Chapter 5 — The Ship That Never Looks Back

Eight Years Ago

The wire stripper slipped from Khe Lam's hand, falling to the metal floor with a loud clanging sound in the narrow compartment, causing Vu Khac Dang to look up from the circuit board he was checking.

"Sorry, my hands are so sweaty." She bent down to pick up the pliers, her cheeks heating up slightly from embarrassment. This was the second time that morning she had dropped a tool — unusual for someone who was known for being the most skillful in the group.

"You haven't seemed focused for the past three days." Vu Khac Dang said, not to blame, just to frankly observe the same way he always treats his students. "Is something wrong?"

"It's nothing." Khe Lam responded quickly, perhaps too quickly. "Probably because I haven't gotten enough sleep lately."

He looked at her for a moment, the eyes of someone experienced enough to recognize when someone is hiding something without wanting to press the question, then turned back to the circuit board. They were working alone in a secondary inspection bay, away from the rest of the crew who were handling a routine maintenance session in another area—simple work, rechecking the temperature sensor system along a less-traveled stretch of corridor, the kind of job that would normally be assigned to two people instead of the entire crew.

This sub-examination bay was deeper than most of the Root Level areas frequented by residents, a narrow cylindrical room filled with old circuit boards, the only light coming from two work lights mounted on helmets and dim LED strips running along the ceiling. The sound of the regenerative water pump from the lower deck echoed through the metal floor, as regular as a giant heartbeat of the ship, a sound Khe Lam was so familiar with that she only noticed its absence when there was a problem. She checked each sensor probe one by one, recording the readings on the handheld data pad, her hands still shaking slightly even though she tried to calm herself.

"Sensor number twelve is half a degree off standard." She reported, trying to maintain her usual professionalism. "It's not significant, but I'll make a note of it so I can check more closely next time maintenance."

"Okay." Vu Khac Dang nodded, without looking up from the circuit board he was cleaning the layer of metal dust that had accumulated over the years. There was a long silence between the two, only the clinking sounds of tools and the steady sound of pumps echoed in the distance.

The truth is that Khe Lam did not get enough sleep because of normal fatigue. For four nights in a row, she lay awake, her mind reeling from the pieces of the puzzle that hadn't yet formed: the bundle of gray cables, Bui Dac Sinh's unfinished words, her grandmother's downcast eyes during the ceremony, Vu Thua Nguyen's last words about "don't believe with closed eyes". She tried searching the public system further, looking for anything related to the "heritage cable system" or the ship's early technical history, but all the results came back to general descriptions, nothing specific, as if someone had filtered out the most important details long before she was born.

"Mr. Dang." She spoke up, trying to keep her voice natural while tightening a screw on the sensor frame. "How long have you been doing this job?"

"Thirty-one years." He replied, without looking up. "I entered the profession at the age of sixteen, apprenticing under a teacher who was much more difficult than me."

"So you probably know almost every nook and cranny of the Root Layer."

"I know quite a bit, but I don't dare say it's all. This ship is bigger than a human lifetime can fully understand." He stopped for a moment, his voice suddenly lowered. "Besides, there are areas people don't want us to know too well."

Khe Lam looked up, his heart beating a beat faster. "What do you mean?"

Vu Khac Dang was silent for a long time, long enough for Khe Lam to think that maybe he wouldn't answer, just like Bui Dac Sinh often avoids when the story goes too deep. But then he sighed, put down his tools, and sat with his back against the compartment wall.

"Your father, Do Viet Khiem, is the best person my team has ever worked with." He said, and Khe Lam felt his whole body freeze. This is the first time, after eight years of working under him, that Vu Khac Dang proactively mentioned her father without her asking first.

"Do you know my father?" She asked, her voice so soft it was almost a whisper.

"We entered the profession at almost the same time, although he was a few years older than me. There was a period when we were on the same team, under the teacher I just mentioned. He was the type of person who couldn't bear to let a question go by without finding an answer - exactly like you are now, to be honest." He looked at her, a sad smile at the corner of his mouth. "Maybe that's why I realized that you're not okay lately faster than the rest of the team."

