The Redemption of Time Read online

  “Sunset for the universe,” he muttered.

  PART I

  The Past Within Time

  Planet Blue Era, Year 2, our star, our world

  The sky was a misty, dark gray. A familiar afternoon drizzle enveloped the lake in a gentle mist. The grass at the shore dipped and swayed in the breeze, thirstily drinking the sweet raindrops. A toy boat woven from blades of grass drifted over the water, riding farther and farther from the bank on ripples spawned by the rain.

  As though it’s heading for the world’s end …

  Yun Tianming sat on the shore and aimlessly tossed pebbles into the lake, watching the ripples crisscross each other. A woman sat next to him, gazing at him without speaking. The breeze lifted strands of her long hair to brush against his cheeks, the caress arousing his desire.

  For a moment, Tianming experienced the illusion of being in another time and another place, as though he had returned to that college outing in the suburbs of Beijing with his classmates, returned to that happy afternoon he had spent by the side of Cheng Xin. But the lemon-colored water, the blue grass, and the varicolored pebbles around him reminded him that this was a different era in a different world, a planet three hundred light-years away and almost seven centuries later.

  And a different woman.

  Slanting rain, gentle breeze, no need to return home.1

  Tianming didn’t know why he’d thought of a line of Classical Chinese poetry, something that his parents, who had admired classical education so much, had forced him to memorize. He could no longer imagine going home. There was no home to return to; he could only endure the cold wind and rain on this alien planet.

  What a fool! Tianming castigated himself. Did I really think I was going to get another chance with Cheng Xin, my beloved, and make toy boats by a lake? Wake up! The very idea that he might reunite with the woman of his dreams seven centuries later was absurd. The fact that he was now sitting next to a female of the same species was already an incredible miracle.

  But a greater miracle had once been within his grasp. After being apart for seven hundred years, he could have seen that woman if only he had gotten here a few hours—even a few minutes—earlier. He could have spent the rest of his life with the woman he had been in love with for seven centuries on the shore of this lake, never again parting from her. The woman who sat next to him now, on the other hand, would have been only his wife’s best friend and married to another man.

  Even now, Cheng Xin was not so far from him, at most only a few hundred kilometers away. On clear nights, he could even see her spaceship orbiting this planet slowly. However, though he could admire her from afar, she was forever out of his reach.

  He had once given her a star. But now, because of the sudden expansion of the death line, she would never be able to land on this world. She had become his star.

  Tianming grimaced and glanced at the sky out of habit. Today, because of the rain and clouds, he could see nothing. But he knew that she was there, above the clouds, perhaps even drifting overhead at that moment …

  Tianming pulled his gaze back and realized that her eyes were still staring at him; he pretended not to notice. A pair of arms, like vines, entwined around his neck. He was readying himself to enjoy this moment of intimacy when the arms’ owner spoke, asking a question that lovers across eons and galaxies and species and sexes had all asked: “Hey, who do you like more, me or her?”

  “You, of course!”

  “But in what way?” 艾 AA refused to give up. “You have to be specific! I thought Cheng Xin—” But her question was interrupted by a kiss. Numerous similar experiences had taught Tianming the painful lesson that there was no appropriate answer under such circumstances, nor was there any need to speak.

  艾 AA gave in to the kiss, and once the kiss had ended, she did not pursue the previous line of questioning. Shyly, she bit Tianming’s earlobe; a moment later, as though unsatisfied, she bit his shoulder, hard.

  Tianming screamed and pushed her away. Hallucinations that had long been buried in his memory erupted forth, weighing down his consciousness. He had trouble breathing and could not think. He pressed his head between his hands in pain.

  “I was just playing!” Although 艾 AA’s immediate reaction was that he was being dramatic, when she saw the pallor in his face and the tremors that racked his body she realized that he was terrified, perhaps delirious. She had seen him going through such episodes from time to time. “Tianming, what’s wrong?” she asked with concern.

  Tianming stared back at her, confused and frightened, panting heavily. After a long pause, he asked, “You … are you real?”

