Vagabonds

by Hao Jingfang

  Hans held out a hand. “Calm down, Juan. All his activities in the central archive have been recorded.”

  He turned to Carlson, who nodded and presented the notepad from his assistant. Hans flipped through it quickly before handing the notepad over to Juan. After reading through the notes, Juan nodded reluctantly. Hans remained composed and in control.

  “I take back what I said earlier,” Juan said, but his gaze was still mistrustful. “Though you haven’t gone to the voting site, I can’t rule out the possibility that you intended to. I suggest you tell us everything right away. I don’t want to escalate either. But if you continue to deny or keep secrets, and in the end we find out the truth, you’ll be punished severely. Let me ask you one more time: Did you intend to steal one of our technologies?”

  “No,” said Eko. “I have no interest in acquiring any technology.”

  “Even if you had no interest, one of the other delegates from Earth might be interested. Since you Terrans couldn’t get what you wanted at the negotiation table, you decided to steal it. Isn’t that true?”

  “I don’t appreciate being accused with no evidence.”

  “Did you send any information to Earth?”

  “No.”

  “But the system records show that you downloaded a great deal of data.”

  “I downloaded films!” Eko strained to control his voice. “Go check the records! You’ve logged all my activities, right? Look through everything I downloaded using my account, and you’ll see they’re all films—films made by my teacher, Arthur Davosky. There’s nothing wrong with downloading the work of my teacher, my artistic hero.”

  The relentless questioning had shaken him, and he couldn’t maintain his composure. He was naturally defensive about Davosky’s films. They weren’t some kind of political tool, though they were intensely political in origin. His head was filled with a chaotic jumble of words like “technology,” “negotiation,” “exchange,” and “fusion.” The explosive, suspicious air around him impressed on him the intensity of the conflict between the two planets. He recalled the words of Luoying: The problem isn’t whether someone should or shouldn’t make a profit; the problem is Mars and Earth.

  Finally he understood Luoying’s mood and her worries. Thinking back on the last twenty-some days, his mind was a mess. Thus, he didn’t see Hans calling Rudy to him and whispering in the young man’s ear.

  Juan was unmoved by Eko’s outburst. Like a cautious, prickly hedgehog, he paced around Eko. “We will review all your activities, that you may be sure of. But let’s move on to the next question: What were you doing at the tower?”

  “I was curious, as I’ve said already. I was curious.”

  “Do you know the location of the tower?”

  “Not really.”

  “Oh-ho! What a humble young spy! ‘Not really,’ is it? Then how were you able to get to the tower without any trouble? I bet you prepared for that visit for days. It’s clear that you had a plan—perhaps under the direction of someone else—to infiltrate the innermost core of our central archive to commit acts of sabotage. Am I right?”

  “You are spinning a paranoid fantasy. Not a single thing you’ve said is true.”

  “Then why did you go there? Tell me!”

  Juan’s shouting struck him like thunder. Eko felt his throat go dry, and his lips felt numb.

  Like a ball of flames, Juan pressed his red face into Eko’s, their noses almost touching. “And you went twice! The first time you can claim you were merely curious. But what about the second time?”

  Eko didn’t know how to explain. He had never revealed his teacher’s secret to anyone other than Luoying and Janet. The second time he went to the tower was to carry out the last wishes of Arthur Davosky, and Janet Brook had gone with him. To explain the details of his visit would necessarily implicate Janet, who had given him unauthorized access in the first place. Remembering what had happened to Luoying’s parents, Eko was terrified of getting her into trouble.

  He looked at Hans, who was gazing back at him. It was clear that the consul was very interested in his answer to this question. The air in the hospital suite seemed to freeze as everyone waited in silence. Eko was surrounded by looks of mistrust. Theon stood to the side, saying nothing, while Beverley was standing by Hans with a frown. Juan’s burning eyes glowed like fire in the cold room.

  The door opened again.

