To Hold Up the Sky Page 8

  Once she is gone, I don’t hesitate. I take out my cell phone, log into the online banking system, and transfer five million into the Gene Extension Center’s bank account. Although it’s close to midnight, I still receive a call from the center’s director right away. He says that the manipulations to improve my genes can start tomorrow. If all goes smoothly, it will be over in a week. He earnestly repeats the center’s promise of secrecy. Out of the Gene Extended whose identities have been revealed, three have already been murdered.

  “You’ll be happy with your decision,” the director says. “Because you will receive not just over two centuries but possibly eternal life.”

  I understand what he’s getting at. Who knows what technologies may arise over the next two centuries? Perhaps, by then, it’ll be possible to copy consciousness and memory, create permanent backups that can be poured into a new body whenever we want. Perhaps we won’t even need bodies. Our consciousnesses will drift on the network like gods, passing through countless sensors to experience the world and the universe. This truly is eternal life.

  The director continues: “In fact, if you have time, you have everything. Given enough time, a monkey randomly hitting keys on a typewriter can type out the complete works of Shakespeare. And what you have is time.”

  “Me? Not us?”

  “I didn’t go under Gene Extension.”

  “Why?”

  After a long silence, he says, “This world changes too quickly. Too many opportunities, too many temptations, too many desires, too many dangers. I get dizzy thinking about it. When all is said and done, you’re still old. But don’t worry.” He then says the same thing Jian Jian says. “The times always get better.”

  Now, I’m sitting in my cramped apartment writing in this diary. This is the first diary I’ve ever kept. I’ll keep diaries from now on because I should leave something behind. Time also allows someone to lose everything. I know. I’m not just a long lifetime. The me of two centuries from now will surely be a stranger. In fact, considering it carefully, what I thought at first is very dubious. The union of my body, memory, and consciousness is always changing. The me before I broke up with Jian Jian, the me before I paid the embezzled money, the me before I spoke with the director, even up to the me before I typed out “even,” they are all already different people. Having realized this, I’m relieved.

  But I should leave something behind.

  In the dark sky outside the window, predawn stars send out their last, pallid light. Compared to the brilliant sea of streetlamps in the city, the stars are dim. I can just make them out. They are, however, symbols of the eternal. Just tonight, I don’t know how many are like me, a new generation setting off on a journey. No matter good or bad, we will be the first generation to truly touch eternity.

  FIRE IN THE EARTH

  TRANSLATED BY JOEL MARTINSEN

  Father had reached the end of his life. He breathed with difficulty, using far more effort than when he used to hoist hundred-kilo iron struts in the mine. His face was pale, his eyes bulged, and his lips were purple from lack of oxygen. An invisible rope seemed to be slowly tightening around his neck, drowning all of the simple hopes and dreams of his hard life in the all-consuming desire for air. But his father’s lungs, like those of all miners with stage-three silicosis, were a tangle of dusty black chunks; reticular fibers that could no longer pull oxygen from the air he inhaled into his bloodstream. Bit by bit, through twenty-five years in the mine, his father had inhaled the coal dust that made up those chunks, a tiny part of a lifetime’s worth of coal.

  Liu Xin knelt by the bed, his heart torn by his father’s labored breaths. Suddenly, he sensed another sound in the rasping, and realized his father was trying to speak.

  “What is it, Dad? Are you trying to say something?”

  His father’s eyes locked on him. The noise came again, indecipherable through his father’s scratchy gasps, but even more urgent-sounding this time.

  Liu Xin repeated his question again, desperate to understand what his father was trying to say.

  The noise stopped, and his father’s breathing became a light wheeze, then halted altogether. Lifeless eyes stared back at Liu Xin, as if pleading with him to heed his father’s last words.

