Copyright © 2018 David John West
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For Kathleen
Contents
Preface
Part One Cambridgeshire, England, Present Day
One
Part Two Silicon Valley, California, 1993
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Part Three United Kingdom, From 1993
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Glossary
Notes
PREFACE
Circa 3000 BC Earth time our local spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy was home to many advanced races of human beings scattered on worlds across hundreds of light years. These races had been seeded by the ancients on fertile blue worlds to evolve and emerge at their own pace. Two of the most advanced races developed warp drive technology that enabled space travel with short journey times. They grew their empires and competed to dominate neighbouring space, harvesting emerging human cultures as they explored new planets.
The race Dawn of Gaya promoted enlightenment across a confederation of allied human races on emerging planets. Their home world is planet Gaya central in the star cluster called the Pleiades (aka Seven Sisters). Their rival was the technological empire controlled by its autarch the Omeyn MuneMei centred on planet Spargan in the Hyades star region. Dawn of Gaya largely sought to influence new races on developing worlds by transferring small numbers of teachers and guides in soul form to these worlds. These Gayan souls inhabited newborn babies to create genius ‘Star People’ in each world that grew up to inculcate civilisation in the Gayan image. In contrast, the Spargar Empire was unconcerned with the early stages of developing primitive human races and merely monitored progress of such worlds until they invented primitive computer technology that could be interfaced to their Mind biological computer system centred in Braganza, the capital city of planet Spargan. When a human culture on a new planet developed adequately, Spargar agents invaded these cultures covertly and supported dictatorial regimes in their own image. Spargar agents infiltrated early computer networks such that their nascent computing capabilities would be compatible with the Mind out in the Spargar galactic network. Many Spargar agents arrived clandestinely in the latter stages of these campaigns to dominate new planets, accompanied by large-scale abductions of the local humans to be assimilated into the Mind to build its strength and knowledge prior to overt annexation by the Spargar empire.
According to the ancient Mayan civilisation on planet Earth the world was created more than five thousand years ago, or thirteen baktuns of the Mayan Long Count Calendar. On this date, August 11th, 3114 BC, two alien guides known as Pointers of Dawn arrived on Earth by spacecraft from planet Gaya. Called Star People by the Mayan kings their counsel dramatically accelerated the development of Mayan culture and technology. When these first tasks of enlightenment were complete these Pointers of Dawn instructed the Mayan royal family that humans on planet Earth would meet their destiny and join with Gaya at the end of thirteen baktuns and then they returned to the stars from whence they came.
Pointers and Guides of Dawn visited planet Earth regularly in small numbers throughout the ensuing thirteen baktuns to enlighten the human race with philosophical developments and technological discoveries in an orderly manner and at an ideally digestible pace. This schedule to Enlightenment is well established in Gayan culture. They achieved the steps along this plan by working as teachers and muses supporting selected visionaries in the local human population to release scientific and cultural discoveries in beneficial order at auspicious moments. These visionaries are the wise ones later to be identified as the geniuses of human history on Earth.
Prior to the end of the auspicious thirteenth baktun, the Gayans accelerated the enlightenment of the people of Earth with more frequent visits of their Teachers and Guides, managed by the Pointers. The resulting explosion of technological advances in the twentieth century inevitably came to the attention of the Omeyn MuneMei in her Spyre headquarters in Braganza city. Omeyn MuneMei, autarch of the race Spargar of planet Spargan, ruled her empire in a totalitarian dictatorship so supreme she considered her subjects more akin to a lower species than subjects of her own race. Omeyn MuneMei considered planet Earth to be a vassal planet from the start due to its proximity in space to planet Spargan. When the internet emerged on Earth with help from her Zarnha operatives, Omeyn MuneMei routinely ordered the incorporation of planet Earth into the race Spargar and her Mind central biological computer system. Zarnha agents were tasked to prepare the people and technology of Earth for subjugation into the Spargar empire. They expected relatively little competition from their enemies Dawn of Gaya as their home world was much more remote in space and the centre of the Spargar Empire lay between Earth and their Gayan rivals. Zarnha agents abducted remarkable numbers of people from Earth for integration into the Mind, in tribute to Spargan. Spargar spacecraft and Zarnha infiltrators were often witnessed and remarked upon as ‘unidentified flying objects’ and ‘alien greys’ despite their cursory efforts at camouflage and dissimulation.
The conclusion of thirteen baktun ages occurred on December 12th, 2012 AD. Confusion over the meaning of the original Mayan legend after five thousand years led to peoples across central America to believe the end of the world was nigh. Modern-day scientists looked for doomsday scenarios involving black holes, solar expansion or planetary collisions. More enlightened Mayan scholars dismissed cataclysmic notions and presaged a spiritual transformation, a new era of enlightenment of men on Earth.
