"Princeps, that is not at all easy. We have but a thin thread of communication with the Earth. It takes more than eighty thousand hours to complete an exchange."

"But remember that, like us, the knowledge that there are extraterrestrial civilizations will shock all of Earth society and leave profound marks. We have reason to believe that the alienated forces within Earth civilization will coalesce and grow."

"What can they do? Sabotage?"

"Given a time gap of forty thousand hours, the strategic value of any traditional tactics of war or terror is insignificant, and they can recover from them. To effectively contain a civilization's development and disarm it across such a long span of time, there is only one way: kill its science."

The science consul said, "The plan focuses on emphasizing the negative environmental effects of scientific development and showing signs of supernatural power to the population of Earth. In addition to highlighting the negative effects of progress, we'll also attempt to use a series of 'miracles' to construct an illusory universe that cannot be explained by the logic of science. After these illusions have been maintained for some time, it's possible that Trisolaran civilization may become a target of religious worship there. Then, unscientific ways of thinking will dominate scientific thinking among human intellectuals, and lead to the collapse of the entire scientific system of thought."

"How do we create miracles?"

"The key to miracles is that they cannot be seen as tricks. This may require that we transfer certain technologies far above current human technology level to the alienated forces on Earth."

"That's too risky! Who knows who will ultimately control such technologies? That's playing with fire."

"Of course, which specific technologies should be transferred to produce miracles requires further study...."

"Please hold on for a moment, Science Consul," said the military consul as he stood up. "Princeps, I am of the opinion that this plan will be almost useless in terms of stopping human science."

"But it's better than nothing," the science consul argued.

"Barely," the military consul said contemptuously.

"I agree with your view," the princeps said. "This plan will only interfere slightly with human scientific development. We need a decisive act that will completely suffocate science on Earth and freeze it at its current level. Let's focus on the key here: Overall technological development depends on the advancement of basic science, and the foundation of basic science lies in the exploration of the deep structure of matter. If there's no progress in this field, there can be no major breakthrough in science and technology as a whole. Of course, this is not specific to civilization on Earth. It is applicable to all targets that Trisolaran civilization intends to conquer. We had begun work in this area even before receiving the first extra-Trisolaran communication. But we've recently stepped up the effort.

"Now, everyone, look up. What's that?"

The princeps pointed at the sky. The consuls lifted their heads to gaze in that direction. They saw a ring in s.p.a.ce giving off a metallic glow in the sunlight.

"Is that the dock for building the second s.p.a.ce fleet?"

"No. That's a large particle accelerator still under construction. The plans for building a second s.p.a.ce fleet have been sc.r.a.pped. All resources are now devoted to Project Sophon."

"Project Sophon?"

"Yes. We've kept this plan secret from most of you present. I now ask the science consul to give an introduction."

"I knew about this plan, but didn't know it had progressed so far." The speaker was the industry consul.

The culture and education consul said, "I knew about this plan as well, but thought it was like a fairy tale."

The science consul said, "Project Sophon, to put it simply, aims to transform a proton into a superintelligent computer."42 "This is a science fantasy that most of us have heard about," the agricultural consul said. "But can it be realized? I know that physicists can already manipulate nine of the eleven dimensions of the micro-scale world, but we still can't imagine how they could stick a pair of tiny tweezers into a proton to build large-scale integrated circuits."

"Of course that's impossible. The etching of micro integrated circuits can only occur at the macro scale, and only on a macroscopic two-dimensional plane. Thus, we must unfold a proton into two dimensions."

"Unfold a nine-dimensional structure into two dimensions? How big would the area be?"

"Very big, as you will see." The science consul smiled.

Another sixty thousand Trisolaran hours went by. Twenty thousand Trisolaran hours after the completion of the huge particle accelerator in s.p.a.ce, the unfolding of the proton into two dimensions was about to begin in a synchronous...o...b..t around Trisolaris.

