Ascent of the Aliomenti (28 page)

It was Will’s turn to interrupt. “There is no ‘social awkwardness’ here in terms of family units, Arthur. We have many couples here, and they are quite content. A family unit including a child would fit in just fine.”

Arthur’s eyes flashed his disagreement. “Be that as it may, children cannot replace the skills and mastery lost a year ago, regardless of how they might be... acquired. You will need to seek out skilled adults to do that. I will accompany you to the mainland to seek recruits, as it is something I excel at. “

Will sighed. “Fine. Join us. We have another outing in a few days.” He paused. “What was the other topic?”

“We’ll save that topic for a meeting with everyone in Atlantis,” Arthur said, his interruption of Adam quite evident. Adam looked as if he was considering making his statement even after Arthur spoke, but a glare from Arthur silenced him. Will had detected the trickle of Energy that had occurred; Arthur had spoken to Adam telepathically, and whatever he’d said had silenced the second man.

Will could only wonder what Adam had wanted to say.

The Atlanteans, who had all come from the northern village with Will, greeted the two visitors warmly, and they gathered around to get updates on close friends left behind. Arthur and Adam reported that they’d found a few new cities available for trade, and that they’d made a few adjustments to the concrete formula that enabled them to use less material than before.

Will glanced down at his feet, at the concrete monolith beneath him. “We could have used that knowledge a year ago,” he deadpanned. Everyone laughed.

Will gave Arthur a look. “You’d mentioned having something you wanted to discuss with all of us?”

“I did, and I do.” Arthur paused, his eyes flicking up as if deciding how best to word his comments, and then he continued. “A few years ago, as most of you remember, I was near death, aging as many do, and I fear I was far nearer to meeting my Maker than even I suspect. And yet here I stand today, a man nearing sixty, yet I look and feel far younger. Many of you have undoubtedly wondered why, and how, that change took place.”

“Arthur!” Will spoke sharply, realizing what was happening. “This is
not
the time or the manner in which to discuss this.”

“You wish to hide from these good people the secret of my remarkable recovery, Will?” Arthur asked, arching an eyebrow, his tone innocent.

Will silently cursed himself. Arthur was his old self again, all right, and not merely in terms of appearance. He would empower himself as the granter of immortality, a gift which would engender a loyalty no other gift could ever provide.

“Each of you has a decision to make. You see, just as we’ve learned of substances that unleash our Energy and gradually expand upon our stores, so we’ve found another food that provides something of a far, far greater value. But there’s a price to be paid, you see, and you must first decide if you are willing to pay that price before you learn the nature of that gift. If you agree, you will receive that gift and learn its incredible nature. I will simply tell you this: the gift available is one that, in my mind, is far greater than those provided via morange or zirple.”

“What’s the price we must pay?” James asked, curious. He stood next to Elise, the pair of metal workers united in more than merely their craft.

Arthur turned to look at him. “What would you give up to earn the gifts of the morange and zirple, James? How much are you willing to sacrifice?”

“I’m not sure what you mean, Arthur,” James replied, frowning. “With Energy, I know that I can make more money than I could before, so I could, and would, pay a great amount.”

Arthur shook his head. “The price is not one payable in money, or goods. It is a gift of self you must pay, a sacrifice very personal in nature. It is a price I myself had to choose to make on that day, and it is a price I was in many ways
forced
to make. You will have the time to decide.”

Arthur let the words hang in the air, as he turned and looked at each of them. “The price you must pay to receive this gift, this gift of... infinite value, is no more and no less than this: you must give up forever the ability to have children.”

A gasp rose from the collected crowd. Whatever price they might have expected to pay, it was certainly not this. Couples stared at each other, and the silent communication raged. Would they agree, jointly, to make that sacrifice? Or would they agree to postpone that remarkable gift promised by Arthur, a gift greater even than Energy skills? Would they be of one mind on the topic? What would happen if one made that choice, and the other did not? What if one party wanted children, even if it meant sacrificing that incredible gift, and the other did not?

