“She killed me!” Chen thrust the scissors in Ava’s direction, “She did it, she killed me! I saw it!”

“Hallucinations?” Marcus shot Ava a concerned look.

Before Ava could call for the physician, something swept from the corner of her vision, a shimmering transparent apparition of a man. Not just any man, however, but Marcus. It moved between them like a shadow, traveling straight through Marcus without disturbance.

“See?” Chen let loose of the scissors as they all watched the figure pass, heading towards the labs.

“What the hell was that?” One of the engineers demanded as everyone began to congregate in the area. The apparition stopped, shook, and then dissipated into nothing.

“What in the universe…” Ava forced herself to breathe again and looked to Marcus for a voice of reason. His face was deathly pale, his eyes locked still to the location his ghost had disappeared from.

Over the next few days, the phenomenon intensified. Crewmembers reported seeing apparitions of every member of the ship, some able to identify them as echoes of past events, others unfamiliar. None quite as concerning as Chen’s assertion that Captain Ramirez’s ghost had murdered her own, however. Marcus tried to assure her that it was probably a fluke, information added to Lt. Chen’s mind from the shock of seeing her own doppelganger.

“What do they want?” She asked Marcus one night as they discussed the ship’s location for the next probe. Another specter had manifested beside them, a whispered image of Lt. Chen, seemingly scanning the charting hub just as they were, working calmly.

“I don’t think they want anything, actually,” Marcus said, waving his arm through the phantom. His weathered hand swept through to no effect and the vision continued its work silently. “They don’t appear to notice us at all. I tried talking to myself-”

“More than usual?”

“Ha, don’t act like you aren’t holding full conversations with yourself late nights on the bridge. No, my ghost, I tried communicating, getting its attention. Nothing. It just did everything I would do on a normal day.”

“So, they’re just us? Like an alternate reality or projections of our minds?”

“Memories.”

“Memories?”

“Of the past and future, pieces of us throughout our existence here.” His eyes went to the viewport, locked on the glowing edge of the accretion disc. The Lt. Chen figure pressed a hand to her chest and looked up a moment before blinking back to nothing.

“How?” Was all Ava could think to ask.

“Our probes, maybe.” He shrugged and shook his head, looking back down to the screen in front of them. “We’ve shouted into the void. It doesn’t answer. Perhaps it only echoes.”

The work continued despite everything, but the stress of events was starting to wear them all down. Meals were dominated by talk of the apparitions, theories on their appearance, and, eventually, superstition. It was unusual, coming from this group of all people, but Ava supposed it was where even the greatest of minds could go when it couldn’t reason out the reality around it.

“It’s a warning, we’re not supposed to be here,” One young scientist told a small group as they huddled around their instruments.

Ava was visiting with Marcus in the lab to determine his timeline for the project. They were luckily on the same page of “the sooner, the better” at this point.

“They have been talking like that since yesterday,” Marcus said in a low voice, “I even heard one mention something about god.”

“This is concerning. What if they start worshiping it like those Singularity weirdos?” Ava said.

Marcus shook his head, but the crease between his brows got deeper. “It won’t come to that. These aren’t scrappers and tunnel workers we’re talking about.”

“My family were scrappers, Marc. Most of my crew is from the colonies.”

“You know what I mean…”

Everyone went quiet again as several specters blinked into existence at each of the instruments, imposing themselves over and through all the solid bodies currently manning them. The doppelgangers worked in a panic, their hands flying over keys and buttons desperately, their eyes terrified and mouths open, yelling soundlessly.

“Shit, what are they on about?” Ava asked.

“Something’s malfunctioning…”

The visions dissolved as quickly as they arrived, leaving the shocked faces of their solid versions in their place, one with his hands clasped together and head bowed.

Ava shivered at the cold dread prickling up her spine.

Marcus placed a hand on her shoulder. “One more collection. Then we leave.”

“Agreed.”

The next day, Ava was on the bridge, leading the movements of the Argo as they collected all the probes and batteries to prepare for their departure. Each one took a considerable amount of time to dock and secure, with special consideration to the volatile nature of the capsules containing the energy collected. Ava took the opportunity to admire Navier-11 one last time.

