Death's End

But the Trisolar Crisis changed everything. In a single night, the paradise of the future turned into a hell on Earth. Even for terminal patients, the future no longer appealed: By the time they woke up, perhaps the world would be bathed in a sea of fire, and they wouldn’t even be able to find an aspirin.

Thus, after the Crisis, hibernation was allowed to develop without constraints. Soon, the technology became commercially viable, and the human race possessed the first tool that allowed them to traverse large swaths of time.

Crisis Era, Years 1–4 Cheng Xin

Cheng Xin went to Sanya on Hainan Island to research hibernation.

This tropical island seemed an incongruous site for the largest hibernation research center, which was operated by the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences. While it was the middle of winter on the mainland, spring ruled here.

The hibernation center was a white building hidden behind lush vegetation. About a dozen test subjects inside engaged in experimental, short-term hibernation. So far, no one had been put into hibernation with the intent of crossing the centuries.

Cheng Xin first asked whether it was possible to shrink the equipment necessary to support hibernation down to one hundred kilograms.

The director of the research center laughed. “One hundred kilograms? You’d be lucky getting it down to one hundred metric tons!”

The director was exaggerating, but only slightly. He showed Cheng Xin around the center, and Cheng Xin learned that artificial hibernation didn’t exactly match its public image. For one thing, it didn’t involve ultra-low temperatures. The procedure replaced the blood in the body with an antifreeze cryoprotectant, then brought the body temperature down to minus-fifty-degrees Celsius. Relying on an external cardiopulmonary bypass system, the body’s organs maintained an extremely low level of biological activity. “It’s like standby mode on a computer,” said the director. The entire system—hibernation tank, life-support system, cooling equipment—weighed about three metric tons.

As Cheng Xin discussed possible ways to miniaturize the hibernation setup with the center’s technical staff, she was startled by a realization: If the body’s temperature must be maintained around minus-fifty-degrees Celsius, then in the frigid conditions of outer space, the hibernation chamber needed to be heated, not cooled. In the long journey through trans-Neptunian space in particular, outside temperature would be close to absolute zero. In contrast, minus-fifty-degrees Celsius was like the inside of a furnace. Considering that the journey would take one to two centuries, the most practicable solution was radioisotope heating. The director’s claim of one hundred metric tons was thus not too far from the truth.

Cheng Xin returned to PIA Headquarters and gave her report. After synthesizing all relevant research results, the staff again sank into depression. But this time, they gazed at Wade with hope.

“What are you all looking at? I’m not God!” Wade surveyed the conference room. “Why do you think your countries sent you here? To collect a paycheck and to give me bad news? I don’t have a solution. Finding a solution is your job!” He kicked the leg of the conference table, and his chair slid back farther than ever. Ignoring the conference room’s non-smoking rule, he lit up a cigar.

The attendees turned their attention back to the new hibernation experts in the room. None of them said anything, but they made no effort to disguise the anger and frustration of professionals faced with ignorant zealots who were asking for the impossible.

“Maybe…” Cheng Xin looked around hesitantly. She was still unused to MD.

“Advance! We stop at nothing to advance!” Wade spewed smoke at her along with the words.

“Maybe… we don’t need to send a live person.”

The rest of the team looked at her, looked at each other, and then turned to the hibernation experts. They shook their heads, uncertain what Cheng Xin meant.

“We could flash-freeze a person to minus-two-hundred-degrees Celsius or below, then launch the body. We wouldn’t need life support or heating systems, and the capsule holding the body could be made very small and light. The total mass should not exceed one hundred and ten kilograms. For us, such a body is a corpse, but that may not be the case for Trisolarans.”

“Very good,” Wade said, and nodded at her. This was the first time he had praised one of his staff since she had known him.