Crash Land on Kurai – Chapter 29

We hike for hours, through the woods, down into gullies, across rivers, and finally to a long stretch of tall grass. The entire team is covered from head to toe, wrapped in the high-tech black material that sheds water and sweat. I stay cool and dry, despite the baking sun. I wish we had technology like this at home. I would’ve been a lot more comfortable on stake-outs.

“See that over there?” Rin asks, coming up beside me and pointing off to the horizon. The horizon feels closer here, and I suspect this moon is smaller than Orihimé. The differences in distance are playing with my head. “Those mountains denote the start of the safe zone between Aka Matsuba and Shiroi Nami territory. Another ten kilometers on the other side, you’ll find their base. It’s mostly underground and heavily guarded, which is why we’re not going there.”

Right. We’re going to some temple, Kinyoake, ‘Golden Dawn,’ right on the other side of the mountains.

He sets off into the tall grass, pushing the browned stalks to the side. Even though the grass here is dead, new green shoots push through the cracked soil. I run up next to him, ignoring the other men and women surrounding us. They all seem to do their job without needing direction. Glancing back, Kazuo is bringing up the rear.

“Why is this moon… Kurai dying?” I ask Rin, keeping my eyes on the ground in front of me. At home, I would have to be careful about stepping on animals hiding in the grass, and my instincts here are hard to ignore. But there are no animals underfoot to worry about.

“It’s not dying. It was shocked, and now the environment is coming back to its terraformed state.” Rin concentrates on his forward progress, and with only his eyes visible, I can’t read him. “There was a war about forty years years ago.”

“Forty? Is this different than the war one hundred years ago?”

“Yeah. The war one hundred years ago is known as the Tōkaku War. That time, the population rose up with Aka Matsuba to overthrow Aoi Uma and get rid of the majority of androids. This other war was more of a skirmish.”

How will I ever keep them straight?

“Shiroi Nami were unhappy with their standing on Hikari. They had… ideas of where we should go and how we should get there.” He clears his throat and swipes his hand across the long grass. “Anyway, it’s a long story. They lashed out at the upper echelon that lived here, destroyed the environment, and then Tamura exiled them here to make them pay for it.”

“Wow. That’s pretty harsh. What do you think of the situation?”

He glances to the side at me, and I wonder how long it’ll be before he’s sick of my constant questions.

“I think it’s complicated, but the situation reminds me of how I’ve seen kids destroy their rooms and they’re forced to live with it in shambles as punishment.” He shrugs his shoulders. “Never really works. Just makes the kids madder.”

Hmmm, yes. That whole ‘make the punishment fit the crime’ thing only goes so far with people who are already angry.

“Shiroi Nami were a terraforming corporation that had outgrown its founding purpose. They built this moon and Hikari, and they figured they had a right to rule the government. But androids and then animals were more profitable than trees, water, fresh air.” He waves at the surrounding space. “At the time, people lived on both Hikari and Kurai. Many went back and forth between the two. This place was considered the height of wealth. You haven’t seen the mansions in the north or the tropical villages on the other side of this moon. When Shiroi Nami had all their holdings on the Southern Continent repossessed, they went crazy. Do you know what happens when you use the radioactive and genetic terraforming tools on an already present population?”

My skin crawls, and I have to convince myself I don’t have insects all over me. I can imagine what that horror would be like, but it’s easy to see the results right in front of me — no animals and everything dead.

“The amount of radiation here used to be significant. Many died in the onslaught or were killed by rebels. The rest went underground. Now, most of the radiation is from the sun, and the ecosystem is rebounding. Kurai will become a problem again. Maybe in ten years or so.” He pats the tablet strapped to his chest under his black clothes, and I touch mine as well. “But electronics will die here if exposed to the sun too long. Your people will continue to be in danger both from the rebels and exposure, and if we don’t find them soon, even their beacons will stop functioning.”

I groan as I try to keep up with him. He’s at the top of his physical game, and I’m struggling to maintain his pace, panting and wheezing my way along. “I wish we hadn’t wasted so much time getting here.”

“It wasn’t wasted time to send you into the Aoi Uma compound. You were able to see your people and find out if your brother was there or not.” Rin slows down as I try to keep up. He reaches out to my elbow and pulls away. “I’m only sorry you were physically and emotionally abused while there.”

I swallow and breathe heavily, both from the exertion of walking over rough terrain, hearing all this information first-hand, and Rin’s concern for my welfare. “I’ll be all right,” I say, waving him off. “If only I’d learned more while I was there, I might have been in a better bargaining position with Tamura.”

He scans the horizon, his sharp eyes cataloging everything around us. “Well, did Narumi say anything around you that might be informative?”

