Chapter 5: Revelations

Something this momentous cannot be simply trotted out over breakfast. It could – it almost certainly will – affect my marriage. It can, and inevitably will, affect my relationship with our eldest son. As for how or even whether we reveal anything about it to our other children, that has still to be decided. Even I can't go that far yet, and once Hoshi's in the picture, she may decide to act unilaterally – especially if she decides that Alfred's new status presents a clear and present danger to his siblings.

And it may do. I can't deny that, or even hide it. And so I'm placing an enormous burden on my wife's shoulders simply by making her an accessory to what I'm planning to do to at least one of our children.

Accordingly, I comm Ian to clear my schedule for the morning and as I take my place opposite my wife at the breakfast table I tell her that I have something important to discuss with her and I'd appreciate it if she could cancel anything she has planned for the next couple of hours.

Her eyebrows rise, though she continues calmly spreading honey on her warm croissant. "Something very important, I take it."

"I have something to tell you that requires time and privacy. It may have far-reaching consequences for our relationship, but I think you deserve the truth."

I get a penetrating glance for that. "As far as I know, you haven't lied to me yet."

"True. I promised I wouldn't. But there are lies of omission, and while I haven't hidden anything from you that I felt you needed to know at that moment, that time has come to an end. Now, there are things you must be told, and what you do about some of them is up to you."

She eats the croissant, takes a couple of sips of her espresso coffee while apparently rapt in admiration of the flower arrangement in the middle of the table, and then presses an elegant fingertip to her PADD to order Della to clear her calendar for three hours.

Breakfast proceeds at its usual pace, with polite small talk. Then, when we've both finished, we retire to a gazebo in the gardens, a beautiful thing like a miniature pagoda surrounded by a dozen varieties of acer trees exploding into all the colours of fire as autumn approaches. The first of their deeply-incised leaves are lying on the grass, prophets of the blizzard that will strip the branches, and I suppress a superstitious shiver at the realisation that the revelation I'm shortly going to make could be just as destructive as the coming winter. The trees will see spring in a few months, but my marriage?

I suppose I'm about to find out.

There's the usual flurry of activity that precedes us – additional security scans, followed by the placement of refreshments in case they may be required. Ordinarily I'd say we're hardly likely to need anything as we've only just eaten breakfast, but given the nature of what we're shortly going to be discussing, either or both of us may be glad of a fortifying drink at some point.

The servants finish plumping up the embroidered satin cushions on the seats and make last-minute adjustments to the tableware, and everyone retreats. Everyone, of course, except the two members of the Imperial bodyguard who remain on duty at a distance well out of earshot, constantly patrolling to ensure no one intrudes on our privacy.

Hoshi disposes herself with her usual elegance, wrapping a light scarf around her shoulder against any stray breeze that might find its way through the garden and into the gazebo. If she's nervous (and she can hardly be anything else), she hides it extremely well. "I hope you haven't brought me here to tell me you've decided to marry young Trainor too," she says mildly.

I smile, despite the seriousness of the situation. "I think the arrangement we already have works perfectly well as it is, don't you?"

Not waiting for a response – there's no point in putting off the evil hour – I lean forward and rest my forearms and lightly linked hands on the table between us. "Hoshi, I'd like you to sit and listen. I appreciate that you'll have a lot of questions you'll want to ask, but I'll do my best to explain everything fully as I go along.

"When I'm finished, ask any questions you like and I'll answer you as honestly as I can."

The lifted eyebrow this time is slightly disdainful. "Unless any more 'lies of omission' will serve you better."

"Not this time, no. This is too serious. You need to understand the circumstances fully so you can understand why I intend to take the actions I deem necessary."

"The actions you deem necessary. That means you've already made decisions and there's no input required from me."

I can't blame her for the slightly bitter note, because essentially, it's the truth. I want her to understand, ideally I'd like her to agree, but when push comes to shove, I have 'made decisions'. I think I'm the only one of the two of us qualified to fully comprehend exactly what's involved, and just how high the stakes are. You have to be Pack to understand Pack, and there's no shortcut.

There's a bottle of fine white Sauvignon chilling in a crystal bowl of ice, and I uncork it and pour a glass for each of us before pushing hers across to her. Breakfast or no, I think she'll need it.

=/\=

I'll give her her due, she listens in complete silence as I tell her about the conditioning that I and others underwent at the hands of Section 31, the ordeal on 'Wolfplanet Mindfuck' as Reed picturesquely described it. I tell her that I don't have all the information to explain why General Hayes among all of us emerged with the abilities he did, but somehow it gave him the power not just to command all the Pack, but to terrify and manipulate a lot of ordinary Humans too.