“There is more to it than that,” Arthur said, as his words began to sink in. “You may imagine that it would be... awkward to have a mixture of those who’ve made this choice and those who have not. While it is a choice you may make freely, it is not one without consequence. Should you choose to retain your ability to bear children, you must leave this community. You must, in fact, choose to cease being a member of the Aliomenti. You must... forget.”

Will’s eyes widened, and he was not alone in staring, aghast, at Arthur. “Arthur, this is insane,” Will said. “It is one thing to alert everyone to the price one must pay. But expulsion from the group? That’s unnecessary.”

“It is not, Will,” Arthur replied. “I speak with the voice of experience. In the home village, we had some choose to make the sacrifice and accept the gift, and others who did not. They were unable to live and work together after making their individual decisions. The decision and the gift are too profound to be experienced in a community of anything but like-minded individuals. We had numerous altercations, and eventually we needed to make a decision. That decision was made.”

Will snorted. “Choice? Perhaps, to a point. I could see the decision being a divisive one, and that many might choose to leave. What I’m not clear on, though, is why you want a ‘no’ choice to mean you must ‘forget.’ What does that even mean?”

“To forget?” Arthur replied. “You must forget how to be Aliomenti. You must forget your Energy. You must stop being something more than human, of having abilities human beings only dream of, and return instead to a life of living as a normal human being does. To do otherwise risks the exposure of those who’ve chosen to remain behind.”

Will, who recognized the beginnings of the ‘human’ epithet, opened his mouth to speak once more, but Arthur spoke first. “You may not
bear
children, in the acceptance of this gift. This does not mean you may never be a parent. I spoke earlier about including orphaned children in our recruitment efforts. Young orphans will need adult supervision and guidance. You may still love and raise a child, though that child will not come from you. You will still be able to raise a child with morange and zirple, just as you might if you’d borne that child yourself, but without the risks Will has described in the past. But, in this fashion... you will be able to receive...
the gift
.”

His words were powerful and intoxicating, and Will could feel the mood of the group shifting. Arthur had offered them something powerful, something they couldn’t fathom, and had provided them a means to solve their population problem in a manner that enabled them to receive that amazing, unidentified gift. He had made them understand that they’d lose everything they’d gained if they did not agree to accept his gift, somehow getting all of them to forget that a gift cannot be something forced upon a recipient. They were curious. They were tempted. And they were oblivious to Will’s protests, noting that Arthur had no authority to force them into a choice like this, to choose his ‘gift’ or cease to be a member of the Aliomenti.

That day, many elected to eat of the fruit of the tree from the Ambrosia forest, a fruit supplied by Arthur, a man they now saw as their unquestioned leader, a man who had provided them an incredible gift that Will would have denied them. With receipt of the fruit, they learned of the gift they’d earned through their sacrifice.

The Aliomenti had, only decades after their founding, managed to isolate the ingredients to transform themselves into immortal supermen. World domination was only a matter of time.

And their supply of time was now infinite.

XXII

Hopeless

1058 A.D.

Twenty-two years later.

In a previous life, his sixty-fifth birthday would have marked the beginning of a new era, a probable decline in his health and vitality, until death claimed him. That was before three armed men attacked him outside his home while another destroyed it from the inside, before his adult children rescued him from certain death, before he’d been sent a thousand years into his past to rescue his wife from the clutches of a tyrant.

And it was before he’d eaten the fruit of the ambrosia tree, which so altered his body that he looked to be in his mid-twenties, a look that would remain his for the remainder of his immortal life.

He’d now lived nearly half his years in that distant past, and his memories of the twenty-first century were becoming more and more faint as time passed. It wasn’t because his memory was failing; on the contrary, both his memory and mental sharpness had never been better. The current present had become home. The future was now a past he could never regain.

