"How are you getting them out?" Yamanu asked.
"With a transport truck," Number One said. "We bring it to the enclosure and load the women and the children as a transfer of new recruits, boys of age bound for the training camp. No one questions boys going to the camp. The truck turns toward the cross-island tunnel, and inside it the women change out of the transfer fatigues into guard uniforms, and we shift the thrall to match. Recruits do not belong on the resort side, but a guard detail moving cargo does. We come out of the tunnel as soldiers escorting supplies, collect the scientists and the women along the way, and put them in the hold of the ship."
"It's a good plan," Yamanu said. "But I don't like the timing." He folded his arms over his chest. "My team needs another full day in this hole, maybe more, to get the last two chests out, and we can't move them to the sub until tomorrow night. We need things to stay under control until those chests are out and we can leave. Can you wait one more day? Move them tomorrow night after we're gone?"
It was a reasonable request, and the collective weighed it as such, but it arrived at the same insistent result as before.
"We understand the concern," Number One said. "And if the only variable were your chests, we would gladly wait. But our concern runs the other way. The clan's involvement is the destabilizing force. There is a strike team on this island now, and a submarine off its coast, and however quiet you keep it, the probability of discovery climbs with every hour you remain. We would rather have the women off the enclosure grounds and aboard the ship before that probability turns against us."
"What happens if they're aboard the ship and the alarm goes off?" Yamanu pressed. "Then you've got people stuck in a cargo hold in a harbor that's just been frozen. They'd be trapped."
"Then they wait," Number One said. "We will ensure they have provisions, and that the ship doesn't sail without us, so there is no risk of it leaving with the women and without the means to protect them. If your team requires us to remain on this island until the chests are extracted and you are gone, the women and the scientists can wait in the hold."
Yamanu shook his head. "I'd still rather you waited. It's cleaner for everyone."
The collective turned the request over one final time across all eight threads, and arrived, again, at the same place it had arrived at the two previous times.
"It needs to be done tomorrow," Number One said. "Call it a gut feeling."
27
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."
Kian put down his freshly refilled coffee. "When did that happen?"
"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 womenand 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."