There was a lot about this mission that Captain Ramirez did not understand. But Navier-11, she understood. She agonized over its effects on her ship for an entire year of prepping before this inevitable week of proximity to the blackhole.

To approach it was to approach a cosmic abyss—a realm where the laws of physics strained and distorted, and light itself bent to the will of unimaginable gravity. It was darkness—a voracious void swallowing light and warmth, only an eerie absence left in its wake.

The event horizon, that invisible boundary beyond which nothing can escape, was a sinister veil, shimmering with an ominous energy. Beyond it, the accretion disk, a swirling maelstrom of matter and energy spiraling inexorably toward its center. It glows with a hellish radiance, piercing even through the shielding filters, illuminated by the frictional forces tearing it apart.

And then the singularity—a point of infinite density and zero volume, where the laws of physics broke down. A cosmic crucible that saw matter and energy consumed without mercy, where the very fabric of space-time was warped and twisted beyond recognition.

Navier-11 was all of this on such a massive and incomprehensible scale. She was an inevitability, a reminder of their insignificance along the universal path toward entropy. A glimpse into an abyss that was all at once nothing and the heart of existence itself.

In a way, she knew she would miss this view, but staring at it from the Captain’s chair now, Ava could feel only unsettled.

“Uh, Captain, we have a problem,” Marcus’s voice buzzed over the intercom.

“What is it?”

A siren blared and the red warning lights flashed, indicating a fire.

Ava cursed and pulled up the layout on her console. “Status?”

“Something in the cargo bay,” Her security officer replied.

An apparition shimmered into existence, just beyond the instruments, staring out the viewport. It was Ava, her hands clasped behind her, her hair floating around her, loose from her usual bun, clothes tattered and burnt. Blood bubbled into the air from an arm wound.

“Glory to the Singularity!”

Before she could find who had shouted, another apparition swept through her quickly, like a shadow flowing through her vision. She whipped around to watch it as it ran a few more feet with a raised fist before slamming it down and disappearing. She stood just as another ran through again, repeating the action, but saw that it was Lt. Chen and she held something in her fist. Another came a beat later, and then another, falling into an accelerated succession.

She stepped away from her chair. Similar projections were crowded around the room, overlapping each other in a chaotic scene of palpable panic from hundreds of semi-transparent figures crowding the bridge. Lt. Chens came at her still, crowded over each other, rushing through her until they were nearly one until finally the real Lt. Chen was rushing at her, just on the tail of the last mirage. Raised in her fist was a pair of shears, her eyes shone with desperate fear.

Ava kicked off of her chair making distance as she floated backwards. Chen was atop her in a moment, however, and swung the makeshift blade directly for her chest. Ava grabbed a nearby console and pulled. The shears pierced into her upper arm as her body swung around. Chen slowed but kept floating until she made contact with the wall.

“Captain!” The security officer called, floating quickly towards her, but was promptly intercepted by a young engineer, who wrapped his limbs around him as they spun towards the large viewport. He held a sharp piece of metal to his neck.

“What mutiny is this?” Ava demanded, yelling over the insistent sirens.

“The Singularity,” Chen said, now facing her again, poised to push off in her direction. “We must join it. All must return to it. We must return everything.”

A paralyzing cold swept through Ava’s veins as the viewport went dark and she realized they were turning. Straight towards the heart of Navier-11. “You didn’t–”

Chen flew towards her again.

So much for peace.  A switch flipped in her brain. The fight was fresh in her mind once more, the younger version of herself awakened for another war of survival.

Gritting her teeth, Ava pulled the sheers from her arm, blood trailing behind it. She turned it in her hand just as Chen grabbed her around the neck, her actions echoed by innumerable visions. Ava swung the blade around and drove it into her navigation officer’s carotid. She kicked the woman away, the shears tight in her grasp. Chen’s scream echoed and then curdled as blood floated through the air.

“Captain, the containers are unstable,” Marcus yelled through the intercom. “We have to release them!”

She pushed off the console back to her chair and watched as the entire cargo bay began flashing red on the screen. “Marcus, are you alright?”

“They are going crazy, I can’t even tell–”

He cut off. “Marc?”

