surrender ; minsung

the ground

When Jisung sees the ocean, he begins to run.

He falls prone at the shore, forehead against the cold, smooth stones. He can feel its waters touching his outstretched hands, crashing and babbling and breathing, reaching out for miles into the distance, not just smears of blue from a commander's-eye view.

Earth 99 is a lush, beautiful planet covered with oceans, forests and valleys. After a mass extinction 200 years ago, humans returned to the planet with no desire to once again cover it in smokestacks and anchorages. A populace of elders, farmers and naturalists, dirt paths and cob buildings no taller than one storey — it's a far cry from the planets Jisung used to ransack and flee.

Though 99's inhabitants are post-monetary, the government is not. The tele-trip there, buying citizenship and finding someplace to stay large enough for everyone in their band, racked up to a sweaty-palmed sum. They were left with very little of the money they stole from the Ender, money they need for 99's Former Merchant Policy, which demands insurance that they won't "thieve, pillage, or otherwise ravage."

Jisung was almost sure they were screwed. Then he read the fine print. Retired merchants may be granted a social contract in lieu of monetary, in the form of contribution to the trade and gift economies, as well as local wellbeing via agriculture, floriculture, and husbandry.

So... they do end up running something of a farm. Tending to the local farmers' crops — fruits, vegetables, grains, medicinal plants. The sun is sweltering and the insects are almost as big as he is, but he enjoys the work. It leaves him drained, but not empty. Ultimately whatever is harvested is offered up at a "swap-n-gift market" in the town square. (Town square. Really. Jisung forgot societies any smaller than a fair-sized metropolis could even exist.)

The homestead they rent is a chalky-white, low-lying building surrounded by treacherous blackberry bushes, and an unkempt rooftop garden draped overtop like a sleeping dragon. It has several outbuildings and even a barn within the forest-guarded property, and every member of the Stingray clan gets their own bedroom. Jisung's is barely a quarter the size of his chamber on the Stingray, with one small hopper window and a floor mattress. He fucking loves it.

While the rest unwind, rolling tobacco leaves around the fire pit, Jisung makes his way south, through the bursting pampas grass and willows like languishing dancers, and out into a vast pasture of grazing pygmy cows. Just half a mile's walk and he's back at the ocean, where he belongs, where he stays.

He made it. He's alive.

He should be so wonderfully, wholly happy.

He isn't. He looks up at the night sky, and he isn't.

—

It's a new sky again. Beautiful, he knows, though the view from the ground always makes Minho feel much too small.

He has no weapon on him. No company behind him. It's been weeks, maybe, since he fired every one of them and sold the Ender for parts. He didn't think it through — no, he barrelled into it like he was throwing himself out a window — because if he let himself think, he would have controlled himself. Controlled his heart. Carried on like nothing was wrong. Locked himself in his chamber, rich and successful. Comfortable.

Either way, he's a coward. And there's no running from that.

He spent all day at the registry offices on Earth 864, searching their system for a Han Jisung. There's thousands. None his. He doesn't visit industrial planets, nowhere landlocked or waterless; it narrows his options by a wide margin. Still, he has the universe in front of him. He's looking for a needle in a haystack. A needle in space.

He looks up at the sky.

He'll find him. Even if he has to search forever, he'll find him.