"I know what you mean."
"If we were to succumb to the disease, their lives would put them more at risk. If we can't dose every subject in the kingdom, all we can do is think about how best to keep the harm or the impact of the disease to an absolute minimum."
"I couldn't have said it better myself Kaim. You get a perfect score. Good job!"
His words of praise carry obvious barbs.
Sensing their presence, Kaim falls silent. Underlying Dok's sharp comments is not only the pain of biting saracasm but the sorrow of helplessness.
Two children, a boy and a younger girl, run past the men, laughing. Dressed in rags, they have probably come from the slum behind the market to gather scraps of vegetables little better than garbage.
Dok points to their receding forms and says,
"I'd like to ask you a question, Kaim."
"All right . . ."
"Are those kids 'Subjects Indispensable to the Nation?"
Kaim has no answer for him. Because he knows the right answer all too well, he can only lapse into silence.
Responding to Kaim's silence with a bitter smile, Dok goes on,
"According to your logic, Kaim, if those kids fall sick and die. "There's no way around it.' Or at least capital police like us have a greater right to the medicine than those kids do. Am I right, Kaim? Isn't that what you're saying?"
Kaim could hardly declare that he was wrong.
Responding again to Kaim's silence, Dok asks,
"Now don't misunderstand me. I'm not attacking you. It's just that everybody is indispensable to somebody. Even those kids. They may be just a nuisance to the state-poor beggars, but to their parents they are indispensable lives that must be protected at all cost. Am I wrong?"
What a kindhearted fellow, Kaim thinks, maybe too kind -to a degree that could prove fatal for a soldier.
From the direction of the castle comes the sound of the great bell -an emergency assembly signal to the soldiers patrolling the streets.
The medicine seems to have arrived for them.
"Let's head back," Dok pipes up, apparently emerging from his gloom,
"Let's be good boys and take the miraculous medicine that's going to save our lives and protect the kingdom."
The sorrow-filled thorns sprouting form his words pierce Kaim through the heart.
It is the following day when Dok tells Kaim of his plan to desert.
"I'm only telling this to you Kaim," he says when they are patrolling the marketplace again.
"I know the punishment for desertion is harsh. I'm not sure I can make it all the way, and if I'm caught, I know I'll be court-martialed and executed."
He has resigned himself to that possibility, he says, which is why he wants to make sure that Kaim knows the purpose of his desertion.
"I'm not betraying the country or the army. I just have to deliver . . . this."
In his open palm lies the tablet that he was issued the day before.
"You didn't take it?" Kaim asks, shocked.
"No, I fooled them," he chuckles, immediately turning serious again and closing his open hand.
"You're going to deliver this tablet?"
YOU ARE READING
Forgotten Dreams of Eternity: Lost Odyssey: Thousand Years of Dreams
Science FictionA science fiction novel with 33 short stories foretelling the forgotten dreams of Kaim, A immortal who has lived over more than a thousand years. This novel is based on the hit video game Lost Odyssey. Short Story XV, Short Story -XXI, and Short Sto...
(Short Story -XXIII.) *The Ranking of Lives*
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