“Self-control doesn’t mean being fake. Your emotions affect those around you, you know. Especially kids—they’re easily influenced. So you should find some self-control. You can learn from Specs.”
“Him?” He sniffed. “He’s only got half the normal number of nerves in his face—it’s always that same expression. You know, Xiaomeng, you’re more of a teacher than the adults.”
“That’s true. Have you noticed that the adults have taught us very little?”
Up ahead, Specs turned around, the same indifferent expression on his nerve-deficient face, and said, “This is the hardest course in human history, and they’re afraid of teaching it wrong. But I’ve got a feeling that instruction is about to kick into high gear.”
“You’ve done good work, children,” the president said when they reached him. “You’ve covered quite a distance. And you’ve been impressed with what you saw, I presume?”
Specs nodded. “Even the most ordinary things become marvelous in large quantities.”
Huahua added, “Yeah. I never imagined there’d be so much MSG and salt in the entire world.”
The president and premier exchanged a look and a trace of a smile. The premier said, “Here’s our question for you. How long would it take the country’s population to consume all of that MSG and salt?”
“At least a year,” Specs said at once.
The premier shook his head, as did Huahua, who said, “It won’t be gone in a year. Five, at least.”
Again, the premier shook his head.
“Ten?”
“Children, all of it is only enough for a single day.”
“One day?” The three children stood wide-eyed in shock for a moment, until Huahua laughed awkwardly at the premier. “You’re joking… right?”
The president said, “At one gram of MSG and ten grams of salt per person per day, it’s a simple matter of arithmetic: these train cars hold sixty tons, and there are one-point-two billion people in the country. You do the math.”
They wrestled with the long chain of zeros for a moment, and realized he was telling the truth.
Xiaomeng said, “But that’s just salt and MSG. What about oil? And grain?”
“The oil would fill the pond over there. Grain would pile up into the hills around us.”
The children stared at the pond and the hills and said nothing for a long time.
“God!” said Huahua.
“God!” said Specs.
“God!” said Xiaomeng.
The premier said, “Over the past couple of days we’ve been trying to find a way to give you an accurate feel for the size of the country, and that hasn’t been easy. But you’ve got to have a sense of it to lead a country like ours.”
The president said, “We took you here with one important goal in mind: to make you understand a fundamental rule of running a country. You’ll no doubt have imagined a country’s operation as something complicated, and indeed it is, more complicated than you know, but the underlying rule couldn’t be simpler. You know what I mean, I suspect.”
Xiaomeng said, “Above all, ensure that the country is fed. Every day we need to provide the people with a trainful of MSG, ten trains of salt, a lake of oil, and several hills of rice and flour. One day without, and the country will plunge into chaos. Ten days without, and there’s no country anymore.”
Specs nodded. “They say productive forces determine the relations of production, and the economic foundation determines the superstructure.”
Huahua nodded, too. “Any idiot could understand that by looking at that long train.”
The president looked off into the distance, and said, “But lots of highly intelligent people don’t understand it, children.”
The premier said, “Children, tomorrow we’ll take you to learn more about the country. We’ll visit bustling cities and remote mountain villages, show you established industry and agriculture, teach you about the way the people live. And we’ll tell you about history—that’s the best way to learn about the present day. We’ll give you lots more complicated information about running a country, but remember that nothing is more basic or profound than what you’ve learned today. The road you’re on will be fraught with difficulties, but so long as you remember that rule you won’t get lost.”
With a wave of his hand, the president said, “Let’s not wait for tomorrow. We’ll leave tonight. Time is short, children.”
4
HANDING OVER THE WORLD
BIG QUANTUM
From far off, the National Information Tower resembled a giant “A.” Built prior to the supernova, it was the heart of Digital Domain, a broadband network covering the entire country. The network, an upgraded internet, had been largely completed before the supernova, and was the best gift that the adults could have left for the children’s country. The children’s state and social structures would be far simpler than in the adults’ time, which made it possible to use Digital Domain for basic management of the state. And so the NIT became the workplace for the children’s central government.
The premier took a group of child national leaders on their first visit to the NIT. When they ascended the long staircase to the main entrance, sentries guarding the building saluted, their faces ashen and their lips split from high fever. The premier clapped one silently on the shoulder, and it was clear that the premier’s body was in a similarly weakened state.
The illness was progressing rapidly, and now, six months after the start of the Great Learning, the world was making preparations for a handover.
At the gate, the premier stopped and turned round to survey the sunlit plaza. The children turned, too, gazing out at the shimmering heat.
“It’s summer already,” one kid whispered. Beijing’s spring was usually just starting at this time of year.
That was another effect of the supernova: the disappearance of winter. Temperatures stayed above 18°C, and plants remained green in what in effect was a very long springtime.
As to the cause of the rising temperatures, scientists had two theories. One, known as the Explosion Theory, held that heat from the supernova caused Earth’s temperatures to rise. The other, the Pulsar Theory, held that energy from the pulsar in the remains of the supernova caused the temperatures to rise, through mechanisms far more complex than the Explosion Theory posited. Observations had detected a strong magnetic field, which astrophysicists hypothesized might also exist around other pulsars, unobserved owing to the great distances involved, but at a distance of just eight light-years, the solar system was situated within this magnetic field. Earth’s oceans were an enormous conductor that cut through the field’s force lines as the planet moved, inducing current. In effect, Earth was a rotor in a cosmic generator. Although the current was far too weak to be detectable by oceangoing ships, it was present throughout the oceans and had a considerable overall effect. It was this induced ocean current that raised the planet’s temperatures.
The dramatic warming would, over the next two years, melt the polar ice caps and Greenland’s ice sheet, raising ocean levels and drowning all coastal cities.
If the Explosion Theory was correct and the warming was due to heat from the supernova, then global temperatures would soon cool again, ice sheets would gradually recover, and sea level would eventually drop back to normal. Earth would have experienced a very brief Great Flood.
Things would be more complicated if the Pulsar Theory was correct. Elevated temperatures would be permanent, rendering many densely populated regions so hot as to be uninhabitable and turning Antarctica into the most livable continent on Earth. It would cause a sea change for the shape of the world community.