"Do you see them, Horus?" A tall man with flowing raven hair spoke to a young boy, high up on one of the balconies of the Imperial Palace on Terra. "All the engineers and laborers, the gene-sculptors and farmers, the teachers and store clerks. See how they all work together as one? Growing, feeding, and nurturing the Imperium? This is humanity. An organism that grows when truly unified."

The two of them overlooked the Imperial City of unified Terra under the mid-day sun. Horus was in the middle of one of his breaks between tutors, to allow those who would teach him to catch their breath and stamina from his questions.

The Emperor was clothed in a simple long-sleeved satin shirt and trousers. Horus was also clothed in similar attire.

"I do, Father." Horus nodded. He was a young boy with similarly long raven hair. He appeared to be only a few years of age, yet his eyes were infinitely wiser than their years. "They look like ants."

Both were so far up that any mortal would have not been able to see anything, especially amongst all the steam from the various ducts and occasional plumes of incense that rose from the various groups of Imperial Iterators that occasionally patrolled the streets to reinforce the Emperor's Imperial Truth amongst the most unfortunate and desperate.

"Haha!" The Emperor laughed as he tousled the young boy's hair. "Termites would be a better comparison. Ants are all clones produced by a single queen, but termites are genetically siblings to one another. They are all brothers and sisters, working together to help one another. But, that is not the true beauty of humanity, Horus. All these people before you do not work together due to some genetic predisposition."

"They work because you tell them to Father." The young boy shrugged as he combed his mussed hair back with his hand.

"At first, but no longer." The Emperor nodded as he chuckled. "See that old store clerk there? He could sell his shop, and live out the rest of his days with a state pension and the money from selling his store and land with about the same comforts he has now. He could also increase the prices of his wares by two fold, and although less people would buy from him, he could earn the same amount of money with half the work. That is how successful he is. Do you know why he does not do so?"

"Why Father?" Horus asked as he focussed in on the old tubby man greeting an old woman at the door of his small general store.

"Because he knows the school teacher down the road buys snacks and stationary from his shop to use at school." The Emperor spoke as he placed a hand on young Horus's shoulder.

"If he raised the prices, she wouldn't be able to restock her prize box for the children who get the most right answers. Those same children pass by this shop everyday, and he looks at them and waves every morning, even as he stretches the crick in his back and kneads the stiffness out of his neck everyday."

"What does that have to do with anything, Father?" Horus asked as he continued to stare down at the man from the balcony, like a hawk on a perch.

"Given the chance, humanity does not do what it has to do, or what it should do." The Emperor chuckled as he patted Horus on the shoulder. "It does what it wants to do, but even then, it still finds a way to work for the better of others."

Horus was quiet for a while as he watched the old man return to his store, then turned to look up at the man who said was his Father.

"Then why did the first federation fall apart, Father?"

It was a simple question, but it made the Emperor pause for a moment. Then a sad smile crossed his face, and he looked off into the masses of humans, avoiding eye contact with the young boy.

"Sometimes… humanity makes mistakes." He said slowly. "They think they're doing the right thing, but they aren't. Sometimes someone lies to them, and makes them believe in something there isn't." The Emperor leaned on the thick walls of the Imperial balcony for a while, letting the background noises of the Imperial city beneath them fill the silence.

"You will learn in time, Horus." The Emperor finally said. "But know this. All this. All my works and wonders. They will be yours one day. Yours to marvel and cherish. Yours to grow and lead."

Horus blinked at this, quizzically, then stepped up to the Emperor in order to get a look at his face that was still looking out at the city.

"You mean my brothers and mine, right?" Horus asked. "The ones who are lost."

The Emperor sighed once, and then turned back to Horus while leaning on the balcony wall.

"Yes, they are lost, but this will not be theirs. They have their own purpose."

A very slight frown furrowed Horus's young brow.

"That is not a good idea, Father. All the gangs on Cthonia where the leader was not much better than his men fell the fastest. Jealousy and envy are quicker killers than any sword or stubber." An innocent smile replaced the slightly upset look, as the young boy looked up into the sky. "They are my brothers, and your sons Father. Surely they will be as smart and as talented as I am."

There was an innocent anticipation, and a slight sense of wanting in that voice.

Horus was the only son of the Emperor on Terra, and he had no personal knowledge of any other. He knew he was different from the day he woke up in the hives of Cthonia. All the other children were weaker and dumber than him. Even the adults made mistakes that Horus found elementary.

He quickly learned that talking in the way that came most natural to him, talking as he did now, unsettled others. They would be surprised and amazed at first, but whatever wonder they seemed to experience gradually turned to uneasiness and fear the longer Horus talked.

It was as if they were looking at something not quite human, something that was not supposed to be in this world. So, he learned their slang and inefficient speech patterns, acted as they did amongst them, and worked to better the lives of those he felt most attached to.

That all ended when his Father found him, but the relief Horus felt had ebbed greatly. There were times when he felt his own Father was just as stupid as the dumbest gang leader of Cthonia. This was one of those times.

His brothers were his brothers. They were made by the same man that was the Emperor, and they now walked amongst mortal men just as he had. They would surely feel the same feelings and have the same thoughts. They would be his equals, and his family.

He loved his Father, who was the only one he felt could be his intellectual equal, but he could not relate to him at times. Whether it was the age difference, or something else, Horus did not know, but there were times he felt his Father was overtly human and fallible.

It was those times that made Horus saddest the most.

'I suppose this is how Charlie Gordon felt when he realized the scientists who made him were only mortal men.' Horus thought to himself, feeling a sense of kinsmanship with the fictional savant in the book "Flowers for Algernon".

Charlie Gordon was a mentally disabled man who was turned into an intellectual god by the efforts of two neurosurgeons who he originally deeply respected and was thankful for the improvement to his mental faculties. However, when he ended up becoming far more intelligent than the men who created him, there were no feelings of joy nor gloating victory. There was only a deep disappointment, and cold loneliness.

"Then you will have to be the best and brightest among them through pure effort, Horus." The Emperor laughed as he tousled Horus's hair again.

Horus frowned, and pushed his Father's hand off his head. Perhaps he should mimic the Cthonian street gangs' hairstyle. At the very least, having his hair tousled wouldn't hurt so much with no hair to pull.

"You are the first of my sons to return to me, and you will be the first to lead them. If you feel it to be too trying to do so, then you can let the reins fall to someone else. But, you must take them up once to see who amongst your brothers they should go to."

Horus pondered over his Father's words. A rotating council might be a more stable form of governance, although changing the person in charge so frequently ran the risks of making the same mistakes as the Japanese Imperial Government during the second ancient World War on Terra that lead to the first two military uses of nuclear weapons on her soil.

"Yes, Father." Horus nodded, putting his ponderings on hold. His brothers would be as intelligent as him. If they worked together, they could come up with something much better.

"Good." The Emperor nodded. "Now, come. It is almost time for your next tutor."