The Dark Forest (25 page)

“Ah, no. I rode one when I visited the Grand Canyon.” Although his legs hadn’t hurt so much back then. “Are you doing well?”

The old man slowly shook his head. “Surely you can see that I don’t have long to live.” A playful light suddenly entered his deep eyes. “You’re about the least likely person to want me to die of illness. I am truly sorry.”

The irony in this last sentence pricked Tyler, but it was the truth. One of his greatest fears had once been that the man would die of illness or old age. The secretary of defense had prayed on many an occasion that an American cruise missile or Special Forces bullet would drop on the man’s head before he died of natural causes, even if it happened just a minute before death. Natural death would be the man’s greatest triumph, and mark the failure of the war on terror. Even now, the man was edging close to glory. There had been opportunities, of course: Once a Predator drone had snapped his picture in the courtyard of a mosque in the mountains of northern Afghanistan. Simply crashing the drone into him would have made history, not to mention the fact that it had been carrying Hellfire missiles that day. But the young officer on duty lacked the courage to make a unilateral decision once he made the positive ID. Instead, he had reported it up the command chain, and when they checked again the target was gone. Tyler, roused from his bed, had erupted in anger and shattered a precious piece of Chinese porcelain he had at home.

Tyler wanted to avoid the awkward subject, so he brought out his briefcase and set it on the bed. “I have a small gift for you,” he said, opening the case. He took out a set of hardcover books. “This is the latest Arabic version.”

With effort, the old man reached out a hand as thin as kindling and plucked out the bottommost volume. “Ah, I’ve only read the first trilogy. I had someone buy the others, but I never had the time to read them, and then I lost them.… Excellent, thank you. I like them very much.”

“There’s a legend that says you named your organization after these novels.”
14

The old man set the book gently to one side and smiled. “Let it stay a legend. You have your wealth and technology. Legends are all we have.”

Tyler picked up the book the old man had set down, and faced him like a pastor holding a Bible. “I’ve come to make you into Seldon.”

The same playful light returned to the old man’s eyes. “Oh? What do I need to do?”

“Let your organization be preserved.”

“Preserved until when?”

“Until four centuries from now. Until the Doomsday Battle.”

“And you think that’s possible?”

“Yes, if it continues to develop. Let its soul and spirit permeate the space force so that your organization will be part of it forever.”

“And you value that so highly because?” The sarcasm in the old man’s voice grew stronger.

“Because it’s one of the few armed forces available to humanity that uses lives as a weapon. You know, fundamental science has been frozen by the sophons, and this imposes corresponding limitations on advances in computer science and artificial intelligence. In the Doomsday Battle, space fighters will still be piloted by humans, and that requires an army who possesses that spirit. Ball lightning requires a close-range attack.”

“What else have you brought with you besides those books?”

Tyler stood up excitedly from the bed. “That depends on what you need. So long as you can ensure the preservation of your organization, I can give you anything.”

The old man motioned for Tyler to sit down. “I sympathize with you. After so many years, you still don’t know what our needs truly are.”

“You can tell me.”

“Weapons? Money? No, no. What we need is far more precious. The organization doesn’t exist because of Seldon’s ambitious goals. You can’t get a sane, rational person to believe in and die for that. It exists because it possesses something, something that’s its air and blood, and without which the organization would wither away immediately.”

“What’s that?”

“Hatred.”

Tyler was silent.

“On the one hand, thanks to our common enemy, our hatred of the West has faded. On the other, the human race that the Trisolarans want to wipe out includes the hated West, so to us, perishing together would be a joy. So we don’t hate the Trisolarans.” The old man spread his hands. “You see, hatred is a treasure more precious than gold or diamonds, and a weapon keener than any in the world, but now it’s gone. It’s not yours to give back. So the organization, like me, does not have long to live.”

Tyler remained silent.

“As for Seldon, I’d say his plan is an impossible one.”

Tyler let out a sigh and sat back down on the bed. “You mean you’ve read the ending?”

The old man raised an eyebrow in surprise. “No, I haven’t read it. That’s just what I think. What? Does the Seldon Plan fail in the book? The author is an exceptional man, if that’s the case. I’d imagined he wrote a happy ending, may Allah protect him.”

