Chapter 34 — The Ship That Never Looks Back

People who share the burden

Bach Van waited for her in the old materials storage compartment long before the appointment time, something he rarely did, standing with his back against an empty parts shelf, hands in his pockets, eyes looking towards the entrance every time there were footsteps echoing. When Khe Lam appeared, he immediately walked closer, observed her face carefully, and immediately realized that something had changed in her eyes compared to the last time they met.

"What's up?" He asked, his voice worried.

Outside the capsule, the footsteps of a group of Season Floor workers echoed and faded away, reminding them both that although this place had few people, it was still not a completely isolated fortress. Khe Lam glanced toward the entrance one more time before turning back to him, lowering her voice to just barely audible.

Khe Lam didn't answer right away, just took out two small things from his shirt and placed them in his palm - Lam Vinh Chi's old business card and a photo of her parents standing in front of Core Nguyen Sinh many years ago. Bach Van took it, looked closely at each object, then looked up at her, waiting.

"My mother wasn't the only one who attended that event." She spoke, her voice shaky but clear, as if she was trying to get it out quickly before her courage left her. "You were the leader, along with Dinh Khac Bat. It was you who first discovered the deviation in the Protoplasmic Core, nineteen years ago, the same way I discovered it now. And you didn't die in an accident like my grandmother had been saying all your life. She was escorted away with a small group of other leaders, then disappeared from all official records. Not a single line of news that you were dead. Not a line of news that you were alive. Just an administrative phrase." cold: under review."

Bach Van stood still, letting those words sink in. His eyes were gentle but serious, without any fake surprise or empty words of comfort — just the full attention of someone trying to fully understand the weight of what she had just said.

"And there's more." She continued, her voice choked. "My father also knew. He found mother's old notebook, or heard something, and compared it himself in the Primordial Core many years later. He wrote in his notebook that he needed to talk to the team leader before reporting, then the sentence broke off mid-sentence. A few weeks later, he died in a 'pressure incident.' My grandmother confessed last night that she had also suspected for eight years that the death was not as simple as the official records recorded.

"So that means..." Bach Van began, then stopped, immediately understanding what she was implying without having to say it all out loud.

"It means three generations, three people in my same family, touched on the same truth, in different ways, many years apart." She spoke, her voice now strangely calm, as if saying it out loud made the burden bearable, if only a little. "And maybe I'm the fourth."

Bach Van placed the two small objects back in her hands, then pulled her into a tight hug, saying nothing for a long time, just letting her rest her head on his shoulder, feeling his steady heartbeat, a solid anchor amid the storm of emotions swirling in her heart.

"I'm sorry you had to carry all of this alone for so long." He spoke finally, his voice deep and warm. "But from now on, you're not alone anymore. Whatever you need to do next, I'll be there."

She looked up from his shoulder and continued to tell him about the previous evening with her grandmother — the wooden chest at the bottom of the cupboard, her father's unfinished notebook, the old photo taken in front of the Primordial Core where her parents were young, not yet knowing what was waiting. She told how her grandmother cried, confessed the doubts she had kept hidden for eight years, and hugged her tighter than ever before in her life.

"She must have lived with that burden alone for so long." Bach Van said, his voice low and full of sympathy. "Not only losing my son, but also having to question how it happened, while still having to raise my granddaughter, still having to maintain a semblance of normalcy every day. I can't imagine the weight of that."

"Me too, until last night." Khe Lam replied. "I always thought of my grandmother as a strong person, almost cold. Now I understand, it wasn't coldness. It was a shell she built for herself over the years so she could continue to live, continue to care for me, without collapsing under the weight of unanswered questions."

"You don't have to—"

"I want to." He interrupted her, firmly but gently. "You showed me what I never knew I needed to see — that the world I grew up in wasn't the whole truth, and that the people I thought were 'system saboteurs' according to official teachings were actually just people who dared to demand the simplest thing: to know the truth about their own lives. Her mother was one of them. I couldn't stand on the sidelines anymore, even if I wanted to."

Khe Lam looked up at him, tears still lingering in the corners of her eyes, but in her heart, for the first time in many days, a thin feeling of relief crept into the midst of the pain — the feeling of someone who no longer had to carry the entire weight of the truth alone.

"I need to find out more." She said, wiping away her tears, her voice gradually regaining its familiar assertiveness. "Mr. Sinh only knows what he saw with his own eyes that night. But there must be some official record documenting the true fate of those detained, even if it is classified. Code 228-R may be where that answer is kept."

"I will find another way." Bach Van said, his eyes shining with a new determination. "Not through the Founding Archives anymore, it's too dangerous after all that's happened. But the navigator cadet library has access to long-term archived personnel files, used for genealogical research and service history — that's how I found out the name Vu Bach Son before. If there are any public records, even if redacted, of those who were sent for 'reevaluation' in two hundred and twenty-eight, I can find traces of it through the that way, without touching anything classified as restricted."

"Careful." Khe Lam said, holding his hand. "Especially after Uong Khac Tram noticed you."

"I know." He replied, gently squeezing her hand. "But you know, maybe I was wrong to see her as just a danger to be avoided. She offered to help me, in her own way. Maybe it's time for me to seriously consider that offer, if things get more difficult."

Khe Lam nodded, although she still felt a little uneasy at the thought of expanding the circle of people who knew this secret, even by just one more person. But she also understands that the road ahead cannot be just the two of them forever — sooner or later, they will need more hands, eyes, and relationships that they alone do not have.

"There's one more thing." She said, as they were about to part ways. "Grandma said, when I'm old enough and strong enough, she'll tell me the rest. I think, after last night, maybe that time is closer than I thought."

"Then let's give her a little more time, but don't let her forget her promise." Bach Van said, a tired but warm smile flashed across his face. "We have learned that, on this ship, promises of truth often need a gentle nudge lest they be forgotten forever in silence."

They parted ways as usual, but this time, as Khe Lam walked, she felt her steps were steadier than the previous days, not because the fear had disappeared, but because for the first time since discovering Lam Chu's coordinates in the Primeval Core many months ago, she no longer felt like she was alone carrying the entire weight of three generations' past on the thin shoulders of a twenty-year-old girl. There was someone to bear the burden, and that, she realized, had changed everything, even though the danger ahead was still the same, maybe even greater than before.

On the way home, she passed by a small observation hall near the residential area, where a few residents were standing quietly looking out at the starry space through thick glass, a normal habit of many people after work. She stopped for a moment, standing next to them, looking out in the same direction, and for the first time, she didn't see those stars as meaningless, distant images. She looked at them as if searching, somewhere among those cold points of light, for an answer to the question that had haunted her family for three generations—the question of where this ship was truly headed, and of the people who had paid with their lives just to ask that question out loud.