by Hao Jingfang
“A play?”
“A comedy. It’s about Earth and Mars. You have some lines in it.”
“What? I know nothing about it.”
“Don’t worry. Your part is small.” Anka’s smile grew wider. “You and I are both in the chorus, which offers commentary on the action. It’s easy. Once in a while we sing, ‘Oh, that’s wonderful, wonderful!’ or ‘Ah, so great, so, so great!’ After you’ve recuperated a couple more days at home, you’ll pick up the gist with a few run-throughs.”
“Is that all?” Luoying let out a sigh of relief. “I was so nervous when she used the word ‘revolution.’ ”
“The title of the play is indeed Revolution. It’s a response to the Creativity Fair.”
“Wait. This is for the Creativity Fair?”
“No. It’s not part of the competition. The plan is to perform the play for the public on the day of the finals.”
“So we’re not boycotting the fair?”
“More like we’re boycotting it by participating.”
“Ah … okay.”
Luoying relaxed and smiled. She had been worried that the others were planning some dramatic revolutionary act; it was a relief to find out the truth.
Is a revolution a good thing? She had been pondering this question since Chania’s first message. She felt that her inquiries remained insufficient, leaving her uncertain if they should resist this world, and specifically which parts of this world. The whole morning she drove herself to distraction as she thought of the possibilities behind Chania’s declaration, speculated on their secret plans, and guessed at the consequences of those actions and the reactions of Rudy and Grandfather. But Anka’s answer had drained all the anxiety out of her. Apparently reality was more creative than all her conjectures. A play called Revolution—a comedy; that was it. She laughed to herself.
“I’m actually going to be in the competition proper,” she told Anka.
“Oh?”
“Gielle added me to her team.”
“Ah.”
“I didn’t want to do it, but Gielle was so enthusiastic that I couldn’t turn her down.”
“What are you making?”
“Clothing, an outfit that generates electricity. Pierre is an expert with photoelectricity and membrane fabrication. I think he’s found a way to incorporate the technology in our roofs into a soft, wearable material.”
“Really?” Anka suddenly sat straight up, his expression grave. A light came into his eyes. “What kind of material?”
“I haven’t seen it,” said Luoying. “Gielle told me it can be used to make transparent armor.”
“Interesting,” said Anka.
“Want to tell me what you’re thinking?” asked Luoying.
“I can’t quite explain it yet.”
Luoying could see that Anka was preoccupied. He gazed outside the car for a while, his fingers gently tapping against the small table. After some time, he asked “Can you ask Pierre if others can use his invention?”
“Meaning you?”
Anka nodded without elaboration.
“Sure. I’ll ask.”
She saw that Anka had the same look of calm excitement he had had when he was pulling her through the crowd on Earth. It made his whole person seem sharper and more vivid, as though he had come into focus; she hadn’t seen him like that in a long time.
* * *
As the tube train came to a stop, Luoying refocused on the goal of this trip. Her mood now was very different from the last time she was at the Registry of Files.
For a moment she stood before the door, gazing up at the gray colonnade in front of the building and the statues on both sides. They seemed to be alive, their expressions thoughtful or passionate, somber but kind, as though welcoming her. She took a deep breath and stepped through the door, her heart at peace. During the month-plus since she had been back, she had found out so many secrets that she was no longer as anxious and confused as last time, no longer doubting whether she should pursue her inquiries. Since she had come this far, she knew that the question was no longer whether she should proceed but how.
Uncle Laak was waiting for them in the lobby. Standing ramrod straight and looking grave, he shook hands with Anka and Luoying, the same way he would greet other visitors to the Registry. Though his black pullover sweater and pants were not a uniform nor formal dress, the look was equally dignified. For a moment he gazed at Luoying, his face expressionless.
Luoying handed him the envelope; Laak opened it and read the contents without speaking before folding the paper and putting it back inside the envelope. Luoying stared at his face, a bit tense. Without changing his expression Laak nodded.
