Chapter 11: The Cost of Reverse Engineering

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At 2:17 a.m., the monitoring screen of Helium-3 Refinery No. 3 at Lunar Base Three began to flicker.

Engineer Old Zhou rubbed his bloodshot eyes and leaned toward the holographic projection. The quantum collider’s energy curve looked like a shattered trail of stars. Its once-stable sine wave had suddenly twisted into a jagged line, while the final figures climbed at a rate of three digits per second—120 percent, 150 percent, 200 percent...

“This is impossible!” He slammed the emergency shutdown key on the control console. The alarm tore through the silence of the control room. Red warning lights revolved across the metal ceiling, casting a bloody sheen over the words “Safety First” painted on the wall. The collider’s hum changed from a mechanical tremor into a sharp, buzzing whine, uncannily like the infrasonic wave he had heard before a nuclear detonation in the Gobi Desert twenty years ago.

“Evacuate!” Old Zhou snatched up the communicator, his hand trembling. “All personnel withdraw from Zone C! Repeat, all personnel withdraw—”

The explosion was faster than his voice.

The antimatter containment field in the collider’s core collapsed first. Blue-white streams of energy burst free like beasts tearing loose from their chains, ripping apart the quantum-entanglement membrane that enclosed them. The shock wave swept across the refinery, carrying molten silicon-based material with it. The reinforced glass curtain walls shattered under the pressure like sheets of candy paper, while a working robotic arm was hurled twenty meters away and crashed through a helium-3 storage tank.

Lunar dust was thrown three hundred meters into the sky, forming a murky orange cloud in the weightless environment. When the radiation cloud dispersed, the once silver-gray industrial complex had become a charred wasteland. Half the refinery was gone. Twisted wreckage still clung to the sign bearing the name Oleg Technologies—the private corporation funded by the Petrov family. Its secret reverse-engineering laboratory lay hidden beneath the refinery, three levels below ground.

The Ark’s alarm sounded three minutes later.

The moment Xia Qing’s tactical boots entered the military intelligence room, an emergency transmission from the lunar base burst onto the holographic screen. In the image, the base commander’s face was scorched, and half his forehead was still smeared with unclotted blood.

“The United Government has confirmed that the explosion originated from the Dreamweaver technology reverse-engineering device in the underground laboratory. They... they cracked the underlying protocol of the quantum resonance network.”

Lin Shen’s fingers froze over the star-map console. He had been preparing to retrieve spectral data from the Dreamweavers’ homeworld. At the words, he turned sharply, the pupils behind his lenses narrowing to slits.

“The Exclusion Protocol!”

“Yes.” Static crackled through the commander’s voice. “The automatic defense mechanism of the Law of Civilizational Contact has been triggered. The Star Hunters’ coordinate-locking signal has already fixed onto the Solar System.”

The tactical screen began to flicker. The purple region representing the dark-matter cloud started to fade, and hundreds, thousands of metallic points emerged from the chaos like stars shattered by a hammer. Lin Shen leaned closer. The trajectories of those points—spiraling, overlapping, advancing in perfect synchronization down to the second—matched exactly the anomalous disturbance he had discovered in the dark-matter cloud in Chapter Seven.

“Dyson probes.” Amiel’s projection suddenly appeared above the star map, the starlight on the surface of her luminous cocoon dimming. Her voice no longer resembled the trembling of stardust. Instead, it carried a harsh metallic rasp. “Each probe is an advance scout of the Star Hunters. They locate stars, then release nanomachines to weave a Dyson membrane.”

Xia Qing’s tactical glove clenched at her side. She could smell the ozone filling the air—the scent of an overloaded console, and the warning that made the hairs rise on the back of her neck.

“How long?”

“At their current rate of advance...” Lin Shen’s fingertip swept across the star map and stopped over the Solar System. “Twenty-three days.”

“Twenty-three?” Chen Mo, who had just rushed into the intelligence room, knocked over a chair. “Back when I was blowing up asteroids, I never needed that long!” The old scar on his neck reddened with agitation, a memento of the asteroid defense war at the end of the twenty-first century. “What do we do now? Let those alien bugs use the Sun’s energy to repair their blasted net? Or should we blow up the Sun ourselves first?”

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Oleg’s voice came from the doorway, carrying its usual composure.

“What’s there to panic about? Humanity’s antimatter engines are powerful enough to drive a planetary defense array.” He smoothed his silver temples. His gaze paused when it passed over Lin Shen. “Besides, reverse engineering was undertaken to protect humanity’s technological sovereignty. Are we supposed to depend forever on charity from alien civilizations?”

Xia Qing spun around. The click of her laser rifle’s safety being disengaged rang with startling clarity in the silent intelligence room.

“You knew from the beginning that this would trigger the protocol?”

“I knew only this.” Oleg spread his hands. “The survival of any civilization requires leverage.” His eyes settled on the metallic points scattered across the star map, and the curve of his lips finally loosened. “Besides, who could have imagined that the Star Hunters would react so quickly?”

“Because the Dreamweavers’ resonance network exposed our location.” Fine dark spots suddenly seeped across Amiel’s luminous cocoon, signs of her emotional disturbance. “Communication at the level of quantum entanglement is itself the clearest possible coordinate signal. That is how the Star Hunters discovered our homeworld.”

Lin Shen suddenly gripped the edge of the star-map console. He remembered the faint sensation of burning in the emotions Amiel had transmitted during the memory resonance in Chapter Six. Now he finally understood: it had been the pain of her luminous cocoon being pierced by an electromagnetic storm.

“So you knew from the beginning that contact with humanity would draw the Star Hunters here?”

“We believed...” Amiel’s projection began to waver, like stardust scattered by the wind. “That the superimposition of two intermediate civilizations’ resonance networks could produce a sufficiently powerful defensive field. Like... like travelers in the desert. Helping one another, they can go farther than either could alone.”