  Everyone’s eyes landed on the figure of Luoying in the doorframe. She was sitting over the right shoulder of a doctor. Dressed in a white hospital gown, her face looked wan and pale. Her back was straight and she kept her head high. Though she looked frail, the moment she appeared, she seemed to exert a power over everyone in the room that couldn’t be ignored. On her right foot she wore a metal boot, while her left foot was bare. The doctor held her lower legs to secure her perch.

  “I told him to go,” Luoying said. Her voice was soft but steady.

  “You?” blurted Rudy.

  “Yes, I did. I invited Eko to my personal space, and I gave him the link to the tower.”

  “Why?”

  “Reasons.”

  “Luoying, do you understand what you’re saying?” Rudy’s voice was full of suspicion. “This is a serious matter.”

  “I understand.” Luoying wasn’t looking at Eko or Rudy. Her eyes were locked on Juan’s. “I’m very serious.”

  Her voice pierced the air like a needle. Everyone stared at her. Except for Eko, no one knew how to react. They waited for her to explain.

  THE SKYDECK

  Luoying heard the raised voices inside her suite. Dr. Reini was pushing her in a wheelchair. She stopped him and listened. Soon the point of the argument became clear to her. The voices in the room were like hammers pounding on her chest. The corridor outside the suite was long and dark, and the dry and cold air made her shiver.

  She could tell that Uncle Juan was trying to probe for details, to attack Eko and the other Terrans, to create confusion, to force Eko into confessing some kind of plot, to find the excuses needed to blow up into a casus belli. He had never given up the idea of going to war. But he couldn’t attack without a provocation, some reason that would make peace no longer tenable.

  Details could be twisted into reasons. When the intent was to provoke a war, it was unnecessary to make every step of the deduction airtight. A small mistake committed by an individual could be the first link in a chain leading to war, and it wasn’t important who that individual was or what they had done. Fortunately, Eko had not sent any data to Earth—not yet—or else the appearance of a plot against Mars would be complete.

  She gripped the arms of the wheelchair. Still feeling weak after the surgery, her hands lacked strength. With each accusation Juan made, her shoulders shook, as though Juan’s questions were missiles that struck her through the door.

  She didn’t know what to do. She hated to see Eko being falsely accused, not just because his teacher was also her mother’s teacher, but because she hated to see any innocent person falsely accused.

  A hand landed on her shoulder, warm and full of strength. She felt calmer. She looked up gratefully. Dr. Reini’s face, a kind presence against the dark corridor. An idea took shape in her mind.

  “Dr. Reini,” she said, “I need your help.”

  “Of course.” His voice was gentle and powerful.

  “Can you carry me in? Carry me high so they can see me.”

  The doctor nodded without asking why. He crouched down and lifted her out of the chair until she was sitting on his right shoulder. Wrapping an arm around her lower legs to steady her, he stood up. Luoying felt a steadfastness in his arm that she could rely on.

  Dr. Reini wasn’t very tall, but he had broad shoulders and strong arms. Luoying didn’t feel scared at all as he stood up. She hadn’t been carried like this since she was a little girl. After her father died, no one had carried her like this. She sat on the doctor’s shoulder and let her feet dangle. Her right foot was still numb from the surge
ry, while her left foot felt chilled. The tips of her toes trembled in the cold.

  Carefully, she pushed open the door to the suite, suppressing a rising sense of panic. The adults in the room stared at her. She felt stiff and held her breath, trying to remain calm. The expressions of the people in the room were complicated—some solicitous, others confused—and, like searchlights, they all focused on her face.

  She said what she had planned to say, and as she expected, she saw many more questions in the faces.

  “I understand,” she said. “I’m very serious.”

  “What were your reasons?” said a frowning Rudy. “Did you know Eko from before?”

