Vagabonds

by Hao Jingfang

  “That’s true only if we’re not strong enough,” he said.

  That was another thing that had changed in Rudy. He had despised war as a child.

  “Is there any way to avoid war?” she asked.

  “Sure, if we get what we want from the negotiations.”

  “Do we really have to have those technologies?”

  “We do. To bring water to Mars isn’t just a grand engineering dream; it’s about the very survival of our people.”

  “Why must we bring water from Ceres here? Can’t we—”

  “What is wrong with you?” Rudy slammed his mug down on the table and stood up, agitated. “It’s no longer a matter of ‘we must’ but ‘we already have’! We’ve gone so far down this road that it’s impossible to stop. Look up! We brought Ceres here, and it’s orbiting above us. For this plan, we drove ten thousand people out of their homes on the dwarf planet. How can we stop now?” His voice trembled as emotion tightened his throat. “Why did Grandfather’s friend Ronen leave? For this dream of a wet Mars! He died for it, did you know that? He didn’t even get out of the Solar System before he died. He was so old that he shouldn’t have been on the ship at all, but he had to leave.”

  Rudy took a deep breath to control himself. When he spoke again, his voice was calm. “We can’t stop. No matter what the price.”

  Luoying’s mind was blank. It was as if a bomb had gone off inside.

  “Ronen … Grandpa Ronen is … dead?”

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “Yesterday.”

  Grandpa Ronen is dead. Dead. Luoying couldn’t process the news. Ronen, with his Santa Claus white hair and beard, who loved to tell her stories, was dead.

  * * *

  For the past half month at home, she had been full of doubts and questions, as though on the back of an untamed horse. But the sudden news of Ronen’s death plunged her deep into reminiscence, into the blue light of the past. She sat on the window ledge of her bedroom, leaning against the shell-like open window, letting a montage of her childhood scenes replay among the flowers and lawns of the garden.

  Among the elders of Mars, Grandpa Ronen was the one she felt closest to. Her parents had loved her, but they had died so early that memories of them had grown hazy. Grandpa Ronen was different. Between the ages of eight and thirteen, when she was at her most depressed, he stayed by her side, told her stories, listened to her confess her fears and failures, recommended books to her, and brought her out of her loneliness with his love of nature and trust in fate. He was always full of energy and optimism, full of interest in everything. She felt closer to him than she did to her own grandfather.

  Everyone dies.

  Ronen had said that to her. He didn’t want to avoid the fact of her parents’ deaths. She was old enough then to understand death, to understand loneliness and love. She didn’t understand why, only how they made her feel. Ronen was the only one who spoke with her as though she were an adult, respected her feelings.

  In ancient China, it was believed that a human life is the result of concentrated qi, of energy. A few decades is how long such concentrations lasted, and the qi dissipates in the end. In ancient India, some believed that a human life is merely a brief window into the eternal cosmic light. And in ancient Greece, the mythic Silenus ridiculed mankind by saying that the best thing for a man is to not be born at all, and the second best is to die as soon as possible.

  All these traditions faced our mortality directly. We have only a few decades, and no matter how we strive to extend it, a lifetime is but a brief flash in the eyes of the gods and eternal cosmos. But that is precisely where the beauty and power of life lies. All of our vitality, our beliefs, our struggles and resistance, our despair—they are endowed with splendor because of our rapid decay. Think about it: a human being flashes like a bolt of lightning, leaving no trace in the darkness. But in that brief window, they can crystalize something out of their simple soul, something that will last far beyond their death, that will reach for eternity. What a fantastical fate! Even to strike a few poses during that brief flash is among the most magnificent phenomena in the universe.

  This is why we must create. Every nation’s philosophy is sublimated from our sense of our impending death. This is our answer to the eternal question of why? In creation we carve traces of the soul.

  And so—Ronen held her by her slender shoulders, his gaze encompassing the universe—don’t grieve too much for your parents. They lived so brightly and left behind so many wonderful works infused with their soul. They also left you. They lived the best life possible, and you should celebrate that.

