Dragon Pearl

by Yoon Ha Lee

  With a sinking feeling, I remembered why Jun had wanted to go into the Space Forces. I want to learn how to help Jinju, to make life better for everyone here, he had told me more than once.

  He wouldn’t have stolen the Pearl for our benefit, would he? Surely not.

  “I don’t know anything,” I said quickly.

  The investigator looked dubious.

  Fortunately, Mom intervened. “I assure you, my son would never desert, and my daughter is telling the truth.”

  I was grateful to her for supporting us and shutting him down.

  Then she surprised me by adding, “Perhaps you would like some refreshments before heading to your next stop?”

  I suppressed a groan. I didn’t want this man here any longer than necessary. Not even Charm could disguise the modesty of our dome house. I tried to remember how well I’d wiped down the lacquered dining table that we brought out for special occasions. All our other furniture was scratched, banged-up plastic. Great-Grandmother had brought the red-black table and its accompanying red silk cushions when she immigrated to Jinju. Mom was going to make me drag it all out for this horrible man who thought Jun had done something wrong.

  The man cocked his eyebrows at Mom. I bristled. I bet he doubted we had anything good to offer him. The thing was, we didn’t. But Mom had invited him, which made him a guest, which meant I had to treat him politely.

  “I’ll stay for a meal,” he said, as if he were doing us a favor. “We can discuss matters further.”

  “Min,” Mom said with a sigh, “get the table ready. You know the one.”

  “Yes, Mom,” I said. She meant the nice table. I had a better idea, though. Especially since I was dying to know what else the investigator had to say about Jun.

  On the way to the dining area that adjoined the kitchen, I passed the common room, where my four aunties were still huddled in bed. “Privilege of age,” they always said about their sleeping late. Of course when I tried lazing about, I got cuffed on the side of the head. Not hard, but it still infuriated me.

  Once I reached the kitchen, I grabbed settings out of cupboards and drawers and laid them out on the counter: chopsticks, spoons, and bowls for rice, soup, and the small side dishes called banchan, like mung bean sprouts and gimchi, spicy pickled cabbage. I grabbed real rice, imported from off-world and saved for special occasions because it required too much water to grow, instead of the crumbly altered grains we produced locally. After hesitating, I added some of the fancier foods and drinks we saved for festival days, like honey cookies and cinnamon-ginger punch. As I worked, I tried to listen in as Mom and the stranger talked in the hallway, but their voices were too low.

  “I’m just about done, Mom!” I called out so she’d know to bring the guest in.

  Then I concentrated hard, thinking about rectangles, right angles, and straight lines. About the smooth, polished red-black surface of that lacquered table. If I was going to imitate a table, I had to appear better than the real thing.

  Charm swirled and eddied around me. My shape wavered, then condensed into that of the knee-high table. I couldn’t put out the table settings now—Mom would have to take care of that. In the meantime, while I could only observe the room as a blur through the reflections on my surface, I could listen pretty well.

  Most foxes only used shape-shifting to pass as humans in ordinary society. My true form, which I hadn’t taken since I was a small child, was that of a red fox. I had one single tail instead of the nine that the oldest and most powerful fox spirits did. Even Great-Grandmother, before she’d passed several years ago, had only had three tails in her fox shape. When the aunties had told us stories about magic and supernatural creatures, and taught us lore about our powers, they had cautioned us to avoid shifting into inanimate objects. It was too easy to become dazed and forget how to change back into a living creature, they’d warned. I’d experimented with it on the sly, though, and was confident I could pull it off.

  I heard footsteps. Mom’s I would have recognized anywhere. She had a soft way of walking. The investigator also stepped quietly—too quietly, almost like a predator. Like a fox.

  “Where did your daughter go off to?” the investigator asked.

  A flicker told me that Mom was looking at the countertop where I’d left the settings out. “Pardon her flightiness,” she said with a trace of annoyance. “She’s been like that a lot lately.”

  Is that so? I thought.

