“Five queens for five peoples, led by a Silent King who will return from the Forever Dark.” I shrugged, finishing up by quoting the Inhumans’ Prophecy to them.
“Who are these other four peoples?” Baron Triton asked gravely.
“They are the Inwraiths, the Incentaurians, the Inkymellians, and the Inbadoon. Like you, they are outcasts of their people, forced by their Kree-spun genetic programming to remain separate and try to keep their bloodlines pure. Also like you, they are generally unwilling to acknowledge this programming and fight it.
“Amusingly enough, their shared Celestial-stolen genetics mean they get along far more readily with one another than their parent races do. As they come from species which reached space long ago, they know of one another and work together as needed to protect their people.
“They are actually completely unaware of you, since Terra has no presence in space, and no Inhumans have done anything resembling stellar exploration and made known their past and history. While your akasha do resonate with one another and you could identify your shared Kree-spun origins, without that direct contact, they have no reason to suspect you exist.
“That, then, is the collective unconscious will and compulsion of all five of your Kree-spun subspecies. Unite under a common leader, find a home where you can keep your bloodlines pure and isolated, and unthinkingly await your creators, who have already obliterated the others of your kind among the other races.
“The Supreme Intelligence is still alive, it has not forgotten you, and its judgement may come as soon as it realizes you still pose that threat to it. To kill you all, it would certainly slaughter all of Terra without question, as mundane humans are finally evolving in numbers to surpass your own in potential and power, which makes them a threat to the existing powers in space.
“In short, your people are one of the single greatest threats to the survival of humanity, and have been for the last fifty thousand years or so. Only the Eternals and the Celestials kept the Kree at bay, and without them, well, you’re like a big ticking timebomb, waiting for the Kree to come down and detonate it, and maybe the whole planet with it.”
They all twitched in shock at that observation.
“The Great Bear has known about this for most of a century. The main reason he forcibly recruited you is because he isn’t one to believe in a free ride. You’ve contributed basically nothing towards humanity throughout your existence, while our existence has been a huge protection over your head because of the Eternals and Celestials, and even the gods watching over us have benefited you.
“By forcibly bringing you into New Russia, he has found an alternate means of Awakening new defenders of the planet and humanity through Terrigenesis. The free Inhumans worldwide now outnumber those living in Attilan almost twentyfold, I believe. I say ‘free’ because they are not bound by your akashic chains, of course, and are free to choose their own paths in life.
“As it stands, the only Attilan Inhuman who has made significant efforts towards the protection and advancement of humanity is your brother Prince Maximus, Your Majesty. Attilan itself is a ticking timebomb waiting to happen, but since Inhuman genes have already spread through humanity, just getting rid of you won’t save the rest of humanity at all.
“We are, unfortunately, all in this together.”
I waited as the stunned Inhumans stared at me, once again reduced in importance and relative power. They weren’t a great power, however hidden. They were a threat to the rest of the planet, and had been for fifty millennia!
It didn’t matter that they lived in a super-science city and biome. It was irrelevant, as were they. They didn’t contribute, they didn’t help, they did basically nothing for the planet as a whole, just rats in the cage they’d built for themselves.
It was Crystal who finally spoke into the growing silence, “What... was the second question we might have asked you?” she inquired softly, stunned at this new view of themselves and their people.
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“If I knew of a world Attilan could immigrate to and leave Terra behind, of course! Which would not stop the Kree from coming upon us here, but they’d just have to wipe two worlds, instead of one, and it would have removed you from the protection of the Great Bear and the Golden Hag. By the probability lines I’ve seen, you would be annihilated within three years of leaving Terra.”
“We are... protected by the Great Bear, and the Hag?” Karnak asked softly. “How is this?”
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I tilted my head slightly. “Master Karnak, you cannot be so foolish. What happened in Antarctica is not hidden information. Galactus took the Celestial Seed... and we helped Him do it. Sama cut a Celestial in half. I saw that myself. I saw her chop a Shi’ar battle cruiser apart from two hundred thousand miles away.
“Sama yields in combat to the Great Bear.
“The reason the Kree have not come is because they are afraid of what the two of them can do.” I eyed their thunderstruck expressions. “To give you a more easily-comprehended example, chopping a Celestial in twain is roughly as difficult as splitting the planet beneath us in half!
“Removing the Celestial Seed means getting rid of our Celestial protection... and we helped the Eater of Worlds DO it.” Clearly conveying that we didn’t want or need them anymore.
Oh, did they get quiet and a little white when they realized how dangerous Sama was. And the Great Bear was even more dangerous...
They were probably thinking on how they’d interacted with the Great Bear, and were really regretting certain things they’d said.
“The other two issues,” Medusa said into the grim silence that fell, her voice almost a whisper. “What other two issues were you speaking of?”
“Ah, the decision to break the isolation of Attilan, and the decision to enter the Markspace, of course. The latter will inevitably lead to the former, of course.”
I said it so casually that it was plainly not an important issue to me... since it wasn’t. It literally would have no effect on what I would be doing, and to the whole of humanity.
