Cheng Xin didn’t know what to do. No one had contacted her after the end of deterrence. The Swordholder no longer existed, just like deterrence.
程心不知道该做什么，威慑中止后，任何方面都没有与她联系。现在，与威慑一样，执剑人已经不存在了。
Everything seemed the same, but this world no longer belonged to humans.
一切依旧，但这个世界已经不属于人类了。
Cheng Xin rode the elevator to the surface. Exiting the elevator station, she saw the plaza where the deterrence handover ceremony had taken place an hour ago. All the attendees had left, and the place was empty save for the long shadows cast by the flagpoles. The flags of the UN and the Solar System Fleet hung from the two tallest poles, and behind them were the flags of the various nations. The flags continued to flap tranquilly in the light breeze. Beyond them was the endless Gobi Desert. A few twittering birds landed in a stand of tamarisk nearby. In the distance, she could see the rolling Qilian Mountains, the snow cover on a few peaks giving them a silvery highlight.
程心乘电梯来到地面，走出入口站的大门时，她看到了一小时前刚举行过威慑控制权交接仪式的露天会场。参加仪式的人已经离去，这里空荡荡的，只有那排旗杆在夕阳中拉出长长的影子，最高的两根旗杆上挂着联合国和太阳系舰队的旗帜，后而是各国的国旗，这些旗帜在微风中平静地飘扬首。再向前看是一望无际的戈壁，几只鸟儿鸣叫着落入近处的一从红柳。远方可以斤到连绵的祁连山，少量的积雳在山顶勾出几抹银色。
She walked forward aimlessly. When she exited the gates of the compound, two guards saluted her. She was terrified of facing people, but she saw nothing but curiosity in their eyes — they didn’t yet know what had happened. Regulations permitted the Swordholder to come onto the surface for brief intervals, and they must have thought she had come up to investigate the quake. Cheng Xin saw a few military officers standing next to a flying transport parked by the gate. They weren’t even looking at her, merely in the direction she had come from. One of them pointed in that direction.
她茫然地向前走去，在走出基地大门时，两个哨兵向她敬礼。她害怕面对人们，但她发现，他们的眼中除了一丝好奇外并没有更多的东西，显然他们还不知道刚刚发生了什么。按照常规，执剑人是可以短暂地来到地面的，他们可能以为她上来是因为刚才的地震。程心又看到大门边的一辆军用飞行车旁有几名军官，他们甚至没向她这边看，只是专注地看着她背对的方向，其中一位还向那边指了指。
Someone called her name. She turned and saw 艾 AA running toward her. Dressed in a white jacket, her hair waving in the wind, she panted and told Cheng Xin that she had come to see her, but the sentries wouldn’t let her in.
程心听到有人叫自己的名字，转身一看，竟是艾AA正向这里跑过来。她穿着白色的风衣，长发被风吹起，喘着气说她来看程心，但他们不让她进去。
She turned around and saw the mushroom cloud on the horizon. Formed by the earth and dust thrown up from deep underground, it was very thick, appearing almost solid. It looked so out of place in the serene scene that it resembled a bad Photoshop job. A closer examination led Cheng Xin to imagine it as an ugly bust showing a strange expression in the setting sun. That was where the droplet had penetrated the Earth.
程心转身顺着他们的目光看去，看到厂地平线上那朵蘑菇云，那是从地下喷出的尘埃，十分浓密，以至于看上去像是固体。它突兀地出现在平静的天地之间，仿佛是用图形软件在幅风景画中随意叠加上去的东西。再细看，程心感到那朵蘑菇云像是一个丑陋的头像，在夕阳中露出一种奇怪的表情。蘑菇云是从水滴穿人地层的位置喷出的。
“I’ve brought some flowers for your new place,” she said, pointing at her parked car. Then she turned to the mushroom cloud. “Is that a volcano? Did that cause the earthquake just now?”
她指着远处白己的车说，“还给程心的新住处带来了好几盆花呢，然后她指着远方的蘑菇云问，那是不是火山爆发，和刚才的地震有关系吗？”
Cheng Xin wanted to pull AA into her arms and cry, but she controlled herself. She wanted to delay the moment when this happy girl found out the truth, wanted to let the reverberations of the good times that had just ended linger a bit longer.
