From Part 26 ...
Kal paced the length of his room, turned, paced back again.
His heart felt like it had been shattered into a million tiny scraps.
His head throbbed.
His shoulders ached.
His side – which had cradled her so recently – yearned for her return.
Kal collapsed onto the bed and plunged his head into his hands.
<Lois,> his heart screamed. <I’m sorry. Please come back to me. I need you.>
Part 27
Lois cried as she had not cried since her father had stormed from their family home never to return.
She cried tears of isolation – tears for every little familiarity that had been leached from her life.
She cried tears of grief - tears for those beloved people she would never see again.
She cried tears of anger - tears for the injustice forced upon Ard and Mo and Jib and their murdered sister and every other female unfortunate enough to be born into the misogynistic society that was New Krypton.
Mostly, she cried tears of despair.
Because she recognised the fearsome power of the jealousy that coursed through her and knew she did not have the means to control it.
She loved Kal so much.
The thought of him with his *wife* had seared weeping blisters across her heart.
Lois knew her capacity for altruism did not extend to sharing the man she loved.
Not sharing him with a woman … a wife … a wife of ten years’ standing. A woman he now knew ... and respected ... and with whom he had negotiated a deal for the benefit of their planet.
She knew that would eat away at her. It would feed her bitterness and her insecurities and her relentless need to right the wrongs - even if, in the process, she wronged the people in the right.
And that would mean Kal.
Kal – who, just by being Kal – had gently exposed the side of her personality that had never had the chance to flourish on Earth.
The side that had been damaged by her father’s defection from the family. The side that had been broken by Paul and then crushed by Claude.
The side she had condemned to perennial hibernation as she had fought and spat and clawed her way up the ladder of her career.
A new wave of tears convulsed her body.
If she didn’t marry Kal, she would destroy him – her rejection would quash the new vitality in his life and again reduce him to being merely a shell of the man he was born to be.
If she did marry Kal, she would destroy him – slowly, over time, as her jealousy frothed and reared and eroded all that was good between them.
She simply could *not* share him.
Not now that Za was more to him than a face in the crowd at an annual festival.
He had agreed to be accepted as the father of her child.
Somehow that was nearly as bad as agreeing to father her child.
It would humiliate her.
And, if she, Lois, never had a child, Kal would be drawn Za’s child – would feel the responsibility to guide and train and encourage the child who would become the Supreme Ruler.
And then *they* would be the family … and she would be the angry alien woman.
Everything had changed.
With one conversation between Kal and his wife, the entire landscape of being the second wife had become intolerable.
Would Kal ever understand that?
Lois slid into her bed – still fully dressed.
She cried until there were no more tears.
Then she waited for the hours of darkness to pass and unveil the new day.
The day that had been earmarked for her wedding.
+-+-+-+
When Lois emerged from the semi-consciousness of troubled slumber, her swollen eyelids felt like they were lined with sand. Her brain had been reduced to a water-logged pulp.
Yet it wasn’t numb enough to stifle her memories – the memories of exactly why she felt this bad.
She and Kal had fought.
She had attacked, he had defended … and they had parted in anger.
Kal.
How was he feeling?
He would be hurting – maybe even more than she was. He probably didn’t even fully understand why she had reacted with such animosity.
But he would understand the damage done to their relationship.
She’d half-expected him to seek her out – but he had not come.
Today – they were to be married.
Should she marry him?
Could she marry him?
Would Kal still want to marry her?
Had he gone to Za and spoken further about their agreement?
Lois’s distress drove her from her bed.
She needed Kal.
He needed her.
They *had* to work out something.
+-+-+-+
Lois walked into Kal’s chambers and listened for movement in his bedroom.
She heard nothing.
Most likely, he was still asleep.
He probably hadn’t slept well either.
She peeked through his door and saw the shape of him in his bed.
The sight of him spawned an idea. Maybe she should go in there and climb in beside him and disengage her mind and her objections and her ideals and allow their love the expression they both wanted. Maybe then she would be able to accept that her portion was the faithful love of a wonderful man – a man who could offer her the exclusiveness of his heart and his body, but not the exclusiveness of his name.
Maybe his touch would be enough to dissolve her wall of jealousy.
She hesitated – torn.
If she went to him now, it would be incredible.
But once the euphoria had dispersed, nothing would have changed. Kal would still be married to Za – would still have a relationship with his other wife.
Lois needed a solution – not a quick fix.
