Starcrossed - Bianca D'Arc Page 0,88

develop ways to help with all the boys left motherless by the virus. Already, the number of young pages in the palace had tripled, each woman having taken a group of little boys under their wings.

It was good to see the children laughing and playing around the halls of the big building. There was more than enough room for them, and the ladies were educating them, as well as mothering them. Ginny wanted to encourage that sort of thing throughout the empire, and she was taking careful notes on what worked…and what didn’t.

After the wedding was over, Ginny had plans to put out a special call to any women in the human galaxy who had an enhanced ancestor—and therefore jit’suku DNA in their profiles—to come help restore the balance here. If the human government was interested in allowing some jit’suku men to move there, Ginny was already thinking about ways to screen and select suitable candidates.

The first few groups of men to go back home were going to have to be especially patient fellows. They were likely to get a cold reception in many places. They’d have to earn the women’s trust, and that could take some time. She wanted to set up classes to prepare them for the traditions, beliefs and customs they might encounter. Her crew would be the teachers, but they weren’t even close to that stage yet. The wedding had to come first, and then, all her plans could be set into motion, though she was already discussing some of it with Tigh.

He was supportive and offered very good suggestions, which was a great help. Between the two of them, she’d already prepared some notes on how to go about the various steps in the plan. All it needed now, was the right timing.

When the wedding day arrived, the pomp and circumstance was even greater than Ginny had expected. News cams floated everywhere along the route she took from the suite where she had slept the night before. There was a tradition among the jit’suku that all the women of the family would gather together in one place the night before a wedding to tell stories, laugh and keep the bride-to-be company. It was something like a hen party, only it included all ages of women and didn’t focus so much on the party aspect as it did on the camaraderie and family ties.

Ginny liked it. She hadn’t had a lot of time lately to just hang out with her crew and family. Her crew had become part of her family, and it was good to renew those ties and gossip about the men they had met so far. It was clear to them all that Krysta and Xeer were getting very close, as were Hansa and Henny. There was also something between Sally—who had been released from the infirmary just the day before—and Tolo. Good-natured teasing was passed around evenly until Ginny’s mother and aunt started talking about how their marriages had been before the virus.

The mood grew a bit somber when they remembered the way things used to be and the good men that had been lost forever. They drank a toast to Ginny’s father and uncle, the crew members’ fathers and brothers and cousins. All those men, just wiped away by something so tiny…and deadly.

But there was hope, too. Hope for a rebirth of both races that had suffered so badly. Now that the man who had crafted the virus was gone, they all felt that they could truly start over and make both races stronger. United. At peace.

There hadn’t been peace between the jit’suku and humanity for centuries. There had been brief periods of ceasefire and one long stretch of quiet during Emperor Tren’s time, but it hadn’t stuck. This time, though, Ginny was certain the peace would endure. For, after the next generation or two, there would be no more jit’suku and human. There would be one race of people with shared DNA.

That would stop the jit’suku warriors in their tracks. It was one of the tenants of their warrior’s code that they did not make war on their own people. Humanity was going to become jit’suku, and jit’suku would, likewise, merge with humanity. It was an elegant solution for an untenable situation, but she’d take it.

They discussed many topics that night from the peace treaty that would be formed by her marriage, to scandalous teasing about the jit’suku men. The women dined together and spent the rest of the evening