Ball Lightning

by Cixin Liu

  A major wearing a tank soldier’s uniform ran over and told Lin Yun that the person in charge of the feeler defense system research group was temporarily indisposed, and asked us to wait.

  “Please, have some water!”

  He wasn’t carrying any. The water came by tank, two glasses held on a tray on the gun muzzle. As the huge vehicle crept slowly toward us, its barrel remained level regardless of how the tank’s body rose and fell, as if a powerful magnet was pulling it by the muzzle. Not a drop of water spilled out of the glasses. The armored corps officers nearby laughed merrily at our surprise.

  The MBT 2005 was quite different from the tanks I had seen in the past: flat, angular, with practically no curves. The turret and body were stacked flat oblongs that gave an impression of indestructibility.

  In the distance, a tank was firing as it moved. The blasts of its shells were painfully loud, and though I wanted to cover my ears, when I saw Lin Yun and the officers joking beside me, as if the loud noise didn’t even exist, I was too embarrassed to do so.

  Half an hour later, we met the project director for the feeler defense system. He first took us to watch a demonstration of the system. We arrived at a small multi-barrel rocket launcher, where two soldiers were loading a rocket into the uppermost slot.

  The project director said, “Anti-tank missiles cost too much to use for a demonstration, so we’ll use this instead. Properly pretested, it’s sure to hit the target.” He pointed to the rocket’s target, an MBT 2005 off in the distance.

  A soldier pressed the launch button. Out roared the rocket, leaving a cloud of dust and smoke behind us. It trailed a flat arc of white tail smoke behind it in the air as it headed straight for the target. But just as the rocket was around ten meters above the tank, it appeared to have suddenly hit something, and its heading changed at once, veering off to smack headlong into the dirt less than twenty meters away from the tank. Since it wasn’t loaded with a warhead, it merely kicked up a small cloud of dust.

  I found my surprise hard to express in words, but asked, “Is there some sort of protection field around the tank?”

  Everyone burst out laughing. The project director said through his laughter, “Nothing so outlandish. You’re talking about something that’s only in science fiction stories. The principles of this system couldn’t be any more basic.”

  I didn’t understand what he meant by “basic,” so Lin Yun explained: “The principle can be traced back to the time of cold weapons. Cavalry wielded lances that could block the enemy’s arrows, if struck correctly.”

  Seeing that I still didn’t get it, the project director said, “We’re too far away, and it happened too fast, so naturally you didn’t see it clearly.” He led me to a nearby display and said, “Take a look at the high-speed camera.”

  On the screen, the moment before the rocket struck, a thin pole shot like lightning from the top of the tank, like a long fishing pole. It precisely tapped the rocket’s nose and diverted its path.

  The director said, “In combat, it’s sometimes possible to divert an incoming object, but that may cause it to detonate early. For low-speed anti-tank missiles and air-dropped bombs, the efficiency of this defensive system is excellent.”

  “What an idea!” I said wholeheartedly.

  “Hey, this wasn’t our idea. The concept of the feeler system was proposed by NATO weapons experts at the end of the 1980s, and the French first tested it successfully on their next-generation Leclerc tank. We’re only following in their footsteps.”

  Lin Yun said, “Even though the principle of the system is simple, its target sensing and positioning system is highly advanced. Not only can the feeler hit the target in the shortest possible time, but it can select the optimum angle. It’s basically an intimate scale theater missile defense.”

  Now I clearly understood Lin Yun’s intent. It was like the thing had been custom-made for us.

  The project director said, “Major Lin gave us the details of your situation yesterday, and our superiors instructed us to cooperate closely with you. To tell you the truth, in the past I wouldn’t have given your research a second thought, but things are different now. When I was first exposed to the idea of the feeler system, I thought it was ridiculous, nothing more. I never imagined the success we’ve had. On the battlefield of today, only the stubborn will survive.”