程心真想抱住AA大哭一场，但她克制住了白己，想让这个快乐的女孩子晚一些知道己经发生的事，也想让刚刚结束的美好时代的余音再延长一些。
After the failure, most people immediately pointed to the small number of gravitational wave transmitters as a cause, and blamed people from the early Deterrence Era for dismantling nineteen of the twenty-three completed transmitters. But this reaction represented a failure to grasp the substance of the problem. From data gathered during the droplet attack, a droplet needed slightly more than ten seconds on average to penetrate the crust and destroy a transmitter. Even if the planned one hundred transmitters had been completed and deployed, it wouldn’t have taken long for droplets to destroy the entire system.
威慑失败后，人们首先想到的是引力波发射器太少了，当初把已经建成的二十三个发射台中的二十个拆除是一个错误。但这种想法没有抓住问题的实质。根据监测数据，水滴穿入地层摧毁一个发射台所需的时间平均只有十几秒钟，即使计划中的一百个发射台全部建成并部署，水滴摧毁整个系统也用不了多少时间。
The most important factor in the failure of deterrence was, of course, electing the wrong Swordholder. This is a topic that will be addressed elsewhere in a dedicated chapter. For now, let’s focus on the technical weaknesses in the system design that contributed to the failure.
导致失败最重要的因素当然是对执剑人的错误选择，这方面将在另外的章节专门论述，这里只从技术角度重新审视威慑系统设计上的失误。
[Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time, Reflections on the Failure of Dark Forest Deterrence]
【摘自《时间之外的往事》对黑暗森林威摄失败的反思】
The key was that the system could be destroyed. Humankind had had a chance to build an indestructible gravitational wave universal broadcast system, but hadn’t taken it.
关健在于这个系统是可摧毁的，而人类本来有机会建造一个不可摧毁的引力波宇宙广播系统。
The problem wasn’t the number of transmitters, but where they were deployed.
问题不在于引力波发射台的数量，而在于它们部署的位置。
Imagine if the twenty-three transmitters had not been built on or below the surface, but in space — that is, twenty-three spaceships like Gravity. Normally, the ships would be scattered around the Solar System. Even if the droplets had conducted a surprise attack, it would be difficult for them to destroy all of them. One or more of the ships would have time to escape into deep space.
设想如果已经建造的二十三个发射台不是位于地面而是在太空。也就是说建造二十三艘“万有引力”号飞船，平时各飞船拉开距离分散在太阳系不同的位置，即使水滴发动突然袭击，也很难全部消灭它们，必然有一艘或多艘飞船逃脱追击消失在太空深处。
This would have greatly increased the degree of deterrence for the whole system, in a way that would not have been dependent on the Swordholder. The Trisolarans would have known that they controlled insufficient forces within the Solar System to completely destroy the deterrence system, and would have behaved with far more restraint.
这样黑暗森林威慑系统的威慑度便增加很多，而且，所增加的威慑度与执剑人无关。当三体世界意识到，凭他们在太阳系的力量不可能完全摧毁威慑系统，他们对自己的冒险可能会谨慎许多。
Regrettably, there was only one Gravity.
遗憾的是，“万有引力”号只有一艘。
There were two reasons that more ships with transmitters weren’t built: First, there was the “Sons of the Earth” attack on the transmitter in Antarctica. Spaceships were deemed even more vulnerable to threats from extremist humans than underground stations. Second, it was a matter of economics. Since gravitational wave antennas were immense, they had to serve as the hull of the ship itself. Thus, the antenna had to be constructed out of materials that met the requirements of spaceflight, which increased costs many times. Gravity itself cost almost the equivalent of the twenty-three ground-based transmitters added together. Moreover, the hull of the ship itself could not be refreshed; when the vibrating string made of degenerate matter that ran the length of the ship reached its fifty-year half-life limit, a completely new gravitational wave ship had to be built.
