The Boundary of the Universe Star Map Draftsman II: Fate of the Galaxy

Kukra City grew livelier by the day, and Jonathan gradually blended into the crowds. He was trying to find a way into the sectors—not for the White Crystals inside, but because what he cared about more was how these people obtained and refined dark matter. Rules were rules, though, unless he brought an army and took the place by force. It wasn’t that he hadn’t considered it. If the Centaly people moved, they could seize the ship quickly, but the casualties would be beyond counting. After all, no one knew how many security personnel those sectors held, and with an enormous energy pool sitting right there in the ship, there was no telling whether these people had built some kind of devastating weapon. As much as Jonathan wanted to take the place quickly, he wasn’t about to get the Centaly people wiped out—they were his last trump card. Besides, he still didn’t know what other powers might be backing Kukra City. He had no more room for failure. Meeting Hamilton this time might be his last chance; once he tried on that device, he couldn’t be sure he would live to gamble again. That being the case, he needed to act with care.

Jonathan contacted Hamilton from time to time, eagerly reporting what he saw and heard in Kukra City while using the chance to test whether Hamilton’s attitude toward him had changed. He pretended that wearing the device had given him a great boost of confidence and would let him better carry out the mission he and Hamilton shared, hoping to put Hamilton off the idea of letting someone else wear the device modeled on the Star Source. Sometimes Hamilton didn’t answer his questions directly; other times he openly praised Jonathan’s ambitious plans for building up the Orion Arm, which left Jonathan swinging between hope and worry after every call. Sometimes Jonathan was blunt and asked about progress at the Planet Gorov laboratory, and Hamilton would only say it was the same as ever. Even though the informants Jonathan had planted in the laboratory had already told him the results that hadn’t been made public, Hamilton rarely revealed anything else to him. As the laboratory broadcast more and more of its findings every day, Hamilton’s reputation in the Orion Arm kept growing. You could tell from the way Minister Zhou Qing openly disparaged him at a Defenders’ Alliance meeting that his influence was no longer something the Defenders’ Alliance could control. In the past, Zhou Qing had carried hefty budgets around trying to persuade star systems in first- and second-tier civilizations to join the Defenders’ Alliance, with little success. Now, if the chairman of the Defenders’ Alliance simply praised Hamilton a few more times and had him do some recruiting on the side, it wouldn’t be long before Hamilton could rally a great many star systems to join the Alliance.

Sakya had been negative lately. Even when Hamilton went to ask whether he had any progress to report, Sakya often cursed him into silence, and only once he was a good distance from the old madman would Hamilton grumble and curse back under his breath. Some said Sakya was acting strangely because he had discovered his life’s research was meaningless—that the universe had no boundary at all. Think about it: a man proposes a hypothesis, devotes himself to it with unshakable faith, and only at the end of his life discovers that his starting hypothesis was wrong. Perhaps he had first proposed it to set himself apart, but when more and more people praised the idea, he had no choice but to carry those false honors and keep going, believing his hypothesis might still be proven right someday. And now, after a round of verification in Hamilton’s ultra-advanced laboratory, he had found it was wrong from the start. His whole life had been poured into it, and with so little time left, what meaning was there? Gossip was gossip, though; after it, the bookworms always went back to focusing on the decline of dark matter. Originally, dark matter had been evenly distributed throughout the universe; apart from the brief surges that appeared around a Star Map Draftsman when he gathered dark matter, which were negligible on the scale of the whole universe, nothing disturbed it. But the current results were fairly clear: dark matter had begun decreasing from somewhere far, far away. Because the universe was so vast, a decrease there took time to affect where the Orion Arm was now, and that was making the distribution of dark matter uneven. In short, it was like the bed of a dump truck full of sand: when the unloader opens the tailgate, the sand starts to pour out, and the sand nearest the cab isn’t affected when the unloading begins. Based on current observations, the loss of dark matter wasn’t yet enough to make the whole universe fall apart, but no one knew where the critical point was, or what it would bring.

