“Think about it carefully and you’ll get it. A hunter in a dark forest, stalking with bated breath, suddenly notices that a piece of bark has been stripped from a tree in front of him. On the eye-catching bit of white wood that’s been revealed is a position in the forest, written in characters all hunters can recognize. What will he think about that location? He’s certainly not going to imagine that someone has laid out supplies for him there. Out of all the possibilities, the most likely one is that the blaze is informing everyone that there’s live prey at that location that needs to be eliminated. It doesn’t matter what motivated someone to leave the mark. What’s important is that the dead hand has stretched the nerves of the dark forest to the breaking point, and it’s the most sensitive nerve that’s most liable to make a move. Suppose there are a million hunters in the forest—the number of civilizations on the billions upon billions of stars in the Milky Way could be thousands of times that. Perhaps nine hundred thousand of them will disregard the marking. Of the remaining one hundred thousand, maybe ninety thousand of them will probe the location, and, after confirming that it has no life, disregard it. But one of the remaining ten thousand hunters will surely make a choice to fire on that position, because for civilizations at a certain level of technological development, attacking may be safer and less of a hassle than probing. If there’s really nothing at that location, then it’s no loss.

“Now,” Luo Ji concluded, “that hunter has appeared.”

“That spell of yours can’t be sent anymore, right?”

“That’s right, Da Shi. The spell needs to be broadcast to the entire galaxy, but the sun’s been locked down, so it can’t be sent anymore.”

“Was humanity just a step late?” Shi Qiang flicked aside his cigarette end. The flame drew an arc through the darkness as it fell, momentarily illuminating a small circle of sandy ground.

“No, no. Think about it: If the sun hadn’t been sealed off, and I had threatened Trisolaris with sending out a spell against them, what would have happened?”

“You would’ve been stoned to death like Rey Diaz. And then they would have enacted legislation to prohibit anyone else from thinking along those lines.”

“That’s right, Da Shi. Because we’ve already revealed the distance between the Solar System and Trisolaris as well as our general heading in the Milky Way, exposing the location of Trisolaris is tantamount to exposing the location of the Solar System. That’s a death strategy. Maybe we’re a step late, but it’s a step that humanity would never be able to take.”

“You should have threatened Trisolaris back then.”

“Things were too weird. I wasn’t certain about the idea at the time, so I needed to confirm it. After all, there was plenty of time. But the real reason was that, deep in my heart, I really didn’t have the mental strength. I don’t think anyone else would, either.”