Limit of Vision by Linda Nagata Read Free Book Online

Kathang to translate. “ May we talk? ” she whispered. A flurry of stiff, metallic Vietnamese poured from the little box.
    Phuong raised a hand to her face to hide a laugh. “I speak English,” she said, a giggle in her voice. “Also some French.”
    Ela blushed. It hadn’t occurred to her to ask.

    At the center of the roofless platform a pile of plastic crates defined a little room where four young children clustered around a flowscreen powered by a car battery. An animated turtle demonstrated how to draw an X in the romanized Vietnamese alphabet, while the kids stared wide-eyed at Ela as she sat with Phuong on a chiêu , a plastic reed mat.
    “I’m doing an article for a global magazine,” Ela explained as she produced two Cokes from her backpack and a bag of colorful rice crackers. At a nod from Phuong, she gave the crackers to the kids. “It’s supposed to be about how the fishing was spoiled here.”
    Phuong nodded. “There are not many fish.”
    “I want to tell about why people live here anyway.”
    “There is no other place to go.” The kids whispered over the shapes and colors of the rice crackers. “My husband and I, we come from a village close to Cambodia. We both went to satellite school in the afternoons and earned high marks, but there was no work there. So we decided to go to Can Tho. It’s said there are jobs sometimes at the factories. But at Can Tho the authorities laughed at us. ‘No work,’ they said.” Phuong’s mind seemed far away. “Have you been to Can Tho?”
    Ela nodded, knowing herself to be only a step away from this woman’s plight.
    Phuong sighed. “In Can Tho houses are built over the water of the canals. Laborers sleep between the trees that line the levees. Trucks run down the levee roads, and they don’t slow for straying children. All the other land belongs to the farmers, and of course they must protect it, I understand that. But we walked for three days and nights without rest before we found a bit of roadside where no one tried to stop us from lying down. So we came here. This is new land, laid down this season by the river. No one owns it.”
    Ela looked out across the mudflat. Here and there sprigs of riotous green sprouted against the wet, gray soil: mangrove seedlings and salt-tolerant sedges. New land . Yet it would all be drowned when the monsoon returned. Phuong would know that.
    Ela sighed, and thanked her. She asked if she might stay the night on the platform, and Phuong agreed. Then Ela sat for a time in silence, watching the hundreds of little boats out on the water, knowing she could not produce the article the Coastal Society wanted.
    She finished the last warm sip of her Coca-Cola, then she put in a link request to her agency. Joanie’s image immediately filled the screen. “Ela! I expected to hear from you sooner than this. What did Mr. Nguyen say?”
    Ela shook her head. “I can’t do the article, Joanie. At least, not the way the Coastal Society wants it done.”
    Joanie looked puzzled. Then she looked angry. “Ela, what are you thinking? You agreed to a contract. You can’t afford not to do it.”
    “Just get me something else, okay? Trash work if you have to, but I won’t do an article aimed at making these people into bad guys. It’s not their fault the ocean has been stripped.”
    Joanie’s face went cold and stony. “Did Mr. Nguyen put you up to this?”
    Ela did not want to admit he had frightened her. “He suggested I take a deeper look at things—and he was right.”
    Joanie leaned forward, her angry face looming in Ela’s farsights. “Then Mr. Nguyen had better put his money where his mouth is. I will call him. And I will see that he foots the bill.”

chapter
    5
    Detective Kanaha decided that both Virgil and Panwar qualified as biohazards. So he arrested them, confiscated their farsights, then left them where they were, posting two officers outside the suite door. He did agree to remove Gabrielle’s remains—encased