As Long as the Earth Endures
The feedback came down like a storm.
"The one at the very back is the squad leader, right? So why does the squad leader keep staring straight ahead?"
"...?"
"If he's bringing up the rear, he ought to at least pretend he's watching it. So why is he only looking forward? That's what I'm saying."
Jack's point was fair.
Martin would have had an answer, no doubt—some part of it difficult to build, for technical reasons...
A war nut did not care about any of that.
"The same kind of fight keeps repeating. If assault troops are going to solve everything, why do you even need more than one stage?"
What Jack meant was this: win the first mission with a charge, and the second battle ought to be a place where a grenadier was essential; the field after that ought to favor whichever side seized a crew-served weapon; and so on. He wanted the many faces of war worked into the stages themselves.
"Then the whole thing gets too big..."
"Isn't bigger better?"
Jack was a complete outsider to computers. He gave the technology no thought at all and simply said whatever came to his tongue.
A pure military obsessive's critique.
At first there must have been a flicker of resistance.
"..."
Little by little, Martin's expression turned serious.
Had he been compromising too far, with file size as the excuse? Think a little harder, and a way might yet appear. All that talk of the limits of technology—had he only been appointing himself some lesser John Carmack?
Fortunately, the brooding did not last.
"Sir, I'm sorry."
"Please hold the release... until I've made good on every point that was raised."
Which was to say he meant to push it back by several months, at the least.
"I can't ship it after the faults have been laid out in front of me. All the more when it's going out under the company's name..."
Martin's resolve looked unmistakable. If he could finish the work on backbone alone, without a single compromise, he would leap ahead by several stages at once.
Right. The lead developer says he's ready to plant himself and fight it out.
From the company's side, of course he ought to be backed.
"Don't worry about the size. Just build it. It can grow without limit, so concentrate on making it good."
"Then the sales..."
"That part is mine to handle."
"...!"
"Well—Hollywood?"
A few war films were already burned into my head. Even at a glance there was the one about going back for a stranded private, and a ten-part drama that was honestly superb. So.
Martin, as anyone might have expected, looked profoundly moved.
That aside.
This isn't actually going to turn into us shooting a war film, is it?
There was no reason it couldn't be done. It simply hadn't been in the plan, and if it truly came to pass I might be rather thrown.
Anyway.
I turned to Jack.
He had given us feedback worth having. The least I owed him was a meal.
"You haven't eaten, right?"
He nodded.
"Korean food all right?"
"Sounds good."
I turned to Martin and asked if he would come along.
His eyes were shining, just like that.
The place Jack and I made for was a bulgogi house, the kind that grills sweet-soy beef at the table.
Perhaps because it was a wealthy neighborhood, two middle-school boys could walk in and be shown to a private room without anyone making a fuss.
No forks.
I had assumed, of course, that he couldn't manage chopsticks.
And would you look at this.
Jack picked up the side dishes with them, neat as anything. Maybe he felt my eyes on him. He supplied an explanation.
"Chopsticks are just two sticks. You can make them out of branches. In the field, they're much better than a fork."
"So you actually practiced?"
"Obviously."
Ha!
The conversation did not last. Food arrived, and after that we were too busy inhaling bulgogi to talk. The guy could really eat. There was no need to ask whether it suited him.
You could breathe between bites.
Only after he had single-handedly demolished six portions did he lean back in his chair for the first time. Then, studying the menu, he asked.
"What's this?"
"Naengmyeon. Cold noodles—sort of like pasta."
"Can I try it?"
"Of course."
"There's one sitting in water, and one with sauce on it."
Translated, he wanted both: the icy broth kind and the spicy mixed kind. A stomach for meat, and a separate stomach for noodles?
He emptied the bowls almost before they had landed.
To think an Englishman could eat Korean food this well. Half wonder, half a quiet pride.
Only after he had also finished the sweet cinnamon punch that came for dessert did Jack pat his belly.
"If you told me to eat this every day, I could."
Yes. Bulgogi, one had to grant.
With a full stomach, did the curiosity he had put off lift its head? He straightened and asked.
"That office earlier. It's yours?"
"Yeah."
"What do you do there?"
"This and that."
He nodded.
"You... you're a noble?"
"Korea doesn't have anything like nobles."
"So you're just rich?"
Another nod.
"Where do rich Koreans go to university?"
"Depends on your grades."
"Where are you thinking of going?"
"Not sure."
According to Jack, boys from the Royal School mostly had two choices: Oxford, and the Royal Military Academy. Most of the wealthy chose Oxford, whereas a considerable share of the nobility, feeling they ought to discharge a duty, chose the academy.