“Asimov’s been dead for many years.”

“Ah, the wise always die young. May he find heaven, whichever one it is.…”

For most of the way back, Tyler was not blindfolded, giving him the opportunity to see the steep, barren mountains of Afghanistan. The young man who led his mule even trusted him enough to leave his assault rifle hanging from the saddle, right next to Tyler’s hand.

“Have you killed anyone with that gun?” he asked.

The young man didn’t understand, but an older, unarmed man riding next to them answered for him. “No. There hasn’t been any fighting for a long time.”

The young man looked up questioningly at Tyler. He had no beard on his childlike face, and his eyes were as clear as the blue sky of western Asia.

Mom, I’m going to be a firefly.

*   *   *

At the Fourth PDC Wallfacer Hearing, Tyler appeared fatigued from his long journey as he submitted revisions to his mosquito swarm plan. “I want every fighter in the mosquito fleet to be equipped with two control systems: a pilot-operated mode and a drone mode. Switching to drone mode will allow me to control all of the fighters in the fleet.”

“You’re very hands-on.” Hines snickered.

“I’ll be able to instruct the fleet to form a mosquito group and voyage to the battle zone, then tell it to disassemble and reenter formation. When it engages the enemy fleet, I will command the weapons module on each fighter to select its own target and attack automatically. I’d imagine that even with the lockdown on the fundamentals of physics, current AI technology will develop enough in the next three centuries to permit that.”

“Do you mean that you plan to hibernate until the Doomsday Battle, and then directly engage the Trisolaran Fleet?”

“Do I have a choice? You know I’ve just been to Japan, China, and Afghanistan and didn’t find what I’m looking for there.”

“And you paid someone a visit,” the US representative said.

“That’s right. I saw him. But…” Tyler gave a long, dejected sigh. “Nothing. I’ll keep trying to establish a force of dedicated space fighters, but if I can’t, then I’ll have to guide them into the final attack myself.”

No one spoke. Where the Doomsday Battle was concerned, people usually chose to be silent.

Tyler continued, “I have another supplement to the mosquito swarm plan. I want to conduct my own studies, of certain bodies in the solar system, in areas of my choosing. These bodies include Europa, Ceres, and several comets.”

“How is this related to the space fighter fleet?” someone asked.

“Do I need to answer that?” Tyler asked, looking at the rotating chair.

No one spoke. Of course he didn’t have to answer.

“Finally, I have a recommendation. The PDC and every nation on Earth should scale back their attacks on the ETO.”

Rey Diaz jumped out of his chair. “Mr. Tyler, even if you claim that this is part of the plan, I strongly oppose this outrageous proposal!”

Tyler shook his head. “This is not part of the plan. It’s totally unconnected to the Wallfacer Project. The reason for my suggestion is obvious: If we persist in our attacks on the ETO, in two or three years we may wipe it out, and we will lose the only direct channel for communication between Earth and Trisolaris. We’ll have lost the most important source of enemy intelligence. I’m sure you understand what the consequences would be.”

Hines said, “I agree. But this proposal shouldn’t be made by a Wallfacer. The three of us are a unit in the minds of the public, so please keep
our
reputation in mind.”

The hearing ended in unresolved arguments, but an agreement was reached for the PDC to conduct further study of the three revisions to Tyler’s plan and put them to a vote at the next hearing.

Tyler remained seated until he was the last one in the assembly hall. He was exhausted and drowsy after his lengthy travels, and as he looked around the empty room, he suddenly realized a risk he had overlooked: He needed to find a doctor or a psychologist, and a specialist in sleep medicine.

He had to find someone to stop him from talking in his sleep.

*   *   *

Luo Ji and Zhuang Yan walked toward the main entrance of the Louvre at ten
P.M.
Kent had advised them to visit at night to facilitate more convenient security.

The first thing they saw was the glass pyramid, shielded from the nighttime din of Paris by the U-shaped palace building, and standing quietly under the watery moonlight as if it were made of silver.

