02 Quetzals Flock

QUETZAL'S FLOCK
their own devices. No doubt, they had assumed his session with Ajanta would be
much more prolonged. He rolled up in his Kous and pretended to sleep.
He was over-tired, emotionally drained. He couldn't escape his thoughts. All
he could hear was Obeid's bitter sneers or Ajanta's dismissal. Eventually, he drifted
into sleep. The old familiar scene emerged and this time, the details were sharp. No
longer was the surrounding landscape something alien and obscured. Now, Kane
knew it. He saw the great arch of natural rock, through which he had arrived on Jubal.
In this dream, unlike the others, he was alone. Even the Companions of the Image
were absent.
The great expanse of purple beach stretched empty on each side of the arch, as
far as the eye could see. The ocean rolled, black and oily, lapping on to the sand. Far
above, spaced out in mutual avoidance, the Sentinels wheeled high in the thermal
upthrust created by the junction of super heated land and the cooler ocean.
The power of Quetzal surged within him and he was no longer Kane Ashford,
who was relegated to the subconscious, like a puling infant. He waited for what he
was sure was to come. The great red star was bloated and distorted, touching the
horizon of the black sea. It appeared to float on the water and out to one side a great,
bright belch of stellar gas, haemorrhaged into a fantastic solar flare. The time frame
was being accelerated, he could actually see the pulsing growth of the spume of gas
growing, reaching out for the hidden attraction of the advancing Dwarf.
Above him, the Flock was coalescing, drawing nearer to each other, so that the
sky was darkened by their passage. They were streaming across the face of the land
and the ocean, it was as if the Migration had started - but he knew it was a vision of
things yet to happen.
From within the arch, there grew an intense brilliance, so that he thought he
might be wrong and that the Dwarf had actually come. It was a light so bright that his
eyes were unable to bear it. The ground shook beneath his feet. He wasn't frightened,
he waited. A voice sighed in the wind.
"Why is our brother so tardy in fulfilling his purpose?"
Another answered.
"He draws close to the completion of the second phase."
"Will he succeed?"
"He will succeed."
"The human form hinders him."
"It will obey, it is unable to resist. We are those who must be obeyed. If it
rebels, it will be destroyed."
"It has a purpose in the plan, it will be subjected to the will of Quetzal."
Quetzal listened in silence, this was not the time for him to join the
conversation of his peers. The light within the arch faded and with it, the scene on the
shore of the black ocean. He woke without fear and alert. Zayez, Harma and Hella had
come close to him, reassuring and warning him that they were watching the pace of
events. One had been absent - they whom they called Sharta on this planet.
They had reminded him that they were all powerful and didn't deal in kindness
and compassion. The message to the submerged Kane Ashford had been clear enough
- obey or be destroyed. Eridos had to be sought out and made to comply with their
plan. It didn't matter that the human form of Kane Ashford already hated him as a
result of events which had not yet happened, but with whose consequences he was
living. Eridos was his sworn enemy. Quetzal stared up into the diffused light of the
tent roof. Sharta had not been present in his meeting with the Masters of Psi. Perhaps,
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