Vagabonds

by Hao Jingfang

  The bulkheads inside the ship had been removed so that the interior was one contiguous space used by the present crew as a feast hall. The steel racks for securing instruments had been taken off the walls and lay flat on the floor, while the partitions for the sleeping quarters had been placed atop the racks, forming two large tables that were then pushed together. The long-fringed satin tablecloth had once served as curtains at the Terran Fair but had been abandoned in the Expo Center after the Terrans left.

  The table was now covered by heaping plates. The flatware, taken from the cabinets of different families, made a colorful mosaic. Those who hadn’t brought plates contributed silverware, glassware, spices, and so on. The potluck meal looked as colorful and crowded as a traveling circus. Runge had stolen an internship permit to get them out of the city, and the plan was to return the permit before they were discovered.

  Noise and laughter filled the ship. Bottles were opened and glasses clinked. Bubbles burst against the glass, and liquid occasionally spilled onto the tablecloth, blooming into dark flowers.

  By the time Aina brought the last dish to the table and declared an official start to the feast, the crew had already consumed six bottles of Gio. Everyone got up with a loud cheer, put away the playing cards and empty bottles, and soon arranged the dishes on the table neatly.

  “Cheers!”

  A circle of glasses rose over their heads like a rising tide.

  WIND

  The crew tucked in with gusto. Aina’s culinary skills had improved even more. According to her, after returning to Mars, the only activity that brought her any joy was cooking.

  Aina had outdone herself this time. Fluffy golden cakes, beef and egg noodles, carrot cheesecakes, assorted vegetables flavored with fish flakes, seaweed salad, nuts and bamboo shoots, Ashala-style apple tarts, chicken soup with sweet corn … The mouthwatering flavors and aromas filled the ship, and laughter mixed with the sound of coughing from drinking too much wine too fast.

  A total of twelve had made it to the mining ship: four girls and eight boys. They sat around the table in one large circle, totally relaxed. While the boys leaned over the table in debate, the girls chatted with each other as they peeled and ate fruit. Outside the portholes was the unvarying sight of the yellow sand and rocks. The ship proceeded so steadily that it was sometimes impossible to detect that they were moving.

  “Are you all procrastinating on your reports?” asked Anita.

  “Um … did you turn yours in already?” asked Mira.

  Anita laughed. “I haven’t even started. If none of you have turned yours in, then I feel better.”

  “Who’s got time for that?” said Sorin. “I’ve been much too busy with the play.”

  “And what’s the point of rushing?” said Mira. “Maybe we won’t even have to finish the reports.”

  “What do you mean by that?” asked Anita.

  “We got out of the city without proper authorization,” said Mira. “If we’re caught, I expect we’ll each have to write a thirty-thousand-word apology report and then do community service labor for two months. Who knows what other punishments they’ll impose on us after that? Maybe by then they’ll forget about the Earth reports.”

  Chania brought out a plate of pears, and everyone exclaimed over the treat. Luoying looked on as her friends enjoyed themselves, taking delight in the familiar patterns. This is my tribe, she thought. Although she liked Gielle and the others, she had never felt this comfortable with them. On this ship she felt like she belonged. Why? she asked herself. How do I describe this difference?

  They continued to make their way south. The afternoon sun sank lower in the western sky, and the mood turned indolent after such a feast. On the walls of the cabin hung robot arms from an earlier age, the mechanical fingers squeezed into angular fists, somber, antique witnesses of their revelry. The exposed pipes had chipped paint, and the sound of water circulating rumbled within. The oxygen circulation intakes in the ceiling gaped like mouths gulping the warm air.

  Anka and Runge were in the cockpit, pulling levers and shutting valves, fingers dancing over the buttons on the instrument panels as though playing a piano. Anka was in charge of the piloting, so he remained at the front of the ship. Runge, on the other hand, was operating the instruments, so he returned to the panels only periodically to keep an eye on the dancing needles on the ancient dials.

  “Do you think our play will lead to anything?” asked Runge when he returned to the dining table from the cockpit.

