Navuh
"How many traitors have joined Annani's clan?" he asked.
Areana shifted in her chair. "I do not know."
"Estimate."
"I can't. I only know what Annani and our sons tell me, and I didn't ask about that."
"Kalugal defected with seventy-three other males. I'm sure that Annani's female descendants found suitable immortal mates among them."
It was a small consolation to know that Annani's granddaughters and great-granddaughters had mated with males who had been fathered by brutes. Annani's selective breeding for intelligence and good looks had probably been trashed.
"Again, I don't know," Areana said. "Kalugal and his men live in their own section of the village."
"Second-class citizens, I presume."
"Not at all. Kalugal is a member of the council."
That shouldn't please Navuh, but it did. His son was respected by Annani and her people and not merely tolerated as a charity case.
"Do you remember Sharim?" Areana asked.
He was surprised by the question. "How do you know about him?"
"Dalhu beheaded him in a duel. I mention this so you will stop with that nonsense about real males not bothering with soft things like art. Dalhu is a formidable warrior and an artist. The two can coexist."
Navuh remembered Sharim. Sharim had been Losham's adopted son.
A sadist who had nevertheless been a promising rising star in the Brotherhood.
His death had been a mystery since a fire had destroyed his stronghold in California along with all evidence of what had transpired there, but Losham had always suspected that the clan had been behind Sharim and his entire unit's disappearance.
"His death was regrettable," Navuh said. "He had a lot of potential. Losham had big plans for him."
"He was a monster."
"True, but he was useful."
She shook her head. "That's not an excuse, Navuh. You should have disciplined him, forbidden him to torture women."
"He would have done it anyway, just away from the island. The only way to stop him was to kill him, and I didn't want to do that because he was good at his job and because Losham adopted him and considered him a son. Would you have wanted me to kill him?"
Areana looked conflicted. "I would have wanted you to threaten him with death if he crossed the line."
He knew she was too soft to demand the execution of anyone, even someone she considered a monster. That was why the soft ones always lost. They didn't have the guts to do what needed to be done to purge their society of harmful elements.
Not that he agreed with their definition of harmful elements because those were precisely the kind of people he needed to cause chaos and destruction.
"Is Kian Annani's only son?" he asked to change the subject.
"Annani had another son after Kian. He died in battle a long time ago."
"Against us?"
"No. Against humans. There was an overwhelming force. One brute got lucky."
"Her son fell fighting humans," he said. "He must have been a lousy fighter."
Areana cast him another angry look, but she didn't say anything. She let the cruelty of the comment and her silence speak for her.
He was angry too, but for different reasons.
He was angry that Areana was idolizing her sister and, by contrast, demonizing him.
"It nearly destroyed her," Areana said after a long moment. "Annani. It happened over a thousand years ago, and she still does not speak of him often."
"A thousand years is a long time to mourn."
"It's not when the one you grieve is your child. Time doesn't heal that wound."
He nodded because he knew it to be true. He'd mourned both his sons even though they weren't really dead. Their betrayal meant that they were dead to him.
"I am envious of Annani," Areana said quietly.
"Why?"
He knew why, but he wanted to hear her say it.
"She mothered an entire clan. She has children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren. She is the heart of her clan. You and I have only two sons and one grandson. I want a big family as well."
He smiled. "You have one."
She grimaced. "I don't count the Brotherhood as my family. It's more like your pet project. And I certainly don't count your adopted sons as mine even though some of them were born to the harem ladies who I think of as sisters."
He'd never told her that some of the boys he'd claimed as his own hadn't been born in the harem.
He'd figured early on that his system allowed him to take any boy from the breeding enclosure and claim him as his own.
No one outside the enclosure knew who the mothers were, and since the boys from the harem had been raised in the enclosure by Dormants, the soldiers themselves couldn't know whether their mothers had given birth to them or had only raised them.
Still, she wasn't supposed to know that he'd claimed children born in the enclosure as his.
But then figuring that the math didn't add up wasn't difficult, and Areana was smart.
He'd claimed many more sons than those born in the harem, and he'd told her about enough of them for her to figure that out.
Navuh took another sip of the cooling coffee.
"Annani was quite generous with her affections," he said, aware he was provoking Areana but unable to resist. "She must have bedded countless humans to have five children—it's a record for a goddess."
"The Fates bestowed their blessing on her," Areana said with perfect composure.
