Chapter 58 — The Ship That Never Looks Back

Etching on Valve

"Mr. Sinh, do you remember what special habits my mother used to have when making repairs?" Khe Lam asked, when Bui Dac Sinh came to find her in the technical area, curious about what she was looking at.

He pondered for a moment, trying to recall a memory that had faded over the years. "I remember, vaguely, that she always put a small mark on anything she finished repairing herself, an informal custom that many good engineers have, to mark her work, so that others will know who guaranteed its quality." He closed his eyes, trying to remember more clearly. "A small swirl, like a miniature tornado, with a dot in the middle. I saw it on some of the equipment she repaired in the workshop back in the day, before the Night of the Broken Roots."

Khe Lam felt an electric current running down his spine. She had a similar habit, one whose origin she hadn't thought about until now — a small swirl she kept carving into important welds, a habit she thought she'd developed on her own during her years as an apprentice, unaware that perhaps it had been passed down in some way she couldn't explain, perhaps through the hands of her father, who had probably learned it from her mother before she disappeared.

"I also carved a mark like that." She said, her voice shaking. "I don't know why, I just always did it, from the first days of my apprenticeship."

Pham Ngoc Suong, who was standing nearby watching, moved closer, her eyes now carrying a sharp attention. “If you find that mark somewhere in this Silence, carved much more recently than nineteen years ago, it will say a lot, child.”

The three of them began a meticulous search throughout the technical area, Khe Lam leading the way with an eye trained to recognize the smallest details on metal surfaces, shining a flashlight on every weld, every damper, every piece of pipe. Much of what they found bore the marks of many different hands over the years, distinct repair styles overlapping each other like the stratigraphic layers of a long collective life.

Then, in a hidden corner of the system, near a small pressure regulator leading into the community's hydroponic growing area, Khe Lam stopped suddenly, her heart stopping for a moment.

"Here it is." She whispered, her hand trembling as she touched the metal surface, where a small swirl with a dot in the middle was clearly etched, exactly like her own habit.

Bui Dac Sinh bent down, carefully observed the mark under the flashlight, nodded slowly, and confirmed. "That's it, little girl. That's exactly it."

Pham Ngoc Suong stepped forward and examined the damper more carefully, comparing it with what she remembered about the maintenance history of this area. "Van..." She said, her voice slow, trying to remember. "I remember it having problems, not too long ago. I don't remember exactly who fixed it, because many of the people who come to do mobile repairs in our community are not always permanent people."

"How long ago, ma'am?" Khe Lam asked, her voice choked with a mixture of hope and fear.

Pham Ngoc Suong closed his eyes and calculated in his head. "No more than four years, I'm pretty sure about that, because that was the year we had to repair the entire hydroponic system after a serious breakdown. A mobile worker stopped by to help us during that time, staying for a few weeks before continuing to move to another area."

Khe Lam felt like her knees were about to buckle under the weight of that information. No more than four years. If it was her mother's mark, it meant that she had not only survived the Night of the Broken Roots, not only survived the many years of exile that followed, but had continued to live, continued to work, continued to move between hidden communities throughout the ship, just four years ago—far more recent than anything she had dared to hope for.

"That traveling worker, do you remember anything about her?" asked Bach Van, who had just arrived after hearing about the new discovery.

"A quiet, middle-aged woman who works surprisingly quickly and accurately." Pham Ngoc Suong replied, trying to recall every detail in his memory. "She never talked much about herself, just focused on her work. I remember she had a small scar on her left wrist, perhaps from some old accident, and a distant look whenever anyone mentioned children, as if remembering something she had lost a long time ago."

Tears flowed uncontrollably down Khe Lam's face. "That's her." She said, her voice breaking into sobs. "I know for sure it's her."

Bach Van hugged her, letting her cry in his arms in the small technical area, surrounded by pipes and dampers bearing the mark of a woman that Khe Lam had never met but now felt closer than ever, through the common language of the hands of mechanics passed down through a generation.

"She's alive, Bach Van." Khe Lam said, raising her head from his shoulder, her eyes shining through tears. "Four years ago, she was still alive, still working, still moving between communities like this. If she was alive then, there's no reason to believe she's not alive now."

"We can't be completely sure." Bach Van said, although his voice was equally filled with hope. "But this is the strongest evidence we've ever had, Khe Lam. Stronger than anything we've ever found."

Pham Ngoc Suong stood looking at that scene with a sad smile, mixed with joy for the two young people and a deep regret for all the lost years that cannot be regained. "I wish I could give you more than that." She said. "But little girl, keep this as a guiding light, not as an end point. The road to finding your mother is still long ahead."

Khe Lam nodded, wiped her tears, trying to regain the necessary alertness to think clearly rather than just letting her emotions wash away. “That itinerant worker, who stayed here four years ago, do you know where she went after leaving the Silent Tunnel?”

"I don't know for sure." Pham Ngoc Suong replied, trying to recall more memories. "But I remember, before she left, she asked me about a route leading to areas near the rotation axis, where gravity was much lighter, near the old technical area of the Primeval Core. I didn't ask why then, because it's not our habit to ask too much about where others are going."

"Primordial Core." Khe Lam repeated, a new tremor in her voice. "That's where you first discovered the Lam Chu coordinates. If your mother is moving towards there, she's probably searching for answers herself, just like you did, in her own way."

Bui Dac Sinh nodded slowly, contemplating that possibility. "That makes a strange sense, child. If she was the first to discover the anomaly in the Prime Core, nineteen years later, perhaps she would still be interested in following it, learning more, despite being pushed out of the official system long ago."

"So perhaps our next clue lies in that very area." Bach Van said, a new plan began to form in his mind. "Not the Silent Tunnel, not another hidden community, but the place where it all began."

Pham Ngoc Suong listened to their exchange, then spoke, her voice carrying a necessary caution. "Whatever direction you choose to take next, remember that the area near the Prime Core is under much stricter surveillance than the places you are used to. It is one of the most closely guarded areas on the entire ship, not as easy to traverse as the abandoned corridors of the Bottom Deck."

"I know." Khe Lam said, a new determination mixed with practical anxiety. "But you're also one of the few people with a legitimate reason, and valid credentials, to access that area for work. Perhaps for the first time, your professional advantage actually helps this journey, instead of just being a cover to hide it."

She looked down at the small swirl mark on the valve, reaching out to touch it one last time before they left the technical area, as if she were touching her mother's own hand across an indelible four-year gap in time. She wondered, in the moment she stood here repairing this valve, whether her mother had ever thought of her, had ever wondered what her daughter looked like now, what job she was doing, whether she was happy or not - questions that now, finally, perhaps soon will be answered directly, no longer through the words of a third person.

"We will find her." She whispered, not sure if she was talking to Bach Van, to Pham Ngoc Suong, or just to herself. "No matter how long it takes, no matter where the road leads."