Free Devourer by Liu Cixin

 
     
    CHAPTER
1

 The Crystal from Eridanus
     
     
     
     
    I t was right in front of him, but the Captain still could barely make out its translucent crystal structure. Floating through the black void of space, it was hidden by the dark, like a piece of glass sunken in the murky depths. Only the slight distortion of starlight its passage provoked allowed the Captain to make out its position. Soon it was lost again, disappearing in the space between the stars.
    Suddenly, the Sun distorted, its distant, eternal light twisting and twinkling before their eyes. It gave the Captain a start, but he maintained his proverbial “Asian cool”. Unlike the dozen soldiers floating beside him, he managed not to gasp in shock. The Captain immediately understood; the crystal, a mere 30 feet away, had moved in front of the Sun, shining 60 million miles in the distance. In the three centuries to come, this strange vista would often play across his mind and he would wonder if it had been an omen of humanity's fate to come.
    As the highest ranking officer of the United Nation's Earth Protection Force in space, the Captain commanded the force's interplanetary assets. It was a tiny unit, but it was equipped with the most powerful nuclear weapons humanity had ever devised. Its enemies were lifeless rocks hurtling through space; asteroids and meteorites that the early warning system had determined to be a threat to Earth. The mission of the Earth Protection Force was to redirect or to destroy these objects.
    They had been on space patrol for more than two decades now, yet they had never had a chance to deploy their bombs. All rocks large enough to warrant their use seemed to avoid Earth, willfully denying them their chance for glory.
    Now, however, a sweep had discovered this crystal at a distance of two astronomical units. The crystal's trajectory was as precipitous as it was utterly unnatural, and that was taking it straight toward Earth.
    The Captain and his unit cautiously approached, their space suits' boosters spinning a web of trails around the strange object. Just as they closed to 30 feet, a misty light flashed to life inside the crystal, clearly revealing its prismatic outline about 10 feet long. As the space patrol drew nearer, they could make out the intricate, crystalline pipes of its propulsion system. The Captain was now floating directly in front of it. Stretching the gloved right hand of his spacesuit toward the crystal, he initiated humanity's first contact with an extra-terrestrial intelligence.
    As he reached, the crystal again faded to transparency. A brilliantly colored image now sprang to life inside it. It was a manga girl, with huge, rolling eyes and long hair that cascaded down to her feet. She was wearing a beautiful, flowing skirt and she seemed to dreamily drift in invisible waters.
    “Warning! Alert! Warning! The Devourer approaches!” she immediately shouted out, stricken with obvious panic. Her large eyes stared at the Captain, a lithe arm pointing away from the Sun in unmistakable alarm. There could be little doubt the unseen pursuer was hot on her dainty heels.
    “Where do you come from?” the Captain inquired, by all appearances unperturbed.
    “Epsilon Eridani, as you apparently call it, and by your reckoning of time, I have traveled for sixty thousand years,” she replied, before again raising her cry. “The Devourer approaches! The Devourer approaches!”
    The Captain continued his inquiry. “Are you alive?”
    “Of course not; I am merely a message,” came the response. But it was only a short reprieve. “The Devourer approaches! The Devourer approaches!”
    “How is it that you can speak English?” the Captain continued.
    The girl again replied without hesitation. “I learned in transit,” she said, only to carry on: “The Devourer approaches! The Devourer approaches!”
    “And that you look as you do…?” the Captain let his question trail off.
    “I saw it in transit,” she said,