Perr leaned back, as if his pronouncement required no further discussion. The brothers smiled through their tears. Li-Ann nodded her approval. Kara raised her hand, as if trying to catch the attention of a disinterested teacher.

  “Sacrifice, Honorable Father? What do you mean?”

  His shaded eyes shouted frustration.

  “Those matters do not concern you, Daughter. Follow my instructions. I wil handle the chal enges ahead.”

  “What chal enges? If the Chancel ors are gone, what difference does our association with them matter?”

  Hearing the words cross her lips was al Kara needed. She dared not utter the answer. Why hadn’t she made the connection sooner?

  “Choices were made for the benefit of our clan,” Perr said. “We made those choices during a time free of consequence. That time has ended. I wil say no more on the matter, and you wil inquire no further. Am I clear, Daughter?”

  Li-Ann grabbed Kara’s hand and squeezed. Message understood.

  “Yes, Father. I know my duty.”

  That night, Kara was the one who cried like a baby.

  Her memory assembled al the pieces into a coherent pattern. She tapped into the many times she eavesdropped from a comfortable loft in the bul abast trees. She found trends within the whispers of family, friends, and classmates; in the casual asides of Honorable Father’s Nantou associates during various revelries; and the reports of economic hardship on the continent. Kara focused on the many visits of trade negotiators who begged for price breaks on Kohlna – not to increase their profits, but to fil stomachs. And then there were the Freelanders, who outnumbered the Modernists two to one. Their time had arrived.

  Oh, Honorable Father, what have you done?

  Kara didn’t want to know the ful extent of Nantou’s crimes, for they were likely too many and spread over too many years. Hokkaido’s gaping inequity, with the seamasters controlling most of the planet’s wealth on the islands of The Lagos, did not happen by a quirk of fate.

  And now, the seamasters’ greatest benefactors were gone.

  In the following days, life on Pinchon cracked on with an air of normalcy – so long as one did not look at the sky or talk about the future. At school, Kara’s friends offered no hint of concern, but their smiles seemed staged, their attempts at humor or self-indulgence awkwardly timed. She found the greatest change in her instructors, al of whom appeared sul en, their eyes passing through the students. Her class on Modern Collectorate Principles was replaced by a free period.

  It seemed as if Pinchon was waiting for someone to make the next move. Weeks later, Kara added new words to her daily vocabulary: Reprisal and collaborator.

  The accusations, protests, and attacks began in the continent’s metropolitan zones. Though she never heard talk of open civil war, the message was clear: Issues that simmered without hope of resolution under the Chancel ory now boiled to the surface. People demanded change, pointing fingers to the institutions they blamed for generational woes. The angriest sought immediate retribution. Fires were set. Men were hung. Kohlna distribution centers were bombed.

  In the past, Chancel ors would send battalions of Guard soldiers to quel any civil violence. Now, only local law enforcement and drone security stood between enraged Hokkis and oblivion.

  Amid the growing terror, peace held in the exclusive Haansu District where Kara lived. Each family meal was an exercise in deflection with the deliberate message: This wil pass.

  Five months after the Carriers retreated, the Guard suffered the most catastrophic defeat in its history while attempting to destroy the terrorists. The clear bottom line: The Chancel ory’s great city-ships would not return to the colonies. By then, however, the news was met on Hokkaido with collective shrugs. New paths were being forged.

  Kara never saw it coming.

  The morning she learned the truth was chil ier than normal but sunny. She walked as usual next door to the Baek estate, looking to spend time with Chi-Qua before heading to school. She didn’t notice the unusual quiet until she rang the front door, and no one answered. The Baek staff knew Kara’s morning routine; someone typical y opened the door as she approached.

  She waited. Nothing.

  That’s when the odd silence drew her attention.

  No vehicles. No gardeners.

  She walked around the main house, spied into windows, saw no lights and no movement.