She turned away from the enticement of Kal’s bedroom door.
Her eyes fell on the neat rows of books in the bookcase.
The laws regarding an heir seemed convoluted and complex. Was it possible there was something ... *anything* in there that could provide them with a way out? A loophole? A precedent … anything to provide a way for Za to be honourably released from her marriage to Kal and able to pursue her love for someone else?
Kal said he had searched the law and found nothing to prevent him marrying a second time.
But had he searched for the means to end his first marriage without causing harm to Za?
Lois browsed the row of books. They were matched in design, but with differing characters on each spine. Which one had the diagram of the couple? She tried to visualise Kal’s bed with the books strewn across it. Her fingers skimmed the row and paused at one that seemed more familiar than the rest.
Every page of the book was covered with hand-written script – unbroken by a picture of any sort.
Lois returned to the row and chose another book. Seconds later, she came to the page with the diagram. She contemplated the unfathomable words below the diagram. What did they say? What knowledge did they give? What had Kal discovered from reading this?
Lois ran her fingers across the script. She needed to learn to read Kryptonian - not only to enable her to plumb the intricacies of Kryptonian Law, but also to establish a newspaper. And a library.
And begin to change this society one word at a time.
After she had married Kal, she would ask him to teach her to read and write Kryptonian.
However, that was of no help now.
Then she saw them - tiny specks of paper peeking from the crevice between the pages. Lois gently eased it wider, revealing a trickle of fragments.
A page had been ripped from this book.
When?
Recently?
As recently as yesterday? Following Kal’s announcement?
Had someone removed the portion of the law that allowed the Supreme Ruler to marry more than one woman?
Kal had said there were copies of the law. Were they all missing this page?
Then Lois remembered the original law of Krypton, hidden behind the bookcase.
Had it been tampered with too?
Who would oppose their marriage?
It had to be Nor.
Lois carefully laid the open book on Kal’s big throne-like seat and went to his bedroom door. She knocked. “Kal?” she called softly. “Kal? Are you awake?”
She heard the creak of the bed and then muffled footsteps.
He opened the door.
His hair was mussed and his eyes underscored with shadows. His pants were made of a soft, black material and hung loosely from his hips to his ankles – where his bare feet emerged. His white undershirt clung tightly across his chest and upper arms, but sat slack enough across the waistband of his pants that the slightest movement would risk revealing a sliver of skin.
Lois was sure no one had ever looked so good.
Then she remembered how they had parted the previous evening. “Hi,” she offered.
Kal swallowed. “Is anything wrong?” he asked, his tone giving away nothing.
“Would you come and look at this?” He followed her to the seat and she picked up the book. “Look,” Lois said, indicating the remnants of the missing page.
Kal took the book from her and spread the pages. He ran his thumbnail the length of the crease, then looked up at her, his face serious.
“I think someone came here after the Report yesterday and removed the part that allows you to marry a second wife,” Lois said.
Kal’s eyes dropped to the book and then he shook his head. “No,” he said. “The page has been missing longer than that.”
“It has?”
“Yes. This is exactly how it was when I read it a few days ago. The page was missing then, but I didn’t notice.”
“Aren’t the pages numbered?”
“No.”
“Could it be that whoever wrote the words made an error and removed the page then – so nothing is actually missing?”
Kal considered it. “That is possible - there is no carryover sentence, no break in the text to arouse suspicion.”
“Then how can we know if something is missing?”
Kal peered at the page. “If something was written on the missing page, there should be indentations in the adjacent page,” he said. “But I can’t see anything to indicate that.”
Lois reached for the book. “Maybe *I* can,” she said.
+-+-+-+
Lord Nor sipped his blue, though he barely tasted it.
Today.
He had waited and planned and waited and curbed the clamour of his natural tendencies and monitored and waited for over ten years.
Now it was here.
In just a few hours, he would be the Supreme Ruler of New Krypton.
His mind travelled back ... back through the long years of restraint. Back to the beginning.
Back to when he had been a young man ... with his father.
“Father! Father!”
His father turned. “What is it, Nor?”
“Have you heard?” Nor asked breathlessly, as he rushed to his father’s desk.
“Heard what, my son?
“They are saying the preparations have begun for the Investiture of Kal-El. They are saying that in six months – on the day he achieves sixteen years - he will become the Supreme Ruler.”
Nor had expected his news would alarm his father. Instead, he merely said, “It is good, my son.”
