Kian
"The Eight want to move the women tomorrow morning," Yamanu said. "We've just had an entire discussion about that. They are adamant that it needs to be done earlier rather than later."
"After the Guardians who took Brody and the chests to the sub returned. The enhanced are doing that weird thing that the Odus sometimes do. They don't talk, but it's kind of obvious that they are communicating among themselves. You know what I'm talking about?"
"Yeah. I know what you mean, but until you said that, it didn't occur to me. We don't know how the Odus do that, but I suppose the Eight use telepathy."
"Of course. How else?"
"Where are you talking from?" Kian asked.
It was obvious that Yamanu couldn't be speaking so freely in front of the enhanced who were working side by side with the Kra-ell and the Odus at the dig site.
"I told everyone that I'm going to check the equipment in the cove. The Guardians returned the waterproof casings they used on the three chests, and I needed to make sure that they are good for another round. Took the jeep for a ride."
"Smart." Kian took a sip of his hot coffee. "Can't you persuade them to wait?"
"I tried. I told Number One that we need another full day to reach the last two chests, and that it would be best if they waited with their mission until we were done and out of here.
He said they had a gut feeling they needed to make their move tomorrow.
Every additional hour that we are here raises the odds of discovery, and if that happens, the entire island would lock down tight.
They want the women and the scientists hidden aboard the ship and ready to sail away. "
"I can understand his logic," Onegus said. "They have their priorities, and we have ours. The question is what do we do about it."
Kian looked at Turner, who hadn't said anything yet. The guy was probably ten steps ahead of them already but hadn't finalized the details yet, so he wasn't ready to share.
"I know that you are still thinking, and I know that you prefer to do it in the quiet of your own head, but I want you to walk us through it."
Turner leaned back in his chair. "The two operations were always meant to be separate.
We were supposed to take the chests days before the enhanced were ready to move the women and the scientists.
We even thought about covering the dig site once the chests were out, so they wouldn't be discovered until days later.
We could have instructed Losham to say that there was nothing there, that Navuh had toyed with all of them to test their loyalty.
But as always, things never work out as we would like. "
He flipped to a fresh page on his yellow pad.
"There was supposed to be no overlap. The two missions were supposed to be independent of each other, just not in the enhanced soldiers' minds because we made them believe otherwise.
In their minds, they were going to load the women and the scientists right after they loaded the chests.
And now that we removed the chests from the equation, they readjusted the timeline accordingly, and now the two operations are running on top of each other.
We'll still be in that basement digging when the women walk out of the enclosure.
They are going to use a thrall to get them out, so maybe they can use a thrall to make everyone in there believe that the women are still there so no one will notice their absence.
They pulled that off in the harem, so maybe they can pull it off there as well. "
"They are not strong enough," Lokan said. "The harem staff is tiny in comparison to the enclosure. Navuh could have done that with ease, but the enhanced can't keep so many people under a thrall simultaneously."
Kian tapped his fingers on the table. "Perhaps they can. They have been visiting the enclosure for weeks now, and no one found out. The only way they could have done it is with a powerful thrall or shroud."
"Not the same thing," Yamanu said over the comms. "What the enhanced did to enter the enclosure unseen was a deflection of sorts.
It was a mental suggestion not to look their way.
It's not an easy trick, but it's easier than thralling nearly two thousand people to keep not seeing several missing women.
That's a thrall or a compulsion that needs to hold for a while.
That being said, the women themselves might come up with a cover story.
A case of an infectious disease that forces them to quarantine, or something of the sort.
Their dormant state has some advantages. "
"Not a bad idea," Kian agreed. "But only in theory.
The women are not prepared to come up with anything like that, and they haven't been working on building a cover.
They can't pull it off by morning. This can only be done with a thrall.
The enhanced would need to thrall everyone in that enclosure to think that the women are in quarantine. "
Yamanu could thrall and shroud the entire enclosure, but only if he was there to physically maintain it. It would evaporate once he left. Besides, Kian wasn't going to risk him to save a bunch of strangers. The risk-versus-gain ratio didn't compute.
"As I said, the enhanced don't have what it takes.
" Lokan lifted his empty coffee cup for Ogidu to refill.
"The moment the women's absence is noted, it will be assumed that they escaped.
The sector officer will order a lockdown, call for reinforcements, and start a search.
The question is whether the lockdown will include the ships in the harbor. If it does, they are screwed."
No one said anything, and Kian was aware of his mother sitting very still and very straight in her chair. Amanda and Alena looked worried, and the fact that Amanda wasn't contributing her take on the situation meant that she considered it desperate.
She wasn't wrong.
"They must delay their mission by one more day," Onegus said.
"We can ask," Turner said. "But we can't make them."
Kian crossed his arms over his chest. "It's true that they are not under our command, and it's also true that we can't compel them, but they do need us, and we can threaten to withdraw our offer of support if they don't cooperate."
"Or we can do it a little more diplomatically." Onegus smiled. "We can give them our assessment, tell them we think the timing is undermining both missions, and hope they'll take it under advisement."
Kian snorted. "They will politely agree to do just that and do exactly what they've already decided to do. The chests are our priority, and the women and scientists are theirs. The only way to get them to cooperate is to use leverage."
He was talking a big game, but he wasn't convinced threatening their only allies on the island was the right move.
The eight powerful strangers were helping his people but answering to no one but themselves, and their involvement might propel the clan toward a direct confrontation with the Brotherhood on the Brotherhood's turf.
He could fight it. He could argue with Number One, marshaling every reason the timing was wrong, and at the end of it the Eight would move the women tomorrow morning anyway, and he would have spent his credibility and his goodwill buying nothing.
The alternative was to flow with it, to accept that the decision had been made and put the clan's weight behind making it succeed instead of resisting it.
The realization he kept arriving at, no matter which way he turned the problem, was that the clan and the Eight were yoked together whether any of them liked it or not.
They needed each other.
He felt his mother's gaze on him and turned to look at her.
He didn't need to explain to her that pushing the women's extraction forward meant the team in the basement was exposed to more risk, which meant a greater chance that the last two chests, one of which might hold Khiann, would be lost to a lockdown or a search or a third collapse brought on by haste.
"Do not weigh Khiann against them," she said, and her voice was strong and confident with none of the anxiety she must be feeling bleeding through. "It is not either or. We get them all out."
He nodded, then tapped his comms. "Yamanu.
Tell Number One the clan's assessment stands.
We think the morning move is dangerous and risks trapping the women in a locked-down harbor while you're still digging, and we'd strongly prefer they hold until tomorrow night.
" He drew a breath. "If the Eight move them anyway, which we expect they will, we will back the play with everything we have. We're going to make it work."
"That's what I thought you'd say." Yamanu sounded relieved.
Kian shifted his gaze to Turner. "We might need the contingencies after all. I hope we get lucky, and we don't need to use any of them, but we need to be ready to deploy them."