  “Hard to say,” said Sorin. “I imagine the adults won’t react at all except with silence.”

  “I agree,” said Runge. “But even if they don’t say anything in public, privately they’ll find us to talk.”

  “How should we respond?”

  “Tell the truth, of course. Everything we said in the play was based on personal experience. We have nothing to hide.”

  “I don’t mean that,” said Sorin. “I’m asking … if the adults ask what our plan is, how should we answer?”

  “Still the truth. We don’t plan on cooperating with them anymore.”

  Sorin looked at the others in the cabin.

  The mood grew serious. Luoying wasn’t sure what Runge meant. Runge had always been insightful but confrontational, making dramatic and exaggerated statements. She couldn’t tell what exactly was involved in not cooperating with the adults. Sitting next to the window, Runge drummed his fingers against the table, a determined, defiant expression on his face. Silently the other youths looked at each other. Chania got up and stood next to him.

  “I’ve been meaning to ask the same question, actually. What is our plan going forward?”

  “Are you suggesting …” Luoying couldn’t finish.

  “Revolution,” declared Chania. “A real revolution.”

  “I thought the play was the revolution,” said Luoying quietly.

  “I never said that.”

  “I said that,” explained Sorin to Luoying. He turned back to Chania. “But I thought you agreed at the time.”

  “I’ve always said this is only the first phase.”

  “So what more are we going to do?” asked Luoying.

  “Break things,” said Chania. “Shatter what has ossified.”

  “I agree,” said Runge. “I can’t stand it anymore. Look at the others around us: what a bunch of shameless phonies! The only thing they care about is pleasing their superiors, to get ahead by whatever means, to craft their research to fit the tastes of the system directors. Everything is corrupted by the desire for status and gain—everything!”

  “How is that any different from Earth?” asked Sorin.

  “At least Terrans aren’t hypocrites,” shot back Runge. “They are selfish, and proudly proclaim that fact. But here everyone spouts wonderful-sounding ideals: ‘The pursuit of each individual for creative expression and wisdom!’ But underneath, the only thing that matters is selfish gain. Phonies, every single one of them.”

  “I don’t think that’s fair,” said Luoying. “I think many are genuinely motivated by and interested in exploration.”

  “I’ve never met a single person like that,” said Runge. “I don’t believe there’s anyone not driven by self-interest.”

  “I think you’ve been brainwashed by Terran propaganda,” said Sorin.

  “Can you find anyone who doesn’t act for their own benefit and to accrue more power for themselves?”

  “There are some.”

  “Then they’re just putting on a good act.”

  “How do you explain the people who spend all their time in the labs doing research and nothing else? No self-promotion, no recognition seeking.”

  “They just want to be admired as saints. There’s always an angle.”

  Softly, Luoying broke in. “Why are we arguing about this? What’s the point?”

  “The point is,” said Runge, “we must force everyone to admit the selfish utilitarian basis for what they do, to pull off the cover of hypocrisy
and discard the lies.”

  “Are you suggesting that we return to the system on Earth, where everything is based on money?”

  Chania answered before Runge could. “At a minimum we must make the selfishness transparent. It’s unbearable to live with dishonesty and self-deception.”

  Sorin looked into Chania’s eyes. “Then you’re with Runge?”

  “I am.”

  “What specifically do you think we should do?”

  “First, we should untether people from their ateliers so that they can move about freely. Housing should also become more free-flowing, like the wind. Our current system ties people permanently to one place. Superficially there is no competition, but under the surface the struggle is fierce.”

  “You know as well as I do that there aren’t enough resources on Mars to allow people to compete for them freely. That’s why there’s a distribution system in place.”

  “The same excuse has been used for decades. Enough is enough.”

  “Chania”—Sorin looked at her with a worried expression—“you’re too extreme.”

  Chania didn’t respond, but she didn’t look away either. She pressed her lips together and tilted her head defiantly.

  A long moment of silence later, Mira said in a lackadaisical manner, “There will always be hypocrites. It’s really not a big deal.”