  Lin Yun said, “The biggest problem now is the length of the feeler. How long can you make it? It’s very dangerous for the helicopter to get too close to the thunderball.”

  “The longest the feeler can be at present is ten meters. Any longer and it won’t be strong enough. But, for your purposes, there’s no strength requirement for contact, and your speed requirements might be one to two orders of magnitude less than ours. In my crude estimation, the feeler could be as long as twenty-five meters. But there’s one more thing: it can carry the superconducting lead you need, but apart from that you can’t affix anything to the tip.”

  Lin Yun nodded. “That’s basically enough.”

  On the way back, I asked her, “Do you really intend to do it? Isn’t that betting too much on Ding Yi?”

  “We’ve got to give it a try. I think Ding Yi really is the person to make a breakthrough in ball lightning research. We’ve said before that this mystery won’t yield to conventional thinking. Now we’ve got some unconventional thinking, but you won’t accept it.”

  “The problem now is how to convince Colonel Xu and the aviators.”

  Lin Yun sighed softly. “If only I knew how to fly a helicopter.”

  *

  Back at the base, Lin Yun described her plan in a hastily convened meeting.

  “You want to poke a thunderball with a long pole? Are you insane, Major?” Captain Zheng said loudly.

  “Once again, the pole isn’t going to touch a thunderball in an excited state. It will touch the bubble that may possibly exist in that position the instant the thunderball goes out.”

  “Professor Ding said that the superconducting lead carried on the pole must reach that location within half a second of the thunderball going out, otherwise the bubble will blow away. Is that level of precision possible? What if it’s half a second too early?”

  “The reaction time of the feeler defense system is faster than our requirements by two orders of magnitude, although that’s for the original system’s feeler, which moves when the target appears at a specified location. In our improved system, the feeler moves when the target disappears. And our previous observations of EM radiation and visible light have given us data for a precise determination of the ball lightning’s disappearance.”

  “Even if you can do all that, the helicopter still needs to be twenty-five meters from the thunderball. That’s half the distance of the last time there was an accident. You’ve got to be aware of the danger involved.”

  “I am aware, Captain. But it’s a risk we must take.”

  “I don’t agree with the plan,” Colonel Xu said, with a tone of finality.

  “Colonel, even if you agreed, we wouldn’t fly this mission,” Captain Liu said. “The two crews are only on loan to the base. Ultimate command authority rests with the army group. We have the power to refuse any command that endangers the safety of the group. Our division leaders reemphasized this point after the last accident.”

  Lin Yun appeared unfazed. “Captain Liu, if you received a command from the army group ordering you to undertake this mission, would you carry it out?”

  “That would change things. Of course we’d carry it out.”

  “Could I get a guarantee of that?” she said, not moving her eyes from Captain Liu. Her expression frightened me.

  “I guarantee it in my capacity as officer in charge of the helicopter group. But, Major, the army group won’t give that order.”

  Lin Yun said nothing. She picked up a phone and dialed. “Hello, I’d like to speak with Senior Colonel Zeng Yuanping.... This is Base B436. Yes. That’s me. Yes. Thank you!” She passed the phone to
Captain Liu. “Captain, the Eighty-Second Aviation Brigade Commander of the Thirty-Eighth Group Army is on the line.”

  Captain Liu took up the phone. “Speaking.... Yes, Commander. I understand.... Yes. Certainly!” He put the phone down without looking at Lin Yun. Then he turned to Colonel Xu. “Colonel, we have received orders to fly this mission. The time and number of flights are to be determined by the base.”

  “No, Captain Liu. Please inform your superior officer that until reliable safety measures are found, the base is halting all observation flights,” Colonel Xu said emphatically.

  Phone in hand, the captain hesitated, glancing at Lin Yun. Everyone was looking at her.

  Lin Yun bit her lip and remained silent for several seconds, then reached for the captain’s phone, hung up, and dialed another number. “Hello, sir? This is Base B436. Yes, it’s me. About the report I made yesterday.... I’d like to know whether the higher-ups have.... Good.” She passed the phone to Colonel Xu. “Deputy director of the GAD.”

