Part 26 (1/2)
”Give me one minute. I'll be done soon.” Da s.h.i.+ extended a hand in front of Colonel Stanton.
”What do you want?” the colonel asked, puzzled.
”Give me another one.”
Stanton hesitated for a second before taking another cigar out of a beautiful wooden box and handing it to Da s.h.i.+. Da s.h.i.+ took the smoking end of the first cigar and pressed it against the table so that it stood on the sh.o.r.e of the Panama Ca.n.a.l that he'd drawn on the table. He flattened the end of the other cigar and erected it on the other sh.o.r.e of the ca.n.a.l.
”We set up two pillars on the sh.o.r.es of the ca.n.a.l, and then between them we string many parallel, thin filaments, about half a meter apart. The filaments should be made from the nanomaterial called 'Flying Blade,' developed by Professor w.a.n.g. A very appropriate name, in this case.”
After s.h.i.+ Qiang finished speaking, he stood and waited a few seconds. Then he raised his hands, said to the stunned crowd, ”That's it,” turned, and left.
The air seemed frozen. Everyone present stayed still like stone statues. Even the droning from the computers all around them seemed more careful.
After a long while, someone timidly broke the silence, ”Professor w.a.n.g, is 'Flying Blade' really in the form of filaments?”
w.a.n.g nodded. ”Given our current molecular construction technique, the only form we can make is a filament. The thickness is about one-hundredth the thickness of human hair.... Officer s.h.i.+ got this information from me before the meeting.”
”Do you have enough material?”
”How wide is the ca.n.a.l? And how tall is the s.h.i.+p?”
”The narrowest point of the ca.n.a.l is one hundred fifty meters wide. Judgment Day is thirty-one meters tall, with a draft of eight meters or so.”
w.a.n.g stared at the cigars on the table and did some mental calculations. ”I think I should have enough.”
Another long silence. Everyone was trying to recover from their astonishment.
”What if the equipment storing Trisolaran data, such as hard drives and optical disks, is also sliced?”
”That doesn't seem likely.”
”Even if they were sliced,” a computer expert said, ”it's not a big deal. The filaments are extremely sharp, and the cut surfaces would be very smooth. Given that premise, whether it's hard drives, optical disks, or integrated circuit storage, we could recover the vast majority of the data.”
”Anyone got a better idea?” Chang looked around the table. No one spoke. ”All right. Then let's focus on this and work out the details.”
Colonel Stanton, who had been silent the whole time, stood up. ”I will go and ask Officer s.h.i.+ to come back.”
General Chang indicated that he should remain seated. Then he called out, ”Da s.h.i.+!”
Da s.h.i.+ returned, grinning at everyone. He picked up the cigars on the table. The one that had been lit he put into his mouth, and the other he stuffed into his pocket.
Someone asked, ”When Judgment Day pa.s.ses, can those two pillars bear the force applied against the Flying Blade filaments? Maybe the pillars would be sliced apart first.”
w.a.n.g said, ”That's easy to solve. We have some small amounts of Flying Blade material that are flat sheets. We can use them to protect the parts of the column where the filaments are attached.”
The discussion after that was mainly between the naval officers and navigation experts.
”Judgment Day is at the upper limit in terms of tonnage that can pa.s.s through the Panama Ca.n.a.l. It has a deep draft, so we have to consider installing filaments below the waterline.”
”That will be very difficult. If there's not enough time, I don't think we should worry about it. The parts of the s.h.i.+p below the waterline are used for engines, fuel, and ballast, causing a lot of noise, vibration, and interference. The conditions are too poor for computing centers and other similar facilities to be located there. But for the parts above water, a tighter nanofilament net will give better results.”
”Then it's best to set the trap at one of the locks along the ca.n.a.l. Judgment Day is built to Panamax specifications, just enough to fill the thirty-two-meter locks. Then we would only need to make the Flying Blade filaments thirty-two meters long. This will also make it easier to erect the pillars and string the filaments between them, especially for the underwater parts.”
