Free Mission by Patrick Tilley Page B

tribes of Israel.’
    â€˜So, in fact, what you’re saying is that our forefathers, in whatever guise, came over on the Celestial
Mayflower
.’
    â€˜In a sense, yes. But by the time I got there, the situation had changed quite radically.’ He smiled. ‘To put it in modern terms – you no longer had an exclusive.’
    â€˜Nevertheless,’ I insisted, ‘you still turned up at Bethlehem.’
    He shrugged. ‘I had to start somewhere.’
    â€˜Oh, come on,’ I said. ‘We were expecting you.’
    He smiled and relented. ‘All right. It validated the prophecies and, in terms of world history, it was where the action happened to be. The point where Greek, Roman, Jewish, Egyptian and Persian culture overlapped. It was the right time and the right place for the message to create the maximum impact.’
    â€˜So doesn’t that make us the chosen people?’ I might have renounced all forms of religious faith but I still nourished the notion that I and my Zionist brothers might have an edge on the rest of humanity.
    â€˜What I meant was that you were no longer the chosen people in the strict Biblical sense. I hadn’t come just to save the Jews,’ he said.
    â€˜But to redeem Mankind,’ I concluded confidently.
    â€˜It depends on how you define Mankind,’ he replied. He clasped his hands together and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. ‘Thetruth is, Leo, when I first got here you people were the least of my concerns. Jews, Gentiles – in my book, you were all expendable. My mission was to rescue
our
people. The twelve Ain-folk who were inside you.’
    â€˜Inside us?’ I said. I don’t know why, but the news came as quite a shock. ‘Are you trying to tell me that the human race has been occupied by your people?
    â€˜Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s where they’ve been hiding ever since Earth and the rest of this galaxy fell into enemy hands. Remember what I said about Michael and Gabriel resembling agents of the OSS? The situation here is analogous to your own recent past. The Second World War. The universe is like occupied Europe. The Ain-folk are the underground resistance movement that we are helping to stay alive until the day of liberation. And it’s the rebels, your new overlords, who are the Nazis, stamping their
Sturm und Drang
philosophy on the cosmos.’ He sat back. ‘You don’t look too happy.’
    I shrugged. ‘I may get used to it but right now, I’m not too sure I like the idea of being taken over.’
    He leaned forward again and looked at me intently. ‘Leo, you haven’t been taken over. The Ain-folk
are
the human race. Your body is no more than a mobile life-support system. A vehicle in which they could shelter until the Empire was able to rescue them. Without them, you’d be just another race of termites. It is the Ain-folk who provide your guidance system: the controlling intelligence of their earthly hosts. Note the plural. From the very beginning, they used groups of hosts. A few hundred at first, then several hundred, then several thousand. Just as the movements of a shoal of fish appear to be directed by a group mind, so the host-bodies possessed by each of the Ain-folk formed a cohesive unit. They provided him with a refuge from the attacks of the Secessionist forces – the “evil spirits” of antiquity – and in return he used his powers and knowledge of the world to ensure their continuing survival.’
    I nodded to show that I had understood, even though I was still not too sure how I felt about my newly-discovered role as a minuscule, misplaced cog from a dismembered Celestial machine that lay awaiting the arrival of that Big Mechanic in the Sky. ‘Am I right in thinking that this is where all those stories about guiding spirits, folk-gods and the soul of a nation come from?’
    â€˜Yes,’ he said. ‘If you can