Chapter 26 — The Ship That Never Looks Back

Desk Moved

The familiar table where Vuong Khac Hien once sat, right in the middle of the main aisle of the Founding Archives, where he could observe the entire public reading area with just a glance, was now empty. Bach Van stood frozen in front of that empty space for a few seconds, a feeling of insecurity rising before he could even find a specific reason.

"Are you looking for Mr. Hien?" A younger archivist, whom Bach Van had never met before, asked when he saw him standing blankly in the middle of the aisle.

"Yes, I need to ask him about a reference for the thesis." Bach Van replied, trying to keep his voice normal.

"He's moved to the desk at the end of the west row, near the microfilm storage area." The young employee pointed, sounding unconcerned, as if it were a normal administrative matter that didn't deserve attention. "I heard it was due to restructuring of assignments."

Bach Van thanked him, walked in the direction indicated, walked along the rows of towering racks, clearly feeling the change in the atmosphere of this large room compared to the times he had been there. There were more figures wearing dark gray uniforms weaving between the aisles, not exactly patrolling openly, but present enough for anyone to feel they were being observed.

Vuong Khac Hien sat at a much smaller table, hidden in the corner, the light was weaker than the central area, the stack of files in front of him seemed to be less important documents - equipment inventory records, lists of consumables. When he saw Bach Van, he did not appear as happy as before, just slightly frowned, his eyes quickly glanced over his shoulder towards the dark gray figures moving nearby.

"Students." He said, trying to keep his voice unusually distant. "I'm no longer in charge of the maritime history documents area. You need to find someone else."

"I just need to ask a short question, sir." Bach Van said, insistent, although he immediately noticed the tension in the old archivist's sitting posture.

"I already said it." Vuong Khac Hien repeated, his voice more decisive, but his eyes, as he bent down to pretend to rearrange the stack of papers in front of him, shone with something different — a silent warning that could not be said in this public place. "Stop looking for me, cadet. It's not because I don't want to help. It's because every time you come here, you're putting both of us in more danger."

Bach Van stood still, immediately understanding what was happening. Since the night he was discovered by Than Bao Nghiem, Vuong Khac Hien must have been put under surveillance, maybe unofficially, but enough to make his job position narrower, enough so that every action he took now carries a price. Twenty-eight years of service without a trace, and now all that's left was a corner of a desk hidden behind a row of microfilm shelves, where no one bothers to look at him anymore, except those who were deliberately looking.

"I'm sorry." He spoke softly, took a step back, preparing to leave.

"Wait." Vuong Khac Hien said, his voice suddenly changed, taking on a deliberately cold administrative tone. "You said you were doing a thesis on maritime history, right? The second floor of the public reading area has a summary of chronicles by year of voyage, which anyone can look up without needing special permission — even the years of voyage that few people are interested in. I suggest you start there, instead of bothering the archivists with questions beyond the scope of their work."

That statement, to anyone nearby who heard it, was just a polite, slightly annoyed refusal of an annoyed administrative employee. But Bach Van, looking straight into his eyes for that brief moment, noticed a deliberate emphasis in the phrase "the years of journey that few people care about" — a hint carefully hidden in the shell of a refusal.

"I understand, thank you." Bach Van said, bowed her head, then turned away, trying not to show her haste.

He immediately found the public reading area on the second floor, where bookshelves and rolls of microfilm were arranged in chronological order, from the first year to the present, mostly covered in dust because hardly anyone bothered to look up the detailed history of each year when everything important was summarized in the official curriculum. He followed the stickers, found the shelf marking the year of the journey two hundred and twenty-eight — and immediately noticed something unusual: the space on the shelf in that position was much wider than in neighboring years, as if a significant part of the documents had been removed, leaving only a few thin rolls of microfilm, the main content being reports on agricultural output and annual technical maintenance, with no mention of any incidents.

He flipped through another roll of production reports, his eyes stopping at an unusual line of statistics: the Gas Ration of the entire Root Layer in the third quarter of the two hundred and twenty-eighth cruise year was temporarily reduced by fifteen percent, the reason recorded was simply "technical problems at the central maintenance area, affecting gas recycling performance in the short term." There is not a word about a crackdown, an uprising, or anything close to what Bui Dac Sinh suggested. An incident large enough to cut off the survival rations of thousands of people for weeks was reduced to a harmless line as if it were just a routine mechanical malfunction. He realized, not for the first time but more clearly than ever, that the deception on this ship lay not only in what was erased, but also in the way what remained was written down so that no one would bother to ask further questions.

But at the end of a roll of microfilm recording the minutes of the Council's annual meeting that year, a short note in the margin of the last page, stamped more faintly than the rest, as if added later: "See also security addendum, code 228-R, archived privately by order of Council Elders." The same phrase he and Khe Lam had read in file 041-H, the same classification, the same unique authority to open it.

Bach Van copied that code into his memory, not daring to write it down anywhere that could be traced, then left the public reading area with a feeling of both disappointment and excitement - disappointment because he knew that the code 228-R was almost certainly out of their reach at this time, after the door to the Founding Archives was closed tighter than ever; excited because Vuong Khac Hien, even though he couldn't say a word directly, still found a way to show them the way, just like what he did the night he escaped from Than Bao Nghiem.

That night, when meeting Khe Lam in a new hidden corner they had just chosen instead of the Old Garden - an old supply storage compartment near the border of Floor Mua, with fewer people wandering around - Bach Van recounted everything, from Vuong Khac Hien's relocated desk to the code number 228-R.

"That man is paying a bigger price than we thought." Khe Lam said, her voice was low, a familiar feeling of guilt welled up in her heart. "We dragged him in without even asking if he was willing."

"He's still helping, even though he knows the cost." Bach Van replied. "Maybe it's the only way he can still do something meaningful, after so many years of just watching doors close around him."

Khe Lam told him about the Void Khi statistics line he had just found, about how an event big enough to cause the entire Root Layer to tighten their belts for weeks was wrapped up in an innocuous administrative sentence. "I still remember." She spoke, her voice suddenly lowered, forgetting her usual way of addressing her in an emotional moment. "My grandmother once mentioned, very vaguely, about a 'shortage' when I was a child, saying that the whole neighborhood had to share every sip of clean water for weeks. I always thought it was just an old story she told me to teach me to appreciate what I had. Now that I think about it, perhaps it was a direct consequence of what happened the night my mother disappeared."

"You don't have to be sure right now." Bach Van said, holding her hand. "Piece by piece, just like Mr. Sinh always said. Code 228-R will still be there, waiting until we are strong enough and wise enough to touch it without pushing ourselves to death."

Khe Lam nodded, but in her heart, the code 228-R now carried a different weight than Bach Van — to her, it was not only a technical clue leading to the truth about the entire ship, but could also be the final key to the truth about her own mother, a door she longed to open but also feared what was waiting behind it more than anything else she had ever faced.