“But Father, you said *I* would be the Supreme Ruler of New Krypton.”
“And so you shall be, my son.”
“But how, Father?” Then Nor knew. “We’re going to kill Kal-El?” he queried eagerly.
“No.”
Nor’s confusion camouflaged his disappointment. “Is he *not* Kal-El?” he asked. “Is this an impostor?”
“He is Kal-El,” Ked affirmed.
“How can you be sure?” Nor challenged. “He has not been seen in public since his Presentation to the People on Krypton. Then, he was but a few months old.”
“Now he is a young man,” Ked told his son. “I have seen him and there is no doubt he is both of the House of El and the House of Ra.”
“Have you ordered medical tests?”
“Yes – but they will only confirm what my eyes tell me.”
“Where has he been all these years?”
Ked hesitated. “I don’t know,” he admitted finally. “I have scoured this planet many times and I could not find him. But ... he is here now ... and that is what we must deal with.”
Nor felt the press of his temper. “You told me Kal-El was dead,” he protested. “You promised me that once the sixteen years of Cabinet Rule had expired, the mantle would fall to us.”
“I told you I did not believe the claims that Kal-El had survived the Transition and was living in seclusion somewhere on New Krypton,” his father corrected.
“You were wrong,” Nor snarled.
“So it seems.”
“He was a helpless infant when we left Krypton,” Nor said. “His parents didn’t survive. *Someone* must have conspired against us.”
“Yent and I questioned Kip-Or the Scientist. He has documents that prove Jor-El gave him jurisdiction over his son before they left Krypton.”
“You’re sure they’re authentic?”
“They carry the seal of the House of El.”
“Why did he hide Kal-El away?”
Ked contemplated his son. “Probably because he believed there would be those who wanted the child dead.”
“He was right there,” Nor muttered. “If we kill him now, Kal-El will be unable to take the mantle at his Investiture and we won’t have been outmanoeuvred by a Scientist.”
“Nor,” his father said, his dulcet tone aggravating Nor’s growing resentment. “Violence is a worthy tool of war, but it is not the only tool. It must be applied only when there is advantage. Violence, wrongly used, brings great disadvantage.”
“If we’re not going to kill him and his Investiture happens in six months, how will I be the Supreme Ruler?” Nor made no effort to suppress the petulance in his tone.
“There is another tool of war, my son.”
Nor pouted. “Which is?”
“Patience.”
“Patience is for the weak and unimaginative.”
“Nor, if we kill Kal-El now, we will die,” his father said. “You must learn to read the mood of the people. They are eager to see Kal-El. His years of concealment have shrouded him in mystery. He is their hope. If we strike him down now, you will not live to be the Supreme Ruler.”
“Then what are we going to do?”
“Do you remember when you were a small boy on Krypton, I took you through the prison?”
“Yes, Father.”
“I showed you the empty cells and told you we had the finest rehabilitation program ever implemented?”
Nor didn’t reply. He didn’t want a history lesson. He wanted to know when he would be the Supreme Ruler.
“The reasons for all those empty cells were a dual-faceted program developed by our Southside Scientists.”
“Hiatus and Re-set,” Nor said on a dismissive sigh.
“Yes,” Ked agreed. “We put the criminal in hiatus for the length of his sentence – which allowed us to experiment at will in order to answer many questions about the Kryptonian brain.”
“And, when his time was up,” Nor said with patent disinterest, “We awakened him from his hiatus and, if deemed necessary, administered the drug, Re-set.”
“You learned well, my son,” Ked said. “Do you recall how the drug worked?”
“It erased the memory of the criminal.”
“And reduced his mind to a completely neutral state – clean and empty and able to be totally reprogrammed.
“I remember.”
Father stood from his desk and unlocked a cupboard. He brought out an ampoule of clear liquid. “I went to the prison on Krypton just prior to boarding my rescue vehicle,” he said. “I took the eleven doses of Re-set from the prison safe. I destroyed ten of them – it is too dangerous to risk it falling into the wrong hands.”
Nor’s interest surfaced above his ire. “You have Re-set?” he asked, incredulously.
“One dose,” Ked said. “For such a time as this.”
“But how does that help me become the Supreme Ruler?”
“We cannot kill Kal-El,” Ked reiterated. “He will be extensively guarded; an attempt on his life would result in our speedy execution. If our attempt were successful, New Krypton would fall to the hands of Ching – another vagabond from the North.”