  Liu Xin felt frozen; he couldn’t look away from his father’s eyes. He didn’t see his mother fainting at the bedside or the nurse removing the oxygen tube from his father’s nose. All he heard, echoing in his brain, was that noise, every syllable engraved on his memory as if etched on a record. He remained in that trance for months, the noise tormenting him day after day, until at last it began to strangle him, too. If he wanted to breathe, to keep on living, he had to figure out what it meant. Then one day, his mother, in the midst of her own long illness, said to him, “You’re grown up. You need to support the family. Drop out of high school and take over your father’s job at the mine.” Liu Xin absently picked up his father’s lunch box and headed out through the winter of 1979 toward the mine—Shaft No. 2, where his father had been. The black opening of the pit gazed at him like an eye, its pupil the row of explosion-proof lights that stretched off into the depths. It was his father’s eye. The noise replayed in his head, urgently, and in a flash he understood his father’s dying words:

  “Don’t go into the pit…”

  TWENTY YEARS LATER

  The Mercedes was a little out of place, Liu Xin felt. Too conspicuous. A handful of tall buildings had been erected, and hotels and shops had multiplied along the road, but everything at the mine was still shrouded in dismal gray.

  When he reached the Mine Bureau, he saw a throng of people in the square outside the main office. He felt even more out of place in his suit and dress shoes as he made his way through the work-issued coveralls and sweat-stained T-shirts. The crowd watched him silently as he passed. He felt himself blushing, and looked at the ground to avoid the gaze of so many eyes on his two-thousand-dollar suit.

  Inside, on the stairs, he ran into Li Minsheng, a high school classmate of his who now worked as chief engineer in the geology department. Li Minsheng was still as wiry as he had been two decades before, though he now had worry lines on his face, and the rolls of paper he carried seemed like a huge weight in his hands.

  After greeting him, Li Minsheng said, “The mine hasn’t paid salaries in ages. The workers are demonstrating.” As he spoke, he gestured at the crowd, and also looked Liu Xin over curiously.

  “There hasn’t been any improvement? Even with the Daqin Railway Company and two years of state coal restrictions?”

  “There was for a time, but then things went bad again. I don’t think anyone can do anything about this industry.” Li Minsheng gave a long sigh, looking anxious to move past Liu Xin. He seemed uncomfortable talking to him. But as the engineer turned to go, Liu Xin stopped him.

  “Can you do me a favor?”

  Li Minsheng forced a smile. “In high school, you were always hungry,” he said, “but you never accepted the ration tickets we snuck into your book bag. You’re the last person who needs help from anyone these days.”

  “No, I really do. Can you find me a small coal seam? Just a tiny one. No more than thirty thousand tons. It has to be independent though, that’s key. The fewer connections to other seams, the better.”

  “That … should be doable.”

  “I need information on the seam and its surrounding geology. The more detailed the better.”

  “That’s fine, too.”

  “Shall we talk over dinner?” Liu Xin asked. Li Minsheng shook his head and turned to leave, but Liu Xin caught him again. “Don’t you want to know what I’m planning?”

  “I’m only interested in surviving, just like the rest,” he said, inclining his head toward the crowd. Then he left.

  Taking the weathered stairs, Liu Xin looked at the high walls, the coal dust coated on them appearing for a moment like massive ink wash paintings of dark clouds over dark mountains. A huge painting, Chairman Mao En Route to Anyuan, still
hung there, the painting itself free of dust but the frame and surface showing their age. When the solemn gaze of the figure in the painting fell upon him after an absence of more than ten years, Liu Xin finally felt at home.

  On the second floor, the director’s office was still where it had been two decades earlier. A leather covering had been applied to the doors, but it had since split. He pushed through and saw the director, graying head facing the door, bent over a large blueprint on the desk, which he realized was a mine-tunneling chart as he drew closer. The director seemed not to have noticed the crowd outside.

  “You’re in charge of that project from the ministry?”* the director asked, looking up only briefly before returning to the chart.

  “Yes. It’s a very long-term project.”

  “I see. We’ll do our best to cooperate. But you’ve noticed our current situation.” The director looked up and extended a hand. Liu Xin saw the same weariness he’d seen on Li Minsheng’s face, and when he shook the director’s hand, he felt two misshapen fingers, the result of an old mining injury.