This culmination of the thirteenth baktun on Earth marked the climax of the clandestine campaigns of Dawn and Spargan for enlightenment or subjugation of the emerging culture of human beings on planet Earth. The immediate path for the future of mankind on Earth forked to offer two distinct alternate paths, the stakes monumentally high for the unwitting masses going about their everyday lives across the whole of the blue pla
net.
PART ONE
CAMBRIDGESHIRE, ENGLAND,
Present Day
ONE
A heavy mist hung over the old farmhouse near Lakenheath rented by the Griffiths family of San Antonio, Texas. It was the hour after midnight; a time for witching, a time for dire plots to be enacted. The family had enjoyed the adventure of the relocation to the Cambridgeshire countryside from Texas and had fallen in love with the solidly built brick farmhouse, with its grey slate roof, at the end of a short lane. The farm was surrounded by rambling outbuildings leading on to wide lawns with herbaceous borders and tall trees in copses beyond. They were close to the local village with its pub and post office, indeed the whole of England seemed to be a village to the Griffiths family after the wide open spaces around San Antonio. Their new home was almost magical, secluded and full of gentle wildlife like a children’s story, delighting the young American family. Don and his wife Belinda were sleeping under two quilts in the main bedroom against the chill of the East Anglian fall season and the quaint lack of double glazing. The preschool twins, Ethan and Madison, were in single beds in the same room down the hall, similarly covered in downy duvets. Don was on assignment to the local airbase from the US Air Force Intelligence base east of San Antonio. Ethan and Madison were born after in vitro fertilisation procedures. Both these factors, allied to their locality, made the Griffiths family an irresistible target for a particular kind of abduction.
Several slim dark figures lurked round the front door to the farm, barely visible in the gloom of night. It was difficult to distinguish separate arms, legs and bodies as they all wore matt hazmat suits and domed helmets with large teardrop-shaped eye covers lending their heads a disquieting locust appearance. They were introducing their hypnotic nerve gas into the house via the convenient aperture of the letter box cut in the door. A small tool placed against the door lock made the screws on the inner side revolve anticlockwise until they fell out on the mat and the door could be effortlessly swung inwards. The intruders swarmed into the house protected from the nerve gas by filters in their helmets. Their squat delta-wing craft, also stealthy in dark matt material, waited on the long lawn at the rear of the farm buildings.
Don Griffiths opened his eyes groggily into a waking nightmare. His consciousness swam as he witnessed dark stick-men figures around his bed in a low grey light, like false dawn. In alarm he tried to rise to confront the invaders but his limbs would not respond, as if the protective cocoon of dream sleep was preventing his body from moving. With heavily bleary eyes he looked beside him to Belinda who had what appeared to his drugged mind to be a grotesque black spider with three heads hanging threateningly over her. Then a similar mass of heads and limbs appeared over him too. He felt clammy under the press of hands and pointy instruments; cold too as the quilts were removed and the dark figures roamed across their prone bodies. Don fought against their motions in his thoughts as they introduced their probes into him but his mental struggles could not penetrate and would not animate his drugged body. After a short period the agents of race Spargar moved back from their captives and first Don and then Belinda rose naked to sit, then stand slowly alongside their bed. They were, without their own volition, led shuffling by their captors through the bedroom door and on to the landing. The low silvery light followed their progress. Don was aware of being taller than the dark bodies of their tormentors with their malevolent large heads; they were about the same height as his wife slumping along behind him. Don’s nightmare was complete when the twins’ bedroom door opened and a second group of black bodies led out the twins, so vulnerable in their jammies and ruffled faces. His precious family was in clearest danger, molested under his very gaze and his limbs remained unresponsive to his anguished commands to save them all.
The Spargar aliens with their slender arms would have struggled to manhandle the large American man but this was unnecessary as the hypnotic drug enabled them to lead the family away conveniently under their own locomotion but under their kidnappers’ control. The family were all conscious but their bodies moved like zombies; alarmed eyes connected the parents with their children as if in thick fog or murky water as they were led out the front door and on between the farm outbuildings in single file, parents first, children to the rear, out towards the low-slung spacecraft on the grassy lawns. The whole group could only bumble along slowly with the family struggling against the will of their captors, seeing the waiting craft that was clearly their destination as it swelled and shimmered like a mirage to the incapacitated senses of the family. As they crossed on to the open space of the lawn Don became aware of a new sensation amongst his captors. They were in consternation; something was amiss. He reached for this hope, grappled with that fact mentally seeking an opportunity to protect his family from this unfolding nightmare. He did not yet know that on this occasion, on this particular kidnap, he was fortunate in a way that the very many other victims were not.
