Naturally, bureaucrats and representatives of the city’s inhabitants did go on to pepper the officers with endless questions through the communication circuits, gaining a lot of information in the process. However, the time they were given to analyze that information was far too short. Attempting to determine the authenticity of their answers was an exercise in despair. A group of experienced court attorneys joined the lawmakers in questioning the Abh officers, but they failed to find any points of contradiction. Though, even if the information they were given had been full of lies, the administration of the Hyde Star System had little choice regardless.
The planet Martin housed an anti-space defense system. Since they had also come here from the reaches of space, it was rather easy to predict there would one day be an incursion from that very same space. There was no need to envisage an extrastellar intelligence. The possibility their very own cousins, violent and ill-mannered, would come for them was already there. Yet allocating the necessary defense funding was easier said than done.
The heads of several different administrations zealously tackled this issue, but all they had were 10 grounded anti-space lasers and 20 anti-space missiles. They boasted no spacefaring army, and it fell on a department within the Ministry of Facilities to maintain and inspect those anti-space weapons. In times of emergency, the weapons’ launch controls were supposed to be overseen by a part-time general in an underground control room.
The only other arm of military power the star system’s government had access to was the police force that was equipped to, at best, tamp down on a large-scale riot. To say facing off against the firepower of a space armada would place too heavy a burden on them would be an understatement.
Despite that, there was a faction in Parliament that wanted war. They reasoned that the giant fleet could be a bluff, and that, even if they were no match for them in the theater of space, there was hope for victory on the surface. They also reasoned that all other considerations aside, this was a matter of honor. Would it really be fine with the people to simply submit without even attempting to fight?
Of course, there were equally staunch people who thought those arguments were shallow-minded, and as such they dug themselves deeper and deeper in the debates. Discussion went from the clash of lofty concepts and philosophies, to the flinging of personal invective.
However, their session could hardly go on forever. After all was said and done, their deadline loomed in three short days. A day on Martin lasted two hours longer than a day on their ancestral homeworld, but they had to reach a consensus of opinions, and urgently. Unfortunately, Parliament wasn’t accustomed to issuing a decision with any swiftness. Reluctantly, they entrusted the decision to the head of government.
The head of government at that time was Rock Lin — Jinto Lin’s father.
President Lin shared his thoughts with only a handful of others, and whipped up support. Some vigorously opposed him, but he succeeded in laying a gag order on them. With the deadline approaching, President Lin stood before the transmission equipment of his presidential residence with his reply prepared...
“So that’s where you were,” said a familiar voice from behind him. “I was looking for you.”
“Ah, right,” replied Jinto.
There stood a tall, slim, middle-aged man. It was Teal Clint, President Lin’s private secretary. He had served in that role since Lin was a member of Parliament, and had known him since before Jinto was born.
Jinto, for his part, had known about him since he was a child. He more than merely knew him, though. He had practically been raised as his own flesh and blood.
Jinto never knew his mother. She had been a mine supervisor, dying in an accident before her only son had even learned to crawl. Rock Lin had felt uneasy about the prospect of raising his son as a single father, and he had his hands full with his political responsibilities, so he asked Teal, whom he found so dependable, as well as his wife Lina, to bring up Jinto. The Clints were fond of one another, but by happenstance were without child, so they were actually grateful when they took up Rock’s request. Jinto believed himself to be Teal’s son until primary school, and the affection he felt for that secretary was deeper than what he felt for his real father. The person he loved the most in the world, however, was Lina Clint.
The sharp features of Teal’s dark-skinned face were overcast by a sullen shadow.
“I’m sorry,” Jinto apologized. He thought he’d be scolded for being outside in the dead of night — and a particularly dangerous night at that, given the situation. “I’ll go back to my room right now!”
“That’s all right. Just come with me.” Teal grasped his hand with enough force to nearly tear it off and stomped off.
Fear dawned on Jinto at the sight of Teal’s unusual, alarming behavior. “Where’re we going?”
“The Presidential Residence.”
“The Presidential Residence?”
