Dark Choices - I. T. Lucas Page 0,35

Does he want to conquer the world?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Kalugal is smart, not crazy. But he is obsessed with history and finding out more about the gods and where they came from. He thinks that they were aliens.”

It might have been a clever redirect, or Rufsur might have been telling the truth. In any case, he’d piqued her curiosity.

She’d heard about Kalugal’s extensive artifact collection. He’d even built a bunker to house it in an optimally controlled environment. The funny part was that before Jin had tethered him and everything that followed, they’d thought that he’d been hiding human slaves in there, or an arsenal of weapons.

“I’ve read some of the Sumerian legends regarding the gods’ origins, and I have to agree with your boss. But then all mythologies claim that their gods came from the heavens.”

“Yeah, but not all have accurate depictions of satellites, rockets, and launch pads.”

“I see that Kalugal shared some of his observations with you.”

Rufsur laughed. “He would have shared much more if I was willing to listen. I tried not to let him get started because he can talk about this stuff from morning till night.”

“I would love to hear some of his findings and hypotheses.”

Rufsur waved a hand. “Now is your chance. You can come over tomorrow and have a nice long talk with Kalugal. Perhaps you’ll discover that he’s a pretty decent guy, and you’ll change your mind about him.”

“I don’t hate him.”

“But you think that he and I and our friends are a threat to your clan.”

Sighing, Edna leaned forward and put her empty wine glass on the coffee table. “It’s not personal. But as one who has lived through the Scottish clan feuds, I’ve seen firsthand the ‘us versus them’ mentality at work and its bloody results. No matter how friendly and well-meaning you might appear, and by you I mean Kalugal’s entire community, I can’t fully trust you.”

He chuckled. “We are not in Scotland, Edna, and we don’t have cattle to steal from each other, or territories that we want to conquer, or a history of blood feuds. Where is the conflict?”

She opened her mouth to voice a counter-argument, but then realized that she had none.

Without conflict, or a reason for one, there was no impetus for violence. Kalugal and his men didn’t worship Mortdh, so there was no religious incentive either. What possible reason could they have to strike at the clan?

Females.

Tribal wars were often about that.

But if they could obtain them freely, they wouldn’t have to steal them.

Then there was the quest for power.

Kalugal was an ambitious guy, and he might seek control over the clan. Except, he was no match for Annani, and if he had any doubts about that, it had been proven during Richard’s induction.

So, that wasn’t it either.

Still, she couldn’t just relax and accept him and his men with open arms.

Rufsur smirked. “You see? There isn’t a single reason you can think of for why we are a threat to your clan.”

“If you take away our females, you are.”

“But you’ll get some of us in exchange.”

“That also worries me.”

24

Rufsur

Rufsur wasn’t a psychologist, but he had no doubt that Edna’s fear was rooted in her loss.

She was a rational woman, and yet she relied on a gut feeling that had nothing to do with reality. She’d lost Robbie in one of those skirmishes between clans, and his death was the result of betrayal. Edna hadn’t elaborated, but she’d said that Robbie had been trying to negotiate a peace treaty, so the betrayal had been perpetrated by the neighboring clan members pretending to come in peace, and not by some random attackers.

Rufsur didn’t know much about Scottish history, but he’d seen enough examples of the same tactics in other parts of the world. In that respect, Edna was right. The best way to ensure her people’s safety was to stay isolated and make it unwise for anyone to dare to attack them. The second best was to hide really well, so no one knew where to find them.

The clan had no chance against the Brotherhood, so their best tactic was to remain hidden. But what about Kalugal and his men?

There were too few of them to be a threat to the clan, which made it unwise for them to try anything. But Edna wasn’t thinking logically, she was thinking with her heart, which still bore the scars from her loss.

The thing with smart people was that they could rationalize their irrational fears, as well as their