When Jonathan asked Hamilton about the observations of the dark matter decline, Hamilton brushed him off with a few casual words, which led Jonathan to one conclusion: no one could be relied on. And the longer he stayed in Kukra City, the more rumors he heard. He had walked every one of the halls that stretched out like octopus legs, and ever since the conclusion that dark matter was declining unevenly had become widely known in the Orion Arm, people here had started talking about a rumor that the Great Migration had already begun. Sandra had heard it too, and when she contacted Dawn Lucius she gave him a rough account. Some said White Crystals were handed out here to the rich and powerful so they could extend their lives to adapt to a great migration of the universe. The people organizing the distribution had done this before; they had migrated from another universe, so they knew the process. Now, to keep the various civilizations going, they had begun giving White Crystals to the rich and powerful and to people with unique abilities, so that after migrating to another universe, they would be able to make it prosper again. To Dawn Lucius, it sounded far too much like a conspiracy theory; he couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was deliberately spreading rumors at this moment to cause panic, probably to achieve some other hidden purpose. If the universe really was in danger, where could anyone migrate to now? Star Bridge technology could only carry people around the Orion Arm; it couldn’t even reach the Perseus Arm, let alone— “Wait.” At the thought of Star Bridges, he remembered the super Star Bridge technology Hamilton had demonstrated. Could it be that Hamilton had long known something about the migration? He had solved the problem of crossing between galaxies, and then sent people after Lord Winifred’s ship so he could copy a ship capable of withstanding the super Star Bridge. He had even chosen his destination already.

“But if that’s so, why did he set up the Dark Matter Investigation Team?” Sandra countered.

“Hard to guess. Dark matter must affect his destination, or the current universe. Investigating dark matter is really investigating its effects, I suppose,” Dawn Lucius answered after a moment’s thought.

“That’s possible. Then again, Dawn, if this great migration the rumors describe really exists, what about the people who don’t know the truth?”

“It’s not very likely to be true. Think about it: your civilization and the Moreth Federation have existed for so long, and none of you ever heard of it. If migrations really happened, they would have left some trace.”

“I don’t know. But I keep feeling that since something like dark matter decreasing has happened, it wouldn’t be strange if other things happened too.” Sandra glanced thoughtfully at the desk.

“You mean it?” Dawn Lucius sat up straighter and leaned closer to the screen.

“Yes, Dawn. I really think all of this might be true.”

“Hey, baby, if what you say is true, we have to dig deeper and figure it out fast. I don’t want to lose you all for no reason.”

“What did you say?” Sandra leaned even closer to the screen, smiling.

“I said we need to figure out fast what’s going on with dark matter and the great migration.” Dawn Lucius pretended not to understand and kept a straight face.

“No—what did you call me? I didn’t quite catch it just now. Say it again.”

“Baby, baby, baby…” Dawn Lucius pressed his mouth against the screen and kept calling, while Sandra kept leaning away, laughing as she dodged.

After fooling around for a little while, Sandra went back to what they had been discussing.

“All right. Oh, and I think old Sakya definitely knows. A few days ago he was mumbling some far-fetched things to me, saying something about how the development of higher civilizations can ignore or destroy lower civilizations.”

“What does that mean?” Sandra asked.

“No idea. Could he be trying to say that a civilization even more advanced than Datheon would destroy the present universe for the sake of the universe’s development?”

“But I feel like he must be hinting at something. Find a chance to talk to him again. Kukra City has gone mad. Now that the rumors about the Great Migration are spreading, I expect someone will take the risk of attacking the laboratory to grab White Crystals.”

“Could you ask Duncan to help find out who has received White Crystals, and what those people are doing now?”

“Sure. My brother has been paying attention to these things lately too. You’ve hit on the key point: if the people who got White Crystals are all moving away from where they used to be, it means the Great Migration is real.”

“Exactly.”

