“The rest is straightforward. Earth runs out of resources, and all the arable land is lost to desertification. Meanwhile, humanity still doesn’t have the technology to colonize space, or the power to excavate new resources. In those five thousand years, everything slowly winds down…. In the era I showed you, there are still people living on all the continents, but there’s really not much to see.”

“Ah …” The sound Song Cheng made resembled the Senior Official’s slow sigh. A long time passed before his shaking voice could ask, “Then … what do we do? Do we destroy the digital mirror right now?”

Bai Bing took out two cigarettes, handing one to Song Cheng. He lit his own and drew deeply, blowing the smoke at the three dead faces on the screen. “I’m definitely destroying the digital mirror. I only kept it around until now so you can see. But nothing we do now matters. That’s one bit of consolation: everything that happens afterward has nothing to do with us.”

“Someone else created a digital mirror too?”

“The theory and technology for it are both out there, and according to superstring theory, the number of viable initialization parameter sets is enormous, but still finite. If you keep going down the list, you’ll eventually run into that one set…. More than thirty thousand years from now, till the last days of civilization, humanity will still be thanking and worshiping a guy named Nick Kristoff.”

“Who is he?”

“According to the historical records: a devout Christian, physicist, and inventor of the digital mirror software.”

MIRROR ERA

FIVE MONTHS LATER, AT THE PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
CENTER OF EXPERIMENTAL COSMOLOGY

When the radiant sea of stars appeared on one of the fifty display screens, all of the scientists and engineers present erupted into cheers. Five superstring computers stood here, each simulating ten virtual machines, for a total of fifty sets of big bang simulations running day and night. This newly created virtual universe was the 32,961st.

Only one middle-aged man remained unmoved. He was heavy-browed and alert-eyed, imposing in appearance, the silver cross at his breast all the more striking against his black sweater. He made the sign of the cross, and asked:

“Gravitational constant?”

“6.67 times 10–11!”

“Speed of light in a vacuum?”

“2.998 times 105 kilometers per second!”

“Planck’s constant?”

“6.626 times 10–34!”

“Charge of electron?”

“1.602 times 10–19 coulombs!”

“One plus one?” He gravely kissed the cross at his chest.

“Equals two! This is our universe, Professor Kristoff!”

ODE TO JOY

An alternate history of the sophon

TRANSLATED BY JOEL MARTINSEN

THE CONCERT

The concert held to close the final session of the United Nations was a depressing one.