  Colonel Xu took the phone and listened grimly. He finally uttered two words—“Yes, sir”—and put the phone down. Then he turned to us and said gravely, “The higher-ups have ordered us to proceed with the experiments to capture unexcited ball lightning according to Major Lin Yun’s plan. In addition, they have ordered that all other work at the base be suspended so that our energy can be focused on this experiment, and they expect everyone to dedicate themselves to the work in their respective capacities. Would the technical directors for the projects please stay behind after the meeting?”

  On the way back from the tank proving ground, Lin Yun had gone to the city on her own and stayed a full day before returning to the base. Now I knew why she had gone there.

  No one spoke after that. They left in silence, and the keen edge of that silence was clearly directed at Lin Yun.

  “Captains,” she called softly after the departing aviators. “Please understand that, in wartime, this would be little different from an ordinary combat mission.”

  “Do you think we’re afraid of death?” Captain Liu said, jabbing a finger into his chest. “We just don’t want to die worthlessly, for some experiment that’s bound to fail. For a bizarre experiment cooked up by a bizarre individual on the basis of a bizarre theory.”

  Captain Zheng said, “I think even Professor Ding isn’t certain that this will really manage to capture a thunderball.”

  Ding Yi, who had not said anything during the meeting, was unperturbed by all that had happened. He merely nodded and said, “If everything is carried out precisely as Major Lin has instructed, then I am certain.”

  The two aviators left, leaving Colonel Xu, Lin Yun, Ding Yi, and me behind. After a lengthy silence, Colonel Xu said severely, “Lin Yun, this time you’ve gone too far. Think carefully about what you’ve done ever since coming to this base: You’ve acted willfully and arbitrarily, stopping at nothing to get what you want. You have a habit of interfering in everything, even when it’s beyond the scope of your duties, and you frequently go around the base’s leadership to act on your own. This time, by exploiting your privilege through nonstandard channels, you have gone over the heads of several levels of command and delivered your subjective opinion directly to the senior leadership, giving them false information. This is dangerous! Yes, others at the base have previously tolerated you, but they were simply doing their jobs. The army does not exist in a vacuum. We are aware of the part your background plays in this project, and value your connections for communicating conditions up the hierarchy. But you have mistaken this tolerance for indulgence, and are becoming increasingly unreasonable.... When this test is finished, I will write an objective report for my superiors explaining your actions. If you have any self-awareness at all, you will leave the base and this project, since it’s difficult for any of us to work with you.”

  Lin Yun bowed her head and placed her hands between her knees. The calm resolve of moments ago was gone, and, like a little girl caught misbehaving, she said softly, “If the experiment fails, I will accept responsibility.”

  “And if it succeeds, then your actions were correct?” the colonel said.

  “I don’t think anything’s wrong,” Ding Yi said. “Extraordinary research must be advanced through extraordinary measures. Otherwise, in this rigid society, science wouldn’t budge an inch.” He sighed. “If I’d been more alert back then, my accelerator project wouldn’t have had its funding pulled.”

  Lin Yun shot him a grateful glance.

  Ding Yi stood up and began pacing to and fro, then his face broke out into that sly grin of his. “As for me, I won’t accept any responsibility. We theorists have the task of proposing a hypothesis, and if it doesn’t obtain experimental proof, then our responsibility is simply to propose another one.”

  “But lives are at stake in the proof of this hypothesis,” I said.

  “Compared to our goals, it’s worth it.”

  “That’s easy to say when you’re not going to be in those helicopters.”

  “What?” Ding Yi instantly turned furious. “You mean I’m to be put into the helicopter for the sake of demonstrating some sort of spirit? Not a chance! My life belongs to another master, physics. You listen to me: I’m not going on any helicopter!”

