[Dominion of the Fallen #some short stories 01] • Of Wars, and Memories, and Starlight by Bodard Aliette de

Author:Bodard, Aliette de [Bodard, Aliette de]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy, starship, Dark Fantasy, Short Stories, Science Fiction, aztec, collection, Vietnamese, Empire, Space Opera, Dragons & Mythical Creatures, Fiction, Anthologies, Adult, Collections & Anthologies, urban fantasy
ISBN: 9781596069534
Google: rV71DwAAQBAJ
Amazon: 159606952X
Goodreads: 52003626
Publisher: Subterranean Press
Published: 2019-09-30T00:00:00+00:00

All rewirings have cracks; points of weaknesses, where the protective fabric has been deliberately torn; where the emotions keep seeping in. If she can find one memory that feels different from the other ones---where the glass has fissured, where the colours have bled---then she'll have all she needs to unlock the Mekong Delta again.

What she finds, rifling through Bao Lan's brain, is not that, but something else entirely.

She finds the other memories: the ones associated with Fire Watch, with her role as the Dust Queen, the official entertainer for New Year's Eve: years and years of dust cloud dances all packed together like grains of sand. The Committee that rules over Fire Watch wants something to allay the frustration of Fire Watchers, forced to watch over the terraformation of a planet they're not allowed to set foot on for fear of a cross-planet contamination that would disturb the entire, delicate process mapped out a generation ago. They have decided to hold a celebration on the planet; something that will remind people that one day, when the cyanobacteria and the bots have done their jobs, humans will breathe the air of Mars.

The earlier memories are of technology in its infancy: of frustrated scientists in labs; of bots that die on the surface of Mars, choked up on dust; of implants that short circuit, almost taking out a portion of Bao Lan's brain with them. The lead scientist, Zhu Chiling, comes to hospital to apologise, and almost gives up; but Bao Lan shakes her head, and tells her she's willing to try again---and they do, and she feels the pride and the wonder when it finally works---when Bao Lan sits in the chair of the broadcasting room and makes bots crawl on the surface of Mars for the very first time.

She's with Bao Lan when they inaugurate the seventh cyanobacteria greenhouse; when everyone on Fire Watch gathers to see Bao Lan's bots weave images of villages and houses, with tiny figures running in the street, cutting the strings of kites for good fortune. And she sees every performance after that, establishing a ritual that becomes an anchor for the inhabitants of Fire Watch, a promise renewed year after year.

There's one in particular that Quynh Ha remembers; a New Year's Eve that has no special meaning---another worship of the ancestors, another meal with the family. But, nevertheless, she remembers crowding with the cousins around the huge screen in Mother's compartment; sitting, rapt, as bots dance below, retelling the story of Cuoi and his banyan tree. In the clouds of dust Cuoi meets the tiger; plants the seed of the magical banyan; and is finally whisked to the moon, clinging to the tree's roots as it rises.

And she understood, then; that they're all like Cuoi; that they rose into the Heavens and made their home there; that the banyan's roots, drawn in the dust by the bots, now cover the surface of Mars. That all of this is Bao Lan's message, Bao Lan's hope:

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