Excerpt

There cannot be two suns in the sky, but there were two suns in the sky that summer. One of them was shaped like Pac-Man.

As there were too many people who had no idea what Pac-Man was, the government and the media outlets often used the analogy of a pizza pie. A whole pizza with a slice missing. A circle with a missing wedge. But since no pizza glowed with soft yellow light, many people still preferred to allude to the old arcade game character Pac-Man—the yellow circle with a piece cut out for a mouth that went around chomping and gobbling up yellow dots. In the government organizations and policy-making groups in which people in their fifties were considered young, Pac-Man was a better metaphor for the second sun than a pizza. In any event, it seemed unnecessary to choose one analogy over the other, as both the sales of a remake of the Pac-Man game and pizza consumption grew all throughout the summer.

The problem was not whether it was Pac-Man or pizza. The more significant issue was that this second sun snatched an extremely tiny portion of the original sun's rays that scattered into the universe and reflected it to Earth. There were probably many more problems resulting from the second sun, but one of them was this: on October 23, when people would typically be wearing long sleeves in nippy weather, the temperature in Seoul reached a high of thirty-two degrees Celsius.

On top of that, the second sun was growing bigger. The summer was going to be even longer than usual.

As soon as he stepped out of the car, Um Jonghyun, an intelligence analyst from the Intelligence Department of the Republic of Korea Space Force, began to sweat like a pig. Wearing a white shirt and a black jacket of the Space Force uniform, he seemed to be dressed for a funeral. The black tie certainly added to the mournful look. Had it not been for the badges, medals, the nameplate, and insignia that indicated that this was the official Space Force service uniform, he might have given off a solemn and somber vibe.

He tried to flap his unbuttoned jacket to fan himself a bit. It didn't help at all. The jacket's fabric was thick and unbreathable, and underneath, his sweat-sodden shirt stuck to his skin. He held up a folder to shield his face from the sun—the Republic of Korea Space Force logo on the front sparkled in the sunlight. It sparkled twice. Just as it was impossible to cover the sky with your hands, it was impossible to escape from the rays of two suns with just a single folder.

Jonghyun cut diagonally across the plaza. The ground was paved, so it wasn't a training field. However, it wasn't quite right to call it a plaza since civilians were restricted from using the area. The purpose of this place was a mystery, but the sound of footsteps resounded throughout the expanse. It was part of the Space Force headquarters, so perhaps it was meant to convey the emptiness of outer space. The small planets and constellations etched in the corners of the plaza seemed to support this notion. So he was crossing a plaza that encapsulated the universe, so to speak. The plaza was enclosed by roofed corridors like a European cloister. Stone roofs supported by stone pillars. Jonghyun glanced at the shade in the roofed corridors with envy but kept his eyes focused on his destination. Sweat poured down his face. On his shiny, polished shoes, two suns sparkled in turn. The tiny specks of sparkles embedded on his black jacket glimmered like distant stars.

Jonghyun stepped into the building and faced a pitch-dark lobby. It was the effect of having walked in from a very bright place, but for those who walked across an open plaza and into the building, such dark shade was a welcome relief. Jonghyun's face visibly relaxed.

On one side of the lobby, the chief of staff's aide-de-camp stood waiting, clad in the same uniform as Jonghyun. Recognizing Jonghyun, he quietly saluted. Instead of saluting him back, Jonghyun exhaled the breath he'd been holding and greeted the aide with his eyes. Then he looked to the ceiling where the air conditioner was installed and saluted it with the Space Force motto, "Ascension!"

The air conditioner mounted on the ceiling moved its flap in response. The spacenauts standing at the information desk let out a chortle. Jonghyun lowered his arm down by his side with control.

"They are waiting for you, sir," said the aide, rushing Jonghyun to join the meeting.

"I would love nothing more than to have three minutes to myself," Jonghyun grumbled.

"You are already very late, sir."

"It's because of this uniform. I took it out for the first time since being commissioned, and there were no badges or ribbons on it."

"You should not say that to them inside, sir."

"It's the main conference room, right? Third floor?"

"Follow me, sir."

The aide headed toward the elevator before hurriedly turning around and rushing over to the information desk. He held out his hand to one of the spacenauts standing on the other side of the desk. The spacenaut quickly took out a service cap and handed it to the aide. It was an officer's cap with a red band around the edge. With the cap in his hand, the aide strode over to the elevator.

He said to Jonghyun, "There is such a thing as a service cap in dress uniform, sir."

"Do I have to wear it?" asked Jonghyun as he buttoned up his jacket.

"Hold it by your side, sir."

"Do I have to walk in and salute? Should I say 'Ascension' too?"

"They are in the middle of a meeting, so just go in quietly. And when you make eye contact, salute without saying anything. And don't salute as you're walking either. Stop and salute. Just… you know, what seems appropriate."

"Is the conference room air-conditioned?"

"No, sir. It's the government policy. There's someone here from the Blue House."

Jonghyun frowned.

When he opened the door and walked inside, there were a lot of empty seats. He strode into the room without making eye contact, and when he reached a point within a reasonable distance from the chief of staff, he raised his head and met her eyes. Holding the folder and his cap under his left arm, he stopped short and gave a salute. Chief of Staff Gu Yemin waved her left hand in the air in response.

