The next day Rani went over the plans again in more detail until the kids were word perfect.
“Plan A, Bea and Bella.”
“Wait till the second moon comes up and all is quiet. Sneak out like we sneaked in. Take our suits. Drop the guns. Drop every other piece of technology and everything artificial. Get going until I find the Cats who will be waiting for me near where the planes landed, under the trees. Go with them underground. Wait till the Cats say to go, in a few days or weeks, to the Priskya if I can. They will hide me in that underground cave. I stay there a few years until the Priskya say it’s safe and tell the universe what happened here. Tasha and Alia to try to get there too.”
“Plan C, Ilse.”
“I’m to go, with Bea, Harsha and Bella to the Cats. I’m to stay there until they tell me it’s safe to reveal what happened here.”
“Plan D. Donny.”
“I’m to go first to the Cats and then when it’s safe, to go to Helkmid if I can get there safely. The Cats to decide and get me there. I’m to look after Dieter.”
Finally, Rani was satisfied but that didn’t stop the worry. Was this going to be enough to keep her children alive? She trusted the Priskya and Cats though. And Helkmid was well prepared to hide. But how did he hide from the scanners? Yet he had said he could. He had said he had a shield, just big enough which was why he had known so much about how to run the power grid. His shield had to be re powered at times but it ran on the same battery type things the Healing machines ran on and he had a lot of them.
Frequently, the topic of Az and Kaz came up. Ludmilla, Minka, Kelly and Helene were all talking in a group.
“I think either those boys have a domineering mother or their society is matriarchal,” Minka declared and Ludmilla added,
“The latter, I reckon.”
“What makes you think that?” Asked Kelly.
“Watch them. They take orders off Mathew but sometimes argue or challenge. They take orders, conspicuously, from other people, two especially, without much arguing and even if they hate the orders.”
“What? What have you noticed?” asked Helene.
Minka looked pointedly at Kelly, “There’s a competitiveness from them around men too. They take suggestions from Sarah as an order, they respect women, they take orders or requests from women, and they’ll take ANY order from Kelly.”
Kelly looked shocked. But then she thought hard. It was true she realized. “Why?”
“They want your girls, Kelly,” Minka said softly, “and I think they genuinely like you. They certainly respect you. Don’t panic,” she said as she saw the look on Kelly’s face, “I would guess around women, they are the most honourable men on the planet.”
“What do I do to stop them?”
“You can’t stop them Kelly. Only the girls can do that. If they want to. Only the girls should stop them. And why bother to try? Tomorrow we may all be dead. If the boys are dead tomorrow, at least the girls will have the memories,” Minka sighed. “I never married the boy I loved,” she said softly.