  “Go look up Deputy Director Zhang, who’s in charge of scientific research, or Chief Engineer Zhao. I have no time. I’m very sorry. We can talk once you’ve got results.” The director returned his attention to the blueprint.

  “You knew my father. You were a technician on his team,” Liu Xin said, then gave his father’s name.

  The director nodded. “A fine worker. A good team leader.”

  “What’s your opinion of the mining industry now?” Liu Xin asked.

  “Opinion about what?” the director asked without looking up. The only way to get this man’s attention is to be blunt, Liu Xin thought, then said, “Coal is a traditional, backward, and declining industry. It’s labor-intensive, it has wretched work conditions and low production efficiency, and requires enormous transport capacity.… Coal used to be a backbone industry in the UK, but that country closed all of its mines a decade ago!”

  “We can’t shut down,” the director said, head still down.

  “That’s right. But we can change! A complete transformation of the industry’s production methods! Otherwise, we’ll never be free of those difficulties,” Liu Xin said, taking quick steps over to the window. He pointed outside. “Mine workers, millions upon millions of them, with no chance of a fundamental change to their way of life. I’ve come today—”

  The director cut him off. “Have you been down below?”

  “No.” After a moment, he added, “Before he died, my father forbade me.”

  “And you achieved that,” the director said. Bent over the chart as he was, his expression was unreadable, but Liu Xin felt color flooding his cheeks again. He felt hot. In this season, his suit and tie were appropriate only in air-conditioned rooms, but here there was no air-conditioning.

  “Look. I’ve got a goal, a dream, one my father had before he died. I went to college to realize it, and I did a doctorate overseas.… I want to transform coal mining. Transform the lives of the mine workers.”

  “Get to the point. I don’t have time for childhood dreams and flights of fancy.” The director pointed behind him, but Liu Xin wasn’t certain whether he was pointing at the crowd outside or not.

  “I’ll be as brief as I can. As it stands, the present state of coal production is: Under extremely poor conditions, coal is transported to its point of use, and then put into coal gas generators to produce coal gas, or into electric plants where it’s pulverized and burnt…”

  “I’m well aware of the coal production process.”

  “Yes, of course.” Liu Xin faltered momentarily before continuing. “Well, here’s my idea: Turn the mine itself into a massive gas generator. Turn the coal into coal gas underground, in the seam, and then use petroleum or natural gas extraction techniques to extract the combustible gas, and then transport it to its points of use in dedicated pipes. Furnaces in power stations, the largest consumers of coal, can burn coal gas. Mines could disappear, and the coal industry could become a brand-new, totally modern industry, completely different from what it is today!”

  “You think your idea is a new one?”

  Liu Xin did not think his idea was new. He also knew that the director, who had been a talented student at the Mining Institute in the 1960s and was now one of the country’s leading authorities on coal extraction, did not think it was new either. The director was certainly aware that subterranean gasification of coal had been studied throughout the world for decades, during which time no small number of gasification catalysts had been developed by countless labs and multinational companies. But it had remained a pipe dream for the better part of a century for one simple reason: The cost of the catalysts far outstripped the value of the coal gas they produced.

  “Listen to this: I can achieve subterranean gasification of coal without using a catalyst!”

  “And how would you do that?” the director said, pushing aside his blueprint and giving Liu Xin his full attention. An encouraging sign, Liu Xin thought, and revealed his plan:

  “Ignite the coal.”

  The director was silent for a moment, then lit a cigarette and motioned for Liu Xin to continue. But Liu Xin felt his enthusiasm drain as he realized the nature of the director’s excitement: Here, after days of constant drudgery, he had at last found a brief opportunity to relax. A free performance by an idiot. But Liu Xin pressed stubbornly onward.

  “Extraction is accomplished through a series of holes drilled from the surface to the seam, using existing oil drills. These holes have the following effects: First, they distribute a large number of sensors into the seam. Second, they ignite the subterranean coal. Third, they inject water or steam into the seam. Fourth, they introduce combustion air into the seam. Fifth, they remove the gasified coal.

