Granny: Usual time.
Doc: Could you arrange for supper to be at 5:30 instead of 6:30, Stu?
Stu: Sure.
# # # # # # # #
They started supper at 5:30. Kashmira had her normal helping. Ten minutes after finishing her second teaspoon of food, Kashmira began to drift off. Mathias caught her shoulders just as her head was about to hit the table. This time it was Doc who scooped Kashmira into this arms and took her to her bedroom. Granny listened to his mind-message, found Doc's medical bag, and followed him in.
Mathias looked alarmed enough to try and follow but Momaka stepped in his way. "Why don't we let Doc do what he does best? We know that she's been fatigued. It may be her diet." Momaka didn't know how much Mathias knew and didn't want to say anything that Doc wanted kept private. "Kashmira looks like a wonderful girl," she changed the subject. "Why don't you tell me what you like about her? Stu will take care of the dishes. We can sit on the spar where the two of you were sitting this afternoon."
# # # # # # # #
Later that night, Kashmira was sleeping soundly. Mathias had returned to where he had hid the jumbo plane and was on his way back to North America. Momaka, Stu, Granny and Doc were in the living room.
"Mathias likes her a lot," Momaka shared. "He liked her right from the very beginning. His eyeballs twanged the first time she giggled."
"This will be hard on him," Granny predicted. "Kashmira will need him here. Right, Doc?"
"Yes."
"You look grim," Stu observed. "You were working on a theory, weren't you?"
"Yes. I wondered if her tiredness at supper was related to when she woke up. We have been eating at about 6:30 and she's asleep by 7 p.m. She has been waking up at 8 a.m. Thirteen hours of sleep means she was usually awake for 11 hours."
"She woke at 8 today. We ate at 5:30. She was asleep by 6:00. She was awake for 10 hours today. And she did nothing but sit around all day." Granny summarized.
"It's too early to reach a conclusion. Today may be an exception. But it appears that the onset of sleep is not dictated by when she wakes that morning. It's dictated by when she eats her big meal of the day."
"Meaning what?" Stu, this time.
"Ten minutes after eating a meal that is big for her, she falls asleep. I checked her vitals tonight. Her heart and breathing had become very slow."
"Wouldn't that be normal when you're asleep?"
"Once you're in deep REM sleep, yes. But Stu, she didn't have the time to get into deep REM."
"Meaning what?"
"I believe her body needs every last bit of energy she has to digest her meal. She falls asleep because her body's digestive organs grab every bit of energy that her body is producing. Tonight, Granny or I will take vital signs every hour until she wakes. I want to know how long it takes for her heart to speed up. That might indicate that her digestion isn't hogging all the energy at that point."
"This is bad, isn't it?" Momaka was reading Doc's face.
"Yes, it's bad. The more she eats, the longer her body will take to digest it. During that period, she is effectively unconscious. It means our efforts to increase her food consumption are driving her into long unconscious periods that can be very harmful. But she needs to eat more food to recover her health."
"That makes it a no win situation." Stu concluded.
"I won't accept that," Doc said.
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Chapter 33
It's now September 2086. We have a small gap in the events in the Philippines. I'll use this chapter to bring you up to speed on what's been happening in North America.
A dozen shadowy figures had taken up positions on the far edge of the Wilizy's river valley at the beginning of September. At first they had busied themselves by attempting to find a vantage point that would allow them to see the compound itself. When that proved impossible, they set up an observation post where they could see the river valley. My readers may suspect that this surveillance was an attempt to see EmmaGee riding her wolves. However, only Bean knew that EmmaGee had been horsey riding and she had not shared that with anybody. From what the Wilizy learned afterwards, the observation posts were established so that the Scandinavians could do a count of whatever wildlife was living in the area. For example, they observed and noted the presence of two wolves that were able to move in and out of the restricted area with ease.