  Mom began transferring the dishes onto my surface. I endured the weird sensation of being a piece of furniture. Even as a table, I had a keen sense of smell—a side effect of being a fox. The rich aroma of cinnamon-ginger punch would have made my mouth water if I’d been in human form. It didn’t always work in my favor, though. The cabbage pickles were starting to go sour. I bet the investigator would be able to tell.

  Clunk, clunk, clunk went the dishes as they landed on my surface. Mom wasn’t slamming them down, but they sounded loud. Then she put the silk cushions on the floor for the courier and her to sit on.

  I had a sudden urge to sneeze, which felt very peculiar as a table. It wasn’t my own Charm causing it—

  Mom?

  I concentrated to get a better picture of what Mom was up to. I was right—she was using more Charm! And this time she wasn’t doing it to fancy up her clothes. Rather, her Charm was focused on the investigator, who still hadn’t given his name. She was trying to get him to lower his guard, by using the kind of magic she had always told me honorable foxes never resorted to. The prickling sensation intensified, although it wasn’t directed at me.

  I quivered with outrage. Some of the platters on my surface clanked. The investigator froze in the middle of reaching for his chopsticks. “What was that?” he asked.

  “Maybe there was a tremor,” Mom said after a brief pause. “We get those from time to time.” I could smell her suppressed anger, even if she was hiding it from the investigator. She was onto me. I was going to be lectured later, I just knew it.

  Surely the investigator wouldn’t fall for her excuse? This region was old and quiet, no volcanoes or anything. But I resolved to tamp down my reactions.

  “You must have traveled a great distance to reach us here in the outer rim,” Mom said. “I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful in the matter about my son. Serving in the Space Forces was his dream, you know. I can’t imagine that he’d turn his back on it.”

  His voice was curt. “Your daughter’s hiding something, Ms. Kim. If you don’t help me determine what it is, then I will be forced to open a general investigation into your family. In my experience, everyone has dirty laundry. Even in a place like Jinju.”

  He didn’t get any further. I wasn’t going to let him get away with threatening my mom! Especially since our family did, in fact, have a secret we couldn’t afford to reveal. My senses jumbled as I resumed human shape. I shook the dishes off my back. But I hadn’t reckoned on getting burned by hot soup as it splashed out of upturned bowls. I yelped. My flailing caused more of the dishes to crash on the floor and break. I was going to have kitchen cleanup duty for the rest of my life.

  “Min!” my mom shouted. She attempted to grab my arm and yank me out of there.

  I dodged her, flung a shard at the man, and scooted backward. I didn’t want to get too close, because he was a lot bigger and it would’ve been easy for him to overpower me. On the other hand, I wasn’t going to run away and leave my mom alone with him.

  Mom made another grab for me. “This is not the way,” she said in a taut voice. “Let me handle it.”

  It was too late. The investigator and I locked gazes. “Foxes,” he hissed. His eyes had gone hard and intense, like a predator’s. Even with the gimchi dumped over his head and dripping down the bridge of his nose, he looked threatening. I could smell the anger rising off him. “So that’s why they needed the cadet.”

  Before I could react, he lunged for me and snatched me up by the throat. I scrabbled for air, my fingernails lengthening into claws
, and tore desperately at his fingers.

  “Please,” Mom said, low and fast. “I’ll make her tell you anything you need to know. Just let her go.”

  “You’re in no position to bargain, Ms. Kim,” he said. “Do you realize how bad it will look that one of your kind joined the Space Forces only to go rogue? Or how paranoid the local population will become when they realize that anyone they know could be a fox in disguise? I have no choice but to inform the authorities about your presence here.” He reached into his coat, and his fingers closed around something that gleamed.

  I panicked, thinking he was going to draw a blaster. I turned into the densest, heaviest block of metal I could manage. Gravity yanked me straight down onto the man’s foot. Mom sneezed in response to my shape-shifting magic. The investigator didn’t scream or even grunt, just remained silent. That scared me most of all.

  Making rapid changes exhausted me, but what choice did I have? The world swam around me as I took human shape again. My clothes tugged awkwardly at my elbows and knees. I’d gotten the garments’ measurements wrong.