“Come with me,” he said.
Relieved, she and Anka followed. But Laak stopped and politely addressed Anka.
“I’m sorry. I don’t want to separate you, but the document authorizes only Luoying.”
Luoying and Anka looked at each other. She wanted to argue, but Anka stopped her.
“Rules are rules,” Anka said softly. “I’ll wait for you here.”
After a moment of hesitation Luoying nodded. Without Anka she felt much more alone and anxious. She hurried to catch up to Laak. After a retina and fingerprint scan, they passed through a glass door and entered a short, empty gray corridor devoid of decoration.
At the end of the corridor was a metal door. Laak passed his hand over the scanner, entered the password, and pressed three switches. The two thick, heavy leaves of the door swung open silently. Luoying held her breath, peering into the widening slit of light. Gradually a vast hall filled with bookcases came into view. Hungrily she looked around. The hall was approximately circular, and the rows of bookcases stretched into the distance without end. Each case was about three meters tall, made of some brown metallic material arranged in neat ranks like an army awaiting orders.
“Whose file would you like to see?” asked Laak.
“My grandfather’s,” said Luoying. “If possible, also my great-grandfather’s. And my parents’, of course.”
Laak nodded and led her to the west side of the hall. She had the impression that he had known her choices before her arrival, and the question was just part of a procedure he had to follow. They walked through a main corridor between the cases, his steps steady and purposeful.
To Luoying, the tall cases around her appeared as walls inlaid with a grid of tiny photographs of smiling faces, like glowing buttons along the horizontal shelves of each case. It was like walking past a miniature world flattened into two parallel surfaces.
“Uncle Laak, does every Martian have a file here?” Her voice echoed in the vast space.
“That’s correct. Everyone does.”
“Why do we have to do this? Isn’t all the information in the central archive already?”
Without stopping, Laak answered. “It’s not a good idea to rely overmuch on any form of storage, and it’s especially bad to rely exclusively on a single form of storage. On Earth the Swiss bank vaults survived long after the popularization of electronic currency for the same reasons.”
“Are physical objects stored here, then?”
“That’s true for some individuals. Not all.”
“What kind of objects?”
“Donations from the subject or the subject’s heirs. Occasionally artifacts of historical significance.”
“It doesn’t depend on the position or status of the subject?”
“It doesn’t.”
“Did my parents leave anything behind?”
Laak stopped and looked at her. His gaze softened, no longer so formal and distant. For a moment Luoying found herself looking into the face of the Uncle Laak she remembered from childhood.
“Their legacy is your responsibility,” he said. “If you find … anything, you may donate it to the Registry—if you want to, that is.”
Luoying looked down, slightly embarrassed. She understood what Laak was hinting at. To find the legacy of her family was her responsib
ility, but she had been asking questions of outsiders as though they knew her family better than she did herself. In Laak’s face she read an unspoken concern for her well-being. The wrinkles on his brow and at the corners of his mouth appeared even deeper to her. Left by years of worry, they remained even in his moments of tranquility. It was as though his face were a rock that had been carved by the waves over eons, not a beach that could be easily smoothed. He looked far older than his age, and his figure faded into the sea of looming bookcases.
“Uncle Laak,” she said, “I know you’re right. What others say cannot be a substitute for my own judgment and continuation of the legacy of my family. But there are some facts I have to understand. Without these facts, I cannot come to a judgment.”
“Such as?”
“Such as … did Grandfather kill many people?”
“No more than other warriors, and no fewer.”
“Did Grandfather put a stop to the revolution and protests on Mars in my parents’ time?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Laak said nothing. Luoying recalled that he provided only facts, not reasons. She lowered her eyes.
After waiting a moment to be sure she had no more questions, Laak continued forward. Luoying followed.
