told her Gao Bo’s idea.

  “That means we’ll be working together?” Delighted, she jumped out of her seat.

  “I must congratulate your persuasive abilities.”

  “It’s a work necessity. Every day, New Concepts needs to convince people to accept strange-looking ideas. We successfully convinced the General Armaments Department about lightning weapons, but we’ve let everyone down so far.”

  “I see why your position is difficult.”

  “It’s not just a difficult position. The lightning weapons project has been halted, leaving us to fend for ourselves. As you and Director Gao say, we’ve got to make theoretical preparations. Opportunity will surely come! It’s too seductive a weapons system. I refuse to believe that they’ll simply terminate it.... Have you eaten? Let’s go. My treat.”

  *

  We entered a restaurant with low lighting, few people, and a piano playing soft music.

  “The military environment suits you,” I said after we sat down.

  “Perhaps. I grew up in the army.”

  As I watched her carefully under the dim lights, my attention was drawn to her brooch, the sole piece of jewelry she wore, a sword the length of a matchstick with a tiny pair of wings on the handle. It was exquisitely beautiful, glistening silver in the dimness like a star hanging from her collar.

  “Do you think it’s pretty?” she asked me as she looked down at the brooch.

  I nodded and said it was, feeling slightly awkward that, as with the perfume the day before, she had noticed that I noticed. A fault of the small circles I moved in. I was unaccustomed to being alone with the opposite sex, or to their refined sensitivity. But to find those feminine qualities so concentrated in a woman piloting a land mine–equipped car was breathtaking
.

  Then I discovered that the elegant brooch and terrifying bamboo were one and the same.

  Lin Yun took off the brooch and pinched the handle of the small sword in one hand, while she picked up a fork and spoon from the table with the other. Holding them together vertically, she swept the sword gently past. To my astonishment, the metal spoon and fork handles severed as if they were wax.

  “This is a silicone material produced using molecular arrangement technology, with an edge just a few molecules thick. It’s the keenest blade in the world.”

  Gingerly I took the brooch she handed me and inspected it under the light. The blade was practically transparent.

  “Isn’t it dangerous to wear something like that?”

  “I like the feeling. Just like the Inuit like the cold. It’s a feeling that can accelerate your thinking, and give birth to inspiration.”

  “Inuit don’t like the cold. They just don’t have any alternative. You... you’re very special.”

  She nodded. “I get that sense too.”

  “You like weapons, and danger. So what about war? Do you like that?”

  “In the present circumstances, it’s not an issue of whether or not we like war.” She adroitly evaded my question, and I knew she was nowhere near opening up. Maybe that day would never come.

  But we still talked easily, and had lots to talk about. Her mind was as sharp as her little sword, nicking and slicing and giving me chills; her cool rationality was something I’d never seen in other women.

  She never revealed her family background, carefully changing the topic when things moved in that direction. All I knew was that her parents were military.

  Before we knew it, it was two in the morning. The candelabra on our table was nearly extinguished, and we were the only ones left in the restaurant. The piano player came over to ask what we wanted to hear, in a clear bid to push us out.

  I tried to come up with something obscure, so that we might be able to stay a while longer if he couldn’t play it. “There’s a movement from Scheherazade where Sinbad is voyaging. I’ve forgotten what it’s called.”

  The piano player shook his head and asked us to choose another piece.

  Lin Yun told him, “Play The Four Seasons.” Then she said, “You must like ‘Summer,’ the season of thunder and lightning.”

  We continued to talk through the melody of The Four Seasons, on subject matter much less serious than before. She said, “I am convinced that you never spoke to the prettiest girl in your class.”

  “I did.” I remembered the night in the library when the pretty girl asked me what I was looking for, but I couldn’t remember what her name was.

  When the piece was finished, it was at last time for us to leave, but Lin Yun smiled and told me to wait. “I’ll play that piece from Scheherazade for you.”

  She sat down at the piano and the Rimsky-Korsakov that had accompanied me on countless lonely nights wafted over like a breeze on a spring evening. Watching her lithe fingers dance on the keys, I suddenly realized that I’d wanted to hear this piece because this place was like a harbor. A beautiful major was telling me the story of Sinbad’s voyages with music, telling me of the ocean with its storms and calms, of princesses, fairies, monsters, and gemstones, and palm trees and sandy beaches under the setting sun.

  On the table before me, in the light of the guttering candles, the world’s sharpest sword lay quietly.

  * An affectionate form of address for someone younger.

  Seti@Home

  Again I began to count the angels on the head of a pin, but this time Lin Yun was counting them with me.

  In the process of building a mathematical model, I found that while Lin Yun’s mathematical abilities were no match for mine, she possessed vast knowledge and was accomplished in a wide range of disciplines, as her field required. She was strong in computers, so she was the one who programmed the models. Her programs had visualizations for the results. If the mathematics were successful, they would display a slow-motion view of ball lightning on the screen with every last detail visible, capable of clearly showing the release of energy upon the lightning’s disappearance as its trajectory was tracked on a three-dimensional axis in a second view. Compared to the dry tables and curves of my earlier program, this was much better, and not just because of visuals and aesthetics: When the earlier data was outputted, it required time-consuming detailed analysis before the success of the simulation could be determined, but now this was done automatically by the computer. The software caused a material change in our study of the theory of ball lightning.

