Dragon Pearl

by Yoon Ha Lee

  “You have some explaining to do, too,” Sujin said to me. “You went around pretending to be Jang. After you left, the captain told us that he’d died. Is that . . . is that true?”

  “Yes,” I said with a sigh. “It happened right after the boarding mission on the Red Azalea. His injuries were too severe. I . . . His ghost allowed me to use his body.” I hoped that Jang was having better luck back on the Pale Lightning than I was here.

  The others looked shocked.

  “I guess you can never tell who to trust,” Sujin said. I wondered if the goblin was making a dig at me.

  I flinched. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you the truth,” I said to them. “I was trying to find out what happened to my brother, Jun. I didn’t mean for you two to get dragged into this mess. I really do consider you my friends.”

  “Yeah, nothing creates a bond like a common enemy,” Haneul said with a grimace. Still, the air around her stopped crackling. “Besides,” she added, “I’m worried about Jun and the other ‘deserters.’ If there’s any chance that we can help rescue them, we have to take it.”

  The navigational system came back online. “One moment,” I said. I bent to the task of correcting our course.

  Sujin and Haneul fell quiet, not wanting to distract me. I was grateful for a respite from the conversation.

  “It’s done,” I said after I’d triple-checked the coordinates, only to be embarrassed when my stomach growled loudly.

  Haneul smiled at the sound. “We should eat while we have a chance,” she said. “Sujin?”

  The goblin nodded and produced their spork. They waved it around, conjuring packets of shrimp crackers. I could almost hear my mom scolding me for eating junk food. A wave of homesickness washed over me. Would I ever see her again? I wanted nothing more than to bring Jun home to her.

  Sujin passed the crackers around, and we ate in glum silence, trying not to think about the vastness of space and how tiny the escape pod was. Then we returned to our couches and harnessed ourselves back in to prepare for landing. I stared out the viewport at the planet and prayed to every ancestor I knew to watch over us. Soon enough we’d find out whether we’d land near the Dragon Pearl—if we made it at all.

  The planet loomed below, with great tumbling whirls of lightning-lit clouds set in a deep azure sky. I had a difficult time catching sight of the surface with its violet-green haze. The colors were deceptive and the ground might look quite different once we got up close, without all the mist and dust in the way.

  I’d learned a long time ago that a planet’s atmosphere didn’t start or stop abruptly like a boundary wall. Rather, it faded gradually, extending into space like an ever-thinner blanket the farther you got from the ground. But when you were making a landing, there was a moment when you knew you’d entered an atmosphere.

  The temperature inside the pod rose uncomfortably as the friction of entry took its toll. The tiny ship was supposedly shielded so the excess heat wouldn’t cook us, but it grew hot enough that sweat was pouring off me. My fear didn’t help, either.

  Haneul and Sujin didn’t say anything about it, but I could smell their perspiration as well. The entire capsule had a rank stink that only grew worse by the minute. It was almost a welcome distraction from the knowledge that soon we’d be crash-landing on the surface.

  I dozed fretfully, then woke to Haneul and Sujin conversing in low tones. “Anything happen?” I asked.

  “No, we’re just waiting for the inevitable,” Haneul said. “I was talking about ways I might be able to use weather magic to soften the landing, but my control over air is not as strong as I’d like. I don’t suppose you could change into an airbag big enough to protect all of us?”

  “I could,” I said dubiously, “but I wouldn’t be a very good airbag, and I couldn’t keep myself from smothering you if we landed wrong and I got knocked out. How much longer until we land?”

  “Another ten minutes,” Sujin said. Despite the forced cheer of their tone, their voice wavered. “At least we haven’t seen any ghosts yet.”

  “They’re waiting to greet us as equals,” Haneul said. Her attempt at a joke was followed by a dismal silence, and she sighed. “Sorry. That came out wrong.”

  I twisted and turned in the harness, trying to find a more comfortable position. All my limbs ached, and my back was sore from being stuck like this for the past several hours. I wondered if whoever had designed the straps had ever been forced to put them to the test. The heat kept rising. By now I was soaked with sweat, and thirsty, too.