She most likely had a lot of experience of that. It was common knowledge that she shared a bed with the Triad, with Hayes as the Alpha at its head. As for his abilities, she could probably give me lessons on what he could do, but that's part of her history and if she doesn't volunteer anything, I'm not about to pry. Though she doesn't comment, I'd imagine it's kind of a relief (in a way) to finally get to understand how he came to be what he was, and how he came to exercise as much power as he did.

That part of it, I think she can absorb without too much trouble. But now I have to try to somehow convey just how profound the changes were that were forced upon us, and how the compulsions of our Pack nature rule us without appeal.

I've already acknowledged that it must be effectively impossible for any Human to really understand. I'd imagine Reed's mate Elizabeth Cutler must have been taken at least partly into his confidence, though how she coped with it I don't know. It never seemed to lessen the affection between them; even as I speak, I get a momentary flashback to that last night on Jupiter Station, the party to celebrate Anna Hess's birthday, and how tenderly he held her on the dancefloor, how trustingly she leaned into him. They looked so like a couple in love, so absorbed in each other, so unaware of the catastrophe that was about to overtake them.

I blink back into the present and Hoshi's intent gaze, and snatch myself back into the narrative. "Members of the Pack are in key positions throughout the Empire," I continue levelly. "They answer to me because I'm the Pack Alpha, even more than because I'm the Emperor. They would still be loyal to me if I were dethroned by a Human, because no Human can take over the status as Alpha.

"The more powerful members of the Pack would certainly do their best to take advantage of my loss of status. I could confidently expect that if I could be found, I'd have to fight to survive, perhaps more than once, but if I won, I'd still have the Pack's support."

"And if you lost?" Her voice is completely even. Without a shadow of a doubt she's watched Nature documentaries where the first act of a lion taking over a new pride by defeating its previous master is to hunt down his predecessor's cubs and kill them, leaving the lionesses free to concentrate on bearing and raising his cubs. I'm not aware of wolves doing the same, but Humans are more than capable of finding and disposing of any threats to a stolen crown. Especially with the brutality of Pack built into their nature, it's highly unlikely that anyone who defeated me in a power battle would agree to my sons being allowed to quietly fade into obscurity, even if they would agree to do so. Victoria would be safe, perhaps – an ideal choice for a consort, helping to legitimise the takeover at a Human level – but though she's preserving a calm front, Hoshi must be deeply concerned for our three sons, who are now revealed to be so desperately vulnerable against a threat that can neither be nullified nor put off indefinitely.

I take a deep breath. This is the crunch point. "Sooner or later, I will be challenged and I will lose. By then, I hope and intend that my legal heir will be in a position to make his own bid for power and succeed me."

She's taken the occasional sip of wine, her face unrevealing of her thoughts, but at that the stem of the glass suddenly snaps and the contents spill all over the table. She says only one word, though. "Alfred?"

"Yes." The word hangs in the air between us, as cold and hard as the knife in the hand of an assassin.

There's a long pause. Her gaze never wavers from mine. Finally, "I need to think about this. I'm going to take a walk." And without waiting for permission – not that I think the idea of doing so ever crossed her mind – she rises and leaves the gazebo. Her movements are still superbly controlled, and I suppose I can be thankful she didn't try to slit my throat with the broken glass, but I suspect that if she thought she could have done it, she would. I watch her walk away across the grass and take the path towards the lake, where she vanishes behind the willows with a guard discreetly in attendance.

I haven't brought a PADD with me, because it seemed that a matter of this magnitude should be addressed without any danger of distractions. It seems strange now that I'm sitting here with nothing to do except turn over in my mind the various possible consequences of my revelations, and the potential responses I could make to any of them.

The worst thing I could do would be to underestimate Hoshi. For all that I think and believe we've come to an amicable working relationship, and I won't deny that I care deeply about her as well as about my children (insofar as my Pack nature allows me to, and it's probably not as much as an ordinary Human would do), she's just found that I'm fundamentally different to the man she thought she was married to. Also, she was the one who carried Alfred in her body for nine months and went through the effort and danger of giving birth to him – as much as technology couldn't help with, naturally, and everything that could be done for her certainly was. That must result in a massively intensified bond with the child, one that no father (however devoted) could possibly experience. Whatever she feels about me, and I've never felt entitled to ask, I can't expect it to be anything like as powerful as the maternal instinct she must feel towards Alfred and his siblings.

