The Mine and the Hydra
"My son... Promise me... You have to get out."
"But Mom. Get out where? If we leave the village, they'll execute us."
"...Outside... farther than that..."
"There's just another village beyond ours, and past that is the ocean. And beyond the ocean is a cliff with nothing at all."
"No... not there..."
"If not outside the village, then where is outside?"
"Up..."
"Up?"
"Upward. Above the sky."
"Come on. What, grow wings and fly?"
"You have to go up... out beyond the sky... Promise me. If the chance ever comes... that you will get out no matter what."
"...I don't really get what you mean..."
"The world is out there. It's above the sky... Above the sky... You at least... toward the world..."
From the time he was small, his mother had spoken words like those.
Truthfully, more than any talk of the outside, he had only wanted to work harder and lighten her burden.
When he had just become an adult, his mother left this world.
Right up until the end she had kept telling him to go out beyond the sky.
Cause of death: chronic illness. And overwork.
It was a year after that before he managed to leave the planet.
Three years after the escape.
In a shabby inn in a satellite city of the Daylascos System on the galactic fringe—too built-up to call a pure village, too rustic to call a real city—a martial artist was knocking back drinks.
A martial artist. Yes. That was what he was.
The word meant a person who walked the path of martial arts, and in this galaxy every human was a martial artist. Among those who walked on two legs, where would you find someone who had never trained in martial arts?
Just as an infant learned speech and letters, so too did they learn martial arts. Breathing methods for accumulating inner energy, qi circulation, light-body techniques, basic mind methods—they picked those up in the same years they learned addition and subtraction.
Of course not everyone was as formidable as the masters of the great orthodox houses. Still, it was a world where most people had at least a palmful of inner energy in their dantian.
So everyone was a martial artist. The word had simply become another name for human.
"Martial artist... a martial artist, huh..."
Nam Gong-ryun, drunk, muttered the words to himself.
He rolled the liquor bottle back and forth with one hand in a pointless motion, letting the alcohol soak all the way through him.
On the back of his right hand was the brand of a slave.
He hated martial artists. And that hatred was more or less a hatred of the human species itself.
To a man born a slave, martial arts were nothing but an invention that had helped create this merciless world of the strong devouring the weak. Countless people cried out the ideologies of righteousness and chivalry, yet those cries were privileges reserved for the bourgeoisie—empty echoes that never reached the bottom of society.
Even though Nam Gong-ryun himself had learned martial arts and become a martial artist, his life had been nothing but exploitation by those stronger than him.
Martial arts, martial artist—both were words that left a sour ring in his ears.
Yet ironically he possessed talent for martial arts, and that talent had become the rope that let him climb out of slavery. After escaping the slave planet and working as a Sapa mercenary, he had at least climbed one rung up the ladder of status. He had left the very bottom.
So for him, martial arts could only be a love-hate affair.
"Boy. Another bottle here."
He downed more liquor.
He tried to live positively most of the time, but on days when homesickness struck like this he inevitably got dead drunk. He thought of his mother, who had died back on his home planet.
Just as he was draining cup after cup—
"Gong-ryun!!! I've arrived! Heh heh heh!"
An android strode into the inn, his hollow mechanical voice booming.
"You're here, bald monk."
"Bald monk? Precisely speaking, I'm a pariah monk!"
Same difference, Nam Gong-ryun muttered inwardly.
"Judging by that face of yours, this must be one of those days when the depression flares up again. How about converting to Buddhism while you're at it and finding some peace of mind? Amitabha...!"
"Not happening, bald monk. And... that doesn't sound like something a man who ran away from a temple ought to be saying."
"I left the temple, but the Buddha-mind remains as ever. Heh heh heh."
Buddha-mind? From a guy who guzzled booze and chased women? Nam Gong-ryun was floored by the android's shamelessness.
That very shamelessness was the bald monk's greatest strength—exactly the kind of boldness you would expect from someone of Buddhist origin who had taken a job with the Sapa and adapted completely.
"Gong-ryun. Don't just sit there. Let's go to work. Times like these, the body needs to move."
"Oh. That's my man. Snagged another job with that lucky knack of yours."
"All thanks to a wide web of connections. Heh heh heh. Gong-ryun, how about you tone down that temper of yours and develop a little sociability?"
"..."
He had just been lectured on sociability by an android.
But it was true, so Nam Gong-ryun could not even bring himself to get angry.
"Come on. Quit dawdling and let's go right now!"
"Right this second? Must be a job that needs warm bodies in a hurry."
"Yes. Seems some space hydras are running wild nearby. Not the strong ones—pretty scrubby specimens—so the request went out to the mercenaries."
"...All right. Let's go."
Nam Gong-ryun decided to take the work if only to shake off the gloom.
