“I reject your condition.”

“No, no, Dr. Luo. The condition has changed.”

At the chair’s words, Luo Ji’s eyes lit up, and he sat up straight on the sofa. “And now the condition is…”

“It’s simple. Couldn’t be simpler. You just have to do something.”

“If I can’t send a spell out into the universe, there’s nothing I can do.”

“You have to think of something to do.”

“You mean, it could be something meaningless?”

“So long as it looks significant to the public. In their eyes, you’re either the spokesman of the force of cosmic justice or a heaven-sent angel of justice. At the very least, these identities can be used to stabilize the situation. But if you do nothing, you’ll lose the faith of the public after a while.”

“Achieving stability that way is dangerous. It’ll lead to no end of trouble.”

“But what we need right now is to stabilize the global situation. The nine droplets are coming to the Solar System in three years, and we have to be prepared to deal with that.”

“I really don’t want to waste resources.”

“In that case, the commission will provide you with a task. One that won’t waste resources. I’ll ask the chairman of the SFJC to explain it to you,” the chair said as he gestured to the SFJC chairman, who was also attending via video. The SFJC chairman was evidently in some space-based structure, because the stars were shifting slowly across the broad window behind him.

He said, “Our estimate of the arrival of the nine droplets in the Solar System is based entirely on speed and acceleration estimates obtained when they crossed the final interstellar dust cloud four years ago. They differ from the one that’s already here in that their engines operate without emitting light. They don’t emit any other high-frequency electromagnetic radiation that could provide a position. This is likely a self-adjustment made after humanity successfully tracked the first droplet. Locating and tracking such small, dark bodies in outer space is incredibly difficult, and now that we’ve lost their tracks, we don’t know when they’ll reach the Solar System. We don’t even know how to detect that they’ve arrived.”

“So what can I do?” Luo Ji asked.

“We hope that you can lead the Snow Project.”

“What’s that?”

“Using stellar hydrogen bombs and Neptune’s oil film, we will manufacture clouds of space dust that the droplets will leave tracks in when they pass through.”

“You’ve got to be joking. You do realize that I’m not entirely ignorant about space.”

“You were an astronomer once. That makes you even more qualified to lead this project.”

“Making a dust cloud was successful last time because the approximate path of the target was known. But now we know nothing. If the nine droplets accelerate or change course while dark, then they might even enter the Solar System from another side altogether! Where are you going to spread the dust cloud?”

“In every direction.”