“Mr. Luo, don’t you get the feeling that it flew in from outer space?” Zhuang Yan asked, pointing to the pyramid.

“Everyone has that feeling,” Luo Ji said.

“At first it feels a little out of place, but the more you look at it, the more it seems to be an integral part of the place.”

The meeting of two vastly different worlds,
Luo Ji thought, but did not say.

Then the whole pyramid lit up, turning from moonlit silver to a brilliant gold. At the same time the fountains came on in the surrounding pools, sending tall columns of water and light skyward. Zhuang Yan glanced at Luo Ji in alarm, unsettled by the Louvre’s awakening at their arrival. Accompanied by water sounds, they made their way down the pyramid into the Hall Napoléon, and then into the palace.

Their first destination was the largest exhibition hall. It was two hundred meters long and softly lit, and their footsteps echoed down the emptiness. Luo Ji quickly realized that it was only his footsteps echoing, for Zhuang Yan walked lightly on catlike steps, like a child in a fairy tale who enters a magic castle and is afraid of waking what slumbers there. He slowed his pace—not for the artwork, which didn’t interest him at all, but to let the distance between them grow and allow him to appreciate her among this world of art, gazing upon the beauty of this Eastern woman along with the full-figured Greek gods, angels, and the Blessed Virgin in the surrounding classical oil paintings. Like the glass pyramid in the courtyard, she soon blended into the environment and became part of the sacred realm of art. Without her, this place would be missing something. In a reverie or a dream or a vision, he let time pass by quietly.

After a time, Zhuang Yan finally remembered Luo Ji’s presence and flashed a smile back at him. His heart quaked at what felt to him like a bolt of light sent to the mortal realm from a painting of Mount Olympus.

“I’ve heard that with a trained eye, it would take you a whole year to see all of the pieces here,” he said.

“I know,” was her simple reply, but her eyes said,
What should I do?
Then she turned her attention to the paintings. In all this time she had seen only five of them.

“It doesn’t matter, Yan Yan. I can look at them with you every night for a year.” The words slipped out.

She turned to look at him, visibly excited. “Really?”

“Really.”

“Well … Mr. Luo, have you ever been here before?”

“No. But I went to the Centre Pompidou when I came to Paris three years ago. At first I thought you would be more interested in going there.”

She shook her head. “I don’t like modern art.”

“Then, all this—” He glanced around at the gods, angels, and Blessed Virgin. “You don’t think it’s too old?”

“I don’t like it too old. I just like the paintings of the Renaissance.”

“Those are pretty old, too.”

“But they don’t feel old to me. Those painters were the first to discover human beauty, and they painted God as a pleasing person. Looking at these works, you can sense their joy in painting, the same joy I felt when I first saw the lake and the snow peak.”

“That’s good, but the humanistic spirit pioneered by the Renaissance masters has become a stumbling block.”

“You mean, in the Trisolar Crisis?”

“Yes. You must have seen what’s been happening lately. Four centuries from now, the post-disaster world might return to the Middle Ages, with humanity once again subjected to extreme repression.”

“And art will enter a long winter’s night, right?”

Looking at her innocent eyes, he smiled wryly to himself.
Silly kid, you talk about art, but if humanity does manage to survive, regressing to a primitive society would be a small price to pay.
But he said, “When that time comes, there may be a second Renaissance, and you could rediscover forgotten beauty and paint it.”

She smiled a smile tinged with sadness, clearly understanding the meaning behind Luo Ji’s consoling words. “I’m just thinking: After doomsday, what will happen to these paintings and artworks?”

“You’re worried about that?” he asked. When she mentioned doomsday, his heart ached, but if his last attempt at comfort had failed, he was confident that he would succeed this time. So he took her hand and said, “Come on, let’s go to the Asian Art exhibit.”

Before the pyramid lobby was built, the Louvre was a giant maze. Getting to any particular gallery meant a long and winding detour. But now you could go directly from the Hall Napoléon beneath the pyramid to any point in the museum. Luo Ji and Zhuang Yan returned to the entrance hall, followed the signs leading to the Arts of Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas, and wound up in an entirely different world from the galleries of classical European paintings.