Firstborn - Brandon Sanderson [10]
“Gemwater . . .” Kern said. “But he conquered that planet over fifteen years ago! You think your brother has been keeping secrets for that long?”
Dennison nodded distractedly. “He knew from that first battle at Seapress. He understood that by quelling the Reaches, he would make the High Empire stronger and harder to defeat when the time came. That’s why he took Gemwater so early, to give its scientists decades to build him secret technology.”
Kern watched the holo again.
The universe felt . . . awry to Dennison. His father was dead. Sennion Crestmar had never been loving, but he had instilled in Dennison a powerful will to succeed. He’d been demanding, rigid, and unforgiving. Yet, Dennison had hoped that someday . . . maybe . . . he would be able to make the man proud.
And now he never would. Varion had robbed Dennison of that.
What does it matter? Dennison thought. The hologram below showed the firefight through smoke and verdant grass. Sennion wasn’t even really my father. I have no father. Unless Varion was wrong.
No. Varion was never wrong.
Only two men could verify the claim for certain. The first lay dead from an energy blast to the head. The other—The High Emperor, who had to approve all cloning requests—had yet to respond to Dennison’s request for an audience. But Dennison knew what the answer would be. The saddest part wasn’t that Dennison was a fabricated tool, it was that he was a defective one. Genetically, he was the same as Varion. He had even checked in the mirror and found a few silver hairs. Varion had started to go gray at twenty-three—Dennison’s age now.
So many things made sudden and daunting sense. You cannot be like other officers, his father had said. The High Empire expects more. No wonder they had pushed Dennison so hard; no wonder they had refused to let him leave the service. He was Varion.
And yet he wasn’t. Whatever Varion had, it hadn’t been transmitted to Dennison. That confidence of his hadn’t come from a random mingling of chromosomes. The victories, the power, the sheer momentum. These could not be copied.
The High Emperor will find that I am even capable of defeating myself. Varion knew—knew that he was special, somehow.
“Dennison,” Kern said.
Dennison looked up. Kern sat below, in a chair just before the holo, looking up disapprovingly. He had paused the recording. The point he had inadvertently chosen showed a disturbing image. Varion’s weapon raised, smoking, a corpse falling to the grass below. . . .
“Dennison, I asked you a question,” Kern said.
“He’s going to win, Kern,” Dennison said, staring at the holo. “The empire . . . to Varion, what is the empire but another collection of recalcitrant planets to be brought into line?”
Kern glanced at the holo, and—realizing where he’d paused it—turned off the image.
“We are High Officers, Dennison,” Kern said sternly. “Such talk isn’t fitting.”
Dennison snorted.
“Varion can be defeated,” Kern insisted.
Dennison shook his head. “No. He can’t. And why should we bother, anyway? When does a man stop being a hero and start being a tyrant? If he had the right to bring the rebellious Reaches into line, then why shouldn’t he claim the same moral right regarding us?”
Kern frowned. “Only the planets that raided us were conquered—at least, at first, back when Varion was still nominally under control. This complete conquest of the Reaches was his own plan, done against the High Emperor’s wishes. By the time we realized our mistake, he was already too powerful. We really only had one option—gather strength and wait, hoping that he would be satisfied with taking the Reaches.”
Dennison shook his head. “If you hoped that, then you never really knew him. He is a conqueror, Kern. It’s like he feels some divine right to take the High Throne for himself.”
Kern’s frown deepened. He reached over, turning the recording back on. Once again, Dennison was confronted by the frozen image