The threat from the Mullurans proved to be a non-event. The cutter Iwo Jima and Galaxy-class ships Iberia and Monterey had arrived with due speed and taken up orbit around Swarva within three days of Penthesileia's overthrow. By the time the Mulluran task force had rallied to the distress signal, 1,000 G'kar irregulars of the La'kon Legion had also landed and set up camp to reinforce the rebulding Swarvan forces. The Mullurans were in no condition to wage a major campaign.
Five days hence, Tarik had found himself immersed in the relief and rebuilding effort. Fortunately Swarva's new government had proven to be most cooperative--and amenable to new ideas.
"This 'democracy' idea has merit," Hecate told Tarik. "I can see where it makes the mechanism for ruling the state more efficient and humane. But are the people ready for it?"
"I don't see why not," Tarik answered. "Your people are well-educated and unified. In fact, your own historical documents indicate that your former government was organized along similar lines. You can still retain the monarchy to maintain stability if you'd like, but they must be subject to the rule of law--"
"Ah've great news!" Paul Deveraux announced as he barged in on Tarik and Hecate. His recovery aboard the Norman Bethune had been hastened by both his general good health before his experience and by having a project to focus on: the correction of the genetic damage that caused all Swarvan male fetuses to auto-abort.
"What have you got, Paul?" Tarik asked, willing to overlook his friend's lack of courtesy for the right sort of good news.
"Ah've discovered a way to correct ze genetic defect causeeng ze problem!!!" Paul exclaimed. Hecate jumped up and very nearly embraced Paul--but held back, knowing that he still had a great deal of mental as well as physical trauma to overcome.
"What do we need to do?" Hecate asked.
"Ze problem eez with a damaged Y-chromosome. All we need to do eez find a good Swarvan Y-chromosome, an' do to zhat, we need to find a Swarvan male who died before ze war zhat started all of zhis."
"King Celox VIII is in a crypt beneath the main palace," Hecate disclosed. "To my knowledge, the crypt hasn't been disturbed in over 300 years."
"Perfect! Weeth your permission, Madame..."
"Of course! Do whatever you must!"
Paul rushed out of the room, scarcely waiting for Hecate to detail guards to escort him to the crypt. Tarik and Hecate followed.
They passed through corridor after corridor of crumbling, rotting, moldering corpses until they reached a crypt room decorated with ornate hieroglyphics. "This is the place!" Hecate announced. She knelt in reverence. "Celox VIII, one of the greatest of our monarchs."
Tarik and Paul shared a moment of silence before they began wrestling off the lid of the sarcophagus. Inside they found...ashes.
Paul scanned the cremains with his tricorder. "Sacre bleu! Zhere eez no useable genetic material in here!"
"Hecate, what's the possibility that the king's remains were cremated, or that the body was moved?" Tarik asked.
"Absolutely none! Neither is our custom."
"Tricorder readings indicate zhat ze body was cremated less zhan thirty years ago," Paul announced. "Zhere are residues consistent weeth decomposition on the inner lining of ze sarcophagus. And eet appears zhat ze body was incinerated by a disruptor."
"The filthy Mullurans! They desecrated the tomb of our king!" Hecate announce in horror. "And my sister no doubt let them do it."
"We must be on the right path," Tarik said. "The Mullurans wouldn't have done that if they didn't know what you know, Paul."
"But what about zhese other bodies?" Paul asked, indicating the catacombs. "Perhaps one of zhem--"
"Out of the question," Hecate said, cutting him off.
"Pour quoi, mon cher?" Paul asked. "Eef not 'alf, zhen a sizeable percentage of ze bodies must be male!"
"But they are commoners!" Hecate said with horror.
This did not stop Paul however. He tore down a corridor, scanning alcoves in the catacombs untl he found a male corpse. He scanned the corpse. "Zhis body eez badly decomposed--eet ez over two hundred years old--but ze DNA eez 98% intact!" Paul exclaimed.
Hecate arrived almost immediately after Paul, aand brushed off the nameplate on the alcove, nearly black with tarnish. "His name was Valad, a palace clerk. He died during the reign of Queen Casila and was to be awarded with burial at her side, if I recall the story correctly."
"What happened with that?" Tarik asked.
"Casila died in battle. It is our custom to bury the fallen where they fall on the battlefield. And we could not move Valad, so here he lay."
Paul pressed a button on his tricorder, and a tiny section of Valad's decaying, mummified flesh appeared in a sampling tube attached to the instrument. "Got eet!"
"You don't propose to use this clerk's DNA to correct the problem!" Hecate said with horror.
"Of course I do! All I need to do is engineer a retrovirus to eensert ze proper sequences, an--"
"But you can't! The purity of Swarvan blood--"
"Was of little concern to you when you were hijacking alien merchant vessels and using their crews for the same purpose," Tarik snapped. "What did you know of the pedigrees of those men? And yet a male of your own race who was highly regarded enough to merit burial with his queen isn't worthy? That makes no sense."
Hecate was silent for a long moment after Paul beamed up to the Bethune. "Perhaps you're right. Maybe it's time for us to become democratic in every sense of the word."
"It beats extinction as an option, or turning yourselves into the whorehouse of the galaxy," Tarik replied.
"Tomorrow, honey," Tarik said to Kassia over the comm circuit. "That's when the relief mission takes over."
[It'll be so good to have you home! We miss you so much!] Kassia replied. [Is it true what I've heard?]
"Yes. Paul's found a cure for the Swarvan problem. One that doesn't involve piracy. And I think we might be on the verge of the greatest case of irony in the galaxy."
[How so?]
"Hecate tells me that Valad died unmarried and without issue. He's now to become the father of every male Swarvan in the next generation!"
Kassia laughed. [Some men are called the father of their country. Here's a man who will really be the father of his country!]