Ryllen’s heart chilled. Now he understood.
“Patriots. Soldiers. We’re an army.”
“You’re damn well right, we are,” Kai said. “Without Green Sun, we have no defense against these bastards. So, we do whatever’s necessary to keep them out. In the old days, whenever there was regional trouble, the Chancellor Sanctums would call up the Ark Carriers. They’d send battalions of peacekeepers to put down our nastiest threats. Those monsters are gone now. The Lagos needs new monsters. People willing to go anywhere, obey any order, to protect our islands. You’re part of it now, RJ.”
Pride, dread, and a swell of enthusiasm consumed Ryllen.
“This place has never treated me the best, but it’s the only home I know. Thank you for telling me the truth, Kai. I’m committed.”
“Good. Tomorrow you’ll start your training. In a few days, classified briefings. After that, you’ll be in the fray.”
“The fray? How far do we take it?”
In another context, Kai’s twisted smile might have terrified him.
“The Chancellors used to have a saying. ‘Victory is morality.’ Green Sun’s only goal is victory for The Lagos. There’s nothing we won’t do.”
Kai didn’t have to say more. Ryllen understood the subtext.
Perhaps if he had a family who cared or a comfortable life in the Haansu District free of bigotry and disdain, he might have had qualms. His stomach might have turned at the idea of taking on the inevitable dirty business of soldiering.
Yet for the first time since he arrived on Hokkaido, Ryllen Jee felt important, needed, and loved. For the first time, he was trusted. And The Lagos were, after all, a paradise.
Who wouldn’t want to defend paradise?
2 The Idiot’s Mother
Standard Year 5363
R YLLEN JEE KNEW MOTHER would never approve. His adoptive siblings, who’d been looking for an excuse to excise him from their lives since Father died in the reprisals, would disavow him. He was, after all, a perpetual reminder of the deal that most likely sealed Father’s fate: Adopting an off-worlder from Chancellors in exchange for “special investment considerations.” Ryllen never learned the financial details, but side glances and stern whispers cried with ample volume.
Few walked the streets of Pinchon who were not Hokki, descendants of the ancient Koreans forcibly migrated from Earth and given a new home world, Hokkaido. Outside of a small cluster of rarely seen former Chancellors who “went native” during the final years of the Collectorate, Ryllen knew of no one else who bore his physical hallmarks of the Anglo-European gene pool. Consequently, his efforts to dress Hokki, to bury himself in Pinchon’s Modernist culture, and develop his own unique style of braids, met with uneven success. Some looked past his obvious difference, but most rebutted him with discrete half-smiles and a turn of their heels.
Until Kai Durin.
Until Green Sun.
They welcomed him, loved him, accepted him as being as loyal a citizen of The Lagos as any native-born Hokki. For them, the crusade to preserve the stability and legacy of The Lagos rose above genetic distinctions. They did what the government and seamasters would not officially sanction: the cleaning out of illegal “immos.” Ryllen trained, learned how the immo transit market worked, and helped track down and snare these interlopers, most of whom arrived from the continent spouting dangerous Freelander dogma.
None of it would have happened without Kai.
The rescuer. The soldier. The lover.
Ryllen never asked why Kai snatched him from the streets and gave him a home, beyond the ulterior angle to mold a new recruit. Nor did he resist Kai’s advances after Ryllen became a member of Green Sun.
It wasn’t love – at least not from Ryllen’s view – but it was tender and passionate, and at times a repayment of unspoken debt. Instinct told Ryllen it wouldn’t last, that Kai was a long bridge to another journey, but he’d best not hurry to reach the far shore. He wasn’t yet seventeen. Enjoy the comfort, love the new family, stay within the narrows.
This life made sense to Ryllen, which is why Mother and his siblings would never have approved. Sense dictated honoring the family name within the construct of Pinchon society, even if that name had been diminished by four years of social refinery.
“This is beautiful,” Ryllen said from the deck of the Quantum Majesty, a Sonning Class deep-sea trawling ship which was docking at Quay 95 of the Port of Pinchon. Ryllen absorbed the spectacle of the mile-long isthmus on a cloud-free midday. “Growing up, I never appreciated all we achieved in The Lagos.”
Kai, who pulled hard on his pipe and exhaled white poltash smoke, threw an arm over Ryllen.
“Not surprising,” he said. “You grew up in Haansu. Kilometers away but might as well be another island. This port builds their estates and fills their accounts with millions of Dims, but they only know it in principle. People in those families don’t work the port or learn the seas.”
Ryllen knew better, but contradicting Kai served no purpose.
Ships of all manner, from the tall-masted Barrier Class now three hundred years old to the sleeker Gnalix cruisers with binding fields to transport their catch, filled half the quays. Crews scurried busily among the drone cargo loaders, and giant Kohlna fish – the prize of the ocean – were conveyed in live pools to the meat processors lining the center of the isthmus. Scrams, rifters, and transports buzzed past the quays in a steady stream. The high season began in the West Hoonan Sea; soon the year’s biggest Kohlna would arrive in
