The Redemption of Time Read online

  THE

  REDEMPTION

  OF TIME

  THE

  REDEMPTION

  OF TIME

  A THREE-BODY PROBLEM NOVEL

  Baoshu

  TRANSLATED BY

  Ken Liu

  www.headofzeus.com

  First published in the UK in 2019 by Head of Zeus Ltd

  Copyright © 2011 by 宝树 (Baoshu)

  English Translation Copyright © 2016 by China Educational Publications Import & Export Corp., Ltd

  Translation by Ken Liu

  Originally published as 三体X : 观想之宙 in 2011 by 重庆出版社 (Chongqing Publishing House) in 重庆 (Chongqing, China).

  The moral right of Baoshu (宝树) to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN (HB): 9781788542203

  ISBN (XTPB): 9781788542210

  ISBN (E): 9781788542197

  Cover illustration © Stephan Martinière

  Head of Zeus Ltd

  First Floor East

  5–8 Hardwick Street

  London EC1R 4RG

  WWW.HEADOFZEUS.COM

  This book is dedicated to Mr. Liu Cixin

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Preface to the English Edition

  Calendar Eras

  Prologue

  PART I: The Past Within Time

  PART II: The Way of Tea

  PART III: Sky Calyx

  Coda: Provence

  Post Coda: Notes on the New Universe

  Translator’s Postscript

  About the Author

  An Invitation from the Publisher

  PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION

  Writing The Redemption of Time is one of the most remarkable events of my life.

  Like many others, I became a loyal fan of Liu Cixin at the beginning of the twenty-first century, when Liu was just starting to make his mark as a science fiction author. We called ourselves cítiě (meaning “magnets,” which is a pun for the Chinese abbreviation of “die-hard fans of Liu Cixin”) and passionately discussed his stories on internet forums. As each of his stories was published, the news spread among us like wildfire and we rushed out to buy the magazine issue. In 2006, when Science Fiction World serialized The Three-Body Problem, the first book in his magnificent Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy (also known as the “Three-Body” trilogy), I devoured each installment and hungered for the next, utterly entranced.

  The stand-alone edition of The Three-Body Problem was published at the beginning of 2008, and the first sequel, The Dark Forest, came out about six months later. Although the books hadn’t yet penetrated mainstream literary conversation, science fiction fans enjoyed the rich imaginative feast presented by these two books. However, after those first two books, I and the other cítiě had to resign ourselves to a long wait for the next installment.

  Two and a half years later, in November of 2010, the last volume of the trilogy, Death’s End, finally went on sale in China. At the time, I was in graduate school in Belgium and could not get my hands on the book. I seriously considered flying back to China just to buy it. In the end, my friend Gao Xiang helped me out by photographing every page of the book and emailing the pictures to me.

  I was deeply touched by my friend’s gesture, but it wasn’t until much later that I understood the full significance of the publication of this novel for me. After I finished Death’s End, along with fans in China who had bought the book as soon as it came out, we debated and explored every detail in the book over the internet. But no matter how many posts we wrote, the magnificent, grand arc of the trilogy was at an end, and we felt ourselves drifting away from the story day by day. The melancholy that seized us made me decide to write separate stories for a few of the characters in the trilogy and extend the epic tale a little longer. Two days later, I wrote down a dialogue between Yun Tianming and 艾 AA on Planet Blue and posted it on the Web under the title Three-Body X. “X” didn’t mean “ten”; rather, it stood for “uncertain.”

  This wasn’t the first time I wrote Liu Cixin fanfiction, and I certainly wasn’t the first to do so. But before my tale, most such efforts were written by fans for a small group of other hardcore fans. I had no idea that the context for Three-Body X was entirely different. What I wrote was exactly what tens of thousands of readers needed at that moment: more stories from the “Three-Body” universe. Its timely appearance (barely a week after the publication of Death’s End) allowed it to receive far more attention than could be justified by its inherent quality, and the praise encouraged me to continue writing, developing, and growing the story line I had in mind until it gradually took on a shape of its own. Three weeks later, before Christmas 2010, I completed my novel.

  By then, Three-Body X had spread to every corner of the Chinese Web, and received almost as much discussion and attention as Death’s End itself. Mr. Yao Haijun, Liu Cixin’s good friend, who is nicknamed “the Chinese Campbell” for his role in developing new writers as the executive editor of Science Fiction World, contacted me to ask if he could publish it as a stand-alone book. A few months later, as “Three-Body” fever continued to sweep Chinese SF fandom, more fanfiction appeared. But the brief window of opportunity was gone, and these new works did not receive nearly as much attention as mine. I knew that I was lucky.