After a great deal of effort, Jonathan finally persuaded a low-level contact in Kukra City. He traded the whereabouts of Dawn Lucius and Stacean Lucius for White Crystals and promised he could send Centaly people to capture Stacean. After much back and forth, a small shuttle carried Jonathan into Sector Sixteen of Kukra City’s main body. He noticed that every sector they passed was different. The ninth sector in particular seemed to be researching the same thing as Hamilton—not the decline of dark matter, but a super Star Bridge. Jonathan thought back carefully to Hamilton’s super Star Bridge, which had also been built on an artificial planet and used a supercomputing body to work out the gravitational depression point of the destination. What Jonathan was seeing now looked far more advanced than Hamilton’s—at least, that was how it felt. When the shuttle stopped, the contact led him to a brightly lit conference room where a crowd had already gathered. They looked up at Jonathan the way a pack of hunting dogs gnawing on a water buffalo looks at a wild cat that has interrupted their meal. The man sitting at the head of the table seemed to be the one in charge here. When he stood up to greet Jonathan, the others went back to the screens in front of them as if nothing had happened, checking the data or reading dull notes.

“Jonathan Moreth Steader, welcome to Kukra City.” The man who spoke stood ramrod straight, dressed all in black. Beneath hair combed back smooth and flat, his rectangular face held a pair of small eyes. If not for his fairly thick lips, people would most likely have thought him weak and incompetent.

“No small talk.” Jonathan shook the handbook in his hand and pointed to the entries for Dawn Lucius and Stacean Lucius.

“How could we have the great Jonathan Moreth Steader do this kind of lowly rough work?”

“Don’t say that. I want White Crystals. But I hear your distribution is by invitation. You’ve given them to the powerful, the influential, the ruthless—but you didn’t invite me. So I can only earn some White Crystals by doing this rough work.” Jonathan deliberately leaned hard on the words “rough work.”

“Moreth Steader, you put it too strongly. My master instructed that if Jonathan Moreth Steader or the two princes of the Strath Federation came looking for us on their own, they were to be received properly. Please, sit down and let’s talk.” The man gestured for Jonathan to sit.

Jonathan walked to the seat he indicated, sat down, and said, “Who is this master you mention? Could I ask some questions of this person?”

“That may not be possible, Jonathan Moreth Steader. The master has been extremely busy lately; even we can’t see our master. But you can tell me, and I’ll pass it on.”

Jonathan clenched his fists. The man kept dodging his questions; even when he tried to find out who this so-called master was, he couldn’t tell whether the master was a man or a woman.

“No need. It’s nothing important.” Jonathan changed the subject. “By the way, why is it that the two princes of the Strath Federation and I are to be received properly?”

“We don’t know either. We just do as the master says and never ask why. The master has the master’s reasons.” The man kept the same smiling expression he had worn since they met.

“Then how do I get White Crystals?”

“That’s simple, Jonathan Moreth Steader. Are you taking the White Crystals yourself, or giving them to someone?”

“Myself…” Jonathan paused. Seeing the expectant look on the man’s face, he changed his answer. “Giving them to someone.”

“Would you mind telling me who?”

“I’d rather not say.”

“Jonathan Moreth Steader, the master instructed that if the White Crystals are a gift, we need to know clearly who will receive them, and whether that person deserves White Crystals from us.”

“What do you mean?” Jonathan was displeased; he came close to getting straight up out of his chair.

“We only provide White Crystals to people who have the ability to build the universe, so they can make the whole universe better. So the recipient of a gift must have special abilities or resources at their command.”

“I plan to give them to a general of the Moreth Federation. He can keep the Star Bridges stable and continue providing interstellar travel services to the Orion Arm.”

“Hmm, that sounds good. But as far as I know, the Moreth Federation’s generals and officials, high and low, have all bought plenty of White Crystals from Madam Winifred and stockpiled them—enough to last them many centuries.”

“I wouldn’t know about that, but if they were given White Crystals, they would be more loyal to the Moreth Federation.” As soon as Jonathan finished speaking, he felt something was off. He rarely found himself questioned like a child, yet he had no choice but to answer, and that made him start to get angry with himself.

“Jonathan Moreth Steader, would you consider giving them to anyone else?” the man pressed.

“I would. Sakya, the Moreth Federation’s Chief Scientist.” Jonathan didn’t really know whom to give them to; Sakya was simply the first name that came to mind. Or he could have named the king of the Centaly people—but never mind.

“I see. Jonathan Moreth Steader, do you know why we didn’t invite you?” The man looked at Jonathan and asked in a slightly mocking tone.

“I’d like to hear it.”

