by David Brin
Oh, lil’sis. The intimate address radiated warmth, even though it was always a line of text. Always so prim and proper. Do try to lighten up.
I do my job, Thanh said. She’d risen, steadily, from a callow apprentice to her current position—a Veteran Master, in charge of the Greater Rings, the most critical sections closest to the station’s Mind—driven, always, by what they had taught her at the Academy of Machines: that authorizations were the heart of the station, the axle around which everything else revolved; that they should be used properly, or not at all. That what they did—what every Master used themselves to the bone doing—was all worth it.
If only Anh Ngoc had been able to see that.
“Thanh!” a voice called, from a small knot of people clustered by a statue of a lion. “Come on here! It’s been ages.”
Closer, and the group was made up of Khac Ky, one of Anh Ngoc’s friends who worked on the gardens, and two blurred silhouettes, people Thanh didn’t know and didn’t have any authorizations from. Normally they wouldn’t show up at all; the station’s Mind would redirect her steps so she avoided them and mute anything they might have been saying or any noise they might have made, but they were in a group conversation that would make little sense if half of it were missing—hence the option to introduce herself.
Khac Ky was nothing if not courteous and proper, though; he’d already sent the introductions before Thanh finished arriving, and the authorizations were promptly given. Basic information about the missing two blinked in the overlay, even as the two blurred silhouettes became avatars: a dour-faced man with a hint of deer’s antlers at his temples named Huan, whose post was Master of Wind and Water in the station’s inner circles, and someone called Uyen Nhi, whose avatar was a dragon in flight, and who mined metals from the asteroid belt. In turn, Thanh granted them authorizations, the lowest setting, the one she reserved for strangers and distant acquaintances: basic information, and an elaborate avatar whose features were nothing like hers.
“So,” Huan said, bowing to Thanh. “I didn’t know you and Anh Ngoc had been together.” It had been in Thanh’s basic information, because she didn’t see the point in hiding it.
“It was a long while ago,” Thanh said. Liar, Hoang Cuc sent, with such speed that Thanh suspected her spouse had set up an alert keyed to heartbeat spiking. But neither Huan nor the two others had authorization for her vitals, or even more than basic post, health and family information. She shrugged, with a casualness she didn’t feel.
“I’m glad it ended well,” Uyen Nhi said, the dragon body rippling in the wind crossing the courtyard. “Your relationship.”
It hadn’t, but of course they wouldn’t know. They’d only see her here, at the First Presentation, a ceremony reserved for close friends and relatives, and assume from there. They wouldn’t know—how the mere sight of Anh Ngoc could clog up Thanh’s chest, could set her heart racing and a bitter taste flooding her mouth, as if it had been days and not years since they’d last seen each other.
“How have you been?” Khac Ky asked, gravely. “I haven’t heard from you in a while.”
They both knew Thanh hadn’t made any effort to keep in touch; too much work, to navigate relationships after the acrimonious breakup. Thanh made a dismissive gesture. “The usual,” she said. “Work.”
“So I’ve heard,” Khac Ky said. “You’ve been doing very well.”
“Thank you,” she said, slowly, not quite sure what to make of him. “What about you?”
“Same,” Khac Ky said. “And I got married to a lovely man, but you already know that.” She noticed Huan tense. Often people didn’t like to be reminded of the Inmost Layer; it was like other jobs done by the Ministry of Transparency, touching on the inner workings of the station, exposing the guts of their everyday lives—the jobs that needed to be done but that few people would step forward to do. Khac Ky, though, didn’t seem to mind. He hadn’t minded, back then. Should she have kept in touch with him? But then she’d have had to handle Anh Ngoc in their mutual authorizations.
“Actually I don’t,” Thanh said, a little more sharply than she’d meant. “I’m Inmost Layer, not omniscient. I only deal with authorizations when there’s a problem.” And she didn’t deal with Anh Ngoc. She’d made a specific request not to—one that the Ministry had granted without trouble, used to seeing similarly phrased ones. “I don’t even know what Anh Ngoc has been doing.”