The Spargar kidnap gang released their captives who fell to their knees without the external control of the aliens’ grasp. The Spargar agents had seen a young woman of average size regarding them, coolly blocking the access ramp to their ship. She was earthly in appearance with medium-length blonde hair, wearing skin-tight jeans over high-top trainers. She wore a knitted top against the night chill. Crucially the two Spargar who piloted the craft lay at her feet moving feebly. To her rear were two large cloaked figures carrying shaped staves that almost glowed in the silvery light. These were vorarms, the fighting weapons of choice of the Cavallos of Dawn, the martial arm of their enemies, race Dawn of Gaya. The Spargar spread out to confront the woman and her guards and released more hypnotic gasses in their direction. The Gayans wore no helmets but were completely unaffected by the gas, wearing their protective gumshields against drugs as well as blows. These Spargar had not come across Gayan enemies previously; they had only expected a routine kidnap of defenceless Earth people this night. The Spargar reassured themselves with their superior numbers, but they were unconvinced as they glanced at each other, wishing they had a larger band. Looking beyond their own craft in the lawn centre they could see the upright silvery cigar form of a Gayan starcraft of their enemies, taller than the trees it was standing amongst. The Spargar gang knew their commanders would require them to attack these enemies and carry out their abduction mission as planned. They launched a frenzied rush to reclaim their own craft.
Amily concentrated grimly at the tangle of rapidly approaching Spargar agents.
“Today is a very bad day for you. This time we saw you coming and came out to meet you,” she exclaimed into her enemies’ rushing advance. Over her shoulder she quickly said to her formidable friends, “How I detest these foul kidnap gangs, guys. Rafaello on my right side! Umberto, take left and rear!”
“Let’s roll,” replied Rafaello’s baritone voice from the shorter of the two cloaked figures as he moved from behind to Amily’s right and presented his ivory stave in kendo fashion to the oncoming enemy. His taller partner Umberto took a similar stance on the left so that they were either side of Amily in a wedge facing the onrushing Spargar. The Spargar were unarmed having left their weapons on board their craft, only needing their various medical apparatus for incapacitating and kidnapping the sleeping victim family Griffiths. They were not anticipating conflict this night. The three Gayans met the rush with blurring arms and weapons and in a few short seconds the Spargar gang were reduced to groaning, prone figures at the feet of the three Gayans alongside the fallen pilots of the Spargar craft they had dealt with while the kidnappers were at their sinister work in the farmhouse.
The three Gayans moved forward to help the drugged family who were still groggy on hands and knees beyond their collapsed kidnappers. The Gayans took no further notice of the injured Spargar gang that rose erratically and helped each other gingerly back into their craft. A short time later the dock of the Spargar craft closed, edge lights indicated they had powered up and the craft angled up
and escaped soundlessly overhead.
Don Griffiths was still intoxicated but had seen the skirmish and that his attackers had returned to their craft and escaped overhead. He was helped to his feet by a young woman who approached him confidently. She was not speaking but clearly helping him. The two monk-like figures looked ominous but they too were helping and picked up Ethan and Madison and carried them as easily as dolls. The taller one was also walking with Belinda who was slumped against him for support, taking faltering steps back towards their house. Amily led Don Griffiths back into their house and up the stairs. It was obvious from the soft toys and small divans which was the twins’ bedroom and she indicated that to the Cavallos who gently deposited the boy and girl back on their beds and covered them up. They then led the parents back to their room and put them back to bed, covering them again with the two quilts against the added cold of the violated farmhouse.
Amily led the two Cavallos, Umberto and Antonio, back out of the house closing the front door behind them. They retraced their steps to their starship among the trees, boarded, powered up and left in the same direction as the Spargar craft, throwing off tiny lime and vermilion sparks as their DMF drive grated the atoms of the still air.
Don and Belinda slept immediately they were laid back in bed, exhausted and still under the influence of the hypnotic drug cocktail from the kidnap gang. It was bright morning when Don woke first, his larger frame working off the drugs faster than his wife. The night’s events presented themselves in a rush as a realistic nightmare, the most convincing nightmare ever, set as it was in their new home. Don needed to expel his demons so he rose, pulled on his robe and went downstairs to make a coffee pot for them both. At the foot of the stairs something made him turn to the front door, which was reassuringly closed. He was turning round to head for the kitchen when a chilling glint on the floor caught his attention. There on the carpet was the brass door lock and flange with a number of long screws scattered around them that last evening were holding the lock securely to the door frame.
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