  “I should have had more to drink while I was unharnessed,” I said. I couldn’t get anything now, when we were so close to landing.

  “Maybe after we walk away from this I’ll conjure you some plum soda,” Sujin said, and we both laughed uneasily.

  The capsule began to brake, and it became hotter than ever.

  “I see trees,” Haneul said abruptly. “This might not have been the best place to land.”

  All thoughts of thirst vanished. A forest was a sign we might be near Jeonbok. But I didn’t want to crash into it. . . . Unless the branches would soften our landing?

  I strained for a glimpse of any signs of past civilization, hoping that Captain Hwan’s maps were up-to-date. “If even the most recent survey maps aren’t reliable,” I said, suddenly full of dread, “who knows what we’ll find on the surface when we get out. . . .”

  “Ghosts,” Sujin said. “Navigating is going to be interesting, that’s for sure.”

  We lapsed into an unhappy silence.

  “Five minutes to landing,” Sujin announced. “See you all on the other side.”

  “To survival,” I said.

  To my surprise, Haneul laughed, although not without some bitterness. “To survival.”

  The pod’s emergency-landing parachute deployed. One moment we were slowing, slowing, almost to the point where I imagined us as a feather burning up as it floated down. The next moment, we collided into something—a great overgrown copse of trees, from the crazed impression of branches and leaves and broken twigs that I glimpsed through the viewport as we turned topsy-turvy.

  We rolled and tumbled. I yipped in spite of myself, digging my fingers into the harness as if it could keep me from swinging from side to side. The safety straps helped, although not as much as I would have liked. I heard the others shouting as well. At last the ship settled into a less alarming back-and-forth rocking.

  “Everyone okay?” Sujin called out.

  I shook my head to get rid of a crick in my neck, staring cross-eyed at the hatch. I was almost upside down and all the blood had rushed to my head. The second time Sujin asked, I was able to answer, in a shaky voice. “Still here. Do you think it’s safe to get out?”

  “Safe is relative,” Haneul said.

  It was good to hear her voice. “We can’t stay in here forever,” I said. “We need to grab whatever supplies we can from the pod and go out and retrieve the Pearl. Then we can figure out what to do next.”

  “At least food and drink won’t be a problem as long as I’m around,” Sujin quipped.

  “First things first,” Haneul said. “Be careful getting out of your harness. We don’t know how stable the pod is, and we don’t want it to tumble down from the trees.”

  I unhooked myself as carefully as I could and still managed to land hard on my shoulder. It was pure luck that I didn’t dislocate it. Haneul and Sujin had an easier time. Still, every time one of us moved, the pod swayed alarmingly, and we could hear the creaking and groaning of the branches that cradled it.

  The other thing I noticed was the gravity, significantly lighter than what I was used to on Jinju or what was standard on starships. It gave a bouncy feeling to all my movements, which would have been fun under less harrowing circumstances. Given our precarious position, I didn’t dare experiment with it yet.

  Sujin rummaged quickly through the supplies. Cautiously, so we didn’t overbalance the ship, we divided up the slate, medical kit, and survi
val gear. I got the slate and quickly loaded it up with the survey data so we’d have something to work with.

  “Assuming we landed where we wanted to,” I said, “once Captain Hwan gets down here, this will be his first guess for where we’ve gone. So we have to move fast.”

  Haneul’s shoulders hunched. “I wish things hadn’t turned out like this.”

  “Me too,” Sujin said. “But the situation is what it is.”

  “Let’s all take a look at the map,” Haneul said, recovering her poise, “just in case something happens and we end up getting separated.” This took more finagling, since we couldn’t cluster together without risking the pod tumbling down.

  If we could trust my repair of the navigation system, we’d landed at the southern edge of Jeonbok. The maps had indicated that the woods had been cleared at one point, but they must have grown back over the years. A nearby river wound past Jeonbok toward a lake. If we got really lost, we could navigate by the river.

