44.

“You haven’t just been scanning my body for infections this entire time, have you,” Diego asked after he had emerged from the shower and had dressed in clean clothes. The bruises, cuts, and scrapes that he had received during their sparing session had already healed.

“Forgive me. Since the ceremony, I have activated the nanites which you ingested in the first day to enhance your body to the level of a standard soldier. Once we had confirmed that they were compatible with your physiology, of course,” Eolai explained.

“Why?” Diego asked.

“So that you can defend yourself even should you be caught unarmed, of course,” Eolai said.

“Are all Yonohoans enhanced like this?” Diego asked.

“Only those who serve as a bullwark against chaos and bloodshed,” was the answer. “I apologize that I did not tell you before we began forcing the change. I thought that you would notice the differences during your exercises. You are five times stronger than you were when you first boarded this ship.”

“I can’t read the dials on the instrument,” Diego admitted, laughing. “I just kept turning them up until they felt like the right amount of resistance.”

Eolai laughed.

“Is there any way to turn them off?” Diego asked.

“Regretfully, no. As you continue to grow stronger and faster, you will be forced to learn to become more and more gentle as well, should you ever wish to embrace your children without causing them harm,” Eolai explained.

“I hadn’t even thought of that,” Diego admitted. He laughed. “The truth is, I’m trained to fight by the air force. I thought I was going to mop the floor with you, not the other way around.”

“I noticed that you had training,” Eolai admitted. “I do not question your skill. You must adapt those skills to your new body if you wish to succeed.”

“I understand, I think. I must inform you Eolai, that my people would normally be very upset if something like this was done to their body without their informed consent,” Diego said. “In fact, I’m more than a little upset myself that you did not warn me.”

“You placed your medical care in my hands when you joined my ship. You were informed that you would be subjected to technologies beyond your understanding. When you became my brother, that permission was not revoked. As your elder brother, I deemed you worthy and ready of the gift of grace,” Eolai explained. “Perhaps I should have told you, but I refrained for one reason.”

“And what is that?”

“So that you would understand how Eodar felt when the sanctity of his body was taken from him to fight by the people he trusted in order to fuel the flames of war,” Eolai explained.

“You violated my rights to teach me how it felt to have my rights violated,” Diego summarized.

“Yes,” Eolai said. He sighed. “It was a decision which I have come to regret, and yet I would make it once again if the situation were to repeat itself. I ask that you meditate on my betrayal until you understand how it must have felt for our father to learn that the army had done things to him which were so far beyond the understanding of a twelve year old child from a primitive darkworld that his commanding officers were unto him like gods.”

Diego swallowed. “I sense there are pieces of the story of Eodar which I am not presently aware of, Eolai. I would ask that you burn away my ignorance, as my elder brother, so that I may understand our honored father better. If I am to maintain his legacy, then I must understand his life.”

“Very well.” Eolai inhaled. “We do not know exactly when Eolai was born, only that it was on planet Totola. It would have been in the very early stages of the war, while the non-human forces were scrambling to recover and mount a counter-offensive against the human rebellion swarms. A small swarm discovered Totola and identified it as containing living humans on its surface. They dropped scout troops to examine the living conditions of the humans, identify where they had come from, nad who was responsible for their existence and the conditions under which they lived their short and difficult lives.

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“The Topoka were in hiding, but the Yonohoan people came out to great them. They lived in mud huts and caves, and they hunted with weapons made of wood and bone and stone. They had discover pottery and leather-working, but had no other forms of technology in their homes.

“The scouts from the swarms, after learning the Yonohoan language, asked who lived in the great cities of Totola. The people were confused, because nobody lived in those cities except for ghosts. The cities were the place where the Topoka brought the dead. The Yonohoans did not go there while they were alive.

“The scouts wanted to know more about the Topoka, and so we told them of our myths and legends about our creators that brought us to this world from beyond the stars and who gave us this land to live upon. They who made us able to eat the plants and the animals which we depended upon for sustenance. They who watched our children play and our women work and our men hunt. But they were shy creatures, and when the lights appeared in the sky they all ran away.

“The scouts told us that we were mistaken. That the Topoka were not deities or spirits. That we had been abused by the Topoka, and that we should be angry, furious at them. The ordered us to hunt down the Topoka and slay them. They gave us terrible weapons and instructed us in their use.

“A great clan meeting was called. All of the matrons and all of the hunters took part in the meeting. The scouts ensured that all people of the Yonohoah were represented. Eodar was there, though he was only three years old at the time. The council considered the demands that the scouts had given us, that we hunt the Topoka, whom we believed had never caused us any harm.

“After some debate, a party was sent to speak with the Topoka. They brought with them Rocktala, which we barely understood how to use. It took two years to convince the Topoka to speak to us, and another year to convince them to allow us to negotiate on their behalf with the swarms so that they would be spared the swarms wrath.

“That is the source of the ancient pact between the Yonohoah and the Topoka. The Topoka maintain this ancient pact to this day. The swarm reluctantly agreed to leave Totola unmolested, but before they left they asked for volunteers to take the fight into the stars.

“The men were not eligible. The women were too important to the clan. Only some of the boys and the girls wished to go, believing that to fly to the stars would be a grand adventure. And so that is the story of how Eodar was inducted into the armies of the Human Liberation during the opening years of the war,” Eolai concluded.

Diego listened, waiting for him to continue, and when he did not, he said “They were using child soldiers?”

“It is worse than that, my friend. They trained Eodar from the time he was young. Ruthlessly turning him into a fighting and killing machine. Then, when his training was complete, they destroyed him utterly to obtain his imprint. This allowed them to duplicate him endlessly. Our father has lived thousands and thousands of lives. Sometimes he would be dead for centuries before being pulled out of the realms of the honored dead and forced back cruelly into life to fight in a war that he only vaguely understood the purpose of.

“And despite that, despite starting out as a child conscript from a hunter-gatherer world, he rose to become one of the prominent figures in the galaxy?” Diego asked.

“He rose again and again and again. And he fell just as often. Often he willingly submitted to ending his own life so that his imprint could be obtained, and the child version of Eodar fell into disuse, for although he was a fantastical warrior in his youth, it was his cunning in leadership and his ability to turn enemies into allies which made him useful in the later phases of the war,” Eolai appeared. “It was often that both sides of the conflict would send their own Eodar to mediate a dispute. Each side would argue fiercely the rightness and justice behind their sides cause. When a compromise was made, it was always in favor of saving the greatest number of lives.”

“And in a way, you have repeated the crime that was done to Eodar when he was a child on me. You have recruited me into the defense of a universe which was beyond the scope of my understanding when I agreed to become your brother, unaware of the significance of that choice,” Diego said softly.

“Yes. I have sinned against you, brother. For that I am both sorry and unashamed,” Eolai agreed.

“I forgive you,” Diego said, causing Eolai’s head to snap up.

“Are you certain?”

“I am only beginning to understand the pressures you are under, but yes. I forgive you for drawing me into your fight to become a son of Eodar, and I forgive you for making changes to my body without my explicit permission. I would, however, ask that you refrain from springing any universe-shaking surprises on me in the future,” Diego said.

“Thank you, brother. Your forgiveness is a great gift, one which I am uncertain that I deserve.”

“Let’s not speak of it any further,” Diego said. “Let the wound heal and our brotherhood become stronger for having the festering boil lanced.”

“As you say,” Eolai agreed.

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