Vagabonds

by Hao Jingfang

  Everyone around Anka was talking of war, some in favor, some opposed. The discussions were fervent, like the impassioned debates about the Ceres project. It was the one topic that dominated all other topics. He could understand their fervor, though he was against it. After decades of ordinary life in peace, there was nothing more stimulating than the prospect of a real war. The fighter pilots normally were miners, either excavating and blasting ore themselves or serving as cargo camels. They craved combat, craved a battle in which they lived on the border between life and death, and in which survival required the devotion of all their intellect and strength.

  Anka understood Juan. His speeches to the pilots had always been powerful and moving. He was not a man who fought for shameless self-aggrandizement but because he truly believed in the ideals he fought for. A man like him was particularly dangerous, and particularly effective. For the sake of the vision of victory, he could hold himself back for years, building up strength and waiting. Juan wanted a grand future for the humans on Mars, to initiate a new epoch of cosmic history. Because he was strong, he wanted all Martians to be strong. Anka didn’t despise Juan at all. Compared to some of the mindless bullies or yes-men who served under him, Juan was far better. Some said Juan was dictatorial, but based on Anka’s experience in the Flight System, Juan was not the worst by that measure.

  The real problem with Juan wasn’t his dictatorial tendency but his dogmatism. Anka could almost agree with Juan’s views on nobility and baseness, strength and weakness—if he hadn’t been to Earth. He could have hated the evil Terrans as much as Juan did. But the fact was he had been to Earth and he had spent time among the Terrans. They were not the numb, worthless caricatures in Juan’s speeches, just as Martians were not the numb and worthless caricatures in Terran speeches. He couldn’t scorn all Terrans as a collective in the same way he didn’t want the Terrans to scorn all Martians as a collective.

  Anka could not think the way Juan did. There was no such thing as a base or worthless people, only craven and base individuals. One could only solve one concrete problem after another concrete problem, not attempt to resolve all problems through one abstract collective warring against another abstract collective. That never worked.

  Anka climbed into the cockpit and strapped himself in. He adjusted the seat and checked all the systems. Seven mirrors showed him the view in every direction. The wind speed and pressure gauges were all still. He initiated power to the propulsion system. Electricity charged the rails beneath the runway. The fighter began to glide along the rails. An electromagnetic beam sent the departure signal to the hangar gate. The fighter was moving along smoothly, its alloy fuselage feeling solid around him, giving him the confidence to trust it to keep him alive.

  The fighter reached the hangar gate. Anka sent along his fingerprint and personal code, waiting for the system to verify his identity. The hangar gate was the only exit from the city that didn’t have human guards. The reason was simple: anyone who could pilot a plane out of here had to have the necessary permit. Technical skill was the best defense. Every pilot was allotted a certain number of opportunities to leave the city to practice on their own. Anka had been given five, and he had used up only two when he tried out his fighter after the repairs.

  The hangar gate, an airlock, opened slowly. One set of doors, another set of doors, and a third. Anka took a deep breath, eyes on the empty, desolate land that appeared before his gaze. His fingers hovered over the instrument panel.

  The fighter accelerated, at first propelled by the electrical current surging through the underground rails, and then its own engines took over. As the plane’s speed reached the threshold for takeoff, it began to burn solid fuel. Jets of accelerated air blasted out of the nozzles and the fighter lifted off, shooting into the sky. In the rearview mirror Anka could see the airfield shrinking. The jettisoned air precipitated into a white column of mist.

  The fighter felt smooth and steady. All the indicators were within normal ranges, and the fuel combustion was optimal. As he gazed at the wide-open sky and ground before him, Anka felt his spirit open up in response. The sense of ease was not the same as happiness but transcended it. It rose and fell without cease like the arcing course of the fighter, and therefore it had neither sharp peaks of joy nor acute valleys of sorrow. He experienced this sense of ease each time he took to the sky, and only felt it in the sky. He flew for this sensation, for the endless view of the dark sky and the gray-yellow land.

  He kept his hand steady on the stick. The fighter was flying very fast, and he carefully guided it along the red line on the navigation screen. His fighter remained in contact with the ground control center, and the coordinates of the stranded cargo shuttle had been transmitted to his navigation system. The spot he was aiming for was easy to find: about two hundred meters before the cliffs.

  Those two Terrans aren’t complete fools. To manage to land their shuttle in such conditions is already quite an accomplishment. Sure, cargo shuttles generally have extremely stable landing systems, which were no doubt of great help to the two Terrans. If no one is injured, it’ll be easy to get them back to the city. Just a straight flight back.

  No matter what, leaving two people to die in the dust storm is wrong.

  Sand roiled on the horizon like rising flames. The storm appeared to be even stronger than the forecast had predicted. Though it was still unclear how fast the storm was moving, the swirling dust was like the sign of an ancient invasion from the horsemen of the steppes.

  They’ll die if they are left where they are. That must not be allowed. There’s no justification for leaving two people out in the sand. Vengeance might be the one exception. But that’s different, for in vengeance it is one person righting a wrong committed against him personally. What Juan is doing, on the other hand, is to sacrifice these two for a goal, a very suspect goal. The storm is coming, and they won’t survive the night.