  Eventually we were ready.

  I’m coming for you, Jun, I thought fiercely. I had to hold on to that, had to believe I could rescue him easily once I got this business with the Dragon Pearl sorted.

  “Now what?” Haneul said.

  I took a deep breath and immediately regretted it. The air inside the pod was still unpleasantly damp and smelly. I checked the gauges. “We have barely enough fuel to launch back into orbit. There won’t be any margin for error. So if Captain Hwan catches up to us while we’re in flight, we won’t be able to evade.”

  “I don’t think it’s going to make a difference,” Haneul said. “How would we get the pod out of these trees? And anyway, Captain Hwan has a lot of ways to track us.”

  I had to concede that. Everything was going wrong with this plan. We’d have to figure out a solution later, once we’d secured the Pearl.

  “Check to see if the atmosphere out there is breathable, would you, Min?” Sujin said. “I’d hate to crack the hatch open only to suffocate.”

  “I can do that,” I said, glowering at the pod’s computer display. It took me some time to bring the sensor suite online. It wouldn’t be accurate enough for real survey work, but we only needed to know if there was sufficient oxygen and no poisonous gases. Fortunately, the display lit up blue. We were in the clear.

  We all looked at each other and exhaled in relief at the same time.

  “Okay,” Sujin said, “let’s open this tin can.”

  Things could have been worse. Sure, we were marooned on a plague-infected planet where we’d probably be murdered by ghosts, but at least we had breathable air. Some planets had a toxic atmosphere or none at all, or were too cold or hot for even supernatural creatures to survive without serious gear.

  “Here goes nothing,” Haneul muttered, and slid open the hatch.

  I coughed immediately at the thick, pollen-scented breeze that swirled through the pod. At least, it started as a breeze. It quickly became more forceful, almost as if it were responding to our presence. “Let’s hurry,” I said.

  Haneul didn’t need to be told twice. “Let me ask the winds to calm down,” she said, although she sounded dubious. She shut her eyes and began to meditate. After a few moments, she opened her eyes, and though I didn’t notice much change in the air current, she began clambering down. Her voice wafted to us from outside the capsule: “Be careful out here. Some of these branches have thorns.”

  Wonderful. “I’ll go next,” I said. If necessary, I could shape-shift into something that would take less damage in a fall, or offer cushioning for anyone landing on me. Being a mattress might not be dignified, but it beat Sujin ending up with broken bones or a concussion, or worse.

  The trees grew thick and tall. Their limbs were bent or snapped around the capsule, and the remains of the parachute were draped over the treetops. A few of the trees had needlelike leaves that glistened with a pale sap. I got some of it on my hands and found that it improved my grip on the branches.

  The thorns were another matter. Haneul hadn’t been kidding about them. Some of them were almost the length of my forearm. If I fell on one, I might join the ghosts before reaching the ground.

  I momentarily wished I’d changed into my nimbler true shape for the job of climbing down, but my longer human arms had better reach. I swallowed a cry when a smaller thorn jabbed my arm as I leaped unsteadily toward one of the larger branches beneath me. The unfamiliar lighter gravity was interfering with my reflexes. When I flinched, I inadvertently moved my foot and took another thorn to the back of my knee.

  “Not that way!” Haneul shouted up from the ground now that she could see me clearly. “Take a couple steps to the side, and—you see that branch with the weird knot? Move to that one instead. It’s safer.”

  With her guidance, I made it the rest of the way down. “Thanks,” I said.

  “It’s nothing,” she said. “Sujin, you ready?”

  “I watched you both,” they said, some of their cheer restored. “I can manage it. To free up my hands, I’m going to have to wear my hat, so here goes nothing!”

  I could only follow Sujin’s progress by the rustling of the branches and leaves. At one point a twig pelted me from above, and I jumped. “Stop that!”

  Sujin sounded puzzled. “That wasn’t me!”

  “I have to agree,” Haneul said. “This isn’t the time, Sujin.”

