The Dark Forest (9 page)

“Think some more,” his father said.

Fine, Dad. You’ve given me an answer. They’ve told me quite a lot, those three words, more than could be said in thirty thousand. Believe me, I’m listening to them with my whole heart, but I still need you to be clearer, because this is far too important.

“And after I’ve thought?” Zhang Beihai asked, gripping the bedsheet with both hands. His palms and forehead were laced with sweat.

Dad, forgive me. If I disappointed you the last time, then let me go further, go back to being a kid once more.

“Beihai, all I can say is to think long and hard first,” his father replied.

Thank you, Dad. You’ve made it very clear, and I understand.

Zhang Beihai let go of the sheet and grasped his father’s bony hand. “Dad, I’m not going to sea anymore. I’ll come and see you all the time.”

His father smiled but shook his head: “This isn’t anything serious. Concentrate on your work.”

They spoke for a while longer, first of family matters, and then about the establishment of the space force, with his father contributing lots of ideas of his own, including advice for Zhang Beihai’s future work. They imagined the shape and size of space battleships, debated the weaponry of space warfare, and even whether Mahan’s theory of sea power applied to space battles.…

But there was little significance in their conversation, just father and son taking a verbal stroll together. The significance was in the three lines their hearts exchanged:

“Think some more.”

“And after I’ve thought?”

“Beihai, all I can say is to think long and hard first.”

Zhang Beihai said good-bye to his father. As he was leaving the room, he turned back at the door to look at him, shrouded in shadow now that the light of the setting sun had departed. His eyes pierced the shadows and noticed one last scrap of illumination on the wall opposite. Although it was about to fade, this was the time when the setting sun was at its most beautiful. The last rays of sunlight shone, too, on the waves that rolled endlessly on the angry ocean and in shafts of light that pierced the jumbled clouds in the west and cast enormous golden bands on the water’s surface like petals fallen from heaven. Beyond the petals, dark clouds loomed over a world black as night as a thunderstorm hung between heaven and earth like the curtain of the gods, and only periodic lightning lit the snowlike spray thrown up by the waves. In one golden band, a destroyer struggled to lift its prow from the trough, and then broke through the wall of the wave with a thunderous crash, the spray greedily absorbing the light like a giant roc stretching enormous glittering wings to the sky.

Zhang Beihai put on his cap, which bore the insignia of the Chinese Space Force. He said to himself,
Dad, we think alike. This is my good fortune. I won’t bring you glory, but I’ll give you rest.

*   *   *

“Mr. Luo, please change into this,” said the young man, who knelt down to open a suitcase upon entering the room. Though the man seemed entirely polite, Luo Ji couldn’t shake a certain discomfort, like he had swallowed a fly. But when he saw the clothing the man took out, he realized that he wouldn’t be wearing a convict’s uniform: It looked like an ordinary brown jacket. He took it and inspected the thick material. Shi Qiang and the young man put on similar jackets in different colors.

“Put it on. It’s comfortable and it breathes. Not like the old stuff we used to wear, which was sticky as hell,” Shi Qiang said.

“Bulletproof,” the young man said.

Who would want to kill me?
Luo Ji thought as he changed jackets.

The three of them left the room and followed the corridor to the elevator. The ceiling was lined with rectangular metal ductwork and they passed several heavy, sealed doorways. Luo Ji noticed a faint slogan on one of the mottled walls. Only part of it was visible, but he knew the whole slogan: “Dig deep tunnels, keep vast stores of grain, don’t seek hegemony.”
8

“Civil Air Defense?” he asked.

“Not the ordinary kind. Defense against the atom bomb, but it’s obsolete now. Back in the day, you had to be someone special to get in here.”

“So we’re at … the Western Hills?” Luo Ji asked, but Shi Qiang and the young man did not reply. Luo Ji had heard stories about the secret command center. They entered the old-style elevator and began to ascend immediately, accompanied by a tremendous scraping. The operator was a People’s Armed Police soldier armed with a submachine gun. This seemed to be his first time at this job, and he had to fiddle with the controls a bit before the elevator finally stopped at floor -1.

