“Lam? Tran Thi Long Lam?” The Turtle's Golden Claw asked.
The clerk, startled, looked at the small avatar of the ship—hadn't even noticed it floating by her side. “Yes,” she said. “A graduate of the College of Brushes—”
Suu Nuoc tuned her out as she started to list Lam's qualifications. The orbital was proud of Lam, as they hadn't been of either Quoc Quang or his daughter—because Lam was the local girl who had succeeded beyond everyone's wildest dream; granted, she'd had to return home, but everyone understood the necessity of caring for a sick father. Lam was cool-headed and competent; and probably managed an important segment of her orbital—a position beneath her, but which she'd taken on without complaining on returning home. He'd seen it a thousand times already, and it was of no interest.
What mattered was Grand Master Bach Cuc, and Bright Princess Ngoc Minh.
He let the clerk drone on as their shuttle moved from the central orbital to the Silver Abalone orbital—focusing again on the messages Lam had sent Grand Master Bach Cuc. Warnings, using a language too obscure for him to make them out. Was Ngoc Ha right? He didn't know. He knew that she was right in her assessment of Bach Cuc: that the Grand Master was proud of her achievements, and hungry for recognition. A young person like Lam, daring to question her... No, she wouldn't have listened to her. It was a wonder she'd received Quoc Quang at all; but perhaps she had not dared to refuse someone introduced by Ngoc Ha herself.
It galled him to even entertain the thought; because one did not speak ill of the disappeared or the dead; but he had not cared much for Bac Cuch.
Quoc Quang's compartment turned out to be a small and cosy one—the kitchen showing traces of use so heavy the cleaning bots hadn't quite managed to make them disappear, and a faint smell of sesame oil and fish sauce clung to everything.
It also did not contain Quoc Quang, or his wayward daughter. The aged aunt who lived with them—quailing in the face of the Embroidered Guard—said he had gone out.
“Running away?” The Turtle's Golden Claw asked.
Suu Nuoc shook his head. Getting drunk, more likely. “Scour the teahouses,” he said. “Can someone access the network?” Without it, everything seemed curiously bare—objects with no context or no feelings attached to them. He ran a finger on the wok on the hearth, half-expecting information to pop up in his field of vision—what brand it was, what had last been cooked in it. But there was nothing.
The clerk nodded.
“Anything interesting?”
Silence, for a while. “A message from his daughter,” she said at last. “Diem Huong. She says she's gone to work with Lam, at the teahouse.”
Diem Huong. Long Lam. Suu Nuoc didn't even pause to consider. “Where is the teahouse?”
“I don't know—” the clerk started, and then another of her colleagues cut her off. “It's the old teahouse,” he said. “Where the youngsters hang out, right by the White Turtle Temple on the outer rings.”
“Take us there,” Suu Nuoc said. “And keep looking for Quoc Quang!”
It was all scattering out—that familiar feeling he had before entering battle, when all the bots he was linked to left in different directions, and the battlefield opened up like the petals of flowers—that instant, frozen in time, before everything became rage and chaos; when he still felt the illusion of control over everything.
But this wasn't battle. This didn't involve ships or soldiers; or at least, not more than one ship. He could handle this.
He just wished he could believe his own lies.
* * *
The White Turtle Temple was a surprise, albeit a provincial one: a fragile construction of rafters and glass that stretched all the way to a heightened ceiling, a luxury that seemed unwarranted on an orbital—though the glass was probably shatter-proof, or not even glass. It had a quaint kind of prettiness; and yet... and yet, in its simple, affectless setup, it felt more authentic and warm than the hundred more impressive pagodas on the First Planet. When all this was over, Suu Nuoc should come there; should sit, for a while, in front of the statues of Quan Vu and Quan Am; and meditate on the fragile value of life.
The building next to the temple, squat and rectangular, had indeed been a teahouse—some tables were still outside, and the counter was lying in two pieces in the corridor. But that wasn't what raised Suu Nuoc's hackles.
The building glowed.