  “No, it really wasn’t—”

  More twigs began to bombard us.

  Haneul and I exchanged glances. “The ghosts,” she said thinly.

  “You’d better hurry,” I said to Sujin.

  “You’re telling me.” The branches rustled more vigorously.

  At last the three of us had made it safely to the ground. Sujin pulled off their hat and reappeared right next to Haneul, who didn’t bat an eyelash.

  Hardly any light filtered down this low, and I shivered as the wind picked up again. The smell of pollen almost overwhelmed me, even though I couldn’t see any flowers in bloom, either in the trees or among the mosses and underbrush.

  At least the wind was carrying away the stink of our sweat. I would have given a lot for a bath right then, or the opportunity to wash my face.

  “Here,” Sujin said, pulling out their spork. “A few quick snacks, we can eat and drink on the way. It won’t do us any good if we faint from hunger, and we need hydration after all the sweating we’ve done.” With a few passes of their spork, they produced orange sodas and honey cookies.

  Silently, we each took our share. From Haneul’s dour expression, I knew she thought the snacks were too sugary. I normally liked sweets, though, and I wasn’t about to complain. Any calories were good, especially considering our situation.

  “It’s hard to tell which way is north,” Sujin said, subdued, as they looked around. There was only forest in every direction. “How are we going to . . . ?” Their words trailed off as hopelessness set in.

  I dug in the survival kit and found a compass. I pointed out what it claimed was north. “I don’t know how reliable this is, though,” I added when the needle began to spin. Ghosts again.

  “We’ll have to do our best,” Haneul said. She raised her chin and turned until she was facing into the wind. As she did so, it grew even stronger, buffeting us with fallen leaves and snapped twigs. “If the ghosts don’t want us to go in that direction, chances are something valuable is there.”

  I couldn’t argue with the logic. I just hoped we weren’t making a terrible mistake.

  For the first hour, the shadows deepened as we made our way through the forest. The trees rose around us like stern sentinels, veiling the sky with their leaves. Haneul showed no sign that the increasingly chilly wind affected her, but Sujin hugged themself miserably and huddled close to her. For my part, I conjured myself a warmer coat. I wished I could do the same for Sujin, but my magic didn’t work that way.

  “Are you sure we’re going in the right direction?” Sujin asked Haneul. I was starting to wonder the same thing.

 
; “Do you have a better idea?” Haneul snapped.

  Sujin didn’t ask again after that.

  In the meantime, I marveled at the forest. At first I’d been overwhelmed by the masses of trees in every direction. We had no wild forests like this on Jinju due to the inadequate water. The longer we walked, the more I began to appreciate nuances. I spotted elaborately woven bird’s nests in the branches, like ornaments in the trees’ hair. The mosses that grew on the trees’ bark looked rich and soft. I trailed my fingers through some as I passed and marveled at the cool, furry texture. I caught sight of a clearing where boulders glittered faintly with fantastic outcroppings of crystal and curling ferns grew shyly at their sides.

  The winds seemed less cruel whenever I paused to admire the forest’s wonders. It was almost as if the spirits who were stirring up the air were mollified by my flattering gaze. I guessed it appealed to their vanity. Ghosts were people, too, after all—they just happened to be people who hadn’t yet fully crossed over to the realm of the dead.

  The Fourth Colony was supposedly a dead world, yet in the space of a few hours, I had encountered so much more life than Jinju had ever supported—except in enclosed, pampered gardens reserved for the richest families. I knew the entire planet couldn’t be like this. It would have its deserts and its glaciers, different climate zones. But as I walked through the solemn forest, I could dream that Jinju would someday look like this, too, at least in the parts where people lived. That could only happen, though, if I found the Dragon Pearl and rescued my brother.

  If I succeeded in doing those two things, maybe—just maybe—my family would forgive me for everything I’d done.

  The density of the woods dwindled little by little, until we finally reached the edge. Dusk light broke through the trees, tinting their trunks and the forest floor a ruddy color that contrasted with the cooler violets of the shadows.