  Gray-faced, the man bent over to examine his foot. Before he stood upright again, I snatched up a saucepan and brought it crashing down against his head. He fell without a sound.

  All my aunties had woken up by now. Mom had to explain the situation to them while the oldest one complained about having her sleep interrupted. Still, even she had to admit that we were in trouble.

  Mom and the two strongest aunties dragged the unconscious investigator into the parlor. I looked away, feeling a little guilty about all the trouble I’d caused, though the sound of his head thunk-thunk-thunking across the threshold gave me a moment of vindictive pleasure. They laid him on a quilt as if they were going to nurse him back to health. The quilt would have to get washed afterward. I could guess who’d be stuck with that task.

  Mom took me aside while the others fussed over the investigator. Her fury gave off a bitter, acrid smell. “I’ve told you time and again that using our powers will get us into trouble,” she said. “And to make matters worse, you had to attack the man. I could have gotten rid of him and he’d have been none the wiser.”

  I bit my tongue to keep from pointing out that she’d been using fox powers herself. I just stared at the floor and muttered, “Yes, Mom.”

  “Go clean up the mess in the dining room,” she said after a searching pause. “I’ll deal with you later.”

  I recognized that grim tone and didn’t argue. Instead, I headed back into the dining room, seething, and retrieved a threadbare rag. We used to borrow a robot housekeeper from the neighbors, but it had broken down a year ago. I missed that housekeeper almost as much as I missed my brother, whatever trouble he had gotten into.

  While I knelt and scrubbed, Mom and the aunties held council in the parlor. “We can’t simply kill the man. Even if we were the ones being threatened, we’d wind up taking the blame,” said the one I disliked the most, Auntie Kim Areum. Bora’s mom. For once I agreed with her, though.

  “We can’t throw Min to the authorities, either,” Mom snapped back.

  Good to know, I thought.

  As I was trying to eavesdrop on the rest of the conversation, Bora and her younger brother clomped into the dining room, tracking dark pickled leaves all over the floor. “Hey,” Bora said in a hushed voice, “did you throw a tantrum with our food? And why’s there a dead guy in our parlor?”

  “He’s unconscious, not dead,” I said.

  “How do you know?”

  “Look,” I said, not wanting to get into it with her, “I have to clean this up.” I stabbed my finger toward the corner. “Could you stand over there?”

  Manshik obediently trudged to the corner. Unlike his sister, he wasn’t so bad. He was the only boy out of all my cousins. Most foxes choose to be female, like Mom and all my aunties, because it is traditional. Manshik had insisted on being male, though, because he wanted to be like Jun, and no one in the family hassled him about it.

  “Seriously,” Bora said, planting herself in my way when I attempted to mop up some spilled cinnamon-ginger punch, “what’s going on?”

  She was going to be in my face until I gave in, so I explained.

  “I can’t believe you were going to serve the investigator that nasty stuff,” Bora said, wrinkling her nose at some dark pickled leaves, as if that were the most important thing that had happened. “We’re the only family in the county that will touch it.”

  “Food is food,” I said. How could I get Bora to go away? Mom and the aunties were discussing my fate, as well as that of the investigator, and I couldn’t hear them while Bora was nattering at me. I scrubbed harder. Maybe if I ignored her long enough, she’d get bored and scoot.

  “. . . call the local magistrate,” Auntie Areum was saying. “Surely they’ll understand that—”

  “Hey.” Bora kicked at a bowl to get my attention. Its contents scattered, making a greasy mess of the section of floor I’d just scrubbed. “Min, stop spacing out.”

  I lost my patience and flung the dirty rag at her face. She shrieked as though I’d scalded her.

  Manshik ran forward and tugged on her arm. He always hated it when people fought. I scowled at him and he blanched.

  Mom appeared at the doorway. “What in the name of heaven—?” She stared at the rag on Bora’s face, then strode forward and plucked it off. “Min,” she said.

  “Bora got in the way when I—”

  “I’m not interested,” Mom said. “Min, this situation is serious. I need you to do what you’re told for once, with no loopholes or clever tricks.”

