What should be the Brotherhood's goal in Navuh's absence?
They were immortals in a world of humans, too few to rule openly, too powerful to live as subjects. The Brotherhood gave them a place in the world, a role, a reason to exist.
That didn't require world domination, though. It required leadership, vision, and organization. The problem was turning ten thousand warriors into something else when they had been brainwashed since birth to follow Mortdh's way, which was, in fact, the way to achieve Navuh's vision.
Rami nodded. "The other brothers will need to be included."
"Naturally. We have a council, just like our father wanted, and we will assign roles."
When the cigar was finished, Losham looked at the second one that Rami had placed beside his glass.
He shouldn't.
It was late, he was mentally exhausted, and he needed sleep, and the morning would bring more problems that required a clear head.
He lit it anyway.
34
DAVE
Forty-three minutes.
That was how long the second cigar took. The collective counted every one of them from the shadows of Losham's dining room, watching through the glass doors as the orange ember pulsed and faded and pulsed again in the garden darkness.
Rami finished his drink first. He sat with Losham for another ten minutes after that, the two of them speaking in low voices about the council of brothers and the allocation of responsibilities. It was an administrative conversation, the kind that could have happened over a conference table in daylight, but Losham seemed to prefer conducting his real thinking out here, in the dark, with the one person he trusted.
The collective filed the observation. Trust was a subject of great interest to them.
At zero zero fifty-one, Rami stood, collected the glasses and the bottle on the tray, and said good night. He entered the kitchen through a glass door straight from the patio, and as his footstepssounded on the marble floor, the Eight stood motionless and silent in the dining room, waiting for him to be done with the glasses.
A moment later the footsteps resumed, fading as Rami continued down the hallway toward the staff quarters at the rear of the ground floor.
A door opened and closed.
Losham remained in the lounge chair, his cigar two-thirds gone. He was smoking it with an unhurried pace, seemingly in no rush to end the only pleasant part of his day. His thoughts, which the collective monitored at a depth shallow enough to avoid detection, were meandering. The council. Kolhood's ambitions. The basement. The clan. His father's betrayal.
The thoughts were slowing, though, becoming sluggish. The whiskey, the cigars, and the warm night air were doing their work, and the mental chatter was losing its sharp edges, becoming circular and repetitive rather than focused.
Now.
The hive mind applied the suggestion, threading it through Losham's consciousness with the delicacy of a surgeon inserting a needle. Not a command. Not even a nudge. Just a gentle amplification of what was already there. He was tired. The day was long. The chair was comfortable, but the bed was better. The cigar was nearly done. When it was finished, he would go to bed and sleep.
Losham drew on the cigar one last time and stubbed it out.
He stood, stretched, and walked inside through the living room doors. The collective retreated further into the dining roomshadows as he passed through the kitchen, pausing to rinse his hands at the sink and pour himself a glass of water.
They tracked him by sound as he climbed the stairs, his footsteps on the landing, the bathroom door opening, the sound of running water. The electric hum of a toothbrush. More water. The bathroom door again. Then the bedroom door, which he left open, a detail the collective noted because it meant he felt safe in his own home, which was ironic given that eight enhanced soldiers were standing in the shadows of his dining room.
He hadn't felt their presence because they were familiar to him and didn't activate his body's innate immortal detection. That only worked with unfamiliar immortal males, which in this case was lucky.
They waited, monitoring his meandering mind until it quieted enough to enter sleep.
Nine minutes.
Almost there.
They reinforced the suggestion of deep sleep.