The City of Crandon, the sole city on all of Martin and home to its humans, was composed of three hybrid-functionality structures. They had been given exceedingly practical names, devoid of sentiment: “Omni I,” “Omni II,” and “Omni III.” Jinto lived in Omni III with the Clints, while the Presidential Residence was in Omni I.
“What’re we going there for?” Going to the Presidential Residence meant seeing his father. What business did his father have with him during such a pivotal time? To say nothing of Teal Clint, who, as the secretary of the head of government, should have had more vital work than picking up an eight-year-old boy.
“Just come!” Teal turned his back and strode on.
“Wait! Hold on!” Teal’s strides, which were long even for an adult, forced the adolescent boy to trot to keep up with him. Normally, he’d slow his pace for Jinto; what on earth had happened?
Teal didn’t so much as turn his head. “We have no time, hurry up.”
Finally, they had arrived at the elevator-box.
“Hey, are you mad at me about something? I’ll say I’m sorry, so please...”
Teal didn’t answer back. His frustration evident, he just poked at the elevator-box’s wall with his index and middle fingers, waiting for it to open up.
Finally, the elevator-box doors opened. No one was in it. Jinto had never been so frightened by the idea of being alone with Teal.
“Take us to the Nexus Floor,” Teal told the computer that directed the elevator.
The doors closed and, when the elevator began to lower, Jinto felt he couldn’t keep quiet for even a second longer. “Hey, do you think we can win?”
“We’ll neither win nor lose. There won’t be a war to win,” he grumbled in reply.
“So we gave up?”
Teal glared at the boy. “That’s right. Your father chose to surrender. He didn’t just ‘surrender,’ though – he sold us out.”
“He sold us out? What do you mean?”
“The bastard made a deal. A dirty, rotten deal,” spat Teal bluntly.
“A deal?”
“Stop repeating me like a damn parrot!”
“I... I’m sorry.” The boy ducked his head.
“Don’t get me wrong; I was against war, too. It really doesn’t look like we could win. But to make a deal like that!? Dammit, I’ve lost all respect for Rock!”
Jinto grew sad. He’d been secretly proud that he had two fathers. And yet, here was the father who raised him cursing out the father who sired him. His eyes filled with tears.
The father that raised him flashed a guilty expression upon seeing the boy start sobbing convulsively. “I’m sorry. It’s not remotely your fault, but I...”
“Tell me what’s going on! I’ve got no idea...”
“Nor would you.” Teal ruffled his short black hair. “Like I said before, Rock struck a deal. What he did will be announced all too soon. There’s no doubt he’ll be the object of the scorn of all who live on Martin. There will even be quite a few who will think that if they can’t lay their hands on him, they can at least pummel his family members. That’s the reason I’m taking you to the Presidential Residence, where there’s strict security.”
“You mean I’ll get beaten up by a mob?” Jinto quivered.
“It’s not out of the question.” Teal nodded in cruel confirmation. “Even if it doesn’t come to that, they’ll heap harassment on you. Verbal abuse. Throwing things. Maybe you’ll get a smoke candle tossed into your room.”
When Teal referred to Jinto’s room, the first thing that popped in his mind was Lina Clint. “Then what’s Lina gonna do? Tons of people know I live in your house!”
“I’ve already contacted her. She’s a grown-up; she can take care of herself.”
“You mean she’s gone to a safe place before us?” He couldn’t believe Lina would run away without him.
“Yep.” Teal read Jinto’s expression. “She was worried about you, you know. I calmed her down by telling her I’d go look for you.”
“Okay.” But something wasn’t sitting right with him. After all, there would have been no guarantee Teal would actually find him. Lina would have wanted to search for Jinto, too. That’s what the Lina that Jinto knew would have done.
The elevator reached the Nexus Floor on Tier 3, and its doors opened. Each morose for different reasons, the two stepped out onto the Nexus Floor. Countless elevator-tubes were lined up on this floor, running from the top to the bottom of the hybrid-functionality building. They were reminiscent of the pillars holding up the heavy roof of an ancient temple. Unmanned taxi-boxes rushed around between the tubes.