  I kept my hands loose at my sides, even though I wanted to ball them into fists, and I put on my meekest expression. “I’m sorry, Mom. I’ll get back to work.”

  “We’re going to have an even longer discussion after we’ve figured out how to protect the family,” she said, frowning severely at me. “Starting with your inability to follow directions. Bora, Manshik, why don’t you get to work in the hydroponics dome.”

  My cousins knew better than to argue with Mom when she was in this mood. They bowed and scurried off.

  “Seonmi,” another one of the aunties called to my mom, “come back here and let the children sort things out among themselves. We have matters to settle.”

  Auntie Areum added, “Your daughter’s been a handful ever since—”

  The oldest auntie shushed her, but I knew how that sentence would have ended. Ever since Jun left. My mouth tasted sour. Still, I kept quiet. The last thing I needed was to draw the adults’ attention once more.

  Mom handed me the rag. I pasted a smile on my face, then made a show of scrubbing. Now I felt angry about the quantity of food I’d splattered over the floor while fighting the courier. Aside from the dark pickled leaves, I’d picked out the good stuff, because Mom would have wanted to impress a guest. We never had much of it on hand, and it had gone to waste.

  At least with Bora and her brother gone, I could concentrate on eavesdropping.

  “We can’t drug him into forgetfulness,” the oldest auntie was saying in a whiny tone. “They’d consider that an even worse offense than using Charm. Such terrible luck, having an investigator show up at our house . . .”

  “What?” Auntie Areum asked. “You expect our local hospital to be able to detect subtle poisons?”

  “I’m more concerned about what Jun’s gotten tangled up in,” Mom said. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “The investigator seemed to think that Jun’s being a fox is significant. He said, ‘That’s why they needed the cadet,’ as if the fleet had recruited Jun specifically because of his powers. It wasn’t just normal distrust of our kind.”

  “Too bad we can’t just keep the investigator Charmed here,” Auntie Areum said.

  I almost dropped a bowl I’d been putting into the sink as I imagined the stern investigator meekly following Auntie Areum around and smiling at everything she said, maybe even doing some of the chores normally assigned to me. Too bad indee
d!

  “No, someone would notice his absence and come looking for him,” Mom said.

  While I wrung out the rag and freshened it up with clean water, Mom and the aunties squabbled over the appropriateness of bribery. Predictably, Mom opposed it, while the oldest auntie and Auntie Areum argued that it would save trouble down the line. They let it slip that they’d stashed some jades—interstellar chits more valuable than our planetary currency—in the rickety old storeroom cabinet. I should have guessed it had a false bottom for hiding things.

  While they discussed which local officials would be the most helpful if we bribed them, my mind puzzled over the investigator. There was no way—especially now—I’d be able to get more information out of him about my brother’s disappearance. Just what had Jun been trying to signal with that letter?

  I stopped cleaning for a few minutes and listened intently. The adults gave no sign that they’d noticed the lull in my action. With any luck, they’d gotten caught up in their own concerns and wouldn’t notice if I slipped away.

  I crept outside and peeked through one of the windows in the hydroponics dome. Bora had herded her brother and our other cousins inside. Good. I’d have a few minutes’ peace for thinking.

  At any other time, I would have enjoyed gardening with them amid the luminous green columns of our crops. Outside of domes like this, plants struggled to grow on dusty Jinju. Only purple-tinged shrubs and low trees thrived. Right now, though, I couldn’t relax into the familiar work. Mom was mad at me, not without cause, and I had to figure out how to get myself—and the rest of us—out of this fix.

  First, I needed to get the spilled food out of my hair. Our home had a single sonic shower for all of us. Usually I had to wait my turn, but now, with everyone else otherwise occupied, the stall was free. The shower frequently made a grating buzzing noise no matter how often I had tinkered with it. Luckily, it wasn’t too loud this time. No need for Mom to know I wasn’t still doing chores.

  I’d just finished changing into a fresh tunic and pair of pants, when Bora pounded on the bathroom door. “Are you done yet? I need to wash my hands!”