“You and the two princes of the Strath Federation have never once taken White Crystals. According to reliable information we’ve gathered, you are even opposed to them. The two princes of the Strath Federation have claimed that attacking the Ashton Federation and destroying the White Crystals was also meant to help their own civilization develop—only by forcing out the leaders who had been taking White Crystals all along could they lead the Strath Federation forward. As for you, with your position and wealth, getting White Crystals would be easy, yet in all this time you never made a move. So you weren’t on our invitation list.”

“By that logic, a person has to have taken White Crystals before you’ll even look at him?” Jonathan gave a cold smile.

“You could put it that way.”

“What kind of rule is that?” Jonathan rose from his chair and walked toward the man.

Seeing Jonathan coming at him quickly, the man bowed slightly and took half a step back.

“However, our master also foresaw that Jonathan Moreth Steader would come sooner or later.” Just as Jonathan was about to reach him, the man’s words stopped him in his tracks.

“What?”

“It’s like this. Jonathan Moreth Steader is a clever man and a great leader, so we won’t beat around the bush. Everyone knows dark matter is decreasing, but no one knows what’s happening behind it. We, however, do.”

“What did you say?” Jonathan was a little suspicious that this was yet another new conspiracy, but deep down he hoped even more that it was a new opportunity—a chance to help him rule the galaxy.

“Star Bridge technology—I imagine you know where it came from. But the Moreth Federation doesn’t know its limitations or how to break through them. We’ve already built a new kind of Star Bridge that can go much farther: the Perseus Arm, say, or the Magellanic Clouds, or even the edge of the entire Laniakea Supercluster. Any of them.”

Jonathan listened, absorbed. Compared with Hamilton’s uncertain super Star Bridge, what these people had was more advanced. After thinking for a moment, Jonathan said, “What’s so remarkable about that? The Moreth Federation only wants to take care of things in the Orion Arm. The fighting here is already a mess. If people from other galaxies came over too, who knows how bad it would get.”

“You’re right, Moreth Steader. But in the face of the great event that’s about to happen, those aren’t our top concerns. Moreth Steader, would you be willing to sit down and hear us out?”

Jonathan had wanted to hear it all along. Pretending reluctance, he went back to his seat and listened to things even more astonishing than the rumors outside.

Dawn Lucius wandered all over the laboratory. Even now, a small number of scientists were preaching an attitude of indifference. They firmly believed all of this was simply a higher civilization saving us, and they also turned their spearheads on Dawn Lucius, saying the Star Map Draftsmen were too inefficient: relying on them to blow up newborn stars to reduce dark matter was no longer good enough, so a higher civilization had stepped in. Dawn Lucius ignored all of this, but he noticed that Sakya’s mental state was growing more and more dejected. Sometimes he simply pushed everything on his desk aside and lay on top of it to sleep. Once he even urinated in another group of scientists’ laboratory. Hamilton no longer expected anything from Sakya. This time, though, when Dawn Lucius went to see Sakya, he was unusually clear-headed. All the instruments in his laboratory were on, he had marked every galaxy on Hamilton’s huge projector, and on another display he was drawing something that looked like a planet. Dawn Lucius didn’t have the heart to disturb him, so he found a chair inside and sat down. Sakya drew without stopping, then deleted and redrew without stopping. Sometimes he regretted a deletion, and then he became as violent as a bull in rut, raging around the laboratory and cursing foully. He pressed his head against the transparent wall and rubbed it back and forth, arms hanging at his sides, now and then lifting a hand to slap his own face. Afraid his next step would be to bash his own head, Dawn Lucius went over, pulled him back, and helped him into a chair. When Sakya looked up at Dawn Lucius, his eyes were dull and lifeless; he looked like a heartbroken woman who has lost love forever.

“Sir, is there anything I can do for you?” Dawn Lucius crouched in front of Sakya, put his hand on the old man’s knee, and gently shook it as he asked.

Sakya said nothing. He drew a heavy breath and shook his head slightly. He tried to work up a smile to show he meant no offense, but failed. His skin had lost its elasticity and could no longer hold up the muscles of his cheeks; they sagged under gravity until they barely came to rest near his jawbone. A sense of loss had spread through his whole body. It was like a herd of hungry wild boars trampling back and forth across his tongue, squeezing out the last bit of spirit he had left, until finally it turned into sticky drool that ran down from the corner of his mouth.

