Finally, someone figured it out. "It's a mirror."

The immense mirror that appeared over Trisolaris was the proton being unfolded, a geometric plane without any meaningful depth.

By the time the unfolding was complete, the entire sky had been replaced by the reflection of the night sky of the southern hemisphere. Directly overhead, the sky was dominated by the reflection of Trisolaris and the sun. And then the sky began to deform just above the horizon all around, and the reflections of the stars stretched and twisted as though they were melting. The deformation began at the edges of the mirror, but climbed up toward the center.

"Princeps, the proton plane is being bent by our planet's gravity," the science consul said. He pointed to the numerous spots of light in the starry sky. They looked as though people were waving flashlights up at the domed vault. "Those are electromagnetic beams being sent up from the ground to adjust the curvature of the plane under gravity. The goal is to eventually wrap the unfolded proton completely around Trisolaris. Afterwards, the electromagnetic beams will continue to hold up and stabilize this enormous sphere, like so many spokes. Thus, Trisolaris will be the workbench to secure the two-dimensional proton, and the work to etch electronic circuits on the surface of the proton plane can begin."

The process of wrapping the two-dimensional proton plane around Trisolaris took a long time. By the time the deformation of the reflection reached the image of Trisolaris at the plane's zenith, the stars had all disappeared because the proton plane, now curved around the other side of the planet, blocked them completely. Some sunlight continued to leak inside the curved proton plane, and the image of Trisolaris in this fun-house mirror in s.p.a.ce was distorted beyond recognition. But, finally, after the last ray of sunlight was blocked, everything sank into the darkest night in the history of Trisolaris. As gravity and the electromagnetic beams balanced each other, the proton plane formed a gigantic sh.e.l.l in synchronous...o...b..t around Trisolaris.

Bitter cold followed. The completely reflective proton plane deflected all sunlight back into s.p.a.ce. The temperature on Trisolaris dropped precipitously, reaching levels comparable to the appearance of three flying stars, which had ruined many cycles of civilization in the past. Most of the population of Trisolaris dehydrated and were stored. A deathly silence fell over much of the darkness-enclosed surface. In the sky, only the faint light spots from the beams that held up the proton membrane flickered. Occasionally, a few other tiny, sharp lights could be seen in synchronous...o...b..t: the s.p.a.ceships etching circuits into the gigantic membrane.

The principles governing micro-scale integrated circuits were completely different from those of conventional circuits, as the base material wasn't made of atoms, but matter from a single proton. The "p-n junctions" of the circuits were formed by twisting the strong nuclear forces locally on the surface of the proton plane, and the conducting lines were made of mesons that could transmit the nuclear force. Because the surface area for the circuit was extremely large, the circuits were also very large. The circuit lines were as thick as hairs, and an observer close enough could see them with the naked eye. Flying close to the proton membrane, it could be seen as a vast plane made of complex, elaborate integrated circuits. The total area covered by the circuits was dozens of times the area of the continents on Trisolaris.

Etching the proton circuits was a huge engineering feat, and thousands of s.p.a.ceships worked for more than fifteen thousand Trisolaran hours to complete it. The software debugging process took another five thousand Trisolaran hours. But finally, it was time to test the sophon for the first time.

The big screen at the sophon control center deep underground showed the progress of the long self-test sequence. Next came the loading of the operating system. Finally, the blank blue screen showed a line of large-font text: Micro-Intelligence 2.10 loaded. Sophon One ready to accept commands.

The science consul said, "A sophon has been born. We have endowed a proton with wisdom. This is the smallest artificial intelligence that we can make."

"But right now, it appears as the largest artificial intelligence," said the princeps.

"As soon as we increase the dimensionality of this proton, it will become very small."

The science consul entered a query at the terminal: >Sophon One, are the spatial dimensionality controls operational?

Affirmative. Sophon One is capable of initiating spatial dimensionality adjustments at any moment.

>Adjust dimensionality to three.

