The DeFi Passage Star Map Draftsman II: Fate of the Galaxy

In a very early period of Solar System civilization, many kinds of religion were popular on Earth for a while. Among them, the teachings of Buddhism contained a saying: all sentient beings possess the virtue and wisdom of the Tathagata; it is not increased by going to heaven, nor decreased by going to hell. Who was the Tathagata? He was the all-powerful god of this religion. The Tathagata was broad-minded and compassionate, and he believed that all people had the potential to become compassionate Buddhas like him. But in reality, whether civilizations evolved steadily or were destroyed and rebuilt, nothing ever seemed to make people simply full of compassion toward one another. Is it possible—thinking about it the other way around—that the wisdom all sentient beings possess is fixed from the start? No matter what era a person lives in, or what kind of civilization, every person’s heart is full of both good and evil, and whatever each person chooses to do, from their own point of view it is completely reasonable. Whether from Jonathan’s point of view or from Dawn Lucius’s, what they did was reasonable. Every era has no shortage of dreamers and schemers. Solar System civilization also had an old saying: troubled times produce heroes. The saying was truly fitting for Jonathan, and it also bore out a line from some ancient opera: if there are no troubled times, then let us create some. Jonathan was putting these principles into practice, deeply and earnestly.

After Dawn Lucius passed through the super Star Bridge, the Sane ship was like a leaf blown down by the autumn wind—reluctantly leaving the branch it had depended on to live, only to be tossed onto a silent lake. Dawn Lucius looked ahead through the porthole. The entrance to the DeFi Passage was right there, hanging on the wall of this universe bubble? Was the edge of a universe bubble a wall? The huge entrance looked like an illusory circle, pitch-black in the middle, with no way at all to see what was inside. The migrating ships lined up in their queues were probably as many as the stars of the Galaxy. When the ships touched that pitch-black center, they were like ants falling into quicksand—before they could even stir up a ripple, they were swallowed completely. As dark matter was drawn into the DeFi Passage, perhaps it rubbed against the edge of the entrance, because a ring of blinding blue light glowed there, surging fiercely. Dawn Lucius looked more closely. The outer side of the blue light seemed to light up the shape of the DeFi Passage’s entrance: it was something like the crater of a volcano on a plain that had lain dormant for hundreds of years, and the raised part carried the surrounding stars along with it, so that they looked like diamonds scattered through volcanic ash. Dawn Lucius was thinking about how to find Jonathan. With so many ships, even if Jonathan didn’t mix in among them, Dawn Lucius alone couldn’t find him. All he could do was fly close enough and then pick them out one by one. “Heh, low-dimensional effort,” Dawn Lucius sneered to himself. Looking for Jonathan’s ship like that, he might as well just turn around and go back. Low-dimensional effort was like a donkey turning a millstone: however hardworking it is, it can only walk in circles around one millstone, and that’s all.

“Dawn, can you hear me?”

Sandra’s voice came over the comm band.

“I hear you. How are things in Kukra City now?” Dawn Lucius asked excitedly, and then he felt something was off. Even though Sakya had improved the communication technology, if Sandra were still at Kukra City, Dawn Lucius couldn’t possibly hear her voice this quickly.

“We’re behind you.” Sandra’s tone was full of mischief, like a girl planning to hide and give her boyfriend a scare.

“We?”

“Yes. Stacean Lucius came too.”

“Everyone?”

“Everyone?” Sandra asked back.

“Yes.” Dawn Lucius paused. “I mean, everyone from the Solar System, everyone in Duncan’s clan—did they all come?”

“They came.”

Hearing Sandra’s answer, Dawn Lucius let out a long breath. He had been worried that Jonathan would wreck the DeFi Passage before everyone had time to migrate. “That’s good,” Dawn Lucius answered.

“Dad, to stop Jonathan, we can search using the modified channel. We’re bound to pick up one of the ships following him, and that way we can pin down Jonathan’s position.” Stacean Lucius asked this over the comm channel. Dawn Lucius could hear Katherine’s voice; she seemed to want to ask something. Dawn Lucius could picture the scene: she glanced at her father and then, a little embarrassed, held the words back.

