When Woon had retired last year from his role as the clan’s Sealgiver and passed the position onto Terun Bin, Shae had worried her husband was making a mistake. She was skeptical that a man who’d been one of the highest-ranked Green Bones on Ship Street could possibly be happy finger painting with a five-year-old and packing snacks. But Woon had seemed certain in his decision. “I’ve spent many years being ordered around by a tough little woman and managing thankless details,” he reminded her. “I’m well prepared for this job.”
“That’s unfair of you,” Shae protested. “I’m hardly little.” In truth, she was jealous of all the time her husband and daughter spent together. Woon had waited for children for so long that he relished being a father, and the reality was that he hadn’t recovered as well as Hilo had from the Janloon bombing. He was deaf on one side and walked with a slight limp, and Shae knew that as stoic and humble a man as her husband appeared to be, those things hurt his pride and had played some part in his decision to retire from the demands of clan life sooner.
Woon had not, however, stopped paying attention to issues affecting the clan and regularly discussing them with her. “Have you seen the news about the Lybon Act?” Without waiting for her answer, he picked up the remote and turned on the television in the living room. KNB’s commentators were discussing the passage of an unprecedented international accord establishing ethical guidelines for military use of bioenergetic jade. Eighty-five nations, led by the Republic of Espenia and including Kekon, had met at a convention in Stepenland to condemn and outlaw breeding programs, child military camps, forced addiction, and ingestion of ground jade.
Shae wetted a kitchen towel and wiped the paint from Tia’s hands as she watched the news. The Lybon Accord followed a comprehensive report released last year by the Espenian military on Ygutan’s nekolva program, based largely on firsthand accounts provided by Ygutanian defectors, most notably a former nekolva agent referred to only as Agent M. “So the ROE has convinced most of the world to sanction their enemies,” Shae said.
Woon carefully removed his daughter’s artwork from the kitchen table and set it aside to dry. “Bringing down the nekolva program is a good thing.” Stories had circulated in Kekon for years, of women from Abukei tribes and low-income areas being lured or trafficked into forced surrogacy on the Orius continent. “But the Espenians are denying justice to Kekon.”
“Something they’ll never acknowledge,” Shae pointed out bitterly. “And we have no hard evidence to prove them wrong.” Although it was widely believed that the Janloon bombing had relied on foreign support, no one from the clans or law enforcement had been able to pin down proof that Ygutan was involved, nor find those who were responsible. Several Clanless Future Movement members had revealed under interrogation that a foreigner named Molovni was a key figure in the CFM, but this Molovni, if he existed, was a ghost.
Shae was certain he hadn’t vanished into thin air. The ROE had either captured him or offered him sanctuary in exchange for defecting. Molovni, or “Agent M,” as he was now facelessly known to the world, was sitting in Espenian custody and would never face justice for murdering hundreds of Kekonese citizens.
The KNB news desk reported that the Ygutanian Directorate had issued a defiant statement characterizing the Lybon Act as disingenuous Espenian fearmongering. The call for Ygutan to submit to international inspection of its nekolva program was a bald-faced attempt to impinge on its sovereignty, the officials in Dramsk declared. A commercial came on and Woon turned off the television.
Shae rinsed the towel in the sink, staring at the muddy water as it swirled down the drain. “Papi, was I wrong to have ever dealt with the Espenians?” He was the one person to whom she voiced her worst doubts. “I’ve been attacked for it so often over the years, but I always thought I was doing the right thing for the clan in the long run. I’m not so sure anymore.”
She’d tried for so many years to walk No Peak down a tightrope, benefiting from foreigners without falling prey to them. But ever since the bombing, it seemed to Shae the country was spinning in a storm, manipulated and abused by forces within and without.
Woon took the towel from her hands and blotted the biggest stain on her shirt. “Foreigners have always come for Kekon and for our jade,” he reminded her solemnly. “They would be here whether you were Weather Man or not. No one else could’ve done a better job of handling them with No Peak’s interests at heart.”