  Luoying and the others talk about resistance. But this is the only kind of injustice that can be resisted. Look at the consequences of abstracting justice and injustice to collectives: it leads to confronting the Terrans as a whole. In order to overcome imagined evil, we are now committing evil first. That’s wrong. It’s shameful.

  Glancing at the swirling sand on the horizon, his concern grew. The storm was coming faster and stronger than he expected. He accelerated, burning more fuel than planned in the hope of buying more time. Based on the progress of the storm, there was now a better-than-fifty-percent chance that he would be caught by the storm on the way back, far worse than he had anticipated.

  What other choices did he have? One possibility was to land and try to survive inside the shuttle overnight. He had planned for this by bringing along extra supplies. But having seen the strength of the storm, that was unlikely to work. The storm was strong enough to bury them or to topple the shuttle, and larger rocks, which had in the past destroyed houses in the city, could be fatal. He estimated their chances of surviving the night inside the shuttle at less than twenty percent.

  Another choice was to go to a cave inside one of the craters. But that would work only with a survival suit. He had one with him, but the Terrans probably didn’t have any on the cargo shuttle. Survival suits were precious resources and generally not part of the equipment of cargo shuttles. The last time they had been caught out, it was lucky that Runge had gotten them a mining ship. Mining crews often needed to perform extravehicular activities, which was why they had such suits. Without survival suits, the thin atmosphere would kill very quickly. To choose the cave was also to doom the Terrans, and his mission would be meaningless.

  In the end, the best choice still seemed to be flying back tonight. The chances of success weren’t great, but it was worth a shot.

  He asked himself if he had been too reckless, had underestimated the danger. But after pondering the matter a while, he came to the conclusion that he had foreseen the risks adequately. This surprised him. Before departing, he had thought he was going to be perfect
ly safe, but now, as he combed through his own thoughts, he realized he wasn’t shocked by the crisis. In his subconscious, he had in fact known this was a possibility, but in order to harden his own resolve, he had deliberately avoided the implications. To fly was to bet one’s life. He had always known this.

  This is why I’m out here, right? In such weather, it’s impossible for anyone to survive without help.

  He glanced at the rising sand twisters off to the side, and a fighting spirit rose in his heart, along with a smile on his face. Let’s race, then. I may still win.

  The cargo shuttle came into view, exactly where the distress signal had been sent from. Apparently, the Terrans had stayed put after being forced to land. He guessed that the two were probably confident that Mars wouldn’t let them die, and they were probably, right at this moment, rehearsing an explanation for why they had taken the cargo ship.

  Anka slowed down and circled above the cargo shuttle. He reduced the jets so that, with each turn, the fighter lost more altitude. At the same time, he raised the cargo shuttle on the comms, asking them to get ready. As his fighter neared the ground, the jets turned vertical and slowly set the plane down right next to the shuttle.

  Anka extended the evacuation tube from the fighter’s tail and manipulated it until the other end locked onto the cargo shuttle’s airlock. He unbuckled himself, put on the survival suit, took the wings, and popped open the canopy. He climbed out, stood on the fuselage, closed the canopy, and put on the wings. He attached the motor to his lower legs and then tied a length of cable between his waist and the fighter’s tail.

  He gestured at the two Terrans through the window of the cargo shuttle, explaining that they should open their airlock and crawl through the evacuation tube into the fighter. The two Terrans appeared to be overjoyed and followed his directions. Soon the two were seated under the fighter’s canopy, one in the front, the other in the back.

  Anka knelt down on the fuselage and gestured to the person sitting in the pilot’s seat in front, teaching him how to press the buttons to initiate the takeoff sequence. It took multiple tries before he got it right. He looked perplexed, gesturing at Anka to ask him what to do next. Anka smiled at him, telling him to relax.

  The fighter roared to life and lifted straight up into the air. The engines were at maximum burn. Vertical takeoff was the key to the agility and adaptability of the Martian fighter, but it was also the Achilles’ heel of its design. To accommodate this capability, the fighter had to be made very light and small, which limited the crew to two and constrained the amount of supplies it could carry.

  Excitement overcame Anka’s anxiety. He crouched near the tail of the fighter like a sprinter at the starting line. As the fighter rose higher and began to accelerate forward, he could feel the wings on his back catch the wind, pulling him up. He tensed his muscles and waited as the force on his back built up. Then he pushed off with his arms and legs. After a brief moment of free fall, he felt the wings hold and lift him into the air.

  The sensation was familiar. He was a banner flapping in the wind, a kite like the day he had flown with Luoying. Although he had set the fighter’s speed to cruising—about half as fast as he had flown here—it was still far faster than Runge’s mining ship. The fighter was on autopilot now, heading back to the airfield on its own. This was a capability shared by all Martian fighters so that in the event of the pilot’s death, the machines, like the horses of knights of old, would bring the bodies of their fallen masters back home.

  Anka felt a kinship with those ancient knights. The roiling dust storm was now almost upon him, like an approaching horde whose faces could finally be discerned through the dust. He tensed his shoulders and back, trying to adjust the angle of the wings to avoid meeting the storm head-on. The wings were strong but thin, and if they were torn by the storm, he would be in trouble.