“Ava,” He said after a beat, his voice now shaking. “I’m sorry, I… I owe you a beer.”

“What are you talking about, old man?”

He only laughed. The screen in front of her beeped, indicating an imminent emergency ejection of the cargo bay.

“Captain, we’re approaching the event horizon! T-minus three minutes, 13 seconds.”

Was that enough time to right? She couldn’t calculate it now. She pushed off towards the navigation console, slamming into it, but promptly overrode Chen’s locks and entered the new commands. The ship turned, its force and trajectory still taking them danger close to the edge of the horizon.

“No!” The Singularity engineer was coming for her, the security officer floating lifelessly behind him. His echoes dove straight to the console, slashing the makeshift blade violently. Ava pushed herself to the floor before using it to launch herself straight for him. She twisted the blade out of his hand as his body collided with the roof and then drove the scissors through his neck until she hit something solid.

“We’re still going to skim the horizon unless we can push off more!”

“The cargo release should do it!”

“How long?” Ava demanded, already pushing off in the direction of the cargo bay.

“Forty-six seconds!”

She flew out of the bridge, crashing into everything in her path before pushing on with all her might through several compartments, traveling through echo after echo.

When she made it to the cargo bay, it was indeed aflame, the hellish glow of the destruction mirroring that of the accretion disc. Several crewmembers were floating in front of it, hands raised in apparent worship.

“Captain,” Marcus called out to her near the cargo controls. He was bent over the console as if protecting it, though part of it had already sparked and caught fire as well. A large chunk of metal stuck from his back.

“Marc, we have to go,” She said as made it to him, testing the metal lodged into his flesh.

“I don’t think I can.”

“Bullshit.” She tore him away from the instruments to see the metal had pierced all the way through his chest. She cursed again but wrapped his arm around her shoulder and held him tight to her.

“Are we joining the Singularity?” The three members were now turned to her, looking almost identical to their shadows save for the framing of the flames behind them.

“Yes, just a few moments more.” She promised and shoved to the exit. The crewmembers cheered behind her.

“Soon we’ll be one again.”

A sickening gravity pulled them into the wall as she and Marcus reached the barrier point of the cargo bay. The engines of the ship rumbled audibly louder, fighting the pull of Navier-11.

As the seal to the bay zipped closed, the Singularity crew inside was crying with joy. A moment later, the compartment broke away and through the window of the hatch, they watched as it fell towards the event horizon and then exploded in a great billowing cloud of energy and light.

Silently, they made their way back through the ship as the pull disappeared. The echoes were sparse now, thinning to single occurrences per crew member left alive by the time they made it to the med bay.

Ava used the intercom from there to give a general announcement as Marcus was seen by the physician. “For any remaining who wish to join the Singularity, you are free to do so. Everything taken has been returned. You may leave through the airlock.”

Marcus was put under for a procedure and Ava sought to oversee the release of two additional living crew members out of the airlock. They thanked her, of all things, and shook her hand before following their echoes into the small space that preceded their demise. Ava personally placed Lt.Chen’s body beside the dead engineer inside.

She pressed the button from the bridge to jettison them away, bound for Singularity.

It was a melancholy relief, watching all that trouble fall away as she stood before the viewport. Navier-11 loomed beyond, ever powerful, ever inevitable.

“I don’t know whether or not you are God,” She spoke to her, “I do not know that I will live to see you unite or destroy all. I do know that before that time comes, we have to get on with it anyway, the best we can. Which means I’ll be back, after that old man buys my drink, and with better tools to take what my people need. As many times as is necessary to keep a fragile peace. As many times as it takes.”

“The void might echo for us, but humanity echoes too.”

Cam’s beard made the same scratching noise.

A selection of carvings had been protected from exposure and harsh temperatures by a small overhang. Despite their excitement, the pair were methodical, recording every scratched rock, each bit of colored stone. From their tests, they established the stone structure had lain unaltered for millennia. From the drawings, they confirmed the enormity of the cathedral. Several images were a top view, with tiny dots moving along the built walls.

The archaeologist traced a finger along a particularly well-preserved image. “And here, can you make out the tiny forms moving around the corner? Perhaps a pilgrimage?” Her breathing quickened at the implications.