My glass is empty. I refill it, and stir the melting ice in the bowl with one idle finger before I replace the bottle.

Time passes. The breeze gusts fitfully. A few leaves whisper across the table, and a robin lands briefly on the balustrade opposite and lets out a liquid stave of song – the regretful sound of the end of summer.

Finally a flash of amethyst silk in my peripheral vision announces my wife's return. I lay down my glass and straighten myself in my seat, as though bracing myself.

She walks in and sits opposite me. Then she pauses for a few seconds as if marshalling herself – which I suppose she is – and says, "Austin, I'm asking you not to do this."

For a moment I'm afraid she's going to reach over and take my hands and plead, but she won't stoop to that; not because she wouldn't do it, but because it wouldn't work. I can't believe she thinks I've come to this decision without thought and even without pain, but feminine pleading won't change my mind. I suspect she already knows this.

"Hoshi, it's necessary. I know you can't understand about Pack drives, not fully, but I'm asking you to trust me. No matter what inducements I could offer to my juniors, they would see Alfred as Human and therefore weak. He would have to fight for his place, and that's the only way he could establish himself as the Alpha."

"But he's an expert in self-defence already," she argues. "I've read the reports, I've seen the videos. He trains with the best. By the time he'll need to fight, he'll be fully prepared."

I sigh. She's perfectly right, of course, but none of the fighters our son trains with will prepare him to tear his enemy's throat out with his teeth for preference. Without doubt he could do enormous damage to an opponent in unarmed combat – possibly even kill him – but a Pack victory isn't sealed until you have your defeated enemy's blood running out of your mouth. And even apart from that, there's the repertoire of behaviours that come naturally during Pack interactions that don't involve challenges; I might be able to teach Alfred (and anyone else) the actions required, but I could never teach him the infinite range of subtleties of interpretation that would tell him when and how to use them. Those are what you learn during the months in a wolf-pack, when they're the basis of daily life rather than just another piece of the jigsaw.

And it's not just the actions. You have to acquire the mindset. You have to achieve the separation between necessity and feeling. Insofar as I can remember from before, I honestly don't believe Humans are capable of the degree of acceptance that operates in the Pack. It may be ruthless, but it produces excellence, and everyone understands exactly where they stand; there's none of the back-stabbing that characterises Human interactions. Your juniors ARE after your place and they WILL make a bid for it as soon as your failings give them the opportunity, but there's no knife in the dark to dread. Power has to be fairly won, or the winner won't be respected and their status suffers accordingly. Even they will be aware that their new subordinates regard them with less respect, and that knowledge will taint their standing in the hierarchy. I should know; by Human standards I defeated Reed fair and square, but until the day I ended his life, I knew that some vital element was missing in the way my juniors saw me. That day was my second, secret coronation, and without it my two perpetual shadows Jignesh and Philip would have been very much strengthened as competitors for the position of Alpha. Both of them have sons. If they ever discover the location of Wolfplanet Mindfuck, the boys will be sent for conditioning, without a shadow of a doubt. But with or without it, they will inherit their fathers' ambition, and I can't – I daren't – leave Alfred unprepared to deal with it. Absent developments that at present I can't foresee, sooner or later one of the three will destroy the other two, and I want it to be my heir who emerges the winner.

I try to explain this to Hoshi, but I'm not sure how successful I am. With despair I realise that the gulf of incomprehension is unbridgeable. You simply have to be one of us to understand the danger.

"If I don't do this to him, Alfred will die." I voice the blunt truth. "This is the best chance of survival I can give him. Otherwise I'm handing over a throne that's effectively a three-legged stool with one of the legs unattached. Sooner or later, it's going to collapse."

Her fingers are clasped in her lap, out of view behind the table, but I suspect they're twisting together in desperation. "He could die on that planet. Even apart from the wolves, anything could happen to him. Exposure, disease, infection – Austin, it's too much of a threat. After all you've done, after all we've done, to get him to where he is, and you're honestly willing to take this insane risk with his life–"

"Do you honestly think I'd do it if I had any other choice?"

A long silence. At last she speaks again, her voice is very low and level. "What makes you think you have no choice? As long as I've known you, Austin, from the day you barged into my audience chamber and announced you were usurping my throne, you've recognised that there are always other choices. For our son's sake, I'm asking you to find one now. You're the Emperor, and the leader of this Pack. You make the rules now, so change them."

