Chapter 13

I sort of hated to prove Sayel wrong, but the first leg, from Kathmandu to Yakutsk, wasn’t total and complete debauchery.

Instead, I was ordered to sleep. I hadn’t since leaving the mountain over a week ago, and once we’d left Pokhara, I’d mostly been going on sheer willpower once Helen quit sending me power. So I simply undressed and snuggled up with Beth, Eve, and Dora in our compartment.

I was rather surprised that I didn’t even dream. I was just out, for the whole trip. They woke me up while we were on the ground so I could use the bathroom. I ate a bowl of soup while we were refueling, and then collapsed into bed again.

I finally had a dream and I knew I must have recovered, because I was seeing my own face. I opened my eyes then, and saw the love for me in the eyes of my first lady. My other two came over to the bed then, from where they’d been sitting in chairs, reading.

“Well, I think I needed that nap. I feel better.”

Beth chuckled. “I should hope so. Six hours to Yakutsk, barely woke up to relieve your bladder and eat some soup, then asleep for another six hours. We were beginning to wonder if you were going to wake up before we landed in California.”

“I don’t think I even slept that long when we got back in from the field after doing two weeks of advanced training in the Scouts.”

Eve nodded. “Helen had something to do with that. We all did damage to ourselves internally by staying up so long, and being so active. Our bodies just shut down after five days of helping, and that’s why we were out for half a day while you kept working. Our minds wanted to keep helping, but sometimes your body just won’t let you. In your case, your mind overruled your body. That’s why, when we finally got back to Kathmandu, you were acting like you were a little drunk, and in a slight fog the whole time, even if you didn’t realize you were. Helen put you under, into a healing sleep, and then the girls used their powers to fix you back up.”

“Well, it must’ve worked. I feel incredibly rested and invigorated.”

Dora smiled. “Good. Lay back down, mi amor.”

I frowned. “Why?”

“Because we still have three hours before we land, and none of us have made love to you in days!” she exclaimed, leaping onto me.

One very good thing about all of us having powers and speed was that we were able to get cleaned up, very quickly, while Pacific was on final approach to Moffett Field. Once that was done, we simply bundled up the ruined sheets before we gathered our personal things.

Even though it was late in the evening, Moffett Field was bustling with activity. There were multiple buses and trucks waiting for everyone. Two of our ambulances were also waiting, to take Chuck and Brent to the hospital for treatment. Chuck had told Beth that, while he knew that they could heal their injuries, it wouldn’t look good if they were healthy too quickly, especially since there was video of the falling chunk of building stone breaking his foot.

All of my wives that had remained home were waiting, as was an honor guard of our troops in their dress uniforms. Mike was standing in front of everyone. I realized our troops had two flags on display that I didn’t recognize. Dave caught me looking out the window at everything.

“I figured you’d just be gawking, like you’re a tourist.”

“Partly that, but mostly I was wondering why they didn’t bring a stairway or ladder up to this door, only to the one on the back. Is it broken? I’d like to get down so I can see my family.”

He looked at Beth. “He does need a minder at times, doesn’t he?”

She grinned, replying, “Yeah. Sometimes he’s a goof, but he’s our goof. There’s a reason why you don’t get to simply be like a sailor returning from deployment and run down the gangplank.”

“Let me guess,” I said. “Foreign leader stuff.”

“Well, more like ‘national hero’ stuff, actually,” she answered. “There are news cameras to record this, sort of like when President Reagan leaves or returns to Washington. As much as they hate you, the Governor of California and all of the politicians who’ve given us trouble in the past are here to greet us as well because we’re news.”

“Um ... shit. Is it deserted island time?”

That got laughs from everyone.

Eve spoke up. “Oh, just so you’re not too confused ... although you do that quite well most of the time ... the flag on the left is the colors of the First Peoples, and the flag on the right is the colors of Punjab. The other fourteen of your wives have been busy while we’ve been gone.”

“Good grief! The only thing we’re missing is a brass band!”

“Oh, no, we’re not missing them. They’re over on the other side of things, it’s just hard to see them with the lights shining this way,” Eve said, pointing out the window.