To them, it would change their world and their destiny.
“You sound very certain of this,” Medusa went on quietly.
“There’s ten thousand times the number of existing Inhumans of humans active in the Markspace. Your Kree-spun akashic chains are going to be absolutely powerless there in the face of the akashic resonance of the rest of humanity you’ll be in contact with.
“The Kree-spun urging in your genetics will die away, and your Free Will will be restored. It will feel just like something was leaning on your thoughts, and suddenly that pressure is no longer there. Your mental and societal stagnation will be lifted, and your people can finally start to become something more.
“Or don’t, and continue on in your own irrelevancy. I would think just the chance that no Inhuman ever has to tolerate being forced into the role of an Alpha Primitive would be enough to open your doors, but then that’s me, and I don’t like living in a genetic cage.”
“You know that our civilization is twenty thousand years older than yours, do you not?” Gorgon snarled at me.
“I am aware that a bunch of hostile aliens came down, took a bunch of cavemen, treated them like viruses in a petri dish, gave them a bunch of stuff and told them they were special snowflakes after screwing up their genetics trying to create some slave-soldiers, and then went away, yeah,” I replied easily, and he grimaced. “The fact there’s been no innovation or advancement in your society for over three thousand years I’m also aware of. You even needed the Eternals to come in and give you the tech needed to move your city, and what high tech you have is basically cloned Kree tech, not yours at all.
“I know your history far better than you do, General Gorgon, both the truth and the lies. Cosmic Awareness is not a joke.” He shut up most unwillingly.
“You stated that some of our people should be shot in the head,” Karnak spoke up again, feigning anger. “Why was that?” he demanded.
“Because they are informing on you, and us, to the Kree?” I replied calmly. The entire royal family stiffened. “Master Briggs intercepted them long ago, you see, but he’s been waiting to see how long it will be before you discovered them, and what you were going to do about it. Just one more reason why he doesn’t bother trusting you with accomplishing anything.”
They couldn’t keep their own useless house in order, why would he bother trusting them with more about his?
Black Bolt’s expression was that of someone who had an immense headache. The Royals themselves looked aggrieved. They were powerful elites of their people, but they certainly weren’t coming across that way.
“And because the Bear hasn’t told us who the traitors are, you will not, either?” Queen Medusa sighed to me.
“I’m not about to undercut the Great Bear, no,” I had to smile. “This is your test, not mine. I’m probably irking him just telling you the problem exists.”
Well, no, as giving these people a wake-up call was well worth it.
“Is the Great Bear’s opinion on Attilan shared by the High Guard?” Triton sniffed at me, clearly a bit out of sorts.
“We guard the planet and humanity. You’re on the planet and you’re human. The fact we haven’t gotten anything back from you for doing so is no different from a tribe of hill-dwellers in the Borneo jungles,” I shrugged.
Well, didn’t that put their self-esteem in place. I was comparing them to third-world people living in palm huts and stuff. Which was about right. I wasn’t impressed by Attilan.
“We will not shirk battle if there is a threat to our world!” Gorgon immediately blurted out, slamming the arm of his chair.
“I imagine that those hill-dwellers would also aid us if we asked them for their help, General.”
He almost purpled in his anger. “Being in the High Guard does not give you leave to insult us!” he swore at me loudly, shaking his fist at me.
“You are a warrior, General Gorgon. I imagine not being able to show your pride in your prowess and courage is upsetting you. The fact that you can be a great people and stand tall upon Terra, and that you are not, is quite frustrating to you,” I replied calmly. “But I am not the one who can change that situation for you.”
His mouth opened and closed again. Finally, he grunted and looked away, pointedly not at his king.
“We are somewhat regretting inviting you here to discuss these matters,” Queen Medusa said with a strained smile. “You have aired secrets and matters we do not normally show before outsiders.”
“Queen Medusa,” I replied kindly, “if you think the Great Bear did not know all of this, then you are a complete fool. You simply are not capable of hiding your secrets from him.”
She sighed even more loudly at that. “My apologies. We are simply too used to measuring ourselves against the average member of humanity. It is true that the most powerful of humans have indeed passed most of our people in power...”
I tilted my head slightly, my smile only growing. “The number of people on this planet who exceed the average power of an Inhuman is a hundredfold your population. The number of people who exceed that of every one of you in this room, save your king, is also a hundredfold and more. The number who exceed your king is at least ten, and could easily be twenty, especially if given a chance to prepare for him.
“Bring in an experienced Shielder with their Shield, and I’ll pit them against anyone in this room, including His Majesty. The Great Bear can create as many of them as he cares to.” I met her eyes squarely. “Your Majesty, your people are simply not that impressive compared to what humanity can field nowadays. You’ve a lot of them in one place, true enough, but both Russia and the Tribes could easily collect enough superior combatants to steamroll you in personal combat several times over, let alone as a collective force.”
“Do you number yourself among those who can suppress our king?” Karnak asked directly, eying me sharply.