  Kara pul ed out her hand-comm and told the AI to contact Chi-Qua. Silence preceded a message she did not understand: Chi-Qua Baek is no longer identifiable by this code. Please reset the code using the metric database.

  “Wait. What?”

  She saw her best friend fifteen hours ago. They talked of nothing special. They laughed. They gossiped.

  Kara ran home and asked for her father, but Perr was en route to Nantou headquarters. Her mother, however, sat relaxed in the main parlor, enjoying tea and listening to a symphony by Sibelius, one of the greatest Chancel or composers.

  “Where is Chi-Qua?” Kara asked. “What happened to the Baeks?”

  Li-Ann seemed neither surprised nor put off by the question. She sipped tea and returned the cup to its saucer.

  “You should be in school, Daughter.”

  “Answer me.”

  “You wil hear the news soon enough. I’m afraid the Baeks have had a sudden change of fortune. Their extensive col aboration with the Chancel ors was uncovered. The details are too numerous. Suffice to say, their family name has fal en into disgrace. The Baek name is being removed from the Nantou Executive Charter this morning. But don’t worry, Kara. I’m sure Chi-Qua wil do just fine in her family’s new accommodations.”

  “Where?”

  “No idea. Somewhere in the city, if they can afford the lodging. The penalties and reparations they face are staggering, you see.”

  “For doing what?”

  “They were collaborators. What more do you need to know?”

  The words fel from her mother’s lips with the casual drip of indifference. Kara unleashed the volcano within.

  “Collaborators? We were collaborators! No one benefited more from the Chancel ors than Syung-Low.”

  “I disagree, Daughter. Our family has worked very hard to build Nantou, and Nantou has benefited al Hokkis. Our corporate records are clean. Any association with the Chancel ory was peripheral. The Baeks, on the other hand …”

  “Were sacrificed! Isn’t that right, Mother? I heard rumors about scapegoats being handed over to satisfy the vendettas, but I never thought we’d betray our closest friends.”

  Her mother crossed her legs and raised her ears to the music.

  “I cannot reason while you’re in such a state. Be glad your Honorable Father does not see you this way.”

  “Why, Mother? Why destroy the Baeks?”

  “We didn’t. Their ruin is their own. Be glad they won’t face imprisonment. I’m sure the family wil make a solid go of it in time.”

  The chil was strong in the parlor. Kara backed away.

  “You’re not honorable, and you are not my mother.”

  “Go to school, Daughter. Fulfil your duties.” As Kara turned to leave,

  the music died. “Remember this, Kara. We have two heirs. A third might be considered an extravagance. Never raise your voice in that manner again.”

  Kara did not go to school. Instead, she changed out of her uniform and into casual clothes. She retreated to the garden, pouted for a while in the gazebo, and turned her eye to the giant bul abast tree.

  Minutes later, she found a cubby where she was camouflaged and might cry and rage without interruption.

  She was sixteen, but Kara wished she was six again. It was so much easier to be blind. The lies gave comfort and insisted al would be wel until the end of time.

  But the age of gods and lies was over, and Kara knew the truth was far from ful y exposed. The pain, though desolate and unforgiving now, was bound to intensify in the coming months.

  A cancer was spreading through paradise.

  2

  To be a Kohlna

  Standard Year 5359

  ARA SYUNG FOLLOWED AT THE REAR because she did K not want to draw attention from her guide. She preferred this pompous ass in a lab coat to indulge the whims of the tourists, regaling them with his boundless bio-marine expertise and tossing about terminology that echoed through their empty minds and fell into the ether. This might have been their first experience inside Nantou Global, but her family shared responsibility for running it. She wasn’t here to gawk, but Kara’s purpose was more complicated than the guide knew.

  She checked her hand-comm every two minutes in a discrete maneuver. The security app she copied from her brother’s corporate memglass proved she was on the right course. When the time came, she’d have to figure out a convenient excuse for dropping off the tour.

