Soliloquy

CHAPTER 21

Emperor Egher in his own room, reminiscing how he became a leader of the Xai Dynasty, and how his own race is disappearing from the face of Xavenon.

Prince Emmer Xai - like me is a Mekholi, one of the last surviving superspecies of humans in the Universe. It is of greatest irony that we partially conquered death, sickness and ignorance yet we failed to populate the known universe. I did not know why until my father, the late Emperor Kowes gave me the Memories.

Our species is intelligent enough to solve even problems or limitations imposed by Nature. But as one gains something, there are some things that we must lose. It is a matter of priority. As Mekholis, or humans with long life, our priority is therefore life, long life. Life that my ancestors hopelessly dreamed of ever having. The fruits of their hard work, paid off. But the price is terrible, but such price, is something we thought we can still solve.

Yet, we Mekholis have not reigned for a million years, unlike humans who reigned for four million years. We realized that Nature must have done a terrible mistake in us, but we have the knowledge to do something about it. We now know that our superspecies is dying also.

What a sad day it would be if the last of us dies. Now, I can feel the pain of the what the humans felt when we first came out of them. We, Mekholis conquered galaxies, and humans merely conquered their own solar system, but once more, we cannot fight Nature. We are dying and no one's replacing us. No evolutionary advancement came out of us. We are the evolutionary dead end of humans. What will the last of us feel if he dies? Our memories will fade out, with nobody appreciating our greatness, except our subjects. We eventually thought that degenerate humans - Lexais and Aleghis - are still with us, fighting the great survival, to supplant once more the master species - the Mekholi. It is ironic, that as we dwindle in numbers, they increased their population rapidly. The irony was that we thought we Mekholis advanced our evolutionary state from humans, only to find that they will win eventually, as Lexais and Aleghis. Nature is cruel to those who fail as species, and kind to those who can survive. But we are determined to help Nature, so as not to let the new humans go the way Nature did to us. We are not angry, we are merely sad, sad because Nature experimented on us, and it thought we succeeded well. Humans cannot live as long as us, but they are much tougher than us.

As every day and every year passes, my heart yearns to tell my son that he would not be able to reproduce himself even if he marries Theba.

But why am I feeling this? What good would thousands of years of a lifetime do, if we know that in the end, we will disappear? Everything comes to nothing and a new cycle must come.

Emmer never knew his grandfather, nor any immediate relatives. They were all dead before my wife and I decided to form him in the tank.