There was no other word for it. It was a faint blue radiance that seemed to seep through everything, making metal and plastics as translucent as high-quality porcelain—light creeping through every crack, every line of the walls until it seemed to be the glue that held it together. And it was a light that thrummed and throbbed, like...
He had seen this somewhere before. He gestured to the Embroidered Guard, had them position themselves on either side of the entrance. It didn't look as though there was any danger they could tackle—”unnatural light” not exactly being in their prerogatives. He'd been too cautious: he should have asked at least one of them to plug into the communal network—they would be blind to local cues. It had been fine when they'd just been on a mission to pick up a witness, but now...
He looked again at the light, wishing he knew what it reminded him of. That annoying buzz, just on the edge of hearing—like a ship's engine? But no, that wasn't it. How long had it been spreading? “I want to know if the monks of the temple filed a report,” he said.
The magistrate looked at one of his clerks, who shook her head. “Not in the system.”
Not so long, then. Perhaps there was still time.
But time for what?
“I can go in,” a voice said. “Have a look.” The Turtle's Golden Claw.
“Out of the question.” Ngoc Ha's voice was flat; almost unrecognisable from the small, courtly woman who seldom spoke her mind so bluntly. “You have no idea what's in here.”
“I'm not here,” The Turtle's Golden Claw said. “Not really. It's just a projection—”
“There's enough of you here,” Ngoc Ha said. “Bits and pieces hooked into the communal network. That's how you work, isn't it? You can't process this fast, this quickly, if you're not here in some capacity.”
“Mother—”
“Tell me you're not here,” Ngoc Ha said, relentless. Her hair was shot through with blue highlights—lifted as though in an invisible wind; and her eyes—her eyes seemed to burn. Did everyone look like that? But no, the clerks didn't seem affected to that extent. “Tell me there's no part of you here at all, and then I'll let you go in.”
“You can't force me!” The Turtle's Golden Claw said. “Grand Master Bach Cuc—”
Ngoc Ha opened her mouth; and Suu Nuoc knew, then, exactly what she was going to say. He found himself moving then—catching the heated words Ngoc Ha was about to fling into her daughter's face, and covering them with his own. “The Grand Master is probably dead, ship. And what killed her might be inside.”
There was silence, then; and that same unnatural light. At length the ship said—bobbing up and down like a torn feather in a storm—”She can't be. She can't— Mother—Book of Heaven—”
“I'm sorry,” Ngoc Ha said.
“We're not sure—” Suu Nuoc started.
“Then there's still a chance—”
“Don't you recognise what this is?” Ngoc Ha asked.
“I've seen it before—”
Her voice was harsh, unforgiving. “It's the light of a harmonisation arch, General.”
She was right. Suu Nuoc suppressed a curse. Harmonisation arches were localised around their surrounding frames—the biggest one he'd seen had been twice the size of a man, and already buckling under the stress. They certainly never cast a light strong enough to illuminate an entire building. Whatever was going on inside, it was badly out of control.
“I need your help,” he said, to The Turtle's Golden Claw.
“Yes?”
“Tell me if the illumination is stable.”
The ship was silent for a while;
but even before she spoke up, Suu Nuoc knew the answer. “No. The intensity has been increasing. And...”
More bad news, Suu Nuoc could tell. Why couldn't he have some luck, for a change?
“I would need more observations to confirm, but at the rate this is going, it will have spread to the entire orbital in a few hours.”
“Do you know what's inside?”
“Not with certainty, no. But I can hazard a guess. Some explosive reaction that should have required containment—except that it's breached it,” The Turtle's Golden Claw said.
Which was emphatically not good for the orbital, whichever way you put it. Suu Nuoc's physics were basic, but even he could intuit that. He took in a deep, trembling breath. The battle joined, again; the familiar ache in his bones and in his mind, telling him it was time to enter the maelstrom where everything was clean-cut and elegantly simple—where he could once more feel the thrill of split-second decisions; of hanging on the sword's edge between life and death.
Except it wasn't a battle; it wasn't enemy soldiers out there—just deep spaces and whatever else Bach Cuc had been handling, all the cryptic reports he'd barely been able to follow. Could he handle this? He was badly out of his depth...
