Yan Dong sat on the saline soil. Steeped in sorrow, she buried her head in her hands. This was the deep sorrow that arose when an artist saw beauty she could never produce, when she realized she would never be able to transcend her limitations.

“So, how about we name this work together? Call it—Ring of Dreams, perhaps?”

Yan Dong considered this. Slowly, she shook her head. “No, it came from the sea or, rather, was sublimated from the sea. Not even in our dreams could we conceive that the sea possessed this form of beauty. It should be called—Sea of Dreams.”

“Sea of Dreams … very good, very good. We’ll call it that, Sea of Dreams.”

Then, Yan Dong remembered her mission. “I’d like to ask, before you leave, can you return Sea of Dreams to become our actual seas?”

“Have me personally destroy my own work? Ridiculous!”

“Then, after you leave, can we restore the seas ourselves?”

“Of course you can. Just return these blocks of ice and everything should be fine, right?”

“How do we do that?” Yan Dong asked, her head raised. All of humanity strained to hear the answer.

“How should I know?” the low-temperature artist said indifferently.

“One final question: As colleagues, we all know that works of art made from ice and snow are short-lived. So Sea of Dreams …”

“Sea of Dreams is also short-lived. A block of ice’s light-filtering membrane will age. It’ll no longer be able to block heat. But they will dissolve differently than your ice sculptures. The process will be more violent and magnificent. Blocks of ice will vaporize. The pressure will cause the membrane to burst. Every block of ice will turn into a small comet. The entire ring of ice will blur into a silver fog. Then Sea of Dreams will disappear into that silver fog. Then the silver fog will scatter and disappear into space. The universe can only look forward to my next work on some other distant world.”

“How long until this happens?” Yan Dong’s voice quavered.

“The light-filtering membrane will become ineffective, as you reckon time, hm, in about twenty years. Oh, why are we talking about things other than art again? Trivial, trivial! Okay, colleague. Goodbye. Enjoy the beauty I have left you!”

The ball of ice shot into the air, disappearing into the sky. According to the measurements of every major astronomical organization in the world, the ball of ice flew rapidly along a perpendicular to the ecliptic plane. Once it had accelerated to half the speed of light, it abruptly disappeared thirteen astronomical units away from the sun, as if it’d squeezed into an invisible hole. It never returned.

SECOND HALF

Monument and Waveguide

The drought had already lasted for five years.