  It wouldn’t sit wel with the guide, a man who guest-lectured at the Vox School for Girls an entire semester. Kara thought his arrogance was exceeded only by his lechery.

  The group of six entered a lift. When the door closed, their guide paused the descent.

  “The research division is normal y hidden from public view,” Dr. Taul Parke told them. “However, you have been granted VIP access. Per the contracts you signed, we ask for maximum discretion. No recordings, no documentation, no discussion of anything you see. Our proprietary work must be protected. Any violation of your contract wil result in

  enormous financial penalty.”

  She hated his voice. Parke’s high-pitched tone and stiff bottom lip oozed condescension at every syllable. The girls at Vox developed al manner of running jokes, obscene artistic renderings, and memes that made their way onto the Pinchon IntraNex under phony accounts. Rumors suggested he refused to teach a second semester after the demeaning barrage.

  The lift opened, and Parke led them onto a platform overlooking a cavernous hal . A series of aquariums, from those no bigger than swimming pools to others more than fifty meters round, dominated the view. A network of open laboratories, conveyances, and catwalks fil ed the gaps between aquariums. Drones hummed as they circulated above the emerald green water.

  “Every creature that makes its way from the ocean to our table lives here, and then some,” Parke said. “Per the Nantou creed, nothing from the sea goes to waste. We are constantly exploring new avenues for refining our catch. At our investors conference last week, Nantou revealed our product line has expanded nineteen percent in the past two years. Our catch is infused into more than sixty-two percent of al food consumed on Hokkaido. Combined with our competition, that figure now exceeds eighty-seven percent.”

  “What a stunning achievement, Honored Parke,” an older woman exclaimed. “Hokkis would not survive without the seamasters.”

  Sure, Kara thought. Big numbers. Bigger exaggeration. She doubted continentals ate as much seafood as Nantou’s marketing machine claimed. Higher the demand, higher the prices. She wanted to feed the old woman a reality check, but she remembered contesting Parke once in class. It did not go wel .

  “An astute observation,” Parke told the tourist. “This is why we must continue our research, not only to generate new food products from our catch but also into the arena of oils, medicines, and – if I might be bold – a potential revolution in pleasure supplements.”

  His “boldness” drew snickers and reddened cheeks. Kara kept her contempt in check and her eyes shaded.

  The tour continued on the main floor. Parke led them past watery habitats for varieties of crabs, variants of octopi and F’heldabeast,

  schools of ratfish, bone snakes, blue prawns, droplings, and glowing archers. He offered data points and two commercial uses for each form of catch. But the biggest tank far and away was the last stop and the most dramatic.

  “We have duplicated their breeding grounds to an immaculate degree,” Parke said as they studied a school of Kohlna.

  The giant fish – the primary source of a typical Hokki diet – did not cut a pleasant figure. More than fifteen feet long, the Kohlna sported a misshaped, bulbous head. Its eyes carried deep red irises. Its gaping mouth never closed, revealing an ivory set of inch-long teeth, each razor-sharp and collectively able to tear through synthetics and cables.

  Its dorsal fins supported a wingspan measured in feet. Scientists theorized it flew at an earlier stage in its evolution. Its skin glimmered like armor, though close inspection revealed it to be covered in a handful of tightly packed scales.

  The Kohlna swam amid a facsimile environment of rocks, dancing sea cabbage, urchins, and finger-sized waddle fish, which played an outsized role in transferring Kohlna eggs to safety during their brief incubation. Words of awe, respect, and a fair amount of uneasy revulsion at the strange beast rose from the tourists.

  “The most important creature in the natural world,” Parke said. “A survivor, a predator, a provider. After al these centuries, it continues to deliver sustenance like nothing else. And to think: The first colonists who took to the seas feared the Kohlna. Few Hokkis know this, but the Kohlna was not harvested for food until a century after colonization.”

