2.?The Giant’s Shadow

The gasoline powered bikes belonged to a security company working with Cabas. Two of them passed on by, and then the third came to an abrupt stop underneath the sal tree the girl was hiding in, followed by a fourth.

“..Seems like something she would think of.”

Wearing black helmets and dressed from head to toe in leather, the men (it was possible that some of them might have been women) didn’t look up, as one of them drew a gun. The bikes that had gone ahead returned as well.

The black helmet brandishing the gun didn’t even take the time to aim, and the girl felt the impact in her leg just as she thought, “stay away!” Even something like a syringe could be fired at incredible speed, and as it stuck into her thigh it felt like her arms, wrapped around the trunk of the tree, had been knocked flying.

A tranquilizer!??The moment the thought entered her head her body dropped sluggishly, following the path of the tree down as she tumbled head over heels.?How barbaric!?A numbing sensation spread from her right thigh to her hips to her back, chilling her body and blurring her vision. Even so, she could still make out the streaking lines of green.

*ROOOAR*

{Didn’t I tell you so?}

There was a flash of consciousness that came from the commotion above her.

{Things turned out just as I said they would.}

That voice, or rather, that thinking, touched the awareness of the girl who had just broken though the lowest branch of the sal tree. It belonged to a man she knew.

{If you had just made a decision when I invited you to space none of this would have happened.}

The Lieutenant Commander!

*VROOOOSH*? The thunderous roar felt like it was pushing down on the top of her head, and the powerful winds whipped through the forest, blowing away the layer of sand that covered the trees, until it looked like the pair of legs was about to wear the trees as shoes.

Lieutenant Commander! What are you doing here?

The enormous giant was painted in a color that resembled the flowers of the bougainvillea, descending like Shiva or the storm god Rudra.

{I was curious, since it was the day I was going to space, so I flew here and I saw Lalah riding a scooter. It was quite the unexpected sight.}

It wasn’t a voice speaking, but..yes, she understood.

Branches snapped. As the giant’s feet scattered the sal tree blossoms, the four gas bikes spun their tires and took off in multiple directions. The red giant’s hand reached out and caught the girl, Lalah, just before she hit the ground.

*Screeeech*?One of the bikes flipped over while trying to avoid the red giant’s foot as it touched down. The titan dropped a metal suitcase in front of the bike.

“The gold there should more than cover things!”

The voice of the red giant boomed in all directions, audible to all of the riders, preventing the suitcase from being claimed by any one individual.

“Inform Cabas that Lalah Sune is under the protection of Char Aznable of Zeon!”

Opening the suitcase and seeing the gold plates inside, the black-helmeted man accelerated away, holding tightly to the treasure.

*ZOOOM!*?The red giant ascended, cloaked in the shimmering air. That submarine-like rocket ship was waiting for them in the sky above.

?

“Something like the thread of fate tied around your pinky?”

“Hahaha..” The young man named Char Aznable, wearing a crimson military uniform, laughed at Lalah’s innocent comparison. He was telling her the story of why he had gone to Cabas, the place she had been allowed to live.

Forced out of the Zeon military, Char had spent some time wandering the Earth. He had been ousted from his position for failing to protect Garma Zabi, the youngest son of Sovereign Degwin Sodo Zabi, leader of the Principality of Zeon.

But even as he wandered, Char didn’t become a vagabond, nor did the military intend to let him roam free forever.

“It was fate that I was taking receipt of this?Zanzibar?when Lalah called out to me.”

That was the story that led to the comparison with the thread of fate.

“Can you tell? Where Cabas is.” Shaking back his blonde hair in a practiced gesture, the young man motioned to a window-like display. It showed a depiction of the landscape directly below the ship.

“Right here.” Standing up, she pointed to a location on the display, which was then magnified. The few blocks of Cabas running along the Ganges River appeared like slightly squashed squares on a chessboard, recognizable from the forests and fields surrounding it. The image was moving out of the multi-frame display at a considerable speed, and Lalah’s fingertip followed, tracing over its path.

“Impressive. You weren’t off by even a millimeter.”

“Is that right?”

“That’s not easy to do. Isn’t that so, Mulligan?” The red uniformed officer looked to another officer standing by the doorway for agreement.

“There was no hesitation in identifying a single point, even on a high altitude image. Incredible.”

“I could sense her talent, that’s why Lalah called out to me.”

“Is that how it is?”

“It was like that during my first visit to Cabas as well. You called me a Zeon, didn’t you?”

“Because of the air about you..”

“No, back then I was disguised. Or rather..my heart was closed off. I wasn’t thinking of Zeon at all. Despite that, Lalah said that I was a genuine Zeon.”

“Did I?”

“..Even now, I never told you to point to the display, but you did. Why is that?”

“You asked me to, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t. But I did think it. Lalah sensed it.” The officer in red looked happy to say her name. The way he used it was synonymous with saying, “I love you.”

“I could just tell from the atmosphere..”

“Really? But there was no need to stand up and touch the screen.”

“Oh..! I see..” Forcing a smile, she finally accepted the red-uniformed officer’s words. It felt like the girl was playing a prank by pushing back against what the young man said.

