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His father nearly choked on his food. 'She... she was...'

Kenji looked at him steadily, and his gaze seemed to make his father more nervous than he had ever seen him before.

'What does it matter?' said his father shortly.

'It matters,' said Kenji, 'because she was my mother; and your wife! But we never discuss any memories of her! Could it be because you're hiding something from me...'

'What do you mean? What are you trying to say?!' said his father, his eyes growing white.

'I remember my mother laughing,' said Kenji. 'I remember this house being full of happiness and colour... but that was fourteen years ago, wasn't it?'

'Fo—fourteen?'

'Yes, fourteen! Fourteen years! Fourteen years of non-stop lies!' said Kenji, and despite the water he had drunk, his eyes glowed brightly again, just like they did on Earth.

'Xiennan! Stop this right now!' said his father in alarm.

'No, Father. I want you to stop, right now,' said Kenji, getting up. 'Emotions are the key to life, and without them, a human isn't a human, and a Xeljari isn't a Xeljari! We're just empty, lifeless beings! This programme of yours... it's shocking and wrong! And then, the fact that you lied to me all this time... all my life I've felt like a misfit, like there's something wrong with me; but there was never any problem with me, but rather, with you!'

'H—how did you find out?' said his father, trembling and reaching for a glass of water, but Kenji knocked it over and gave him a bottle instead.

'Drink this, Father, and feel,' he said.

'No!' said his father, his eyes flickering as he drank from the bottle and trembled more. 'I don't want to feel! I hate it! It makes me feel weak and... no... you weren't supposed to find out...'

'Why do you hate feelings, Father?' said Kenji softly.

'Because... humans have them...'

'Why do you hate humans?'

His father sighed and looked more sombre than Kenji had ever seen him. 'Because...'

Kenji looked at him expectantly. 'Well?'

'Because, it was a human's fault that your mother died!'

'What?!'

His father buried his face into his hands and his ears lay flat against his head.

Kenji frowned and tried to process what he had just heard. 'What do you mean?' he said at last.

'I mean, fourteen years ago, me and your mother went to Mars to conduct some research together,' said his father, his face contorting as though he was in great pain. 'And then, suddenly, we saw a space vehicle and went closer to investigate. I told her to stay back because it might be dangerous, but no, she said it would be fun! Then, this man stepped out with this long, black object — I didn't know what a gun was at the time — and he said something we couldn't understand. Before we could react or do anything, he fired it... oh, he fired it, Xiennan! And my beloved wife lay dead while I had to run for my life! I was so scared that I never returned to that place ever again!'

Kenji looked at his father sadly, his eyes dim, the red almost gone out.

'When I came back home, I thought a lot about what happened. I learnt that it was a human who had shot my wife. I learnt that guns and pointless killing were common things in their culture. I learnt as much as I could about their cursed planet and vowed that I would rule it one day. But our people... our people are so weak and fragile, Xiennan! You wanted to know what a true Xeljari is like? Well, they're soft and stupid! They don't want war, they want peace! They said I was going crazy after the death of my wife; they said I was being a bad influence on my young son. They said I was being too emotional about the whole thing, and that I had to calm down! This enraged me a lot, but then I thought about it; and it occurred to me that all our problems were really due to pointless emotions and feelings. The long, sleepless nights I was having as I writhed in pain and grief thinking about your mother... the stupid fun and friendliness that led her to her death... the greed and fear and cruelty of the human that killed her needlessly... the obstinacy of our people to stay peaceful when a savage, cruel race on a nearby planet would never show us the affection and mercy that our people would readily dish out! So I made up my mind; I would change the history of the Xeljari race. We would no longer be calm; we would be at war. We would no longer be fragile, sensitive beings; we would be unfeeling, emotionless, and cold. And the day I drank the prototype of the Klxsin drug, I felt relief for the first time in months! I would never worry again. I would never feel again. It was liberation!'

Kenji looked up at his father, who was pacing anxiously to and fro in the room.

'Liberation!' he continued. 'So, I immediately ordered its assimilation in society, and you know what? No one noticed the effects except me! I realised that I had fixed a flawed race and made it perfect! Now I could carry out all the plans I had thought of, and I began to work on them at once. But then... you grew up over the years! And you were always so frustratingly unyielding! No matter how much I tried to indoctrine you with the new Xeljari philosophy, you would not get it in your head! You were weak and sensitive and... too much like your mother. It infuriated me! But the more I tried to change you, the more you just wouldn't! And I grew to hate you; yes, I hated you for being like your mother, for being like my younger self, for being everything that the old Xeljari were like despite all my efforts! Why, Xiennan, why?! And how?!!'

Kenji simply stared at his father in shock, as he was too overwhelmed to say anything. His father sank back into his chair and looked at his son sadly.

'What have you done, Xiennan?' he said. 'I feel so much pain; I feel so sad! Why did you return my fourteen-year old pain by giving me the wrong water and asking me all this! Why?! I hate this! I hate feeling this way!'

