Chapter 6 — The Ship That Never Looks Back

Level Two Certification

Khe Lam's secondary certification card was worn out at the corners, the plastic coating on the outside was scratched from years of stuffing it with keys and small tools in the pocket of her work shirt, but she still wiped it carefully with the hem of her shirt before attaching it to the name tag on her chest, early in the morning of the Primordial Core maintenance shift.

"Don't worry too much." Grandma handed her the lunch box, her eyes observing more closely than usual. "I've been doing this job for eight years, it's not the first time I've entered a difficult technical area."

"I'm not worried." Khe Lam replied, even though she herself wasn't sure if that was true or not. Since last night, she has been imagining all kinds of images of the place she is going to - the place her father worked in the last weeks of his life, the place Bui Dac Sinh mentioned with a meaningful voice, the place where the answers to all the questions that have been piling up in her head for nearly a week may be hidden.

The meeting point for the Tuan Re Group this morning was not the familiar tool station, but a separate control gate deep in the technical core of the Root Layer, a place Khe Lam had never set foot on even though he had worked in the surrounding area for many years. A metal sign mounted above the door, the engravings faded with time but still read: "Central Technical Area — Only Personnel With Level Two Certification Or Higher."

Vu Khac Dang was waiting, along with a woman wearing a technical uniform darker blue than the standard color of the Root Floor - a safety supervisor from the Central Technical Department, sent down to monitor the entire maintenance process this time because of the sensitive nature of the area.

"Before entering, everyone listen carefully to the safety instructions." The woman spoke, her voice monotonous as if she had repeated this song hundreds of times. "The Primordial Core is the oldest navigation and calculation system on the ship, operating continuously since the launch date, and has never been completely replaced due to the risk of disruption to positioning data. All operations in the core area must follow strict procedures: do not arbitrarily access any control panel outside the scope of assigned work, do not copy or extract data in any form unless there is a direct order, and any unusual findings must be immediately reported to the supervisor. members, do not arbitrarily intervene."

Khe Lam nodded along with the others, but internally, the phrase "no copying or extracting data in any form" caught her attention more than it should have — as if that regulation was warning her of something she didn't know she was about to do yet.

The control door opens with a complex series of operations: scanning the identification card, entering a personal code, and finally scanning the biometric palm — three layers of security that Khe Lam has never seen applied in any other area of the Root Floor. As the heavy door slid aside, a stream of colder, drier air rushed out, carrying with it the faint odor of ozone characteristic of centuries-old electronics running continuously.

The hallway leading to the Primeval Core was completely different from any place Khe Lam had ever gone through in the Root Layer. There were no interlaced exposed pipes, no familiar noisy machinery, only smooth walls covered with dark metal, soft and even light from strips of lights hidden in the cracks of the wall, and an almost sacred silence, causing the group's steps to automatically slow down and become lighter, as if they were entering a place of worship, not a technical area.

"It feels strange." Ha Dinh Khiem whispered, his eyes wide open and he looked around, his backpack clutched tightly to his chest like a child being taken into a strange place for the first time.

"Keep order." Vu Khac Dang signaled silence, but his voice was lower than usual, as if he himself could feel the special atmosphere of this place even though he had been here many times in his thirty-one years of working.

The supervisor led the way, the decisive steps of someone familiar with the route. They passed through three more control doors, each requiring its own authentication, before reaching a large circular chamber in the center — where the Primeval Core actually lay.

It was a giant cylinder, nearly touching the ceiling, its surface covered with old control panels interspersed with newer upgrade modules added over many generations, forming a patchwork of old and new technology — like an old body that had undergone countless surgeries to maintain life. Small strips of light flash slowly on the cylinder's surface, synchronized with the steady breathing of the cooling system running underground below the floor.

Khe Lam stood still for a moment, looking up at the entire height of the cylinder, the feeling of smallness suddenly invaded her. This was the brain, or perhaps more accurately the heart, of the entire Origin — the place where all calculations about direction, speed, remaining distance to the destination were kept, all the positioning data that had guided the ship for the past two hundred and forty-seven years in the endless darkness. And this is where her father stood, eight years ago, in the last weeks of his life.

"We will work in three small groups." The supervisor assigned the assignment, his voice returning to a professional tone. "Group one checks the cooling system on the lower floor. Group two checks the most recent generation upgrade modules. Group three — Khe Lam, you are in charge of the historical data storage area on the top floor, where the legacy cable section that your team reported last week is located, to consider whether further isolation is needed or not."

Khe Lam's heart beat faster when she heard she was assigned to that exact area - it wasn't her request, simply a random assignment based on the team's previous report, but it made her feel like it was a meaningful coincidence, even though she knew she shouldn't believe in such superstitions.

"Do you work alone?" She asked, trying to keep her voice normal.

"I will accompany the first group, then I will rotate to support the second group because they lack manpower." Vu Khac Dang replied. "The historical data storage area is relatively safe, there is no high voltage risk like other areas, just be careful of long-term accumulation of metal dust that can cause respiratory allergies."

They climbed a narrow spiral staircase to the top floor of the cylinder, where the air grew drier and colder, and the breathing of the cooling system became clearer through the thin metal floor. The top floor is a narrow arc corridor, on both sides are shelves containing old data storage drives, some are still working with signal lights flashing steadily, others are completely turned off, covered with a thin layer of dust as if no one had touched them in decades.

"This is where all the operational data from the first years of the journey is kept." Vu Khac Dang explained, pointing along the row of racks. "Most have been backed up and migrated to the modern Memory of Origin system, but the original remains here for historical preservation reasons — and because some ancient navigation data still needs to be periodically reconciled to ensure the current system doesn't deviate from standard over time."

"How to compare?"

"Every ten years, a specialized team comes down here to sample the raw data, compare it with the current data on the main system, ensuring there are no accumulated discrepancies due to hardware errors." He replied, his voice still purely professional, without the slightest doubt about what he was saying. "The last comparison was eight years ago, the same time my father worked here."

That sentence made Khe Lam pause for half a second, but she was able to hide it by bending down to check a nearby storage drive, pretending to read the index on the small screen mounted on it. Eight years ago. Right at the time her father worked here, at the right time he was "different" according to Vu Khac Dang, at the right time he asked the question about whether telling the truth could cause panic or not.

"Please continue down to support group two." She said, trying to keep her voice as calm as possible. "I can check this area alone, it's not complicated."

Vu Khac Dang looked at her for a moment, perhaps considering, then nodded. "Okay. If there's anything unusual, call the radio immediately. Don't do it yourself. I'm downstairs, I'll be up in ten minutes."

He left, the sound of his footsteps fading away along the spiral staircase. Khe Lam stood alone in the middle of an arc corridor, surrounded by rows of old storage drives, the signal lights blinking slowly like dim eyes watching her in the pale darkness. She took a deep breath, feeling the smell of ozone and metal dust fill her lungs, then began her assigned work — checking each storage drive, recording the index, looking for signs of damage to the reported legacy cable.

But her eyes, even though she tried to focus on her work, kept glancing toward the end of the hallway, where a smaller, less noticeable door led into a subcompartment whose technical map she was given before entering only briefly stated: "Original positioning data storage — limited access." She hasn't been assigned any duties there yet. But a part of her, the part that had led her to Bottom Deck for the past eight years, the part that had made her drop her tools twice in one morning, was whispering that the answer she sought might lie right behind that door.