The queen of the damned - Anne Rice [234]
It seemed Eric was losing his silent battle with fear. He moved as if he meant to rise and leave the room.
“Patience,” Maharet said, glancing at him. She looked back at Akasha.
Akasha smiled.
“How is it possible,” Maharet asked in a low voice, “to break a cycle of violence through more wanton violence? You are destroying the males of the human species. What can possibly be the outcome of such a brutal act?”
“You know the outcome as well as I do,” Akasha said. “It’s too simple and too elegant to be misunderstood. It has been unimaginable until now. All those centuries I sat upon my throne in Marius’s shrine; I dreamed of an earth that was a garden, a world where beings lived without the torment that I could hear and feel. I dreamed of people achieving this peace without tyranny. And then the utter simplicity of it struck me; it was like dawn coming. The people who can realize such a dream are women; but only if all the men—or very nearly all the men—are removed.
“In prior ages, such a thing would not have been workable. But now it is easy; there is a vast technology which can reinforce it. After the initial purgation, the sex of babies can be selected; the unwanted unborn can be mercifully aborted as so many of both sexes are now. But there is no need to discuss this aspect of it, really. You are not fools, any of you, no matter how emotional or impetuous you are.
“You know as I know that there will be universal peace if the male population is limited to one per one hundred women. All forms of random violence will very simply come to an end.
“The reign of peace will be something the world has never known. Then the male population can be increased gradually. But for the conceptual framework to be changed, the males must be gone. Who can dispute that? It may not even be necessary to keep the one in a hundred. But it would be generous to do so. And so I will allow this. At least as we begin.”
I could see that Gabrielle was about to speak. I tried to give her a silent signal to be quiet, but she ignored me.
“All right, the effects are obvious,” she said. “But when you speak in terms of wholesale extermination, then questions of peace become ridiculous. You’re abandoning one half of the world’s population. If men and women were born without arms and legs, this might be a peaceful world as well.”
“The men deserve what will happen to them. As a species, they will reap what they have sown. And remember, I speak of a temporary cleansing—a retreat, as it were. It’s the simplicity of it which is beautiful. Collectively the lives of these men do not equal the lives of women who have been killed at the hands of men over the centuries. You know it and I know it. Now, tell me, how many men over the centuries have fallen at the hands of women? If you brought back to life every man slain by a woman, do you think these creatures would fill even this house?
“But you see, these points don’t matter. Again, we know what I say is true. What matters—what is relevant and even more exquisite than the proposition itself—is that we now have the means to make it happen. I am indestructible. You are equipped to be my angels. And there is no one who can oppose us with success.”
“That’s not true,” Maharet said.
A little flash of anger colored Akasha’s cheeks; a glorious blush of red that faded and left her as inhuman looking as before.
“You are saying that you can stop me?” she asked, her mouth stiffening. “You are rash to suggest this. Will you suffer the death of Eric, and Mael, and Jessica, for such a point?”
Maharet didn’t answer. Mael was visibly shaken but with anger not fear. He glanced at Jesse and at Maharet and then at me. I could feel his hatred.
Akasha continued to stare at Maharet.
“Oh, I know you, believe me,” Akasha went on, her voice softening slightly. “I know how you have survived through all the years unchanged. I have seen you a thousand times in the eyes of others; I know