It was a beautiful and mild Stable Era day. The sky was particularly clear. Like the day when the fleet had set sail eighty thousand Trisolaran hours ago, the entire population of Trisolaris looked up into the sky, gazing at that giant ring. The princeps and all the consuls again came and stood under the Pendulum Monument. The pendulum had long stopped, and the weight hung still like a solid rock between the tall pillars. Looking at it, it was hard to believe that it had once moved.

The science consul gave the order to unfold into two dimensions. In s.p.a.ce, three cubes drifted around the ring-the fusion generators that powered the accelerator. Their winglike heat sinks gradually began to glow with a dim reddish light. The crowd anxiously stared at the accelerator, but nothing seemed to happen.

A tenth of a Trisolaran hour later, the science consul held his earpiece to his ear and listened intently. Then he said, "Princeps, unfortunately, the unfolding failed. We reduced the dimensions by one too many, and the proton became one-dimensional."

"One-dimensional? A line?"

"Yes. An infinitely thin line. Theoretically, it should be about fifteen hundred light-hours long."

"We spent the resources intended for another s.p.a.ce fleet," said the military consul, "just to obtain a result like this?"

"In scientific experiments, there has to be a process during which kinks are worked out. After all, this was the very first time the unfolding has been tried."

The crowd dispersed in disappointment, but the experiment wasn't over. Originally, it was thought that the one-dimensional proton would stay in synchronous...o...b..t around Trisolaris forever, but due to friction from solar winds, pieces of the string fell back into the atmosphere. Six Trisolaran hours later, everyone outside noticed the strange lights in the air, gossamer threads that flickered in and out of existence. They soon learned from the news that this was the one-dimensional proton drifting to the ground under the influence of gravity. Even though the string was infinitely thin, it produced a field that could still reflect visible light. It was the first time people had ever seen matter not made out of atoms-the silky strands were merely small portions of a proton.

"These things are so annoying." The princeps brushed his hand against his face over and over. He and the science consul were standing on the wide steps in front of Government Center. "My face always feels itchy."

"Princeps, the feeling is purely psychological. All the strings added together have the ma.s.s of a single proton, so it's impossible for them to have any effect on the macroscopic world. They can't do any harm. It's as if they don't exist."

But the threads that fell from the sky grew more numerous and denser. Closer to ground, tiny sparkling lights filled the air. The sun and the stars all appeared inside silvery halos. The strings clung to those who went outside, and as they walked, they dragged the lights behind them. When people returned indoors, the lines glimmered under the lamps. As soon as they moved, the reflection from the strings revealed the patterns in the air currents they disturbed. Although the one-dimensional string could only be seen under light and couldn't be felt, people became upset.

The torrent of one-dimensional strings continued for more than twenty Trisolaran hours before finally ending, though not because the strings had all fallen to the ground. Although their ma.s.s was unimaginably minuscule, they still had some, and so their acceleration under gravity was the same as normal matter. However, once inside the atmosphere, they were completely dominated by the air currents and would never fall to the ground. After being unfolded into one dimension, the strong nuclear force within the proton became far more attenuated, weakening the string. Gradually, it broke into tiny pieces, and the light they reflected was no longer visible. People thought they had disappeared, but pieces of the one-dimensional string would drift in the air of Trisolaris forever.

Fifty Trisolaran hours later, the second attempt to unfold a proton into two dimensions began. Soon, the crowd on the ground saw something odd. After the heat sinks of the fusion generators began to glow red, several colossal objects appeared near the accelerator. All of them were in the form of regular geometric solids: spheres, tetrahedrons, cubes, cones, and so on. Their surfaces had complex coloration, but close examination showed that they were, in fact, colorless. The surfaces of the geometric solids were completely reflective, and what the people saw were just distorted, reflected images of the surface of Trisolaris.

"Have we succeeded?" the princeps asked. "Is that the proton unfolded into two dimensions?"

The science consul replied, "Princeps, it's still a failure. I just received the report from the accelerator control center. The unfolding left one too many dimensions in, and the proton was unfolded into three dimensions."

