All Or Nothing

All Or Nothing, An Anunnaki Story - Chapter 9

Mummu sat in the control room chatting with the other crew members. They were laughing and having a good time when the call came in. Suddenly everyone was all business.

“We’re being hailed Commander,” said Lieutenant Anshar.

“Who is it?” Mummu asked.

“Prince Kuru,” Lieutenant Anshar’s voice betrayed her alarm.

Nothing good ever comes from Kuru, Mummu thought.

“On screen,” Mummu commanded.

The screen lit up with Prince Kuru’s angry blue face. Again, the translation device made Mummu feel like he was watching a poorly dubbed movie.

“What made you think I was such a fool to think that you would pay me correctly and keep your end of the bargain? I kept watch and scanned your transports. Your actions have been deceptive and you cannot be trusted. This will not go answered.”

“Whoa now,” Mummu began, taken aback, “I do not know what you’re talking about, Prince.” Mummu suddenly felt as if he were completely out of the loop of some important information.

Prince Kuru rolled his eyes. A universal expression, Mummu thought. Then Kuru made a face that revealed contempt for Mummu. Prince Kuru took a deep breath and through the translator, he said, “I demand to speak with your Admiral. Immediately!”

“Lieutenant Anshar, redirect this hail ASAP!” Mummu commanded.

“Yes, sir!” Lieutenant Anshar immediately sent the hail to Admiral Tolk on Mars.

“Someone has some explaining to do,” Mummu grumbled as he marched to the elevator. “Anshar, you have Conn.”

“Yes, sir,” Lieutenant Anshar said as the elevator doors shut.

Mummu was so angry he was trembling. Apsu never allowed him to get blindsided like this before. As he stepped outside the building, Mummu tapped his universal device and said, “Locate Captain Apsu.” The synthetic voice from his device answered, “Captain Apsu is at home.” Mummu hailed a taxi and proceeded to Apsu’s home, which was next door to his.

Still fuming as he exited the taxi at Apsu’s house, Mummu marched up to the door and pounded on it furiously.

Apsu’s image appeared on the monitor in the door frame. “What’s wrong?”

“Let me in,” Mummu ordered.

“You look like you want to murder someone.”

“I need an explanation.”

“Of what?”

“Why Prince Kuru just hailed us claiming he’s being cheated out of his share of the gold.”

“Oh, shit!”

“No kidding!”

The door slid open and Mummu went inside.

“There is a good reason I didn’t tell you,” Apsu said immediately as Mummu entered his house.

“So you know what this is all about? When did you find out?”

“I knew Tolk wasn’t living up to the agreement for a while.”

Apsu's withholding of that information stunned Mummu. “What? And you didn’t tell me why?”

“Plausible deniability.”

“Oh, bullshit Apsu!”

“And your reaction was one of genuine surprise, right?”

“Of course.”

“Exactly why I didn’t tell you.”

Mummu’s expression changed from furious to confused to understanding. “They can’t blame me for being part of something I didn’t know about, right?”

Apsu nodded. “Right.”

“You were protecting me? From what?”

“People will not be happy if this starts a war. They will find someone to blame. It’s bad enough that I knew.” Apsu ran his fingers through his hair. “So don’t be mad that I’m trying to protect my best friend, OK?”

“Oh,” Mummu suddenly fully realized the magnitude of this entire situation, and his eyes grew wide. “OH!”

“Yeah,” Apsu said. “Do you still want to kill me?”

“No, now I want to kill Tolk. If this starts a war that jeopardizes our mission.”

Apsu nodded, turned away from Mummu, went to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and retrieved two bottles of ale. He handed one to Mummu, who had followed close behind. Apsu clicked his bottle against Mummu’s.

“To Ma’adim. We may not live to see her restored,” Apsu said, taking a long drink from his bottle.

*****

Seven months had passed since the disturbing result of the deformed baby in Enki’s lab. Tiamat hadn’t stepped foot in their lab since that day. Seeing one deformed fetus was enough. But Enki left her a message to come to his lab, so maybe they had something good to report.

Tiamat did not expect to see what greeted her as she stepped through the doorway of the lab. Standing next to Enki was an obvious cross between an ape and Anunnaki, wearing a patient gown. It was shorter than Enki by about half a meter, stocky, standing erect, with a thin coat of hair covering its body. A large sloping forehead, a pronounced brow, and jaw gave it the appearance of being more ape than Anunnaki. But the most shocking thing about it was that it appeared to be a young adult.

“How?” Tiamat was at a loss for words.

“Oh, a special mixture of growth hormones, nutrients, and scientific expertise.” Enki smiled broadly.

“Can it talk?” Tiamat inched closer to get a better look at the creature.

“He’s a male, and we have named him Adama,” Ninki offered.

“He has trouble communicating verbally,” Enki explained, “so we are teaching him to sign.”