On his way back from Madam Winifred’s, Dawn Lucius had already explained the situation to Stacean Lucius and Sandra. Stacean Lucius’s idea was right. Back when Dawn Lucius made the Sane ship’s spacecraft technology public, Sakya had also proposed a better communication scheme that allowed instant contact even over fairly long distances. So all the ships built using the Sane ship’s design were on the same comm band and could identify each other’s positions. This had actually been added by Hamilton. His idea was that during the Great Migration, people could identify who was on their side, and if anyone ran into trouble, they could quickly locate one another and help each other. No one ever imagined that it would now be used to find an enemy.

“Good suggestion.” Dawn Lucius even felt a little pleased with himself. “Here’s what I’m thinking. Look—the line of ships passing through the DeFi Passage is so long, it will probably take a hundred years or so for all of them to get through. Jonathan’s goal is to blow up the DeFi Passage. He’s sure to fly straight toward the passage entrance and detonate the White Crystal at that layer of dark boundary, so he certainly won’t be in the queue. We’ll go there at full speed and keep searching for their signals the whole way.”

“Good. We’ll come to your coordinates first and meet up.” Duncan said over the channel. He let the Solar System ships fly however they liked—at least here it was safe, and they didn’t need any protection from Duncan’s army. And so all the ships flew toward Dawn Lucius.

While Dawn Lucius waited, he studied the scene of the DeFi Passage. No matter how advanced a civilization was, it could never build something like this. The blue light rubbed out of the surging dark matter was as clean as some afternoon in April. Best of all would be to find a river, set a chair down anywhere on the grass along the bank, take out a strawberry-flavored Americano bought ahead of time, and just sit there drinking it until hunger made him get up and go home. Half a day like that would beat countless days of working at the space center. In truth, Dawn Lucius was also hoping the Shepherds would come out and stop Jonathan. And even if they didn’t come, what about the Datheon? The last time the Orion Arm was nearly wiped flat by war, the Datheon had appeared. They had brought peace, and they had brought the Star Map Draftsman. This time, surely they would step forward? For Dawn Lucius, what he wanted most was to send Stacean Lucius and Sandra into the DeFi Passage and keep Jonathan from causing trouble along the way. And there were also people with designs of their own who might do Stacean Lucius harm. Lately he kept dreaming of Stacean Lucius as a little boy, and the dream was the same every time: Stacean Lucius always got lost in his dream, leaving him anxious for a long, long time. He still remembered the most recent time, when someone had actually kidnapped Stacean Lucius in order to scan the Star Source’s data. These people were capable of anything. At this last critical moment of the Great Migration, he couldn’t let anything else happen to Stacean Lucius. At this thought, Dawn Lucius’s heart tightened. He quickly got up from his chair and checked Stacean Lucius’s ship signal on the console. He saw that the blue markers were still blinking, and then, still uneasy, he looked out the porthole on the other side before he could sit back down in his chair at ease.

Dawn Lucius summoned dark matter and let the energy flow freely between his fingers. He remembered how Jonathan had used dark matter in Kukra City—a height he could never reach. Dawn Lucius knew perfectly well that his ability to control dark matter fell short of Jonathan’s. If they really came face-to-face—“Chances are we will come face-to-face”—Dawn Lucius’s heart beat faster. All he could do was give it everything he had. He summoned dark matter and gathered it into a sphere in his palm. He imagined compressing all the dark matter into a small enough sphere, only the size of a grain of rice, but with power to rival an atomic bomb. That might be able to break through Jonathan’s energy shield. But even with his arm on the verge of bursting, Dawn Lucius couldn’t compress enough dark matter into a single sphere. Somewhat discouraged, he stood up, went to the console, and began searching for other signals there, wanting to see whether he could find ships from Jonathan’s legions ahead of time. Strangely, Dawn Lucius found no signals in the direction of the DeFi Passage, but behind Sandra and the others he found signals he could contact, and quite a lot of them, by the look of it. It seemed the civilizations of the Orion Arm that were capable of migrating had joined the Great Migration. No one at Kukra City was stopping ships from passing through anymore. That looked like a good thing—letting as many people as possible survive, or rather, letting as many civilizations as possible carry on. That was a good thing.