  “Yes, I knew him.” Luoying blushed, as though embarrassed by her confession. “I know Eko and … I like him. I’ve liked him from when I was on Earth. I like his films; I like his writing. And so … once we came back to Mars, I had him visit my personal space and took him to see the tower. My mother brought me to the tower when I was little, and I always dreamed of taking someone I like there. That’s what happened. You can review the system logs. I was at the tower with him, and I went there from my mother’s personal space. That’s the whole story.”

  The adults looked at one another awkwardly, their clothes rustling in the silence. She deliberately put on a serious mien to disguise the far more serious truth. She had made up a tale of girlish passion to dissolve the potential damage of a made-up crime. The adults could not speak, uncertain how to deal with a girl obsessed with her idol. Juan’s dark face glowed redder as he struggled to make sense of this sudden shift. Luoying looked at him expectantly. She knew from the time she was a little girl that he could never resist her puppy-dog eyes.

  Juan cleared his throat. He mumbled something about how everything was in the system and there was no need to jump to conclusions.

  Since he was the one who had been most insistent on the theory that Eko was a spy, his retreat allowed everyone else to back away. The gathering of prominent individuals from both planets broke up as they departed the suite one by one, all looking preoccupied. Hans and Rudy wanted to stay with Luoying, but Luoying complained of exhaustion, asking that they return to visit her the next day. Eko said nothing but threw her a grateful look as he left.

  Luoying still sat on Dr. Reini’s shoulder, stiff and unmoving. Only when everyone had left and the room was empty again did she suddenly collapse, as though she had been struggling to hold up a heavy load and finally ran out of strength. Dr. Reini caught her and gently set her down.

  * * *

  The corridor was long and empty, enveloped in a comforting darkness. At the end was a curved wall of glass through which blue lights in the distance could be seen. Dr. Reini pushed Luoying along. Luoying said that she wasn’t sleepy, so they decided to take a walk together. The wheels creaked in the dark passageway.

  “Thank you,” said Luoying.

  “It’s nothing,” said the doctor. “Where do you want to go?”

  “Doesn’t matter. Anywhere is fine.”

  He pushed her wheelchair, and they rode up one elevator and then another. He never asked her any questions. They followed a curving hallway past a break room and a storage room filled with instruments as strange as monsters until they came to an arched door.

  Reini opened the door and pushed Luoying through.

  For a moment Luoying thought she was back on Maearth. She was under the stars, adrift in the infinite welcoming space.

  They were standing on a broad skydeck. The deck was covered by a glass dome that rose out of the solar panels, leaving them with the illusion of being exposed to space directly. The hospital was located near the edge of the city, and the skydeck towered above surrounding buildings so that their view was unimpeded. Looking toward the horizon, beyond the low buildings, the vast emptiness of Mars spread out as far as the eye could see. There were no dust storms, and distant mountain ranges undulated like sleeping beasts. The skydeck was smooth and open, with a shallow pool winding past their feet. Luoying looked up at the stars and took a deep breath, not expecting to find such a space in the hospital.

  “We’re at the city’s southernmost point. From here you can see Big Cliff directly south.”

  Dr. Reini’s slow and gentle voice was a perfect match for the night.

  Luoying gazed through the glass wall and didn’t speak for a long time. Big Cliff was like a black sword in the distance. As she was enveloped by night, her anxiety gradually calmed. It was as though she were back on the dance stage. The sky above was the ceiling of the Grand Theater, and the stars were real stars. On one side was green-blue Earth, and on the other red-orange Mars. The two planets, so close in distance, felt so far apart in other ways. The stars shone around her, bright but also dark, and she danced alone in the center of the cosmos.

  Luoying closed her eyes and let her worries dissipate into the night. She leaned against Dr. Reini. She had forgotten this feeling of being able to rely on a parental figure, like a tree in autumn, restrained but powerful, at peace. His movements were always steady and reassuring, like a sharpened paper cutter, simple and precise.

  Finally she spoke. Her voice was like a candle’s flickering flame against the vastness of the skydeck.

  “Dr. Reini, will I have to stay here for a long time?”