  “Once the coal is ignited and comes into contact with the steam, the following reactions occur: Carbon reacts with water to produce carbon monoxide and gaseous hydrogen, and carbon dioxide and hydrogen; then carbon and carbon dioxide react to form carbon monoxide; and carbon monoxide and water react to form more carbon dioxide and hydrogen. The ultimate result is a combustible gas akin to water gas, with a combustible portion consisting of fifty percent hydrogen and thirty percent carbon monoxide. This is the coal gas we will obtain.

  “Sensors transmit burn and production conditions of all combustible gases at every point in the seam to the surface by ultrasound. These signals are aggregated by a computer to build a model of the coal-seam furnace, enabling us to control, through the holes, the scale and depth of the subterranean fire as well as the burn rate. Specifically, we can inject water into the holes to arrest the burn, or pressurized air or steam to intensify it. All of this proceeds automatically in response to changes in the computer’s burn model so that the fire is kept at an optimum state of incompletely combusted water and coal, to ensure maximum production. You’d be most concerned, of course, with controlling the fire’s range. We can drill a series of holes ahead of its advance and inject pressurized water to form a fire barrier. Where the burning is fierce, we can also employ a pressurized cement curtain, the kind used in dam building, to block the fire.” He trailed off. “Are you listening to me?”

  A noise outside had attracted the director’s attention. Liu Xin knew that the image his plan evoked in the director’s mind was different from his own vision. The director surely knew what igniting subterranean coal meant: right now, coal mines were burning all over the world, including several in China.

  The previous year, Liu Xin had seen ground fire for the first time in Xinjiang. Not a stitch of grass on the ground or hillsides as far as the eye could see, and the air churned in hot waves of sulfur, shimmering his vision as if he were underwater or as if the entire world were roasting on a spit. At night, Liu Xin saw ribbons of ghostly red where light seeped through countless cracks in the earth. He had approached one to peer inside, and immediately gulped a nervous breath. It was like the entrance to hell. The light shone dimly from deep within,
but he could still sense its ferocious heat. Looking out at the glowing lines beneath the night sky, he’d felt as if the Earth were a burning ember wrapped in a thin layer of crust. Aygul, the brawny Uighur man who had accompanied him, was the leader of China’s sole coal-seam fire brigade, and Liu Xin’s aim in making the trip there had been to recruit him for his lab.

  “It’ll be hard to pull myself away,” Aygul had said in accented Chinese. “I grew up watching these ground fires, so to me they’re an integral part of the world, like the sun or the stars.”

  “You mean the fire started burning when you were born?”

  “No, Dr. Liu. This fire has been burning since the Qing Dynasty.”

  Liu Xin stood rooted in place and shivered as the heat waves rolled over him in the night.

  Aygul had continued, “I’d do better to stand in your way than agree to help you. Listen to me, Dr. Liu. This isn’t a game. You’re working with devilry!”

  Now, in the director’s office, the noise outside the window had grown louder. As the director stood up and went over to it, he said to Liu Xin, “Young man, I really hope that the sixty million the bureau is investing in this project could be put to better use. You can see there’s much that needs to be done. Until next time.”

  Liu Xin followed the director out of the building, where the workers’ sit-in protest had grown larger, and a leader was shouting something he couldn’t make out to the crowd. His attention was drawn to a corner of the crowd, where he saw a group of people in wheelchairs. More were filing in, each one a miner who had lost a limb in a work accident.

  Liu Xin felt like he couldn’t breathe. He loosened his tie, lowered his head, and passed quickly through the crowd before ducking into his car. He drove aimlessly, his mind blank, and after a while slammed on the brakes at the top of a hill. He used to come here as a kid. From here, there was a bird’s-eye view of the whole mine. He got out and stood motionless for a long time.

  “What are you looking at?” a voice said. Liu Xin looked back and saw Li Minsheng, who had come up at some point to stand behind him.