没有建造多艘引力波飞船的原因有两个：其一是“地球之子”对南极引力波发射台的袭击。在这方面，对于来自人类的威胁，引力波发射飞船与地基发射台相比更不安全，有着更多的不确定因素。其二是经济原因。由于引力波发射天线体积巨大，引力波飞船的天线只能是船体本身，这样天线材料还要满足宇航的要求。成本更是成倍增长，建造“万有引力”号的费用几乎是地球上二十三个发射台的总和。同时，飞船的船体不可能更新，所以当贯穿船体的简并态振动弦达到五十年的半衰期而失效时。飞船的发射功能消失，只能制造新的引力波飞船。
But the deeper root cause could only be found in the minds of humankind. Never explicitly stated, and perhaps not even consciously understood, a gravitational wave ship was too powerful — so powerful that it terrified its creator. If something — a droplet attack or something else — forced such ships to depart for deep space, and they could never return to the Solar System due to the presence of enemy threats, they would turn into copies of Blue Space and Bronze Age, or something even more horrific. Each gravitational wave ship, with its no-longer-human crew, would also possess the power to broadcast to the universe (though limited by the half-life of the vibrating string), thus controlling the fate of humanity. A frightful instability would be permanently scattered among the stars.
但更深层的原因潜藏在人们意识深处，从来没有被说出甚至可能没有被意识到：引力波飞船太强大了，强大到它的建造者自己都害怕。如果发生事变。水滴的袭击或其他原因迫使引力波飞船飞向太空深处，且由于太阳系内存在的威胁永远不能返航，它们就成为新的“蓝色空间”号和“青铜时代”号，或变成什么更不确定更可怕的东西，同时，它们拥有引力波宇宙广播的能力（虽然不会超过振动弦的半衰期），因而掌握着人类世界的命运！那样，一种恐怖的不确定性将永远播撒到太空中。
At its root, this fear was a fear of dark forest deterrence itself. This was characteristic of ultimate deterrence: The deterrer and the deteree shared the same terror of deterrence itself.
这种恐惧归根结底还是是黑暗森林威慑本身的恐惧，这就是终极威恨的特点：威慑者和被威慑者对威慑有着相同的恐惧。
[Post-Deterrence Era, First Hour, A Lost World]
【威慑后一小时，失落的世界】
Cheng Xin walked toward the officers and asked them to take her to the site of the eruption. A lieutenant colonel in charge of security for the compound immediately dispatched two cars: one to take her, the other to carry a few guards for security. Cheng Xin asked AA to stay and wait for her, but AA insisted on coming and got into the car.
程心走向那几位军官，向他们提出要去喷发点看一看。其中一位负责基地警戒的中校立刻为她派了两辆飞行车，一辆送她去喷发点。另一辆上有几名士兵负责警卫。程心让艾AA在原地等着自己，但从坚持要随程心去。只好让她上了车。
He couldn’t have imagined that the “volcano’ had once hidden the strategic fulcrum for the world: the gravitational wave antenna. The first eruption was caused by the impact of the droplet penetrating the crust. After destroying the antenna, it retraced its path and emerged from the ground, causing a second eruption. The eruptions were due to the droplet releasing its tremendous kinetic energy in the ground, not an outburst of material from the mantle, so they were very brief. The extremely high velocity of the droplet meant that it could not be observed by the naked eye as it penetrated or emerged from the ground.
他做梦也想不到，火山下面就是这个世界曾经的战略支点—引力波发射天线。第一次火山喷发是水滴穿人地层时产生的，它摧毁天线后沿原路穿出地层，引发了第二次喷发。山于喷发主要是由水滴在地层中释放的巨大动能所引起，并非地慢中的物质喷出，所以都很短暂。水滴速度极快，穿人和飞出地表时肉眼是看不到的。
The flying cars hovered barely above the ground and headed to the mushroom cloud at a low speed. AA asked the driver what was wrong, but he didn’t know. The volcano had erupted twice, a few minutes apart. He thought it might be the first time in recorded history that a volcano had erupted within China’s borders.
飞行车以贴地的高度朝尘云方向妞去，速度很慢。AA问开车的士兵那是怎么回事，士兵说他也不知道，那火山共喷发r两次，间隔儿分钟时间，他说这可能是中国境内有史以来的第一座活火山吧。
Small smoking pits dotted the Gobi as it passed beneath the car: mini-impact craters from the lava and heated rocks that had been thrown up by the eruption. As they proceeded, the pits grew denser, and a thick layer of smoke hovered over the Gobi, revealing burning stands of tamarisk here and there. Though few people lived out here they occasionally saw old buildings collapsed by the quake. The whole scene resembled a battlefield where the fighting had just finished.
