Chapter 11 — The Ship That Never Looks Back

People Standing in the Wrong Place

Area forty-two was much quieter than the first time Khe Lam came here, when the sirens were still blaring and a large team was crowded around the cluster of connecting shafts. This time, she was sent alone, carrying a handheld console and a brief checklist — a routine seven-day follow-up mission after replacing a failed part, a standard procedure to ensure the new part is working properly before closing the incident file. Vu Khac Dang had intended to send Ha Dinh Khiem with him, but he was busy handling another last-minute matter, so in the end only Khe Lam alone stepped across the familiar gravity boundary, entering the large transit compartment where the Root Layer and the Dome Layer met.

"Be careful, this area has limited access." Khe Lam spoke up, the decisive voice of someone familiar with the scene commander, when she saw a figure standing right next to the sensor cluster that had just been replaced last week — exactly where safety procedures required being at least two meters away during operational checks.

The young man turned around, and Khe Lam immediately recognized that it was the student she had seen watching from afar on the day of the big incident - upright, disciplined, the light blue jacket of the Dome Floor was now closer enough for her to clearly see every delicate seam on the collar, different from the rough fabric of the Root Layer uniform.

"I have permission from the chief engineer to observe this area." He replied, his voice calm but not humble, his eyes assessing her from head to toe for a brief moment - not contempt, just an instinctive scrutiny of someone not used to interacting with people outside their class. "I'm recording data for a module report."

"Observation does not mean being within a safe range while the sensor is running a load test." Khe Lam replied, not backing down despite clearly realizing the status gap between them. This is a work scene, and on the scene, technical safety does not discriminate between classes. "You stay back, if the sensor reports a false error and activates the emergency brake, that connecting arm can jerk a meter."

He looked at her for another second, then stepped back as she asked, not at all as uncomfortable as she feared — there was even a hint of curiosity in his eyes. "Are you the maintenance engineer assigned to recheck last week's repairs?"

"That's right." She replied, returning to work, opening the handheld control panel to read the test operation index of the newly installed sensor. "I need to run three full test cycles before confirming the report is complete."

"Can I ask a few questions while you work?" He asked, his voice a bit more cautious than before, as if he had just realized that his initial approach was not appropriate. "I need to understand the actual mechanics of the spline system for the report, the textbook only describes the theory."

Khe Lam glanced at him again, reassessing. Not the kind of arrogance she'd imagined the Dome People to have from their co-workers' gossip—at least not yet. "Okay, but don't stand closer than two meters."

For the next half hour, while waiting for the automated test cycles to run, Khe Lam observed the readings while answering his questions — about how the connecting shaft converted rotational force into measurable pressure, about how early engineers calculated material strength for a structure that had to operate continuously for centuries without stopping. He took careful notes, occasionally asking deeper questions than she expected from a student who was only there for the assignment, questions that showed he really wanted to understand and not just fill the quota.

"I'm Kieu Bach Van." He said, as the silence between the two questions lasted longer than usual. "Senior year navigator."

"Do Khe Lam." She replied, without looking up from the control panel. "Maintenance engineer for Tuan Re group."

"How long have you been doing this job?"

"Eight years." She replied, then out of the same curiosity he had just shown, she asked again. "What do navigators learn besides astronomy?"

"Many things. Maritime history, overall ship engineering, a whole class on the ethics of navigation — how to make decisions when information is incomplete." Bach Van replied, his voice a bit self-deprecating. "It sounds abstract, but my teacher said it's the most important subject in the whole course."

"What does guiding ethics mean?" Khe Lam asked, her curiosity now going far beyond the scope of normal politeness.

Bach Van was silent for a moment, as if considering an answer. "Basically — a navigator sometimes has to make decisions that affect thousands of people, based on data that is never perfect. The course question is: when to act on the best information you have, and when to stop, admitting you don't know enough to decide." He stopped and looked towards the connecting shaft assembly that was being tested. "I still haven't found a satisfactory answer for that subject, to be honest."

That sentence made Khe Lam pause for a moment, a strange resonance with the question that had been tormenting her for more than a week — when to tell the truth that could cause panic, and when to stay silent. She glanced at him, wondering if she was imagining the resemblance, or if this was actually something worth noting.

"Third test cycle complete." Her control panel beeped softly, the indicator showing a steady green color. "The sensor is working normally, I confirm the report is complete."

"Thank you for answering my question." Bach Van said, closing the notebook. "I think I understand this system better than a week of reading the textbook."

"Nothing." Khe Lam packed her tools and prepared to leave, but something made her stop and ask another question that she did not intend to ask in the first place. "You said your subject includes maritime history and ship history. Does it cover the first years of sailing? The period immediately after launch?"

Bach Van raised his eyebrows, seemingly surprised by the sudden deviation of the question. "Yes, but it's quite brief. The official syllabus focuses on the more recent period of stable travel, most of the detailed data on the early years is relegated to optional additional reading — I haven't had time to read it all yet."

"If I have time, I'm curious about that period." Khe Lam said, trying to keep his voice like an idle question. "Especially the big decisions are made around the fortieth and forty-first years of travel."

Bach Van looked at her for a moment, his eyes filled with a bit of incomprehensible curiosity — not suspicion, simply surprise at the unusual specificity of a Root Layer maintenance engineer's question about such a detailed historical timeline. "Why are you interested in that particular period?"

Khe Lam realized she had revealed more than she intended, and she quickly corrected herself. "Nothing special, just curious. Thank you for answering the question. I have to return to the reporting group."

She turned away before he could ask more questions, walking quickly toward the door leading down to the Root Level, her heart pounding not so much with fear as with a mixed feeling that was hard to name—between the risk of revealing her tracks and the strange feeling that, for that brief moment, she had met someone who, unlike most of the others in her life, might actually possess the keys to opening doors she could never reach on her own.

Halfway there, she looked back once, not necessarily on purpose. Kieu Bach Van was still standing in the same place, no longer observing the shaft assembly but looking towards her, still holding the notebook but not writing anything more. When their eyes met through the distance of the transit compartment, he did not immediately turn away as common courtesy required, but nodded slightly - a small gesture, difficult to define, maybe just a polite goodbye, or maybe something else that Khe Lam did not dare to name at that moment.

On the way back to the Root Level, she blamed herself for asking that last question so openly. A normal maintenance engineer has no reason to be so curious about a specific milestone year that he would directly ask a stranger he just met right at the work site. If Kieu Bach Van was the type of person who liked to report any unusual behavior to her superiors — which was entirely possible for a student trying to build a good reputation in the eyes of the Council — she could have just put herself in the spotlight without anyone having to investigate further.

But there was another part of her, the part that had learned to read people through their eyes and voice over the years living among the quiet but honest people of the Root Layer, that felt the opposite. There was a certain sincerity in the way Bach Van talks about "guiding ethics", about the fact that he "hasn't found a satisfactory answer" for that subject — not the type of person who would rush to report someone else's curious question just to please his superiors. However, she reminded herself to be more cautious. A good hunch was not proof, and she learned from her own family that misplaced trust can cost a lifetime.