“You know the basics,” Khac Ky said, with a tight smile, and settled in the familiar dance of updating her without actually giving her any definite information—nothing that would trigger a minor or major breach that the Ministry could prosecute. “Getting married, getting pregnant.”
She was used to it; and yet … and yet she wanted so much more—to know what Anh Ngoc had done, to understand why she was here, why the message and that cryptic signature. To know if Anh Ngoc had changed her mind.
You can’t pour water back into a jug, Hoang Cuc said. Thanh could almost hear the sharpness in the overlay, could almost feel ghostly arms wrapped around her. She broke up with you. You can’t cry on what’s done.
And yet … and yet she’d never gotten over it, had she? Never forgiven Anh Ngoc, either—for all the quietness of their last moments together, that acrimonious conversation reproaching her for putting her career in the Ministry ahead of everything else; that had ended with Thanh screaming at Anh Ngoc that she didn’t understand, that they were both too young to think of children, of families—and Anh Ngoc throwing back at her that she couldn’t deal with it all, with all the knowledge of the system that Thanh was acquiring as a Master of the Inmost Layer; that, more than the hours she kept, it was the way she kept moving away—seeing people as the sum of their authorizations, as potential breaches or points of failure—that she didn’t want to think about this, about all of this; that the work was sorely needed, but that someone else could do it; that other people could turn into blank-faced monsters, emotionless lackeys of the Ministry—but not Thanh, she was really decent underneath, really didn’t deserve this.…
Thanh had walked away, shaking, and never come back.
“I think…” Uyen Nhi said, carefully, the dragon’s pearly eyes taking in the courtyard overlay, the sky overhead shading toward a glorious sunset, with a crescent moon slowly detaching itself from the wash of golden pink. “I think they’re not doing as well as they used to, are they? Anh Ngoc’s family?”
Khac Ky shook his head. “I wouldn’t know.” He sounded relieved; quite probably he didn’t know at all and didn’t have to prevaricate. “But their … overlay is certainly over the top. And quite soon, too, for a First Presentation.”
“Two weeks,” Huan said with a frown. The baby was completely outward information, the birth recorded in the station’s register; though not the child’s name, gender or aspect, not until the Presentation was done and the authorizations granted by their parents had been passed on to them. “Some unseemly haste.”
Thanh was torn between defending Anh Ngoc and making a snide remark that Anh Ngoc had always been certain of what she wanted, even if she had to rise roughshod over other people—including Thanh—to get what she wanted. She prevaricated by saying nothing at all.
In the courtyard, monks moved—ghostly simulations that were clearly part of the overlay rather than real people, carrying cages of birds to release into the sky. Of course. Anh Ngoc would want this, wouldn’t she: the old-fashioned ceremony of accruing merit and forgiveness for past sins, a fresh start for her child.
“I’ve heard rumors,” Uyen Nhi said, the maw of the dragon avatar opening in a smile of glistening fangs. “That all is not well with her husband’s post. That he might be getting a demotion to one of the Lesser Rings. This”—the avatar’s mane rippled, took in the entire overlay—“this might be her way of impressing the right people. A statement that she can still afford the best.” Or design it herself: after all, overlays were Anh Ngoc’s work, and her pride. But Thanh still said nothing; the words fe
lt like burning stones, stuck in her throat.
“The guests are certainly well connected,” Huan said, his eyes roaming the small knots of people by the buffet. “Ministry of Personnel, Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Works. A lot of high-placed officials.”
Well connected. Well placed. Anh Ngoc’s message floated up to Thanh, across her slowly distorting field of vision, congratulating her for her recent promotion in the Ministry of Transparency, her rise toward the higher levels of station society. And the hook, the promise of a return to their relationship, enough to make her wait for Anh Ngoc, to remain at the party long enough to be noticed …
Are you all right? Hoang Cuc asked, abruptly. Your skin temperature …
I’m fine, Thanh snapped. At the center of the courtyard, the first released birds took wing from their opened cages—their silhouettes a dark blur of wings against the round shape of the moon—so easily, so thoughtlessly flying away from the party and vanishing from the overlay, as Thanh herself could not. Just fine.
