Chapter 82 — The Ship That Never Looks Back

Lens Holder

The small room where Chieu Bach Tuyen lived was located deep in a row of abandoned maintenance bays near the edge of the Root Layer, far from both dense population and major technical areas, as if its very location was part of sixty years of neglect. Khe Lam knocked on the door three times in the exact rhythm an old neighbor had shown her, waiting in the dark hallway, her heart beating fast because she didn't know whether the man on the old personnel list was really still alive or had passed away long ago, leaving the room to someone else.

The door opened a narrow slit, revealing the face of a thin old man, his white hair cut short and neat according to the disciplined habit of someone who had worked in a precise technical environment. His eyes, although dimmed with age, still held an unmistakable sharpness as he scanned Khe Lam and then Bach Van standing behind her.

"I don't accept guests." He spoke, his voice hoarse but clear, his hand already placed on the edge of the door as if preparing to close it at any moment.

"I'm sorry for bothering you." Khe Lam spoke quickly, trying to keep her voice calm. "My name is Do Khe Lam. I'm looking for someone who worked at the Telemetry Station, before the sixty-second year of travel."

The door stopped midway, neither closing completely nor opening further, and in that moment of silence, Khe Lam realized she had found the right person.

"That name," Chieu Bach Tuyen said, his voice now taking on a different tone, much more cautious, "no one has mentioned it for decades. Where did you find it?"

"In an old personnel list, almost completely erased from official records." Khe Lam replied. "I didn't come here to cause you trouble, sir. I came because I need to know the truth about a machine you once cared for, and I believe you are the only one left who can help me."

He looked at her for a long moment, then looked over her shoulder, assessing Bach Van with a sharp gaze that did not diminish with age. "You're from the Dome Floor." He said, not a question. "Navigator cadet outfit, although you tried to dress more discreetly so as not to stand out here."

"I'm Kieu Bach Van." He said, not hiding it. "Senior year navigator. But I'm not here as that."

Finally, Chieu Bach Tuyen opened the door wide, signaling the two to enter. The small room inside was so neat that it was almost austere, with only a single bed, a small table covered with pieces of old electronic components he still repaired himself to earn extra rations, and on the wall, an old, yellowed photo, capturing the image of a giant disc-shaped structure mounted on a mechanical arm extending out of the ship's hull, pointing straight into starry space.

"Telemetry Station." Bach Van whispered, immediately recognizing the structure in the photo even though he had never seen it in any official teaching materials.

"It used to be my pride." Chieu Bach Tuyen said, sitting down on the only chair in the room, motioning for the two guests to sit on the edge of the bed. "I joined the remote sensing engineering team at twenty-two, when the Telemetry Radio was still considered one of the most important systems this ship carried — our eyes peering out into space, farther than any conventional navigation sensor could reach."

"What is it used for?" Khe Lam asked, even though she had already guessed most of the answer.

"Observe star systems ahead of the journey, collecting data on atmospheric composition, surface temperature, and the possibility of liquid water of any planets that come into view." He spoke, his voice gradually becoming more vivid as he talked about his old job, as if the memory was still fresh after sixty years. "We don't just monitor Starlight. We monitor everything within reach, because at that time, no one was absolutely sure what the final destination would be, or whether adjustments would need to be made if new data appeared."

Bach Van and Khe Lam exchanged a quick look, both understanding the meaning of that statement — an indirect acknowledgment that, at least in the early years, Origin's destination was never a constant as they were taught.

"Do you monitor Lam Chu?" Khe Lam asked directly, no longer patient to beat around the bush anymore.

Chieu Bach Tuyen was silent for a long time, his blurred eyes looking far away at the old photo on the wall, as if wondering if he should answer the question that had been buried for a lifetime.

"Have." He spoke finally, just one word, but carrying the weight of sixty years of silence. "We monitored both, for many years. Then one day, an order came from above - to stop all monitoring related to Lam Chu, to focus all remaining resources on Tinh Vong. No explanation was given. Just an order, like any other order we have received."

"What year was that?" Bach Van asked, even though he had already guessed the answer.

"Five journey forty-two." He replied. "One year after the milestone, I later understood, was the year the decision to change direction was made, even though at that time my colleagues and I had no idea what was happening at the highest levels of leadership."

Khe Lam felt a chill run down her spine, not because this information was completely new — they had known about the forty-first journey year from the records in the Founding Archives — but because for the first time, she heard it confirmed by someone who had personally experienced it, not through dry paperwork but through the vivid memory of a person.

"Then twenty years later, in the year sixty-two, the observatory was officially declared irreparably damaged." Chieu Bach Tuyen continued, his voice now carrying a bitterness that had subsided into fatigue over the decades. "The truth is that it only needs one major, expensive but completely feasible repair. I submitted the repair proposal three times, and three times it was rejected on the grounds of 'prioritizing resources for more critical systems.' The third time, I was transferred to a plumbing maintenance position on the Root Level, and no one mentioned the Telemetry Station anymore, as if it never existed."

"Do you think they let it fail on purpose?" Khe Lam asked, although the question was almost redundant at this time.

"I think," Chieu Bach Tuyen said slowly, "that a machine that can see too far, too clearly, is sometimes the most dangerous thing for those who want to control what others are allowed to know. It would be much easier to have a single source of data about Tinh Vong — a data source they can sift through, interpret, present however they want — than to have an independent machine continue to collect the raw truth, unedited by anyone."

Bach Van took a deep breath, feeling the full meaning of what they had just heard settle in his heart. "So it's still there." he said. "Not dismantled, just abandoned."

"Last I knew, yes." Chieu Bach Tuyen said. "No one wants to go to the trouble of dismantling an external hull structure, especially when that itself requires resources and can pose a structural risk. It's much easier to just leave it there, gathering dust, gradually forgotten."

Khe Lam leaned forward, her eyes filled with an urgency she was no longer trying to hide. "Can you help us restart it, sir? Not for revenge, not to overthrow anyone. Just to know the truth, with our own eyes, not through anyone else."

Chieu Bach Tuyen looked at her for a long time, then looked at Bach Van, pondering something heavy in his mind. "I've been waiting for this question longer than you thought, little one." He spoke at last, a thin smile, tired but genuine, crossing his wrinkled face. "Sixty years is a long time to wonder if you're the last person to remember it exists. But I must warn you two—that system hasn't been energized in six decades. It may be beyond repair. We may be risking our lives for a long-dead machine."

"I'm willing to accept that risk." Khe Lam said, without any hesitation.

"Well then," he said, standing up, walking over to an old chest under the bed, pulling out a worn but still readable technical drawing, "we'll need to plan more carefully than either of us have ever done before. The entrance to the Telemetry Station passes through an area that's mostly unvisited, but because of that, any unusual activity there will be much more noticeable than in crowded areas."

Three people sat around a small table, bowing their heads over old drawings under the weak light, three different generations of the same ship, sharing the same desire that had smoldered through decades of silence — not a desire for power, not a desire for revenge, simply a desire to look straight at the truth, with their own eyes, no matter what shape that truth took when it finally appeared.