Chapter 18 — The Ship That Never Looks Back

File 041-H

Three short knocks, one long knock, just like the secret signal they had agreed upon - Khe Lam gently knocked on the antique wooden door, her heart still beating fast after the encounter with the patrolling Guard. The door opened almost immediately, Bach Van stood there, her face tense but her eyes lit up when she saw she was safe.

"I heard everything." He whispered, pulled her inside, and closed the door softly. "Are you okay?"

"It's okay. He's gone." Khe Lam replied, looking around the space inside for the first time — a narrower room than she expected, four walls covered with small metal drawers stacked from floor to ceiling, each compartment with a combination lock and a file code sticker. The air in the room is drier and colder than the hallway outside, a separate preservation system to keep old papers from rotting over time.

"I found the drawer with code 041-H, but the digital lock requires a code I don't have." Bach Van said, pointing to a chest-height drawer. The sticker was yellowed but the printed words were still clearly read: "041-H — Operational Adjustments — Restriction Classification."

Khe Lam stepped closer and observed the locking mechanism. Not the modern electronic lock she was familiar with, but an old-fashioned, four-digit mechanical lock, the kind of device she had learned about in an additional training course on classical physical security systems — knowledge that had seemed useless until this very moment.

"This type of lock usually has a backup code in case the main code is forgotten, fixed by the manufacturer since installation." She said, her fingers tracing the numbers. "If this drawer was installed in the same batch as the original storage system, the backup code could still be the default code — many old systems on ships have never been updated because no one thought to change it after two hundred years."

She tried out a basic number sequence she had learned in her textbook on early systems—four digits corresponding to the year of launch according to the old Earth calendar, a default convention common to most of the early mechanical security systems she had been taught in the remedial course. The first attempt was unsuccessful, the lock only made a dry clicking sound and then stiffened. She tried a second variation, reversing the four-digit order according to another convention that was once equally popular.

There was a dry click, and the drawer opened.

Inside was a thick, yellowed paper file, tied with an old cloth string. Bach Van carefully pulled it out, placed it on a small table in the middle of the room, the two of them leaned close together to read under the dim light, not daring to turn on the brighter light for fear of light leaking out through the door.

The first page was a summary, stamped "Star Council — Urgent meeting, forty-first year of journey", signed by five members, including a name that made them both pause: Doan Vinh Khai, Chairman of the Council.

"This is the official decision." Bach Van said, his voice shaking slightly. "It wasn't a single individual who acted wrongly. An entire Council session approved this."

They flipped through, skimming through pages of technical reports similar to what Khe Lam had seen in the Primordial Core, but much more detailed—calculations of component wear rates, estimates of how long it would take to run out of spare parts, and a long risk analysis assessing the ship's chances of survival if it continued on its course to Lam Chu.

Near the end of the file, a handwritten page, not typed like the rest, has a more hasty and emotional handwriting than the administrative style of the previous pages — perhaps a personal note from someone attending the session, inserted unintentionally or intentionally into the official file.

"Three people protested to the end: Vu [illegible], representative of the founding captain's spiritual legacy, and two other members. They believed that the people had the right to know the truth, even if it might cause panic, and that any decision to change the destination must be made publicly, not behind closed doors. Chairman Doan Vinh Khai rejected, citing the risk of collapse of order in a closed ecosystem with no room for error. Three people resigned immediately after the session to protest. Final decision: change direction, classify all records, delete from public curriculum within one generation."

Khe Lam read that passage over and over again, feeling her chest tighten. "Three people objected. The three empty picture frames Mr. Hien showed me — they were definitely them."

"Vu." Bach Van muttered the truncated name. "Possibly a descendant or person with a family name related to the founding captain Vu Thua Nguyen — the representative of his spiritual legacy in the Council at that time."

They continued flipping, looking for the names of three more protesters. Another page listed the list of members attending the session, most of which only had titles left without full names - it seemed that someone had carefully blacked out with ink before the records were archived, leaving only a few scattered letters that could not be combined into meaning. Bach Van tried to look under the light at different angles, hoping to see the dent of the original pen nib left behind under the blackened ink, a technique he had read about in an old book on document restoration, but the ink was too thick to read anything more.

"Bad." He muttered, disappointed. "Someone was more careful than we thought."

The last pages of the file had been torn away, leaving only the jagged edge of the paper close to the binding, and a note stamped later, belonging to a different period than the rest: "The supplement relating to the events of the two hundred and twenty-eighth year of the journey has been transferred to a separate archive by order of the Elder Council, not to be kept here."

Year of journey two hundred and twenty-eight. Khe Lam felt cold all over. That is the year Bui Dac Sinh mentioned - the year the Night of Broken Roots occurred, nineteen years ago now.

"There was another incident, later, related to this same secret." She spoke, her voice quiet, trying to quickly explain to Bach Van what Bui Dac Sinh had told her — about the group of Layer Root engineers who tried to reveal the truth, about the crackdown, about the names he was not ready to reveal.

Bach Van listened, his face becoming more and more serious. "So this wasn't a secret that was buried once. It was protected, reinforced, at least one more time, nineteen years ago."

The countdown timer on Khe Lam's device beeped softly — there were five minutes left until the maintenance window closed, and all authentication layers would be restored to normal.

"We have to go." Khe Lam said, hastily taking a photo of a few of the most important pages with a note-taking device, her hands shaking because she had to do it quickly while still being careful not to damage the fragile papers. Bach Van helped her tie up the file, put it back in the correct position in the drawer, and locked it carefully so as not to leave any trace that it had just been opened.

Before leaving, Khe Lam glanced around the room one last time, her gaze stopping on the hundreds of other drawers lining the four walls — how many other secrets, she wondered, were lying silently behind small doors with lifeless codes like this, waiting for someone reckless or desperate enough to find their backup codes. She suddenly realized that, in the midst of a system built to preserve the memories of an entire civilization drifting among the stars, most of the effort was spent hiding the pieces of memory that civilization needed to know the most.

They left the room in the exact order discussed — Bach Van went out first, checking the hallway, then Khe Lam followed a few minutes later to avoid being seen at the same time. As she stepped out into the cold air of the main hallway, her heart still pounding, she carried not only the snapshots on the device, but also a new burden: the truth was now no longer just a secret of people who died two hundred years ago, but a direct link to an event only nineteen years ago, an event that, she suspected, had claimed both her own parents.

On the way back to the residential area, Khe Lam walked slowly, letting the cold air of the late-night hallways ease the dizziness still lingering in her head. She thought of the story her grandmother had told, just once, about her mother—a story so short that it was barely a story at all, just a few fragmentary details blurted out in a rare moment of weakness. Now, each of those details suddenly carried a different weight, as if for the past twenty years she had been looking at a half-hidden picture without even realizing it, and tonight, that veil had just been lifted a small corner, enough for her to see the true form far more terrifying than anything she had ever dared to imagine.