在飞车下面掠过的戈壁上，零星出现了一些冒烟的小坑。那是由喷发口飞出的岩浆和灼热的岩石砸出的。前行中，小坑渐渐密集起来，戈壁上笼罩着一层烟雾，不时能看到燃烧的红柳丛，这里人迹罕至，但也能看到几幢被震塌的旧建筑。这一片看上去像是刚刚结束了一场战役的战场。
The cloud had dissipated a bit by now and no longer looked like a mushroom — it was more like a head of unkempt hair whose tips were colored crimson by the setting sun. A security line stopped the cars as they approached, and they had to land. But Cheng Xin persisted, and the sentries let her through. The soldiers didn’t know that the world had already fallen, and they still respected Cheng Xin’s authority as the Swordholder. They did, however, stop AA, and no matter how she screamed and struggled, they would not let her pass.
那团尘云已经被风吹散了一些，不再呈蘑菇状，变得像一头乱发。边缘被即将落下的夕阳照成了血红色。在接近喷发点时，飞行车被一道空中警戒线拦住了，只好降落。在程心的坚持下，地面的警戒线让她通过了，这些军人不知道世界已经陷落，程心在他们面前仍有执剑人的权威。但他们挡住了AA，任她怎样叫喊挣扎也不让通过。
The steady wind had already driven most of the dust away, but the smoke broke the light of the setting sun into a series of flickering shadows. Cheng Xin walked about a hundred meters through the shadows until she reached the edge of a giant crater. Shaped like a funnel, the crater was forty or fifty meters deep at the center. Thick clouds of white smoke still poured out of it, and the bottom of the crater gave off a dim red molten glow: a pool of lava.
这个方向在上风，没有太多的尘埃落下，但烟尘挡住了夕阳的光芒形成一片不断变幻着浓淡的阴影。程心在阴影中走了一百多米，来到一个巨坑的边缘。坑呈漏斗状，中心有几十米深，大团浓密的白烟仍从坑中涌出，坑底有一片暗红色，那是一洼岩浆。
Forty-five kilometers below, the gravitational wave antenna, a cylinder with a length of fifteen hundred meters and a diameter of fifty meters suspended in an underground cave with magnetic levitation, had been smashed into smithereens and swallowed by the red-hot lava.
就在这个坑下方四十五千米深处，引力波天线，那个长一千五百米、直径五十米，在磁悬浮状态下恳浮于地慢空洞的圆柱体，已经被击成碎片并被炽热的岩桨吞没。
The red glow at the bottom of the crater attracted Cheng Xin. Just one more step, and she would achieve the release that she desired. As waves of heat buffeted her face, she stared at the dim red pool, mesmerized, until peals of laughter from behind her shook her out of her musing.
坑底的那一片红光对程心产生了强烈的诱惑，只要再向前走一步。她就能实现自己渴望的解脱。在扑面而来的滚滚热浪中，她出神地盯着那一洼暗红的岩浆，直到被身后一串银铃般的大笑惊醒过来。
This should have been her fate. It would have been the best ending for a Swordholder who had given up the power to deter.
这本来也应该是她的命运，对于一名放弃威慑操作的执剑人，那是最好的结局。
She turned around. In the flickering sunlight filtered by the smoke, a slender figure approached her. She didn’t recognize the newcomer until she was very close: Sophon.
程心转身循着笑声看去，只见在夕阳透过烟尘投下的变幻光影中，一个苗条的身影正向这里走来。一直等那人走到面前，程心才认出她是智子。
Other than the pale, lovely face, the robot looked completely different from the last time Cheng Xin had seen her. She was dressed in desert camouflage, and her hair, once tied up in a neat bun decorated with flowers, had been cut in a short and efficient style. Around her neck was the black scarf of a ninja, and on her back was strapped a long katana. She looked valiant and heroic, but the extreme femininity that she exuded had not vanished completely: Her postures and movements were still soft and gentle like water, but now they were also suffused with a glamorous air of killing and death, like a pliant but fatal noose. Even the heat spilling from the crater could not dispel the chill she brought.