Cam shared her awe-struck glance.

Elena tossed a fresh pair of drones into the air. “We are walking the same path as extraterrestrials had.” Elena could hardly contain herself. She urged the technician to follow this unknown pilgrimage further, to follow the dots to their end.

He agreed instantly, Cam would follow her anywhere. “Dr. Bora…Elena.” Cam fumbled, struggling to make eye contact. “I’ve admired you for so long, but could never escape feeling inadequate—”

“What are we doing here?” the archaeologist waved at the images. “An entire alien civilization, commemorated here. After all these years. This find exceeds my wildest dreams. All this and you are talking about your feelings?” She rubbed her finger along the dots. “Save it. You have a job to do.”

Soon they came to a large metal sheet set deep into the cliff face. Midway along the pock-marked metal was a tunnel. Dutifully, the pair stepped to the opening. They did their tests. They were scientists, after all. No hint of electricity, or indeed any form of radiation. It was simply sheets of pure iron, polished to a brilliant reflective surface.

Already, it was a find that would put their names in every journal of every living world. The metal structure magnified the importance of this find. This would create a worlds-wide sensation. Both knew they were duty-bound to report to their superiors. Regardless, they moved inside.

It is undeniable that the two had the highest expertise regarding this artefact. They reasoned they would only be called to its study. Each knew their lives would change this day. Fear of this change nipped at their thoughts. Neither turned to leave.

Their boots added to the dust in this nearly pristine tunnel. In the low gravity, they had to shuffle forward or risk hitting their heads on the low ceiling.

There were no side tunnels. They marvelled at this; the structure was surely large enough to contain a vast complex. They stopped every few meters to scan the surfaces. Their equipment only showed the thick iron on every side of them.

A constant halo of light glowed from their suits in dual sharp-cornered arcs. Glints of colour flashed as the walls reflected the small indicators on their sleeves. Conversation eluded them as they wondered at the tunnel. Their brains told them there should be some noise. Buildings always had noise, subtle echoes, the creaking of metal. However, outside their suits, the atmosphere was so utterly rarified, the sound of their boots .

The archaeologist focused on the familiar shuffling of hair in her helmet. Breathing, and various other tiny human noises, punctuated the pair’s soundless steps. Chirps of their suit sensors were jarring, putting nerves on edge.

The wispy crystalline structure of the iron spread in all directions, branching like an enormous two dimensional tree. The beginning of the tunnel had small marks of oxidation, a slight ochre tinge to the otherwise pure silver surface. Every few paces, the metal was smoother, cleaner, the dust on the ground thinner.

They moved side by side, taking more gentle, shuffling steps. They dimmed their lights as they got close to the glimmering end of the tunnel.

Standing before them was a surface—slightly more pock-marked, but of the same polished iron as the walls.

Unable to resist the temptation to be the first to touch the structure, both reached out.

The metal slid into the wall with the faintest push. They pressed again; it retreated enticingly. Again, they pushed to arm length and then stepped wholly into the newly exposed metal tunnel. After two long paces, the smooth surface stopped.

They shoved, they knocked, they even kicked, but remarkably, nothing else happened. Defeated and confused, they turned away from the moved wall. “Funny, I can feel my heartbeat in my feet,” Elena said.

The technician stopped. “Huh, same.”

Though the tunnel seemed utterly still, the strange rhythmic pulses throbbed through the soles of their boots. The ancient floor possessed its own inexorable cadence, a raw thumping that insinuated itself into their very marrow like the primal drumbeat of creation itself. It shuddered in their calves and made their knees ache. They checked their equipment again. No signals, not even cosmic radiation, moved the indicators. Their equipment could not detect the vibration.

Once clear of the tunnel, they picked up their pace. As they lopped towards their ship, they could see dust unsettled by the tremors. They moved quicker, making larger leaps across the surface. The ground shifted below them.

The regolith pulled from the surface in languid strips, a cosmic flower closing its petals against their intrusion. They dropped their equipment. They could only think of escape.

When the archaeologist fell, Cam’s survival instinct kicked in, dousing any semblance of loyalty. Bounding over her crumpled form as indifferently as a boulder in his path. As he fled the horrors awakened by their curiosity, Cam’s cowardice revealed an uglier truth to Elena—his infatuation was only as deep as his conversational skills.

