The Three-Body Problem

Da Shi picked up a pen and drew two parallel curves on the table. “That’s the canal.” He put the ashtray between the two lines. “This is Judgment Day.” Then he reached across the table and pulled Colonel Stanton’s just-lit cigar out of his mouth.

“I can no longer tolerate this idiot!” the colonel shouted, standing up.

“Da Shi, get out of here!” General Chang said.

“Give me one minute. I’ll be done soon.” Da Shi extended a hand in front of Colonel Stanton.

“What do you want?” the colonel asked, puzzled.

“Give me another one.”

Stanton hesitated for a second before taking another cigar out of a beautiful wooden box and handing it to Da Shi. Da Shi took the smoking end of the first cigar and pressed it against the table so that it stood on the shore of the Panama Canal that he’d drawn on the table. He flattened the end of the other cigar and erected it on the other shore of the canal.

“We set up two pillars on the shores of the canal, and then between them we string many parallel, thin filaments, about half a meter apart. The filaments should be made from the nanomaterial called ‘Flying Blade,’ developed by Professor Wang. A very appropriate name, in this case.”

After Shi Qiang finished speaking, he stood and waited a few seconds. Then he raised his hands, said to the stunned crowd, “That’s it,” turned, and left.

The air seemed frozen. Everyone present stayed still like stone statues. Even the droning from the computers all around them seemed more careful.

After a long while, someone timidly broke the silence, “Professor Wang, is ‘Flying Blade’ really in the form of filaments?”

Wang nodded. “Given our current molecular construction technique, the only form we can make is a filament. The thickness is about one-hundredth the thickness of human hair.… Officer Shi got this information from me before the meeting.”

“Do you have enough material?”

“How wide is the canal? And how tall is the ship?”

“The narrowest point of the canal is one hundred fifty meters wide. Judgment Day is thirty-one meters tall, with a draft of eight meters or so.”

Wang stared at the cigars on the table and did some mental calculations. “I think I should have enough.”

Another long silence. Everyone was trying to recover from their astonishment.

“What if the equipment storing Trisolaran data, such as hard drives and optical disks, is also sliced?”

“That doesn’t seem likely.”

“Even if they were sliced,” a computer expert said, “it’s not a big deal. The filaments are extremely sharp, and the cut surfaces would be very smooth. Given that premise, whether it’s hard drives, optical disks, or integrated circuit storage, we could recover the vast majority of the data.”

“Anyone got a better idea?” Chang looked around the table. No one spoke. “All right. Then let’s focus on this and work out the details.”

Colonel Stanton, who had been silent the whole time, stood up. “I will go and ask Officer Shi to come back.”

General Chang indicated that he should remain seated. Then he called out, “Da Shi!”

Da Shi returned, grinning at everyone. He picked up the cigars on the table. The one that had been lit he put into his mouth, and the other he stuffed into his pocket.

Someone asked, “When Judgment Day passes, can those two pillars bear the force applied against the Flying Blade filaments? Maybe the pillars would be sliced apart first.”

Wang said, “That’s easy to solve. We have some small amounts of Flying Blade material that are flat sheets. We can use them to protect the parts of the column where the filaments are attached.”

The discussion after that was mainly between the naval officers and navigation experts.

“Judgment Day is at the upper limit in terms of tonnage that can pass through the Panama Canal. It has a deep draft, so we have to consider installing filaments below the waterline.”

“That will be very difficult. If there’s not enough time, I don’t think we should worry about it. The parts of the ship below the waterline are used for engines, fuel, and ballast, causing a lot of noise, vibration, and interference. The conditions are too poor for computing centers and other similar facilities to be located there. But for the parts above water, a tighter nanofilament net will give better results.”

“Then it’s best to set the trap at one of the locks along the canal. Judgment Day is built to Panamax specifications, just enough to fill the thirty-two-meter locks. Then we would only need to make the Flying Blade filaments thirty-two meters long. This will also make it easier to erect the pillars and string the filaments between them, especially for the underwater parts.”

“No. The situation around the locks is too unpredictable. Also, a ship inside the lock must be pulled forward by four ‘mules,’ electric locomotives on rails. They move slowly, and the time inside the locks will also be when the crew is most alert. An attempt to slice through the ship during that time would most likely be discovered.”