"Though that's an old story, honestly."
"What is?"
"Nobles going to the academy."
True to the war nerd in him, his face went grave here.
"Nobles with land out on the fringes barely make any income. So they've got no choice but to jump onto the business of making a living."
A noble's life was supposed to mean bearing a social duty equal to the wealth one had enjoyed. But when there was no wealth, and merely staying fed kept you busy—well. Naturally, military service got pushed to the back of the line.
"Except for the Grosvenors, I bet everyone's in about the same spot."
"Yeah?"
"The Grosvenors are the greatest house in Britain, so they fulfill the duty of service generation after generation... The other nobles seem to be slipping their feet out, little by little."
Whether British nobles went into the army or not was no business of mine.
But.
The Grosvenors...
Perhaps because a familiar name had come up, a little interest stirred. And not without cause. The house was connected to me, slightly.
You know the thing. The London parcels I had left to Baker. Word was he was having a hard time of it because of the Grosvenor Estate. They would permit a hundred-year lease, but a permanent sale was absolutely out of the question. He had tried explaining that it was for Britain's war veterans, and the answer that came back was the same.
Hm.
Since the subject had come up, perhaps I ought to ask.
"The Grosvenor Estate."
"...?"
"Why are they so obsessed with land? I heard they won't sell a single square foot of London, and they're making a great noise about it."
"Ah. That."
So he had heard something. Jack sat up properly.
"Nobles were originally people the king granted land to. That's why they're so attached to it. Past the point of reason. The Grosvenors have a philosophy that's just theirs, I heard... what was it called..."
Jack, who could rattle off the specs of personal weapons, crew-served guns, and tanks without effort, seemed to find a family motto of only a few lines rather difficult to hold in his head!
But of course.
"Heh heh."
Sheepish, he scratched his head.
"I forgot."
New York, Paris, Tokyo, Melbourne, and elsewhere.
This year alone, the Grosvenor Estate had bought up immense tracts of land.
The reason was one.
However the world may overturn itself, one truth alone will never change: humankind lives with its feet upon the earth.
That was why the first duke's testament was still in force.
It was, truly, a startling clarity of vision. This was an age in which airplanes carried people across the world, in which humanity had conquered even the moon, and still human beings had to live standing on the ground.
That was why the Grosvenors bought land as if their lives hung on it. So long as the Earth endured, Grosvenor power would be kept whole.
Perhaps it was the rose-colored future drifting through his thoughts. Thomas Grosvenor, the duke, let the corner of his mouth rise, ever so slightly.
"So where is it this time?"
At the duke's question, his aide set out three answers, one for each part of the world.
"North and Central America: Mexico City. South America: São Paulo. Asia: Seoul."
The last of the choices seemed to puzzle him.
"Seoul."
They had made their presence known by winning the right to host an Olympics, but Korea was still a country under armistice, was it not?
"Precisely because of the security threat, a portion of it is undervalued."
"..."
"The prevailing assessment is that the contest of systems is already finished. The view one ought to take is that the chance of war over the next thirty years is nearly nil..."
And where was there an investment without risk? What mattered was whether the reward matched the danger one accepted.
Reading the duke's mind, the aide quietly went on.
"As if to prove that mood, a great deal of capital is converging on Korea."
"And precious little has come of it."
"That has been so until now. From here, we expect each year to differ from the last."
The aide continued as if he had been waiting for the opening.
"Hyeon-gang, the firm that represents Korea, is producing results in semiconductors. By next year, we believe, explosive sales..."
"Explosive sales?"
"To the point that we project next year alone will earn them more than they have made in all the years since their founding."
"A moment."
The duke's eyes narrowed.
"Did you say Hyeon-gang?"
"Yes."
Where had he heard that.
His face turned inward, searching.
"The only company in Asia that owns a work of da Vinci..."
"Ah. So that is why the name felt familiar."
Only then had his appetite been caught?
A thin smile. The corner of the duke's mouth twitched once more.
"This has suddenly become interesting."
He turned to the aide.
"So. Where did you say the best land was?"
"Seoul. And within it, Gangnam stands alone."
The briefing that followed.
He could see that there was potential. Even so, he could not shake the feeling that it was far too expensive.
"I should like the price adjusted."
"Then shall we proceed by some route other than investment?"
"If the price were right, investment would be the simpler path..."
"If a bubble has formed, it ought to be taken off. That, too, is my work."
"Hm."
The duke nodded, putting on the face of a man who had been talked round.
"If your will is firm, then proceed in that manner."