  “What are you talking about?” Now AA was frightened. She approached him, arms open for an embrace, but Tianming backed away and gazed at her suspiciously, his body crouched defensively. He repeated his question: “Are you a real person or just a hallucination? Is this whole world a trick in my mind?”

  AA grasped the seriousness of the situation. Taking a deep breath, she spoke slowly. “I am real. Tianming, look at me. I’m standing right here in front of you. Every inch of my skin, every hair on my head—they’re all real. The planet we’re on is absolutely real. This … this is our world!”

  “Our … world?” Tianming asked.

  “Yes! Do you remember that day when we stood here waiting for Cheng Xin and Guan Yifan? We watched as their spaceship entered orbit around Planet Blue. You laughed like a child, holding my hand and telling me that you were going to surprise her, lead her into that marvelous little universe that even you had not seen. And then, all of a sudden, the death line expanded and the sky darkened; there was no more sun, no more stars. When you figured out what had happened, you just stood there like a zombie, not crying, not screaming. I didn’t understand how much you loved her until I saw the depth of your despair.”

  “I do remember,” Tianming muttered, but his expression remained far away.

  “For three days and three nights, you didn’t drink or eat and barely slept. I kept on telling you that they didn’t die; they were just living in a different frame of reference, and maybe one day you would see each other again. But you didn’t seem to hear me. Finally, on the third night, you cried. At first silently, and then weeping and sobbing, and finally howling and wailing. And I … I put my arms around you. And I heard you say to me, ‘There are only the two of us on this planet! Only the two of us!’ Do you remember what I said to you next?”

  “You said, ‘You are my Adam and I’m your Eve.’” Tianming closed his eyes, remembering.

  “I don’t know how I found the words.” 艾 AA bit her lip and blushed. “Anyway … that was how you and I became a couple. We couldn’t be free of the despair, of course, but on that day at least, we let go and … it was wonderful. The next day, you told me, ‘From now on, this is our world.’ Do you remember?”

  A smile appeared on Yun Tianming’s face, perhaps without him even realizing it. “Yes, of course.”

  “Then how can all of that be unreal?” AA asked.

  Smiling encouragingly, she took a step toward Tianming. This time, he did not back away. She picked up his hands and wrapped his arms around herself as she hugged him, pressing her ear against his chest to listen to his heartbeat. Still confused, Tianming looked into the distance, allowing her to cling to him. Gently, she kissed his face, and gradually, hesitantly, Tianming returned her embrace. His gaze warmed and he returned her kiss, which she returned with even more ardor …

  Tianming received the most primitive and most authentic proof of the reality of the universe.

  *

  The rain had stopped some time ago, and the blue grass swayed in the evening breeze. The light of dusk pierced the clouds and painted a golden edge on the azure hills.

  What happened next would have been unimaginable on Earth: The blue trees and shrubs of the forest came to life. They stretched as they woke, turning hundreds of thousands of leaves toward the warmth of the setting sun, absorbing every drop of energy. A f
ew branches, fighting for more light, shoved and jostled against each other, filling the air with a susurrating noise. Dragonfly-like amphibious insects took off from the lake and danced in the air, spreading their four transparent wings to absorb the nutrients released by the blue grass and singing in high-pitched chirps to attract mates. Insects of the opposite sex responded with their own songs, and then, pairs began the complicated mating dance above the lake, enacting the sacred ritual that allowed life to multiply and continue … all these sounds fused into one composition, Planet Blue’s unique cantata of life.

  At the heart of this new black domain, life seemed to go on as before, except for the intrusion of two wanderers from afar. They clung to each other, and they would remain on this world forever. But to this planet that had already existed for billions of years and would continue to exist for billions more, the pair were nothing—they would disappear in a flash, leaving no trace behind, like the ripples passing over the surface of the lake.

  Gazing at the setting sun, Yun Tianming spoke softly. “I’d already thought of this world as a dream. AA, forgive me for my behavior earlier. Even now, I still can’t tell if I’m truly awake. I can no longer tell when a dream starts or when it ends. All of this … seems to have no end.”