Chen Mo slammed his fist onto the console.

“What good is any of this now? The lunar base is gone, the Sun is about to be wrapped up like a dumpling, and the Ark is still twenty light-years away!” His gaze swept toward Xia Qing. “Captain, order a return course! Even if we can’t make it in time, at least we can carry the news back to Earth!”

“It would take fifteen years to return.” Xia Qing’s voice was as cold and sharp as an icicle. “The Star Hunters will reach the Solar System in twenty-three days.” She turned toward Lin Shen. “Professor, can the resonance network still be saved?”

Lin Shen removed his glasses and wiped the fogged lenses with the edge of his sleeve. He had repeated the gesture countless times since the memory resonance in Chapter Six, yet now the mist seemed impossible to clear. It was the first time he had truly seen how keen the survival instinct of a civilization could be.

“If the Dreamweavers’ quantum resonance network can be activated before the Sun is enclosed, it may be able to interfere with the nanomachines forming the Dyson membrane.” He put his glasses back on, his gaze burning. “But it will require simultaneous access to humanity’s quantum communication system.”

“In other words,” Oleg said, narrowing his eyes, “we need to share our core technology with the Dreamweavers?”

“Not share.” Amiel’s luminous cocoon gathered itself anew. “Achieve symbiosis. The quantum networks of both civilizations must merge completely to form an interspecies resonance field. Like... like your human neural networks. Neurons must connect with one another in order to transmit signals.”

Xia Qing’s thumb rubbed against the trigger of her laser rifle. She remembered standing in the observation chamber in Chapter Eight, her weapon pressed against Oleg, while the dark-matter cloud churned beyond the window like a monstrous beast. Now the true monster was crawling out of the star map.

“What are the risks of fusion?”

“Collapse of civilizational structure.” Lin Shen’s voice was low. “According to the Law of Civilizational Contact, forcibly merging the technological systems of different civilizations may cause their respective technology trees to reject one another. Like welding an Earth silicon chip to a Dreamweaver energy circuit. The result might be that both burn out together.”

Chen Mo gave a derisive snort.

“Then what the hell are we merging for?”

“But it is our only chance.” Amiel’s luminous cocoon suddenly brightened as the dark spots began to recede. “The Resonants on my homeworld have already begun the fusion procedure. They said... this is the first attempt at civilizational symbiosis. Even if we fail, at least it will prove that we tried.”

Oleg suddenly stepped forward.

“I object.” His voice was no longer composed. “Humanity cannot place its hope of survival in an alien civilization. We have antimatter engines. We have planetary defense cannons. At worst...”

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“At worst, what?” Xia Qing cut him off. “We get wrapped inside the Dyson membrane along with the Sun? Become the Star Hunters’ energy battery?” Her gaze swept over the metallic points on the star map. “The professor is right. This is our only chance—even if it means risking the collapse of civilization.”

Lin Shen suddenly remembered the cracked riverbed of his childhood. Back then, he had held the last handful of muddy water in his hands and watched his mother feed it to a dying lamb. His mother had said, “Survival is not plunder. It is sharing.”

Now, at last, he understood the weight of those words on a cosmic scale.

“I support the fusion.” He looked at Amiel. “What do you need me to do?”

“You must serve as humanity’s Resonant.” A tender golden radiance spread across Amiel’s luminous cocoon. “Only when representatives of the two civilizations undergo deep mental resonance can the fusion procedure be activated.” Her voice was as soft as a sigh. “Like the experiment in Chapter Six. But this time... our consciousnesses will become completely intertwined, and can never be separated again.”

Xia Qing’s fingers moved rapidly across the tactical screen, bringing up the risk assessment for the fusion procedure. There was a ninety-three percent probability of civilizational collapse, and a seven percent probability of successful symbiosis.

She remembered waking Chen Mo in Chapter Ten, when the veteran had said, “Blast the luminous cocoon with the antimatter cannon.” Now she was preparing to merge the consciousness of humanity with that of an alien civilization.

“Experiment approved.” She looked up at Lin Shen. “How long will preparations take?”

“Seventy-two hours.” Lin Shen’s voice was steady, as steady as it had been when he announced the discovery of the Dreamweaver signal at the Academy of Sciences. He walked toward the quantum resonance chamber, the breeze stirred by his steps ruffling the star map on the table.

The metallic points continued to draw closer, but his gaze remained fixed on Amiel’s luminous cocoon. Within it were stardust, hope, and the final struggle of two civilizations caught between the instinct to survive and the desire to form an emotional bond.

When Lin Shen lay down inside the resonance chamber and put on the neural-interface helmet, he heard Xia Qing say from outside:

“If it fails... I’ll use the antimatter engine to ram the nearest Dyson probe.”

“If it succeeds...” Amiel’s projection passed through the chamber wall and settled on the back of Lin Shen’s hand like a patch of warm starlight. “We will watch a new sunrise together.”

The door of the quantum resonance chamber slowly closed.

Lin Shen shut his eyes. Before him appeared the riverbed of his childhood. But this time, the riverbed was no longer cracked earth. It was flowing starlight.

Another consciousness gently touched the edge of his mind, carrying the warmth of stardust.

“Begin,” he said.

Outside the chamber, Xia Qing watched the resonance parameters climb in a straight line across the tactical screen. In the corner, Oleg unconsciously rubbed the miniature device hidden inside his suit pocket—the last backup from the lunar-base laboratory. Chen Mo leaned against the wall, the old scar throbbing faintly with his heartbeat.

On the star map, the metallic points of the Dyson probes continued to draw closer, like a swarm of hungry metal bees.

Twenty-three days later, the Sun.

This was the end of every story, and the beginning as well.

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