Free Mission by Patrick Tilley Page A

so we thought. There was a period of relative calm during which we began the work of reconstruction, then the rebels broke out of the Netherworld through the Dark Gates and swept through the universe like a forest fire. The Second War of Secession has been raging for about two hundred million years.’
    â€˜How’s it going?’ I said.
    He grimaced. ‘We’re not doing too well at the moment. But don’t worry. It will all work out.’
    I wondered if he knew that, at that moment, I was not worried in the slightest degree who the eventual winner might be. I was busy telling myself there was no need to pick sides.
    His voice broke into my thoughts. ‘One of our problems is that the power grid – the network of channels linking the Empire with the galaxy primes which serve as both sailing and signal lanes – was totally shattered in the first assault. We’ve been trying to reconnect the system ever since so that the Power of The Presence can once again flow through the cosmos. Until that day, it has to come in discrete packages – through people like me.’ He smiled. ‘All this may not seem important to you but to the Celestials in the World Below, The Power of Presence is the life-blood of the universe. It’s like the human body. Stop the circulation to any of the limbs and they begin to waste away.’
    â€˜Is that what happened to the twelve Aeons you had working here?’ I asked.
    â€˜In a way, yes,’ he said. ‘Except of course in our case the condition can never be fatal. Just a lingering agony.’
    It had never occurred to me that immortality might have its drawbacks too. ‘Tell me about the Aeons who were stationed here.’
    â€˜I will. But first, I’m going to have to throw a couple more names at you. Don’t worry if you can’t remember all this. It’s a lot to take in first time around.’ He paused to give my brain time to catch up. ‘The word Aeon describes their degree of power in The World Above. All Celestials trapped in the World Below by the Second War of Secession are know generically as the Ain-folk. And the ancient name for Earth was Eardh-Ain. The last signal we received from Earth confirmed that the rebels had taken the galaxy and were poised for a final attack on the prime. This planet. The colony had turned down a last chance to surrender and were preparing to make a last stand. And that was it. End of message.’
    â€˜And so, to continue the medical analogy, the colony begins to waste away until, a few zillion years later, you drop out of the clouds like the Flying Doctor,’ I said, testing the limits of his good humour.
    He shrugged. ‘That’s one way of putting it.’
    â€˜And when Michael and Gabriel had been here before, under different pen-names, they were acting as paramedics. Checking the patient’s pulse.’
    â€˜Yes,’ he said. ‘But if I can use another, more aggressive analogy, they were like OSS agents sent in to organise the Resistance. Earth wasn’t totally cut off from our influence. We managed to make the occasional power input; slip a few of our people in under the wire. But it was mainly an undercover presence. We had human beings fronting for us. Noah – who was more than a floating zoo-keeper, Moses, Elijah, Zoroaster, Gautama Buddha. All making an input. Keeping up the pressure.’
    â€˜Now that you’ve mentioned Moses,’ I said. ‘Were the Jews really the chosen people?’
    â€˜You were once,’ he replied. ‘You know the place called Atlantis?’
    I nodded.
    â€˜Well, the myths about that particular long-lost continent have their genesis in the history of our Earth colony and its destruction by the rebels. Fortunately, a small nucleus of survivors managed to escape the final holocaust. The progenitors of what you now call the human race. And among them were the distant ancestors of the twelve