  “No end? What do you mean?” asked AA.

  “How old are you now?” Tianming asked.

  “I can’t remember. At least four hundred,” said AA.

  “What if you don’t count the years you were in hibernation?”

  “I guess twenty … thirty something? I really can’t remember,” AA said.

  “By the standards of the Deterrence Era, you’re still very young. But do you know how old I am?”

  “A smidgen over seven hundred, I’d say. But if you don’t count the years of hibernation I don’t think you’re much older than I am.”

  “No.” As he spoke, Yun Tianming’s eyes seemed ancient. “My mind is at least several thousand years old, maybe even tens of thousands.”

  艾 AA found this incomprehensible. But instead of asking more questions, she listened.

  With a grimace, Tianming explained, “I know it’s hard to believe. Here’s the difference between the two of us: I spent the vast majority of my life in a dream, a dream that lasted tens of thousands of years.

  “From the first year of the Crisis Era, from the moment I—no, my brain—was frozen, I began to dream. Endless dreams filled my time as I drifted in the abyss of space. In retrospect, I’m sure much of that was false memory constructed later by my mind, since a brain kept near absolute zero could not possibly generate dreams … And then, once the Trisolarans captured me, they seized on dreams as their most potent weapon and employed them to stimulate me, to study me … to use me.”

  Tianming kept his voice calm, as though describing a stroll by the lake. But AA shivered. She knew, without needing Tianming to elaborate, that he had elided an unimaginable amount of suffering, pain, and terror.

  艾 AA and Yun Tianming had been living together for a year on Planet Blue, since the day of the death line’s expansion.2 They depended on each other and supported each other, and during this time, Tianming had suffered similar bouts of delirium multiple times. Tianming had never explained, and AA had never pried, though she suspected that it had something to do with his experience among the Trisolarans.

  AA understood that Tianming was the greatest spy in the history of the human race. Embodied in an isolated brain, he managed to infiltrate an alien species and gave humans invaluable intelligence. Knowing that such success could not have been achieved without paying a dear price, she could imagine the extent of the bloody, cruel tortures the Trisolarans inflicted on Tianming, and she yearned to understand the truth, to have Tianming share with her the weight of his past suffering and pain, to comfort him. But she dared not ask him lest the questions rip the scabs off his wounds. Sometimes she even wondered whether the fragile bonds of love between them could truly heal the aftereffects of his painful ordeal.

  And so, today, as Tianming seemed finally ready to unburden himself, a bittersweet joy filled her heart.

  “Just now, I couldn’t help but remember those nightmares.” Tianming fidgeted with the pebbles at his feet. “In many of those Trisolaran-manufactured dreams, I was back at that college outing, sitting next to Cheng Xin, conversing intimately. Then she would pull me to her, kiss me, engulf me in indescribable sweetness and happiness … and then, abruptly, she would turn into a terrible monster, her skin covered in scales, her red lips revealing sharp fangs, and she would lock her jaws around my throat and drag me into the bottomless lake, there to drown in frigid terror.”

  “How horrible!” AA cried out.

  “Horrible?” Tianming let out a laugh that sounded more like a sob. “I haven’t even gotten to the truly horrible parts. Many have suffered nightmares far worse than this. But what distinguished my dreams was their level of detail. I can still vividly recall the sharp teeth that penetrated my body and the soulless compound eyes that stared into mine. The sensations of agony and suffocation are indistinguishable from reality. That’s not all; my nightmares never ended. I couldn’t breathe in the lake, but I didn’t wake up nor did I black out, and I certainly couldn’t die. Time stopped, and the pain went on and on.