After this command was issued, the two-dimensional proton membrane that had wrapped itself around Trisolaris began to shrink rapidly, as though a giant's hand was pulling away a curtain over the world. In a moment, sunlight bathed the ground. The proton folded from two dimensions into three and became a gargantuan sphere in synchronous...o...b..t, about the size of the giant moon. The sophon was over the dark side of the planet, but the sunlight reflected from its mirror surface turned the night into day. The surface of Trisolaris was still extremely cold, so the crowd inside the control center could only observe these changes through a screen.

Dimensionality adjustment successful. Sophon One is ready to accept commands.

>Adjust dimensionality to four.

In s.p.a.ce, the gargantuan sphere shrank until it eventually looked to be the size of a flying star. Night again descended over this side of the planet.

"Princeps, the sphere we see now is not the complete sophon. It's only the projection of the sophon's body into three-dimensional s.p.a.ce. It is, in fact, a giant in four-s.p.a.ce, and our world is like a thin, three-dimensional sheet of paper. The giant stands on this sheet of paper, and we can only see the trace where its feet touch the paper."

Dimensionality adjustment successful. Sophon One is ready to accept commands.

>Adjust dimensionality to six.

The sphere in the sky disappeared.

"How big is a six-dimensional proton?" the princeps asked.

"About fifty centimeters in radius," the science consul replied.

Dimensionality adjustment successful. Sophon One is ready to accept commands.

>Sophon One, can you see us?

Yes. I can see the control center, everyone inside, and the organs inside everyone, even the organs inside your organs.

"What is it saying?" The princeps was stunned.

"A sophon observing three-s.p.a.ce from six-s.p.a.ce is akin to us looking at a picture on a two-dimensional plane. Of course it can see inside us."

>Sophon One, enter the control center.

"Can it go through the ground?" the princeps asked.

"It's not exactly going 'through.' Rather, it's entering from a higher dimension. It can enter any enclosed s.p.a.ce within our world. This is again similar to the relationship between us, existing in three-s.p.a.ce, and a two-dimensional plane. We can easily enter any circle drawn on the plane by coming in from above. But no two-dimensional creature on the plane can do such a thing without breaking the circle."

Just as the science consul finished, a mirror-surfaced sphere appeared in the middle of the control center, floating in air. The princeps walked over and gazed at his own distorted reflection. "This is a proton?" He was amazed.

"This is the six-dimensional body of the proton projected into three-s.p.a.ce."

The princeps extended a hand. When he saw that the science consul did not object, he touched the surface of the sophon. A very light touch pushed the sophon a considerable distance.

"It's very smooth. Even though it has only the ma.s.s of a proton, I could feel some resistance against my hand." The princeps was puzzled.

"That's due to air resistance against the surface of the sphere."

"Can you increase its dimensionality to eleven, and make it as small as a regular proton?"

As soon as the princeps said this, the science consul shouted to the sophon, his voice tinged with fear, "Attention! This is not a command!"

Sophon One understands.

"Princeps, if we increased the dimensionality to eleven, we would lose it forever. When the sophon shrinks to the size of a regular subatomic particle, the internal sensors and I/O ports will be smaller than the wavelength of any electromagnetic radiation. That means it would not be able to sense the macro world, and would not be able to receive our commands."

"But we must eventually make it shrink back to a subatomic particle."

"Yes, but that must await the completion of Sophon Two, Sophon Three, and Sophon Four. Multiple sophons may be able to form a system to sense the macro world through quantum effects. For example, suppose a nucleus has two protons. The two of them will interact and follow certain patterns of motion. Take spin: Maybe the direction of spin of the two protons must be opposite from each other. When these two protons are taken out of the nucleus, no matter how far apart they are, this pattern will remain in effect. When both protons are made into sophons, they will, based on this effect, create a mutual-sensing system. More sophons can then form a mutual-sensing formation. This formation's scale can be adjusted to any size, and can thus receive electromagnetic waves to sense the macro world at any frequency. Of course, the actual quantum effects necessary to create such a sophon formation are very complicated. My explanation is only an a.n.a.logy."

