Dragon Pearl

by Yoon Ha Lee

  “It’s going to be night soon,” Haneul said. Her breath puffed white in the cold. Alone of the three of us, she traveled in a bubble of calm, and I envied her. “Should we keep going, or look for a campsite?”

  “Let’s take a brief break at least,” Sujin said. “I don’t know about you two, but I’m hungry again.”

  As the sun’s reddening light faded, we sat on the ground, where Haneul used a twig to scratch out a map in a patch of dirt. I compared her diagram to the survey data on the slate. Together we did some calculations.

  “This”—Haneul pointed with the twig—“is where we started, and that’s our destination. We’re most of the way there. Should we carry on?”

  “Yes, let’s,” I said. “I don’t want to be caught out in the open if ghosts show up at night.” I didn’t know if spirits were more dangerous in the dark, but I didn’t want to take any chances. I cast a nervous eye toward the sun, which had almost sunk below the horizon. Being able to see the sky also told us that clouds had been gathering steadily.

  “It smells like rain,” Sujin said, pulling a face as we got up. “We’re going to get soaked soon.”

  “Don’t borrow trouble,” I said.

  “I’m afraid Sujin’s right,” Haneul said.

  We started off again, huddling together against the gusts. This time, in the moaning of the wind, I thought I detected voices like whispers out of the shadows. I slowed from time to time in an instinctive effort to hear the voices more clearly.

  “What’s the matter with you, Min?” Haneul demanded after the fifth time I’d lagged behind. “You’re holding us up.”

  I bit back a retort. “You don’t hear them?”

  “Hear what?”

  The voices rose, then ebbed. If I unfocused my mind, I could almost understand what they were saying. “I feel like the ghosts’ voices are trying to talk to me.” After all, Jang had spoken to me to make a bargain; maybe the Fourth Colony’s ghosts wanted something, too.

  Haneul’s expression became troubled. “Are you sure they’re not trying to lure you into a trap? I’ve never heard that the Fourth Colony’s ghosts were friendly.”

  It was a good point. “I don’t suppose either of you have shaman ancestry?” I asked, only half joking.

  The others shook their heads. “It’s too bad,” Haneul said. “The ability to banish the dead would be useful right now.”

  “Well,” I said, “I’ll try to keep up.” Haneul was right to chastise me: We couldn’t delay. We needed to find the Pearl—and shelter.

  Too late. Rain started falling, slowly at first, then pelting us with freezing drops. Water poured down from above and splashed up from the ground. Haneul tried to persuade the weather spirits to shield us from the worst of it. Apparently they were in an uncooperative mood, because we still got drenched. It grew difficult to see more than a pace or two ahead, especially in the dim light, which came from a break in distant clouds through which beams of moonlight slanted, and the occasional jagged flash of lightning.

  I stumbled often, not helped by the distracting voices. One of them started to distinguish itself from the others, fitfully growing louder. Despite my inability to figure out what it was saying, it sounded familiar, as though I’d heard it in another lifetime. I tried my best to concentrate on Haneul’s shoulders ahead of me and listen only to the miserable sloshing of our boots in the mud. But the voices wouldn’t go away.

  I eventually slipped into a trance. It seemed like we had always been walking with the rain in our faces, and always would be. I was glad enough to drift away and leave the cold water and squelching wetness of my clothes behind for a different reality. For a while the voices quieted. Then the loudest one started up again. This time, however, perhaps because of my half-dreaming state, I could understand it.

  “Min,” the voice said. It sounded male. “Min, you have to hurry.”

  “Jang?” I asked blearily. Had he left the Pale Lightning to accompany us after all? Or was this an illusion?

  “Min,” he said, “I may have all the time in the world, but you’re in danger. You’ve drifted off course. I can show you the way to shelter.”

  I jolted back to wakefulness. “Which way are we supposed to be going?” I wasn’t sure whom I was addressing.

  Sujin grabbed my arm and shook it, peering into my face as though they could diagnose what was wrong with me even in the dark. “Min? Min, snap out of it!”

  “It’s those ghosts,” Haneul said. She stopped, too, and grabbed my chin painfully. “Min! Wake up. You’re dreaming about ghosts while standing up. Don’t listen to them.” The wind rose and howled, obliterating her words.