I shake my head. "It's not that easy, Hoshi. The rules are what bind us together as Pack. Without them, we're just a bunch of lone wolves running amuck, and you wouldn't want to imagine the kind of chaos that would cause."

She scoffs. "The Empire eliminated religion decades ago, because we decided it was necessary. If we could make the whole Empire surrender their faith, give up the beliefs that gave them hope, surely you can make a comparatively miniscule percentage of the population change their way of doing things."

"You're not understanding me," I tell her. Clearly, for all that she paid attention when I was explaining things earlier on, she didn't get the message. If she doesn't understand the nature of Pack, she certainly won't understand why the problem can't be dealt with by Imperial proclamation, however ferociously enforced it might be. "Pack isn't just our 'way of doing things'. It defines us. It's what we are and how we fit into the world, we could no more change it on demand than you could decide you suddenly wanted to fly. It's fundamental to our very being. It's existentially essential. Compared to Pack, religious faith is as inconsequential as a lunch order. If you're going to change the rules, you might as well ask us to stop breathing."

Another long silence. This time, she's not just quiet, she's as still as a marble statue. Even with my heightened perceptions, I'm not entirely sure she's breathing. I can barely even hear her heartbeat. I don't even realize how hard I'm straining to detect some indication of what she's thinking until she takes a deep breath to speak again, and it's like a wind off the sea whistling in my ears. "Then do that."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Stop them breathing." Her tone is as cold as a grey January dawn. "Eliminate the rest. Make yourself the last of your kind."

I stare at her dumbly. After everything we've worked for, does she have any idea the kind of damage such a purge would cause? People are only just starting to trust the government, to trust me, to trust their Emperor to look after their best interests. Advancement through assassination, though less prevalent than it was when she and I were ambitious young officers, is still not uncommon. To simply eliminate the competition as she is suggesting would set us back twenty years or more overnight; we'd be right back where we were when General Reed escaped Jupiter Station!

As if sensing that perhaps she's asking too much, she continues hurriedly. "At least take out the ones who could be expected to challenge Alfred's right of succession, and then give him the names of the others so he knows who to watch for signs of a rising challenge. Tell him what you've told me so he understands the threat, and he can do what he wants with them when the time comes.

"You don't need to make him an animal, Austin, when you can train him to be a hunter."

I don't think I'm revealing much of my reaction to her suggestion, but my mind is reeling. Part of me is saying, Of course, she's right, idiot, why didn't you think of that?, while another, more primitive part is howling and inarticulate, both mortified and appalled by the prospect of being more alone and isolated than I already am in the world of men. I am Pack. We are Pack. How can I even consider…? It's genocide!

And it makes perfect sense.

I give a shaky sigh. This is something I will have to consider from all possible angles. "I've ordered the transport ship to stand by to take him off in two days' time. Until then, I promise you I'll do my best to think up any way I can safeguard the succession without having to send him there. You have my word that I will consider your suggestion, too. "

She stands up. "You're proposing to turn our son into a wild animal. I have to believe you think it's for the best, but I can't believe it's necessary, not when you have an alternative – which, as I've just pointed out, you do. And if you carry this out, I will never, ever forgive you."

"I never thought you would," I say sadly. I'm not sure I'll forgive myself, either, if I can't see my way clear to destroying the Pack forever, but I don't imagine that's relevant. I do know that meeting my son for the next two days is going to be incredibly difficult; and worst of all will be the hour when he reports to me for a new assignment if I have to tell him what's going to happen to him.

He probably won't forgive me either, if I do it. Maybe when he comes back he'll understand, but that's not quite the same, as he himself won't be quite the same. At some fundamental level I'll be sending my firstborn son to die, like Abraham taking Isaac up the mountain, a sacrifice to my ambition to found a dynasty.

As for how things will change between Hoshi and me, well, our relationship has already been damaged. How deeply, remains to be seen. She'll have to reconsider the way she sees me, the wolf in Human clothing. And if I do send Alfred to be 'turned into an animal', I have no doubt that any warmth of feeling between us will be completely at an end. Most likely she'll request a divorce, and if she does, I won't contest it. Another sacrifice on the pyre of the Burnell Dynasty.

If I were human, I'd probably hesitate over the appalling cost, not to mention the risks involved. As it is, I know the greater risks, and if this is the only way I can protect my son, then hesitation will not be an option.

Without further words, Hoshi quits the gazebo for a second time.

Leaving me alone.