The unfolding of the next three protons into two dimensions succeeded on the first try. The construction of each sophon also took only half as long as Sophon One. After the construction of Sophon Two, Sophon Three, and Sophon Four, the quantum sensing formation was also created successfully.

The princeps and all the consuls once again came to the Pendulum Monument. Above them hovered four sophons shrunk to six-s.p.a.ce. In the crystalline mirrored surface of each was an image of the rising sun, recalling the three-dimensional eyes that had once appeared in s.p.a.ce.

>Sophon formation, adjust dimensionality to eleven.

After the command was issued, the four mirrored spheres disappeared. The science consul said, "Princeps, now Sophon One and Sophon Two will be launched toward the Earth. Using the large knowledge base stored in the micro circuits, the sophons understand the nature of s.p.a.ce. They can draw energy from the vacuum and become high-energy particles in a moment, and navigate through s.p.a.ce at nearly the speed of light. This might appear to violate the law of conservation of energy, but in fact the sophons are only 'borrowing' energy from the structure of vacuum. However, the time for returning such energy is far in the future, when the proton decays. By then, the end of the universe will not be far.

"After the two sophons arrive on Earth, their first mission is to locate the high-energy particle accelerators used by humans for physics research and hide within them. At the level of science development on the Earth, the basic method for exploring the deep structure of matter is to use accelerated high-energy particles to collide with target particles. After the target particles have been smashed, they a.n.a.lyze the results to try to find information reflecting the deep structure of matter. In actual experiments, they use the substance containing the target particles as the bull's-eye for the accelerated bullets.

"But the inside of the substance being struck is almost all vacuum. Suppose an atom is the size of a theater; the nucleus is like a walnut hovering in the center of the theater. Thus, successful collisions are very rare. Often large quant.i.ties of high-energy particles must be directed against the target substance for a sustained period of time before a collision occurs. This kind of experiment is akin to looking for a raindrop of a slightly different color in a summer thunderstorm.

"This gives the sophons an opening. A sophon can take the place of a target particle and accept the collision. Because they're highly intelligent, they can precisely determine through the quantum sensing formation the paths that the accelerated particles will follow within a very short period of time and move to the appropriate location. Thus, the likelihood that a sophon will be struck will be billions of times greater than the actual target particle. After a sophon is struck, it can deliberately give out wrong and chaotic results. Thus, even if the actual target particle is occasionally struck, Earth physicists will not be able to tell the correct result from the numerous erroneous results."

"Wouldn't this destroy the sophon as well?" asked the military consul.

"No. When a sophon is smashed into several pieces, several new sophons are born. And they continue to have secure quantum entanglements between them, just like how, if you break a magnet in half, you would get two magnets. Even though each partial sophon's capabilities will be much lower than the original, whole sophon, under the direction of the self-healing software, the pieces will move together and rea.s.semble into the original sophon. This process only requires a microsecond and will occur after the collision in the accelerator, and after the pieces of the sophon have left the wrong results in the bubble chamber or on sensitive film."

Someone asked, "Would it be possible for Earth scientists to find a way to detect sophons and then use a strong magnetic field to imprison them? Protons have positive charge."

"That's impossible. To detect sophons requires humans to make breakthroughs in the study of the deep structure of matter. But their high-energy accelerators will all have been turned into heaps of junk. How can they make progress in such research? The hunter's eyes have already been blinded by the prey he intends to catch."

"Humans may still resort to a brute-force method," the industry consul said. "They can build a large number of accelerators, faster than the rate at which we can build sophons. Then, at least some accelerators on Earth will not be infiltrated by sophons and can yield the correct results."

"This is one of the most interesting aspects of Project Sophon!" The science consul was visibly excited by the question. "Mister Industry Consul, do not worry that creating large numbers of sophons will cause the collapse of the Trisolaran economy. We will not need to resort to that. We might build a few more, but not too many. Indeed, just these two are more than enough, because each sophon is capable of mult.i.tasking."