They passed through rows of metal bookcases studded with miniature portraits like diamonds; passed through frozen smiles and the lives of the dead; passed through all the souls who had ever existed on Mars. Luoying’s eyes flitted from face to face. They all had the same young, fresh faces. Whether the owners of the portraits were still hale and hearty or had been dead for decades, there was no distinction between them in this world of shelves and portraits. The names of the individuals were sorted alphabetically, wiping away all differences in rank, history, age, and personality. Everyone had a spot on the shelves, as though they had been part of the shelves from the start and, after a few decades spent in the world, returned home.
Above each portrait was a box, and the e-paper label in front of each box presented scrolling images and text. As Luoying went by, she saw familiar neighborhoods, children’s classrooms, mines in the desolate wilderness, Jupiter and the galaxy. The texts were largely snippets from daily life. As her eyes roamed, she felt as if countless details were falling into her mind, swirling about, coalescing into the shapes of individual men and women. She didn’t know if the details could really represent someone, how many details were necessary to piece together such a shape, and what the relation was between the shape and the person.
“Uncle Laak,” she asked, “have you worked at the Registry for long?”
“Thirty years now.”
“That’s a long time. Weren’t you the Superintendent of Education before?”
“That was only part-time.”
“Do you like your work here?”
“I do.”
“Why?”
“There’s no answer to that.” Laak caressed the photographs on the shelf next to him as he walked slowly past. “For you, perhaps it’s hard to understand. You want to see all your potential choices and then rationally pick the one you want, justifying it with reasons. But in reality, if you spend your life doing something, it becomes part of your life. You will like it without having to choose it. I can tell you that I’m familiar with every shelf in here and can take you directly to whoever you want. I know this place as well as I know myself. During the thirty years I’ve been in charge, nothing has leaked out of here contrary to regulations; there has been no chaos, and no one has been treated any differently from anyone else. This is my life. It’s a fortress. No matter what happens outside, you can find the souls of the past here without being disturbed.”
Luoying looked at Laak’s straight back and suddenly envied him. He spoke with such conviction, while she couldn’t find a single belief in her mind that she could convey with equal certainty. The price for his conviction was decades of his time. Though he spoke calmly, she knew that no one could contradict him. This was strength, the real strength in words.
They stopped. Laak stood in front of a case and pulled off the e-paper in front of a box on the fourth shelf down, handing it to Luoying.
HANS SLOAN.
Heart pounding, she looked at the box and those around it. The whole shelf belonged to the Sloans, and there were five of them: Richard, Hans, Quentin, Rudy, Luoying. Her mother wasn’t here because the boxes were arranged on the shelves by the name at birth, without regard to changes due to marriage or otherwise. She held the translucent, thin sheet, a bit uncertain.
She began to scroll through it. The text started with a simple summary of Hans’s life.
“Take as long as you want,” said Laak. “I’ll be in my office. If you need me, use the blue button by the door.”
Laak left, and Luoying was the only one in the vast circular hall. She looked up and realized that the ceiling resembled the ceiling of the Pantheon she had seen in Rome. Tall, solemn, magnificent, the translucent dome glowed stately in the sun, as though made of clouds. The homage to one of humankind’s ancient sacred buildings was intentional. This was not a temple of the gods but a monument to human souls.
* * *
Hans was born in an abandoned prospecting aircraft at the foot of Angela Bluff: 11°S 46°W, 2120 C.E., 30 B.R.
His birth was simultaneous with the death of his mother. Richard Sloan, a twenty-six-year-old pilot, was flying his twenty-five-year-old wife, Hanna Sloan, through Aquila Canyon to get back to Camp Sixteen so Hanna could give birth. An unexpected dust storm struck, however, and Richard’s plane was forced to land at the base of the cliff due to a mechanical malfunction. There they sent out a distress call through satellite link, hoping to be rescued.
But as Hanna’s contractions grew more intense and frequent, no rescuers came. Richard hailed the base multiple times, begging for aid, but never received a definitive answer. (Communication records at the base showed that during the fifty-one hours the couple was trapped, Richard spoke with the base fourteen times.)
