Jack of Harts

Mount Inferno expels ash into the air almost every day on San Lucas. It rumbles and grumbles and threatens to bury the continent of Hankou with ash and lava on a weekly basis. The Chinese maintain permanent installations in orbit, and surround the volcano with force field projectors and air purifiers to keep the ash and lava at bay. It is enough to keep Hankou habitable, but the reasons for why the Chinese cared was a mystery. Until we performed the DNA analyses and learned that the cats who lived there had been genengineered from Chinese lions and tigers. The Chinese ethos is that anything or anyone who was once Chinese will always be Chinese. So these cats are Chinese. Which makes Hankou Chinese. And perhaps all of San Lucas. The San Lucan government disputes all Chinese claims to any part of their system, but they do not have the military strength to expel the Chinese “aid workers.”