The giant, reflective geometric solids continued to pop into existence in great numbers, and their forms became more various. There were tori, solid crosses, and even something that looked like a Mbius strip. All the geometric solids drifted away from the location of the accelerator. About half an hour later, the solids filled more than half the sky, as though a giant child had emptied a box of building blocks in the firmament. The light reflected from the mirror surfaces doubled the brilliance of the light hitting the ground, but the intensity continuously shifted. The shadow of the giant pendulum flickered in and out, and swayed from side to side.

Then, all the geometric solids began to deform. They gradually lost their regular shapes, as though they were melting in heat. The deformation accelerated and the resulting lumps became more and more complex. Now the objects in the sky no longer reminded people of building blocks, but of a giant's dismembered limbs and disemboweled viscera. Because their shapes were no longer so regular, the light they reflected to the ground became softer, but their own surface coloration turned even more strange and unpredictable.

Out of the mess of three-dimensional objects, a few in particular drew special attention from observers on the ground. At first, it was only because the objects in question were very similar to each other. But upon closer examination, people recognized them, and a wave of terror swept Trisolaris.

They were all eyes! [Of course, we don't know what Trisolaran eyes look like, but we can be certain that any intelligent life would be very sensitive to representations of eyes.]

The princeps was one of the few who kept calm. He asked the science consul, "How complicated can the internal structure of a subatomic particle be?"

"It depends on the number of dimensions of your observation perspective. From a one-dimensional perspective, it's only a point-that's how ordinary people think of the particles. From a two- or three-dimensional perspective, the particle begins to show internal structure. From a four-dimensional perspective, a fundamental particle is an immense world."

The princeps said, "To use a word like 'immense' to describe a subatomic particle such as a proton seems incredible to me."

The science consul ignored the princeps and continued, "As we move to higher dimensions, the complexity and number of structures within a particle increase dramatically. The comparisons I'm about to make will not be precise, but should give you an idea of the scale. A particle seen from a seven-dimensional perspective has a complexity comparable to our Trisolaran stellar system in three dimensions. From an eight-dimensional perspective, a particle is a vast presence like the Milky Way. When the perspective has been raised to nine dimensions, a fundamental particle's internal structures and complexity are equal to the whole universe. As for even higher dimensions, our physicists haven't been able to explore them, so we cannot yet imagine the degree of complexity."

The princeps pointed to the giant eyes in s.p.a.ce. "Do these show that the microcosmos contained within the unfolded proton harbors intelligent life?"

"Our definition of 'life' is probably not appropriate for the high-dimensional microcosmos. More accurately, we can only say that universe contains intelligence or wisdom. Scientists have long predicted this possibility. It would have been odd for such a complex and vast world to not have evolved something akin to intelligence."

"Why have they transformed into eyes to look at us?" The princeps looked up at the eyes in s.p.a.ce, beautiful, lifelike sculptures, all of them gazing upon the planet below strangely.

"Maybe they just want to demonstrate their presence."

"Can they fall down here?"

"Not at all. You may rest easy, Princeps. Even if they were to fall, the ma.s.s of all these huge structures added together is only that of a proton. Just like the one-dimensional string from last time, they won't have any effect on our world. People just have to get used to the strange sight."

But this time, the science consul was wrong.

People noticed the eyes moved faster than the other solids filling the sky, and they were gathering into one spot. Soon, two eyes met and merged into one bigger eye. More and more eyes joined this big eye, and its volume grew. Finally, all the eyes melded into one. It was so large that it seemed to represent the gaze of the universe upon Trisolaris. The iris was clear and bright, and at the center was the image of a sun. Over the broad surface of the eyeball, various colors cascaded in a flood. Soon, the details over the giant eye faded and gradually disappeared, until it became a pupil-less blind eye. Then it began to deform until it finally lost the shape of an eye and became a perfect circle. When the circle began to slowly rotate, people realized that it was not flat, but parabolic, like a slice cut from a giant sphere.

As the military consul stared at the slowly spinning colossal object in s.p.a.ce, he suddenly understood and shouted, "Princeps and others, please go into the underground bunker right away." He pointed upward. "That is-"

"A parabolic mirror," the princeps said calmly. "Direct the s.p.a.ce defense forces to destroy it. We will stay right here."