The rescue was delayed due to legal wrangling back at the base. Richard found out that there was an intellectual property dispute over the navigation guidance system, and lawyers were evaluating the legal risk to the rescue company. Richard tried to negotiate a solution over the comms, growing more agitated and enraged as time went on. In the end, Hanna delivered the baby herself and lost consciousness after massive loss of blood. A few hours later she died.
As Richard held his wife, he felt life leaving her bit by bit as her body cooled. Helpless, he sobbed, and his grief turned into anger. He named the baby Hans to commemorate Hanna. After wiping the baby clean, he wrapped the tiny body in his flight suit, gave Hans the last of the water, and then tried to keep the baby warm with his own body heat. Father and son huddled in a corner of the plane and continued to hail for rescuers.
(The above segment was summarized from an oral account by Richard Sloan in the third year of the war. For the next forty-four years, the rest of his life, he never discussed the event again.)
By the time the rescue ship finally arrived, Richard had had no food or water for forty-eight hours. Though he was dehydrated and starving, he moved with determination and purpose. Declining to be helped, he climbed into the rescue ship by himself, refused to answer any questions or to sit with others, and turned down all medical help except food and water.
Forty years later, Lorraine Elaine, who had been a trainee nurse on the rescue ship, recalled the following: “After he handed the baby to me, he went into a corner and sat down by himself. But his eyes never left my hands as he watched me care for the newborn. Every time I turned, I could see his eyes, burning with pain, grief, and something darker. As his face darkened, the eyes only glowed brighter. Every time my eyes met his, I couldn’t help but shudder.
“One time, when I was changing the newborn’s diaper, my hand slipped and the blanket around the baby slid as though the baby itself were sliding. He jumped up right away, scaring the other passengers. I fou
nd it puzzling at the time that he was so concerned for the baby, and yet, instead of coming over to take care of it himself, he stayed far away. Thinking back on it now, I realize it was because he was afraid that his dark mood would affect the baby. Of course it was a bit irrational, since moods don’t spread like some gas … I guess I have to say, if I had been in his position, I would have done the same.
“He sat in the corner by himself, not talking to anyone, cradling his wife’s body, holding her hardened, purple hand as though she were just sleeping on his lap. I tried to imagine what it was like in that canyon, with sand and dust swirling over the sky, while the woman you loved died in your arms, the happiness you were on the verge of experiencing slipping away second by second. I thought it must have been terrible. But I was only twenty-one at the time and couldn’t understand just how terrible.”
The rescue ship belonged to the third Martian branch of Homeward Bound, an emergency rescue company. As soon as it landed at berth #3, Camp Sixteen, Richard got off the ship without speaking to anyone, ran into the headquarters building, and assaulted the chief executive officer, leaving him with severe injuries. Before an alarm could be raised, he managed to make his way to UPC, a computer company, and killed its president, Phillip Lyde. Then he returned to the rescue company, took his infant son, and escaped into a life of exile.
Three months later, war broke out.
* * *
“I knew that my grandfather was born in the first year of the war.” Luoying paused, and then continued in a more depressed tone. “But I never knew that he was the cause of the war.”
“There’s something I don’t quite understand,” said Anka, frowning. “Why did your great-grandfather kill the president of a computer company?”
“I found it strange when I read about it, too, so I looked into it more. The situation was complicated. The main issue involved a commercial dispute. At that time Homeward Bound’s rescue ships were all out of commission as the result of a failed software upgrade of the navigation guidance system. But it wasn’t an accident. The fact was all of Homeward Bound’s ships ran the operating system from UPC, which charged a high price for software upgrades. Homeward Bound, unwilling to pay the cost, decided to hack the upgrade package themselves. The unauthorized action led to UPC flipping a remote kill switch that shut down all of Homeward Bound’s ships until they paid a penalty.