"Mult.i.tasking?"

"This is a bit of jargon related to ancient serial computers. Back then, a computer's central processing unit could only carry out a single instruction at a time. But, because it was so fast, and aided by interrupt scheduling, from our low-speed perspective, the computer was carrying out multiple programs at the same time. As you know, the sophons move at close to the speed of light. The surface of the Earth is a tiny s.p.a.ce for sophons. If sophons patrol around the accelerators on Earth at this speed, then, from the perspective of humans, it is as if they simultaneously exist in all the accelerators and can almost simultaneously create erroneous results in all the accelerators.

"By our calculations, each sophon is capable of controlling more than ten thousand high-energy accelerators. It takes about four to five years for humans to build each of these accelerators, and it seems unlikely that they can be ma.s.s produced based on their economy and available resources. Of course, they can increase the distance between the accelerators, for example, by building accelerators on the different planets in their planetary system. That would indeed destroy the mult.i.tasking operation of the sophons. But in the time it would take to do that, it would not be difficult for Trisolaris to build ten or more sophons.

"More and more sophons will wander in that planetary system. Added all together, they still won't add up to the ma.s.s of even one-billionth of a bacterium. But they will cause the physicists on Earth to never be able to glimpse the secrets hidden deep in the structure of matter. Humans will never be able to access the micro dimensions, and the ability for them to manipulate matter will be limited to below five dimensions. From now on, whether it's four point five million hours or four hundred and fifty trillion hours, Earth civilization's technology will never achieve this fundamental breakthrough. They will remain forever in the primitive stage. The science of Earth has been completely locked down, and the lock is so secure that humans will never be able to escape from it by their own strength."

"That's wonderful! Please forgive my lack of respect for Project Sophon in the past." The military consul's tone was sincere.

"In fact, there are currently only three accelerators with sufficient power to produce results that can lead to possible breakthroughs. After Sophon One and Sophon Two arrive on Earth, they will have a lot of extra capacity. In order to fully utilize the sophons, we will a.s.sign them other tasks in addition to interfering with the three accelerators. For example, they will be the main means to carry out the Miracle Plan."

"Sophons can create miracles?"

"For humans, yes. Everyone knows that high-energy particles can expose film. This is one of the ways that primitive accelerators on Earth once showed individual particles. When a sophon pa.s.ses through the film at high energy, it leaves behind a tiny exposed spot. If a sophon pa.s.ses back and forth through the film many times, it can connect the dots to form letters or numbers or even pictures, like embroidery. The process is very fast, and far quicker than the speed at which humans expose film when taking a picture. Also, the human retina is similar to the Trisolaran one. Thus, a high-energy sophon can also use the same technique to show letters, numbers, or images on their retina.... And if these little miracles can confuse and terrify humans, then the next great miracle will be sufficient to frighten their scientists-no better than bugs-to death: Sophons can cause background cosmic radiation to flash in their eyes."

"This would be very frightening for our scientists as well. How would this be accomplished?"

"Very simple. We have already written the software to allow a sophon to unfold itself into two dimensions. After the unfolding is complete, the huge plane can wrap itself around the Earth. This software can also adjust the membrane so that it's transparent, but the degree of transparency can be tuned in the frequencies of the cosmic microwave background.... Of course, as sophons fold and unfold into different dimensions, they can display even more amazing 'miracles.' The software for accomplishing these is still being developed, but these 'miracles' will create a mood sufficient to divert human scientific thought onto the wrong path. This way, we can use the Miracle Plan to effectively restrain scientific endeavors outside of physics on Earth."

"One last question: Why not send all four of the completed sophons to Earth?"

"Quantum entanglement can work at a distance. Even if four sophons were placed at opposite ends of the universe, they could still sense each other instantaneously, and the quantum formation between them would still exist. Keeping Sophon Three and Sophon Four here will enable them to receive the information sent back by Sophon One and Sophon Two instantaneously. This gives us a way to monitor the Earth in real time. Also, the sophon formation allows Trisolaris to communicate in real time with the alienated forces within Earth civilization."

