Chapter Three: A Noble Thought?

"I am old, girl. Even older than I look. My attitudes towards women are from a bygone era. It is due to those attitudes that I regret you being my heir. This burden, is not something a woman should have to bear."

He raised one thick and wrinkled hand to forestall her response. "It is not because I have some archaic belief in the superiority of men, or the proper place of women, or some similar idiocy, as you have already deduced. Rather, it is the simple fact that only women can have children. Women are the guardians of humanity. Only with women can humans survive and perpetuate. Each woman represents a unique genetic heritage which must be preserved.

"Humans as a race could get by with only a few men. It would not be pleasant but the race as a whole could survive. But every woman is a precious potential for the future of humanity as a whole. There are threats out there, beyond imagination, dangers that would freeze the soul and still a beating heart. Some of those threats put our entire race at risk. Others threaten our entire world.

"It is protectiveness for the races of humanity, that I treat you as I do, and wish that you were not my heir. It is because, as a woman, you should be a guardian of the future; I feel that you should not be thrust into harm's way. It is not because you are lacking in some fashion or that I think you, or any woman, is lesser in any way.

"However, you are the only one left, the only one not dead, or a traitor. And so, reluctant as I am to endanger you, I feel that I have no choice. And thus I was tougher on you, harsher, more cruel.

"This is why," he sighed.

"Oh. That actually sounds kind of noble, until you get to the part about crushing your only remaining disciple," she said.

He was silent for a time, though the jungle around them was a riot of noise and color. She thought he was probably thinking about the other disciples, the ones who died, the one who betrayed… and wondered if she should not have mentioned it from her side, even though he just had.

"There is one other thing," he continued.

"What is it?" she asked.

"I will tell you if you live," he replied flatly.

"So after all the hell-training I've been through, all the deadly situations, all times my life, our lives, hung by a thread… why is this so different?" she asked, not bothered by the possibility of death.

A long silence passed, until suddenly the truck came to a stop. The jungle track had come to an end. Beyond this point, only a faint path proceeded onward into the depths, the trees and vines were much too thick to allow a vehicle passage.

The man divested the remainder of his disguise, which revealed his body to be as lean as his face, with hard flat muscles, his hands to be smooth and with tapered slender fingers. He was still old, though. To her surprise, instead of putting on the expected hat, scarf, and coat he normally wore, he carefully removed and folded the coat and scarf, took off the custom holsters with their four pistols, and placed the hat on top of it all in the driver's seat. Over the black skinsuit he kept on, he donned simple clothing, something a local peasant might wear. He looked long at the items laying in the driver's seat, and then turned decisively away.

She was shocked. She had never seen him completely unarmed, ever. She glanced at his hand. He still wore his signature fire opal ring. That at least was unchanged.