“Thank you for this,” Ryllen said. “It’s been the greatest time of my life. I miss the open sea already.”
“I wanted you to experience what we’re fighting for. We can’t let Freelanders and immos compromise what’s ours.”
The entire eastern hemisphere of Hokkaido was water, broken up only by The Lagos and a few other islands comprising Greater Oceania. The Quantum Majesty’s four-day excursion only ventured a thousand kilometers beyond Pinchon, but that was enough for Ryllen.
To see the darkest blue of the deepest ocean? To see the sparkling schools of hemolids turn the surface into a fiery glow at night? To feel the ship dance through turbulent storms? To hear the wail of Kohlna as they are caught and throw themselves toward the ship in a hopeless bout for survival?
This is living.
Ryllen embraced Green Sun’s philosophy: The ocean belongs to the true seamasters.
“But there’s so much of it, Kai. It’s more than half the planet, and the continentals outnumber us, twenty to one. They’re desperate. They’re losing arable land; clans are fighting in the cities. The more they depend on us for food, the seamasters raise prices. Won’t there be a tipping point where we won’t be able to keep them out?”
Kai handed Ryllen the pipe.
“We’re already there, RJ. I was going to tell you after we disembarked, but now seems as good a time.”
“Tell me what?”
“Lan Chua called for a summit. Tonight. District captains and their lieutenants. You’ve earned your seat.”
“A summit? There hasn’t been one of those in …”
“Ninety-five days.”
“You said it only happened when …”
“We entered a new phase of the crusade. Yes. Listen to me, RJ. You knew sooner or later this business would turn dirty. I never lied to you about it. The things some of us have done. You understand?”
He did. “The immos who were disappeared.”
“Among others. Yes. I’ll tell it to you straight, RJ, because I love you.” Kai glanced about the deck as if making sure no one might overhear. His shoulder-length blue locks waved in the wind. “What we’ve been doing isn’t working. The threats, the beatings, the payoffs, the silent deportations. We’re scaring them, but we’re not making them understand. Even worse, the competitors are finding new and creative ways to smuggle operatives.
“We suspect crews on a third of the corporate ships are infested with continentals. Some of the off-island estates are paying immos at bottom Dims while hiding their books. Freelander partisans, most likely. The seamasters won’t act because they’re afraid of pushback from their biggest continental clients. And the Island Council won’t act because the seamasters dictate their agenda.”
Ryllen heard rumors of such things, usually from Green Sun brothers and sisters who believed a full-on Hokki civil war was inevitable. Yet now he saw confirmation in Kai’s earnest hazel eyes.
“What does it mean for Green Sun?”
“I think you know. Scaring these people isn’t enough. They have to learn a simple lesson. If they corrupt The Lagos, they die.”
“Lan Chua told you this?”
“He’s wanted to escalate for some time, but he’s a cautious man. He believes we finally have the infrastructure to cull immos without drawing undo attention.”
Ryllen was never under any illusion, not even when he received the body stamp over his chest and committed to the cause. In his heart, Ryllen always sensed the truth about his roommate turned lover.
Kai was a killer who long ago found peace and purpose in his work, though he never spoke of it directly. Instead, Kai talked of the need to maintain the purity of The Lagos, always using a righteous tone. He was neither angry nor impatient; Ryllen detected a quiet discipline.
“Cull them?” Ryllen said, pulling on the pipe. “Like Kohlna?”
“But quietly.”
They didn’t speak of it again. The Quantum Majesty completed docking procedures. Soon, they disembarked.
The trip home in Kai’s bucket sedan was quiet. Traffic on the UpWay was sparse. Ryllen felt no tension, but the silence was a noted departure; Kai usually played Jorca Hop at its most thunderous bass. Was he waiting for Ryllen’s questions? Perhaps an admission he wasn’t prepared to kill immos? Or maybe Kai appreciated the need for peaceful introspection.
Ryllen closed his eyes and leaned back.
I’m a soldier, he thought. We’re justified. War is coming anyway. If we can’t preserve our way of life, what else will we sacrifice?
It all made perfect sense, of course. He heard it from his Green Sun brothers and sisters often enough. The Kye-Do rings will continue to poison the land, they said. The continentals will want what we have. They’ll demand we share as equal partners, or worse.
We are the salvation and the future of the Hokki people.
Ryllen liked the idea of being a hero.
They’ll thank me someday.
Their home was a simple flat with few adornments, part of a sprawling public estate sheltered by palms and bullabast trees, directly beneath the UpWay, mid-distance between the city center and exotic residences of the Haansu District. Neighbors looked out for each other but never pried. Kai said most were Modernists and Lagos Nationalists. He doubted any would object to a Green Sun presence.
“They have as much to lose as we do,” Kai once said. “Their families go back centuries, and they care about the purity of their line no different than the elites in Haansu. We fight for them, RJ.”
Whenever Kai spoke of families, Ryllen saw a glint of pain. Kai never divulged the details of the Durin family schism, only once referencing a shipping accident and the betrayal of his biological sister, who moved to New Seoul years earlier.
“Being alone is kind of a kick,” Kai once said. “I asked Mei to sack with me once,” he added, referring to the adoptive sister he lusted after. “We both knew that was