When the technician reached the ship, it fell away. With his arm still outstretched, the ground beneath rolled under him to expose the mighty engines below. He, too, fell into the abyss. Telemetry disappeared. The ship barely registered as a flash when it exploded.

The archeologist rolled over; she was alone, facing the planet.

The lunar quake fell silent, a great deal of material left suspended overhead. Slowly, that floating regolith contorted towards the planet, twisting into an immense focusing dish as alien mechanisms reconfigured with a slight tremor. Mighty engines lifted and moved into position. Several moments passed.

The archeologist rolled to her side and pressed with all her strength. She dropped into a crouch and stood with care; it wouldn’t do to fall again. She chose a direction and quickly bound away from the center of the gently spinning mass.

Enormous fissures drawn from under the surface of the moon blocked her path again and again. The complex metal structure shuddered. Much of the machine uprooted and moved again.

Maybe it was studying the planet? Elena reasoned the first part of its assessment was done—at least she could hope it was done. A moment passed. The archeologist slowed her retreat, looking up, admiring the massive feat of engineering.

The helix shrank, layers of regolith fell away.

Could it be that the bacteria-filled planet wasn’t worth deeper study?

This was her best guess. The device was working on the logic of some unknown, and likely extinct, civilization. Elena was gleeful to see such an impossibly rare display of ancient technology. She checked the helmet camera and took a wide shot of the device.

Sorry Cam, I’ll get all the credit for this discovery, you—It took a moment for her to think of an insult—You bearded arse-hat can—

An unseen boulder interrupted her thought. It struck with a sickening crack of bone and armor. Pain exploded across the archeologist’s senses as she tumbled backwards. Her eyes turned again towards the planet overhead. Filling her view was a giant helical flower of loose rocks.

A high frequency rumble shook the ground, making a dancing cloud of moon dust swirl above her.

The tips of the structure glowed red.

Then yellow.

Then white.

Then blue.

She was gasping for air; she had been struck by something large along her right side. Each gasping breath hurt as if a spear had pierced her from sternum to spine.

Through the haze of pain, the archaeologist watched helplessly as the planet warped above. Dense green-brown clouds swirled into disarray under the piercing azure rays.

A sickening realization sank into her core. This was no mere scanning device. Its power tore deep, shredding the atmosphere molecule by molecule…and worse, she likely wouldn’t survive long enough to publish her find.

Where teeming seas once cradled life, violent plumes now spewed the remains of evaporated oceans into the vacuum. Continents distorted as tectonic fury ripped across thermal fissures.

The archaeologist clutched her helmet, feeling her heart thunder in panic. This was destruction on a scale far beyond nature’s wrath. Entire mountain ranges crumbled under the brutal beam, reduced to floating rubble within moments.

Through watering eyes, she glimpsed the last remnants of that world’s native biosphere, boiled down to basic elements. Scattering the last vestiges of life to deep space as the atmosphere peeled away.

A deep well of grief swallowed her. Millenia of unique evolution, erased in mere hours by an awakened behemoth mankind was ignorant to disturb. All because of her damned curiosity to document this find.

Was this to be humanity’s fate? Should they trigger such machines in their climb to the stars? The archaeologist curled in on herself, mouth agape in a silent scream, as nuclear fires consumed the last traces of the planet, and the glow of its ruin tinged her suit orange.

*

Elena woke, still gasping, with eyes to a glorious field of stars. She was floating high above the moon. Alarms blared. She was losing air—a tiny puncture had set her spinning. With every rotation, the moon filled more of her vision. Much of the star field was moving with her, glinting pebbles in space like bubbles in the dark.

It was beautiful.

The regolith fell with her. She put her arms out to brace against the impact.

*

As the shadow of doom enveloped her, Elena’s crushed body refused its next breath. In those final moments, facing oblivion, the archaeologist’s curiosity was replaced by sorrow. Her pursuit of discovery had awoken a force that rendered all human endeavors insignificant. She mouthed her last words, “behold curiosity, the destroyer of worlds.”

Hours passed as the machine pulsed.