  “Pah!” A male tourist said. “With fair respect, Honored Parke, that is simply a maiden’s tale. I am an economist and a bit of an historian.

  I know for a fact the first stocks were traded in the original Aquatic Market less than forty years after the first colonists arrived.”

  Parke showed no sign of indignance and replied with cool demeanor.

  “Your timing is correct, Honored Sai, but I fear your details are confused. The Aquatic Market was a speculative venture geared toward shipping and the hope our Chancel or benefactors would provide the raw materials for ramping up construction of deep-sea vessels. They did not, and the Aquatic Market dissolved after twenty fruitless years.”

  Parke saved the smug twirl of his lips until the end. Kara had no

  interest in a history lesson on the economy. Plus, she knew both men were wrong. She glanced at her hand-comm and zeroed in on the signal she needed. She scoped in every direction and spotted the required exit. She was close to fulfil ing her mission.

  Now was the time to end this charade. She hid the hand-comm and stepped forward.

  “May I ask a question, Honored Parke?” She said.

  “Young Miss Syung. Of course.”

  “I wonder about the wisdom of keeping Kohlna imprisoned down here for study. I mean to say, we’ve harvested this animal for centuries. We use every ounce of it in some capacity. We know everything about it, down to the genetic level. What’s to explore?”

  Parke smirked. “Nothing in nature is ever known in its entirety.”

  “What do you mean, Honored Parke?”

  “Al creatures evolve, and not just in terms of their biology.

  Breeding habits, for instance.”

  “Oh, sure. We can always make more pleasure supplements.”

  His smirk disappeared.

  “Not my meaning, Young Miss Syung. I was referring to environmental factors. They influence the Kohlna’s lifestyle, which could in turn alter its physiology and reproductive capabilities over time. If we see disruptive trends, we …”

  “Disruptive? You mean like growing the annual catch and sending more ships to their breeding grounds during peak season?”

  “I believe this is off topic and …”

  “But you started the tour by tel ing us about the percentage growth in our product line, and since Kohlna is the primary product, I think any halfway intel igent Hokki could make a leap that …”

  “Are you trying to imply …?”

  Parke caught himself and raised a stern finger. He turned his attention to the tourists.

  “I must confess, I taught Young Miss Syung three years ago during my tenure at the Vox School. She was an impulsive student, but I suppose we need strong heads among our future leaders. Yes, friends, she is a child of Syung-Low. She is going through the process of learning al facets of the business.”

  “I am,” Kara said with beaming smile. She turned to the others.

  “And I’m learning so much from great men like Honored Parke. Father insisted I shadow him night and day.”

  “Very kind,” Parke said, but Kara heard the contempt.

  “I have another question. Earlier, you mentioned disruptive trends in the environment as a reason to study the Kohlna. I wonder whether acenomite levels might be a bigger problem than consumption.”

  “Acenomite? You mean from the rings?”

  “Oh, sure.” She pivoted to the guests. “Everyone knows about it, I trust. The acenomite dust fal ing from the rings, poisoning the land and such? Yes?”

  Their confusion and horror did not surprise her but was what she needed. Parke tut-tutted and stepped between Kara and the VIPs.

  “I believe Young Miss Syung is having a laugh at your expense.

  What’s she referencing is a conspiracy theory on the IntraNex and the Global Wave. No truth to it whatsoever.”

  “Real y?” Kara said. “So, you’re tel ing us there hasn’t been a steady erosion of the Kye-Do rings for the past few centuries, and the acenomite dust produced by al that Chancel or mining hasn’t spoiled the planet?”

  “You see?” He interjected. “She loves a good laugh. No, Young Miss Syung. I had personal acquaintance with several of the best Chancel or exobiologists and geologists before the Carrier fleet departed. Years of tests proved the acenomite never posed a danger. It’s an insane notion being spread by Freelanders and competitors to The Lagos. Honored guests, if you wil excuse Young Miss Syung and I for a moment.”