“Even if you were only picking up on the atmosphere, your intuition is good. Would you allow me to make use of it?”

“It’s almost as if you mean to make me into a soldier.”

“That’s correct.”

“..”

“I won’t force you. If your answer is no, I’ll land the ship right now.”

“You’re joking..” Lalah started to laugh, but when she realized the young man was serious she closed her mouth.

The other young officer standing at the door chuckled at their friendly conversation, while also making it clear that Char wasn’t lying. It seemed like he felt even more embarrassed about this than she did..

The ship was gaining altitude as it orbited the Earth, but even as they spoke it wouldn’t have been out of the question to go back. On top of that, Char was also thinking that it would be a good idea to land at least once for practice, as part of breaking in the new ship, but he didn’t mention that part.

However, Lalah could tell that too, and she took her time deliberating. “..”

“If you want to return to Cabas, that’s fine. Or if you’d like to live on your own, I can at least provide you with a small bit of support.”

“We’ve only met once before. Why would you go that far?”

“I believe I’ve made my intentions known.”

“I can’t imagine what I’ll be asked to do, but if my abilities can be of use to the Lieutenant Commander then I don’t want to disregard them..this isn’t me being conceited, okay?”

“That’s right. Lalah is indispensable.”

“You never took me as a lover at Cabas.”

“Ah!? ..Did that offend you?”

“At that time, you were so rigid that it made me wary.”

“I’m sorry. I was so impressed by your aptitude that I lost my cool.”

“I see..Lieutenant Commander, this aptitude and sensitivity of mine that you keep speaking of..I suppose I’ll place my trust in it.” As she finished giving her answer the officer named Mulligan made a stealthy exit.

“I paid off the owner at Cabas and was allowed up to your room, but as soon as I saw you I was convinced that you were the girl who had been calling to me. That’s why, back then, I completely forgot all about trying to seduce you.”

“..” Lalah’s smile stretched across her entire face.

Night had fallen on the image of the Earth behind her. Compared to the previous century, the light from the cities across the continent was a fraction of what had been, but the sight seemed to give new meaning to the well-worn phrase “diamond-studded.”

?

Lalah Sune’s earliest memories were of the orphanage in the crowded streets of Delhi, and she grew up living a life that was almost entirely self-sufficient. Some of the children from that facility were taken by families emigrating to space, but in Lalah’s case she left at age nine, when the owner of Cabas asked to adopt her. None of the staff members at the orphanage seemed to care about the identity of the adults who took the children. Even though they knew the children couldn’t survive on their own, the orphanage would throw them out as soon as they turned fifteen.

Part of this was because the Earth Federation government, organized to facilitate emigration to space, had a policy of publicizing that life on the Earth was merciless, which only made it even more so.

The history of mankind’s exploitation of the Earth, which continued up through the 21st century, had finally pushed the planet to the brink of death. Consumption of goods requires consumption of energy. Consumption of energy wastes goods. In order for the majority of people to continue on with their everyday lives, food had to be shipped in from remote regions. Communication using one’s mouth and ears alone and on-foot transportation all became insufficient, and a multitude of communication and transportation networks took their place. Houses were required to do more than provide shelter from the elements, clothing and tools were updated annually, and these structures were understood as acts of knowledge, of culture.

Living such a life, modern humans became more aristocratic than medieval royalty, forgetting how to use the dynamism gifted to them by their arms and legs, mouths and ears, and forgetting, from the inside of their living spaces shaped by a myriad of technologies supporting the functions of those organs, that they were animals.

They failed to see that even the consumption of “clean” energy was accelerating the warming of the planet, or that the urbanization of the residential sector encouraged the outbreak of new types of diseases, instead believing all modern commercial enterprise to be good, until the harmful effects of technology appeared in the air and water and the food produced by it.

However, when people began to realize that even the organism called the Earth had limits on the ability to heal itself, they also saw that just as the Earth suffered from illness, so did the human mind.

Faced with such an era, people decided for the first time that the ideal of keeping the planet healthy for all time must be put into practice. Originally such problems were neither ideological nor epistemological, but people began to ask themselves whether or not it was okay for them to be consuming so much, if they were really worthy enough to use all of the tools they possessed.

Following this obvious understanding, modern capitalism had a revelation. Outer space gives you infinite room for consumption!

Humanity, which had flourished because of economic activity, could come up with no other logic. It was the thought that, from a commercial viewpoint, everything is either profitable or it isn’t.

Even though the space development that resulted from this clumsy idea could provide no help in extending the lifespan of the Earth, people loudly proclaimed what a stroke of luck it was that science and technology had progressed in such a way as to make space emigration possible.

From the logical consequences of that reasoning came the formation of the Earth Federation government, the construction of space colonies and transportation systems for the immigrants. These undertakings stimulated the economy, promising unlimited consumption.

The move to space continued over the last century, and restrictions were placed on living on Earth. The people allowed to stay behind were those working in environmental conservation, the primary industries, researchers studying archaeology, history and other related fields, along with people in the industries supporting all of the above. However, loopholes and exemptions have existed since antiquity. And so, in the end a new Earth came into existence, an Earth where the way of life seemed no different from the old one.

With Char leading her by the hand, Lalah Sune made her departure from that planet.