  We’d reached the bank of a creek. The waters rushed past, and while it didn’t look impassable under drier conditions, I wouldn’t have wanted to risk it right now. “No, you’re right,” I said.

  “Min,” said the voice again.

  This time the wind quieted a little, and Haneul heard it, too. She whirled around, her eyes narrowed into slits. “Show yourself!” she called out.

  A pale form coalesced before us. At first it took on the indistinct shape of some four-legged animal, crouching low to the ground. I blinked, and the animal’s outline blurred and shifted, gradually becoming human. Through the disheveled locks I recognized the face—what remained of it, anyway. Half of it flickered with ghostly flames, as though he were on fire. Between that and the hair, I could barely see his surviving eye.

  It wasn’t Jang. It was someone else I knew.

  Sujin figured it out before I did. “Cadet Jun!”

  My brain finally caught up. “No,” I whispered. My heart sputtered in my chest, and for a moment I was afraid it would stop beating entirely. “Jun, you can’t be . . . can’t be . . .” I couldn’t bring myself to say the word, as if doing so would make it real.

  The captain had told me that he’d stowed Jun away somewhere. Did he not know Jun was . . . ? Or had Hwan lied to me?

  Tears pricked my eyes. How long had Jun been like this? Silently I berated myself for all the time I’d wasted getting to the Fourth Colony, all the hours I’d spent doing silly chores on the Pale Lightning while impersonating Jang. If I’d acted sooner, could I have saved my brother from this fate? My stomach clenched with guilt.

  I fleetingly thought of the stupid bet I’d made with my cousin Bora about Jun coming home. I’d lost. We’d all lost.

  How would I ever tell my mother?

  The tears started rolling down my cheeks, and I reached up to scrub them away. Haneul awkwardly patted my shoulder. She opened her mouth as if to speak, then closed it again. Sujin made soft comforting noises. I didn’t know how to thank either of them, but I was glad for their presence, warm and solid and alive.

  My brother half smiled at me. I forced myself to study him closely. His long hair, the spectral flames, the way his body faded out from the waist down so I couldn’t see his legs . . . I couldn’t deny the truth, no matter how much I wanted to.

  “Yes,” Jun said. “I’m sorry, little sister. I no longer dwell in the world of the living.”

  I closed my eyes and clenched my teeth against a howl. To come this far only to discover that I was too late, that it had probably been too late before I’d even set out. All my dreams—his dreams, our dreams—were over. We would not serve together in the Space Forces. We would not save our planet or travel the Thousand Worlds. Who would I look up to now?

  “What happened?” I asked at last. It was difficult to breathe.

  “I agreed to work with Captain Hwan to get the Dragon Pearl away from the ghosts and bring it back,” Jun said. His tone was eerily matter-of-fact. “I came down here with a landing party from the Pale Lightning. We didn’t survive the experience.”

  “So it wasn’t desertion,” Sujin said.

  “I knew it,” said Haneul. “Captain Hwan misled us all.”

  None of this was a surprise to me. I’d read about the captain’s plan in his logbook. But something Jun had said bothered me. I
made myself think, despite the stabbing feeling in my heart. He’d said agreed to work with. Captain Hwan had claimed Jun proved to be less than cooperative. Those two things didn’t add up.

  Jun’s next words interrupted my train of thought. “Come on,” he said. “The rain doesn’t bother me anymore”—his simple acceptance of being dead made me feel even worse—“but we’ve got to get the three of you to shelter. I can take you to our landing site. Staying in the shuttle will be better than using the few survival items you’ve got, and we have extra supplies as well. If you need to, you can use the shuttle’s comm gear to signal for rescue.”

  I glanced nervously at Haneul and Sujin. With Hwan looking for us, signaling for help was the last thing I wanted to do. I was about to say so, when Sujin said, “Show us the way.”

  I didn’t argue. Why bother? We could discuss the situation once we got there. Details like this felt insignificant when I’d made it to the Ghost Colony only to discover that my brother was one of the ghosts.

