Chapter 40 — The Last Seed Keeper

Three days on the way back, the group stopped at a high point on a rocky hillside, where Ngan The Binh led them because of the wide view it offered, an ideal place to observe the entire Dong Tro region stretching in all directions before they continued the remaining long journey to Green Dome.

Standing on the hilltop, Khe Mien could see, far to the south, a faint dark streak on the horizon—perhaps the Salt Dome, though the distance was too great to be sure. To the west, a faint sparkle of light reminded them of the Sand Dome they had just left. And somewhere, much farther into lands she had never visited, was the Upper Arch, which held perhaps the greatest secrets this journey had begun to reveal.

"You're thinking about how far we've come," Bach Lam said, standing next to her, not a question.

“And about how far we still have to go,” Khe Mien replied, her eyes still fixed on the horizon. "Not just to get back to the Green Dome. But to fully understand what we have begun to discover."

The whole group stopped to rest for a while on the top of the hill, and Khe Mien took out Lai Ba Nguyen's documents and looked at them again in the daylight, with Dai Van Cuong's box next to her. Diem Quynh, sitting nearby, was studying the new set of replacement parts, thoroughly checking each part to make sure everything worked perfectly before they needed to use them.

"What do you think we should do with all this, when we get back to the Green Dome?" Diem Quynh asked, looking up at Khe Mien. "Should we report to the Council?"

That question made Khe Mien stop and think seriously, a question she had asked herself many times in recent days but had not found a definite answer.

"I don't know," she admitted. "Part of me thinks that the Council needs to know, that Bien Ba Uy and the entire Green Dome community deserve to know the truth, if it is indeed true. But another part of me fears that this information, if spread incorrectly, could cause panic, or worse, could reach the ears of people who should not know we are learning about them."

"Su Dinh Lam will use it to argue that the outside world is too dangerous, that the Green Dome should close its gates forever," Ngan The Binh commented, his tone matter-of-fact.

"That's right," Khe Mien said, nodding. "And that's exactly what I don't want to happen. If there is an organization like the Protectorate, in whatever form it is today, manipulating the Domes from the shadows, the answer is not that we cower and hide from it. The answer is that we need to understand it better, and find a way so that no one has to live under its control, like the people of the Salt Domes."

Bach Lam looked at her, a deep respect in his eyes. "So what are you going to do?" he asked.

Khe Mien thought for a long time before answering, looking out at the horizon once more, as if searching for the answer in the vast land stretching out before her eyes.

"I think, first of all, we need to report to Bien Ba Uy privately, not before the entire Council," she said finally. "He has proven himself to be someone who can think carefully and not act hastily. I believe he will help us decide what the next step is, without letting fear dictate that decision."

"What about continuing the investigation?" Diem Quynh asked.

"That's something I'm not sure about yet," Khe Mien admitted. "My main responsibility is still the Seed Store, the seeds we bring back. The Green Dome needs me to focus on that first, at least for a while. But I don't think I can completely forget what we have learned. Perhaps, this will be a much longer mission than a trip - one I will continue to pursue, over many years if necessary, until I find the complete truth."

Ngan The Binh nodded in agreement, his eyes looking out toward the southern horizon where the Salt Dome was hidden. "And perhaps," he added, "we should also think about what we can do now, without waiting until the evidence is complete. The Salt Dome is still there, with Confucius still ruling with an iron fist. If the Green Dome one day has enough influence to help change that, even a little, that would be a victory worth pursuing."

Khe Mien looked at him, feeling a deep sympathy for that vision — not only finding the truth about the past, but also using whatever they learned to improve the present, even if only by small steps.

“That's a good goal to aim for,” she said, smiling slightly, even though she was still filled with unanswered questions.

Kien, sitting and listening to the conversation with the attentiveness of a young person who is gradually maturing through each experience of the trip, spoke up, his voice carrying a new seriousness. “I think, when I grow up, I want to continue doing work like this,” he said. "Not just carrying and learning, like I was initially assigned. I want to become someone who can help, like Ngan The Binh did at Salt Dome, or like you are doing now, Ms. Khe Mien."

"You've done more than you thought," Khe Mien said, looking at him with sincere affection. "You endured your injuries in the ruins without a word of complaint. You asked important questions, questions that we adults are sometimes afraid to ask. I think the Green Dome will have a Edge Patrol to be proud of, if you continue on this path."

Kien blushed at the compliment, but the smile on his lips clearly showed the pride he felt.

The group continued to rest a while longer on the top of the hill before setting off, and Bach Lam, standing and observing the entire scene of Dong Tro stretching around them, turned to speak to the group, his voice carrying a rare seriousness mixed with hope. "No matter where the road ahead takes us, I want you to know that this is the best caravan I've led in ten years. Not because we haven't had trouble — we've had more than I ever anticipated. But because each of us has faced it with courage and integrity that not many other caravans possess."

That rare compliment made the group silent for a moment, moved, before Ngan The Binh broke the solemn atmosphere with his characteristic matter-of-fact statement. "Then this best party should continue on its way, before the sun sets and we have to set up camp in the middle of this open hillside."

The group burst into laughter, and that feeling of relief followed them for the rest of the afternoon.

That afternoon, as the group continued on their way, Khe Mien walked in the middle of the familiar formation — Bach Lam leading, Ngan The Binh last, Diem Quynh and Kien next to her — and she felt a profound change in herself compared to the woman who had walked through the Green Dome gate for the first time, twenty days and a world ago.

She is no longer just the Seed Keeper charged with preserving precious breeds. She had become someone who carried the fragments of a buried truth, someone who had learned that the world was much larger, more complex, and both darker and brighter than the Green Dome had ever taught her. She witnessed the cruelty of unchecked power in Salt Dome, the sincere generosity of long-standing friendship in Sand Dome, the patient loneliness of someone who kept a secret for twenty years, and the quiet scholarly faith of someone who devoted his life to old pages.

And she found, in the midst of it all, a love she had never dared to hope for when she left the Filtration Roof — not an escape from her responsibility, but a new strength to carry that responsibility further.

That night, when the group set up camp to rest, Khe Mien sat next to a small fire, took out his notebook one last time before they continued the remaining days of their journey to Green Dome, and wrote down the words that closed one chapter, but opened another, much greater chapter:

*I left the Green Dome to find new parts and varieties. I returned with both of them, just as I promised the Council. But I also brought back more — a love I never dreamed of, a secret that could change everything Green Dome, and perhaps every other Dome, ever believed about its own history, and a question I knew I would spend the remaining years of my life answering: if the Great Cataclysm was not an inevitable disaster, but the result of the selfish choices of a few, then would we — the survivors, the leftovers? to a broken world — is it possible to choose another path, one built on sharing instead of hoarding, on trust instead of fear?*

*I don't have the answer, not now. But I have a seed of that question, planted deep in my heart, and I believe that, like every other seed I have ever cared for, it will find a way to germinate, no matter how long it takes.*