by Kevin Brown
Yanhu was given the mission to deceive Hoon’s leadership into thinking Taebakun had developed a transparent robot. It had been realistically impossible to produce enough transparent robots for war because the material needed to construct them was scarce. They had only been able to synthesize a small amount of it, and later it was discovered that the material reacted to Pan. When the suggestion was voiced that Taebakun could make Hoon believe they had an army of invisible robots, the commander knew this was the answer that would bring then victory.
Taebakun’s military commander approached Yanhu with a simple proposal.
“Your family will be slaves of Taebakun if you do not cooperate. However, if you cooperate, you and your family can live happily in Hanbau and come to no harm.”
But they didn’t just ask him to deceive Hoon’s leadership; he was also ordered to assassinate Daekhan if he had the chance. The commander had given Yanhu a colorless and odorless poison with adjustable onset timing that could be easily mixed with water or food. Yanhu had accepted both missions to protect his family, for he could not sacrifice them for Hoon. It wasn’t even his home planet.
The manner in which Yanhu accomplished his task of halving the number of parantans was brilliant. It had been easier to deceive Hoon’s leadership than expected, they hadn’t doubted him at all. Whether it was because they believed in the bond of friendship with Hanbau or that he had seemed sincere, he just didn’t know. But he doubted they were simply naïve. Why they believed him was unimportant. What was important was that he fulfilled his mission to reduce the number of parantan on Hoon, and that meant he could keep his family safe. Doing so was of the utmost importance to him.
However, Yanhu was not successful in assassinating Daekhan. He never had the chance. Instead, he found someone who could replace Daekhan; someone that the commander of Taebakun would accept as a replacement if he gave him a good explanation. He was convinced that Taebakun would not take his family because he failed to assassinate Daekhan. He had found a replacement, even though he was not as good as Daekhan.
Yanhu knew full well that he would have to carry the guilt of betraying Hoon with him for the rest of his life. He had single-handedly destroyed the planet.
Let’s focus on the present… if it had not been me, someone else would have done if it.
He thought about his family and an image of his wife and daughter materialized in his mind.
Beloved wife. My daughter - the apple of my eye.
Now that he was safely back in Hanbau’s atmosphere, Yanhu accelerated and turned the fighter toward Taebakun’s military base where they were holding his family hostage.
Out into the World 23
Taehan and his surviving men continued to retreat past fallen soldiers. He felt sick with defeat, for only twenty parantans moved with him away from what had been a ferocious battle. It was difficult to accept that they had been defeated; annihilated was a better way to describe what had happened to the parantans on this battlefield. Suddenly Daekhan’s face rose to his left, asking Taehan to come directly to the institute rather than the leadership building.
Dawn was just spilling over the eastern horizon when he arrived at the institute. Taehan could just barely see Daekhan, Santan, Sochan, and other colleagues standing on the grass next to the square in front of the institute. It looked like all the colleagues who had been in the situation room were gathered there. He could see Shunda and his friends from Kubaisen. Shunda had only about ten men with him - probably all the others had been lost in the battle.
Taehan jumped off his parantan and led his subordinates towards the group.
Sochan was sobbing and looking at him. She had to have heard of Hanmoo’s tragic death.
“I am sorry, Sochan…” Taehan could not find any other words of comfort.
He turned towards Daekhan to explain there was no transparent object and that’s why they had suffered such a resounding defeat. But first he scanned the crowd for Yanhu.
“Where is Yanhu?” Taehan asked, alarm creeping into his voice. “I thought he fled from Hanbau.”
“I cannot find him,” Daekhan said. “I realized just a moment ago that he is not here.”
In that moment Taehan knew, and he saw the same realization dawn on Daekhan’s face. He shuddered at the stupidity they had all shown. They had trusted Yanhu and never even considered he meant to harm Hoon. The sick feeling in the pit of his stomach turned to anger….
“This is all my fault…” Daekhan said in a hard voice, a frown creasing his face.
“No, everyone was completely deceived. It was not your fault,” Taehan said.
Determination hardened the lines of Daekhan’s face. “We must focus on the future. Regretting what is already done is of no use to us now.”
“You are right,” Taehan said swiftly. “Do you having something in mind?”
“I have a plan, but it is rough at this point. We don’t have much time, so I’ll be brief.” He looked at Taehan closely. “Do you remember the transmission device the institute was studying? The one to be used for the pre-emptive attack on Taebakun?”
“Look over there.” Daekhan pointed at something hovering in the air over the square.
It was a large circular object with a metal rim. The membrane inside the circle was some type of liquid Taehan could not identify, but it was full of light
“I was told that they finally resolved the issue of returning to this world. They could not complete the stability experiment, but we cannot afford to wait any longer.”
“Finally!” Taehan said. “Had it been finished sooner, maybe the outcome of this battle would have been different….” His voice trailed off as he remembered all the losses they had endured.