“Star Map Draftsman.” While Dawn Lucius was rummaging through the signals, someone called in.

“This is Dawn Lucius,” Dawn Lucius replied, puzzled.

“We’re here.” The person speaking on the channel sounded rather playful.

“I didn’t expect you two to come. I thought you were still researching your own super Star Bridge.” Dawn Lucius had guessed who it was, and said it with a touch of teasing.

“That’s too slow. It’s not that we can’t research it—let me tell you first, we absolutely can—but my big brother thought…” The speaker was Burt.

“Yes, my second brother is right. Our Strath Federation is full of talent and has real strength. It’s just that time is limited, so we decided to use what’s already there—survive first, and worry about the rest later.” Carlson cut Burt off to add.

“That I firmly believe,” Dawn Lucius said jokingly.

“Why does your tone sound like you don’t believe us?” Burt’s voice came through the receiver.

“How could that be? You two coming here has given me tremendous confidence.”

“Confidence in what?” Carlson asked.

“Confidence that we can stop Jonathan from blowing up the DeFi Passage.” Dawn Lucius sat up perfectly straight as he spoke.

“On that point, I’m afraid we can’t help.” Carlson seemed to sigh.

“That, we can’t do anything about. We need to protect the people of the Strath Federation as they enter the DeFi Passage and get through the second stage, until…” Burt made his position clear too.

“Right, I understand all that. Your Highnesses, then I wish you a smooth journey.” Dawn Lucius took a deep breath.

“Thanks. Good luck to you too.” Burt left the call.

Carlson didn’t leave. White noise came over the channel. Just as Dawn Lucius was hesitating over whether to say something to him, Carlson gave a token cough.

“Star Map Draftsman, are you still there?” Carlson asked.

“I’m here.”

“Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“Not at the moment. Thank you, Prince Carlson.” Dawn Lucius smiled. Other than stopping Jonathan, there was nothing else the Strath Federation could help with. Dawn Lucius suddenly stopped, and said urgently: “Your Highness, there actually is something I need your help with.”

“Tell me.”

“Could you look after the people of Solar System civilization for me, and the people of Duncan’s clan? They’re among these signal points.”

“Well…” Carlson hesitated a little.

“Is there some difficulty?” Dawn Lucius asked, a little worried.

“I’ll be honest with you. The Solar System civilization—no problem. They could even fold their ships into our ranks. Our army is enough to keep them completely safe, and our food-recycling systems can produce enough for them to eat. After all, our Strath Federation is a Level One civilization. It’s just that…” Carlson didn’t go on.

“It’s just what?”

“It’s just—don’t forget, the people of Duncan’s clan belong to the Ashton Federation, and we and the Ashton Federation can’t get along. Even if General Duncan can live in peace with us, the officers and soldiers under him are another story. We’ve all fought for our lives in the battle of Visadio Planet. Sitting down together all friendly and peaceful just isn’t realistic. I hope you can understand that.” Carlson gave Dawn Lucius no chance to reply, and went straight on: “We don’t want our soldiers fighting each other, and then the people of two federations going to war inside the DeFi Passage. That’s certainly not what we want. I hope you can understand.”

Dawn Lucius understood exactly what Carlson meant. Carlson’s role required him to keep the bigger picture in mind. Dawn Lucius answered immediately: “Yes, yes, yes. Prince Carlson, you’re right. I’m very sorry. I shouldn’t have suggested it like that. I didn’t think it through.”

“Well, it’s not your fault. You just want to protect the people you care about. We know you and Sandra have something special between you. That’s understandable.”

“Yes, yes.” Dawn Lucius didn’t know what to say.

“All right, Star Map Draftsman. I promise you, the Strath Federation will do its best to look after the people of the Solar System civilization.”