As the reader will suspect, those wolves were Patella and Scapula and they were acting as mobile lupine observations posts which in military terms translates to M-LOPs. [Narrator: Military people are trained to create acronyms which will allow them to speak in a form of English that nobody else understands. This gives them the skills to go into the tax accounting business when they retire.] At least one wolf was always watching the intruders. In addition, Hank put drones above the Scandinavians' camp to watch their training exercises and collect sound bites of their soldiers talking. The Wilizy were certain that the soldiers were in the valley to kidnap EmmaGee, or as they referred to her – Princess Freya. The Wilizy were hoping that the soldiers would carelessly reveal something about what they were planning. Unfortunately they spoke Scandinavian the entire time they were there. Yolanda refused to use EmmaGee as a translator and spent her energy fretting instead. Hank tried to persuade Yolanda that the compound's defenses were impregnable. "That's what the Alaskans thought too," she replied.
# # # # # # # #
Yollie's fourth child was due in September, so that was adding to the general stress of the family what with the illnesses that she had suffered during the pregnancy. William, Wolf and TG were away from home and totally involved in developing the science that Wizard wanted for his irrigation plan. Mac was helping Lucas with logistics on his plan for the gangs, and Melissa was now five months along in her pregnancy and trying to manage the childcare for all three satellite families by herself.
The plans for Wizard's pilot project in Montana were coming together nicely. William's prototype for irrigating Yuri's fields had been tested successfully on a small scale. However Wizard wanted to be sure that it would work on a large scale before he put any money into acquiring water rights. That's why William, Wolf, and TG were camped up at Fort Peck Lake right now and were fiddling with narrow electronic beams and re-energizing power stations.
Yuri had all of his fields ready for the shipment of peach trees that Wizard had promised. The peach season was now over in Chicago and the mud flats holding the trees were deserted. Reese and Mathias would soon be yanking peach trees out of the ground and transporting them from Chicago to Montana. They'd be doing this at night so that residents couldn't see peach trees rising into the air and disappearing into an invisible super transport. The science was relatively simple. Fasten a metal collar around each tree, deploy an antigravity power beam, and open up the hold of the transport. I guess with antigravity beams and invisible super transports, the science wasn't so simple after all.
# # # # # # # #
Lucas was almost ready with his plan for the gangs.
• Gang locations identified? Check.
• Plan for capture and pacification of all the boys in one six hour span? Check.
• Relocation site identified? Check.
• Plans for living quarters completed? Check.
• Plans for schooling facilities? Check.
• Containment within the facility? Check.
• Instructors? Working on that.
# # # # # # # #
Narrator comment: If you're wondering about the wolf cubs that were born in early July, they were no longer at the home compound. EmmaGee and I had offered to take care of them for Winnie while Patella and Scapula served as mobile observers back home. Winnie agreed quite readily because the pups were only normal wolves. Neither of them had shown any signs of being able to communicate with Winnie, so she couldn't equip them with a sling. Winnie was disappointed and shared that with me. She didn't know how her matchmaking had failed. She also could
n't understand why the cubs would be pure white in colour when Patella and Scapula were completely black. Winnie named Patella's cub Tibia and Scapula's cub Fibula. Neither wolf mom was unhappy to see them go. Both complained to Winnie that they were dumb. EmmaGee and I didn't care. They were puppies! Of course, by September they were getting big and EmmaGee and I were becoming impatient. We weren't allowed to ride them until they were full size. However the little kiddies could ride them in their secure saddles.
Unlike Yolanda who wouldn't let any wolf into the house, my mother didn't mind. Nor did the other moms, so the cubs could wander in and out of the three houses whenever they wanted to. However my mom insisted that the pups stay off the beds because of their shedding. Otherwise, there were no rules.