  “My consciousness flickered in and out of focus. One moment I understood it was a hallucination, but the next I had forgotten, struggling helplessly as the monster continued to devour me …”

  Tianming’s voice grew faint, as though he were talking in his sleep. “In those moments, I held on to the memory of one person. Like Dante’s Beatrice, she appeared in the clouds, surrounded by angels, a crown woven from flowers on her head, flames wrapped about her body like a dress. That holy light pierced the dark water of the lake, giving me a ray of hope. I told myself, ‘Cheng Xin is not a monster; she is a goddess who will bring me salvation. I won’t be deceived. This is just the devil playing tricks on me …’ But the world isn’t governed by fairy tales. Just because I called out to my goddess didn’t mean that she would come to save me. Thinking of Cheng Xin and holding on to that slender thread of hope did not bring me relief; instead, it ripped my heart apart.”

  “Stop,” AA said, caressing his stubbly cheeks lovingly. “I understand. Forget about those nightmares. They were only dreams, and long in the past.”

  “No, you don’t understand anything at all!” Tianming pushed her hand away and stood up, agitated. “These weren’t ‘dreams’ at all. Don’t you get it? The Trisolarans stimulated my neurons with electrical signals. For me, these signals were reality, as real as seeing you, touching you now. There’s no difference at the level of neural activity. They injected those nightmares into my brain and made them real by taking advantage of biological mechanisms to which I had no defense. I wasn’t fighting illusions with reality; instead, I was making illusions to fight reality—a battle that I couldn’t win.

  “What use was it for me to conjure Cheng Xin? In response to my pleas, my tormentors could make her show up in my mind, giving me hope that a miracle had occurred, that salvation was at hand. But then they would turn the visitation into an even worse hell, one a thousand times worse than the one I had just suffered.

  “In one dream, I lived together with Cheng Xin for ten years, and we even had a wonderful little daughter. But those ten years of joy and tranquility were but a prelude for the inferno to follow: A great famine struck the land, and all of us were so emaciated we were barely more than skin and bones, close to dying. Yet one day, somehow Cheng Xin made a pot of meat stew for me. I was baffled; where did we get the meat? After eating some, I discovered a clump of hair and a patch of skin in a corner of the kitchen. I was shocked. Cheng Xin then lifted something out of the pot for me with a ladle—it was round and fleshy, boiled for so long that it was almost falling apart … I recognized it as the head of my daughter. Smiling, Cheng Xin said to me, ‘Delicious, isn’t it? Have some more!’”

  “Ah!” AA grabbed Tianming’s arm
, utterly nauseated. She could not imagine living through such a nightmare.

  But Tianming continued to explain, almost cruelly, “The worst part was that even though I wanted to throw up and I was racked with grief and terror, my hunger seemed to have a mind of its own. I couldn’t help it. Mouthful by mouthful, I ate my daughter, until I was so full that I burped. Once satiated, Cheng Xin and I even made love next to my daughter’s bones before falling asleep.

  “When I woke up, I found myself tightly bound and unable to move. Cheng Xin knelt down next to me and explained that she had to eat me to survive. As I watched in horror, she bit into my arm, tore off a piece of flesh with her teeth, chewed, and swallowed. She continued until all the flesh had been picked off the bones—”

  AA could not stand it anymore. “Stop! Stop it! I beg you!” She turned around and retched, and her mouth filled with the foul taste of acid.

  When she had recovered, she asked, “But why? Why did the Trisolarans torture you with such grotesque visions?”

  “To understand humanity,” Tianming answered. “If you think about it, it’s not strange at all. Although the sophons helped them keep everything happening on Earth under surveillance, they couldn’t understand our emotional responses or physical reactions without experimentation. The nightmare I just described to you wouldn’t have struck the Trisolarans as a tragedy since they operated according to a moral code completely alien to us. They often consumed the flesh of other dehydrated Trisolarans, and so they were baffled by the human revulsion against cannibalism. I can tell you stories that are far more disgusting. For example—”

  “Why don’t we save such unpleasant stories for another time?” AA interrupted. She finally understood why Tianming never mentioned his experiences among the Trisolarans. “No matter what, Tianming, you have to remember this: You survived those trials and won their trust and respect; you inserted yourself into the heart of an alien society. Your sacrifices were worth it.”