  “I don’t think so.” Reini sounded confident. “The broken bones will heal soon.”

  “Will I be able to walk?”

  “Of course.”

  “What about dancing?” Luoying rushed to ask before she lost her nerve. She noticed a moment of hesitation before Reini answered.

  “It’s too early to say right now. We have to see your progress.”

  “What do you mean, exactly?”

  Another moment of hesitation. “I’m not worried about the fractures as much as I am about the tenosynovitis. The inflammation is quite severe. It’s possible that you were overextending yourself. As for dancing … it’s possible that you can continue. But my suggestion is that you stop in order to prevent irreversible damage in the future.”

  Luoying’s heart sank. Though Reini was trying to soften the blow, and he wasn’t trying to act like her father, his meaning was clear. As soon as she heard “tenosynovitis,” she knew the answer. She was never going to heal completely. For a dancer who relied on precise movements of the joints, such a condition was a nightmare. If she didn’t want to end up with a permanent disability, she had to stop dancing.

  Reini’s diagnosis plunged into her heart like a lead ball sinking to the bottom of a pool. What she felt wasn’t shock; rather, it was swirling dust settling down as the wind died.

  On Earth she had had trouble with her jumps. In a gravity field three times as strong as the one on Mars, her legs felt like they were weighed down by sandbags. She had wondered if a day would come when she would lose the struggle against gravity. She imagined two outcomes. In one case, she would have to stop dancing before she could go home; in the other, she would endure the hardships and return to Mars to take flight like a bird. But she had never imagined this outcome: she was home, but she could no longer dance. She had escaped from that weighty planet, and she was just growing used to the sensation of flight, but now she had to stop. She had gritted her teeth and endured hardships motivated by hope, and now she was never going to enjoy the fruits of her labor. The curtains had fallen, and her performance was over. Sparks had come to life between the stars briefly, and now they were gone, leaving only darkness and silence. She strove to overcome the unbridgeable distance, but she failed in the end. She would never reach the sky, never touch both planets at once, despite using all her strength. In the end she fell; she had to give up. Gravity could not be overcome, and neither could distance.

  She didn’t even get a chance to finish her performance properly, to take a bow. Luoying looked up at the Milky Way. I would have accepted any outcome, but you didn’t even let me finish. Tears spilled from her eyes and glided past her ears. The drops felt warm against her stiff neck. I have nothing to
strive for anymore, she thought.

  Reini knelt down next to her, his eyes compassionate and understanding through the round spectacles. He lifted Luoying’s leg, cradling the boot woven from thin metal filaments.

  “The boot not only secures your foot; it also contains sensors and electrodes to decode the neural impulses sent to your foot, allowing you to walk. You’ll need to adjust to it over a few days. Be careful.”

  Luoying tried it out. She lifted her right leg and tried to flex her ankle. Although she couldn’t feel anything, she saw the boot flex and bend, obeying her will.

  “Feeling all right?” asked Reini.

  “Yes, I can control it.”

  “Good. It takes most people longer to get used to it.”

  Luoying smiled bitterly. Who knew training as a dancer would have such a benefit? The key to dancing was control, not mere strength. It was about positioning the toes at the right angle at the right moment, about mastering every muscle so that it was neither too tense nor too relaxed. She stared at the skin-tight boot, feeling the metal filaments wrapped around skin and muscle, faithfully translating every neural impulse into movement. Reini continued to kneel by her side, not rushing her or asking questions.

  As she continued practicing moving the boot, she asked, “Do you specialize in neurology?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  “I’ve never been sure: Are there more stars in the universe or neurons in a human being?”

  Reini smiled. “The stars win that contest. A person has a little more than ten billion neurons, while there are three hundred billion stars in the Milky Way alone. And there are hundreds of billions of galaxies in the rest of the universe.”

  “If each star were a neuron, and the whole galaxy were a whole brain, wouldn’t it be much more intelligent than a human?”