  The light dimmed. Only half an hour before sunset. At their current velocity, the last part of their journey would have to be concluded in the dark. Anka wasn’t worried. They’d be safe enough if they got close to the city. He glanced at the horizon. The sun at dusk was no longer so bright, and the proud white glow had faded into a moody gold. The swirling sand sometimes covered everything so that the sun was no more than a hazy halo. The black sky and the golden land merged at the horizon, and the sand was like the tides, crashing again and again into the sea of the sky. The sand buffeted him, tossing him up and down. A few blows were so hard that he swung from one side of the fighter to the other, like a reed in the wind swaying between black and gold. The whole world tilted this way and that.

  As he flew, a pride born of loneliness arose in his heart. There was nothing between the sky and the ground, and only he was warring with the sand. The loneliness felt solemn, and it gave him a sense of peace.

  The sand slammed into him in waves, and instinctively he dodged and swerved, maintaining balance. He had to devote all his mental and physical strength to it. There was no choice but to trust himself. There was no support, no companions, no rescue—only himself. Without that faith, he would die. He was an army of one.

  Pain chipped away at hope and faith, that was why pain was alone, devoid of explanation.

  Anka believed in himself. He had told no one of this, but he thought he could trust himself. He disliked talk of salvation: saving a civilization, a planet, humanity. No, he didn’t believe any of that. There was no such thing as the salvation of humanity, and it could never be justice to let some die in order to save all. Those who proclaimed such things were either trying to deceive others or had already deceived themselves. There was only the saving of an individual. That was all.

  “If they cannot all be saved, what is the use of salvation for one?” Dostoevsky said so in The Brothers Karamazov. But what was it that Camus said in response? “If a single individual cannot be saved, then what is the point of saving the collective?”

  Anka was beginning to tire. His body felt sluggish even as the wind grew stronger. The wings, laden with sand, sagged. He struggled against the storm with his whole body, gazing into the distance as the light went out. There was still no sign of the city. He had flown for a long time already, but there was still a long way to go. He opened his arms, embracing the emptiness the way he would embrace hope. In a flash he felt the razor-sharp sand against his face. Sobered, he pulled his arms back protectively over his chest.

  He thought of Luoying. The last time he had flown like this was with her, but now he was alone. He regretted not bringing the model she had given him or sending her a message. Perhaps he had subconsciously feared just such an outcome, which was why he had refrained from contacting her. But now he regretted it. She was the only one on his mind, the only one he couldn’t forget. She had asked him whether he believed in any love that lasted forever, and he had said no. He had thought Luoying would not, like other romantics, ask such questions. But she did ask, and she had been disappointed with his answer. It was true that he didn’t believe in forever. He believed only in the here and now. She was unlike anyone else. How many people could you fly with, side by side, in a lifetime? She was the only one. She would always be in his heart.

  Darkness and sand overwhelmed him from every direction. He closed his eyes, feeling adrift in the waterless tides. He screwed up the last bit of courage, tensed his body, and held on to hope in the roaring, fierce storm. He opened his eyes. The blue city was ahead.

  HANS

  Hans sat next to Galiman. The room was as silent as the desert at night. For a long time he sat as still as a statue, even more so than the old man in bed. With no light on, the darkness of the night hid everything. The tranquil moonlight spread over the two statues like a gauze veil, cold comfort for their silent anguish.

  Galiman, could you have imagined such an outcome?

  Hans buried his face in his hands, his elbows leaning against the edge of the bed. He didn’t make any noise, no sobs or curses of rage. He was in such pain that he had to use every bit of strength to prevent hi
mself from losing control. The old man lying on the bed looked wan and frail, his sparse hair straggly. Tubes from numerous machines stuck into his body.

  A life is fated to be filled with regrets. Is that so, Galiman?

  He put his hand on the old man’s shoulder, the way he had often done forty years ago. The bones pressed against his fingers as though the hospital gown were wrapped around a skeletal frame. He kept his hand there, as though hoping to transfer his own heat and emotions to that other body, awakening him back to life. But the old man didn’t react.

  Quietly, Hans let go. He stood up and walked to the window, pushing the panes open. He leaned over the window ledge. The clocks in the room seemed to have stopped. Where life ended, time appeared to stop as well.

  * * *

  Hans didn’t know how to recall the last twenty-four hours, the most important twenty-four hours of his life.

  Twenty-four hours earlier, he was inside the Boule Chamber, watching in exhaustion as the debate came to an end and the support staff began to clean up. He was tired but not sad, worried but determined. He didn’t know the future, but he believed he had done all he could.

  He had just had his fight with Juan.

  We should go after the Terrans, he said.

  There’s no need, Juan said.

  Why? he said.

  They didn’t take any intel of importance, Juan said.

  Hans refused to yield, and so did Juan.

  Hans then ordered Juan to call an emergency session of all the directors of the Flight System. Reluctantly, Juan agreed while insisting that the act was unnecessary. At the time, Hans hadn’t known that the cargo shuttle had been forced to land. It was only intuition that told him that leaving the Terrans to escape on their own was not the right thing to do.