除了依旧白嫩蛟美的脸，这个机器人与程心上次见到的已经判若两人。她身穿沙漠迷彩，头上那曾经插着鲜花的圆发髻不见了。代之以精干的短发。脖子上围着一条忍者的黑巾，背后插着一把长长的武士刀。显得英姿飒爽。其实她身上那已到极致的女人味并没有消失，身姿和举动仍显出如水的轻柔，但这些却融人厂一股美艳的杀气，如一条柔软而致命的绞索。巨坑中涌出的热浪也驱不散她带来的寒气。
Cheng Xin’s heart jumped. She didn’t feel comforted, but she had to admit that this lovely devil had a power that penetrated her soul.
智子的话让程心的心动了一下。她井没有为此感到安慰，但不得不承认认这个美丽的魔鬼有种穿透心灵的力量。
“You acted just as we anticipated,” Sophon said, sneering. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. The fact is that humankind chose you, and they chose this result. Out of all the members of the human race, you’re the only innocent.”
“你做出了我们预测的选择。”钾子冷笑若说，“不必自责，事实是：人们选择了你，也就选择了这个结局。全人类里面，就你一个是无辜的。”
Cheng Xin saw AA approach. She had apparently found out or guessed what had really happened. AA’s eyes burned with fury as she stared at Sophon; she picked up a rock from the ground with both hands and smashed the back of Sophon’s skull with it. But Sophon turned around and brushed the rock away like a mosquito. AA cursed at Sophon using every profane word she could think of, and went for another rock. Sophon unsheathed the katana on her back, easily pushing off the pleading Cheng Xin with her other hand, and twirled the katana. It sliced through the air, faster than the blades of an electric fan, whining loudly. When she stopped, strands of AA’s hair drifted down around her head. AA stood frozen in place, terrified, her shoulders hunched.
这时，程心看到AA也也走了过来。她显然已经得知或猜到了什么，两眼胃火地盯着智子，从地上抱起一块石头就向智子的后脑勺砸去。智子转身一挥手，像赶走一只蚊子般挡开了石头。AA冲智子喊着她能想到的所有骂女人的话，立即又拾起一块石头。智子从背上抽出了武士刀，一手把不顾一切扑过来阻止她的程心推开，一手把刀旋转着挥舞起来，刀在空气中呜呜作响，像电风扇一般看不见了。智子停下时，一小缕断发从从头上飘落下来，她吓得缩着脖子，像冻住一般不敢动了。
“Why?” Cheng Xin muttered, as if asking herself.
“这都是为什么？”程心喃喃地问，更像是问自己。
From Sophon’s gaze, Cheng Xin finally understood why she had been kept alive.
从智子看她的眼神中，程心明白了自己为什么没有被水滴攻击。
“Because the universe is not a fairy tale.”
“因为宇宙不是童话。”
Rationally, Cheng Xin understood that, had the balance maintained by deterrence continued, the brighter future belonged to humankind, not Trisolaris. But in her subconscious, the universe remained a fairy tale, a fairy tale about love. Her biggest mistake was not looking at the problem from the perspective of the enemy.
程心从理智上当然明白，威慑平衡如果维持下去，美好的前景只属于人类而不是三体世界，但在她的潜意识中，宇宙仍是童话，一个爱的童话。她最大的错误，就在于没有真正站在敌人的立场上看问题。
As the gravitational wave broadcast system had been destroyed and the sun’s ability to amplify radio waves had been suppressed, a living Cheng Xin posed no threat. On the other hand, in the unlikely event that humans still possessed some other method of broadcasting to the universe unknown to Trisolaris, eliminating the Swordholder might cause others to activate the broadcast. As long as the Swordholder was alive, however, the probability of that happening was virtually nil: Others would have a reason and excuse to shirk their responsibility.
在引力波发射系统被摧毁、太阳电波放大功能被压制的情况下，程心活着也做不了什么；进一步推测：如果人类还掌握着三体世界所不知道的其他宇宙广播手段（可能性极小），在执剑人被消灭的情况下，可能会有别的人启动广播，但执剑人存在时这种可能性就会小许多，因为那些人有了依靠和推脱的理由。
Cheng Xin remembered that she had seen Sophon’s katana in that eastern leaf-house shrouded in fog and cloud. Back then, it, and two shorter swords, had rested on a refined wooden stand next to the tea table, looking more decorative than deadly.