“I’m not a hero!”

“Oh, that reminds me. Slip this on,” Beth said. She handed me a purple jacket to put over my shirt. Once I had that on, she slipped a sash over my neck. “Yes, you are. You’re my hero, you’re Eve’s hero, you’re Dora’s hero, and you’re the hero of all your wives and a hell of a lot of other people, too.”

Dave clapped me on the shoulder. “You’re already scheduled to talk to Mike for as long as you need to, tomorrow. Tonight...” He chuckled, then said, “This is a hell of a lot better reception than any of us got in San Francisco when we came back to the world. Enjoy it. You earned it.”

I heard a thump as the stairway was pushed up against Pacific, then Dave opened the door from inside. To open it fully, he stepped out onto the top landing, then stopped, turning back towards the open doorway and raising his hand in salute. Without moving his lips, he said, “Get out here, and come take your medicine.”

I brushed my fingers through my hair nervously, then stepped out of the plane. There were what seemed like hundreds of flashes, from photographers taking my picture. I heard the band begin playing ruffles and flourishes as I slowly started down the stairs. At the same time they started playing, small cannons that I didn’t know we had in our inventory began firing. The four ruffles and flourishes ended at the same time as the first four cannon shots. I almost missed a step when the cannons continued firing as the band began playing some very familiar music to me.

I wish someone had warned me about this, because it was tough to finish descending the stairs with my eyes full of tears from hearing music from Star Home. It was one of my favorite songs, of life and hope. It could have almost made me forget that everyone that had ever heard it before, except me, was dead. The instruments were basically the same, so the beat of the drums, the sounds of the stringed instruments, and the sharp, piercing sound that they were using an electric violin to duplicate, sounded the same to me. I took the first words of the song itself to heart and dried my eyes as I continued down the steps.

I had continued taking steps on pace with the cannon fire, so that when the last round from the twenty-one gun salute fired, I stopped. The CEDEM honor guard with flags took two steps forward, with both of the flags flapping in the wind and proudly displayed by them. I remained at attention while the anthem was played, then when it ended, I rendered a hand salute to the flags.

I figured that pulling something like the trick Jubal Harshaw had done with Valentine Michael Smith would work. If I was going to be a foreign leader with my own flags and anthem, then I would be recognized as the Sovereign of those nations, and these were honors being presented to me.

Once I dropped the salute, the men stepped back into formation.

The one wife of mine most familiar with customs like these stepped forward, her voice ringing clear in the night air. “Your Majesty, on behalf of your family and your loyal subjects, we welcome you back to your home in California.” Diana then performed an elegant curtsy.

I nodded. “It is good to return to this home. We had a bit of an adventure during our trip to visit our brother, King Birendra of Nepal. We are pleased that so many have come out to greet us upon our return. Please, let them come forward.”

I saw the smile flash on her face as she realized I was playing along with the bit of theater they had set up. Beth, Eve, and Dora had come down the stairs and taken up positions to my left. This allowed Diana to channel the visiting local dignitaries to me first, then I could pass them on to my wives and Princesses. I sensed either the hand of Elroy or the more devious hand of Bob in this, as I met the Governor, both Senators, several of the Congressmen, and the mayors of all the local towns.

Once they’d been introduced to Dora, they were then walked over to where Prince Dipendra was standing in front of the fully armed troop of Gurkhas. When they realized that the short, slightly chunky kid was also royalty and would be the next King of Nepal, I think the locals simply gave up any hope they ever had of influencing anything we did.

After we got rid of them but while the cameras were still rolling, Mike stepped forward and saluted me.

“Welcome home, Your Majesty. I realize that the hour is late, and you have had a very busy and stressful week. If you and your wives would come with me, we have forces that will escort you home.”

“Thank you. We appreciate your efforts, General Douglas.” Fuck it, Mike could bitch to me later about the public rank I’d just bestowed upon him. “Please, lead the way.”

Instead of buses, there was a limousine with two flags flying on the front fenders. Ahead of them was one of our Marine assault vehicles, then a series of Suburbans behind them, with another Marine assault vehicle at the end. One of our guards was standing at attention by the door of the limousine, opened it, then saluted me.

