Drova lifted the amplifier to her mouth. "There is nothing here," she said in their language. "Turn around and report that it was a structural collapse."
She held her breath until she heard them repeat what she'd just told them and then walk away.
Her relief didn't last long, though.
A face emerged at the edge of the hole, followed by another and then more, forming a cluster that threatened to cause additional collapse.
Perhaps they hadn't heard her?
She repeated the command. "There is nothing here. Turn around and report a structural collapse."
None of them moved, and panic tightened her throat.
One immune was an anomaly. An entire group of them was an impossibility. How was this happening?
Behind her, she heard weapons raised. The immortals were readying for a fight they'd thought they could avoid. Pavel had his weapon up too, shielding her with his body, and across the floor the rest of the team had turned toward the hole with their guns trained up onto the faces staring at them from above as if they could see them.
Not even immortals should have been able to see them hiding in the shadows from such a distance.
Who were these guards?
Had the Brotherhood developed cyborgs? The Odus were immune to compulsion because they had computer brains, so that could be why they weren't responding to her compulsion.
They weren't doing anything, though. They'd just found a clan strike team in Navuh's basement, and all they were doing was standing or crouching near the edge and looking down.
Maybe these were the enhanced soldiers?
She didn't know whether they were immune to compulsion, but since they were compellers themselves, the odds were they were.
The soldiers above did not draw their weapons.
"Hold your fire," Yamanu ordered.
He must have realized the same thing she had.
The Guardians lowered their weapons. All of them at once, including Pavel. Every barrel was now pointing toward the ground as if a hand had pushed them.
Drova spun toward Pavel with her own weapon still half-raised and her heart slamming. "Yamanu said hold your fire, not lower your weapons. What are you doing?"
"I—" Pavel stared at the weapon pointing at the floor, his face slack with confusion. "I'm not. I didn't. Something?—"
They had been thralled.
The realization hit her even as the word formed. The soldiers up there were thralling her team, forcing them to stand down. But because she was immune, she didn't feel their mental push. They had to be very powerful to affect Guardians like Yamanu and Anandur.
If they turned out to be unfriendly, it was up to her to defend her team.
She brought her own weapon up the rest of the way and put the front sight on the nearest shape at the edge of the hole.
If they could turn the Guardians' hands, they could turn the Guardians' guns, and then it wouldn't be a standoff. It would be a slaughter, and she was the only one left who could still choose where her own weapon pointed. She took up the slack on the trigger and opened her mouth to scream a warning to a team that couldn't lift its guns to heed it?—
"We mean you no harm." The voice came from above, calm, collected, nonthreatening, and speaking American English.
She didn't remove her finger from the trigger.
"My name is Number One. I assume you know who my friends and I are. We are the Eight enhanced soldiers who have been communicating with Onegus, K, and others in the clan. We are here to offer our assistance."
The trigger was a hair's breadth from breaking under her finger.