“I don’t think so,” I say, my voice trailing off. “Wait. What do you know about the Fukusha Model Eight?”

I walk a few more steps before I realize Rin paused a meter behind me. “Model Eight? There is no Model Eight. Model Six is their most advanced, the most human android yet. It takes over eighty questions of the test to determine their make.”

I shrug my shoulders as he approaches me. “That’s what Narumi said. That her Fukusha Model Eight was giving her problems, and she needed more workers for testing. That’s why she’s poaching my shipmates from the moon.”

Rin’s eyes are troubled. Huh. That doesn’t seem good. I wonder if Narumi let that information slip because she thought I would be dead at the hands of a pimp in no time.

“Model Eight…” He continues onward, walking and humming, his gaze unfocused and watching the horizon.

“I wish we could get my shipmates back from Aoi Uma.”

Rin snaps out of his thoughts. “Aka Matsuba and Aoi Uma are two heated rivals, and I’m afraid breaking in to rescue your shipmates is out of the question. It’s amazing I got you out at all.” He clears his throat, glancing sideways at me. Am I supposed to thank him now? Thoughts of Gen and Ryoko duking it out in that small room while the other men die on mats fills me with grief. I wanted to save them. Even Gen. “Shiroi Nami is much smaller than Aoi Uma. And their rebellious side is even smaller. They’ll be much easier to deal with than Aoi Uma. I have high hopes of rescuing your brother and the others.”

I look ahead, putting one foot in front of the other, and figure we’ll reach the mountains with another hour of hiking. If only we had taken a shuttle to get here but keeping a low profile was essential to this mission.

I rewind back through the conversation, finding the thread we were pulling at and returning to it.

“So Shiroi Nami destroyed Kurai, and then they ended up here?”

“It was the major consensus of the Board of Directors to round them up, seize their land, and send them here to exile. They would have to live with their own bad mistakes. It’s been very detrimental to their corporation.” He looks up at the sky and shakes his head. “I wouldn’t want to live here either.”

Something niggles at the back of my memories. Oh!

“When we entered orbit, we heard a distress call from here.”

He laughs. “I’m sure you can guess that was Shiroi Nami hoping for assistance.”

I skip through the long grass. “Of course. I’m sure they’re pissed it turned out like this.” I sigh, dramatically. “I’d love to interview them, shadow them in their compound, and see what they’re up to.”

He points his finger at me. “There’s a reason why you’re a journalist, right? Too bad Tamura owns the only news agency on Hikari.”

He owns a news agency? I trip over a rock and fly forward. He doesn’t stop me from sprawling into the weeds.

“You okay?”

I look up, the weak blue sky and the ginger-colored long grass swaying in the wind creates a frame around Rin’s face.

“I know I told you not to touch me, and you’ve been very admirable about your duties,” I whisper. “But please, if I’m going to injure or hurt myself, you’re allowed to hold me back.”

His eyes smile. “I see. Conditions on the touching?”

“Yes. Please,” I grit out, a rock grinding into my back.

He holds his hand out, and I gratefully take it to stand up. Even through gloves, I can feel how powerful he is, how he’s an ally, for now.

“I take my duties seriously, and I always listen. Never forget that.”

He turns and leads off, but I’m too dumbstruck to continue until Kazuo catches up.

“Didn’t I say you could’ve done worse?”

“Shut up. Nobody asked you.”

He turns to walk backwards, holds up his hands, and laughs. I follow along, dragging my feet.

Fine. I guess Rin’s not as bad as I originally thought.

—-

We reach the mountains and climb for thirty minutes before turning around to look at the landscape we just crossed. Long, yellowed grass sways in the breeze like a giant, invisible hand is running over it. The plain stretches far to my left and right until the forest takes over again. Though I know this moon is dead, I’m struck by how beautiful, symmetrical, and solitary this place is. Rin says this moon was meant for the wealthy, and I can see why. I bet it’s stunning from your own private mountaintop retreat or flying yacht if they have those things here. It strikes me as doubly sad that such a unique place was destroyed because someone got too greedy.

Other people in our group take my lead and slow down, several peeling off from the main group to find shelter on the mountain. A few disappear into shadows, finding caves or outcroppings to hide behind. Any way you can put rock between you and harsh sunlight is good.

But I have other ideas.

“Feeling okay? You didn’t hurt yourself back there with that fall did you?” Kazuo asks, finally losing the humor in his voice. He probably thinks this is a riot, and if I got a few beers into him, he would tell me how completely hysterical he thinks my new life is. But I’m good at keeping him sober.

“I’m fine. Just a little scrape. Nothing compared to our crash land in the life pod,” I say, unzipping my shirt and reaching in for my tablet. I haven’t transitioned over to the native tablets yet, and I don’t plan to until they can do everything I need them to do. I am going to run into an energy and battery problem though soon enough.