  “Cynicism is easy,” said Runge. “Too easy.”

  Mira frowned and looked as if he were thinking over Runge’s words carefully. Meanwhile, Luoying felt close to exploding with words, but she didn’t know where to start. Runge and Chania, standing and sitting by the window, looked more resolute than anyone else. Though they weren’t moving stiffly, they seemed to be made of steel. The mood in the cabin was icy.

  “Hey, Runge!”

  Anka’s call from the cockpit broke the tension. He turned around and beckoned at everyone.

  “Come up here, all of you! I think we’re almost there.”

  The argument was forgotten as everyone squeezed into the cockpit, gazing out the windshield and at the navigation displays.

  Through the windshield, the crew could see that the mining ship was passing through a narrow, curved canyon. The rugged terrain slowed the ship down, while the towering fire-red cliffs were so high that it was impossible to see the peaks. The sun illuminated the top of the cliffs, and the jagged rocks cast deep and dark crescent-shaped shadows against the cliff faces. The youths pressed against the glass, gazing up at the sheer rock walls, excited by the prospect of slowly sailing into another world. On the contour-lined navigation display, the mining ship was a tiny dot inching between two dense clusters of curved lines.

  “Do you think this is it?” Anka asked Runge, pointing to a spot on the screen.

  Runge nodded.

  Anka looked back at Luoying. “I’m not sure if this is the exact spot you’re looking for, but it’s the best we can do based on the information we’ve been able to gather.”

  As he talked, the ship emerged from the canyon and sunlight filled the cabin, haloing every head. They looked out the windshield and froze.

  Before them was a delta-shaped flat expanse nestled among the plateaus and peaks all around. The long slopes were filled with deep channels, like a landscape eroded by rivers or carved by glaciers, although there wasn’t a single drop of water. But eons of erosion by wind had ripped away all the regolith to reveal the angular basalt skeleton. The mountains rose into the air nearly a kilometer.

  Their ship was at the entrance to the delta, like a tiny bug crawling along the foot of the mountains. The gray-brown crater was like a gigantic version of the Colosseum, open to the sky, vast and magnificent.

  The northern hemisphere of Mars was dominated by broad, flat lowlands, while the southern hemisphere was full of highlands and mountains. The average elevation of the southern hemisphere was about four thousand meters higher than the average elevation of the northern hemisphere. A six-thousand-meter-tall cliff slashed across the face of the planet like a knife scar near the equator.

  The young crew of the mining ship was stunned by the sight. They had never entered the mountains of southern Mars, although they had grown up on this planet. While they had seen plenty of mountains and valleys on Earth, compared to the mountains of Mars, all those geographical features looked as cute as miniatures in some theme park. Even Mount Everest was only a third as tall as Olympus Mons, and the Grand Canyon was only a fifth as long as Valles Marineris. On Mars, there were no mountains with a gentle and refined beauty. All peaks looked rough, sharp, as though they had been carved with axes out of primordial rock during Creation. Calderas and craters pockmarked the landscape, like a weary traveler’s face that recorded his suffering.

  They saw no obvious signs of human presence. Though the historical records told them that once this place had been full of mines and prospectors, before them now lay only the empty crater and silent, frozen lava, with no traces left of the once bustling camp. The narrow pass they had just come out of had once seen thousands of mining vehicles pass through, and the mountains around them had housed tens of thousands. A whole industry had operated here, but nothing was left of it. Their eyes roamed over the crater, searching for signs of dwellings made from spaceship hulls and abandoned ruins, but other than a few metallic fragments at the feet of the mountains, they saw nothing significant. Wind and sand had destroyed everything, until only flowing rivers of sand were left. Only forty years had passed, but already nature had wiped away the work of humankind, the landscape relapsing to an ancient, eternal desolation.

  Nonetheless, they knew beyond any doubt that they had found the right place.