“Sir, I’ll go get you something to eat. Take a moment to recover. What would you like?” As he spoke, Dawn Lucius pulled his sleeve tight, balled it in his palm like a handkerchief, and wiped Sakya’s mouth. When the old man still didn’t move, he felt it was necessary to find some medical help, so he said so, then got up and headed out.

“Wait.” Just as Dawn Lucius was about to leave the laboratory, Sakya spoke behind him.

“What is it, sir?” Dawn Lucius walked back to Sakya.

“That…” Sakya pointed at the picture of the planet he had just drawn. The AI had finished rendering it: a planet with an irregular surface—or was it a star? In its upper right there was a gap, and purple atmosphere was escaping through it. Apart from a case like Mars, whose atmosphere was blown away day after day by the solar wind, Dawn Lucius found it hard to imagine what could produce the scene Sakya had drawn. Sakya braced his right hand on the chair, pressed his left on his knee, and stood up with all the strength he had. He tottered to the screen, pointed at the gap, and said, “Our universe’s dark matter is slipping out.”

Dawn Lucius looked at the picture, then at Sakya. He didn’t quite understand what the old man meant. He stepped closer to Sakya and asked, “Sir, you mean dark matter is running out, like air out of a leaking ball?”

“Our universe is a sphere.” Sakya swallowed with difficulty and pointed to the base of the wall on the other side, where there was a beverage cabinet. Dawn Lucius hurried over and opened it to find nothing but purified water. He took two bottles, opened one, and handed it to Sakya. Seeing him gulp it down, Dawn Lucius opened the other and set it in front of him.

When Sakya finished drinking, he rested a while, then sat down in the chair, looked at Dawn Lucius, and went on: “The universe has a boundary. I observed the changes in dark matter: it disappears at the edge of this sphere. That proves that outside the sphere is another space—or, put another way, that something has enclosed the dark matter within this region. That is the boundary of our universe.” As he spoke, Sakya pointed at the image on the screen, then waved a finger to direct Dawn Lucius’s attention to the gap, and continued, “Our dark matter is slipping out through there.”

Dawn Lucius tried to picture what Sakya was describing. He didn’t doubt Sakya’s theory. Before the Solar System civilization made contact with the other civilizations of the Orion Arm, Earth people had always believed the Kuiper Belt was the boundary of their civilization. That didn’t quite match what Sakya was saying now, but Dawn Lucius believed him. What he was thinking now was this: if dark matter really was leaking out there, then the rumor Sandra had heard—the Great Migration—must be true, not just a rumor. But migrate where? Surely not out through that leak? Then where?

“Sir, who else knows about this?” Dawn Lucius asked, pointing at the screen.

“A small number of scientists. Most of the observational data was compiled by them,” Sakya answered.

“Is this accurate?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean this boundary, and this gap—are they accurate?”

“Why do you ask?” Sakya gave Dawn Lucius a puzzled look, then glanced at the picture he had drawn.

“There’s a rumor going around now: the Great Migration. If this is accurate, then I want to know—if we really have to migrate to another universe, where do we get out?”

“Are people really saying that?” Sakya stood up from his chair and took a few steps toward Dawn Lucius.

“Yes.” Dawn Lucius nodded firmly.

“The shape may not be accurate. The universe certainly isn’t a round sphere; it isn’t that regular. But that gap definitely exists.” Sakya pointed back over his shoulder at the screen and spoke with certainty.

The two of them talked for a long time. What they were now sure of was where this universe’s dark matter was leaking out; what was causing it, they still didn’t know. Sakya agreed with Dawn Lucius that the news should be told to everyone at once—all the ordinary people, all the merchants, all the pirates, all the high officials and nobles. If the information wasn’t made public, it would be impossible to mobilize everyone’s strength to understand the situation, and impossible to find a way to deal with it. Even if some people used the chance to start wars, or used it to carry out other, more sinister schemes, none of that could compare with how serious things were now, because no one knew how big that gap really was, or how much longer the universe could hold out.