Exiting the elevator, Luo Ji saw that they were in a large hall with a low ceiling, like an underground parking garage. A number of different cars were parked here, some of them with engines on, filling the air with noxious exhaust. People were standing beside the lines of cars or walking among them. With only one light in a distant corner turned on, the place was dim and the people dark shadows. Only when they passed the lamplight did Luo Ji see that they were fully armed soldiers. Some were shouting into radios, trying to be heard over the engine noise. Their voices sounded tense.

Shi Qiang led Luo Ji through the two lines of cars, with the young man close behind. The lamplight and red taillights shining though the gaps in the cars cast an ever-changing pattern of color on Shi Qiang’s body and reminded Luo Ji of the dim bar where he had met the woman.

Shi Qiang led Luo Ji to one car, opened the door, and had him get in. The car was roomy, but the edges of its abnormally tiny windows revealed the thickness of the car’s body. A reinforced vehicle with tinted glass in its small windows, probably as an antibomb measure. The car door was ajar, and Luo Ji could hear Shi Qiang and the young man talking.

“Captain Shi, they called just now to say they’ve been over the route. All guard positions have been set up.”

“The route is too complicated. We’ve only been able to do a couple of quick runs through the whole thing. Not enough for comfort. And about the guard positions—it’s like I said, you’ve got to think like them. If you were on their side, where would you be hiding? Consult with the experts from the People’s Armed Police again. Hey, what’s the plan for the handoff?”

“They didn’t say.”

Shi Qiang raised his voice. “Morons. They can’t leave such an important part up in the air.”

“Captain Shi, it looks like the brass want us to follow along the entire way.”

“I can follow along my entire life, but since there’s got to be a handoff once we’re there, there needs to be a clear demarcation of responsibilities. There’s got to be a line. Anything that happens before it is on us, and afterward on them.”

“They didn’t say…” The young man sounded uncomfortable.

“Zheng, I know you’ve been feeling sorry for yourself since Chang Weisi got promoted. Hell, it’s like we don’t even exist to his former subordinates. But we should have some self-respect. Who the fuck are they? Have they been under fire, or have they ever fired at anyone? That crew used so many high-tech tricks in the last operation it was like a circus. They even brought out the airborne early warning system. But in the end, who did they use to find the meeting place? Us. That won us some cred. Zheng, it took a lot of convincing to get the lot of you over here, but I wonder if that might not end up causing you harm.”

“Captain Shi, don’t say that.”

“It’s a troubled world. Do you get that? Morality isn’t what it used to be. Everyone foists their bad luck off onto other people, so you’ve got to be on your guard.… I’m going on like this because I’m worried about how long I’m going to last. I’m afraid that all of it’s going to land in your lap.”

“Captain Shi, you’ve really got to think about your illness. Didn’t the higher-ups schedule you for hibernation?”

“I’ve got to get lots of things taken care of first. Family, work. And do you think I’m not worried about the lot of you here?”

“Don’t worry about us. With your condition, you can’t put it off. Your teeth were bleeding out again this morning.”

“That’s nothing. I’ve got good luck. You should know. Three of the guns I’ve been shot at with were duds.”

The cars at one end of the hall were beginning to pull out. Shi Qiang got in and closed the door, and when the neighboring car started to move, their car followed. Shi Qiang pulled the curtains closed on either side, and the opaque divider between the back and front seats totally obscured Luo Ji’s view of the outside. As they rode, Shi Qiang’s radio chirped endlessly, but Luo Ji couldn’t make out the comments Shi Qiang was replying to in clipped sentences.

When they had ridden a short way, Luo Ji said to Shi Qiang, “Things are more complicated than you said.”

“That’s right. Everything’s complicated now,” Shi Qiang said perfunctorily, his attention still focused on the radio. They spoke no more for the rest of the trip.

The ride was smooth and unbroken, and after about an hour they came to a stop.

When Shi Qiang got out of the car, he motioned to Luo Ji to wait inside, and then closed the door. Luo Ji heard a rumbling that seemed to come from above the vehicle. After a few minutes, Shi Qiang opened the door again and had Luo Ji get out, at which point he realized they were at an airport. The rumbling had turned thunderous. He looked up to see two helicopters hovering overhead, oriented in opposite directions like they were monitoring the open area. In front of him was a large aircraft that looked like a passenger plane, except that there was no insignia on any part he could see. An airstair stood in front of the car door, and Shi Qiang and Luo Ji took it up to the aircraft. When Luo Ji glanced back out the door after they entered, the first thing that caught his eye were the fighter jets lined up on a distant apron, which informed him that this wasn’t a civilian airport. Closer in, he saw the cars from their convoy and the soldiers that had exited their vehicles in a ring around the plane. The sun was setting, casting a long shadow down the runway ahead of the plane, like a giant exclamation point.