  Jun floated ahead of us, his phantom flames lighting the way. I couldn’t help wincing at every flicker. They couldn’t hurt him anymore, but they indicated how he’d died.

  Died. As we sloshed after Jun, my eyes stung. How had it happened? If the shuttle was still intact enough to provide shelter and supplies, then he couldn’t have been killed in a crash landing . . . I thought, trying to console myself.

  “The rocks are going to be slippery,” Jun warned as we approached a faint trail zigzagging up a hill. Water ran down it in glistening rivulets. We splashed onward. I was pretty sure my toes resembled wrinkled prunes from being soaked for so long, and the rest of my skin wasn’t much better.

  Haneul only nodded. If she and Sujin were having any dire thoughts about being lured to their deaths by a fox spirit, as in all the stories the humans told about my ancestors, they were keeping them under wraps.

  As we crested the top of the hill, my question was answered. We saw the ruins of a shuttle, half-crumpled, part of it buried beneath layers of upflung earth. A sob of anguish tore its way out of my throat and I stopped in my tracks. I couldn’t stay there, the site of my brother’s death.

  Lights emerged from the crash site. Six spirits, including my brother, floated up and surrounded us. All of them had long, tangled hair and were outlined by unnatural fire.

  Spooked, Sujin jammed their cap on their head and disappeared. Haneul and I stood back-to-back. My legs trembled with exhaustion, but I knew I couldn’t give in to weakness, not now.

  Jun turned to face a taller woman—did height mean anything when you didn’t have legs and hovered in the air?—and saluted. It was the first time I’d ever seen him do so, and it underscored how little I knew about his life after he’d left home.

  “Here they are, ma’am,” he said. “As you requested.”

  Oh no. I’d followed Jun because I trusted him—and now we were at the mercy of these ghosts.

  Haneul had a different reaction altogether. “Lieutenant Seo-Hyeon?” she asked. “Is that you?”

  “Yes,” the tall spirit said in a voice that echoed oddly.

  “So none of you survived?” Haneul asked, peering around at all the ghostly faces.

  “Not a one,” the lieutenant confirmed. “But surely that’s no surprise.”

  “I’m so sorry,” said Haneul. “We were told you had deserted. Of course I never believed it. . . .” She trailed off. What did it matter now?

  Seo-Hyeon’s mouth twisted. “Come in and rest. The rain may not affect us, but the three of you aren’t dead—not yet, anyway.”

  I wavered. Haneul, however, was already striding toward the shuttle. Sujin must’ve taken that as a good sign, because they removed their cap, reappeared, and followed her. Wondering what we’d let ourselves in for, I headed after them both.

  When we got to the wreckage, I turned and asked the lieutenant, “What do you want from us?”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake . . .” Haneul grabbed my hand and dragged me inside the shuttle, which offered some refuge even though one end of it was completely crumpled and its hatch was permanently smashed open. The interior’s metal walls were scorched black, and the deck was littered with dead leaves and gravel. Sujin was already huddled in one of the passenger seats, shivering.

  I hesitated, looking around for signs of dead bodies. If they existed, they must have been somewhere in the wrecked end of the shuttle. I shuddered.

  “No need to be paranoid, Min,” Haneul said. She set down her gear on one of the empty seats.

  Reluctantly, I did the same. What did Haneul know about ghosts? I, on the other hand, had firsthand experience. Spirits walked among the living—or haunted starships sometimes, like Jang—for one reason: They had unfinished business from their lifetimes. These ghosts needed something, I was sure of it.

  Once we were settled, Jun received a go ahead nod from Lieutenant Seo-Hyeon’s ghost. “Captain Hwan charged us with finding the Dragon Pearl,” he said to us. “I assume that’s why you’re here, too.”

  “I came here for you,” I said, hugging myself. “I never thought I—I . . .” I stuttered to a halt. What could I say to him? It had been so long since I’d last seen my brother, and now he was . . . like this.

  The intact half of Jun’s face twisted up in a smile. “We’ll catch up later, Min.”

  I doubted that. Now that I knew I couldn’t rescue him, everything had changed. I didn’t need to linger here any longer. I . . .

  Linger . . . What was keeping him on the Fourth Colony? Was it because he hadn’t been able to complete his mission?

