The Jarlankan craft manoeuvres in a similar fashion to our own craft, thought Daniel as he lay inert, looking up at the polished metal roof above his head. Many tiny white lights ran in rows the full length of the roof. The spread of technical knowledge across the advanced human races of the galaxy meant that there was a levelling up of technology enabling most civilisations with space travel capability to be fairly equal in their ability to transport people and materials. The Gayan Empire and its allies had the distinct advantage over Spargar of being able to travel solely-soul in spirit form. A major challenge – and opportunity – for the native human race of planet Earth was the soon-to-be-coming revolution in science that any contact with an advanced race would bring. Daniel mused that the wholesale Enlightenment that would come to all the peoples of Earth would be a major challenge to the established governmental and commercial establishment, which would likely be swept away in the face of discoveries beyond their wildest imagining. The Enlightenment would annihilate most industries and dynasties, royal or financial. Managing the step change to advanced technology would be led by the Worders who would be the official envoys to Earth but Daniel and the other Pointers of Dawn already on Earth would do a lot of the actual project work once contact was established.
Daniel had more pressing problems right now, strapped down to his enemy’s operating table as he was, but he knew that they would be unlikely to harm him if they believed him to be a native human of Earth like the other captives on board. Daniel remained confident of his ability to disguise his Gayan soul origin. His body was born and raised on Earth and the Spargan Empire recognised only the physical and eschewed the spiritual. Spargar equipment had tremendous capability to search his physical body and brain but was not even designed to analyse his soul. Daniel’s medical training informed him of the physiological action of the drugs they had used on all their captives and he believed he could control his vital functions to match those of the other captives. Luckily there was a wide range of physiological and cerebral activity possible and earthly captives could be anything from comatose to highly disturbed depending on their susceptibility to the drugs, their dosage and their possible awareness of their fantastically appalling circumstances. All Daniel had to do was maintain his own responses within the envelope of those expected from other earthly human captives.
The Jarlankan craft progressed at cruising speed and very soon indeed it slowed to a halt, hovered, then settled to earth on tall legs. They were based close to Cambridge then, within twenty miles or so. A Gayan craft would have ducked and covered beneath the surface materialiv but this particular craft seemed to be settling above ground; an inferior solution from a concealment perspective. They had clearly arrived; the Jarlankan crew removed their helmets and Hazmat suits. These people were indeed much larger and more muscular than normal Zarnha agents of Spargar. They must be some kind of enhanced Zarnha capability, thought Daniel, noting that the other captives were still insensate on their surgical tables. Two of their captors moved from table to table checking their victims and administering further drugs as necessary. Daniel stared widely at the lights directly above as his eyelids were prised open and he noted a male and female, both in fitted brown suits resembling animal hide, both with mid-reddish brown complexions. They administered more anaesthetic, which he was grateful for, well aware that the price of his subterfuge would be an unpleasantly extensive amount of bodily probing.
The four returning Jarlankan craft settled into their respective landing sites alongside Rakul’s command ship. There was an eerie perturbation in the otherwise still air as the cloaked craft manoeuvred, disturbing the peace of the small meadow. The local wildlife was animated by the unnatural boiling of the breezes that bore no relation to the ambience of the countryside around them. A short period of ambulatory agitation of rodents and birdlife was followed by a lot of nervous blinking and hazard calling before the wildlife settled back to normal and all became calm again in their little world.
The commanders of the four craft that had carried out the mission admitted themselves to Rakul’s control deck. Three of them were pleased to report the success of their missions and that their targets were now transferred to the medical examination deck of Rakul’s ship. As they reported their own success they were each well aware of Konstantin’s discomfiture at his mission’s failure.
It came to Konstantin’s turn to report. He remained standing after the other commanders had taken their seats with Rakul around the table. Konstantin was unaccustomed to reporting failure; it took him back to his training days, to exercises he had failed due to inexperience, much to his frustration and anger, but that was so long ago that he had consigned it to experience. He had thought he had left those days long behind and was mortified to revisit them this late in his career.
“Your Excellency, it is beyond my comprehension to report complete failure of my mission.” Konstantin was rigidly upright, staring straight ahead, unable to meet Rakul’s eye and shamed in front of the peers he used to lead. “Both our targets were expecting our arrival and were superior combatants to our forces.” Konstantin paused for a moment, unable to continue, before pulling himself together. “I am unfit to be a leader in your service and offer my person up for your punishment however you see fit.” Konstantin closed his lips to a tight white line, the remainder of his features bulging and red with strained emotion, tense, waiting for Rakul to break the silence.
Rakul surveyed his most experienced commander blandly; the whole room was taut with expectation as to his reaction. A complete range of responses was possible; they had no idea from his attitude what position Rakul would take. The time drew out; Konstantin held his breath until it became difficult to hold it any more. The others were pleased they were not the centre of Rakul’s attention but uneasy that they could be included somehow in the fallout if Rakul indulged his anger.