“Thank you.” After Dawn Lucius said this, Carlson left the call. He saw the Ashton Federation’s fleet merging into those long lines of ships.

He didn’t know how much time had passed before Duncan led a great mass of ships to Dawn Lucius’s coordinates. Before they had time to take stock of the ships’ condition and the health of the population, Dawn Lucius urged everyone to advance toward the boundary of the DeFi Passage. He needed all the ships to fly as fast as they could; he didn’t want Jonathan and Lord Winifred to set off the dark-matter bomb before they even got there. Duncan kept asking over the comm channel for the results of the signal search. Even with a large number of ships thrown into the search, they still found no trace of Jonathan and his people. Dawn Lucius thought this could only mean that Jonathan and his people had already flown far enough ahead. Dawn Lucius talked it over with Sandra for a while, and Sandra left Duncan’s main ship to join Dawn Lucius on the Sane ship. The migrating ships were already at their top speed, but the Sane ship hadn’t reached its limit yet. Dawn Lucius and Sandra planned to fly ahead at full speed first and find Jonathan ahead of time, and then they would find a way to mark Jonathan’s army. “If we can…” Dawn Lucius was about to explain his plan.

“Dad,” Stacean Lucius interrupted him, leaning closer to the communicator to continue, “wait for us. Don’t take risks.”

Dawn Lucius smiled. He had been about to say that he would do everything he could to stop Jonathan first, but on second thought, he decided not to make his son worry. He nodded and answered, “All right. Sandra and I will wait for you there.”

After he said this, Dawn Lucius clenched his arm, and his will spread out and wound itself through every molecule of the Sane ship. He summoned dark matter to drive every part of the ship, and so the Sane ship vanished from the main fleet’s sight. The closer they got to the DeFi Passage, the more magnificent this thing beyond the power of any people to build seemed to Dawn Lucius. He felt the civilizations of the Orion Arm were not simply small—they were not even worth mentioning. Dawn Lucius thought to himself that the Shepherds couldn’t possibly just sit back and do nothing if Jonathan and his people really had come to destroy the DeFi Passage. Once again the idea rose in him of taking everyone and escaping inside first. He had people he cared about now. Several times he put together in his head the words he wanted to say, but he couldn’t bring himself to say them to Sandra. He was afraid that if his blade of strength were suddenly sheathed, everyone would lose heart.

“Dawn, look!” Sandra pointed at a signal on the screen and called out.

Dawn Lucius hurried over to look. The signals of Jonathan’s fleet were flickering in and out. “Looks like we’re very close to them. But why do these signals look like they could disappear at any moment? Are they faster than us?” Dawn Lucius looked at Sandra.

Sandra shook her head. “No. They definitely can’t match the Sane ship’s speed. Either that, or they’re jamming the signals.”

“Probably not. If they wanted to jam the signals, they would have removed their signal transmitters when they set out, or started jamming right after they’d gone some distance. They wouldn’t wait until now.”

“Then is it possible…” Sandra narrowed her eyes and went on, “they know we’re coming, and they know we’ll definitely try to stop them, so now they’ve started jamming the signals.”

“Hard to say. Maybe they’ve spotted our signals too.”

“Or else someone in our group tipped them off and they learned our plan, so now Jonathan has his fleet hiding.”

Dawn Lucius shook his head. “It’s not very likely that there’s a traitor. Your clan and Solar System civilization both know very well that only by entering the DeFi Passage can they survive. And none of them are the overly ambitious type. So it’s not very likely.”

“What about the Strath Federation?”

“Not very likely either. Carlson already feels Jonathan tricked him. Besides, their original goal in attacking the Ashton Federation was to get ships. On the surface they said it was to develop their civilization, but in reality they had known about the Great Migration all along. It was just that their civilization was fairly backward, so they found an excuse to attack the Ashton Federation. Their old chieftain was from the same era as Madam Winifred. He knew very well that Madam Winifred had surely kept something in reserve and hidden away the spacecraft technology for migration, so the only thing to do was to go and fight—maybe they could get the migration spacecraft technology that way. You see, their goal was very clear from the start: to migrate. So there’s no way they would tip off Jonathan at a time like this. At the very least, our interests and Burt’s start from the same place.”

