Chapter Four: The People in Storage

"First tell me why dead people are calling on a line sealed eighteen years ago." Half an hour later, an old miner climbed from the lift shaft. Batu had shoulders as broad as an airlock, four spare filters, and a short-handled pick. When he saw A-Ying, all color left his face. "You've seen her?" Lin asked. "My wife drew her." He produced a square of oilcloth. A girl had been sketched in red chalk beside the words: If I forget Ulan, ask this child. Batu remembered being married and remembered his wife dying in a mine accident twelve years ago. Yet no Ulan appeared on the casualty list. His home held no photograph of her, only the cloth and an unexplained hollow on one side of his bed.