That almost made me stop, but I remembered seeing Ronald Reagan having that done for him, so I simply returned the salute, then entered the limousine. Beth, Eve, and Dora got in with me, with Mike getting in last. When the door shut, he sighed in relief.

“Thank you! I’m sorry about this, Cal. You were otherwise occupied, and I don’t blame you in the least for that, not after last week. But that meant when we realized we had to throw some kind of heroes welcome ceremony for you at almost the last minute, there wasn’t time for your wives here to coordinate with your wives in the air. The only thing we could do was sneak something in through the back entrance of Pacific that was appropriate for you to wear, while Diana and Helen were passing information on. The good news is that we’re going straight home, so you don’t have to keep up the act.”

I shook my head slightly. “General Douglas, we are the monarch of our nation and supreme ruler of our peoples. We do not ‘act’ or ‘perform’ like a trained seal,” I stated, with a disturbed sound in my voice. “Perhaps we erred in choosing you to lead our armed forces.”

The look on his face was priceless, and I’m so glad I have a perfect memory, because it should have been recorded for all posterity.

I let him gasp and gape like a fish out of water – now that I’d gone fishing, I knew what that expression meant – for several seconds before I started laughing. My wives had also put haughty looks on their faces, like they’d just stepped in something disagreeable, at my words. Their laughter resonated with mine.

“Jesus Christ! You got me good with that one, Cal.”

“Not quite an ‘Elizabeth, I’m coming to join you’ moment, but still one with quite a bit of pucker factor,” I said.

“I know you just got home. Normally, we’d do a debrief tonight. But I was threatened by fourteen women that if things tonight went more than one second longer than necessary, there would be serious consequences. So ... when you finally get out of bed tomorrow... then we need to do a debrief.”

“Don’t worry, Mike,” Beth said with a grin. “I think we’ll adequately debrief him in just a little bit.”

He closed his eyes, then shook his head. “Okay, things are okay and back to normal here.” Opening them, I could see the grin on his face was matched by his eyes. “I’ll be in the dining room for lunch. We’re scheduled to have a good meal for Sunday, anyway.”

That made me smack my forehead. “Time zones and the international date line!”

Eve chuckled. “Fifteen hours in the air plus refueling, and we land two and a half hours after we took off. Did they not have time zones on Star Home? You seem to screw this up a lot.”

“It’s too long of a topic for this short of a trip,” I replied as we pulled into our gate.

I made sure and gave all three little boys kisses before they were put down for the night. Their mothers had brought them to the airport, which surprised me, but they’d also made sure that the politicians got it rubbed into their faces that I not only had children, but we were going to have more, and they couldn’t do anything about it. No one bothered to tell them that William and Harry didn’t count as my direct children, not with Diana starting to show.

The next several hours were spent rather pleasantly, actually. There wasn’t an urgency to our lovemaking, simply more of a reaffirmation of the love I had for all of them. It was still nearly dawn before the last orgasms were had and we called it a night.

Helen woke me up with tender touches of her lips on mine, while Hannah was gently licking and sucking on me. I simply laid back and continued to kiss one wife while another brought me to hardness, then to orgasm. Hannah shared my spend with Jennifer and Marcia, who were both rather large and awkward in bed at this point.

“Thank you, he still tastes good,” Jennifer said. “Houston, we are t-minus three weeks and counting.”

Marcia chuckled. “I resemble that remark. I am so glad that we’re in shape ... and by that, I don’t mean an upside down question mark. That’s just our bellies. I’ve known a lot of actresses that just went for the whole reconstructive surgery thing after they gave birth. I’m glad we’re not going to have to do that.”

“What time is it? Mike said we were supposed to have brunch, and I guess there are some things I need to get off my chest. Besides Helen and Shinkai, that is.”

“Ah, Master, but I could lay here for a week, now that you are home and safe with us again. It was not pleasant, watching you and not being able to help. Even Sukhjeet was unable to do more than get supplies to assist you,” Shinkai said.

“This didn’t exactly go like I thought it would.” I took in a deep breath, then let it out. “Twenty minutes, then in the dining room.”