  Suddenly, any thought I’d had of giving up my quest vanished. In fact, finding the Dragon Pearl had become that much more urgent—that much more personal now. If Jun couldn’t fulfill his goal to save Jinju, then it was up to me to do it and make sure he could go on to his final rest.

  I choked up at the thought. I didn’t really want to say good-bye to my brother. At the same time, I knew from the old stories that ghosts didn’t stay in the living world because they wanted to. I doubted Jun was any different.

  Haneul bit her lip, and I caught a whiff of unease from her direction. Then she said to the lieutenant, “Unlike you, we weren’t sent here by the captain. We’re fleeing from him. He has been behaving oddly, and some of it’s related to your mission. His obsession with the Dragon Pearl has sent him over the edge. He threatened all of us.”

  Sujin shook their head and groaned slightly.

  Haneul turned to Sujin. “What? It’s not like we can keep it a secret,” she said stiffly.

  “So he is pursuing you?” Seo-Hyeon said. When she spoke in her soft voice, ice trickled down my spine, colder even than the enduring chill of the rain and the wind. “The captain did not come for us.”

  I looked uneasily at Haneul, mouthing, Why not? She shrugged.

  “Or if he did send a rescue team,” Jun said, “it never reached us.”

  The wind outside howled louder, and Jun saw me grimace at the sound. “The Fourth Colony’s ghosts are still holding a grudge against the people of the Thousand Worlds for leaving them to their fate,” he explained. “We can hear their anger in the wind.”

  It made sense that ghosts could understand other ghosts. I could pick up the suggestion of muttering voices, the background noise that had put me in a trance earlier, but no actual words. “What do they want after all this time?” I asked.

  “You’d have to ask them,” Lieutenant Seo-Hyeon cut in. “What we want is to talk to the captain. The ghosts may have been the ones who influenced the weather spirits to crash our shuttle, but Hwan owes us for abandoning us afterward.”

  I felt the blood drain from my face. So that was it. Jun had led us to this spot to be bait for Captain Hwan. I glanced at Haneul and Sujin, and from their expressions I knew they’d come to the same realization.

  I stared accusingly at Jun, who wouldn’t meet my eyes. Then I signaled Haneul and Sujin. We have to get out of here.

  But just then
Sujin pulled out a comm device that I didn’t remember from the escape capsule. They punched a code into it. “Not going to happen,” Sujin said to the ghosts. “I’ve warned the captain to stay away from this wreck.”

  I blurted, “You what?” Why was Sujin talking to the captain? We could have bluffed our way out of the ghosts’ trap without giving away our position to Hwan.

  A more chilling thought occurred to me. Had Sujin secretly been in communication with the captain this entire time? And if so, had our escape from him been staged, as a trap for me?

  Before I could confront Sujin, the lieutenant exploded into a silhouette of fire. Even her eyes blazed. I had to squint to avoid being blinded. “That won’t stop him,” she said. “Captain Hwan already knew he’d have to reckon with us if he came back down here. And he will, sooner or later, because he wants the Dragon Pearl more than he’s ever wanted anything. He won’t risk leaving it in your hands.”

  That was all I needed to hear. According to the old stories, wrongful death warped people’s souls and made them vengeful toward the living. Jang hadn’t seemed too bad, but he hadn’t been dead for as long as these six ghosts, and he hadn’t been left behind by the captain. A shaman might have known how to pacify Lieutenant Seo-Hyeon and her team, but I was no shaman.

  Instead, I did the only thing I could think of.

  I unleashed Charm in the ghosts’ direction. “Nature’s calling,” I said.

  I was too panicked to come up with a more elaborate ruse. Which was just as well, since complicated lies are harder to pull off.

  The lieutenant scowled at me. “Out in the rain?”

  “I’m not going to do it in here,” I said. I gestured at the crumpled end of the shuttle, at the seats jutting at odd angles from their fixtures. “But I don’t want to be out there alone with ghosts of plague victims, either. Right, Haneul? Come with me.”

  Haneul caught on to my plan right away and nodded once. Not wanting to be too obvious, she stared hard at the cap that Sujin was holding, clearly willing her friend to follow us.