But it was for the Empress; and the good of the Empire; and there was no choice. There had never been any choice.
He gestured to the Embroidered Guard. “Set up a perimeter, but don't get too comfortable. We're going in.”
The Engineer
The world around Diem Huong shifted and twisted; and vanished—and, for a moment, she hung in a vacuum as deep as the space between stars, small and alone and frightened, on the edge of extinction—and, for a moment, she felt the touch of a presence against her mind, something vast and numinous and terrible, like the wings of some huge bird of prey, wrapping themselves around her until she choked.
And then she came slamming back into her body, into a place she recognised.
Or almost did. It was—and was not—as she remembered: the door to Mother's compartment, a mere narrow arch in a recessed corridor, indistinguishable from the other doors. From within came the smell of garlic and fish sauce, strong enough to make her feel six years old again. And yet... and yet, it was smaller, and diminished from what she remembered; almost ordinary, yet loaded with memories that threatened to overwhelm her.
Slowly, gently—not certain it would still remain there, if she moved, if she breathed—she raised a hand, and knocked.
Nothing.
She exhaled. And knocked again—and saw the tip of her fingers slide, for a bare moment, through the metal. A bare moment only, and then it was as solid as before.
She was fading. Going back in time to Lam's lab? To the void and whatever waited for her there?
No use in thinking upon it. She couldn't let fear choke her until she died of it. She braced herself to knock again, when the door opened.
She knew Mother's face by heart; the one on the holos on the ancestral altar, young and unlined and forever frozen into her early forties: the wide eyes, the round cheeks, the skin darkened by sunlight and starlight. She'd forgotten how much of her would be familiar—the smell of sandalwood clinging to her; the graceful movements that unlocked something deep, deep within her—and she was six again and safe; before the betrayal that shattered her world; before the years of grief.
“Can I help you?” Mother asked. She sounded puzzled.
She had to say something, no matter how inane; had to prevent Mother's face from creasing in the same look of suspicion she'd seen in the monk's eyes. Had to. “I'm sorry, but I had to meet you. I'm your daughter.”
“Diem Huong?” Mother's voice was puzzled. “What joke is this? Diem Huong is outside playing at a friend's house. She's six years old.”
“I know,” Diem Huong said. She hadn't meant to say that; but in the face of the woman before her, all that came out was the truth, no matter how inadequate. “I come from another time,” she said. “Another place.”
“From the future?” Mother's eyes narrowed. “You'd better come in.”
Inside, she turned, looked at Diem Huong—every time this happened, Diem Huong would wait with baited breath, afraid that this was it, the moment when Mother would start forgetting her again. “There is a family resemblance,” Mother said at last.
“I was born in the year of the Water Tiger, in the Hour of the Rat,” Diem Huong said, slowly. “You wanted to name me Thien Bao; Father thought it an inappropriate name for a girl. Please, Mother. I don't have much time, and I'm running out of it.”
“We all are,” Mother said, soberly. She gestured towards the kitchen. “Have a tea.”
“There is no time,” Diem Huong said; and paused, scrabbling for words. “What do you mean, 'we're running out of time?'“
Mother did not answer. She turned back, at last; looked at Diem Huong. “Oh, I'm sorry, I hadn't seen you here. What can I do for you?”
“Mother—” the words were out of Diem Huong's mouth before she could think; but they were said so low Mother did not seem to hear them. “You have to tell me. Why are you running out of time?”
Mother shook her head. “Who told you that?”
“You did. A moment ago.”
“I did not.” Mother's voice was cold. “You imagine things. Why don't you come into the kitchen, and then we can talk.” She looked, uncertainly, at the door. She wouldn't remember how Diem Huong had got in—she was wondering if she should call the militia, temporising because Diem Huong looked innocuous, and perhaps just familiar enough.
Don't you recognise me, Mother? Can't you tell? I'm your daughter, and I need to know.