  Tears flowed down Luoying’s face. She was eleven at the time when Ronen said these things to her, and they fell into her heart like seeds. She was grateful to him. A sixtysomething elder had spoken to an eleven-year-old girl with genuine respect, had trusted her to understand. And she had, though it had taken her seven years to do so.

  He had spoken to her of life and death, and now he was dead. His life was a bright flash that had illuminated a child’s heart.

  * * *

  Three days later Luoying came to the newly finished Grand Theater for dress rehearsal.

  She had never put so much of herself into a dance, but suddenly she began to see the act of creation in a new light. She had feared dancing, had tired of dancing, had sought recognition through dancing, but she had never treated her art with as much seriousness as she now did. This dance was hers, the crystallization of all the walks she had taken through the broad avenues and narrow alleyways of Earth, collecting the brightest flowers of two planets. The dance was composed of simple poses and unembellished leaps, not at all sophisticated or masterful, but it represented five years of her life.

  She fell and climbed right back up again, as she had done so many times already. She was going to extract her soul like a bubble and hold it in her palms, and then, from the stage, fling it to the audience until it filled the space.

  She never told anyone that this dance was the reason she had left the troupe on Earth. They had lived a carefree life of joy with few constraints. Outside of the required dance sessions, the instructors left them alone. The group of thirteen- and fourteen-year-old girls were free to date whomever they liked, to sell holovids of their dances and buy new clothes with the money. On weekends they went out or performed at elegant banquets, where their dancing drew applause and more money. Sometimes they accepted gigs to be extras in films. Their lifestyle was one of comfort and joy, and she could have spent all her five years on Earth in that manner.

  But she always felt she was missing something.

  At first she attributed her sense of anxiety to the need to adjust to a new world. But one summer night during her second year on Earth she realized that it was because of the words Grandpa Ronen had spoken to her. They had sprouted in her heart, become part of her blood. And so she said goodbye to the other girls, left the pyramid-shaped city building, and began to wander.

  She learned that she could doubt everything Mars had taught her, but she couldn’t forget the sense of sacredness in the act of creation, planted deep in her heart by her homeland.

  Today’s rehearsal was going to be attended by the Terran delegation.

  The Grand Theater was one of the largest buildings on Mars. Externally, it resembled a lotus rising above ocean waves. The waves formed the entrance lobby, while the lotus flower was the performance hall itself. The hall was an oval dome with curving walls and very brightly lit. At the center of the hall was the circular stage, and above it hung spotlights shaped like snowballs. The seats for the audience surrounded the stage in concentric rings.

  When Luoying arrived at the theater, Rudy was giving the Terran delegates a tour. He had been preparing for this the last few days. Now he was dressed in a crisp dark suit, and it showed off his broad shoulders and trim waist well. His name was embroidered in gold thread on the breast.

  Luoying and the other performers stood at a distance fr
om the delegates. Gielle lifted her chin as she stood among the crowd, gazing intently.

  Luoying smiled. She knew why Gielle had chosen today for the dress rehearsal.

  Rudy was explaining features of the theater to the Terran delegation. “A big problem facing all theaters with three-hundred-and-sixty-degree seating is that the performer can face only one direction. The usual solution is to use a rotating stage, but we went the other way. The audience moves around the performers.”

  Rudy gestured at the control booth in the distance, and the audience area began to move. The concentric rings of seats migrated to one side of the hall. Some of the seats moved up the ovoid walls until the curving surface pushed them into stadium formation. The farthest seats were hanging so high up the wall that they looked like balloon-shaped reliefs. A few of the delegates cried out in amazement. Luoying smiled.