You don’t sound—
Just fine, I told you. Leave it, please.
And to the others: “I’m sorry. I need to go for a walk.” And left them there, unable to find more words she could give them.
* * *
Thanh slipped into the Inmost Layer as she walked—what the other Masters called the Skeleton Layer—the only place in the entire room where she was sure that no one could reach her. As the overlay faded, the people appeared, their silhouettes wavering as though seen through water or a particularly bad infrared sensor. They couldn’t see Thanh, though; their gazes would go right through her, their steps would be redirected so that they never met her—unless they were another Master of the Inmost Layer using their privileges. The room was much smaller, too, limited by station space: four walls with a counter that held the food, the beds folded away and the usual furniture collapsed into alcoves—just a rectangle of unadorned metal, without any of the compression tricks pulled by the station’s Mind to make it all seem larger than it was, everything curiously flat and unadorned.
Lil’sis? Lil’sis? Please.
The words flashed across her field of vision, were replaced by others that still made little sense, messages she queued into lower priority, so she wouldn’t have to deal with her spouse—not now, not in this state.
What had she expected—some kind of apology, a reconciliation, something beyond that distant smile, that meaningless message exchange? Anh Ngoc never apologized. Never.
She watched Anh Ngoc, watched her flit from group to group—in the Inmost Layer, she could see their silhouettes rather than their avatars, could guess at the shape of the baby on Anh Ngoc’s chest. Would the child inherit the mother’s harshness of face, her indomitable will, her utter refusal to see anything beyond the comfort of her own existence?
You both wanted different things, Hoang Cuc said, softly. Let it go, lil’sis. Please. Just make excuses and leave.
Thanh couldn’t. She just couldn’t take her eyes from Anh Ngoc’s blurred silhouette, from the people she moved amongst: a Master of Wind and Water, head of the Habitat Design Department at the Ministry of Works; an official with a jade sash, a relative of the station’s Mind; an overseer in charge of the asteroid mining in the nearby Scattered Pearls Belt; a constellation of influential station people calculated to make the event as prestigious as possible.
And she, of course, was just another addition to this. How could she have been so foolish?
Something flashed white across her field of vision: a general alert at the Ministry. Big’sis? she asked, and Hoang Cuc didn’t answer. Big’sis?
Still no answer. Then, after a while that felt like an eternity, Hoang Cuc’s words, slowly crawling across her field of vision. You should leave.
That’s not what happened—
No, Hoang Cuc said. But I would guess there isn’t going to be anyone from Inmost Layer available for the ceremony; at least, not within the next few hours.
Thanh’s heart sank in her chest. That bad?
Major emergency on one of the Lesser Rings, an outage of power in the machines section. Entire clusters have lost their authorizations. Thanh could imagine Hoang Cuc’s grimace. Could be a while before we sort it out.
But so far they hadn’t called Thanh in. Of course, she was off duty, and they wouldn’t resort to off-duty Masters until they had no other choice. She wouldn’t ask if she could help. She’d sworn she’d take her night off, go to the party, try to be normal, instead of moving amongst other Masters. But, nevertheless … You’re right, Thanh said. I’ll make my goodbyes and leave.
But still she watched the fuzzy silhouette of Anh Ngoc. There had to be a way—a moment for a quiet word; not reconciliation, but something that would allow her to move on, to forget, to not feel like a ghost at the party, her throat clogged up with a hurt she couldn’t set aside.
Anh Ngoc was walking toward a more deserted area of the room—one of the corners, where a silhouette sat alone. Almost in spite of herself, Thanh reached out in the Inmost Layer, and her field of vision lit up with a name, Binh Yen, Anh Ngoc’s favorite and youngest uncle—and all the information started to scroll at her fingertips, all the authorizations Binh Yen had given out, the last interactions he’d had and their logs, a picture of his physical body and of all his avatars sorted by level of intimacy. Breach.