"They took away from her the one person who was everything to her, and they compensated by giving her more children than any other goddess before her had, so she could continue the gods' mission elevating humans from barbarism to civilization.
She couldn't do it alone, so she created more of her, the only way she could.
She had children to carry that work forward. "
He knew she was right, but he couldn't concede. It just wasn't in him. "That's a convenient excuse to share the beds of countless humans. I'm sure it wasn't a hardship for her. I'm sure she enjoyed every moment."
"Perhaps." Areana put her coffee cup down.
"The results speak for themselves. She built a community on trust, respect, mutual protection, and love.
Her clan will endure because it's in everyone's interest to make sure it does.
Everyone benefits. You built an army of thousands of immortal soldiers on hate and fear, either of you or the hateful god they worship.
Your compulsion was what has kept them in line.
Without it, they would just kill each other in a bloody battle for dominance.
We got a taste of that during the rebellion of the enhanced. So, tell me whose math is better."
"Mine, of course. If not for your plot to get Tula off the island and everything that followed, I would still be there, running an army no one on Earth could overpower with conventional weapons. I would have had the upper hand."
"Perhaps." She lifted her cup and took a sip.
"Humans are savages," he said. "Annani will have as much luck civilizing them as she would have with chimpanzees if they were the dominant species on this planet.
The gods' mission was a vision of utopia that doesn't exist anywhere in the universe.
It didn't even exist where they came from, but they were delusional and believed they could create on Earth what they'd failed to do on their home planet. "
"How do you know that? Did your father tell you?"
He shrugged. "He told me bits and pieces, and I connected the dots. It wasn't difficult to deduce."
She didn't respond, and her face was composed into the pleasant mask he'd been seeing for over five thousand years.
He'd always loved that angelic face of hers and the effect it had on him.
Areana had been the only one who could calm the storm raging inside of him.
But now that he knew this expression for the lie it was, it did the opposite.
"You call my warriors barbarians, but that's because they are more human than god, and they have the same violent tendencies as humans, and the same lack of self-control.
Only they are stronger and faster and harder to kill.
If Annani still believes in the fairy tale of the gods being benevolent shepherds who descended from the heavens to elevate humanity, she's a fool. "
Areana cast him the most annoying, condescending look.
"Annani is many things, but a fool is not one of them. She's an optimist."
"Same thing."
"No, it's not. She has lived in this world for five thousand years and saw all the ugliness but also all the beauty. Empires rose and fell, but she kept going."
"You told me you only talked about fashion and grandchildren with your sister. It seems like you and Annani talked about many things."
She had the decency to avert her gaze. "I didn't want to upset you.
You need all your energy for healing, and lately it seems that everything I say upsets you.
You're constantly irritated, which I understand.
You are stuck down here, with those contraptions exercising your muscles, a long road to recovery, and nothing to look forward to.
I wish I could do more for you, but for now, I'm just grateful that they are taking care of you and helping you recover.
I'll worry about the rest when you are back on your feet. "
And just like that, she'd reduced his fire to barely smoldering embers. She still loved him, she still wanted the best for him, she just didn't know what to do in this new world she found herself in.
Still, she'd lied to him, and it wasn't the first time.
He set the empty cup down on the rolling table. The CPM machine completed another cycle on his left leg, and the small mechanical whir of it filled the silence between them.
"You lied. Again."
She let out a long breath. "You lied to me about everything throughout our lives, including the story that locked me in the harem and forced me to give up my sons. So don't talk to me about lying."
"That was not a story," he said. "That was the only way I could ensure their safety."
"You told me that the only way to keep them alive was to give them up to be raised in the enclosure and not show them any favoritism so no one would have a reason to be jealous of them and kill them."
"It was true. I was protecting them."
"You were protecting yourself. You were protecting the fiction that you had many sons, and they were all exchangeable and expendable so not one of them would dare to amass power. You were protecting the lie that kept you in power. You were not protecting our sons."
"It was for their safety," he repeated. "You are just upset and not thinking rationally. You know what happened to the one boy I showed affection toward. He was murdered. I grieved for him even though he wasn't my blood."
Areana shook her head. "I don't know anymore."
"Yes, you do." He reached for her hand. "I would never have caused you suffering if there was another way.
But our sons wouldn't have been safe even if they remained with you in the harem and never left.
Besides, what kind of life would it have been for them?
Would you have wanted them to live that way? "
She looked into his eyes. "No."
"That's what I thought."