Seventeen voices simultaneously said, “Yes, Master,” as my wives got off me and headed for the bathrooms.

I got cleaned up, for once by myself, then slipped sweat pants and a t-shirt on, before padding out to the dining room. Mike, Dave, Jeremy, Colonel Suwal and Sayel were already there. The kids came in from where they’d been playing outside, washed up quickly, and joined us. My wives all came in. I used a little bit of speed to hold their chairs as they sat in domino fashion, one sitting down right after the other. Instead of the end, I sat in the middle of one side, with Jennifer to my left and Marcia to my right. Harry and William were both in high chairs, while Margie had a raised seat to put Robert in when she was done feeding him.

“Before we begin brunch, I’ve got something I want to say,” I said, standing back up.

That took everyone by surprise, even Beth and Hannah.

I bowed my head. “I’ve seen this done a few times, so I hope I’m doing this right. I’ve often been critical of people here because they had religions, and have to take things on faith. I’ve deliberately killed or caused the death of people since I’ve been here. A lot of people. This past week, I acted to help protect this planet against something Shiva had left here. As a result of those actions ... the military has this wonderful term they use, ‘collateral damage,’ to describe the unintended consequences of their actions. My collateral damage destroyed a quarter of a million homes in Nepal, killed at least three thousand people, including children, some the age of my own sons. I don’t know if I can forgive myself for that. I’m hoping that ... I’m praying that ... there is a guiding purpose behind this, and that if there is a God, that He can find it in Him to bring some measure of comfort to those souls that died in Nepal. Not just those that died this past week, but to those that died in that pit. May their souls rest easy, knowing they will be avenged. Thank you.”

There were a variety of responses from around the table, primarily ‘Amen,’ as I sat back down.

Mike cleared his throat. “Before we get started, I need to clarify a couple of items. First is welcoming Colonel Navin Suwal into the command and family group. We’ve spent some time this morning getting to know him, and making sure he is up to speed on what being a Planetary Guardian means, and more importantly, exactly what they’re capable of doing. Thank you to Carrie, Holly, and of course, Cally, for a demonstration that he’s not ever likely to forget. Second is that, at least for now, Prince Dipendra is specifically excluded from this group. He’ll be spending the summer with the troops, getting into physical shape, and learning more English. Lastly, we are still planning on having a large celebration tomorrow afternoon. Obviously, it’s Diana’s birthday, but we’re also going to officially welcome the Gurkha troops into our ranks, and do our own Independence Day celebration. Marcia has been busy making sure that we’re ready to scare the people of Fremont, too.”

That got chuckles from all of us. There’d been a lot of calls to the police about what we were doing, especially with the cannon salute when I got home this time. Of course, that went nowhere.

“Okay, now we’ve got that out of the way ... while everyone is getting their food, Cal, ladies, could you give us all a quick rundown on what happened prior to the earthquake in Nepal?” he asked. I noticed that he, Dave, and Jeremy were all ready with notepads.

As everyone did that, I told everyone about what we’d heard, and what happened while I was below ground. Once I was done talking, I got my own lunch and started eating.

“Great! Beth, what happened above ground?”

“The three of us flew as rapidly and randomly as we could in circles around the peak. We don’t know where the shots were actually coming from, but there were obviously a lot of planetary and secondary defense weapons set up. I think the most I had shooting at me at one time was four different beam weapons. There were several times we were hit by them, and like Cal said, the beam energy translated to kinetic energy, so it felt like we’d been punched. Most of the time, though, it missed and hit the mountain. We’d planned on that, to try to minimize the damage. There was one really big shot at the end, I think it must’ve been from all of the weapons at once, because suddenly the entire top of the mountain blew off. A few seconds later, Cal came back up and out, and you know what happened then.”

He nodded. “Okay. Cal, you said that when the underground stadium collapsed, that it was the settling of a big grave. Please explain that.”

I looked at the young girls. “Holly?”

