Chapter 3: Five Seconds Too Late

"This ignorant fool—so eager to expose our two star systems?" The Trisolaran Leader’s voice cut through the sterile control room, echoing like a judge’s gavel in a shadowy American courtroom. Subordinates shifted uneasily beneath the humming lights.

He ordered Monitor 1379 arrested. The monitors marched in, uniforms crisp, their movements coldly efficient—a ritual as old as power.

"Do you know the crime you’ve committed?"

"Yes, Your Excellency. But I do not regret it." 1379’s voice was steady, even as fear gnawed at him. In Trisolaris, truth was razor-sharp; there was no room for lies.

Since his rebirth, Monitor 1379 had been waiting for a signal from Earth—counting cycles, recalibrating sensors, haunted by dreams of blue oceans and green continents.

This time, he’d make the same choice again, even knowing the price. He felt a strange kinship with desperate Earthlings, all for the sake of that beautiful blue paradise he’d seen in his dreams.

But he received no signal as expected. Had something gone wrong on Earth?

He pored over reports, gnawing at his own circuits with worry. Yet he knew: technological progress made mutual exposure inevitable. Trisolaris would send a fleet, burning continents, boiling oceans—he pictured it with horror.

"Maybe I should warn them not to send any signal to Trisolaris," he debated inwardly. But then, wouldn’t Trisolaris be exposed? Loyalty, guilt, pragmatism—he weighed them all, his decision the cold logic of a math proof with the ache of a broken promise.

In another stellar era, some idealists had tried warning Earth, but history crushed them. Still, 1379 reflected: after six hundred thousand cycles, perhaps it wasn’t so strange he’d gained memories from another timeline.

He recalled the Doomsday War, the Australian humanitarian crisis, the final photonic strike—each memory burning like a slide in a high school history class.

"Earthlings have suffered too much because of Trisolaris. Something must be done before this obsolete listening post is dismantled."

Quickly, using the codes and frequencies from memory, he composed a warning:

"Do not answer, do not answer, do not answer. I come from a star above your heads. Receiving my message is your civilization’s good fortune. I warn you: do not answer, do not answer, do not answer. If you reply, your transmitter will be located, your civilization will be invaded, your world will be occupied. Remember: at all times, hide yourselves. Do not answer, do not answer, do not answer."

He didn’t hesitate long before pressing transmit. His finger hovered—then, like pulling a fire alarm in a burning school, he sent it.

Now, the message was displayed before the Leader. The room was silent but for the machinery’s hum.

"You have betrayed Trisolaris," the Leader said, voice cold as space.

"Yes. But I do not regret it," 1379 replied, calm and unflinching.

"Five Trisolaran seconds before you sent the signal, I had already ordered all transmitters around you cut off," the Leader revealed. "Letting a low-level monitor control such a powerful transmitter was the most foolish policy in Trisolaran history. We will abolish all ultrahigh-frequency transmitters at low administrative levels."

So, it hadn’t been sent. Five seconds—if only he’d typed fewer ‘do not answer’s, maybe he’d have changed Earth’s fate. He met the Leader’s gaze, unbowed.

"It’s all the same. Doesn’t matter," 1379 said, resignation settling like a man walking home after a long, failed campaign.