Blackout curtains were draped over the windows in the main conference room. A portion of the windows was left uncurtained to let the light in, and only the sky and the woods could be seen outside. There were three people in the meeting: the chief of staff, who was clad in the field uniform of a Space Force t-shirt with insignia; a middle-aged man in a suit; and a male colonel in dress Air Force uniform.

The voices of the three people filled the entire room. Jonghyun felt cooled sweat beading on his forehead again. It did seem that the room wasn't being air-conditioned. When the conversation came to a short lull, Gu Yemin pulled Jonghyun into the discussion.

"This is an intelligence analyst in our intelligence service." She introduced Jonghyun to the two other men in the room. "Captain Um, this is the secretary of security at the Blue House."

The introduction went smoothly without a single wasted second, almost as though Jonghyun was being led to hop into a long, rhythmically swinging jump rope. Jonghyun felt like he needed to jump otherwise he'd trip over the rope, disappointing everyone.

"Tell him about what you briefed me yesterday," Gu Yemin nudged Jonghyun. "Take a seat."

The chief of staff of the Space Force was not someone who needed help explaining what she'd heard the day before. She not only understood everything she'd heard even just once but could also organize and summarize the information she'd heard and explain it with all the necessary details. The fact that she'd waited for Jonghyun to give a briefing suggested that she wanted to show something to the other two people in the meeting. Perhaps even her long silver hair tied in a ponytail was a calculated style.

Jonghyun placed the service cap and the folder on the table and spoke.

"Captain Um Jonghyun, in charge of analysis at the Intelligence Department of the Space Force, sir."

"He is our origami expert," added the chief of staff.

At her words, the secretary of security widened his eyes.

"Origami?"

The chief of staff smiled and answered, "Due to the lack of budget, we fold spaceships out of paper. In the past, the Air Force also used to fold planes and fly them, but now that they have a lot of money, they can make the planes out of metal. Isn't that true?"

The Air Force colonel roared a laugh. It was sharp and short. The secretary of security looked at Jonghyun with eyes devoid of humor. The jump rope had come around full circle, and it was Jonghyun's turn again. Jonghyun studied the face of his superior, whom he admired and almost revered. She didn't meet his eyes, but her face was relaxed. It was a signal that he shouldn't be worried. I've got this meeting under my thumb, so nothing you do will ruin it, she seemed to say. Jonghyun exhaled with a hint of a smile.

He said, "Should I continue with the briefing, sir?"

"Go ahead," the secretary answered.

"Thank you, Mr. Secretary, sir. Last Friday night, the Allied Space Force Command's Data and Intelligence Bureau shared the blueprint for Pac-Man with the space forces of all twenty-nine member states. It was Friday morning ASF Command local time. The blueprint was raw data without interpretation, and the ASF Command did not respond to any questions. So each country began to interpret the data on its own. We assume that there are eleven countries that are capable of interpreting the data."

"Fortunately, we are one of them," Gu Yemin interrupted. Her voice sounded indifferent, almost like a footnote.

After a quick nod, Jonghyun continued, "The shared data was thirty-three pages of blueprints, and these three pages of the two-dimensional plan seem to be the most important. They contain the images that show the operating principle of Pac-Man's key components."

Jonghyun opened the folder. Inside was a yellow manila envelope with the flap tied closed by a string.

With a nod from Gu Yemin, Jonghyun untied the string and opened the envelope. He took out its contents and placed them on the table. It was a four-page document, and the ROK Space Force cover was stamped with the word "SECRET" at the top and the bottom. It was also marked with "1/1," meaning that this was the only copy of the document.

Jonghyun flipped open the cover page and showed the secretary of security a portion of the blueprint. It was an image of a trapezoid, made up of three equilateral triangles.

He explained, "It consists of a repeating sequence of this shape. The size of a single triangle is about as big as the palm of your hand. The thickness is, well, it is extremely thin. Like a thin film. It seems that these triangles are unfolded one by one, gradually increasing the overall size of the film. Pole-like structures stretch outward radially from the center of the spacecraft, and these triangles fill the space between the poles. We believe that there is about a five-meter-thick prism made up of thousands of these triangles. And that pile is gradually unfolding, triangle by triangle."

"In that Pac-Man?" the Secretary asked.

"Yes, sir."

"And you've observed this? Using a telescope?"

"No, sir. The things we astronomically observed are the main body of the spacecraft, the first pole-like structure extending from the body, the size of the film that acts like a mirror reflecting the sunlight, and the shape and speed in which the film is expanding its size. We have discovered the rest using reverse engineering."

"You're saying that you've worked out how this thing was made from what's up there now? With just that amount of observational data?"

"Yes, sir," Jonghyun answered. "Astronomy is a field that involves a lot of inferences and deductions from a tiny observed difference, so this is nothing special. On a math test, when you have a multiple-choice question, sometimes it is faster to test out the answer choices than to come up with one from scratch. We have used that specific method. We took all the alternatives of space structure expansion techniques that have been developed by humanity, tested each one by simulating how a structure shaped like that Pac-Man sun would expand and at what speed, and compared the simulation results to the observed data. From that, we found one structure expansion technique that roughly corresponds to what is happening up there, and that is the paper-folding technique. Although it's not paper that is being unfolded or folded. In all, we could call this origami."