Ball Lightning(41)
“Like a dragnet in the sky,” I said, thrilled to no end.
“A skynet!” Lin Yun crowed.
The general said, “But implementing the plan won’t be as easy as you’re imagining right now. I’m sure I don’t have to remind you of the difficulties.”
“First off, there’s the danger,” Lin Yun said. “Lightning is one of the biggest killers in the air, and lightning areas are no-fly zones. We want to have the aircraft bring lightning along with them.”
“Yes,” the general said somberly. “You’re going into combat.”
Attack Bees
When we finished eating, General Lin said that he wanted to speak with me alone. Giving the two of us a wary look, Lin Yun went upstairs.
The general lit a cigarette, and said, “I’d like to speak with you about my daughter. When Lin Yun was a girl, I was away working on the front lines and didn’t spend much time with my family. She was raised by her mother, and had a strong attachment to her.”
He got up and went over to his wife’s memorial portrait. “In Yunnan, on the front lines, she was a company commander in the signal corps. Equipment was still fairly primitive at the time, and front-line communications required massive amounts of telephone wire. These wires were one of the objectives of the many detachments of Vietnamese troops that were active on both sides of the line. Their tactic was to cut the wires, and plant mines or lay in ambush near the site of the break. One day, battle erupted between two divisions, and then a key telephone wire was cut. When contact was lost with the first three-member inspection team, she personally led four communications soldiers out to check the line. They were ambushed near the line break. It was a bamboo forest in which the enemy had cut out a clearing. When they entered the clearing, the enemy fired from the surrounding forest. The first volley killed three communications soldiers. This was on our side of the front line, so the small Vietnamese detachment didn’t dare stay long, and ran off immediately. She and the remaining communications soldier cleared mines as they approached the breakpoint. Just as the woman soldier reached the break, she saw the end of the wire wrapped around a foot-long bamboo segment. When she picked up the end of the wire to remove it from the bamboo, it exploded, blowing her face off...?Lin Yun’s mother started to join the wires, but heard a buzzing in the distance. Turning to look, she saw that the Vietnamese soldiers had left behind a small cardboard box that was now spewing a cloud of bees in her direction. She was stung several times, then fled into the bamboo with her head wrapped in camo cloth. But the bees were close behind her, and she had to jump into a shallow pond and submerge herself, only surfacing every thirty seconds to take a breath. The bees swirled above her, refusing to disperse, and she grew anxious, since every minute the communication line was down could mean huge losses for the critical state of the front lines. At last she disregarded all concerns, crawled out of the pond, and returned to the site of the break, chased by the bees. By the time she had repaired the line, she had been stung more times than she could count, and she lost consciousness and was found by a patrol squad. Her skin turned black and festered, her facial features swelled beyond recognition, and a week later she died in immense agony. Lin Yun was five years old when she saw her mother’s misery in the hospital in Kunming....?For an entire year after that, she didn’t utter a word, and when she eventually began to talk again, she had lost her former fluency.”
General Lin’s story shook me. Memories of pain and sacrifice had grown so distant and strange to me, but here they were so raw and immediate.
He continued: “Perhaps that experience would have different effects on different children. For some, it might give rise to a lifelong aversion to war and all things war-related; to others, it might spark attention and even keen interest in it. My daughter, unfortunately, is the second sort.”
“Is Lin Yun’s fascination with weapons, and new-concept weapons in particular, connected to this?” I asked, as delicately as I could. I couldn’t understand why the general was telling me this, and he seemed to sense my confusion.
“As a researcher, you must know that it’s entirely normal, in the course of scientific research, to become fascinated with the subject you’re studying. But weapons research is special. If a researcher becomes infatuated with weapons, it poses a potential danger. Particularly with a weapon like ball lightning, which would have enormous power if successful. For someone as overly fascinated with weapons as Lin Yun, with her ends-before-means personality, that danger is even more obvious....?I don’t know whether you catch what I’m getting at.”
I nodded. “I understand, General Lin. Colonel Jiang spoke of it as well.”
“Oh, really?”
I didn’t know whether the general was aware of the liquid mines, and I didn’t dare ask. I guessed he didn’t know.
“Jiang Xingchen isn’t of much use on this front. His work is pretty distinct from hers. And also—” The general swallowed before quoting, significantly: “They’re both standing among those peaks.”*
“So what can I do?”
“Dr. Chen, I’d like to ask you to monitor Lin Yun during ball lightning weapons R&D, and prevent the occurrence of anything unexpected.”
I thought about this for a few seconds, and then nodded. “Very well, sir. I’ll do my best.”