The Three-Body Problem

“Don’t mind him. That’s just the way Chief Yang is.” Commissar Lei chuckled and shook his head. Then he stared at Ye and his tone became solemn. “Wenjie, when we first brought you to the base, the goal was simple. Red Coast’s monitoring systems often had interference caused by electromagnetic radiation from solar flares and sunspots. Fortuitously, we saw your paper and realized that you had researched solar activity. Among Chinese scholars, your predictive model turned out to be the most accurate, so we wanted to ask for your help in solving this problem.

“But after you came, you showed very strong abilities, so we decided to give you more responsibilities. My thought was this: assign you first to the Transmission Department, then the Monitoring Department. This way, you’d gain a comprehensive understanding of Red Coast as a whole and we could wait and see where to assign you after that.

“Of course, as you can see, this plan has met with some resistance. But I have trust in you, Wenjie. Let me be clear: Until now, the trust placed in you has been mine, personally. I hope that you can continue to work hard and earn the trust of the organization as a whole.”

Commissar Lei placed a hand on Ye’s shoulder. She felt the warmth and strength conveyed through it. “Wenjie, let me tell you my sincere hope: One day, I’d like to call you Comrade Ye.”

Lei stood up and strode away in the confident manner of a soldier. Ye’s eyes were filled with tears. Seen through them, the code on the screen became flickering flames. This was the first time she had cried since the death of her father.

As Ye familiarized herself with the work of the Monitoring Department, she discovered that she was far less successful here than at the Transmission Department. The computer science knowledge she had was outdated, and she had to learn the software techniques from scratch. Even though Commissar Lei trusted her, the restrictions on her were severe. She was allowed to view the software source code, for example, but was forbidden from touching the database.

On a day-to-day basis, Ye was mainly supervised by Yang. He became even ruder to her, and would get angry at her for the smallest things. Commissar Lei talked to him about it multiple times without effect. It seemed that Yang became filled with a nameless anxiety as soon as he saw Ye.

Gradually, as Ye encountered more and more unexplainable matters in her work, she came to realize that the Red Coast Project was far more complex than she had imagined.

One day, the monitoring system intercepted a transmission that, after being deciphered by the computer, turned out to be a few satellite photographs. The blurry images were sent to the General Staff Department’s Surveying and Mapping Bureau for interpretation. They turned out to be images of important military targets in China, including the naval harbor at Qingdao and several key factories of the Third Front program.26 Analysis confirmed that these images came from the KH-9 American reconnaissance system.

The first KH-9 satellite had just been launched. Although it mainly relied on recoverable film capsules for intelligence gathering, it was also being used to test out the more advanced technique of radio transmission of digital images. Due to the technology’s immaturity, the satellite transmitted at a low frequency, which increased its range of reception sufficiently for it to be intercepted by Red Coast. And because it was only a test, the encryption was not very secure and could be broken.

The KH-9 was without a doubt an important monitoring target, as it presented a rare opportunity to gather more information about American satellite reconnaissance systems. Yet, after the third day, Yang Weining ordered a change in the frequency and direction of monitoring and abandoned the target. Ye found the decision incomprehensible.

Another event also shocked her. Even though she was now in the Monitoring Department, sometimes the Transmission Department still needed her. One time, she accidentally saw the frequency settings for a few upcoming transmissions. She discovered that the designated frequencies for transmissions 304, 318, and 325 were lower than microwave range and could not result in any heating effect in the target.

One day, an officer summoned Ye to the main base administrative office out of the blue. From the officer’s tone and expression, Ye knew that something had gone wrong.

As she walked into the office, the scene before her seemed familiar: All the senior officers of the base were present, along with two officers she didn’t know. However, she could tell at a glance that they were from higher up in the chain of command.

Everyone’s icy stares focused on her, but the sensitivity she had developed over the stormy years informed her that she wasn’t the one in big trouble today. She was at most a sideshow. She saw Commissar Lei sitting in a corner with a dejected look.