“Do you see that?” I point at the horizon to our right.

Kazuo shields his eyes from the sun, gazing far out at the horizon. Rin joins us at my side.

“What do you see?” Rin asks, opening his backpack and pulling out a pair of binoculars. “Oh shit. Yeah, I see that.” He hands the binoculars to Kazuo.

“Good catch, Yumi,” Kazuo says, handing me the binoculars. I don’t need them, but I look anyway. Off in the distance, a long stretch of burnt grass ends in a copse of trees.

I turn on my tablet, but no beacon light shows up. “Hmmm, maybe it’s something else?”

The pattern reminds me of our life pod hitting the land, scorching the trees, and coming to a halt not far away. Maybe this was a meteor hit?

“If it’s a life pod, whose territory would it be in?” Kazuo opens his bag and retrieves his water and a package of protein-rich food Tamura’s people gave us before we left. I wish I had an appetite.

“Eh, this area is mostly up for grabs. Aka Matsuba would like to own the whole moon and rehabilitate it. But I doubt Shiroi Nami will give it up now, even after they’re invited back to Hikari.”

We stand in silence, the wind whipping up the valley and blowing dust into my face and eyes. I wonder how damaging the sunlight here will be for us. Will I have cancer by the time we get off this moon?

“What should we do? We don’t have to be at the temple until dawn tomorrow. We could probably hike there in an hour or two, no?” I imagine friends or acquaintances there, hungry, alone, afraid, and I want to help them.

Rin hisses, shaking his head. “We know Shiroi Nami has your brother and a few other people. Maybe they came and rescued them from this wreck.”

“Or maybe they were picked up from a site on the other side of these mountains? We don’t know, do we?” It’s always my job to present alternate ideas, and yes, I’m good at it.

“No,” he says, with a resigned sigh. “Aka Matsuba has been sticking to their side of the moon. Anyone could’ve gotten survivors from here.”

“Tell me something. If Aka Matsuba wanted to rehabilitate Kurai, why didn’t they just take it? They could’ve, right?”

“Tamura, in general, has no want or need to police the other corporations. He’d rehabilitate the moon with Shiroi Nami’s help, if they weren’t so rebellious. But he demands fealty, so he lets it be. Instead, he’s been busy working on his own advancements since the people on Hikari have been peaceful and secure since he took over.”

Rin’s jaw beneath the face covering is set in stone, and to me, little that I know him, this means something is amiss. He’s either lying to me, or he used to believe this and is beginning not to. Peaceful and secure? Will I see this on Hikari? I lift my eyes to the giant blue, white, and brown globe in the sky. What treasures await me there?

“Something tells me this approach has not been working,” I mutter, and Rin barks a laugh.

“Of that, I have no doubts. Tamura is perceived as weak, the way Aoi Uma and Shiroi Nami walk all over him. I have my suspicions he won’t last long.”

“And what about your corporation?” I tear my eyes from the planet and return to my tablet. Still nothing on the map.

“What about it?” His answer is swift and confused.

“Do they have territory here or on Hikari? Do they also have aspirations to rule?”

Rin throws his head back, laughing. “We’re all too busy doing our jobs to want to rule. Do you know how many errant androids I halt in one day? On average?”

I bite my lip and form a guess. I’ve not seen him deal with any androids since we’ve been here. “One? Two? I admit I have no frame of reference.”

“When I’m on Hikari, I halt three, sometimes as many as six, malfunctioning androids per day. Just me. And I’m a member of a team of people who do this.”

I whistle and look at Kazuo. He raises his eyebrows at me.

“It used to be one or two a week. Maybe. Now, things are worse. Kiiroi Yama is busy keeping the population alive.” He turns back to look at the possible crash site. “I would consider it treasonous to ignore this now that we’ve already seen it. Let’s all have something to eat before we go. We’ll leave a contingent behind here to cover our exit, and we’ll go in quiet.”

He pulls his sword from its sheath on his back, and I jump away at the sound. The sharp zing reminds me of time spent in the dōjō at home. Not always pleasant.

Holding the sword up to the light, he gazes down the blade, examining both sides. I’m comforted by the sight of the long length of steel, traditionally crafted and precise. When the Terrans came to Orihimé, they brought their swords with them too. Many things about the culture were different, from the way the government worked to the role women played in society, but the martial arts and swords were all the same. The ways of Old Japan reunited people separated by space and time. The same thing could happen here. I rest my hand on my knife, knowing it has its own rich history.

With a curt nod, Rin pulls the sheath from his back and puts the sword away at his waist.

“Excellent. Let’s go.”