  “With powerful magnetic fields, we can move these seats to any part of the hall, even the ceiling. There’s no need to be concerned about safety. First, here on Mars we’ve embedded magnetic fields in the walls of buildings as a key aspect of city design, and after decades of development the technology has a proven safety record. Second, even if something were to go wrong, causing the seats to fall, we have an independent backup system below the floor to generate a second magnetic field to levitate the seats and ensure that they descend at an acceptable rate.”

  Rudy gestured naturally as he lectured, his hair falling gracefully about his shoulders. As a child, he had taken first place in a public speaking contest and was experienced with such occasions.

  He guided the delegates to another part of the theater, and his voice drifted away as well. “Now, as for audio engineering, the ceiling of the theater is perforated with an array of microscopic holes …”

  Realizing that Rudy was about to leave, Gielle rushed Luoying onto the stage. She herself ran to the control booth.

  Gielle had designed Luoying’s costume. The dress rehearsal was not only Luoying’s performance but also Gielle’s. Indeed, Gielle was even more nervous than Luoying, and Rudy’s presence made Gielle blush furiously.

  Gielle had finished the costume in a single week. When she first showed up at Luoying’s home, she asked her for the theme of her dance. Luoying said it was Yinghuo, which was the ancient Chinese name for Mars, and literally meant to bewilder.

  Luoying’s dance was based on an ancient Chinese myth. The planet Yinghuo, due to its erratic path and changing brightness, was seen as a harbinger of war and disaster. A young girl who from birth was under the influence of the red planet lived a life of suffering and struggle until she died in the flame and smoke of war, rising into the heavens to become the brilliant, flaming clouds of dawn and dusk.

  Gielle immediately begged Luoying. “You have to wear me!”

  Luoying agreed, though she wasn’t sure why Gielle was so intent on helping her. When she saw the costume, she was speechless. The dress was breathtakingly beautiful, soft and elegant like cloud and mist, like her dance.

  “The colors change as you touch it,” said Gielle. “This is a new material from Pierre’s atelier, woven from extremely thin semiconductor filaments. Pressure changes the coordination complexes within the filaments, which in turn change their light absorption characteristics.” Gielle laughed. “I don’t really understand the details, but it basically changes color on touch. I came up with the idea of adapting the material for clothing. When you dance, it will also change color based on your movements.”

  Luoying had caressed the soft material and looked at Gielle with gratitude.

  She had grown up with Gielle and Brenda, played house with them, went to the same schools and neighborhood gatherings. Both of them were now also eighteen and had just chosen their ateliers. They were following life paths as smooth and clear as water, a life Luoying could no longer have. Gielle chose to join a clothing-design atelier, while Brenda chose poetry. Even as a girl, Gielle had loved to sew clothes for their dolls, and Brenda had written a book of sonnets at eleven. They both spoke of the dream of watching their citation rates rise to number one in the central archive as more and more citizens chose to quote or use their creations.

  Whenever Luoying looked at them, her heart was filled with tumult.

  The stage was about fifty meters in diameter. Usually it was at ground height but could be raised or lowered during performance. Embedded in the stage was the design of a giant pentagram, and at the points of the star were the symbols for the five natural elements. The design was made from light-emitting filaments and glowed in the dark. The youth choir was at one side of the stage, where Ms. Shana, the choir director, had the children sing selections from Puccini’s Tosca to test the sound system.

  The theater quieted. Luoying walked to the middle of the stage and stood still. She crossed her arms, letting her sleeves hang naturally. The air in the hall was still, and the sleeves gently swayed like clear water, with patterns of clouds at the edges and a few lace flowers here and there. The material flowed gracefully along her body.

  Luoying looked to the theater entrance. The Terran delegation, their tour complete, was walking in a long line toward it. Eko and Theon, engrossed in a chat, walked at the very back of the line. Eko was dressed in a dark formal suit, emphasizing his height. Theon was in a navy-blue silk shirt, his collar unbuttoned. He looked particularly striking, standing between Eko and Rudy.

  The music started. Four bars later the spotlights came on.