“That’s where he kept them. Cut off from the world. The ladder was his cruel joke. All someone had to do was climb the ladder, and they’d be free. But he kept everyone nude, so you had nothing to make safety gear from. Everyone except his chosen were kept on low calorie diets, too, so you couldn’t be in shape. They’d see someone try. So many never even made it up to the actual shaft, and that was a hundred eighty feet off the floor. The ladder was devious, it wasn’t vertical, it had a five degree outward slope to it. You’d start to climb, and not only were you going up, you were actually holding your body onto it as well. If you tried to climb the back side, you’d simply get shot by one of the beam weapons. Even if you made it into the shaft ... climbing another two miles?” She shook her head.

Mike frowned. “When you say ‘them,’ you’re not just talking about the three sisters, are you?”

She shook her head. “No. There were women down there he’d impregnate that gave birth, raise their daughter to adulthood, and he’d impregnate the daughter if she was good looking, and have the cycle repeat, and never once would any of them actually ever see the sun. There were vast side tunnels, where people raised animals that never saw sunlight, crops that used artificial lights to grow, and of course, his treasure room.”

Suwal hissed. “So, Shiva’s treasure really exists?”

“It did, anyway,” I said. “There were three Mountain Guardian units acting together to have enough processing power for an AI. They were on pedestals, cubes about four feet per side, that looked like solid gold; but, when I hit one, obviously weren’t.”

“The power pedestals,” Carrie said. “He had those tied directly into something buried deep, that none of us ever saw. I don’t know if it was some machine that converted the tectonic energy into usable power, or a fusion reactor, or what. The way I ... Madalain ... escaped was that the metalworker removed her choker. She still didn’t have powers, but she did have long hair. You said that the AI was insane. You’re right. It enjoyed teasing people. She figured out that if she climbed halfway, then put her legs through the ladder so she was sitting down, then used her hair to tie herself to the ladder, she wouldn’t fall and could get some rest. Once she’d made it three fourths of the way up, the AI began taunting her.

“It also made a serious error. It opened the top hatch. You’re aware that if you’re down in a deep shaft, you can’t actually see the daytime sky, it looks like it’s night. The problem for the AI was that when she was only about a thousand feet from the top, the sun went directly overhead, shining straight down. She was exposed to direct sunlight for the first time since arriving on the planet, without her collar on. Three guesses what happened then.”

“She got enough power to climb out the rest of the way,” Hannah said.

“Quickly being the key word you missed. She moved fast then. Not so fast as any of you, but still much faster than anyone normal. Once she got to the surface, she just lay there on the cold and icy peak, getting her strength. That was, of course, Shiva’s ultimate irony. If someone escaped, he knew they’d freeze to death before making it down the mountain.” She grimly smiled. “Didn’t happen with Madalain, though.”

“Not if she was genetically like me,” I said.

“Pretty much. She didn’t freeze. It took her a while to get down the mountain, figure out how she’d survived, and then everything else. It wasn’t until years later she rescued Lara and Dala. The AI was furious that she had the ‘powers of Shiva’ and went on a rampage against so many of those remaining. At that time, there were at least two hundred thousand people living in that cavern.”

I said, “Realizing that this was thousands of years ago, it was still disturbing to get down there and see what was basically an ossuary, an entire arena of skeletal remains. There weren’t two hundred thousand dead down there. A guess on my part is closer to twenty million, simply based on how many skulls were stacked. There were some skeletons scattered about the bottom of the ladder, where it appeared the last survivors had tried to climb out. And one more, that wasn’t decayed nearly as much as the others. I suspect that was the last resting place for David Adams. That’s why I called it a cemetery.”

Mike quietly said, “During the ten months of the Battle of Verdun in World War One, nearly a quarter million men died, with close to a hundred fifty thousand of them never identified. Their bones are in an ossuary in France. I’ve seen piles of skulls, when I was in Vietnam. That’s ... if it was to honor the dead, it’s one thing. If it was simply a way of keeping track of how many you killed, that’s ... it’s not just another thing, it’s ... unimaginably horrendous.”

Cally grimly said, “That’s what we’ve been telling you all along, Dad. That’s the kind of sadistic and horrible bastard he was, and why we can’t let him come back.”