  When I first posted my story online, I wasn’t thinking much about copyright; of course, once a formal offer of publication came from Mr. Yao, I was faced with a complicated set of issues. But Liu Cixin displayed incredible generosity and kindness toward new writers by giving me permission to publish, and I cannot express the full extent of my deep gratitude. As soon as the book came off the presses, I sent a copy to Liu Cixin. A few years later, after I’d published some original stories and become a regular member of the small circle of Chinese science fiction writers, Liu and I became friends and often met at fandom events. He told me that he enjoyed Three-Body X, and indeed, had even voted for it at Chinese science fiction awards. The book didn’t win, but Liu’s encouragement and approval were better than winning ten such awards.

  The subtitle for the paraquel, “The Redemption of Time,” and some other names in the novel have special meanings for fans, though few now probably remember the sources of the allusions. Between 2008 and 2010, while fans impatiently waited for the arrival of the last volume of the trilogy, many speculated on potential directions the plot could take and spread various rumors centered around supposed “leaks” from Liu Cixin’s draft-in-progress. Of course, all of these rumors turned out to be hoaxes, and not a single one matched the published book. But even such rumors brought eager fans some joy in imagining the conclusion of Liu Cixin’s masterpiece, and so I referenced some keywords from those rumors as a memorial to that innocent time when “Three-Body” was still a relatively obscure playground known to only the most dedicated fans.

  To be sure, my paraquel did not receive and could not have received the sort of plaudits that accompanied the “Three-Body” series proper, but it was also true that many readers enjoyed it greatly. I certainly make no claim that Th
ree-Body X constitutes a part of the “Three-Body” canon, though it was published by the same publisher as the original trilogy and sold together with Liu Cixin’s books. I view it as a dedicated fan’s attempt to explain and fill out some of the gaps in the original trilogy, one of countless possible developments of the “Three-Body” universe. Any fans of the trilogy proper could reject it as incompatible with their vision, or could enjoy it without treating it as part of the universe. I think these are all perfectly reasonable responses.

  Four years after the publication of Three-Body X, China Educational Publications Import & Export Corporation, Ltd., decided to introduce this book to Anglophone readers after the publication of the English edition of the “Three-Body” trilogy. I feel both anxiety and trepidation at this prospect. There certainly have been some notable works of fanfiction in the history of English science fiction, such as the Second Foundation trilogy, by Gregory Benford, Greg Bear, and David Brin, as well as Stephen Baxter’s epic The Time Ships, a continuation of H. G. Wells’s The Time Machine. And I haven’t even mentioned shared universes like Doctor Who and Star Trek, which have provided fertile ground for the creativity of many other authors. I don’t pretend to claim that my novel is the equal of these successful classics, but there is something that unites all of them: Great works of uncommon genius will call for us to return to their worlds again and again, enticing us to pour our passion and enthusiasm into them so that time may continue to cycle and progress, beloved characters may return to life, and the universes may continue to evolve and develop, without cease.

  —Baoshu, August 30, 2015

  CALENDAR ERAS

  Crisis Era

  201x–2208

  Deterrence Era

  2208–2270

  Post-Deterrence Era

  2270–2272

  Broadcast Era

  2272–2332

  Bunker Era

  2333–2400

  Galaxy Era

  2273–unknown

  Planet Blue Era

  2687–2731

  Timeline for Preparation of Universe 647

  2731–18906416

  Timeline for Universe 647

  18906416–11245632151

  Terminal Era

  11245632142–11245632207

  New Universe Timeline

  11245632207– …

  THE

  REDEMPTION

  OF TIME

  Prologue

  Terminal Era, Year 1, 0 hours, 0 minutes, 0 seconds, the end of the universe

  A long, long time ago, in another galaxy …

  The stars still shone brightly, the galaxy still swirled like a mighty river, and countless life-forms still hid behind each sun, divided by the vastness of space. They concealed themselves in the nooks and crannies of the galaxy, growing, developing, struggling, slaughtering; the rhythms of life and the laments of death filled this obscure galaxy just as they filled every other part of the universe.

  However, this ancient and far-flung universe was nearing the end of its own life.

  In a sphere with a radius of ten billion light-years, stars were dying at an unimaginable rate, one by one. Civilizations winked out; galaxies dimmed … and all were returning to the void, as though they had never existed.

  The countless lives in this galaxy did not know yet that all their struggles and setbacks, their concealments and slaughters, had lost meaning. Against the greater background of the universe as a whole, a terrifying, unanticipated change was about to take place. Their very existence was about to be reduced to nothingness.

  Faint photons from already dead galaxies billions of light-years away had traversed the endless darkness of space to illuminate this out-of-the-way galaxy, like letters without recipients silently recounting bygone legends of the vanished.

  One of these beams had originated in a little-noticed nook of the universe once known as “the Milky Way.” It was so faint that the eyes of the vast majority of living beings could not detect it, yet it contained innumerable legends that had once moved heaven and earth, shocked belief and understanding.

