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Typhon sat up very straight. “But it is. It’s the most important thing. And it is the thing that will help others understand why the Pilot is who he is and why no one else can lead us.”

“He’s human so the fact that he has extraordinary forebears would not convince many people of his ability to lead,” Dr. Hayter pointed out as he turned fully back around in his seat to look at all of them rather than the wonders outside.

Not human. Osiris, you said I wasn’t human so… what am I?

“The Osiris crash landed on Earth. The ships we have discovered were simply left behind,” Typhon said with a quiet intensity. “And the Osiris is not like any other ship, is it?”

Guys, you’ve got to tell me the truth, Jace whispered.

“For whatever reason, some of the Osiris’ occupants must have stayed on Earth. Maybe they didn’t believe in what had caused the others to leave,” Typhon continued. “Maybe they wanted to finish what they started with the Seeded species. Maybe they were simply hiding and hoping to survive as the Khul looked for them.”

“You’re suggesting that humans are descendants of the Altaeth? Direct descendants?” Dr. Hayter asked.

“Not humans,” Jace heard the words coming out of his mouth. “Not all humans.”

Khoth turned his head to look at Jace. Jace’s mouth felt like it was filled with sand.

Typhon smiled. “It’s so obvious when you think of it. The reason that Jace is the Pilot when no one else could be. Well, he must be different from the rest of us. While we are genetically engineered by the Altaeth, I would guess that Jace is a bit closer than that to them.”

Jace felt the Osiris and Gehenna in his mind. They were waiting for him to take the leap. He felt like he was on the edge of a cliff. If he took that step they wanted him to take he would fall and shatter into a million pieces.

Khoth’s nearest hand closed over both of his. Jace stared down at it. Blue, elegant fingers intertwined with his. Jace drew in a deep, steadying breath.

“I believe what Justiciar Typhon is getting at is that I am the descendant of the Altaeth,” Jace said, the words familiar and not. He thought of the tank. Of what the Osiris had done to him in there. Maybe what it had stripped away from him. His humanity. And replaced all the missing pieces with something else. To make him… something else. “I am… I am an Altaeth.”

Yes, the Osiris and Gehenna whispered as one.

The Last Altaeth

Jace let go of Khoth’s hand and stood up on shaky legs that he quickly firmed. Khoth’s own legs wouldn’t respond to him so he remained seated. He didn’t want to show Typhon and his father that none of them had known Jace was an Altaeth before that moment. Physical weakness in him would do this.

The revelation had shocked him, of course, and yet… it hadn’t. The clues the AIs had dropped all along the way, Jace’s unique connection to the Osiris even before he had been modified, and so much more had indicated a special biology that no one else had.

The Altaeth must have mixed with the local human population over time. And over the centuries, the millennia, there must have been strains that remained closer to the Altaeth ancestry. Typhon’s questions about Jace’s parents indicated that he agreed with this thought. Unique and amazing people. More advanced in intelligence and physicality. Born to be leaders and soldiers. Jack and Diane came together--likely two lines of Altaeth genes--and Jace was the result. Maybe they were drawn together by an ancestry they had no memory of. Maybe they had even been drawn to the Osiris itself by that same ancestry.

If I had not helped Jace, if I had followed the Rule of Duuskukeh, then the last Altaeth would have been lost. Maybe our only chance of defeating the Khul would be gone because of the Thaf’ell belief in our own superiority...

Of course, then there had been his mother’s behavior and Staed’s and who knew who else would come to threaten Jace. The irony that they would fail to recognize an Altaeth when they saw them was not lost on him. Khoth felt like he was going to vomit.

“Forgive me. I need… I need...” Jace gave a tight smile and bow to Typhon, not finishing his statement. Maybe he didn’t know what he needed.

Khoth desperately wanted to fix this. But what was there to fix? Jace was an Altaeth. A living Altaeth. The species that he and every Thaf’ell--every member in the Alliance really--had desired to understand, had sought to touch across time and space, and had dreamed of finding on one of their abandoned worlds. And Jace had chosen Khoth to be close to him, to be his protector, to be the one who understood him.

“Of course, Pilot. Is there something I can do to assist you?” Typhon asked, rising to his feet. “I would do anything to assist you.”

Khoth bared his teeth at that. He knew his father saw him as the older man shifted beside him. He knew that Thadden’s overwhelming concern had been to save him from his mother’s mistakes and dishonor. But Khoth was already saved. He had Jace. He had the Osiris.

Jace waved Typhon down. “No, no, everything’s… fine.”

“Pilot,” Khoth stood as well, even as his father tried to urge him to sit back down again.

Jace turned to him, but did not meet his eyes. “It’s all right, Khoth. I just need a moment. I...”

Khoth could almost see Jace’s Xi and Xa fighting in Jace’s handsome face. The sunglasses blocked the truth windows into Jace’s Xi. But the ripple of emotions across the visible part was enough to tell Khoth that Jace was on the very edge of control. With anguish, Khoth watched as Jace turned and half-stumbled, half-walked to the back of the vehicle--the canceaux--and stared out the window. Gehenna went wheeling after him making rather anxious beeps.

“Khoth, my son, sit,” his father urged.

“Jace needs me,” Khoth found himself murmuring, forgetting the honorific, forgetting propriety altogether.