He spent much of his time traveling now, ostensibly seeking out the next spot for Aliomenti expansion. While they enjoyed the island life afforded by Atlantis, it was agreed that they needed to identify a mainland location for their next outpost. Their target zone would be a point on the southeastern coast of modern England, providing them future launch points into France and Germany. Atlantis, located on the southwestern coast of England, would, with its fleet of ships, provide access to the future nations of Spain and Portugal as well as portions of France.

The newest Aliomenti traversed much the same path as their predecessors, coming aboard as virtual apprentices, developing awareness that their local Aliomenti community was more than a mere town of incredibly skilled craftsmen and craftswomen. It was a place where the impossible could happen. After vowing to reveal nothing of the Aliomenti advances they could see – the concrete building material and the various water systems, for example – they’d eventually be allowed to learn about Energy and begin developing their skills. Long-term residents would discourage them from entering any committed relationships; in a society of immortals, they believed the risk of betrayal and infidelity was high, and the resulting trauma of such actions would be something they’d all feel. The Aliomenti believed it best to learn to avoid thinking about relationships lasting forever; forever, for them, was quite literal.

By the time they were asked to sacrifice their ability to procreate, they had so bought into the Aliomenti lifestyle of wealth, influence, and incredible Energy power, that most would have happily consumed their own limbs and asked for seconds if that was the sacrifice demanded to maintain that lifestyle for an infinite period of time.

They failed to see the cost when immortality came wrapped up as a fragrant, sweet fruit, with the trappings of wealth and power as appetizers.

Arthur continued to lead any recruiting efforts; he had a natural rapport with people in that manner, able to articulate a vision that motivated each individual, able to assess if a stranger possessed the character attributes that would drive them to become a successful, and permanent, member of the Aliomenti. Something about this nagged at Will. A man like Arthur, a man desirous of nothing less than world domination achieved through a group of all-powerful immortals, an organization grown in stature through the efforts and sacrifice of many who’d gone before him... a man like that seemed incapable of handling such an important process with impartiality and ethics. Yet nothing suggested anything was amiss with Arthur’s process. All of the new recruits Will had met were wonderful people, men and women he was happy to call friends.

They’d set up a village rotation, in which three people from Atlantis would travel to the North Village, to be replaced by three traveling from the North Village to Atlantis. That gave everyone an opportunity to live in both locations, sharing new craft techniques and word of friends with both those they’d never met, and those whom they’d not seen in years. And even if good friends hadn’t seen each other for years, their appearances hadn’t changed. None of them had aged a single day.

The lack of aging, and the growth of wealth, had an unfortunate side effect: arrogance.

Will overheard two new arrivals in Atlantis discuss a trip to a coastal village, and it was in that conversation that he heard the word “human” used as an epithet for the first time. It was a term used in reference to his wife by the Hunters, uttered with great scorn, some three decades earlier. Their words still haunted Will’s memories. The words spoken now chilled him. Though they’d existed for mere decades, the Aliomenti attitude of superiority was already starting to show.

Disappointed as he was in their attitudes, Will wasn’t surprised they’d developed. They’d all developed incredible power; even the most junior, unskilled neophyte possessed a strength and mental intuition enabling them to best any “human” in any endeavor with ease. The level of wealth would have made many of them the equivalent of millionaires in Will’s time, a level of financial success that equated with the life of luxury they were now enjoying. They rarely bothered growing their own food or hunting their own game now; they merely teleported to nearby villages to eat in the pubs and restaurants, making them quite popular with tavern owners. When the Aliomenti showed up, locals knew that food and drink would soon flow freely. After the locals were well fed and drunk on wine, they stood little chance in negotiations, and the Aliomenti would come out ahead every time, even after their earlier largess. Few could resist their proposals, and after the generosity, few
wanted
to resist. Even government officials fell under their sway, demands of payment of fees and taxes forgotten under the “charms” of the Aliomenti come to trade.