  Ye Wenjie, Mike Evans, Ding Yi, Frederick Tyler, Zhang Beihai, Bill Hines, Luo Ji, Thomas Wade …

  Red Coast Base, the Earth-Trisolaris Organization, the Wallfacer Project, the Staircase Program, the Swordholders, the Bunker Project …

  The ancient stories remained as vivid as though they had taken place yesterday; the figures of heroes and saints continued to twinkle among the constellations. But knowledge of the tales had faded, and there was no one left to mark their passing. The curtain had fallen and the players had departed from the stage; the audience had scattered to the winds; even the theater had long since fallen into ruin.

  Until—

  In the endless darkness of space, in a forgotten corner a long way from any star, a ghost appeared out of the void.

  Faint gleams of starlight limned a shape vaguely resembling a creature that had once been known as “human.” The ghost knew that for billions of light-years around this spot there were no other beings who would have recognized a human shape. Its world and species had long ago disappeared, leaving no trace behind. That species, which had once created a civilization that had lit up a galaxy, conquered billions of worlds, destroyed countless foes, and enacted magnificent epics, had submerged in the river of history, which had, in turn, melded with the ocean that was time. Now even the ocean of time was about to dry up.

  But at the end of the universe, at the moment when time was about to cease its flow, this ghost stubbornly wished to continue writing a story that was already concluded.

  Floating in darkness, the ghost extended a limb—let’s call it an arm—and spread out five fingers. A tiny silvery spot of light hung in the palm.

  The eyes of the ghost reflected the countless stars as it stared at the silvery dot, as though lost in reminiscence. The bright spot of light drifted up and down like a delicate firefly, so small that it could wink out at any moment, but also, like the singularity before the birth of the universe, embodying all possibilities. The bright dot was a minuscule wormhole connected to the great black hole at the heart of a galaxy, capable of releasing a galaxy’s worth of energy.

  After some time—no one knew how long, as there was no one around who cared to measure the passage of time—the ghost issued its order. The bright dot dissolved into a silvery thread extending into the distance like an infinite timeline. In another moment, the thread unrolled into a white plane. A third dimension appeared as the plane undulated and gained thickness, but the thickness was insignificant compared with the width and breadth: The ghost had unfurled a giant sheet of blank drawing paper, and now floated above it.

  The ghost spread its arms and glided. A light breeze followed its movements, and an atmosphere materialized out of nowhere. Beneath it, the sheet of paper seemed to react to the breeze, forming wrinkles and waves. The peaks and valleys soon solidified into mountains, hills, canyons, and plains.

  Then came fire and water. As massive explosions erupted everywhere, oxygen and hydrogen, formed out of pure energy, combined into bright flames that coalesced into a sea of fire. New water molecules generated by the reaction fused into droplets, merged into clouds and mists, and then consolidated into torrential rain that fell against the newborn earth. The endless rain flooded the plains, converting them into vast oceans.

  The ghost swept over the waters like a gigantic bird and landed on an empty beach. Stretching out its arms—one toward the waves and one toward the hills—it lifted both at once. Brontobytes of data stored inside its body came to life and, absorbing energy from the surroundings, took form; life appeared in water and on land, as though deposited there by a cyclone. Shoals of fish and pods of whales leapt out of the tides to honor their creator; patches of grass and stands of trees erupted from the soil, with beasts and creeping things wandering among them; flocks of birds large and small swept across the sky. The noise and bustle of life filled this new world, and as living things materialized, so did fo
rests, grasslands, lakes, and deserts.

  Having completed these tasks, the ghost still felt that the world lacked something important. It gazed thoughtfully into the dark sky until it realized what was missing. With a single finger, it described a circle against the dark velvet empyrean. Then, pulling the hand back, it flicked that finger, and a bright dot shot into the circle in the sky, turning it into a fiery golden orb. The familiar Sun had reappeared, or so it seemed. As sunlight refracted through the atmosphere, the whole world lit up: azure sky, clear and smooth as a mirror; cerulean sea, sparkling and shimmering.

  The ghost bathed in the new light, which had long been absent from its existence. Intoxicated, it gently lifted its head.

  This is just like that golden age long ago …

  Sunshine gleamed against his skin and hair, filling in the outline of a typical human. It was obvious now—or would have been, if anyone had been around to observe it—that the ghost was no mere spirit, but a person, a “he,” a man from that long-ago world once known as “Earth.”

  And this new world, just like the mythical Earth, beckoned to him with a sense of familiarity.

  It was a shadow cast at the end of the universe by that ancient planet, long after it had been destroyed along with the innumerable human civilizations that had once inhabited it.

  The ghost knew that, compared with the grand universe that had once existed, compared with even just the real Earth, this artificial world was tiny, inauthentic, and insignificant. He had created it anyway, so that the cosmic epic that had already concluded could go on just a bit longer. Even if his addition would not be a true continuation, wasn’t it a joy to be immersed in this virtual world for a few more moments, and to experience the dying embers of that imitation Sun, as the universe irresistibly wound down?