“It is hard to say,” Daekhan said with deep sadness before coming back to the significance of the device floating over the square. He summarized what the institute had previously told them about their inability to bring back travelers who used the device. The solution remained as before, the traveler must carry another device with them and assemble it to be able to return since there was still one part of the device that caused a problem each time they performed the experiment.
“Isn’t it too late to use the device?” Taehan asked.
“We will not be using it to attack Taebakun. We have another plan. Several of us will travel through the transmission device to Kubaisen with Shunda’s company. I have decided to bring you with me for this important mission. I hope you are okay with it.”
“Definitely!” Taehan said.
“In the meantime, the rest of the members will reorganize troops in the southern part of the planet and wait for us to successfully complete the mission. I’ll tell you more when we arrive on Kubaisen. It is not safe here, either. Let’s hurry.”
“Okay.” Taehan answered quickly and said no more even though he had a lot of questions.
Daekhan led the small crowd outside the institute to the two transports waiting nearby. With Shunda’s company there were twelve in all; six per transport. A fighter plane took off vertically and disappeared through the transmission device. Then the first transport carrying Santan, Sochan, three researchers, and one of Shunda’s men followed it. The second transport carried Taehan, Daekhan, Dutan, Shunda, and two of Shunda’s men. The members that remained at the institute were to destroy the device after the second transport passed through it. The transport carrying Taehan took off vertically and rushed rapidly into the round rim to be immediately swallowed by the blue membrane within. Liquid light covered the transport and then they were gone.
Out into the World 24
Taehan looked out the windshield of the transport. The blue liquid light had disappeared and he could see they were at a high altitude and moving through an electric blue sky decorated with fluffy white clouds. In the blink of an eye they were hovering over Kubaisen. Dutan explained that both the atoms of the transport and those of the people inside had changed states instantaneously to become identical to those comprising Kubaisen �
�� there was no chance for consciousness to notice the change.
Anyway, they were barely able to escape from the imminent danger. Taehan sighed in relief and took a moment to recover his equilibrium.
“The spot we just passed was the precise point corresponding to the location of the transmission device on Hoon,” Dutan explained. “The ground near the institute where we took off corresponds to this point high in the sky over Kubaisen.”
Shunda spoke up. “Our destination is quite a distance from here.”
The transports flew through the endless blue sky. The white flesh of mountains approached them rapidly, as if trying to block their way, but the transports soared ever higher until, the mountains looked as flat as the landscape around them.
Taehan watched the scenery fly by for a few moments and then turned his gaze to Daekhan. “Would you explain this mission to me now?”
“I will. I have a lot to tell you. You do not even know about Shunda, do you? You need to know Kubaisen, as well.”
Taehan realized he knew barely anything about Shunda and Kubaisen.
“Shunda, would you explain things directly to Taehan?”
“Of course,” he said, and then began speaking. “Since our destination is still some distance away and it is important that you understand this world, I will speak in some depth about Kubaisen. As you know, Kubaisen lags behind Hoon. It is not an advanced civilization with achievements in science and technology. We are not able to enjoy luxuries like other civilizations because we are going through a very chaotic period.”
His face looked gloomy all of a sudden, and when he continued speaking it was in a low, subdued voice.
“It is only in the past seventy years that we been able to communicate with other universes. People here still depend on labor for a living. They earn money by working and they get goods by spending the money they earned. For your information, money in Kubaisen is made of special materials that can be touched. It’s a lot different than the Tan of Hoon.”
Daekhan and Dutan seemed to know the things of which Shunda spoke, but Taehan, who had never heard the story of Kubaisen, was mesmerized.
“Money means a lot more on Kubaisen than it does on Hoon. People treat the rich much better than the poor. Therefore, the majority of people do anything to collect money. It is not too outlandish to say that some people devote their lives to becoming rich. I am explaining about money in Kubaisen because it is the main causal factor of the turmoil we are experiencing now.”
Shunda stared at the sky in front of him for a while.
“People here began to be interested in substituting the labor force with robots and using robots for automation purposes. The substitution of labor in Hoon by dorans was one of the best models for us. Major cities in Kubaisen tried to introduce automation earnestly - just like Hoon did a long time ago. I heard that Hoon accepted the modern civilization and automation from Hanbau a few centuries ago. The social framework has also been founded since then.”
“You are correct,” Taehan answered.
“Unfortunately, automation here progressed differently than it did on Hoon. Here, it played a major role in the collapse of society.” Shunda’s eyes closed and he was silent for a moment. When he resumed, his voice was deep with emotion.
