Pots and Gods

The best scientists of the Great Chinese Empire worked on this ship. And the goal of the colony of people living on board is to reach the Northern edge of the galaxy and found a new settlement there. But a seventeen-year-old boy thinks the goal is quite different—though how…?

I found the hangar door by touch and pushed it open a little. It was quiet here, and only senseless drafts were wandering about. And absolute darkness. I didn’t know how to turn on the light. I stood for a moment at the threshold, then quickly stepped to the side and quietly crouched by the wall, feeling the cool metal of the hull on my back. I’ll get used to the dark, I thought, and then it’ll be visible. The main thing is that no one can see me.

For some reason, I was sure my brother was in the hangar. He said he had one serious matter, but refused to take me with him. But I saw him go to the hangar in the morning with scissors. And now he had come to see what he was doing here. But if my brother hadn’t told me about what he was doing in the hangar, most likely he didn’t want me to see.

As far as I can remember, there was no person more authoritative to me than my brother. Yan was nine years older than me and seemed to know everything in the world. When I needed advice, I always turned to Yan. Of course, I respected my mother, my father, and my grandfather too—but my brother is my brother. When I learned that he was dead, for a moment it seemed to me that now the ship would have to perish too… But that happened many years later, so I will tell it in order…