The first person to run to Sakya’s laboratory was Hamilton. He looked at the moving image on the screen and sank into thought, like a puppet that had lost its soul; the luster that life should give a face was gone from his. The scientists crowded behind him didn’t dare ask anything—some out of fear of authority, others out of fear of hearing a result they couldn’t accept. When Hamilton finally came back to himself, he walked stiffly up to Dawn Lucius and stared up at him without a word. Dawn Lucius noticed the old man’s lips part slightly and thought some reproach or words of disappointment were coming, but then Hamilton shook his head and dragged himself out of the laboratory with heavy steps. Everyone watched his back until he stopped in front of his own office door, let out a heart-rending burst of crazed laughter, and fainted. Only then did Sakya’s laboratory erupt. Some demanded to know what was happening, some wept and told the people next to them that it was all too late, and some quietly left.

Following Dawn Lucius’s suggestion, Sakya told the scientists still in the laboratory to release the news, and he didn’t forget to add, “Remember, call on everyone to find a solution together. It looks like this universe of ours has reached its end.” Dawn Lucius contacted Sandra and told her the situation, and they discussed how to save themselves. In the worst case, if something happened to this universe, Dawn Lucius could fly the Sane ship and take Sandra and Stacean Lucius to join the Great Migration. The Sane ship was powered by dark matter, so they wouldn’t have to worry about running out of fuel between galaxies. But this universe still held people they cared about, and Stacean Lucius also had people he cared about; they couldn’t simply abandon them and leave. That left only two choices: either stop the loss of dark matter, or take everyone with them, including people they might not even know. Dawn Lucius also told Sandra how Minister Zhou Qing had reacted. When Dawn Lucius mentioned Sakya’s findings, Zhou Qing dismissed them outright, but after Dawn Lucius explained again and again, Zhou Qing softened somewhat. When Dawn Lucius tried to ask Zhou Qing for more scientists, though, Zhou Qing refused. He felt the matter had to be reported to the chairman of the Defenders’ Alliance before anything could be decided. After all, in Zhou Qing’s words, “This is cooperation between different organizations. Once it reaches this level, you can’t get resources just because I respect you.” At this, Sandra felt Zhou Qing was holding something back; he was probably afraid of taking responsibility if the findings proved inaccurate. If Sakya’s findings were wrong, the scientific world would at most have made a fool of itself. But from Minister Zhou Qing’s or Chairman Layte’s point of view, they would have to answer for the result. Considering how calculating these old hands of officialdom were, an answer like that was hardly surprising.

“Mm, that may be so. But if Mr. Sakya’s findings are accurate, how will they explain having done nothing at first?” Dawn Lucius had never been calculating; he said whatever he thought.

“He’s certainly arranged it all already—had his subordinates leak the news to the heads of other departments, so that whether it turns out right or wrong, others will share the blame,” Sandra said with contempt.

“True. Still, it’s lucky he lent me scientists, so the Solar System could build ships in a short time. Katherine says they can already enter the Star Bridges. But they don’t have enough galaxy coins to pay, so not everyone will get the chance to go through.”

“I can ask my brother whether he can help lead an application to the Galaxy Coin Minting Authority’s main network and get some for you.”

“That would be great.” Dawn Lucius raised his eyebrows at Sandra. Even at a time when disaster seemed about to arrive, just seeing Sandra made him feel that all of this was nothing more than an ordinary afternoon, the inconvenience of a brief thundershower that would soon pass.

“I saw that.” Sandra giggled.

“What?” Dawn Lucius pretended not to know.

The two of them chatted sweetly for a good while before getting back to business. Sandra planned to stay on in Kukra City to see what other useful information she could find; at the very least, she felt Kukra City hadn’t appeared out of nowhere by accident. She told Dawn Lucius to stay in Hamilton’s laboratory: judging from Hamilton’s reaction, he certainly knew more, and if they made a move, we would know what to do next. After signing off, Dawn Lucius thought for a long time. He got in touch with Stacean Lucius and told him the whole situation. He didn’t believe the Solar System people would come through this event unharmed, and if something really did happen—if the universe went back to darkness, say—he wanted to be with Stacean Lucius. Father and son had reached the age when tears come easily, and they were too embarrassed to open their hearts anymore, but it was enough that each understood what the other meant. Before the Creator, every life is very small.