Father-Mother and Monarch of the Brood Therion stared with three eyes at the message plate he held in one manipulator cluster. “Another failure. This younger generation of Archons has grown soft and weak. If not for the imperatives of the Brood, I would say, ‘Let the infestations breed for a time.’ In a few dozen or a few hundred years, when they grow complacent, we would fall on them again and feast. In the meantime, I would set our children against each other to test who is the fittest, weeding out this current crop of fools.”
Therion’s Council of Senior Archons flashed their respectful assent, as they should. Rarely did any raise a disagreement, much less oppose him. Ever since he had taken power, the Brood had marched across this arm of the spiral galaxy with few setbacks, never checked in its inexorable advance through a million star systems.
But the Brood – they had no name for their form of government, no Empire or Kingdom or Raj, for the Brood and its regime were no more distinguishable from one another than ants were from their genetic imperatives – the Brood had grown so spread out that, even with the null space drive, messages took years or more for the fastest communication ships to travel from one end of its domain to another.
Here, near the enormous star they called Center, the null space gradient meant outgoing messages and ships traveled fast, but incoming information arrived more slowly. The report Therion held had taken nearly a full year to reach him, a standardized segment of time measured by the orbital period of the Brood’s original homeworld, now a shrine to its history.
“But,” Therion said via the complex patterns of light that served the Brood as voice, “the current sociological cycle is not yet complete. A proper appreciation of historical pressures guides the Brood, and even I cannot stand against such wisdom.”
The Council again signaled its weighty assent.
“Therefore, one of you must appoint, equip and dispatch a Praetor. Who shall accept this responsibility?”
Each of the sixteen senior Archons again gave its assent immediately, as was proper. Therion suppressed what a human would interpret as a sigh. One problem with surrounding himself with reliable, dutiful Archons was that none stepped out of line, none challenged him on any issue.
The boredom caused him an almost physical pain.
Perhaps he should not have been so diligent in hunting down all of his rivals when he had taken power. He needed an enemy. Infestations hardly counted as such.
Higher races do not term lower races “enemies,” he thought. They are part of the landscape, creatures to be exploited and eaten, though occasionally even an animal may catch some of the Brood unaware and rampage for a time.
“Ikthor,” Therion said to his least compliant senior Archon, one he thought might have at least a tiny spark of ambition buried somewhere in his multiple brains. “I have reconsidered my first thought. I appoint you Praetor. You shall lead forces selected from your personal holdings. In your absence, your position on the Council shall remain your own, though you will need to appoint a proxy, of course.”
Ikthor’s eyes contracted with displeasure even as he spoke the only words possible: “In the Name of the All, Father-Mother, it shall be done. I go.” The Archon withdrew from the chamber without further words.
Demotion to Praetor will stir resentment within Ikthor even as his proxy steps into the role of Council Archon, Therion thought. Others on the council, though they never challenge me, might nevertheless nibble around the edges of Ikthor’s territory – a star system here, a cluster there. When Ikthor returns, he will be combative and fat from conquest, filled with anger and determination to reclaim what is rightfully his. Even if the proxy steps aside and does not challenge him directly, that Archon will be Ikthor’s natural enemy, and Ikthor will be mine.
The great game will become more interesting.
That should banish my boredom.