Death's End

Before the two crews, the senior officers of the two ships were mixed together. Captain Chu Yan of Blue Space drew the most attention. He was forty-three, but looked younger, and he was the model of the scholarly military officer. Refined and calm in his speech and mannerisms, he even gave off a hint of shyness. But on Earth, Chu Yan was already a figure of legend. During the dark battles, he was the one who had given the order to turn the interior of Blue Space into a vacuum, thereby preventing the crew from death in the infrasonic nuclear bomb attack. Even now, public opinion on Earth remained divided as to whether Blue Space’s actions during the dark battle should be classified as self-defense or murder. After the founding of dark forest deterrence, he was the one who had resisted the heavy pressure of majority opinion aboard and delayed Blue Space’s return, thus giving the ship sufficient time to escape after the warning from Bronze Age. There were many other rumors concerning Chu Yan. For instance, when Natural Selection had chosen to defect and escape the Doomsday Battle, he was the only captain to ask to give chase. Some claimed that he had a different purpose in mind, wanting to hijack Blue Space and escape along with Natural Selection. Of course, those were just rumors.

“Almost everyone from the two ships is gathered here,” said Chu Yan. “Although much still divides us, we prefer to think of everyone as belonging to the same world, formed from Blue Space and Gravity. Before we plan the future of our world together, we need to take care of an urgent matter.”

A large holographic display window appeared midair, showing somewhere in space where the stars were sparse. In the middle of the region was a faint white fog, and the fog was etched with several hundred straight parallel lines, like brush bristles. The white lines had clearly been enhanced and stood out in the image. In the past two centuries, these “brushes” had become very familiar to people, and some brands even used them in their logos.

“These trails were observed eight days ago in the stellar dust cloud near Trisolaris. Please pay attention to the video.”

Everyone stared at the image, and the trails could be seen to grow in the fog.

“How many times have you sped up the video?” an officer from Gravity asked.

“It’s not sped up at all.”

The crowd grew agitated, like a forest struck by a sudden rainstorm.

“By a rough estimate… these ships are moving at close to the speed of light,” Captain Morovich of Gravity said. His voice was very tranquil. He had experienced too many incredible sights in the last two days.

“That’s right. The Second Trisolaran Fleet is heading for Earth at lightspeed, and should arrive in four years.” Chu Yan looked at Gravity’s crew with caring eyes, as though sorry that he had to deliver this news. “After you left, the Earth sank into a dream of universal peace and prosperity, and completely misjudged the situation. Trisolaris has been waiting patiently, and now they’ve finally seized their chance.”

“How do we know this is authentic?” someone from Gravity called out.

“I can attest to it!” said Guan Yifan. Among the small gathering in front of the crews, he was the only one not in a military uniform. “My observatory had also detected the same trails. However, since I was focused on large-scale cosmological observations, I didn’t pay much attention to them. But I’ve gone back and retrieved the recorded data. The Solar System, the Trisolaran system, and our ships form a scalene triangle. The side between the Solar System and the Trisolaran system is the longest. The side between the Solar System and us is the shortest. The side going from the Trisolaran system to us is in between. In other words, we are closer to the Trisolaran system than the Solar System is to the Trisolaran system. About forty days from now, the Earth will also detect the trails we’re seeing.”

Chu Yan took over. “We believe that something has already taken place on the Earth. More specifically, it happened about five hours ago, when the droplets attacked our two ships. Based on information provided by Gravity, that was the scheduled time for the Swordholder to transfer his authority to his successor. This was the opportunity Trisolaris had been waiting for for half a century. The two droplets had clearly been given orders before entering the blind zone. This was a long-planned, coordinated attack.

“I must conclude that the peace brought by dark forest deterrence has been breached. There are only two possibilities: The gravitational wave universal broadcast has been initiated, or it hasn’t.”