Kenji held his father's hand gently, and stayed silent for a while. At last, however, he spoke, softly but firmly.

'Father, even after all this time, don't you think that emotions never really left you? And they never can, because they are a part of who we are! The reason why you distributed that drug was because you felt that would hurt you and our people less. The reason why you are attacking humans is because you feel that you are somehow avenging Mother's death by doing so. Fourteen years of Klxsin hasn't changed who you are and what you want, Father!'

'No, it's... it's not the same!!' exclaimed his father, shaking his head. 'It can't be...'

'But it can,' insisted Kenji. 'And you know why? Because your heart remains the same, no matter what! And that is why, even after drinking your drugged water all my life, I could never change from who I was. That is why, even now, I can say all this, despite being full of that Klxsin, which tries every passing moment to convince me to stop fighting for what I believe in, but it will never! That is why, despite being so cold and emotionless, you are still making decisions rooted in what your heart feels!'

'The heart doesn't feel anything!' said his father preposterously.

'Perhaps you can't understand right now, but you will,' said Kenji. 'Because you have a beating, feeling heart inside you right now, Father!'

'What do you want by all this?' said his father, sounding disturbed. 'Leave me alone! Just tell me what you want!'

'I want you stop this attack, as well as the emotionless programme,' said Kenji earnestly. 'And I want to be allowed to go back to Earth, to Airi.'

His father glared at him. 'You don't give up, do you?'

Kenji smiled. 'I'm your son, after all...'

His father's expression softened, and he looked at Kenji reluctantly. 'Fine, we'll make a deal. You believe in the way of the old Xeljari, don't you? Kindness and love and peace and all that sap...'

'For me, that is the only reality, the only right thing!'

'Then, I promise you, I will not only stop the administration of Klxsin, but I will also not launch any attack on the humans,' said his father, making Kenji's eyes widen in happy surprise, but he held up his hand before he could say anything. 'That said, I have a condition!'

'What is it, Father?' said Kenji anxiously.

'My condition is that humans, too, must make the same promise, and sign a treaty with us pledging to never attempt anything hostile on our planet or our people,' said his father, shaking his head with a dark chuckle as he spoke. 'And they will never do that!'

Kenji's face fell slightly, but then he remembered Airi and looked at his father confidently. 'They will, Father. Humans aren't so bad. I don't think they want war any more than we do!'

His father said nothing and simply stared into space. At length, he looked at Kenji again and cleared his throat.

'What is it?'

'You're placing way too much hope in those humans, Xiennan,' he said gently. 'As we speak, your young friend is in captivity — along with Shen-ja, I suppose.'

Kenji started. 'What?! How do you know that?!'

'Have you forgotten about my telescope and how much of Earth I get to see with it?'

'Oh, yes! But how do you know it's her?'

'There's only one girl I've ever seen you with when I watch you from up here,' said his father. 'So I took a safe guess and put her down as that Airi you were going on about when you first came home.'

Kenji's face went greenish as he felt shy and alarmed at the same time.

'You're sure it was her?' he said.

'Take a look yourself,' said his father lazily, handing him a photograph showing Airi, unconscious, with an unpleasant-looking man trying to carry her into a van.

'I must help her!' exclaimed Kenji. 'And Shen-ja, too!'

'It's no use,' said his father dejectedly. 'You can't do anything, and there's no point anyway—'

'Just let me go and try!'

'Look, I don't want you risking so much for a human girl!'

'I want to!' said Kenji, walking towards the door.

'Hey, where are you going?!' said his father, running after him.

'Back to Earth!'

'Stop, Xiennan! There's no way for you to go there without my permission, and I'm not giving it to you!'

Kenji walked briskly towards the back of the house, where a lightening pod stood, ready to use.

'How did this get here?' exclaimed his father, before he frowned as he realised the answer. 'Xvie helped you, didn't he?'

'Father, I'm sorry, but I had no other way,' said Kenji, getting in. 'Look, I must do this, and even you know that.'

'Why?!' said his father frustratedly. 'Let her deal with it herself!

'No!'

'Xiennan, please!' said his father suddenly, clutching his arm, with a strange, desperate expression that took Kenji by surprise. 'Look, my son... humans are more treacherous than you may think — and I...' his voice grew unsteady— 'I don't want to lose you, too.'

Kenji tenderly placed his hand on his father's for a few seconds, before gently removing it. 'I promise, you won't lose me; you'll gain so much more,' he said softly. 'I'll come back safely, Father; you'll see. Goodbye.'

'You stubborn boy! Don't go! Don't fall in love like an idiot!' yelled his father, but the lightening pod had closed before Kenji could reply.

As it whizzed upwards, and then past his father and towards Earth, Kenji sat inside, smiling, almost laughing to himself at the bizarre suggestion he had heard before setting off — from his father, of all people.

Don't fall in love like an idiot.

The thought made him smile idiotically once more. Love... Maybe his father had gotten something right for once — he really was in love with Airi.