The Kaiju Preservation Society

Upon their return to Tanaka Base, Ardeleanu is hospitalized and undergoes leg surgery. Kahurangi arrives, saying that everyone saw the video of them saving Ardeleanu and calling them heroes. Jamie and their friends learn that Ardeleanu has muscle tears in his leg but no other damage. He will not be doing any more fieldwork during the tour. In a silly ceremony after dinner, KPS inducts Jamie, Aparna, Niamh, and Ardeleanu “into the orders” (139), and the teams have a party. The next day, Tom shows Jamie the visitor list for the day’s tourist group: Rob Sanders, Jamie’s former boss, is coming.

Jamie asks why KPS is bringing Rob Sanders to Kaiju Earth. Tom guesses that he donated money to KPS. He tells Jamie that funds from the wealthy fund KPS and keep it secret from the public. Jamie begrudgingly agrees to host Sanders, who arrives with US Major General Tipton. Tipton reveals that Sanders is representing Tensorial, a defense contracting company that his father owned. Tipton came to address US concerns about the kaiju explosion. Satie and Jamie take Sanders and Tipton in the helicopter for a tour of the nesting site.

On the helicopter ride, Sanders asks if Jamie resents him for firing them, and Jamie says they did not like it. Sanders reveals that Tensorial works with nuclear energy. His father told him about KPS when he was a child but said he could only see the kaiju after he became a billionaire. He admits to needling his competitors into buying füdmüd for billions of dollars. He also reveals that he made a bet with Jamie’s friend Qanisha Williams that if he fired some employees, at least half would become deliverators. Sanders picked Jamie randomly and won the bet. Sanders demands to get close to Bella’s nest, offering Satie $100,000 to make it happen. Satie initially seems willing to take the deal but lands the helicopter away from Bella’s nest. He says he does not like Sanders trying to bribe him but that Sanders can see the jungle floor for free. Seeing some of the creatures in the jungle, Sanders quickly changes his mind and apologizes. Satie accepts but tells him to remain silent for the rest of the trip, which Sanders does. Satie flies the helicopter towards Bella.

After the tour, KPS holds a briefing. Aparna explains the kaiju’s biology and behavior to Sanders, describing the kaiju’s symbiotic relationship with their parasites. Kaiju depend on the parasites to form their two nuclear reactors and keep them from exploding. The parasites allow kaiju to grow larger, but many can survive and thrive with less development. Tipton asks about controlling kaiju, and Aparna explains that they don’t use the pheromones to control kaiju but rather make suggestion to them. Sanders asks if they can drug the kaiju, and Kahurangi answers that it would be difficult. Tipton expresses concern that Bella, as an unintelligent creature, might accidentally cross the barrier. Niamh responds that Bella is not unintelligent, but addresses her own needs efficiently and instinctively. They add that though the barrier is weak, it is not so weak that Bella could tear through, even if she had an interest doing so. They explain that a problem would only arise if an explosion occurred on the other side of the barrier; Bella is in no danger of exploding. Nuclear energy thins the barrier between all the main Earths, and the last time kaiju traveled through, it was because they sensed a food source and followed their needs.

After the briefing, Tipton informs MacDonald and Tom that he is convinced that Bella does not pose a threat to the barrier but will need to share the data with the scientists on the other side. He encourages MacDonald to try to move Bella away from the barrier. When Sanders asks how much longer Bella will be there, MacDonald tells him that Satie filed an incident report about the attempted bribery. Sanders apologizes, and MacDonald tells him his family has a poor reputation with KPS. His grandfather put a nuclear generator in the first version of Tanaka Base, and bribed his counterpart to do so, drawing kaiju to the base and leading to multiple deaths. Sanders acknowledges that he does not come off well but promises not to bribe anyone else. When Tipton asks Jamie what they talked about with Sanders, Jamie covers for him, adding that Sanders fired them but it was not personal. MacDonald accepts Sanders’s apology but warns him that any other trouble will get him permanently banned from Kaiju Earth.

Later, Sanders asks why Jamie covered for him. Jamie explains that Sanders’s public chastisement was enough of a punishment. Sanders thanks them and Jamie invites him on a walk to the jungle. Jamie turns on a screamer and tells Sanders to stay close. When Jamie turns the screamer off, tree crabs approach. Sanders wants to leave, but Jamie asks why he wanted to land near Bella’s nest. Sanders says he told them, but Jamie suspects he was planning something. When Sanders denies this, Jamie lets the crabs get closer. Sanders starts panicking and, once Jamie promises confidentiality, Sanders confesses wanting a sample of Bella’s eggs, presenting a needle and syringe as proof. Sanders tries and fails to grab Jamie’s screamer. Jamie tells him this is the last trip Sanders will take to Kaiju Earth and threatens to submit an audio recording of their conversation to MacDonald if he refuses.

The next tourists, mostly scientists and politicians, are easy for Jamie to host. They also continue their regular work with Val, though Tom tells them not to overdo it. Tom says they need to plant new instruments at the nesting site. Later, Niamh complains that the kaiju feed is down, which is happening more often than it used to. They worry that they could lose the data if the system reaches maximum memory level and send Jamie to complain about it to administration. At administration, Aparna and Kahurangi tell Jamie that the feed to one of their helicopters, Chopper One, is down and they can’t contact its crew. Satie and Jamie go to the nesting site, where they find Chopper One crashed and Bella and her eggs gone.

MacDonald holds a conference, and everyone at KPS mourns the Chopper One crew. MacDonald asks where Bella could have gone and nobody knows; there is no sign of her at the nesting site or on the map. Kahurangi suggests she might have lost her tracker, but the absence of the eggs suggests that both Bella and her eggs somehow crossed the barrier into the main Earth. However, no one knows how Bella’s eggs crossed because they do not have reactors yet and are not attached to her. Kahurangi suspects that humans are involved. MacDonald suggests using the Shobijin airship to reach Europe’s KPS base, noting that getting a response will take a week or more. While they wait for the airship to be ready, Jamie, Satie, and Kahurangi go to the nesting site to check the data-collecting instruments for damage.