“It’s Eleanor.”
He sucked in a breath. “Eleanor. I thought that they didn’t allow you to make calls.”
“They didn’t. Well, they still don’t. I can only call people within the village or you.” She gripped the phone tighter. “Why didn’t you call me?”
“I wanted to, but I couldn’t. I don’t know anyone in the village.”
What a convenient excuse.
“Your boss does. You could have asked him.”
There was a long moment of silence. “I’m just a simple soldier, Eleanor. I’m not close to Kalugal, and after my blunder with you, I walk on eggshells around him.”
His excuses were pissing her off. “What about his second-in-command? He could have asked for you. If you don’t want to talk to me, just say so. Don’t make up excuses.”
Greggory sighed. “I miss you, and I want to talk to you. But even if Rufsur could have arranged for us to talk, it would have been monitored for security reasons. I don’t want to talk to my girlfriend with Guardians hearing every word.”
He thought of her as his girlfriend? Eleanor’s mood improved in an instant.
“You are right, and the call is being monitored, but I’d rather talk to you with them listening in than not talk with you at all. There are plenty of things we can talk about that are okay to share in public. I can tell you about my days, you can tell me about yours, we can talk about the weather for all I care. I just want to hear your voice.” Eleanor’s voice hitched on the last sentence, and she got mad at herself for getting emotional.
“Oh, Eleanor, I’m so sorry. You are absolutely right. Just hearing your voice makes my day better. Talk to me, tell me what you’ve been doing. Are they treating you well?”
Letting out a breath, Eleanor pushed up against the pillows. “I’ve been doing great. I started training with a Guardian named Kri, and she is awesome. We’ve become good friends. In fact, she and I are going on a virtual ski adventure. We volunteered to test out the two new virtual experience machines William put together.” She chuckled. “They were originally designed for virtual hookups, but Kri and I are obviously not going to do that.”
“Isn’t it dangerous?”
“The technology is already used commercially in the human world, and people are paying a fortune for the privilege. So far, there have been no negative incidents. You can google them. I think they are called the Perfect Match Virtual Experience Studios.”
“I will. Do you know if they have an office in the Bay Area?”
“I can ask William, but if you are wondering whether we can have a shared experience while you are still there and I’m here, the answer is no. William is not going to connect the village machines to the commercial studios’ network. If you want to play with me, you will have to come here. Perhaps you can ask your boss to give you a leave of absence?”
“I wish I could. I need to wait for him and Rufsur to return from Scotland, and when they do, I doubt that I’ll get permission to visit the village ahead of the move. We all have our hands full packing my boss’s archeological artifacts, and besides, our part of the village is not ready yet.”
“You could move ahead of time, and in the meantime use the same homes that you stayed in for your boss’s wedding.”
“I don’t know if that’s an option.”
“Can you suggest it to Kalugal when he comes back?”
“I can ask Rufsur.”
7
Sari
As Sari and David left Annani’s suite, Sari was still mulling over Kalugal’s suggestion of establishing a base of operations in China. It was good advice, but as Kian had pointed out, Jin was too young and inexperienced to lead the center, and even though she’d been born in the country, she’d grown up in the US and knew nothing about Chinese culture or politics.
The problem was that they had no one in the clan suitable for the job.
Unless they found a Chinese Dormant who lived in the country and was well-acquainted with its customs, politics, and economy, it would take many years before a center there could become an asset.
“That was an intense breakfast.” David misinterpreted her silence. “Your mother is surprisingly tolerant.”
“My brother and mother are often at odds. Lately, they have been getting along better, but sparing the captured Doomers has always been a sore point of contention between them.”
“What does Kian want to do with them? Execute them? I know that the Geneva Convention doesn’t apply to a secret war between immortals, but still. Your brother doesn’t seem like the type to advocate executing prisoners of war.”
“That’s not how it works. Doomers don’t surrender. They fight until they are incapacitated.”
“What’s the difference? Once they are overpowered and captured, they are considered prisoners of war.”
David had the luxury of naïveté. He’d never been forced to make the kind of hard choices that Kian and other military leaders had to make. War was an ugly business, and taking the moral high ground could cost the lives of those they were trying to protect. More often than not, it boiled down to kill or be killed.
“That’s precisely what Kian would have liked to avoid. The Guardians have a choice to either give Doomers a lethal dose of venom or inject them to the brink, which puts them in stasis. If not for Annani’s directive, the instructions would have been to kill, not to spare them.”
“What if they disobey?”
“In the heat of the battle, the Guardians sometimes lack the restraint needed to stop in time before the dose becomes lethal, and Annani understands that it happens. It’s difficult to gauge the precise moment when the heart slows down to where it needs to be for the body to enter stasis. A split second can make the difference between that and death.”
David shuddered. “Are you telling me that Kalugal might have overdosed me with his venom and put me in stasis? Or even killed me?”
“Not unless he wanted to. It would have taken much more venom than what he gave you.” Sari opened the door to her apartment. “To induce transition in a male, the venom bite shouldn’t last longer than a minute. I don’t know the precise timing for stasis or for a lethal dose, but it takes much longer than that. The male who’s doing the biting must listen carefully to his victim’s heartbeat. To put an immortal in stasis, he needs to pull out before the heart stops completely.”
“Scary.” David walked over to the bar and poured them both a glass of water.
“Is stasis a sort of hibernation?”
“I guess it’s a similar state only deeper.” Sari took the glass he handed her and sat on the couch. “The heart and all other body functions slow down to a level that is almost undetectable. Our bodies can survive without food or water or even air for thousands of years.”
“How is that possible?” David joined her on the couch.
“Bridget thinks that our bodies can absorb nutrients from the earth and convert them to the essentials needed.” She chuckled. “I wonder if the stories about the undead originated with immortals in stasis who’d been buried and accidentally found and revived. They look like mummies, and the poor mortals who found them must have been terrified enough to run for their lives when the mummy started breathing.”