All of us liked having the pups in the bedrooms because we could wrestle with them without worrying about breaking something valuable. Sometimes EmmaGee tried to stop us from playing rough with them because we might get hurt from their teeth or claws. I don't know why she did that because she was always wrestling and playing with the cubs outside. I have to say that EmmaGee acted a little strange at times. We were still good friends, but she'd become quite grumpy if I tried to play with her around her bedtime. She'd never agree to the two of us sleeping in the same bed either. Sometimes I wondered if she'd turn out like Mathias – living all by herself and being a hermit with nobody around to keep her company.
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Chapter 34
A whole week has passed with no significant developments in the Philippines. It's now Monday September 9. El Patrón was holding a pearl-adorned jewelry box that Paterfamilias had handed him. They were in the middle of their weekly meeting in the compound's garage. Two things were new. The presence of Ramón and the presence of the jewelry box. El Patrón handed the jewelry box to his head of security.
"He's right," Ramón said, referring to the paterfamilias. "They're real pearls."
Ramón would know. He had stolen enough of them.
El Patrón took the jewelry box back, lifted the lid, and looked at the contents. "It's full of bills."
"Yes," Paterfamilias agreed. "Her clients are different this week."
Last week, Paterfamilias had shown Kashmira's sack of coins to her father. Her total earnings had been a little more than the week before, but still all coins. It was the kind of payment she'd receive if her clients were teenagers or poor men. This week, she had obviously moved up in the world.
El Patrón held up a note. "Ramón."
"Is that a 1,000 peso bill?" Ramón moved closer. He took it out of El Patrón's hand and examined it. That examination involved opening the garage door, walking out into the sunlight, and then reversing that process. "It's real," he declared.
Ramón would know. He had stolen enough of them.
"The rest of the bills are all 100 pesos or bigger. The jewelry box must have been a gift. What's its value?"
"10,000 pesos at least."
Ramón would know. He had stolen enough of them.
"She has a wealthy customer," El Patrón concluded. "Does she tell you anything about her tricks?" His question was addressed to the paterfamilias.
"No. It would be unseemly for me to ask."
"Are there any wealthy men in Maasin City who don't know about you, Patrón?"
"No, Ramón."
"Patrón, you know what this means."
"Yes. Somebody I know is having sex with my daughter and he's laughing at me behind my back."
"Cabrón," Ramón said, referring to Paterfamilias.
The word cabrón is a highly charged word in the Philippian world. Ramón couldn't stand to be in the same room as the paterfamilias who was taking his boss' money to reveal secrets of the confessional. He couldn't tolerate him years ago either when he was taking money to marry ignorant, virginal little girls from remote villages to his boss. This might be confusing to my readers since Ramón was the man finding those village girls and transporting them into the city. Ramón knew who and what he was. He wasn't trying to be anything else. The paterfamilias was pretending to be an honest virtuous man, but he wasn't. Ramón had been the person who had warned all of the guards to move their wives and children out of that church. In Ramón's mind, by using the word cabrón, he was calling the paterfamilias a coward, a bastard, or more tellingly, he was referring to a part of the paterfamilias' body that rarely saw the light of day.
Paterfamilias knew whom Ramón was addressing and looked up.
"Cabrón," Ramón said again. "Why'd she give you this jewelry box? Why didn't she just hand you the bills?"
"She said she had another box exactly like it that she would keep. I was to put this box towards her bill."
"She is sleeping with two rich men," El Patrón concluded.
Ramón's choice of the insulting word had another connotation – one that would hit uncomfortably close to El Patrón's machismo. The word cabrón could also be used in Philippian society to brand the husband of an unfaithful wife as an ignorant fool. Obviously Kashmira was not his wife. But El Patrón did not think of his wives as lifelong partners. He saw them as temporary possessions. Kashmira was longer term than her mother, but still a possession. Now he had proof that two of his acquaintances were having sex with his possession. El Patrón's machismo would not have been offended if he had given that possession to the men, be it as a temporary loan or as a family business deal. But to have two men steal his possession and use her for their sexual gratification without asking permission first ... well, in that situation, El Patrón would be considered a cabrón. In English, the husband of an unfaithful spouse is known as a cuckold.