Breach.
She stopped herself—forced everything to disappear, all the details becoming invisible once more. She’d only caught a glimpse of them; not enough: a minor breach, the kind the Ministry might not even bother to prosecute. But …
But she’d know. She’d always know that she’d abused the trust put in her. Slipping into the Inmost Layer was one thing—plenty of Masters did it, to revel in what they knew; to enjoy peace, to find a refuge from the welter of life on Seven Clouds. Touching someone, though … That was … worse than seeing them naked, their secrets exposed without any recourse, an abuse she had no right to.
She … She’d done it in anger, in confusion, but it was no excuse. The station’s inhabitants put their trust in the Masters of the Inmost Layer, and she’d casually violated that trust, simply because she was angry?
Binh Yen was now alone; Anh Ngoc gone again. Of course, she was the center of attention, even with the baby not yet introduced into station life. Thanh would not get a quiet word with her; there was not, and had never been, any chance of that—one might as well hope for an intimate moment with a bride at her wedding. She shouldn’t—shouldn’t even be here. Hoang Cuc was right: there would be no closure here, nothing that would touch that deep-seated well within her—just Thanh, getting angrier and angrier and making more unforgivable mistakes.
With a sigh, Thanh let go—the overlay of the courtyard with its impossibly bright, lacquered temple walls shimmered back into sight. The monks’ simulations were gone, and so were the birds: their purpose had been served. The crowd remained, talking among themselves—watching the sky, watching the moon above, which was slowly shading from crescent to full.
Of course. First Presentation had once been called Full Moon Ceremony on Old Earth, on the shores of the sea in the Old Country of Vietnam; and Anh Ngoc, always proper, always effortlessly elegant—though not always subtle—would know.
Perhaps … perhaps Anh Ngoc would try to press her into service, if the Master she so desperately needed for the ceremony didn’t show up—send her more messages in kinder tones, trading in on the intimacy they’d once shared with as few scruples as she’d shown, trading in on their acquaintance, reeling Thanh in with a promise of renewed confidences, of closeness that wouldn’t ever happen.
Thanh’s stomach heaved at the thought. I’m leaving, she told Hoang Cuc.
There was no answer from Hoang Cuc, not even a snide remark about her vitals. The emergency was still happening, then; a brief look into the private areas for the Inmost Layer showed a flurry of activity, and Masters messaging each other in a desperate race to restore lost authorizatio
ns so that people could function normally.
She should be with them, instead of wasting her time here.
“Thanh? Pham Thi Doan Thanh?”
Thanh, already on her way out, whirled round, and saw Binh Yen, a blurred silhouette—she must have been on the outermost level of his authorizations, probably something he’d given her once for a family meal and never revoked. “I’m sorry,” she said, her cheeks flaming.
“What for?” he sounded genuinely puzzled.
“I saw—” She’d … she’d seen too much from him—touched his inmost details—everything from his life, laid out for her like the pages of a book—and it didn’t matter that she’d hardly had time to absorb any of it—it was just … obscene. “I saw you,” she said, unable to put it into words.
Binh Yen shrugged. “There’s hardly anything to see. How have you been, younger aunt?”
He didn’t understand. He wouldn’t, not unless she explained further, and just the thought made her stomach heave again. “You know. The usual.” The words weighed like stones in her throat. What—what was she turning into?
“Are you?” He sounded … offended, as if he’d genuinely cared, as if he weren’t making idle conversation. And then she realized that they were still standing alone in the middle of the party; that Anh Ngoc might have left, but that no one had come to take her place. Old instincts swung into place.
“Do you know anyone here? Didn’t Anh Ngoc—?”
“I like my privacy,” Binh Yen said, smiling.
“But you—” He’d still granted her authorization. He still— She accessed his profile, the things she had a right to, the ones that weren’t breach: it listed very few things, but the address he gave was, not on the Lesser Rings, but in the little satellites orbiting the station. He could have been a prospector, an asteroid miner like Uyen Nhi, but Thanh thought not. “You’re a hermit.”