  Bright blue-white light illuminated Luoying, surrounding her in blinding brightness. She uncrossed her arms and made three long leaps. Her costume was so light that she barely felt it. The long skirt swayed, spreading open as though dissolving in air. As she moved through her routine, her sleeves glowed where they came into contact with her skin. She leaped across the stage and looked back: the long train of her costume spread open like the cap of a jellyfish, with colors flowing in a spectrum from orange to indigo, like wisps of clouds at dawn.

  The music flowed with her steps. She turned, pushed off, rose into the air, and spun three times before landing.

  She was now one with the dance, and she was revisiting all the spots she had been to during her time on Earth. She was the girl from the myth, journeying through a war-torn land, facing down hostile stares. She wandered far, until the scenes she had witnessed became parts of herself. Every bright sunlit field, every snowbound mountain, every house, river, rock, and fence that had flashed before her eyes in this all-too-brief life; she was a montage of all of them. No, she didn’t create them; they created her. They welcomed her in every corner, embraced her in every moment. Piece by piece, they molded her out of nothingness. She was simply realizing them for the audience, an unceasing string of moments of realization.

  She saw the beautiful smiles, the genuine joy of the girls of the dance troupe who taught her how to drink and party, the lively expressions of Lily-Ruta as she recounted to her the myths she believed in, the uproarious laughter of the Reversionists around the bonfire as they warmed one another’s hearts and crossed the gulf of difference, the mysterious smile on Gielle’s face as she declared You have to wear me! All of them—all of them—melded into one.

  She danced, devoting herself to the joys and smiles and laughter. Her ankles ached, but she refused to acknowledge the pain. She put more of herself into the movements, strained to spin, spin, spin, letting her costume turn into a halo of shifting, brilliant colors.

  The drums pounded. She was at the apex of her highest leap. She fell, landed with one knee on the floor, her sleeves gently drifting down like a veil.

  The music stopped. Complete silence.

  She panted, and tears welled in her eyes. She kept her head down. She wasn’t sure if Grandpa Ronen’s spirit could see her performance from the afterlife, but she wanted to tell him I did my best.

  “Brava! Brava!!!”

  The applause from a single pair of hands echoed loudly in the vast hall. She looked up and saw it was Theon. He approached the stage, his
forehead glowing in the stage lights, a kind smile on his face. He stopped before the stage and bowed deeply.

  “You’re truly a princess of Mars, a woodland nymph! I’m utterly devastated that I didn’t get to attend one of your performances on Earth.”

  Luoying regarded him suspiciously.

  Theon’s tone was warm and charming, but the florid praise couldn’t disguise his cold gaze. Luoying saw in his eyes a hint of mockery—and something much more complicated. She didn’t know what he wanted.

  “Please, would you tell me the name of the genius who designed your costume?”

  Luoying pointed at Gielle, standing to the side.

  “Oh, what a lovely young lady,” said Theon, spreading his arms dramatically. “My dear, would you be interested in showing your masterpiece on Earth?”

  Gielle was so excited that her eyes went wide. “Really? Are you serious? Let me tell you my—”

  But Luoying stopped her.

  In a flash, Luoying understood what was going on. She knew that Gielle was about to tell Theon her account number and the resource locator for her designs and explanations. She was going to tell him You can download them right now.

  She knew how much Gielle craved such attention. Theon’s interest in her invention would lead to many more searches and downloads of her designs. But Luoying didn’t want Theon to obtain the invention so easily. She saw it as an opportunity for negotiation.

  The clothing design and material were also technologies, and technologies could be haggled over, could be the subjects of negotiations. Was there a chance to make a deal here that would bypass the technology of controlled fusion, that would avoid a war?

  Luoying tried to estimate the likelihood of success. The material of her costume was attractive. It seemed transparent everywhere but was in fact transparent nowhere. She thought it would be in demand among the fashion-conscious on Earth and especially attractive to someone like Theon. Fashion was also technology, and one of Theon’s most important sources of income.