I’d taken a sip of milk to get my voice back under control, because just talking about what I’d seen brought the memory back to me. Once I could talk again, I said, “Colonel Suwal, you talked about the treasure of Shiva being down there? The best thing that could happen if we drilled down there would be to drop a nuclear weapon in the hole and simply vaporize everything. Last year, I happened to recover some gold bars.”

Before I said anything else, Marcia said, “Hang on, Cal. Beth?”

Beth got up, went into the other room, and walked back in with one. She handed it to Colonel Suwal face down.

“Colonel, that is just over two pounds ... a full kilogram ... of effectively pure gold. I’m quite sure that if you wanted to have it, neither Cal, Marcia, nor Hannah would object,” Beth said.

“You are simply giving me a kilogram of...” He flipped the bar over. “Never! This is evil! I cannot believe you even have such a thing!” He let it drop to the table.

“In and of itself, it’s not actually evil,” Marcia said. “Hannah and I have spent quite a bit of time discussing that subject, since we’re both of Jewish heritage. What that bar represents, though, is pure evil. We have that ... we keep that ... as a reminder that it doesn’t take an alien who thinks he’s a god to bring evil to mankind. We’re quite capable of doing it to ourselves. The only reason we allow it to remain is while the gold that it came from is stolen gold, it’s not from gold stolen from the teeth and wedding rings of murdered Jews, it came from banks in European nations that were conquered.”

Nodding, Hannah said, “There is other gold, other treasures, that we have recovered through various interactions we’ve had. Many of those items were stolen from Jews, and unfortunately, we’ve only found survivors or relatives for less than a fifth of everything we recovered. The rest is going to museums, to be held in trust, in case we find a survivor later on. Technically, I suppose you could say that Carrie, Cally, and Holly are the only survivors of Shiva’s treasure, because we can at least show an actual connection to them.”

All three girls looked like they were going to be sick. “We don’t want any of it. Whatever was down there now doesn’t belong to anyone now, it belongs to those that fucking bastard killed,” Carrie vehemently said. The other two nodded their heads in agreement.

“Let the dead have it, then,” Colonel Suwal said. “There is no honor in that treasure. While many of us ... my men, I mean ... are from the Annapurna region, I doubt any of us knew anything about that. We worshiped Shiva as one of our gods. I feel sick to my stomach now, knowing that I have done so as well.”

Mike nodded in understanding. “We’ve all made mistakes in our lives. You simply have to learn from them, and move on. And speaking of moving on, let’s get to the next section here, which is the actual earthquake response. Cal, what’d you do next?”

“We flew back down to the camp, I helped right one of the trucks that had flipped on its side, and then we made our way back to Pokhara. It had taken us three hours to get from Pokhara to where the camp was. It took us six hours to get back. The vehicles could handle the roads, or lack thereof, it was mostly stopping at each shack or building to make sure no one was trapped, and if they were, to help rescue the survivors. Once we made it to the northern edge of Pokhara, which basically was Badhare, we kept doing the same thing. Rescuing people that were trapped. It seemed like most people had actually been following the mandate of King Birendra, but some just couldn’t, due to their jobs or responsibilities. People that had gone inside for something to eat, and were planning on coming back out, or people that had been outside and they couldn’t get clear of the collapsing buildings. I ... really can’t get into specifics, in the least. I have some images in my mind that I can’t get rid of, but I also have no idea what I specifically did that week.”

All three of my youngest wives nodded in agreement.

“I remember we made it back to Pokhara, and I know I helped pull men, women, and children from under the debris, but as far as who or what I did, I don’t have a clue,” Dora said. “It was almost like a nightmare that wouldn’t end, until finally I remember Cally say that I’d done enough, I couldn’t do anymore, and then I collapsed into a bed.”

“That’s what happened to me as well,” Eve said, “only it was Carrie talking to me.”

Beth looked down the table at Holly, who nodded, and said, “I was helping you, while Helen was helping Cal. This was not really draining the energy of the Sacred Souls; they were easily able to keep up with what you were pulling. We deliberately didn’t help you when the AI was shooting his beam weapons at you, because we figured you would naturally be strong enough to resist them. We were almost right.”