  An infinite number of mathematical models could be created for ball lightning, just like an essay prompt. You just have to build a mathematically consistent system compatible with physical laws that uses an electromagnetic field to constrain energy into a stable ball, and that satisfies all known characteristics of ball lightning. But doing this wasn’t easy. An astronomer once made an interesting observation: “Take stars. If they didn’t exist, it’d be very easy to prove that their existence is impossible.” That applied to ball lightning, too. Conceptualizing a means by which electromagnetic waves traveling at the speed of light could be confined into such a small ball was maddening.

  But with enough patience, and enthusiasm for a hopeless cause, such mathematical models could be constructed. Whether they would withstand experimental tests was another matter altogether. Truth be told, I was almost certain that experiments would not succeed. The models we had built only exhibited a subset of the characteristics of ball lightning. Some unexpressed by one model were easily found in another, but none exhibited all of its known characteristics.

  Apart from the aforementioned confined EM waves, one of ball lightning’s most mysterious properties was the selectivity of its release of energy. In the computer, the virtual ball lightning produced by the mathematical model was like a bomb that reduced everything around it to ash when it touched an object or released energy of its own accord. Whenever I saw this, my mind pulled up those charred books on an unharmed bookshelf, and the cooked seafood in the likewise unharmed refrigerator, and the burnt tee shirt next to my skin underneath a completely intact jacket, and the cool surfaces of the oranges beside the spot where my incinerated parents had been sitting.... But most deeply imprinted upon my memory was the notebook Zhang Bin had shown me with the alternating burnt pages: the arrogant demonstration of some mysterious force that had mercilessly destroyed my confidence.

  *

  Most of my time was spent working at the Lightning Institute, but sometimes I went to New Concepts.

  Most of Lin Yun’s colleagues and friends were men—soldiers—and even outside of work I seldom saw her with any female friends. Those young officers were members of the swiftly expanding intelligentsia, and all possessed a masculinity that was rare in contemporary society. This gave me a sense of inferiority that became particularly acute when Lin Yun was engrossed in discussions with them of military affairs, which I knew nothing about. And the navy captain in the photo on her desk was the most impressive of them all.

  When I met him, Jiang Xingchen was a colonel, which meant that Lin Yun had known him for quite some time. He was in his early thirties and looked even younger than in his photo. It was rare for a colonel to be so young.

  “Jiang Xingchen, captain of Zhufeng,” Lin Yun said by way of introduction. Addressing him without title, and the brief glance they exchanged, confirmed their relationship.

  “Dr. Chen. Lin Yun has spoken of you often, and that ball lightning of yours.” As he spoke, his eyes were gently fixed on me, and there was a sincerity in them that put me at ease, not at all how I’d imagined an aircraft carrier captain to be.

  My first glimpse of him made me understand that competition was meaningless. He didn’t posture or put on aggressive displays of power, but strove at all times to conceal his strength, as a sort of kindness, or a fear that his strength would hurt someone like me. He seemed always to be saying, “I’m really ver
y sorry to make you feel inferior before her. It’s not intentional. Let’s work to change the situation together.”

  “Your aircraft carrier cost ten yuan from every ordinary taxpayer,” I said in an attempt to relax myself, only realizing how clumsy that sounded after it left my mouth.

  “That doesn’t even account for the carrier’s aircraft and its escort cruisers. So every time we leave harbor, it’s like we’ve got a burden on our shoulders,” he said seriously, successfully relieving my tension a second time.

  I wasn’t as dejected as I imagined I’d be after meeting Jiang Xingchen, but felt instead like a weight had been lifted. Lin Yun had become a microcosm of perfection in my mind, a world I could appreciate, a place I could turn to for relaxation when I was fatigued, but one I was careful to avoid getting trapped in. Something separated our hearts, something that was inexpressible but clearly existed. For me, Lin Yun was like the miniature sword she wore around her neck: crystalline beauty that cut dangerously sharp.

  *

  After setting up a few mathematical models, I gradually got the hang of it, and the next models I constructed reflected increasing numbers of the known characteristics of ball lightning. At the same time, the models required an increasing number of calculations, and sometimes my desktop would run for days before completing a model. At New Concepts, Lin Yun networked eighteen machines, and she and I broke the models down into eighteen parts that could execute separately on those machines as close to simultaneously as possible and combine their results, greatly increasing efficiency.

  When I finally completed a model that exhibited all of ball lightning’s known characteristics, the event Lin Yun had feared had already taken place. This time, she didn’t immediately start programming the model when she received it, but spent several days conducting estimates of its computational complexity. When she obtained the results, she let out a long sigh.