Luo Ji and Shi Qiang entered the cabin. Three men in black suits welcomed them and took them past the forward cabin, which was totally empty but resembled a passenger plane with four rows of seats. In the middle cabin, Luo Ji saw a fairly spacious office, and another suite through whose half-open door he glimpsed a bedroom. The furnishings were unremarkable but neat and orderly, and apart from the green safety belts on the sofa and chairs you wouldn’t have known you were on a plane. Luo Ji knew that there were very few charter planes of this kind in the country.

Two of the three men who led them in vanished through a door to the rear cabin, leaving behind the youngest one, who said, “You can sit anywhere you like, but you need to buckle up, not just on takeoff and landing but throughout the entire flight. If you sleep, then buckle the sleep-belt too. Nothing that’s not fixed in place can be left out in the open. Stay in your seat or bunk at all times, and if you must move about, please inform the captain first. This is an intercom button. There’s one at every seat and every bunk. Hold it down to talk. If there’s anything you need, please use it to call us at any time.”

Luo Ji looked in confusion at Shi Qiang, who said, “The plane may execute some special maneuvers.”

The man nodded. “Correct. Please let me know if you have any problems. Call me Xiao Zhang. I’ll bring you dinner when we’re in the air.”

After Xiao Zhang left, Luo Ji and Shi Qiang sat on the sofa and fastened their seatbelts. Luo Ji looked about him. Apart from the round windows and the slightly curved walls they were set into, the room seemed so conventional and familiar that it felt a little strange to be wearing seatbelts in an ordinary office. But soon the noise and vibration of the engine reminded him he was aboard a plane taxiing down the runway, and a few minutes later the engine noise changed and the two of them were pressed back into the sofa. Then the ground vibrations disappeared and the office floor took on a slant. As the plane climbed, the sun, which had already dipped below the ground, returned through the window, just as the same sun had sent the day’s final rays of sunlight into the hospital room of Zhang Beihai’s father just ten minutes before.

*   *   *

By the time Luo Ji’s plane reached the coast, Wu Yue and Zhang Beihai were once again looking over the unfinished
Tang
, ten thousand meters below. This was the closest he would ever get to the two soldiers.

As on their previous visit,
Tang
’s enormous frame was shrouded in the dim light of dusk. The showers of sparks on the hull didn’t seem quite as plentiful, and the lamps illuminating the ship had dimmed substantially. And this time, Wu Yue and Zhang Beihai no longer belonged to the navy.

“I heard the General Armaments Department has decided to terminate the
Tang
project,” Zhang Beihai said.

“What’s that got to do with us?” Wu Yue said coldly, his eyes sweeping from
Tang
to the last bits of sunset in the west.

“You’ve been in a bad mood since joining the space force.”

“You should know the reason. You can always read my thoughts, sometimes more clearly than I can, and then you remind me what it is I’m really thinking about.”

Zhang Beihai turned to Wu Yue. “You’re depressed about joining what’s inevitably a losing war. You’re jealous of that final generation that will be young enough to fight in the space force at the end and be buried in the cosmos together with their fleet. Devoting a lifetime of effort to a hopeless endeavor is hard for you to accept.”

“Do you have any advice?”

“No. Technofetishism and technological triumphalism are deeply rooted in your mind, and I learned long ago that I can’t change you. I can only try to minimize the harm that sort of thinking can cause. Besides, I don’t think it’s impossible for humanity to win this war.”

Wu Yue dropped his cold mask and met Zhang Beihai’s gaze. “Beihai, you used to be a practical person. You opposed building
Tang,
and on multiple occasions, on the record, voiced doubts about building a blue-water navy, arguing that it was incompatible with our national strength. You believe that our naval forces ought to remain in coastal waters under the support and protection of shore-based firepower, an idea ridiculed as a turtle-shell strategy by the young hotheads, but you’ve persisted in it.… So where do you get your confidence in a space victory from now? Do you really believe that wooden boats can sink an aircraft carrier?”