Chapter 16 Kian
KIAN
Kian stood outside the administrative building for a long moment after ending the call, letting the warm ocean breeze wash over him. The sound of construction had finally ceased for the day, leaving only the distant crash of waves against the cliffs and the hum of generators.
Should he tell the others about Tula before getting confirmation?
They had enough on their plate with the human recruits and the exoskeletons that still weren't optimal and needed tweaking, the construction challenges, and every day there was a new near-disaster that needed to be addressed.
The problem was that he just kept thinking about Tula being pregnant and desperate, only a short distance away. As he opened the door and stepped back into the air-conditioned brightness of the conference room, the conversation stopped, and five pairs of eyes turned to him.
"Problems?" Kalugal asked.
"There are always problems." Kian walked over to his seat but remained standing, hands resting on the table. "I knew it had been too quiet lately and that a new disaster must be brewing on the horizon. I hate to be right once again."
Anandur frowned. "What is it this time?"
Kian was surprised Wonder hadn't told him about Tula yet.
"Esag had a vision, but it wasn't about Khiann as we hoped. He saw Tula, and she was pregnant. She also looked desperate. When my mother speaks to her sister, she will ask Areana to confirm, but in the meantime, we can start running hypothetical rescue scenarios."
Anandur straightened in his chair. "Does Wonder know?"
Kian nodded.
"When did she find out?"
Kian hadn't asked. "I don't know. I'm surprised she didn't tell you, but it is possible that my mother asked her not to."
Anandur shook his head. "Why would she do that? Wonder is probably distressed and needs my support."
"Is Navuh the father?" Jade asked.
Had he failed to tell Jade that Areana and Navuh were truelove mates? Maybe she didn't realize what that meant to immortals and gods.
"No. Navuh is Areana's truelove mate, and he doesn't stray from her bed. The father would be Tony, a bioinformatician that Navuh brought to the harem in hopes of producing smarter sons for him to adopt."
Kalugal smoothed his hand over his goatee. "I vaguely remember Tula from the few times I managed to sneak into the harem. Dark hair, pretty, fierce. She always stayed close to my mother and was protective of her. She wasn't happy about my visits, saying that it was dangerous."
"Are we extracting her?" Jade asked.
Always the pragmatist, she was even less attuned to the undercurrent of drama than Kian was.
"We're not doing anything before we get confirmation," he said. "For all we know, the vision could be of the future, or even the past. But if the situation is confirmed, my mother will want us to save Tula."
They all knew that what Annani wanted, Annani got, even if it required enormous resources. The only way she would relent was if Kian could demonstrate that a rescue endangered too many lives.
"Then we need to evaluate options," Kalugal said. "I assume Tula is hiding the pregnancy to avoid increased scrutiny, and that means time is of the essence. Did Esag see how far along she was?"
"Beginning pregnancy, but already noticeable if he was immediately made aware of it. The vision wasn't verbal, so it wasn't as if Tula told him."
"We can do what we did with Carol," Anandur said. "The staged suicide of throwing herself off the cliff while Yamanu provides a shroud to make the humans in the harem see just that."
Kian pulled out his chair and sat down. "Carol's extraction was years ago, and we don't know what security changes have been implemented since then. Also, the recent rebellion damaged infrastructure, and construction crews are swarming the island, which could work to our advantage."
Jade nodded. "More chaos, more strangers on the island, easier to infiltrate."
"Not really," Kian said. "I'm sure that every worker who sets foot on the island goes through the immortal detection process. Carol got in because females don't trigger the mechanism, and she was traveling with a human who was well-known and regarded on the island."
Anandur leaned forward, placing his elbows on the table.
"The cliff extraction worked because they thought it was impossible.
" He looked at those in the room who hadn't been part of the clan when Carol had infiltrated the harem and found Areana.
"It was a nightmare of logistics. We'd hired a professional rock climber to scale the cliff next to the harem, but he got injured on another climb right before the operation. "
"Bad luck," Jade said.
"Maybe it was actually a stroke of good luck.
" Anandur cast Kian a smile. "As the saying goes, necessity is the mother of invention.
We scrambled for a replacement but couldn't find anyone of that caliber who was willing to scale an un-scalable rock face covered in wet moss.
