There was an audible gulp on the other side of the line. "Of course, my lord. Putting the commander through."
"Lord Losham," the commander said. "I was informed of missing persons in the breeding enclosure."
"There is no way anyone leaves the enclosure unaccounted for. New recruits for the training camp and the dead are the only ones going out those gates. Anyone else would have been stopped by the guards. Did the enclosure’s security office report anything?"
"No, sir, and neither did the guards manning the gate, which is why I originally dismissed the report, especially since it was initiated by the Sacred Mothers. Their heart is in the right place, but they are a little overzealous and too eager to please, which makes them unreliable, so I ordered a count. People are indeedmissing. So far, we counted ten missing women and two small children."
Losham frowned. That wasn't one or two missing women that could have resulted from miscounting.
"When was the last time they were seen?" he said.
"They were seen at breakfast, my lord."
"They are either still in the enclosure, hiding for whatever reason, or if they escaped, they can't be far away. Order another search inside the fence and send a team to search the area right outside of it."
"Should I send soldiers in? They might get more pertinent information from the women and the human guards."
That would be a dangerous precedent, and it could also be part of a plot. What if immortals were behind the disappearance? They could have entered the enclosure and snatched Dormants for their own breeding project.
That, in fact, was more likely than some women managing to escape on their own.
There had never been an escape from the breeding enclosure, not in the thousands of years since its inception, and he didn't believe that was what had occurred now. The missing women and children were either hiding, dead, or kidnapped. There was also the possibility that their disappearance had been manufactured to cause alarm and deflect attention from something more sinister the junior brothers were plotting.
"No immortals in the breeding enclosure. Those are Lord Navuh's standing orders, and I'm not going to repeat the mistake my brothers made and disregard his orders even for a validreason. Issue a curfew and order the human guards to conduct a thorough search. I want the names of the missing women and children and which dormitories they are from."
"Yes, sir. It shall be done right away."
"Have you notified anyone else?"
"No, my lord. I reported this to you first."
"Good. Keep it quiet for now. It might be nothing, and there is no reason to raise an island-wide alarm until we are sure that the women are actually missing."
"Yes, sir. I'll await your orders."
"Very well."
Losham ended the call and leaned back in his chair.
He needed to issue an island-wide lockdown while this was investigated, and just in case the escape was real, the harbor had to be locked down and a thorough search initiated. The problem was that if the crisis had been engineered, whoever was behind it was counting on him to call up reinforcements and redeploy troops from their posts to conduct a search. The order of things would be disrupted to find some women who might not even be really missing.
The dispersal of resources could be the goal of the escape hoax.
This happening so close to the demise of the other three senior brothers and last night's collapse at the mansion could not be a coincidence. Someone was trying to seize the opportunity while Losham's seat was not yet solidified and he didn't have a strong enough base of support.
Even the officers carrying out his lockdown orders might be part of the coup, using this as an excuse to position troops for a strike. The reinforcements flooding the sector might be the very instrument wielded against him.
This needed to be handled wisely, by people he could trust, of which there weren't many, people who couldn't be bribed by a rival's promises because they wanted nothing such a rival could offer.
Losham pulled out his personal phone and placed the call.
"Lord Losham," Number One answered.
"I've just ended a call with the sector commander in charge of the breeding enclosure. Some women and children have been reported missing by the Sacred Mothers."
"An escape from the enclosure is not likely."
"That's what I thought. I ordered a curfew and a recount, but in case this is real, I need you to investigate."