Unnoticed, the sun that had just risen disappeared below the horizon and turned into a sunset. Another Chaotic Era had arrived on Trisolaris.

While Ye Wenjie was reading the messages from Trisolaris, the Battle Command Center was hosting another important meeting to perform further a.n.a.lysis of the captured data. Before the meeting, General Chang said, "Comrades, please be aware that our meeting is probably already being monitored by sophons. From now on, there will be no more secrets."

When he said this, the surroundings were still familiar. The shadows of summer trees swayed against the drawn curtains, but in the eyes of the attendees, the world was no longer the same. They felt the gaze of omnipresent eyes. Under these eyes, there was nowhere to hide in the world. This feeling would follow them all their lives, and their descendants would not be able to escape it. It would take many, many years before humans finally made the mental adjustment to this situation.

Three seconds after General Chang finished his remark, Trisolaris communicated with humanity outside the ETO for the first time. After this, they terminated all communications with the Adventists. For the remainder of the lives of all attendees, Trisolaris never sent another message.

Everyone in the Battle Command Center saw the message in their eyes, just like w.a.n.g Miao's countdown. The message flashed into existence for only two seconds and then disappeared, but everyone got it. It was only a single sentence: You're bugs!

34.

Bugs By the time Shi Qiang entered the door of Ding Yi's home, w.a.n.g Miao and Ding Yi were already very drunk.

The two were excited to see Shi Qiang. w.a.n.g stood up and hugged the newcomer's shoulders. "Ah, Da Shi, Officer Shi..."

Ding, who couldn't even stand straight, found a gla.s.s and put it on the pool table. He poured some liquor into it, and said, "Your out-of-the-box thinking was not helpful. Whether we look at those messages or not, the result four hundred years from now will be the same."

Da Shi sat down in front of the pool table, glancing at the two with a crafty gaze. "Is it really like you say? Everything's over?"

"Of course. It's all over," Ding said.

"You can't use the accelerators and can't study the structure of matter. That means it's all over?" Da Shi asked.

"Um ... what do you think?"

"Technology is still making progress. Academician w.a.n.g and his people just created the nanomaterial-"

"Imagine an ancient kingdom, if you will. Their technology is advancing. They can invent better swords, knives, spears, et cetera. Maybe they can even invent auto-repeating crossbows that can shoot many arrows like a machine gun-"

Da Shi nodded, understanding. "But if they don't know that matter is made from molecules and atoms, they will never create missiles and satellites. They're limited by their level of science."

Ding patted Da Shi on the shoulder. "I always knew that our Officer Shi was smart. It's just that you-"

w.a.n.g took over. "The study of the deep structure of matter is the foundation of the foundations of all other sciences. If there's no progress here, everything else-I'll put it your way-is bulls.h.i.t."

Ding pointed at w.a.n.g. "Academician w.a.n.g will be busy for the rest of his life, and continue to improve our swords and knives and spears. What the f.u.c.k am I going to do? Who the h.e.l.l knows?" He threw an empty bottle onto the table and picked up a billiard ball to smash it.

"This is a good thing!" w.a.n.g lifted his gla.s.s. "We will be able to live out the rest of our lives one way or another. After this, decadence and depravity can be justified! We're bugs! Bugs that are about to go extinct! Haha..."

"Exactly!" Ding also lifted his gla.s.s. "They think so little of us that they don't even bother to disguise their plans for us, telling the Adventists everything. It's like how you don't need to hide the bottle of bug spray from the little critters. Let's toast the bugs! I never thought the end of the world would feel so good. Long live bugs! Long live sophons! Long live the end of the world!"

Da Shi shook his head and drained the gla.s.s. He shook his head again. "Bunch of p.u.s.s.ies."

"What do you want?" Ding stared at Da Shi drunkenly. "You think you can cheer us up?"

Da Shi stood up. "Let's go."

"Where?"