The corridor they stood in was dark, lit only by the altar to Quan Am in the corner—the bodhisattva's face lifted in that familiar half-smile—how many times had she stared at it on her way in or out, until it became woven into her memories?
“Please tell me,” Diem Huong said, slowly, softly. “You said the Citadel still stood. You said you didn't know for how long.” She should have started over; should have made up some story about being a distant relative, to explain the family likeliness—or even better, something official-sounding, an investigation by a magistrate or something that would scare her enough not to think. But no, she couldn't scare Mother. Couldn't, wouldn't.
Mother's face did not move. Diem Huong could not read her. Was she calling the militia? “Come into the kitchen,” she said, finally; and Diem Huong gave in.
She got another puzzled look as Mother busied herself around the small kitchen—withdrawing tea from a cupboard, sending the bots to put together dumplings and cakes that they dropped into boiling water. “I'm sorry,” Mother said. “I keep forgetting you were coming today.”
“It's nothing,” Diem Huong said. The kitchen was almost unfamiliar—she remembered the underside of the table; the feet of chairs; but all of it from a lower vantage. Had she played there, once? But then she saw the small doll on the tiling; and knelt, tears brimming in her eyes. Em Be Be—Little Baby Sister. She remembered that; the feel of the plastic hands in hers; the faint sour, familiar smell from clothes that had been chewed on and hugged and dragged everywhere.
Em Be Be.
“Oh, I'm sorry,” Mother said. “My daughter left this here, and I was too lazy to clean up.”
“It's nothing,” Diem Huong said, again. She rose, holding the doll like a fragile treasure; her heart twisting as though a fist of ice were closing around it. “Really.” She wasn't going to break down and cry in the middle of the kitchen, she really wasn't. She was stronger than this. “Tell me about the Citadel.”
Mother was having that frown again—she was in the middle of a conversation that kept slipping under her. It was only a matter of time until she called the militia—except that the militia wouldn't remember her call for more than a few moments—or asked Diem Huong to leave, outright—something else she wouldn't remember, if it did happen.
Diem Huong watched the doll in her hands, wondering how long she had
before it vanished; how long before she, too, vanished. “Please, elder aunt.” She used the endearment; the term for intimates rather than another, more distant one.
“It's going to fall, one way or another,” Mother said, slowly, carefully. “The Empress's armies are coming here, aren't they?” She put a plate full of dumplings before Diem Huong, and stared, for a while, at the doll. “I have to think of this. We're not defenceless—of course we're not. But the harm...” She shook her head. “You don't have children, do you?”
Diem Huong shook her head.
“Sometimes, all you have are bad choices,” Mother said.
Diem Huong carefully set the doll aside, and reached for a dumpling—it'd vanish too, because Mother had only baked it for her. All traces of her presence would go away, at some point; all memories of her. “Bad choices,” she said. “I understand, believe me.” The dumpling smelled of dough and meat and herbs; and of that indefinable tang of childhood, that promise that all would be well in the end; that the compartment was and forever would be safe.
All dust, in the end; all doomed to vanish in the whirlwind.
“Do you?” Mother's voice was distant. Had she forgotten, again? But instead, she said, “One day, my daughter will grow up to be someone like you, younger aunt—a strong and beautiful adult. And it will be because I've done what I had to.”
“I don't understand,” Diem Huong said.
“You don't have to.” There were—no.
Mother—
There were tears in Mother's eyes. “No one leaves. We stand, united. Always. For those of us who can.”
Mother, no.
Mother smiled, again. “That's all right,” she said. “I didn't feel you'd understand, younger aunt. You're too young to have children; or believe in the necessity of holding up the world.” And then her gaze unfocused again; slid over Diem Huong again. “Can you remind me what I was saying? I seem to be having these frightful absences.”
She was crying; young and vulnerable and so utterly unlike Mother. Diem Huong had wanted.. reassurances. Explanations. Embraces that would have made everything right with the world. Not—not this. Never this. “I'm sorry,” she said, slowly backing away from the kitchen. “I'm really sorry. I didn't mean—”
The Citadel of Weeping Pearls Page 8