They would leave the residential district where the inn stood and head for the mining zone where the hydras had appeared.
The place Nam Gong-ryun currently occupied was Planet 6-2 of the Daylascos System.
Daylascos was the name of the system's star, and 6-2 meant the second-largest moon of the sixth planet.
The Daylascos System had eight planets orbiting its star.
The sixth was a massive gas giant and therefore uninhabitable.
Yet among the dozens of large and small moons that gas giant ruled, a few could support life, and one of them was this place—Planet 6-2, a satellite world of rock, sand, and minerals.
Most of the planet's exports depended on mining; beyond that, the only thin domestic industries were food production inside the domes and service work like restaurants and inns.
It was a sparse world. Already on the galactic fringe, it sat on the outer edge even within its own system—a backwater of a backwater.
As with most barren corners of the galaxy, the breath of the Sapa reached strongly here.
Several Sapa corporations had established power on the planet, and for the moment the balance of strength held well enough that they coexisted. In other words, they clung to the planet like parasites and sucked it dry together in friendly fashion.
As a Sapa planet, the mercenary business thrived, and ever since the space locusts began appearing they had put the mercenaries to good use dealing with them. Typically the planetary government posted a request and the mercenaries freely accepted and resolved it.
"They really do just toss the requests out like throwing meat to dogs. No detailed middle steps—just 'Request open! Resolve it! Reward on completion!' and that's it."
"Perfect method for Sapa types. Most of the people here either live like there's no tomorrow or don't give a damn about the law. What good would a finely detailed system do? I was actually impressed by the planetary government's custom-fitted administrative setup."
Rewards were paid without fail. Anyone who caused trouble saw their credit rating drop, so the worst trash got filtered out cleanly.
Faces and DNA data had to be registered in advance without exception.
Manuals existed for emergencies and bloodshed.
Based on big data, an AI recommended request lists matched to each mercenary's level.
It felt like high freedom with a hard Maginot Line drawn underneath. Optimized for the Sapa, pure and simple.
The first time he saw how well-built the system was, Nam Gong-ryun—country boy and former slave—had been mildly impressed.
"Did you pack a respirator?"
"Yeah. Protective suit too."
Near the exit from the city they checked their gear.
Outside the city the environment was too harsh for people to live.
Ordinarily, when a planet was said to be inhabited, the whole world was terraformed. Here the population was relatively small, so they never went that far.
Instead they designated a few patches of ground as residential zones and people clustered there. One of those was the very city Nam Gong-ryun now occupied.
Over each residential zone rose a transparent hemispherical energy dome large enough to cover the entire city. Inside the dome there was oxygen and water, and gravity was kept at a comfortable level.
Outside the dome stretched the raw gray surface of the planet—a wasteland of thin air. There people mined the special minerals that were this world's only real value.
In any case.
To roam that desolate exterior they needed equipment.
For the android monk there was nothing critical to pack beyond his iron staff, but Nam Gong-ryun was human. Going outside the city required a few tools.
First, a respirator that let him breathe even in low oxygen—a collar-like choke piece, product of advanced space technology.
And a protective suit of special material that blocked harsh direct sunlight and radiation, shaped like a full-body cloak. It came as a set with a bamboo hat.
Skip the hat and you could go bald. Just like that bald monk over there. Though in his case it was because he was a monk.
"Look at this, Gong-ryun. Brand-new maker bamboo hat I just bought."
"Why does an android need a bamboo hat?"
"Direct sunlight heats the head and shortens CPU life. And more than that—doesn't it look sharp? Check out this glossy maker logo."
"Worldly bastard..."
Un-rang put on the bamboo hat and struck a cool pose. That was the bald-monk android's name: Un-rang. It meant "wave of clouds," and it suited him perfectly. He had the temperament of someone who liked to drift through life as free as clouds or waves.
Just then a voice called from the dome entrance.
"Emergency vehicle for Zone AE-21 departing shortly!"
"Oh. That's our ride. A few other mercenaries will probably pile in too. Of course we'll all act separately once we're there."
"Mm. Mercenaries are like that."
Teamwork was not their strong suit. Getting stabbed in the back was far too common. At most two or three would travel together.
The vehicle looked like a converted military transport. About a dozen mercenaries were already seated inside. With Nam Gong-ryun's party as the last passengers, the engine roared to life.
"Open the gate!"
The city gate parted.
Beyond it lay gray earth.
Heavy, choking air slapped them in the face.
Endless gray rock fields, and here and there the transparent domes of residential cities. Seen from afar, this planet would look like a gray marble with a few flat suction cups stuck on it.
The vehicle rolled out of the city and shot straight ahead.
Ahead lay the endless land of barren minerals; behind them rose the round domes of people and living things.
For a while they left the land of life to carry out their mission. When they returned, the scent of water and trees would welcome them softly home.