Khe Lam didn't dare to ask more right away, afraid of breaking this rare moment. She just sat still, waiting.

"Eight years ago, when your father was sent to the area near the Prime Core on a special mission — the kind of mission only the most highly certified engineers are assigned — he was different in those last few weeks." Vu Khac Dang said, his eyes looking far away as if seeing an old scene again. "Less talk. Often stays late to work alone. One time, right before an incident, he asked me a question I'll never forget."

"What question?"

"He asked, if I discovered something that could cause panic on the ship, but it was true, should I say it?" He looked straight into her eyes. "At that time, I just laughed and told him not to think too much. It was probably because he worked so close to the Primordial Core that his mind was stressed. Three weeks later, he died in a pressure incident."

The inspection compartment was so silent that Khe Lam could clearly hear the sound of blood flowing in his ears. She had grown up with the story of the "sudden pressure incident" as an obvious fact, never thinking about questioning it — because questioning her father's death was a pain she had never had the courage to touch, not even in thought. But now, Vu Khac Dang's story opens up a possibility she never dared to imagine: that death may not have been simply a random incident.

"Do you think..." She hesitated, not knowing how to phrase the question properly. "Do you think my father found something?"

"I don't know, baby." Vu Khac Dang shook his head, his voice now carrying a tiredness that she rarely saw in him. "All I know is that for the past eight years, I've been asking myself that question, and I've never found a reassuring answer. Maybe it's best not to dwell on the past. People die, people are mourned, and life must go on — that's the only way to survive on a ship like this."

He stood up, gathered his tools, and signaled that they should get back to work before the rest of the team wondered why it was taking them so long for a simple task. But Khe Lam noticed, in the look in his eyes before he turned away, something that didn't quite match the "don't dig too deep" advice he'd just given—as if he himself, after eight years, still hadn't actually followed his own advice.

The rest of the afternoon passed in silence between the two of them, each lost in their own thoughts. When the shift ended and the team gathered at the meeting point to return to the residential area, Vu Khac Dang announced the news, his voice returning to the usual seriousness of a team leader.

"The Central Technical Committee has approved the routine maintenance schedule for the Prime Core, moved earlier than expected due to the report on the old cable section the previous day." He said, his eyes scanning each member of the team. "Next week, we will be the team chosen to go into that area. Those who do not have a level two certificate or higher will stay and support outside."

Khe Lam's heart skipped a strong beat. She had a level two certificate — the minimum requirement to enter the area near the Primordial Core, where her father worked in the last weeks of his life, where perhaps, if Bui Dac Sinh was right, there were many "early things" lying dormant under the shell waiting for someone to touch them.

"Who is on the list of participants?" Ha Dinh Khiem asked, his voice both excited and nervous — he had just passed his second level certification last year, this would be his first time entering an area once considered almost legendary in the Roots technical world.

"Me, Khe Lam, and you." Vu Khac Dang replied, glancing at Trinh Yen My and Phung Bao Nhan with a fleeting look of guilt. "The remaining two people are outside providing logistical support, monitoring parameters via the auxiliary control station. It's not because the two of them are incompetent — the regulations limit a maximum of three people deep inside the Primeval Core at a time, to reduce the risk if something goes wrong."

"It's okay, I'm used to being outside." Phung Bao Nhan smiled, although his eyes showed a hint of regret that he couldn't hide. "Just don't let Ms. Khe Lam take all the interesting work."

Trinh Yen My didn't laugh along, just looked at Khe Lam with slightly questioning eyes, as if realizing that her friend's reaction when hearing the news - her breathing slightly hitched, her fingers tightening the handle of the tool bag more than necessary - was not quite the same as the usual excitement of a young engineer assigned to a prestigious task. But she didn't ask anything more, just nodded, perhaps thinking that her friend was simply stressed over an important task.

On the way home, Khe Lam walked away from the group for a while to give his thoughts space. Vu Khac Dang's story, combined with the upcoming opportunity, created a feeling of both trepidation and excitement that she had never experienced before — as if all the disparate pieces of the past four sleepless nights were starting to find a way to come together, even though she still didn't know what the final picture would be.