Eventually Rakul spoke, mildly, gently, “Konstantin, it was part of my plan that some of you would face the Gayan leopards, others would find mere earthly victims. I was fairly certain that the Gayans were at your location but I could not be sure, so I gave you all the same instructions. Now we know for a fact which are our Gayan enemies and which were not. It would have been good if you could have captured the Gayans but I knew that would be unlikely with such a small force, even best-trained Jarlankan fighters. In truth you have done well to engage these enemies and live to tell the tale. Take this message to your troops so they understand there is no shame in their failure. You will get another chance to remedy your failure against them. For now we will put the captives we have on board to the question. We know that some of them are the vassals of these Gayans and they must know something of their plans. I want this knowledge now so press the surgeons to their work swiftly; I want all these people returned to their homes by first light none the wiser. You are all dismissed.”
The captives were arrayed lying naked on their backs on individual surgical tables. A loom of fine silver threads drooped in a cable from the roof above each captive. Halfway down, the cable split manyfold and spread out in a spider web funnel to encapsulate the supine bodies below. The ends of every slender fibre penetrated all the vital organs of their captives with very many concentrated around the victim’s heads. The equipment initially performed a general medical much more advanced than any the victims could have achieved through any amount of earthly medicine. Less beneficially the mass of silvery microtubules then carried on feeding narcotics, extracting specimens and introducing probes that could be accessed after the victims were released. Memories were generated like visions to be read by the analytics and stored in the ship’s medical database. It was possible the innocent earthly abductees would later have some dreamlike recollection of their nightmare, but exactly like a dream it would be dim and fleeting, unlikely to be recalled with any confidence of reality, mostly then lost as the victims awoke to normal life relieved to be released from their nightmares.
Daniel was able to
control his bodily functions from his fully conscious Gayan soul, confident that his natural earthly body was indistinguishable from the processes and reactions of the other earthly captives around him. He felt the chemicals bathe his system with psychotropic ease, preparing him for the inquisition to come. A brief pause then the electrodes probing his skull began to buzz into life. He knew they were scanning his brain in great detail, seeking particular patterns that would account for his origin and mental capabilities. His responses would score high and clear of course, but then so too would the talented earthly academics they had captured in their commando raid that night. The Jarlankan medical orderlies and surgeons bent over all the captives, scurrying with haste to complete their work in the short time available. They wore their protective helmets against infection from earthly contaminants. This accounts for those few abductees who can recall disturbing images of alien greys with bulging heads and large almond eyes that performed abominable surgery on them.
When the analysis was complete two new operations took over. Firstly the victims were led back to the three craft that had brought them. They were strapped down to the transport tables again and the craft took off to return them back to their beds from whence they had been stolen. Secondly the captured data and memories of the abductees were analysed and cross-referenced by the control ship’s master computer and uploaded to the Mind across the Spargan Empire. The Kitteridge individual was by far the most interesting. He was indeed the focus of Gayan ambition and would be their lackey in leading their invasion plan for planet Earth. His physical condition, though, was so poor it was unlikely he would survive long enough to be of much use to them. They would have to act very swiftly or find a replacement and this would delay them considerably.
Meanwhile, Duncan’s soul remained invisible aboard the Jarlankan craft after Daniel and the others had been removed. He watched and remembered everything. This Rakul is an intelligent and callous enemy, he thought. The Gayans’ mission on Earth had suddenly become much more difficult.
ELEVEN
The morning after the abductions was a busy one for Joe and Charlotte. Duncan came to them in the early hours once the Jarlankans had returned their captives to their homes. Duncan had recorded the entire night’s dark deeds in the lofty vaults of his spirit memory and then flown north back to Cambridge at first light. He replayed events as he had witnessed them to both the Gayans in Joe’s student room at Queens’ College. In many ways these were standard Spargan abduction tactics, with mind-scanning, intrusive medical analysis and insertion of probes, not all of which were removed at the end of the procedures for future tracking purposes. Not much different in theory to the way humans on Earth treated marine mammals they wished to follow in the open seas. Somehow the fact that this had been inflicted on their friends and colleagues made it much more personal for Joe and Charlotte. No matter how objective they tried to be about the episode, bubbles of emotionality popped up in their minds, outraging their sensibilities and demanding retribution. Joe became quite tight-lipped about it, especially when the parallels to the kidnap of Kyra and her subsequent imprisonment In Braganza overwhelmed his reason. Charlotte eyed Joe sidelong at these moments hoping that he would control his temper. Joe’s Gayan soul was well known for its leadership and control until such time his reason could be overwhelmed in the passion of their challenges. Allied to his earthly body in its flush of masculine early maturity, Charlotte was afraid that Joe may blow up again under the pressure of the injustices visited on his friends by Spargar agents.
