Cixin Liu - Ball Lightning

Translated by Joel Martinsen

www.headofzeus.com

On his fourteenth birthday, right before his eyes, Chens parents are incinerated by a blast of ball lightning. Striving to make sense of this bizarre tragedy, he dedicates his life to a single goal: to unlock the secrets of this enigmatic natural phenomenon. His pursuit of ball lightning will take him far from home, across mountain peaks chasing storms and deep into highly classified subterranean laboratories as he slowly unveils a new frontier in particle physics.

Chens obsession gives purpose to his lonely life, but it cant insulate him from the real worlds interest in his discoveries. He will be pitted against scientists, soldiers and governments with motives of their own: a physicist who has no place for moral judgement in his pursuit of knowledge; a beautiful army major obsessed with new ways to wage war; a desperate nation facing certain military defeat.

Conjuring awe-inspiring new worlds of cosmology and philosophy from meticulous scientific speculation, Cixin Lius Ball Lightning has all the scope and imagination that so enthralled readers of his award-winning Three-Body trilogy.

The descriptions in this book
of the characteristics
and behavior of ball lightning
are based on historical records
as of 2004.

I only remembered that it was my birthday because Mom and Dad lit the candles on the cake and we sat down around fourteen small tongues of flame.

The storm that night made it seem as if the whole universe held nothing but rapid flashes of lightning surrounding our small dining room. Electric blue bursts froze the rain into solid drops for an instant, forming dense strands of glittering crystal beads suspended between heaven and earth. A thought struck me: the world would be a fascinating place if that instant were sustained. You could walk through streets hung with crystal, surrounded on all sides by the sound of chimes. But in such a dazzling world, the lightning would be unbearable....I had always seen a different world from the one others saw. I wanted to transform the world: that was the one thing I knew about myself at that age.

The storm had started earlier in the evening, and the thunder and lightning had quickened their pace as it progressed. At first, after each flash, my mind retained an impression of the ephemeral crystalline world outside the window as I tensed in anticipation of the peal of thunder. But the lightning had grown so thick and fast that I could no longer distinguish which thunderclap belonged to which bolt.

On a stormy night, you get a sense of how precious family really is. The warm embrace of home is intoxicating when you imagine the terrors of the outside world. You feel for those souls without a home, out there in the open, shivering through the storm and lightning. You want to open a window so they can fly in, but the outside world is so frightening that you cannot let even the tiniest breath of cold air enter the warmth inside.

Ah, life, Dad said, and downed his drink. Then, staring intently at the cluster of candle flames, he said, Life is so random, all probability and chance. Like a twig floating in a brook, caught on a stone or seized by an eddy

Hes too young. He doesnt understand this stuff, Mom said.

Hes not young! said Dad. Hes old enough to learn the truth about life!

And you know all about that, Mom said, with a sarcastic laugh.

I know. Of course I know! Dad poured another glass and drank half, then turned to me. Actually, son, its not hard to live a wonderful life. Listen to me. Choose a tough, world-class problem, one that requires only a sheet of paper and a pencil, like Goldbachs Conjecture or Fermats Last Theorem, or a question in pure natural philosophy that doesnt need pencil and paper at all, like the origin of the universe, and then throw yourself entirely into research. Think only of planting, not reaping, and as you concentrate, an entire lifetime will pass before you know it. Thats what people mean by settling down. Or do the opposite, and make earning money your only goal. Spend all of your time thinking about how to make money, not about what youll do with it when you make it, until youre on your deathbed clutching a pile of gold coins like Monsieur Grandet, saying: It warms me... The key to a wonderful life is a fascination with something. Me, for example Dad pointed to the watercolors lying all over the room. They were done in a very traditional style, properly composed, but lacking all vitality. The paintings reflected the lightning outside like a set of flickering screens. Im fascinated with painting even though I know I cant be van Gogh.

Thats right. Idealists and cynics may pity each other, but theyre really both fortunate, Mom mused.

Ordinarily all business, my mother and father had turned into philosophers, as if it were their own birthday we were celebrating.

Mom, dont move! I plucked a white hair out of my mothers thick, black mane. Only half of it was white. The other half was still black.

Dad held the hair up to the light and examined it. Against the lightning it shone like a lamp filament. As far as I know, this is the first white hair your mother has had in her entire life. Or at least the first thats been discovered.

What are you doing! Pluck one, and seven will grow back! Mom said, giving her hair an exasperated toss.

Really? Well, thats life, Dad said. He pointed to the candles on the cake: Suppose you take one of these small candles and stick it into a desert dune. If theres no wind you may be able to light it. Then: leave. What would it feel like to watch the flame from a distance? My boy, this is what life is, fragile and uncertain, unable to endure a puff of wind.

The three of us sat in silence, looking at the cluster of flames as they shivered against the icy blue lightning that flashed through the window, as if they were a tiny life-form that we had painstakingly raised.

Outside, lightning flashed dramatically.

This time, though, the arc came in through the wall, emerging like a spirit from an oil painting of a carnival of the Greek gods. It was about the size of a basketball, and shone with a hazy red glow. It drifted gracefully over our heads, followed by a tail that gave off a dark red light. Its flight path was erratic, and its tail described a confusingly complicated figure above us. It whistled as it floated, a deep tone pierced with a sharp high whine, calling to mind a spirit blowing a flute in some ancient wasteland.

Mom clutched fearfully to Dad with both hands, an action I have looked back on in anguish my entire life. If she had not done that, I might have one relative left alive today.

The thing continued to drift like it was looking for something. It finally stopped and found it, hanging about half a meter over my fathers head. Its whistle became deeper and intermittent, like bitter laughter.

I could see inside the translucent red blaze. It seemed infinitely deep, and a cluster of blue stars streamed out of the bottomless haze, like a star field seen by a spirit rocketing across space faster than the speed of light.

Later, I learned that the internal energy density of this mass could have reached twenty thousand to thirty thousand joules per cubic centimeter, compared to just two thousand joules per cubic centimeter for TNT. But while its internal temperature might have exceeded ten thousand degrees, its surface would be cool.

My father lifted his hand, more to protect his head than to try to touch the thing. Fully extended, his arm seemed to exert an attractive force that pulled the thing toward it like a leafs stomata absorb a drop of dew.