“Then that’s strange.” Sandra turned to the signals on the screen and talked to herself.

“Wait…” Dawn Lucius moved over beside Sandra, rested his chin on her shoulder, and went on, “Do you think it’s possible that Jonathan and his people don’t care at all whether we’ve come, and it’s just that something is interfering with their signals?”

“What do you mean?” Sandra half turned her face toward him, her nose almost touching Dawn Lucius’s face.

“Think about it.” Dawn Lucius sat up straight again and squeezed his right arm. “In Kukra City, the power Jonathan showed definitely went beyond a Star Map Draftsman’s. Since he can control dark matter to that degree, he doesn’t see us as a threat, and he has no intention of wasting any effort on us. So the only possibility is that something in the places they’re passing through is interfering with their signals.”

“Hmm, that makes sense too,” Sandra said, a little embarrassed.

Dawn Lucius suddenly pulled Sandra into his arms and kissed her several times on the cheek and the lips. “Let’s hurry over there and see what they’re up to—then we’ll know.”

With that, Dawn Lucius leaned back half-reclining in his seat and summoned dark matter again. The Sane ship, like a grain of millet falling into a giant black hole, hurtled toward the source of the signals.

Sandra glanced at Dawn Lucius. It took her less than five seconds to go from eyes full of tenderness to dejection. Lately she had been restless all the time. The fear of losing Dawn Lucius was like the pimples that used to break out across her forehead in adolescence: it always jumped into her heart out of nowhere, stamped on it hard a few times, and then disappeared. She never knew when it would show up, and there was no way to catch hold of it. She could hardly bear to think about what she would do if one day she lost Dawn Lucius. Dawn Lucius was a Star Map Draftsman. One day he would become a being of pure energy and be summoned by the Datheon to an assigned star region to carry out his duty. She wasn’t afraid of any of that. She was willing to follow him into any corner. What she feared most was that he would forget her. Before the news that a Star Map Draftsman had appeared in the Orion Arm had spread, Sandra had heard Madam Winifred arguing with her officials. Someone had said there was no need to fear the Star Map Draftsmen, because they were beings of pure energy, and they had no feelings at all. “No feelings at all,” Sandra took a deep breath. She didn’t know whether it was true or not, but she was very afraid now. She glanced at Dawn Lucius again. Dark matter flowed under his skin like his blood, and the purple energy made him look more spirited. Sandra pulled her emotions back together and stared at the flickering signals on the screen without a word.

“We should be close enough now, right? How does it look?” After a while, Dawn Lucius got up and asked.

Sandra froze for a moment, then put her expression back in order. She was confident Dawn Lucius hadn’t noticed anything. Then she pointed at the screen and said, “Still the same. Your deduction was right—something really is interfering with their signals.”

“Why?”

Sandra stood up and looked out the porthole. She motioned Dawn Lucius over, and the two of them looked outside. The Sane ship had already flown above the queued ships. They could clearly see the writing on the outside of the migrating fleet, and the blinking lights, but there was no sign of Jonathan’s fleet here. That could only mean Jonathan had taken his fleet down to the very bottom. The queued ships were like Jupiter’s thin but broad ring, except that Jonathan’s fleet was below the ring, and Dawn Lucius was above it.

“I get it.” Dawn Lucius moved closer to the porthole and pointed at the ships. “They’re hiding underneath, and these big ships are just scrambling their signals.”

“Yes.”

“Honey, mark the position first and send it to Duncan and Stacean Lucius, and then we’ll dive down.” Dawn Lucius looked at Sandra as he said it.

Hearing Dawn Lucius say this, she turned and glanced at the control console, then turned back toward Dawn Lucius and stared at him.

“What’s wrong?” Dawn Lucius looked at Sandra, puzzled.