  “No one’s making you go, Professor Ding,” Colonel Xu said, shaking his head.

  *

  With the meeting finished, I walked over to an empty space on the test ground, pulled out my phone, and dialed a number. It only rang once before I heard General Lin’s deep voice say, “Is that Dr. Chen?”

  I was caught a little off guard, but I recounted the meeting to him, and he replied at once.

  “We’re already familiar with the situation you described. But this is an unusual time and we urgently require the success of this project, so some risks have to be taken. Of course, Lin Yun’s approach is unfortunate. Very bad, you might even say. But that’s her nature. Sometimes there’s nothing you can do. We did not put enough thought into this matter previously. Tomorrow, we’ll have GAD send a special commissioner to the base to take charge of communication between the project’s front lines and the higher-ups. But thank you for the news, Dr. Chen.”

  “General, what I’d really like to say is that Professor Ding’s theory is really out there. It’s incredibly hard to believe.”

  “Doctor, what area of modern physics isn’t out there, or incredibly hard to believe?”

  “But...”

  “We’ve had other academics and experts look at Professor Ding’s theories and calculations, which Lin Yun brought over, and they’ve given careful thought to her experimental design. In addition, what you may not know is that this isn’t the first time that Ding Yi has taken part in a national defense project. We are confident in his abilities, no matter how strange his theories. This is a risk worth taking.”

  *

  Over the next two weeks, I came to realize the difference between soldiers and civilians. This experiment, for example, was incredibly absurd from a common sense angle. The majority of the project team’s members were staunchly opposed to it, and stood in sharp opposition to the minority led by Lin Yun. In a civilian research body, it would be impossible to make smooth progress. Every opponent would slack off, or attempt to secretly undermine the project through any possible means. But it was different here. Everyone put their heart into it. Lin Yun’s orders were resolutely carried out, often by individuals who outranked her. Of course, the role her personal charm played couldn’t be discounted. Quite a few of the highly educated young officers on the project would have followed her blindly, right or wrong.

  With us on the tests were a few engineers who had been transferred over from the feeler defense system. They had upgraded the hardware, lengthened the pole one and a half times, and installed it on the helicopter. In addition to altering the target identification module, the engineers modified the system’s control software to reverse the trigger mechanism so that it would whip out the pole the
instant the thunderball disappeared.

  On the day of the formal test, with everyone on base gathered at the launch site, I was reminded of the first air discharge test more than a month ago. Like on that occasion, it was a clear day with no wind. Now, the only people who seemed truly relaxed were the two aviator captains who were about to risk their lives. As usual, they were chatting up the nurses beside the ambulance.

  Lin Yun, wearing a combat uniform as she had done on every previous flight, headed toward the helicopter carrying the feeler system. But Captain Liu stopped her. “Major, the feeler system works automatically. Only a pilot is needed on board.”

  She pushed aside his arm without saying a word and climbed into the rear seat. The captain stared at her for a few seconds, then climbed into the cabin and silently helped her strap on the parachute. His burnt-off fingernails had still not grown back.

  Ding Yi began to make a fuss, afraid that someone would drag him onto a helicopter. He again declared, without a thought for the looks of withering disdain he received from those around him, that his life belonged to physics. He added that he had done additional calculations to further prove the correctness of his theory. A thunderball was certain to be captured! Now the image of the man before us was no more than an itinerant con artist. Apart from him and Lin Yun, no one held out any hope of success for the experiment. They just prayed that those aboard the two helicopters would escape with their lives.

  The helicopters took off with a roar. When the arc crackled to life, tension seized the hearts of everyone on the ground. The plan was that after the thunderball was excited, the arc would go out at once and the feeler system–equipped helicopter would close to a distance of twenty-five meters from the target. When the thunderball extinguished, the pole would whip out, carrying a superconducting lead connected directly to a drained superconducting battery on board the helicopter, into contact with the spot where Ding Yi believed the bubble to be.