It was a ludicrous thought to even consider the former Kra-ell leader for the job, and he wasn't, but what about Igor's daughter?
Drova was still a kid, but one day she might be just as formidable, if not more so, than her father, and she was a decent person. The problem was that they didn't have time for her to grow up.
What if the clan's forces swept across the island, defeating the Brotherhood's army, capturing or killing those who refused to surrender? What if, when the dust settled, he was the only authority figure left standing?
He could rebuild the island. Transform it from a fortress of oppression into something better. The paradise it could be.
The Dormants could be freed. The breeding program could be abolished. The humans who served as little more than slaves could be given real lives, real choices. And the immortals...they could learn. It would take time, generations perhaps, but they could learn that there was another way to live.
It was a fantasy. A dream so big it bordered on delusional.
But it was also the only solution that actually solved the problem and didn't just slap a Band-Aid over it.
"What's going through your mind?" Kian asked.
"Sorry." Lokan shook his head, trying to dispel the vision that had taken hold of his imagination. "I was trying to work through the implications of all this."
"And? What conclusions have you reached?"
"I've been thinking about the endgame. Not just how to get Khiann back, but what happens after. What happens to the island, to the Brotherhood, to all the people trapped there?"
Kian nodded. "Go on."
"Every scenario I can think of ends badly. If we help Losham stay in power, the Brotherhood continues to thrive, which means we would be contributing to the destruction of free society. If he falls, there's a succession war that kills thousands, and any one of the other brothers would be even worse. If we allow Navuh to return, things continue as usual, and we live with eternal guilt for not seizing the opportunity to make the world a better place." Lokan shook his head. "None of those are acceptable options."
"What do you suggest?" Toven asked.
Lokan took a deep breath. "The only solution that actually solves the problem is conquest. Taking the island by force, removing the Brotherhood's leadership, and rebuilding from the ground up."
He expected Kian to dismiss the idea, pointing out all the obvious flaws like the impossibility of assembling a large enough force, the logistics of invading a fortified island, and the challenge of holding territory against an entrenched enemy.
"It would require an army," Kian said after a long moment. "A real army with thousands of warriors that we don't have."
"Thousands of warriors equipped with exoskeletons and trained to fight immortals. It's not impossible, but it would take years to build that kind of force."
"In that time frame, we can build an army of warrior robots," Toven said. "The technology is there, and I have the means to finance it."
That was news to Lokan. "You are that rich?"
"Richer." Toven smiled. "But we are just letting ourselves get carried away. All those things are many years away, while we need to deal with the current situation now."
"I don't blame you for thinking big." Kian leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. "I've spent most of my life thinking small. Protecting the clan, hiding from the Brotherhood, surviving. It's what we've always done. It's what we've had to do. Safe Harbor was thinking big. The problem is that nothing gets built overnight. One day we might be ready to take on that island, and cure that disease once and for all, but in the meantime, we will need to continue patching it with Band-Aids."
Lokan nodded. "War is inevitable."
"I don't want it," Kian said. "No sane person does. But if the alternative is allowing the Brotherhood to continue indefinitely enslaving humans and Dormants and wreaking havoc on the world, war might be the lesser evil."
14
TONY
Tony regained consciousness slowly. It was like swimming up through murky water toward the elusive surface without knowing how far he still had to swim and in which direction.
A familiar scent guided him, but he couldn't remember where he'd smelled it before, only that it evoked several contradictory emotions. Yearning and anxiety, hope and fear, love and anger.
Tactile sensations came next, like the crisp cotton sheets beneath and over him, the stickiness of the attached pads, the seeping cold where the IV was supplying him with liquids through the needle attached to the back of his hand.
His eyelids felt weighted down, but he forced them open, blinking against the soft glow of overhead lights that seemed far too bright even though they probably weren't. The ceiling was white, or rather off-white, and unremarkable.