“What did you just say?” Sandra looked at Dawn Lucius with a grave face.

Dawn Lucius raised his hand, made a fist, and shook it in front of him, as if to psych himself up. “Mark the signal, of course, and then we charge in.”

“What did you call me?” Sandra asked calmly.

“Honey. What’s wrong?”

“Didn’t you say that in your civilization, only when two people are truly husband and wife does a man call his woman that?”

“So what? We are truly husband and wife. Am I not allowed to call you that?” Dawn Lucius deliberately raised his voice.

“Since when did we become truly husband and wife?”

“Since the time you kicked me.”

“Nonsense.”

“Back then I saw your body, and afterward I couldn’t hold back and let you take over my heart. And later your father agreed to us becoming husband and wife. And besides, we’ve already…” Dawn Lucius mimed taking off his clothes.

Sandra rushed forward and clapped her hand over his mouth. She had turned shy. “Don’t say it.”

“Fine. So you’re my wife?”

Sandra nodded again and again and buried her whole face in Dawn Lucius’s neck, breathing in the scent of his skin. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the time for tenderness. Sandra marked the signals of Jonathan’s fleet below the long belt of the Great Migration fleet and sent it to everyone behind them. She didn’t intend to single out the Ashton Federation, nor did she intend to single out the Solar System. She hoped everyone would come and help.

Dawn Lucius still couldn’t feel at ease. After a quick word with Sandra, he decided to dive down near Jonathan and keep a close watch on them. It took some time to get around the migrating fleet. He drew in his purple energy to make the Sane ship look as inconspicuous as possible. Before they knew it, they were close enough to the entrance of the DeFi Passage. It was as if they had come to the edge of a waterfall, and all they needed to do was lift their left foot and leap to plunge into the unknown behind the curtain of water. Dawn Lucius even noticed that the whole fleet was slowing down, except for that ship that had been exiled in the great battle of Visadio Planet—Lord Winifred’s ship. It had pulled some distance ahead of Jonathan’s fleet, like a human bomb charging alone. Dawn Lucius tugged hard on Sandra’s sleeve, signaling her to look ahead.

“Oh no—Lord Winifred, he looks like he’s saying his goodbyes before the explosion,” Sandra said loudly.

“Let’s go.” Dawn Lucius piloted the Sane ship and charged straight over.

“Do you have a plan?” Sandra asked, staring hard straight ahead.

“First we get in front of him. I’ll make a net out of dark matter and drag it away. What do you think?”

“All right. Best to drag it backward—my brother and the others are back there. If Jonathan’s fleet comes after us, my brother can stop them.”

“Too dangerous. If Lord Winifred decides to take everyone down with him, then Duncan and the others will be in danger, and Stacean Lucius too. It’s best if we drag it downward, away from the fleet, away from the DeFi Passage.”

“All right.” Sandra hesitated a moment, touched Dawn Lucius’s hand, and went on, “Are you sure you can do it?”

“Do what?” Dawn Lucius didn’t understand what Sandra was asking whether he was sure of.

“Hold that ship back.”

Dawn Lucius didn’t answer right away. He turned to look behind him. He instinctively wanted to see how far away Stacean Lucius and the others still were, but all he could see was the wall of the Sane ship.

“Tell Stacean Lucius and the others to fly toward the DeFi Passage at full speed,” Dawn Lucius said, swallowing.

“All right.” With that, Sandra began talking with the migrating people over the comm channel. She seemed to be using some reasonable explanation to persuade Stacean Lucius that he absolutely had to fly toward the DeFi Passage. Dawn Lucius wasn’t sure of anything. Helplessness, like an overwhelming torrent, closed over his head. He felt he was losing his hearing, losing his breath.

Dawn Lucius flew the Sane ship, lurching and stumbling, to the vicinity of Lord Winifred’s ship. At the same time, he noticed that a small number of ships in Jonathan’s army were breaking away from the formation and flying toward him—clearly coming to stop him. Dawn Lucius had to drag Lord Winifred down into the bottomless abyss below before the whole army could react.