The parabolic mirror focused the sun's beams onto the surface of Trisolaris. Initially, the spot of light was very large, and the heat at the focal point wasn't yet lethal. This spot moved across the ground, searching for its target. The mirror discovered the capital, the largest city of Trisolaris, and the light spot began to move toward it. Soon, the beam was over the city.

Those standing under the Pendulum Monument only saw a great brightness in s.p.a.ce. It overwhelmed everything else, accompanied by a wave of extreme heat. Then the light spot over the capital shrank as the parabolic mirror began to focus the light more tightly. The brightness from s.p.a.ce grew stronger until no one could lift up his head, and those standing within the spot felt the temperature rise rapidly. Just as the heat became unbearable, the edge of the light spot swept past the Pendulum Monument and everything dimmed. It took a while before the crowd's sight readjusted to normal light.

When they looked up, the first sight that greeted them was a pillar of light between the sky and earth, shaped like an inverted cone. The mirror in s.p.a.ce formed the base of the cone, and the tip stabbed into the heart of the capital, turning everything there incandescent at once. Waves of smoke began to rise. Tornadoes caused by the uneven heat of the light cone formed several other pillars made of dust that connected to the sky, twisting and dancing around the light cone....

Several brilliant fireb.a.l.l.s appeared in different parts of the mirror, their blue color distinct from the light reflected from the mirror. These were the exploding nuclear warheads launched by the Trisolaran s.p.a.ce defense corps. Because the explosions were happening outside the atmosphere, there was no sound. By the time the fireb.a.l.l.s disappeared, several large holes appeared in the mirror, and then the entire surface of the mirror began to tear and crack, until it had broken into more than a dozen pieces.

The deadly light cone disappeared and the world returned to a normal level of illumination. For a moment, the sky was as dim as a moonlit night. Those broken pieces of the mirror, now devoid of intelligence, continued to deform and soon could not be distinguished from the other geometric solids in s.p.a.ce.

"What will happen with the next experiment?" The princeps's expression was derisive as he spoke to the science consul. "Will you unfold a proton into four dimensions?"

"Princeps, even if that were to occur, it's nothing to worry about. A proton unfolded into four dimensions will be much smaller. If the s.p.a.ce defense corps is prepared to attack its projection in three-dimensional s.p.a.ce, it can be destroyed just the same."

"You're deceiving the princeps!" said a furious military consul. "You have not mentioned the real danger. What if the proton is unfolded into zero dimensions?"

"Zero dimensions?" The princeps was interested. "Wouldn't that be a point with no size?"

"Yes, a singularity! Even a proton would be infinitely big compared to it. The entire ma.s.s of the proton will be contained in this singularity, and its density will be infinite. Princeps, I'm sure you can imagine what that would be."

"A black hole?"

"Yes."

"Princeps, let me explain," the science consul broke in. "The reason we picked a proton instead of a neutron to unfold into two dimensions is precisely to avoid this kind of risk. If we really were to unfold into zero dimensions, the charge of a proton would also be carried over into the unfolded black hole. We can then capture and control it using electromagnetism."

"What if you can't find it or control it?" the military consul asked. "It can then land on the ground, suck in everything it encounters, and increase its ma.s.s. Then it will sink into the core of this planet and eventually suck down all of Trisolaris."

"That will never happen. I guarantee it! Why are you always making things difficult for me? Like I said, this is a scientific experiment-"

"That's enough!" the princeps said. "What is the probability of success next time?"

"Almost one hundred percent! Princeps, please believe in me. Through these two failures, we have already mastered the principles governing unfolding subatomic structures into low-dimensional macro s.p.a.ce."

"All right. To ensure the survival of Trisolaran civilization, we must take this risk."

"Thank you!"

"But if you fail again, you and all the scientists working on Project Sophon will be guilty."

"Yes, of course, all guilty." If Trisolarans could perspire, the science consul must have been soaked in cold sweat.

It was much easier to clean up the three-dimensional remnants of the unfolded proton in synchronous...o...b..t than it was to clean up the one-dimensional string. Small s.p.a.ceships were able to drag the pieces of proton matter away from Trisolaris and prevent them from entering the atmosphere. Those objects, some as large as mountains, had almost no ma.s.s. They were like immense silver illusions; even a baby could have moved them easily.