  They saw the caves, some of them high up the mountainsides. They didn’t look too different from other wind-eroded caves, but the openings had clearly been shaped and sculpted. The mouths of the caves, though half-buried in sand, still showed the smoothness of human hands. As they stared at the sand that concealed history, they seemed to see ghostly images of men and women climbing over the mountains. It was as if magical hands had swept away the rubble piled at the abandoned cave openings and blown away the sand covering the windows until the dead scene slowly came to life again. They saw people going in and out of the caves, shuttles flying overhead, a whole city built into the mountainside bustling between sky and ground.

  * * *

  It was finally time to fly.

  The mining ship stopped at the foot of the mountain on the south side of the crater, bathed in bright sunlight.

  Three boys opened the airlock and exited the ship with oxygen supplies, helmets, comms headsets, and emergency toolkits strapped to their bodies, as well as pressure sensors secured on their backs. Carefully they confirmed the direction of the wind and spread their dragonfly-like double wings in the sun’s bright rays. Everything was progressing well. Soon they turned on the high-pressure air nozzles at their feet, and as the propellers under their boots spun, they rose into the air.

  As the three rose higher and higher, the others let out their held breaths and cheered.

  Luoying was standing in the back of the group, feeling strange. She had been looking forward to this day for a long time, but now that it was here, she didn’t feel it was different from any other moment on an ordinary day. The sun warmed her like ethereal music. The dream of flying had become reality, as unremarkable as a distant but familiar smile. She found the tranquil mood around her odd. Through the oxygen masks, the boys in the air danced like fairies in stories.

  The boys drifted up, following the contours of the steep mountainside. Sorin was the most athletic, and he twisted his ankles to leap higher with the wind at every opportunity. Leon, on the other hand, moved languidly and smoothly. Anka allowed himself to be carried up by the wind, turning away from the rock face at the last minute. Contrasted with the gigantic wings, their bodies seemed even more slender as they floated with the wind.

  They were flying, truly flying, with the aid of wings spread against the bright red sky. Recognition o
f this fact finally excited Luoying.

  This was their final trial. Discarding cockpits, seats, and engines, they returned to the oldest dream of humankind: pairs of wings over the shoulders, tiny propellers underfoot. The four wings on each of their backs were equipped with a powerful photoelectric coating, and the electricity vibrated the wings at a high frequency, like a giant dragonfly’s. The wings were attached to the fliers with a strong but light alloy frame. The point wasn’t to break speed records but to stay aloft in the wind.

  They shifted to turn into the wind. The geography of Mars was unique. Under direct sunlight, ground temperature could reach as high as the teens in degrees Celsius. But at night the temperature could plunge to a hundred degrees below zero. The clearly delineated warm and cold regions meant strong and rapid winds. A steep mountainside exposed to direct sunlight warmed up quickly, and the warm air rose along the slope, forming strong currents. In the afternoon such winds were at their strongest. The bright light excited the young crew as well as the air molecules. Even the sparse atmosphere provided enough lift.

  The higher the boys rose, the stronger the wind became. When they were halfway up the mountain, the boys ascended even faster. For safety, they reduced the power to the propellers and the frequency of the wing vibrations. They fell at an even pace back down to the ground and, after a few stumbling steps, stood still.

  Instantly the rest of the crew surrounded them, and inaudible cheers filled the thin air. Before the three could fold their wings back, the rest had grabbed them by the arms, knocking their helmets to congratulate them. Luoying could see the smiles under the helmet visors, as bright as the sky.

  This was their second celebration of the day. The headsets filled with loud cheers.

  The boys soon got out of their wings, and others took their places. The second set of fliers took off. In total there were six sets of wings.

  “Girls, do you want to fly, too?” Sorin asked.

  While Luoying hesitated, Chania stood up and stretched her limbs. She held her hands together and reached as high as she could, kicking her feet out as she stood on tiptoe. Then she rested her hands on her waist while she twisted and bent, loosening her muscles. She smiled at Luoying and ran over to the wings. The visor of her helmet revealed her bright eyes, an echo of the shimmering appendages.