程心注意到智子手中的武士刀，她曾在那幢云雾中的东方别墅里见过，当时它与另外两把短些的倭刀一起放在茶案上一个精致的木刀架上，都装在鞘中，看上去那么无害。
Instead of the deterrer, Cheng Xin had been turned into a safety shield. The enemy had seen through her completely.
但他们依靠的是什么？程心不是一个威慑者，反而成了一道安全屏障，敌人看透了她。
She was a fairy tale.
她是一个童话。
“Don’t celebrate too early,” AA said to Sophon, having recovered some of her courage. “We still have the spaceship Gravity.”
“你不要得意，我们还有‘万有引力’号！”AA说，她的胆子又恢复了一些。
The Trisolarans had been planning and preparing for this moment for a long time. The exact time for the handover had been determined five months ago, before the sophons accompanying Gravity had entered the blind zone. The two droplets with Gravity had already received the order to destroy the ship at the moment of the handover.
现在，一个蓄谋已久的精巧计划显现出来，威慑控制权交接的具体时间在五个月前就已确定，那时跟随“万有引力”号的智子还没有进入盲区，随行的两个水滴已经接到在交接完成后立刻摧毁‘万有引力“号的指令。
Sophon returned the katana to its sheath on her back in a single, smooth motion. “Foolish girl, Gravity has been destroyed. It happened an hour ago, when the handover occurred a light-year away. I regret that I can’t show you the wreckage because the sophons are in a blind zone.”
智子把刀背放到肩上轻蔑地一笑，“小傻瓜！‘万有引力’号已经被摧毁了，就在一个多小时前交接完成时。很遗憾，如果没有盲区，我本来现在就可以给你们展示它在一光年外的残骸的。”
“I’m leaving,” said Sophon. “Please convey to Dr. Luo Ji the deepest respect of all of Trisolaris. He was a powerful deterrer, a great warrior. Oh, and if you get the chance, also give Mr. Thomas Wade our regrets.”
智子把长刀向后一扬，准确地插入背上的鞘中，”我要走了，请代我向罗辑博士表达三体世界的敬意，他是一个强大的威慑者，伟大的战士。另外，如果有机会，也请向托马斯·维德先生表示遗憾。“
Sophon walked away, taking large strides. She paused some distance away and turned around, calling out to the silent Cheng Xin and AA. “Get ready to go to Australia, you pitiful bugs.”
智子大步离开，走远后她又转过身来。对沉默相视的程心和AA喊道：“可怜虫们，准备去澳大利亚吧！”
Cheng Xin looked up, surprised.
智子的最后一句话让程心吃凉地抬起头来。
“In our personality studies, your degree of deterrence hovered around ten percent, like a worm wriggling on the ground. Luo Ji’s degree of deterrence was always around ninety percent, like a fearsome cobra poised to strike. But Wade –” Sophon gazed at the setting sun behind the smoke, only a sliver of which now was above ground. Terror glinted from her eyes. She shook her head vigorously, as though trying to chase away a mirage in her mind. “He had no curve at all. No matter what the other environmental parameters were, his degree of deterrence stayed at one hundred percent! What a devil! If he had become the Swordholder, none of this would have been possible. This peace would have had to last. We’ve already waited sixty-two years, but we’d have had to keep on waiting, maybe for fifty more years, or even longer. And then Trisolaris would face an Earth equal to us in technology and power. We’d have to compromise… However, we knew that humanity would choose you.”
“知道吗？在我们的人格分析系统中，你的威慑度在百分之十上下波动，像扮条爬行的小蚯蚓；罗辑的威慑度曲线像一条凶猛的眼镜蛇，在百分之九十高度波动；而维德……”智了遥望着烟尘后面落得只剩下一角的夕阳，眼中透出明显的恐阮然后用力摇摇头，仿佛正努力从自己的脑子中赶走什么，“他根本没有曲线，在所有外部环境参数下，他的威慑度全顶在在百分之一百，那个魔鬼！如果他成为执剑者，这一切都不会发生，和平将继续，我们已经等了六十二年，都不得不继续等下去，也许再等半个线纪或更长。那时，三体世界只能同在实力上已经势均力敌的地球文明战斗，或妥协……但我们知道，人们肯定会选择你的。”
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