”No. The situation around the locks is too unpredictable. Also, a s.h.i.+p inside the lock must be pulled forward by four 'mules,' electric locomotives on rails. They move slowly, and the time inside the locks will also be when the crew is most alert. An attempt to slice through the s.h.i.+p during that time would most likely be discovered.”
”What about the Bridge of the Americas, right outside the Miraflores Locks? The abutments at the two ends of the bridge can serve as the pillars for stringing the filaments.”
”No. The distance between the abutments is too great. We don't have enough Flying Blade material.”
”Then it's decided: The site of operation should be the narrowest point of the Gaillard Cut, a hundred and fifty meters across. Add in some slack for the pillars ... let's call it a hundred seventy meters.”
w.a.n.g said, ”If that's the plan, then the smallest distance between the filaments will be fifty centimeters. I don't have enough material for a tighter net.”
”In other words, we have to make sure the s.h.i.+p crosses during the day,” Da s.h.i.+ said, blowing out another mouthful of smoke.
”Why?”
”At night the crew will be sleeping, which means they'll all be lying down. Fifty centimeters between filaments leaves too much of a gap. But during the day, even if they're sitting or crouching, the distance is sufficient.”
A few scattered laughs. The attendees, all under heavy stress, felt a bit of release tinged with the smell of blood.
”You're truly a demon,” a female UN official said to Da s.h.i.+.
”Will innocent bystanders be hurt?” w.a.n.g asked, his voice trembling.
A naval officer replied, ”When the s.h.i.+p goes through the locks, more than a dozen cable workers will come onboard, but they'll all get off after the s.h.i.+p pa.s.ses. The Panama Ca.n.a.l pilot will have to accompany the s.h.i.+p the entire eighty-two kilometers, so the pilot will have to be sacrificed.”
A CIA officer said, ”And some of the crew aboard Judgment Day probably don't know the real purpose of the s.h.i.+p.”
”Professor,” General Chang said, ”do not concern yourself with these thoughts. The information we need to obtain has to do with the very survival of human civilization. Someone else will make the call.”
As the meeting ended, Colonel Stanton pushed the beautiful cigar box in front of s.h.i.+ Qiang. ”Captain, the best Havana has to offer. They're yours.”
Four days later, Gaillard Cut, Panama Ca.n.a.l w.a.n.g could not even tell that he was in a foreign country. He knew that to the west, not too far away, was beautiful Gatun Lake. To the east was the magnificent Bridge of the Americas and Panama City. But he had had no chance to see either of them.
Two days earlier, he had arrived by direct flight from China to Toc.u.men International Airport near Panama City and then rode a helicopter here. The sight before him was very common: The construction work under way to widen the ca.n.a.l caused the tropical forest on both slopes to be quite spa.r.s.e, revealing large patches of yellow earth. The color felt familiar to w.a.n.g. The ca.n.a.l didn't seem very special, probably because it was so narrow here, but a hundred thousand people had dug out this part of the ca.n.a.l in the previous century, one hoe at a time.
w.a.n.g and Colonel Stanton sat on lounge chairs under an awning halfway up the slope. Both wore loose, colorful s.h.i.+rts, with their Panama hats tossed to the side, looking like two tourists.
Below, on each sh.o.r.e of the ca.n.a.l, a twenty-four-meter steel pillar lay flat against the ground, parallel to the sh.o.r.e. Fifty ultrastrong nanofilaments, each 160 meters long, were strung between the pillars. At the end on the eastern sh.o.r.e, every filament was connected to a length of regular steel wire. This was to give the filaments enough slack so that they could sink to the bottom of the ca.n.a.l, aided by attached weights. The setup permitted other s.h.i.+ps safe pa.s.sage. Luckily, traffic along the ca.n.a.l wasn't quite as busy as w.a.n.g had imagined. On average, only about forty large s.h.i.+ps pa.s.sed through each day.
The operation's code name was ”Guzheng,” based on the similarity between the structure and the ancient Chinese zither by that name. The slicing net of nanofilaments was thus called the ”zither.”
An hour earlier, Judgment Day had entered the Gaillard Cut from Gatun Lake.