Then Kian had the brilliant idea to teach Okidu rock-climbing by showing him a bunch of climbing documentaries.
The Odus learn fast, and they are incredibly strong. "
Phinas's eyebrows shot up. "You taught your butler how to climb a rock by sitting him in front of a screen?"
Kian felt pretty smug about coming up with that idea. "I also gave him a couple of books to scan so he could learn the terminology and equipment."
"But knowing and doing are different things," Kalugal said.
"Very different," Anandur agreed. "And in Okidu's case, there was also worry about his weight. Odus are heavy, much denser than they appear. But we tested him and he did spectacularly. He is, after all, a machine."
Kian cringed at that, even though it was a nearly exact quote of what he had said back then. But that was before the reboot and Okidu's slow but steady growing self-awareness.
"So, how did it go?" Phinas asked.
"Okidu did it," Anandur said. "He climbed that impossible cliff, installed all the equipment that allowed the others to climb with ease, and then right at the top, he lost his grip and fell off the cliff."
"Fates," Jade breathed. "How did he survive that? I know that he's mostly machine, but even a machine can break."
"He went down like a stone," Anandur said. "Luckily, he fell into the water and did not get splattered over the rocks."
"They pulled him out," Kian said. "But before they managed to do so, he completely shut down.
They thought he was a goner, but then he rebooted, and a hidden program got activated.
That's how Okidu became self-aware, sentient, and he later rebooted his brothers so they could make the journey into sentience with him. "
When Anandur opened his mouth to continue the story, Kian caught his eye and shook his head, a subtle warning to be careful.
Anandur nodded, understanding the message, and closed his mouth.
By now, Kalugal knew about the blueprints Okidu had provided after his reboot, but he didn't know that, in addition to instructions for building more Odus, the journals also contained what could be the secret to immortality.
The gods hadn't always been immortal. They had achieved it through genetic manipulation.
Kalugal didn't need to know that. Not yet, anyway.
"Fascinating," Kalugal said, and Kian couldn't tell if he'd picked up on the subtle communication or not. His cousin was sometimes too smart for comfort. "So, we'd need to bring Okidu over for another cliff extraction."
"If we go that route," Kian said. "There might be other options."
"Speaking of Okidu," Kalugal continued, "Syssi mentioned missing him.
I offered to bring him along with the equipment shipment from the village, but she pointed out that your vacation is almost over, so that would be silly.
But now we might be forced to stay longer, and given the situation, perhaps we should bring him anyway. "
"Even if we get confirmation tomorrow, we won't need Okidu right away, and there is no reason for us to stay here," Kian said, but he wasn't entirely convinced of his own words.
"To execute something similar to what we did with Carol, we would need a submarine, more Guardians, and diving equipment.
The submarine will take time to arrange. "
"Tula might get discovered in the meantime," Jade said. "Also, what about her partner? Are we taking him too?"
Kian shook his head. "Not if we go with the suicide scenario, which I admit is our best bet and will be the most believable.
Anything else might reveal our involvement and implicate Areana.
As much as it pains me to say that, it's not likely that we will manage to extract anyone in addition to Tula. "
A long moment of silence followed his declaration, and Kian imagined that they were all trying to think of an alternative.
He was open to suggestions.
Jade drummed her fingers on the table. "The cliff approach requires Okidu, climbing equipment, diving equipment, and Yamanu to do the shrouding. Since the submarine is the hardest part, we should start making inquiries right away." She looked at Kian. "Turner?"
He shrugged. "Who else? But I would hate to bother him, only to call him again tomorrow and tell him to drop the search because Areana said Tula was not pregnant."
"We are so close," Anandur murmured. "We can get there with a couple of speedboats."
"That would have been an option if the island had no defenses," Phinas said. "But then we wouldn't have to plan elaborate extractions either."
"We could pretend to be lost tourists," Anandur said. "They are not going to shoot at a civilian craft. I can put on a wig and pretend to be a sexy woman. That would confuse the Doomers. They are not so smart."
Anandur was trying to lighten the mood, but Kian had no patience for his frivolous ideas.
The others were more forgiving, as even Jade joined in, offering a few nutty suggestions of her own.
Kian tuned them out.