Daniel called in to the meeting on his mobile phone from Professor Kitteridge’s home office so the pair could make their own reports to the rest of the group. Daniel was the one abductee who was unaffected by the alien drugs and had simulated being incapacitated until they returned him to Anya’s bed at the Lodge. He explained that he had gone along with the abduction so that he could discover the nature of the Spargar threat and the scale of their threat to the Gayan plans.
“An interesting decision, Daniel, maybe a bit risky to be taken so suddenly,” Charlotte observed as Daniel spoke over the mobile’s loudspeaker in Joe’s room.
“The idea to play dumb came to me in the spur of the moment; it just seemed so right at the time and there was no easy way to change its course once I started. It wasn’t practical to fight my way out of the Jarlankan craft once I was onboard, plus there were all the others hauled in alongside me to worry about. I was as certain as I could be that we would all be returned safe and well and any other action from me might have made that happy event less likely for the others,” Daniel replied.
“That is reasonable,” Charlotte said. “Once the operation started it was probably best to let it run its course. But if you had been discovered halfway through it could have been a much worse outcome. And are you sure that they failed to identify you as one of us?”
“Yes I am pretty certain that they just treated me like all the other earthly victims, especially when they compare the abductee group including me with the way you two fought them off the same night. They will be pretty clear that you are the ones they are trying to flush out.”
Professor Kitteridge had been drugged for the entire episode so it felt like he had been asleep that whole night though he had been treated specially by his kidnappers.“Your rivals – shall we call them? – they left me some of my memories of the night. They told me that they could have treated me any way they liked but they wanted me to know they understood that I was the primary earthly contact for the Gayan Empire and this was a bad place for me to be.”
Charlotte noted the brittle edge in Professor Kitteridge’s telephone voice that was missing in his normally calm demeanour. “Tell me, Professor, how do you feel physically this morning after the stress of last night?”
“I actually feel remarkably fine, my dear,” the Professor replied. “Better than usual I must say. They also left me with the impression they would look after me rather better than the already fine treatment I am receiving through Daniel and yourselves.”
“That is likely to be an unintended consequence of their medical interference, Professor. At the same time as the probing and scanning it’s almost certain their analytical systems simultaneously treated your condition with medicines beyond anything available here on Earth. That should make you feel much better than normal but I figure that’s an unintended consequence of their attack on you rather than a sign of their goodwill.”
“Let’s just hope that it lasts a while then, Charlotte. I could use this new energy to good effect. Anyway, they planted a message in my consciousness; they want Joe to call their leader and arrange a meeting, if you think that’s a good idea?”
Joe considered a moment, “Just me, Professor? No one else? They know about Charlotte, too.”
“They just said you, Joe. It sounded like a one-to-one kind of meeting, maybe they have identified you as Gayan leader here.”
“The Jarlankans are a male-dominated society,” Charlotte observed. “It would be natural they identify the dominant male amongst us as leader. I am not much annoyed about it, it just shows another part of their weakness.”
“So do we think this meet is a good idea?” Joe inquired.
“I don’t see it is that dangerous. Their kidnap mission failed to collect us all so now they want to be diplomatic,” Charlotte replied. “They know a lot more about us as a result and we still don’t know their plans. Joe may well find out more about them by talking to them. How are we supposed to make contact with this leader of theirs then, Professor?”
“Quite simple in fact, Charlotte, they just implanted a local mobile telephone number in my memory that would reach them.”
Professor Kitteridge gave Joe the mobile telephone number to contact Rakul and they rang off. Charlotte thought she heard the Professor whistling cheerfully just prior to the line closing.
“You going to meet him then Joe?” Charlotte arched an eyebrow towards hi
m.
“I think so,” Joe said slowly. “I will be careful but I confess it’s an interesting proposition. The Jarlankans are close allies of Spargar but also dominated by them. There may be some difference there we can exploit, and I don’t think there is much more they can get from me that they don’t already know.”
“Your choice, but I insist you take the Pantuccis along for protection – and it would be good if you can buy us a few weeks to get our contact messages out from Christopher and Professor Kitteridge and start the formal contact process.”
Joe took the mobile phone and keyed in the number the Professor had supplied. Joe took the call off loudspeaker but Charlotte could still hear a deep smooth voice answer “Yes.”
“Hello, I am Joe. I believe that you asked Professor Kitteridge to get me to call you.”
“That is correct,” came the confident voice on the phone, irritatingly sanguine. “I am Rakul MuneMei of Spargar.” Charlotte’s eyebrows raised higher – confirmation of a Rakul indeed! “You are Joe of Gaya. We are rivals wherever our mighty empires meet across the heavens but on this planet I perceive there may be areas of mutual interest between us. I suggest we meet as that would be civilised and may lead to an accommodation that would be less turbulent for your local friends?”
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