The Dark Forest Read Free Page A

children looked through the crack in the door and saw what looked like their grandmother, and so they opened the door, and the wolf came in the house and ate them. Do you understand this story, my Lord?”
    Not the slightest bit.
    “Then maybe I’ve guessed right.”
    First of all, the wolf wanted all along to enter the house and eat the children, correct?
    “Correct.”
    It engaged in communication with the children, correct?
    “Correct.”
    This is what’s incomprehensible. In order to achieve its own aims, it shouldn’t have communicated with the children.
    “Why?”
    Isn’t it obvious? If there was communication between them, the children would have known that the wolf wanted to come in and eat them, and they wouldn’t have opened the door.
    Evans stayed silent for a while. “I understand, my Lord. I understand.”
    What do you understand? Isn’t what I said obvious?
    “Your thoughts are completely exposed to the outside world. You can’t hide.”
    How can thoughts hide? Your ideas are confusing.
    “I mean, your thoughts and memories are transparent to the outside world, like a book placed out in public, or a film projected in a plaza, or a fish in a clear fishbowl. Totally exposed. Readable at a glance. Er, maybe some of the elements I just mentioned are…”
    I understand them all. But isn’t all that perfectly natural?
    Evans was silent again. “So that’s it.… My Lord, when you communicate face-to-face, everything you communicate is true. It’s impossible for you to cheat or lie, so you can’t pursue complicated strategic thinking.”
    We can communicate over significant distances, not just face-to-face. The words “cheating” and “lying” are another two that we have had a hard time understanding.
    “What sort of a society is it when thought is completely transparent? What sort of culture does it produce? What sort of politics? No scheming, no pretending.”
    What are “scheming” and “pretending”?
    Evans said nothing.
    Human communication organs are but an evolutionary deficiency, a necessary compensation for the fact that your brains can’t emit strong thought waves. This is one of your biological weaknesses. Direct display of thought is a superior, more efficient form of communication.
    “A deficiency? A weakness? No, my Lord, you are wrong. This time you are totally wrong.”
    Is that so? Let me think about it. It’s a shame you can’t see my thoughts.
    This time the interruption was longer. When twenty minutes had passed and no more text had appeared, Evans strolled from bow to stern, watching a school of fish leaping out of the ocean, tracing an arc on the surface that glittered silver under the starlight. Several years ago, he had spent some time on a fishing boat in the South China Sea investigating the effect of overfishing on coastal life. The fishermen called this phenomenon “the passing of dragon soldiers.” To Evans, they looked like text projected on the eye of the ocean. Then text appeared before his own eyes.
    You are correct. Looking back at those documents, I understand them a little better.
    “My Lord, there’s a long road to travel before you arrive at a true understanding of human matters. I’m almost afraid that you’ll never be able to.”
    Indeed, they are complicated. All I know now is why I didn’t understand them before. You are right.
    “My Lord, you need us.”
    I am afraid of you.
    The conversation stopped. This was the last time that Evans received a message from Trisolaris. He stood at the stern watching the snow-white body of Judgment Day stretch off into the hazy night, like time slipping away.

 
    Year 3, Crisis Era
    Distance of the Trisolaran Fleet from the Solar System: 4.21 light-years
    It looks so old.…
    This was Wu Yue’s first thought as he faced Tang, the massive ship under construction in front of him, bathed in the flickering of electric arcs. Of course, this impression was simply the result of countless inconsequential