“Did she feel the same way?”
Dalhu snorted. “Of course not. All she saw was a big scary Doomer, an enemy of her people. I pounced on her, bit her to get her loopy and compliant, and kidnapped her. I took her to a remote cabin and then did my best to win her heart. Luckily, the Fates must have been in my corner, so it all ended well.” He squeezed Rufsur’s shoulder. “The moral of the story is that what seems impossible now might become possible if you are willing to give it your all. The Fates demand sacrifice for their gift of a truelove mate. Perhaps yours is Kalugal and your lifelong friendship with him.”
61
Kalugal
The atmosphere around the dinner table was tense. Rufsur and Edna both looked despondent, Syssi and Amanda were doing most of the talking, Kian interjected here and there, and Dalhu only talked when someone asked him a direct question.
Kalugal was doing his best to keep the mood light with stories from his archeological digs and his translations of ancient tablets, but he kept getting distracted by the somber mood of the two lovers.
With Edna, it might have been her normal stern expression, and perhaps she was the type who didn’t talk unless she had something important to impart. But Rufsur was a social animal, and the usual trouble with him was keeping him from taking over the conversation, not coaxing words out of his mouth.
“What are you hoping to find in your digs?” Kian asked.
“Clues to our past, more information about the gods.” Kalugal put his wine glass down. “Now that I can talk with my mother, I’m finding out much more than I ever hoped to, but her knowledge is also limited. I think that the original gods who arrived on earth from somewhere else in the universe kept their children ignorant of their past and their origins on purpose.”
“Why would they do that?” Syssi asked.
“When I was still a member of the Brotherhood, I had a pretty decent relationship with my father.” He chuckled. “It wasn’t what you would imagine a relationship between a father and his son should be, and it wasn’t an easy task to stay in his good graces, but I did my best because he was my only source of information. Here and there I managed to lead him into revealing tidbits that he’d learned from Mortdh. His father had a temper problem, and when he got angry, he would sometimes blurt out things about the gods’ origins. My father collected those nuggets like the treasure they were and committed them to memory.”
“What did you learn?” Kian asked.
“From what I managed to piece together, the gods were banished to earth because they revolted against their father. Wanting to appear a benevolent ruler, he sent them to earth on a gold-mining expedition. At some point, though, communications with the homeworld were severed, and they were left to fend for themselves with no further support. They had no replacement parts for their advanced technological devices, and in time most of them were rendered useless. They couldn’t make new parts either because earth lacked the materials needed, or because they didn’t have the knowhow.” He leaned back and smiled. “What I hope to find are the remnants of that technology. Most of it has probably turned to dust by now, but perhaps a few relics were preserved in sealed off tombs or chambers that protected them from the elements.”
“So basically you are looking to confirm your theory about the gods' alien origins?” Kian asked.
“I want to find out where they came from and what kind of technology their homeworld had at the time. The Sumerian legends talk about the boat of a million years. I wonder if that means that their home is an enormous spaceship that travels through the universe, seeds worlds, collects materials, etc.”
“Maybe it’s a rogue system?” Amanda asked. “A red dwarf with its own orbiting planet that is not part of any galaxy and has its own orbit through the universe that takes millions of years to complete?”
Kalugal was impressed. “I see that you are also interested in the subject.”
She waved a dismissive hand. “I read Nature, Science, and other scientific publications. Sometimes an article on a topic that is unrelated to my field catches my interest.”
He was about to tell her about his own investigation into the phenomena of red dwarfs when his phone rang. “Excuse me.” He pulled it out. “Phinas wouldn’t call me unless it was an emergency.”
“Of course,” Syssi said.
“I’ll take it outside.”
As Kalugal pushed to his feet and walked toward the door, Rufsur followed him out to the backyard.
He accepted the call only after Rufsur closed the sliding door behind him. “What’s going on, Phinas?”
“We had another snoop make rounds in front of the house and then in the back. Normally, I wouldn’t bother you with something as trivial, but after what happened at your wedding, I’m not taking any chances. It started the same way.”
“Did you get a look at the snoop?”
“She opened her car window to take photos of the property, so we caught her face on camera. But she was wearing big sunglasses.”
“Send it over. Did you check the car plates?”
“Naturally. It’s a rental. But if you want more information about who the renter is, and where it was rented, you’ll have to call the place yourself and use your mental tricks. I tried to reach the hacker that we usually use, but he’s not responding.”
“He doesn’t work on Sundays. Text me all the information you have, and I’ll see what I can do. Did you send anyone to follow her?”
“By the time I was told, she had driven off already.”
Kalugal rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “It might be nothing. She could have been a real estate agent taking photos for clients or a prospective home buyer. But I’m not taking any chances this time. Put everyone on high alert. Until I come back, I want you to have two men on the street waiting outside for her in their cars. If the woman returns, or any other suspicious activity is noticed, I want that vehicle stopped, and the driver thralled for information.”
“Got it, boss.”
62
Kian
Kian, along with everyone else at the table, watched Kalugal and Rufsur through the living-room sliding door. Their somber expressions indicated that something had happened back home, and Kalugal was on the phone for at least half an hour. But as they walked back in, neither seemed in a rush, so it wasn’t an urgent matter.
“We had another snoop.” Kalugal handed Kian the phone. “Does she look familiar?”
The image captured by the surveillance camera was pretty clear, but since the woman was wearing big sunglasses and her hair was gathered in a ponytail, she was difficult to identify. Something about her looked familiar, though, the way her narrow lips were pressed tightly together, the shape of her nose, but it wasn’t enough to jog his memory.
“Can I see?” Syssi asked.
He passed her the phone.
She shook her head. “I can’t even tell how old she is. She could be twenty or forty.” Syssi handed the phone back to Kalugal.
Returning to his seat next to Jacki, he let out a breath. “Normally, I would have dismissed it. But as Phinas pointed out, a similar thing happened before the wedding attack. The only difference is that this time it's a woman.”