The planet boiled dry.

The shadow of this newly ruined planet crept across the archaeologist’s crushed form, freezing solid her dust covered body.

Above, only the lingering glow of molten rock remained where once an entire world had lived and breathed.

Now spent, the mighty engine settled. The rumbling heart stilled. The moon hung in space, a broken tomb for the foolish creatures who dared disturb what should never have been awakened.

Another four billion years passed before curiosity, again, bloomed.

Less than 3 days after the Netherlands expanded its control over China, China announced that its self-developed advanced lithography machine has been released

Under pressure from the United States, the Netherlands finally compromised and expanded the scope of control over China’s lithography machines. But what is exciting is that just a few days after the Netherlands announcement of expansion of the ban, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced a blockbuster news that our self-developed advanced lithography machine has finally come out.

Just a few days ago, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued a document called “Guidelines for the Promotion and Application of the First Major Technical Equipment (2024 Edition)”. According to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, major technical equipment is a national weapon and is related to comprehensive national strength and national security. China’s first major technical equipment refers to equipment products that have achieved major technological breakthroughs in China, have intellectual property rights, and have not yet achieved significant market performance, including complete equipment, core systems and key components.

In this guidance catalog, two lithography machines are included, one is a krypton fluoride lithography machine and the other is an argon fluoride lithography machine. According to the introduction, the light source of the argon fluoride lithography machine is 193 nanometers, the resolution is ≤65nm, and the overlay is ≤8nm. The advent of this lithography machine means that domestic deep ultraviolet lithography machines that can produce chips of 8 nanometers and below have become a reality. Once the technology matures further, the production of most of China’s chips in the future will no longer be subject to ASML in the Netherlands.

Just three days before the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued this document, the Dutch government announced that it would expand export control measures on advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment. ASML then issued a statement saying that it was necessary to apply to the Dutch government for an export license for the twinscan nxt:1970i and 1980i immersion DUV lithography systems, but it did not need to apply to the US government. Although the Dutch government did not directly name China, this move was undoubtedly aimed at China.

According to ASML, only applying to the Dutch government and not the United States does not mean that the process will be more relaxed. The first thing to understand is that the reason why the Dutch government expanded export controls is due to pressure from the United States. It seems that the United States has delegated the review power to the Dutch government, but it does not mean that the Netherlands does not need to communicate with the United States. If the United States disagrees, the Dutch government will not dare to approve it. In other words, the Netherlands only got the approval power, but it does not mean that it has the final decision-making power, so this regulation must have a great impact.

Of course, the regulation not only affects China, but also ASML. Data shows that in the first seven months of this year, domestic companies imported nearly $26 billion worth of chip manufacturing machinery, but ASML does not seem to benefit from it. Another data shows that in the first quarter of this year, ASML’s sales fell 22% year-on-year and 27% month-on-month, and its net profit fell 40% month-on-month. ASML has also made it clear that it expects its sales in China this year to be affected by 10% to 15%.

ASML’s estimate was made before the Dutch government’s regulatory policy was introduced. Now that the Netherlands has expanded export controls, the impact on ASML is estimated to be greater. What makes ASML even more uneasy is that now that China’s deep ultraviolet lithography machine has come out, the dependence on ASML equipment will further decline in the future, and ASML’s market in China will inevitably shrink further. In fact, ASML has predicted this result a long time ago. They have said before that if they cannot get supply from overseas markets, China will “do it themselves”. It has to be said that ASML is indeed foresighted.

In fact, China’s semiconductor industry has developed very rapidly in recent years. Whether it is chip manufacturing or chip manufacturing equipment, there have been constant good news, and this time it can be regarded as an absolute blockade. The advent of the argon fluoride lithography machine also means that the US suppression policy has basically failed. I also hope that the Americans can understand that the Chinese cannot be defeated, and the more they are suppressed, the more resilient they are, and the greater the achievements they will make.

Of course, we must also be prepared. After the advent of the argon fluoride lithography machine, there will definitely be a more crazy blockade by the Americans. But as I said, we will not be afraid, and we don’t have to be afraid.

This news is brought to you by Tencent

墨写东瀛话春秋: 09-16 15:19