In days long gone by, we used to live in Kinh He on Lieu Vuong Tinh. It was a client state of the Dai Viet Empire, on the edge of the Numbered Planets—its name had come from the willow, because high officials posted there would part from their friends and share a willow branch to remember each other.
But we no longer live there.
Because one day the sun wobbled and quivered over Lieu Vuong Tinh, and grew fainter, and a dragon flew out from its core—large and terrible and merciless, the pearl under its chin shining with all the colours of the rainbow, its antlers carrying fragments of iron and diamond that glistened like the tips of weapons. And, because dragons are water—because they are the spirits of the rain and the monsoon, and the underwater kingdoms—because of that, the sun died.
The dragon had always been there, of course. It was nothing more than an egg at first—a little thing thinner than the chips they use for your ancestors’ mem-implants—then the egg hatched and grew into a carp. Carps don’t always become dragons, of course, but this one did.
No, I don’t know why. Who knows why the Jade Emperor sends down decrees, or why rain happens even when people haven’t kept up prayers and propitiations at the shrines? Sometimes, the world is just the way it is.
But when the dragon flew out, its mane unfolded, all the way down to Lieu Vuong Tinh, and into the ships that were fleeing the dying sun—and into the heart of us all, it marked us all, a little nick on the surface like the indent of a carver on jade. That’s why, even now, when you meet another Khiet from Lieu Vuong Tinh, you’ll instantly know—because it’s in their hearts and their bellies and their eyes, the mark of the dragon that will never go away.
“The whole dragon thing is ridiculous,” Tuyet Thanh says. “I mean, what did they do, have a little chat and agree to serve us all this load of rubbish?”
They’re in the communal network—each of them in their own compartment, except Lan has made the station’s Mind merge both spaces in the network, so that Tuyet appears to be sitting at the end of her table, and that the bots-battle they’re having in the free-for-all area of space outside the station appears in the middle, as a semi-transparent overlay.
“I don’t know,” Lan says, cautiously. Tuyet Thanh is older than her by three years, and chafing at the restrictions imposed by older relatives. Lan wants, so badly, to be like her friend, cool and secure and edgy, instead of never knowing what to think on things—because Mother is so often right, isn’t she?
“Fine.” Tuyet Thanh exhales. She rolls up her eyes, and her bots flow out into a pincer movement—slightly too wide of their reserved area, almost clipping a passing ship. “Deal with this.”
Lan considers, for a heartbeat that feels stretched to an eternity—then she sends her bots to drill a hole in the centre of the pincer, where Tuyet Thanh’s formation is weaker. “No, but I mean the story is right about one thing, isn’t it? The grown-ups—it’s like…” Adequate words won’t come. She makes a gesture with her hand, frustrated—cancels it from the interface, so that the bots don’t interpret is as a command. “They’re marked. They… Have you never noticed they can tell who was on those ships? It’s like they have a sensor or something.”
“It’s just clothes. And language, and the way of behaving.” Tuyet Thanh snorts. “A Khiet can tell another Khiet. That’s all.”
“I guess…” Lan says, feeling small, and young, and utterly inadequate.
“Look. There was no dragon. Just…”
This is what Second Aunt told me, right? She’d know, because she was twenty-five when they left, and she remembers them well—the years before the war, before the sun.
Anyway. There was the Ro Federation—yes, you’re going to tell me they’re at peace with the Empire now, that they’re all fine people. Whatever. Have you never noticed the adults won’t ever talk about them?
In those days, the Ro were our neighbours, and they wanted us gone. They were afraid of us because we were stronger; in the end, they thought that Lieu Vuong Tinh made quite a nice piece of space to have. And one of their—scientists, alchemists—I can’t remember exactly what they have out there—made a weapon that they said was going to change the way of things. Just point it at the sun, they said, and you’ll see.
And they saw, all right. It… it did something, to the atoms that made up the sun—accreted them faster than they should have, so that the star’s glow dimmed, and Lieu Vuong Tinh became… bombarded. Scoured clean and no longer fit for humans. So that we had to leave, because we no longer had a home.
And the Ro? Yes, today you’ll find them on the station, trading us their makings and their technology, as cosy as anything. But they’re out there too, in the ruins of Lieu Vuong Tinh, the red-hot slag mess that the Empire abandoned to them when they signed the peace treaty. No humans can go there, but they have bots taking it apart, mining it for precious metals and ice—so that, in the end, they still won everything they hoped for.
Don’t look at me like that. It’s truth, all right? Not the dragon crap—the thing that truly happened.
Yes. I hate them too.
“Mother?”
Mother looks up from the dumplings she’s assembling. She only gets marginal help from the bots, preferring to do everything by hand. Once, she says, everyone would gather in the kitchen, helping others to put together the anniversary feast, but now, in the cramped station compartments, there isn’t enough space for that. The aunts and uncles each make their own fraction of dishes, and the meal is shared through the communal network, stitching together the various compartments until it seems like a vast room once more. “Yes, child?”
Lan weighs the words on her tongue, not finding any easy way to bring them up. “Why did you never tell us about the Ro?”
Mother’s face doesn’t move. It freezes in an intricate and complex expression—it would be a key to the past, if only Lan could interpret it. “Because it’s complicated.”
“More complicated than the dragon?”
Mother’s eyes flick back to the table; the bots take over from her, leaving both her hands free. Her voice is calm, too calm. “Lan—I know you’re angry.”
“I’m not!” Lan says, and then realises she is. Not even at Mother but at herself, for being stupid enough to believe bedtime stories, for not being more like Tuyet Thanh—smarter and harder and less willing to take things on faith. “Did they do it?”
“The Ro?” Mother sighs. “It was one of their scientists who destroyed the sun, yes. But—”
There are no “buts.” “Then it’s their fault.”
“Don’t be so quick to fling blame.” Mother says.
“Why shouldn’t I?” Because of them—because of the sun—they’re here, stuck on the station; in cramped compartments where it seems there’s barely enough room to breathe. “Are you making excuses for them?”
Mother is silent for a long, long while. Lan is sure that Tuyet Thanh would have left a long time ago; turned her face to the wall and ramped up the communal network to maximum, trying to fill her ears with sounds she can control. But Mother always has the right words, always does the right thing. Lan clings to this, as desperately as a man adrift in space clings to faint, fading broadcasts. At last she says, “No. I’m not. Merely saying they had their own motives.”
“Because they were afraid of us.”
“Yes,” Mother said. “And people seldom are afraid for no reason, are they?”
Of course they are, all the time. Like they’re afraid of Lan in class because she’s smarter than them—is there any justification for that? Lan knows prevaricating and false excuses when she hears them—has been she so blind all along? How can she have been so stupid? “Did we do anything to them?” she asks. “Did we?”