“There is no way to bring about Kal-El’s demise?” Nor asked despondently.
“Not without endangering our own lives,” Ked said. “But we can administer our last dose of this drug. That will wipe his mind, his memories, his attitudes, his beliefs ... everything Kip-Or has so carefully taught him. His mind will be completely void ... just like those criminals on Krypton ... ready for us to ... re-set.”
“So, we control him?” Nor said. He could taste his disgust.
“For a time, yes.”
“I don’t want to *control* the Supreme Ruler,” Nor wailed. “I want to *be* the Supreme Ruler.”
“And so you shall be, my son. But it will take t-.”
“And what do we tell Kal-El when he realises he has no memory of the first fifteen years of his life? What do we tell Yent and others who have contact with him?”
“We will tell them the Scientists put him in hiatus to ensure his survival during the Transition.”
“And kept him in hiatus for fifteen years?” Nor sneered.
“We’ll blame the Scientists – tell him they conspired to keep him from his birthright ... or they lost so many of our technological advances during the Transition that they had to redevelop the method of awakening.”
“Will he believe us?” Nor asked doubtfully.
“The Re-set will leave him without points of reference – he’ll have no option but to believe everything we tell him.”
“So, we will have a Supreme Ruler who is little more than a child,” Nor mused. “I admit there is a certain entertainment value in having him as a puppet, but I want more than that.”
“And you will have more than that,” his father promised.
“How?”
“There is a little known Law ... a Law that hasn’t been enacted in many centuries. A Law that says if the Supreme Ruler fails to provide an heir within the timeframe, the mantle can be removed from him.”
“How long?”
“One hundred, twenty-five months.”
“That is ridiculous.” Nor eyed his father with bitter accusation. “You assured me Kal-El would not stand between me and what is mine.”
“And he won’t,” Ked said. “But you have to accept that your time is not now.”
“Why?”
“Because the people want him. Our only way is patience.”
“I don’t have patience.”
“Then you will never be the Supreme Ruler,” Ked stated with cool certainty. “If you want it, you will have to become more adept at one of the greatest of all tools – patience.”
“And when the time has finally passed?”
“You will legally be the Supreme Ruler.”
“And how are we going to stop that half-breed Kal-El and his underclass wife from producing an heir?”
“Remember, son, the slate is ours to re-write.”
“So ... we ...?”
“We isolate ... totally ... we teach ... selectively ... we control the process of reproduction ... absolutely ... we manipulate public opinion ... ruthlessly ... and then ... when the time is right ... our victory will be emphatic and incontrovertible.”
“And when Kal-El studies the Law and realises all he stands to lose?” Nor asked scornfully. “What do we do then?”
“It has already been taken care of,” Ked assured him quietly. “The page no longer exists in the Law of New Krypton.”
“If it isn’t there, how can we cite it?”
“It is in the original Law of both the North and the South. It is Canon Law.”
“Will Kal-El not be permitted access to the original documents of Law?”
“He will be permitted,” Ked replied. “But they are extensive in length and fragile and scripted in the difficult language of ancient times. Kal-El will be dissuaded from risking their damage.”
“I don’t like it,” Nor said. “It is too passive.”
“You must accept that as the Supreme Ruler, Kal-El holds every possible advantage. And every advantage is supported by Canon Law.”
“I don’t like it,” Nor repeated.
“It is our best tactic,” Ked said with quiet certainty. “Once you are the Supreme Ruler, you can feed your lust for violence as much as you desire ... for as the Supreme Ruler, the Law will be unable to touch you.”
“Kip-Or has made fools of us.”
“That is true.”
“So would violence be an appropriate response to him?”
“He’s Southside.”
“Yes, but when we arrived on New Krypton, the people of the South were in the minority. Using those tactics you now spurn, we have made considerable progress towards ensuring a Civil War would result in a victory for the South. We don’t need an old, irrelevant Scientist.”
Ked rubbed his chin as he thought. “He wouldn’t fight anyway, he’s always supported unification.”
“Then he is dispensable,” Nor concluded.
“Totally,” Ked agreed.
“Who else knows Kal-El was *not* in hiatus for fifteen years?”
“Kip-Or claims he worked totally alone – that he kept the young heir secluded.”
“And no doubt brainwashed him with the propaganda of unification,” Nor said with deep disgust.