“Can he understand what I’m saying?”

Adama nodded his ape-like head.

“Oh, good,” Tiamat responded. “Pleased to meet you, Adama.”

Adama made some signs with his stubby fingers and clumsy hands.

“He says it’s nice to meet you too,” Enki interpreted.

Tiamat couldn’t take her eyes off Adama. “Can you reproduce this success?”

“Way ahead of you,” Ninki responded.

“Yes, we have many more growing as we speak,” Enki offered.

“Excellent.” Tiamat felt relieved that this project was finally taking a positive turn. “When can they learn how to mine and dredge?”

“Adama could start training now.” Enki’s voice had an air of pride.

“Let’s put him to work and see how he does. I’ll make the arrangements.” Tiamat started toward the door, then stopped and turned around. “One of you will need to go along to translate.”

“Yes ma’am, be happy to,” Enki replied.

*******

Apsu sat in his captain’s chair in the control room, watching Tellus on the viewscreen as they slowly orbited the planet. It was a beautiful blue because so much of it was water. The land was in one area, leaving the rest of the planet nothing but the ocean. It was beautiful. Suddenly, Lieutenant Anshar interrupted his revelry.

“Captain, Incoming message from Admiral Tolk.”

“I’ll take it in my ready room,” Apsu answered.

Apsu stood and strolled into his ready room. Apsu hated getting messages from Tolk ever since he knew about the situation with the gold payments to Kuru. It’s going to be more bad news. I just know it, Apsu thought. Taking a seat behind his desk, he answered the call.

“Admiral, hello.”

“Apsu, Prince Kuru, and I had a heated conversation yesterday about the amount of gold we were paying him.”

Apsu took a breath as if to speak.

“You can save your I told you so,” Tolk continued. “He is not an amiable man to negotiate with. I have agreed to send him one half of what we mine until we make up for the gold we shorted him.”

“You shorted him,” Apsu pointed out.

Tolk ignored Apsu’s comment. “What we must do is tell the mining camps to send him half from now on. Once he’s repaid, they will send him a third. Got that?”

“You want me to relay this message, I assume?”

“Why else would I be calling you?” Tolk sounded agitated. “You can send one message and reach all the camps at once. I can’t and they need to know ASAP.”

“Yes sir. I’ll get right on that.”

“See that you do. Tolk out.”

Tolk must have been referring to the communication hub Tiamat set up, Apsu thought. It’s time to visit the med-bay.

**********

Apsu messaged Tiamat to meet him at the communication hub so he could send the message from Admiral Tolk. When Apsu reached the communication hub, Tiamat was already there.

“I need to send a simulcast message to all the mining camps,” Apsu said.

“Do you need me to set it up or do you know how it works?”

Apsu raised his hand and made a circle with his fingers as he spoke. “I have zero experience with one of these things.”

“OK, I’ll set it up for you.” Tiamat tapped a few virtual buttons on the virtual console. “When you’re ready to speak, tap this button to record your message.” Tiamat pointed to a button on the console. “When you’re done, tap it again. Then to send the message you tap this one.” She moved her hand, pointing at a different button.

“Got it.” Apsu tapped the record button. “Attention all camps, this is Captain Apsu. I’m relaying a message from Admiral Tolk. Until further notice, you are to send one-half of the gold mined to Prince Kuru instead of one-fourth. I repeat, you are to send Prince Kuru one-half of the mined gold. This will continue until further notice. Captain Apsu out.” Apsu tapped the button again to end the recording, then sent the message.

“What was that about?” Tiamat asked, wide-eyed.

“Tolk has been shorting Kuru on the gold payments. He thought that Kuru would never find out.” Apsu sighed. “But he did.”

“Oh no.”

“I used to respect Tolk, but now.” Apsu’s brow furrowed. “Now I can’t even look at him without being disgusted.”

“How could he do that? He put the mission in danger, not to mention all of us.”

Apsu scoffed. “I don’t know. Maybe it was an act of desperation on his part. Maybe things are worse on Ma’adim than we were told.”

“Maybe he’s just a psycho,” Mummu said, walking into the room.

“A possibility,” Tiamat offered.

“Insanity aside, this still puts us in a precarious position with Kuru,” Apsu said angrily. “We know nothing about Kuru, which puts us at a disadvantage.”

“Kuru knows nothing about us doesn’t that put us on equal footing?” Mummu asked.

“No,” Apsu began, “Kuru programmed a translator with our language to speak to us. How did he gain knowledge of our language? That would have taken some time.”

“He had to be listening to our transmissions ever since we got here,” Mummu answered.

“That has bothered me from the start,” Apsu said.

“What can we do about it?” Tiamat asked.

“We need a plan,” Mummu stated.

“I already have one,” Apsu said with a mischievous grin.