Afterwards, the princeps asked the science consul, "Did we destroy a civilization in the microcosmos in this experiment?"

"It was at least an intelligent body. Also, Princeps, we destroyed the entire microcosmos. That miniature universe is immense in higher dimensions, and it probably contained more than one intelligence or civilization that never had a chance to express themselves in macro s.p.a.ce. Of course, in higher dimensional s.p.a.ce at such micro scales, the form that intelligence or civilization may take is beyond our imagination. They're something else entirely. And such destruction has probably occurred many times before."

"Oh?"

"In the long history of scientific progress, how many protons have been smashed apart in accelerators by physicists? How many neutrons and electrons? Probably no fewer than a hundred million. Every collision was probably the end of the civilizations and intelligences in a microcosmos. In fact, even in nature, the destruction of universes must be happening at every second-for example, through the decay of neutrons. Also, a high-energy cosmic ray entering the atmosphere may destroy thousands of such miniature universes.... You're not feeling sentimental because of this, are you?"

"You amuse me. I will immediately notify the propaganda consul and direct him to repeatedly publicize this scientific fact to the world. The people of Trisolaris must understand that the destruction of civilizations is a common occurrence that happens every second of every hour."

"Why? Do you wish to encourage the people to face the possible destruction of Trisolaran civilization with equanimity?"

"No. It's to encourage them to face the destruction of Earth civilization with equanimity. You know very well that after we publicized our policy toward the Earth civilization, there was a wave of extremely dangerous pacifism. We have only now discovered that there are many like the listener of Post 1379. We must control and eliminate these weak sentiments."

"Princeps, this is mainly the result of recent messages received from the Earth. Your prediction has come true: The alienated forces on Earth really are growing. They have built a new transmission site completely under their control, and have begun to send us large amounts of information about Earth civilization. I must admit that their civilization has great appeal on Trisolaris. For our people, it sounds like sacred music from Heaven. The humanism of Earth will lead many Trisolarans onto the wrong path. Just as Trisolaran civilization has already become a religion on Earth, Earth civilization has this potential on Trisolaris."

"You've pointed out a great danger. We must strictly control the flow of information from the Earth to the populace, especially cultural information."

The third attempt to unfold a proton into two dimensions began thirty Trisolaran hours later. This time, it was at night. From the ground, it was impossible to see the ring of the accelerator in s.p.a.ce. Only the red glow from the heat sinks of the fusion reactors around it marked its location. Shortly after the accelerator was started, the science consul announced success.

People gazed up at the night sky. Initially, there was nothing to see. But soon, they saw a miraculous sight: The heavens separated into two pieces. Between the two, the pattern of the stars did not match, as though two photographs of the sky had been stacked together, with the smaller one overlaid on top of the big one. The Milky Way broke at the border between the two. The smaller portion of the star-studded firmament was circular, and it rapidly expanded against the normal night sky.

"That constellation in there belongs to the southern hemisphere!" the culture and education consul said, pointing at the expanding, circular patch of the sky.

As people exercised their imaginations to understand how stars that could be seen only from the other side of the planet were now superimposed over the northern hemisphere's view, an even more astonishing sight appeared: At the edge of the expanding patch of the night sky from the southern hemisphere, a part of a giant globe appeared. The globe was brownish, and it was being revealed a stripe at a time, as though on a display with a very slow refresh rate. Everyone recognized the globe: On it were the clear outlines of familiar continents. By the time the entire globe came into view, it already occupied one-third of the sky. More details on the globe could be made out: the wrinkles of mountain ranges covering the brownish continents, the scattered cloud cover like patches of snow over the continents ...

Someone finally blurted out, "That's our planet!"

Yes, another Trisolaris had appeared in the sky.

Next, the sky brightened. Next to the second Trisolaris in s.p.a.ce, the expanding circle of the night sky from the southern hemisphere revealed another sun. This was clearly the same sun that currently was shining over the southern hemisphere, but it appeared at only half the size.