Death's End

“Oh, please!” said the receptionist. She stuck her tongue out at Dr. He. “Rich? Even if you had thirty billion yuan, would you buy a star for your girlfriend? Ha! I haven’t forgotten what you said two days ago.”

Dr. He looked rather embarrassed. In fact, he was worried that she was going to blurt out his opinion of the Stars Our Destination Project: This trick the UN is pulling was already tried by a bunch of scammers more than ten years ago. Back then they sold land on the moon and Mars. It would be a miracle if anyone falls for it again!

Fortunately, the receptionist went on in a different vein. “This isn’t just about money. It’s about romance. Romance! Do you even understand?”

Throughout Tianming’s purchasing process, the young woman had stolen glances at him from time to time, as though he were a figure from a fairy tale. Her expression had at first been curious, then awed and admiring. Finally, as the leather folder containing the deed to the star was handed over, her face filled with envy.

Dr. He tried to change the subject. “We’ll send the formal documents to the recipient as soon as possible. Based on your instructions, we won’t reveal any information about you. Well, even if we wanted to, we can’t—look, I don’t even know your name!” He stood up and looked out the window. It was already dark. “Next, I can bring you to see your star—sorry, I meant the star you bought for her.”

“Can we see it from the top of the building?”

“No. There’s too much light pollution inside the city. We have to go far into the suburbs. If you aren’t feeling well, we can pick another day.”

“Let’s go now. I really want to see it.”

They drove for more than two hours, until the glowing sea that was Beijing was far behind them. To avoid the lamps of passing cars, Dr. He drove off the road into a field. Then he turned off the headlights and they got out of the car. In the late-autumn sky, the stars were especially bright.

“You see the Big Dipper? Imagine a diagonal across the quadrilateral formed by the four stars, and extend it. That’s right, in that direction. Can you see those three stars that form a flat triangle? Draw a line from the apex, perpendicular to the base, and keep extending it. Can you see it? Right there. That’s your star—the star you gave her.”

Tianming pointed to two stars in succession, but Dr. He said neither was right. “It’s between those two, but a bit to the south. The apparent magnitude is five point five. Normally, you have to be trained to find it. But the weather tonight is ideal, so you should be able to see it. Try this: Don’t look for it directly; move your gaze a bit to the side. Your peripheral vision tends to be more sensitive to faint light. After you find it, then you can move your gaze back….”

With Dr. He’s help, Tianming finally saw DX3906. It was very faint, and he had to find it again it each time his attention wavered. Although people commonly thought of the stars as silvery, careful observation revealed that they each had different colors. DX3906 was dark red.

Dr. He promised to give him some materials to help Tianming find the star in different seasons. “You are lucky, as lucky as the girl who received your gift,” said Dr. He.

“I don’t think I’d call myself fortunate. I’m about to die.”

Dr. He seemed unsurprised by this revelation. He lit a cigarette and smoked it in silence. After a while, he said, “Even so, I think you’re blessed. Most people don’t cast a glance at the universe beyond the world we live in until the day they die.”

Tianming looked at Dr. He for a moment, then he looked back into the sky and found DX3906 easily. The smoke from Dr. He’s cigarette drifted before his eyes, and the faint star flickered through the veil. By the time she sees it, I’ll be gone from this world.

Of course, the star he saw and the star she would see were only an image from 286 years ago. The faint beam of light had to cross three centuries to meet their retinas. Another 286 years would have to pass before the light from the star at this moment would reach the Earth. By then, Cheng Xin would long have turned to dust.

What will her life be like? Maybe she’ll remember that in the sea of stars, there’s one that belongs to her.

—————

This would be Tianming’s last day.

He wanted to note something special about it, but there was nothing. He woke up at seven, as usual; a shaft of sunlight fell against its habitual spot on the wall; the weather was not great, but also not too bad; the sky was the same grayish blue; the oak tree in front of the window was bare (instead of, say, hanging on to a lone, symbolic leaf ). Even his breakfast was the same.