"We need to find these two men. How many rich men do we know who cheat on their wives, Ramón?"
"All of them, Patrón."
El Patrón would have to define a narrower search term.
"How many rich men who know me would be happy to pay my daughter money to have sex with them?"
"I can think of three, Patrón. Nobody else would dare."
"So can I. We have to find where she's working."
"Not an alley like we thought. Not a hut. Not a cheap brothel." Ramón narrowed the choices. No rich powerful man would be seen in such circumstances. It would be highly unusual and word would get back to El Patrón.
"You know what to do, Ramón."
Ramón did. An assassination in the street would restore El Patrón's dignity.
In Ramón's world, when a husband finds that another man has been having sex with his wife, it is legitimate for that husband to kill the man and mutilate his body in such a way that everybody in the city would know why he had died. When a man restores his honour by ambushing his wife's lover from the shadows of the streets and mutilating him, it is usual for the cheating possession to die beside her lover. El Patrón had just instructed Ramón to find and kill his own daughter.
# # # # # # # #
That same Monday morning, Doc and Granny were having a private celebration. Kashmira's health had improved. She had not gained any weight in the last week, nor had she increased the size of her dinner portions. However the number of hours she was sleeping each night had dropped. She was now going to bed at 8:00 p.m. and waking at 8:00 a.m. Twelve hours of sleep was better than thirteen.
Kashmira was sleeping with a slow intravenous drip inserted into her hand. It contained nutrition and vitamins. During the day, she ate a small portion of some nutritious food every two hours. She ate the same small-sized portion for supper. If her digestive system was being overwhelmed by an overly large dinner, but not by her breakfasts and lunches, it seemed reasonable to have her eat smaller portions more often during the day. Stu had helped by creating mini-portions of what he called nibbling food. Granny had tried one such nibble one morning and couldn't fall asleep that night. "What's in these things," she had asked the next morning.
"High energy, easily digested nutrition," Stu had replied. "It would not be a good idea for you to eat two of those."
/> "I'm not eating one of them again," she declared. "Can they harm her?"
"It's only food," Stu said. "Soaked in bat guano."
Since Granny knew that bat guano was something that arrived in the final stages of a bat's digestive process, she looked sharply at Stu before making an impulsive rush to the kitchen sink that was going to be far too late to be effective.
"Kidding about the guano," Stu admitted cheekily before she put her mouth under the tap.
Granny kept her mouth under the running water anyway. It was difficult to know when Stu was kidding. He didn't do it often, but every now and then he'd have an inscrutable look on his face when something strange had happened inside the family circle and nobody was owning up to it. It wasn't an innocent look. It was an inscrutable look, as in the type of look a person has when they're hiding something. He got that look whenever Momaka brought up the mystery of why Bob the Invisible Dragon was being so amenable all of a sudden to Momaka engaging in certain kinds of physical activity with Stu in a bed. Stu would shrug his shoulders and looked inscrutable. Inscrutably happy, but inscrutable just the same.
# # # # # # # #
During the weekdays, Kashmira had been working steadily through her bots. She was used to being alone in her life, but now she had something to do while being alone in her bedroom, or more commonly now, in the ship's living room. At least several times a day, she'd find Doc, hold the two brain connector thingy in her hand, and say, "I don't understand something."
Doc would relocate to the sofa and she'd sit beside him, eyeballs flickering as she read out loud. She'd ask, he'd explain, and perhaps they'd have a little discussion. Depending on the time of day and when she had eaten last, she might even nod off with her head resting against Doc's shoulder. Doc didn't let her snooze for more than thirty minutes and checked the pulse in her neck regularly. This made for an awkward sleeping position for Kashmira. Now in mid-September, Kashmira was sitting on his lap and napping with her head on his chest. Neither party to this cuddling napping position seemed to mind. Nor surprisingly, did Granny.
"Young girls are supposed to be attracted to their fathers; she missed out on that," she said.
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