“We don’t have the strength of will we once had. I’m sure that’s due in part to my leadership, but I won’t accept all the blame.” Lucan shook his head ruefully. “I wish you could have known Furio. If ever a man was suited for a time…”
“My mother knew him,” said Jenay. “In fact, he sent a gift on the occasion of my birth.”
“Furio was perfectly suited for the Dark Ages,” Lucan went on. “He was as decisive as an ax, and as pitiless. When it came time for his release, he…”
“We know,” said Elaine with heavy sarcasm. “It woke volcanoes, knocked down walls a hundred miles away, and created a symphony in the process.”
“You’ve never attended a release,” Lucan said. “If you had, you might not be so disrespectful.”
Elaine wrinkled her nose in distaste. “Nobody I know would be so vulgar as to perform such a ritual. It makes you wonder at the sensibilities of our ancestors. The pyrotechnic release of one’s life energy to entertain a crowd of drunks. It’s…” She cast about for an appropriate word. “Primitive!”
“Being primitive has its uses,” said Jenay. “There’s a reason for the persistence of these cultural relics.”
“That’s how it’s come to be viewed,” said Lucan. “A cultural relic. I prefer to see it as something more vital. When Furio knew death was upon him, he gathered his friends so they might witness the vigor of his passing and celebrate the potency of his days.”
“For all his potency, he failed to destroy the humans,” I said.
Lucan scowled. “The animals. They outbred the plague. That’s all. The one thing they do well is breed.”
“They outbred us, to be sure. If we hadn’t found our little French thistle, we’d have gone the way of the wooly mammoth.” I paused, tamping down my annoyance with Lucan. “Yet if they hadn’t outbred us, if it were a choice we’d been presented, a trade-off, giving up procreative dominance in exchange for long life and the enhancement of our mental gifts, who here would have it otherwise? We should view our survival as a gift, not a privilege. They earned their right to survive. They…”
Lucan snorted. “Next you’ll be telling us their survival is God’s will.”
“My problem is,” Elaine said, “I don’t enjoy it anymore.”
“Enjoy what?” Jenay asked impatiently.
“Exploiting them.” Elaine half-turned to her. “Taylor’s right. This ritual dominance, this antiquated behavior, colors our lives. It’s a debased practice, no different from a release. And I don’t like how it makes me feel.”
“How does it make you feel?” asked Jenay, archly.
“Taylor’s not right!” Lucan said. “Not in the way you mean, at any rate.”
“Uneasy.” Elaine met Jenay’s challenging stare. “Uncertain of myself. You know.”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” said Jenay.
I saw that Liliana had let her head fall back, exposing the arch of her throat, and Giacinta was pressing her lips to it, feathering her tongue along a vein that showed beneath the skin. The sight infuriated me.
“This is ridiculous!” I said. “The entire conversation.”
“You insisted on having it.” Jenay signaled to a waiter that he could remove her plate.
“We’re not having the conversation I wanted. Far from it.” I paced to the end of the table. “Look. We’ve established that we can’t exterminate them, not without killing ourselves in the process. Now, despite our best efforts to save them, they’re on the verge of destroying themselves…and us. We’re the superior beings. Can’t we come up with a scenario other than one that involves mere containment or their destruction?”
Without bothering to excuse themselves, a silent communion having been reached, Vid and Daniele left the table and, soon after, the room. His expression bemused, Lucan started to speak, but I cut him off and said, “We have to examine the possibility that our intervention is stimulating their urge toward self-destruction.”
“Not this again,” said Jenay.
“Yes, we’ve mentioned it,” I said. “But always as a drollery. We need to take it seriously. If these dinners have any purpose, they remind us how easily we can damage them. One touch and they start to come apart. Look at their leaders, the ones whom we’ve influenced most frequently. They’re pathetic. The majority of them can’t even muster coherent speech.”
“Pish-posh,” said Lucan.
“Look at Rappenglueck,” I said.
The professor lifted his head and belched, and Lucan said, “Let’s not make this personal, shall we? The thing is, our affairs are inextricably mingled with theirs. We can’t afford to take the chance that Taylor may not be right.” He pointed at the door. “Someone should check on the boys. Elaine?”
Elaine lowered her head. “Somebody else go.”
Lucan turned to Jenay.
“They’re just off to have sex,” she said.
“We don’t want that, do we? Not with the staff still here. And the manager. Why complicate things?”
“Oh, all right. I’m sick of this blather, anyway.” Jenay stood, adjusted the fit of her jacket, and strode from the room.
“You have a point, Lucan. We can’t change course abruptly,” Elaine said. “At the same time, we shouldn’t be overcautious. We’ve been acting within narrow parameters. Too narrow, if you ask me. We’ve been trying to maintain the status quo. It’s like trying to stop a two-ton boulder from rolling downhill by jamming a doorstop beneath it. Given we’re stuck with the situation, what I’m suggesting is, let’s change what we can safely change and see what happens. This, the dinners, is one area in which we can experiment.”
“That’s not all you’re suggesting.” Lucan pretended to be concerned with shooting his cuffs. “What you’re suggesting has larger implications.”
“I realize that,” Elaine said. “Changing our attitude toward them during these dinners may have a ripple effect. Perhaps it’ll engender cultural change and one day we may find ourselves in partnership with them. As things stand, we only weaken ourselves with this kind of interaction.”
“Partnership,” Lucan said. “You mean, reveal ourselves to them?”
“Not right away,” she said. “Eventually, perhaps. We’re not so different from them, after all. Our superiority is based on a plant, for heaven’s sake. An accident of biology.”
“And we’re not certain that the thistle can’t be of benefit to them,” I said. “We’ve only done the most primitive of experiments in that regard. It’s quite possible…”
“You’re talking about our enemy.” Lucan enunciated his words precisely, as if speaking to a child. “Surely you comprehend that much. Our natural enemy. They very nearly destroyed us. We’re at war with them. How can you forget?”
“When’s the last time we took a casualty in that war?” I asked. “They’re more our victims than enemies. Our governance of them sets the model for terrorism. We’ve become invisible, yet if we lift a finger, the earth shakes. As for our nature, I’d like to think we’ve risen above it.”
Jenay re-entered the room. “They’re fine,” she said as she sat down. She glanced along the table. “Did I miss anything?”
Lucan gave a limp wave, as if commenting on the hopelessness of our impasse. “Taylor was saying he thinks we’ve risen above our natures in respect to the animals. I won’t bother detailing how incredibly stupid I find that presumption.” Then, addressing me: “If we reveal ourselves, you know what will happen.”
“It would be nasty,” I said. “No doubt. But if we prepare the way, who knows? And if worst comes to worst and there’s a war, we’ll win it.”