"Even me," I said quietly.
I know. That, you could not have kept from me. "I was put before the tribunal to answer to that." They were sure I knew, sure I helped. "I was forced to undergo absolute surrender."
I gasped. On Laak'sa, it was a punishment worse than death. It meant that a person must allow themselves to be fully open, to allow a group of elders to search everything inside them, every memory, every secret, the deep, dark corners of personality that was their true self. It was a process so humiliating that most Qitani opted for death directly after. "Ashnahta..."
She had to get it out and rushed ahead, blocking my words and my sympathy.
"I was hiding nothing. They soon figured it out." But they knew me then. They knew my secrets. They knew the sides of me that should have remained my own. "A primary in training has never suffered such a humiliation." There was no protocol. No one knew if I could even stand for primary anymore. "The tribunal issued a censure against the crew of the Condor. Xavier was executed for his insubordination to your mother." Your mother requested he be pardoned. I still do not understand why she should do such a thing. "Your mother was taken to the prison, and your father was given the option of going with her or remaining with the crew." He chose Eunice. Again, a confusing human ideal to Morhal. On the Condor, he would have had some freedom, at least.
But I understood. I understood what Eunice was feeling. "You cannot tell me you side with the humans, Morhal would say." For days she visited my rooms, trying to get answers for all she had seen in my surrender. Ta'al turned her back on me instantly. "I do not side with the humans, I understand them, I would tell her." I do not believe to this day she could see the difference.
"After several weeks, a decision was finally made." I was to be primary, but Morhal would remain on the throne as secondary.
I made some noise of shock, and Ashnahta gave a small laugh.
"It is not unprecedented." And sharing a throne does not mean what you are thinking. The primary and secondary are not always a matched pair. "Besides, I was to be the seventh. I was to have a male match anyway."
An odd law on Laak'sa was that every seventh primary had to take a male match as their partner. It stemmed from a male Qitani uprising many generations before, and was the concession the royalty made to keep the peace. One of the few concessions they ever made, as far as I could see. I knew somewhere in the back of my mind that Ashnahta was that seventh, but as a kid and a human, the details hadn't mattered to me all that much.
"Ta'al was...angry." She tore the rooms apart when she found out the plan. I cannot blame her. Her whole life had been devoted to supporting the primary. I cannot imagine the anger of being ousted. "Morhal had her executed for her insubordination."
The Qitani all-or-nothing code of obedience never failed to shock me on a deep level. Morhal executed the secondary, her match, her life partner, her lover. Just like that. The drop of a hat. I've said before that they are an unforgiving people. I cannot think of a better example of that. "Poor Ta'al," I said, genuinely sad by the news. She had always treated me...well, not kindly. The only Qitani who ever showed kindness was Ashnahta. But she tolerated me and even sheltered me from Morhal. It was sad to hear she had met such a brutally unjust fate.
"As soon as she was dead, the tribunal assembled and I took my coronation." Morhal rushed it. I hadn't even had the joining ceremony with my match yet. And I was still a full year too young to be primary according to the protocols. "Morhal had gone insane." I can see that now. I couldn't then. I was angry, and hurt, and humiliated and...so...lonely. "She changed protocols and killed those who spoke against it." So no one spoke. And everyone let it all happen. "In less than two month cycles, I was primary, Morhal secondary, your parents imprisoned." It happened so very, very fast.
"Morhal had not thought things through." One of the reasons I now believe that she was insane by that point. It was not like Morhal to leave options unconsidered. "As primary, I could do as I pleased." Not even Morhal dared to break that protocol. She was raised as a primary. There are things so deep that even insanity cannot change them. "As soon as it dawned on me that there were new possibilities, I went to see your mother." She was being well treated, and your father as well because of that. She was very valuable. Even as a prisoner, she continued to share her knowledge with my people.
"Tell me how you did it, I ordered." I needed to know how she got you safe. I did not even bother with pleasantries. I believe Eunice does not like pleasantries anyway. "She refused to say how." I doubt I would have understood. I never liked the sciences. "She told me she had no choice." She would die for you, Jake. She let me feel that to her core, that she would have given her whole life for just the chance of you having yours. "I never felt anything so beautiful." I shouldn't have thought like that. I don't know why I did. Why I do. It's weakness to my people. And yet...I somehow do not feel weak for understanding.
"There was still danger to you." She did not say, but she felt it, deep and real. She felt a constant panic. She was sure Morhal was making some plans to get you back, or to get here, or to get humanity. "I brought Morhal before me." Never in our history had a secondary been brought before a tribunal. Even Ta'al was simply executed in private. This was a public trial. "The elders refused to make Morhal submit." It was not my intention to execute her. But she refused the order to disclose any plans. I had no choice. "Too many years of fearing her, perhaps, made them insubordinate to me." They knew I was too weak.
"You were not weak," I said firmly.
To humans. What good is that?
The bitterness in the statements cut through me. I took her hand. She let me.
"She knew she had me. She knew she won." To me, and only me, she submitted. She showed me her thoughts, her plans. Her levels of hate. I think she was almost proud of them. "In spite of what it may seem, we do not rule with hate. We rule with absolute order." We are supposed to, anyway. In Morhal, the hate had ruled for her whole life. "She didn't let me see...she made me see." I was so very sorry I did. Her power was enormous, her ego was bigger. And it was insurmountable.
"The fah'ti was the key to her quest for greatness." Your primary had told you of the fear humans have of invasion. It is not such an impossible idea, Jake. "Morhal planned to use the fah'ti for control of your solar system." She was too clever to invade. That would take her away from her power if she joined, and give the invaders the glory if she did not. "The fah'ti works with our biorhythms. While Eunice programmed it to work with humans, it could never be controlled by humans." It was a direct link to your system, your planets, that we had direct control over. From it, she could monitor every action, intercept any transmitted information...and more importantly, she could feed false information back to you. "A god, your mother said. She would be a god."
"I took what I learned to Eunice, and she was horrified." When she allowed me to understand what the fah'ti could really do, how it would control the humans, I was horrified as well. It could not happen. "I stood and challenged Morhal." She accepted and would have won if she wasn't so sure of herself that she did not even bother to close her thoughts. "I struck her down." Even in defeat she still believed she would win. I could not let her live with that thought. "I moved for the fatal blow, but it was not to be." The elders, they warned if I committed the act then all prisoners we held would be killed. They defied me, their primary. That was the level to which Morhal had them twisted.