“As you know, on Hoon, the entire process of automation was carried out under the thorough guidance of the leadership. Kubaisen’s case was different. The owners of enterprises led the automation process here of their own accord. There was little central control. These business owners saw automation as a means of gaining more profit instead of reducing the workload of people. They didn’t care about improving the quality of people’s lives. They did their best to maximize profits for themselves by substituting people with robots like dorans. Their thinking was correct. They had to spend a lot of money in the beginning to purchase robots, but their labor expenses dropped since they were spending much less on wages for people. In other words, business owners became richer through automation and the people became poorer. They lost their jobs.”
Shunda glanced out the window but didn’t notice the transports were flying through a different colored sky now. The sun, shining through the clouds, had tinted the sky a light gold. He looked back at Taehan.
“The change was dramatic. Since people on Kubaisen have to work for a living they needed to find new jobs. Since automation in the beginning was mostly implemented in the manufacturing sector, people moved to the service sector to work. They had no other choice. But in the process, many people could not find jobs since the available jobs were less than the number of people looking for work. People became desperate.”
Everyone in the transport was silent as they listened to Shunda’s testimony. Even though many had heard the story before, the reality of a desperate society was sobering.
“If we could have corrected the problem at this stage the Kubaisen society would not have collapsed. If business owners would have cared about the implications of what they had done or if the leadership had intervened, the outcome would not have been so dramatic.
“However, the greed for money and the power it wields fueled business owners and clouded the judgment of the leadership as well. In the end, even the service sector, the last workplace and bastion of livelihood for the people, succumbed to automation.”
Shunda’s face was nearly distorted with rage at the injustice, but he managed to control his emotions by letting out a loud sigh.
“It should have been an obvious outcome, but business owners were blinded by selfishness and greed. Over time, the consequences of their decisions and actions inversely affected them. Since few people could afford to purchase products made by the companies, their profits plummeted and the remaining workers were laid off. Now businesses were struggling, too, and the vicious cycle continued.
Finally, people could not tolerate the hardships any longer. They started to protest from all corners of the planet, and the protest spread like wildfire until it burned white-hot through every town and village until Kubaisen was consumed by violence and wars and civilized society ceased to exist. Everything disappeared in the blink of an eye and precious little has recovered since then.”
Shunda passed his hand over his chin; his expression was bitter.
Taehan blankly looked at Shunda. He didn’t know what to say. What could a person say to such an awful story? One that had affected an entire planet?
“I can see what you’ve been through and what you mean by the collapse and chaos of Kubaisen,” Taehan said weakly.
“Regretting the past doesn’t help,” Shunda said. “It is important to move on.”
“You can say that again!” Taehan agreed.
“By the way, where are we heading?”
“We are heading to the solution that can help us overcome Hoon’s current crisis,” Daekhan said cutting into the conversation.
“A solution?”
“Yes,” Daekhan said. “We’re on our way to get a powerful weapon.”
Shunda looked at Daekhan. “He will not understand with just an explanation of the weapon. He needs to understand the background.”
Taehan waited for Shunda to continue.
“Let me continue my story. As violent protests got out of hand and society began collapsing across the planet the Kubaisen leadership used extreme suppression measures. They began to arrest and lock up people at random.”
“All protesters?” Taehan asked in surprise.
“I think that was their intent. Eventually, the government had imprisoned a large number of protesters and rebels. The prison owned by Kubaisen was saturated, so they decided to use Hoon’s prison since they had already been providing a large-scale prison camp to other universes for a long time.”
As soon as Taehan heard the word ‘prison camp,’ he remembered what Pachun had said about borrowing a large prison camp from Hoon and that they had to be detained in Parahan from a certain point in time on. Taehan returned his attention to Shunda.
“
At some point, some of the people being discharged from Hoon’s camp began to live together on Kubaisen. They must have felt connected by their prison experience. Their numbers increased as time went on and at some point the group of people was called Kimose, which means ‘the spirit of independence’ in Hoonish.
“Kimose became an autonomous body that was both politically and militarily independent from the leadership of Kubaisen. As the group became stronger, they negotiated with the weak leadership until they were in an equal or even superior position. My close friend lived there so I visited several times, and the more I visited, the closer I got to people in the community. That’s how I learned the real reason Kubaisen’s leadership was afraid of Kimose.”
Taehan’s mind boggled at what Shunda was saying, but he hung on every word.
“The leadership was not afraid of how Kimose was growing in number or even their social influence. Rather, they were afraid of the powerful weapon Kimose possessed.”
“Powerful weapon?” Taehan repeated Shunda’s words, wondering if he meant the weapon they were going to get that would solve the current crisis on Hoon.
“It is a destructive weapon,” Shunda said. “Its power cannot be understood with mere common sense. They say they can destroy the entire planet if they use every weapon at once. I heard that several people learned new weapon manufacturing techniques from the Hoon’s camp and had used the knowledge to create a new style of weapon.”
“I was skeptical when I first heard this, thinking the story had been exaggerated. How could such power weapons be made in a camp whose degree of civilization and technology were so far behind not only Kubaisen, but Hoon as well? It did not make sense.”