“It won’t matter what he told him – not once we have administered the dose of Re-set. Should the Scientist, or anyone else, claim knowledge of the past fifteen years of Kal-El’s life, their testimony will not stand against a Supreme Ruler who has no memory of it.”
Acceptance was coming slowly to Nor. He’d always known absolute power would not be his until the death of his father. It was possible this would not add too many years to his time of waiting. But the fact that a mere Scientist had outwitted them chafed unbearably. “No one should be permitted to shame the House of Dur.”
“Can you ensure there will be no trail back to you?”
Nor sniggered. “Of course.”
“Well done, my son.”
Nor sipped his blue, relishing the memory of exacting revenge on the Scientist who had dared to cross the House of Dur. Kip-Or had paid with his life.
The years had passed. Nor’s father had lived long enough to fill the void that was the mind of Kal-El.
It had been more difficult than either of them had imagined. More difficult, yet easier too.
They had erased his mind ... his memories ... his knowledge ... his essence ... and everything else that had been imparted to him during his years in hiding.
But they had not managed to bind his conscience.
His conscience. His absolute, unshakeable belief that there was right and there was wrong and he, Kal-El would always do the right.
It had made him a formidable opponent at times. Formidable and unyielding. But it had also made him predictable.
Contemptuously so.
In a few hours, Kal-El would be in exile.
He would not fight the Law.
He would not fight for *his* rights.
Of that, Nor had no doubt.
Kal-El only ever fought for the rights of others.
He would accept his failure and would not dispute his disgrace.
And, within days, Nor’s soldiers would have tracked him and killed him.
And the Law, which had bestowed the mantle of Supreme Ruler upon Nor, would be powerless to act against him.
His father had been right.
Patience was sometimes the most potent of the tools of War.
Nor drained his glass and stood with purpose.
Finally … it was time to take what was his.
+-+-+-+
Lois stared at the handwritten jumble of characters. She could see traces of impressions amidst the written script, but the unfamiliarity of the characters made it difficult to decipher with any surety. Lois switched her eyes to the diagram and the indented spidery scrawl slipped into focus.
She turned the previous page. The script there was different to the faint impressions. There *had* been another page. “I can see some faint marks across the diagram,” she told Kal. “I’ll try to copy them so you can read them.”
Together, they moved to his desk and Lois picked up the pencil. She adjusted her vision and began to copy the strange figures onto a sheet of paper.
Kal watched over her shoulder. After a few minutes, he said, “I don’t recognise the part of the Law you are writing. I am sure I have never read this.”
“What does it say?” Lois asked.
When Kal didn’t answer immediately, she turned from her task and looked into his face. He had coloured a little. “Basically it is instructions for the diagram,” he said.
“Oh.” Lois recovered from her embarrassment first. “But if someone didn’t want you to know the details of that, why leave the diagram there?”
“I don’t know,” Kal said. “Can you make out any further words?”
Lois continued writing for a few minutes, then stopped. “What does it say?”
Again Kal didn’t answer. Again, when she turned, he was looking uncomfortable.
“Well?” she asked.
He cleared his throat. “It is instructions for obtaining the sample.”
“But if you never read this, how did -.” Lois felt the colour flood to her face. “Ah ... forget I ...” She swallowed and returned her thoughts to the task. “That makes even less sense,” she said. “They *wanted* you to do that.”
“Unless the initial plan was for there to be no sample ... and therefore no heir.”
“But someone ... Ching or Yent maybe ... insisted on the sample method being adhered to?”
“That’s possible,” Kal said. “Is there more?”
“Yes, but I’ve finished all the words from the diagram and it’s a lot harder to see amongst the script.”
Lois felt Kal’s hands on her shoulders. “You’re doing a wonderful job,” he said, with an encouraging squeeze through her gown. “I can’t discern anything at all.”
She eased back into his touch and looked up to meet his eyes. Understanding flowed between them.
Together they were more than enough.
Lois raised her shoulder and brushed his hand with a soft kiss.
When her mouth lifted from him, he crouched at her side.
“Lois,” he said. “I’m -.”
The door flung open and four armed soldiers charged in.
They were followed by Nor, Ching and Yent.
Kal straightened, though his hand remained on Lois’s shoulder.
Nor stepped forward. “Kal-El,” he said, his voice coldly triumphant. “You are hereby informed that under the Law of New Krypton, having failed in your duty to provide the necessary heir within the allotted timeframe, you have been deposed as the Supreme Ruler of this planet.”
