my mouth wide open. I could hear myself breathing heavily. I felt as though my whole world was collapsing in on me. I had no time or space left; no room to manoeuvre. Only the thought of nothingness lying in wait to devour me like a hungry monster that I imagined used to lie under my bed when I was a child.
After what seemed like an eternity, broken only by intermittently throwing objects that came to hand at Kev, cursing him as I did so, I decided to call it a day by getting ready for bed and retiring for the evening. It must have been two or three hours before I fell asleep, with all the multiple thoughts spinning and swirling around my overloaded little brain. I should think it was the worst night I had experienced since I was a teenager.
I well remember being seventeen years old and experiencing what I could only describe as night terrors. I saw a documentary a couple of years ago where the people were describing exactly the same sequence of events I had encountered all those years ago. During the night I felt as though there was an overwhelming evil presence in the bedroom and then a hooded figure dressed like a monk would appear. I could not see his face; probably just as well. Then the hooded figure appeared to be pressing down on my chest, trying to stop me breathing. After an intense battle of wills I woke, sitting up and gasping for breath, thinking to myself, you are not getting me, you sod.
I experienced the same sequence of events seven or eight times over the next few months and each time I won the battle. At the time I never thought much about it. I thought it was just a recurring nightmare and then, just as suddenly as it had started, it stopped, never to return. It just faded into a distant corner of my memory until I saw that documentary in which so many other people had experienced the same night terrors as me. I called those unwanted night visitors the Devil’s hoodies – certainly creatures you would not willingly invite to your home for a sleepover. I could just imagine the Devil saying to his countless minions, “Oh, it is getting a bit cold down here; I want more stokers to keep the heat up and the younger the better. Then, every night like clockwork, he would kick his army of worker gatherers out with, “Bring me back some nice young souls and don’t bother coming back until you do,” rubbing his hands in gleeful anticipation of the harvest of young unsuspecting souls to come.
Six
Morning finally arrived and my mind was made up. I suppose in the end there never was a choice. I would be going with Kronos on his fool’s errand for better or for worse. That would be the path I now followed but how it would end, I did not know. I suppose it was a case of better an end with horror than a horror without end. But first things first; I had to sort out my loose ends before I departed on my journey.
I got myself ready and put my Guardianship belt on. Now I had calmed down, Kev was back in my good books.
“Good morning, Kev,” I said.
“Good morning, John,” he replied, apparently none the worse for the beating I had given him the night before.
I instructed him to take me back to my hotel room in Los Angeles, which I had so abruptly fled the night before. After settling my account, I went to see a lawyer. I instructed him to hire a private detective to track down the waitress who I was responsible for getting fired at the posh restaurant. After which, the money I had left would be given to her to start her own business on the pretext that it was a bequest from a long lost relative. What I would have given to see the look on her face when she received her new found wealth. At least, belatedly, I had tried to do the right thing. On completion of that task it was back to England, with one more job to do before I kept my appointment with Kronos.
Now you might be thinking to yourself what on earth happened to Felix while I was spending the bank’s money gallivanting around the world and living the good life? In fact I had put him in the boarding kennels… well, it was better than sending him back to the naughty cats’ home, or so I thought. After plucking up the courage, I paid him a farewell visit. The staff at the kennels were none too pleased to see me. They said he had been biting the staff and they should be getting danger money for looking after him. They were hoping I had come to take him home. After paying the manager off with a bonus, they agreed to carry on caring for him. That was a weight off my mind. Then I was led to the main boarding area to see him. Now, if I thought he was going to be pleased to see me, I was mistaken. As I approached his individual cage I could see his tail swishing angrily from left to right as if he was ready to settle an old score with me. A member of staff opened the cage for me, after which she hastily retreated. I thought that was an ominous sign. As I tried to stroke him he wreaked his revenge on me by biting my hand, really digging his teeth in, and then just for good measure, growled at me. After extracting my hand I shut and locked the cage door. I had tried my best; what more could I expect after the way I had treated him? I now know what those poor mice and birds felt like that he used to catch, with those needle sharp teeth digging into them mercilessly. Still, he was only doing what came naturally to him. Sometimes he would bring the mice or birds into the house and they were not always dead. On occasions they would escape… what a sight to behold, Felix and I running around the house trying to recapture them. I am glad to say we always won.
Once I was sitting in the living room, curled up nice and comfortable in front of the fire watching the TV when Felix approached me with a dead sparrow in his mouth. He jumped up onto the chair and then, would you believe it, he dropped the recently departed sparrow onto my lap. A friend later said he brought me a present to impress me. I said if he wanted to impress me he should go and get a job. The poor old sparrow. All I could hope for was that Felix made it quick; one brief moment and all its troubles would have been over, subsequently waking up in sparrow Heaven. It made me wonder if animals go to the same Heaven as people, or do they have their own separate Heaven?
When we were both outside in the garden I would tap my chest with my hand. Felix took this as an invitation to jump up with all his strength onto my chest, whereupon he proceeded to manoeuvre his way around my neck, so that I was walking around wearing him like a scarf. Dave once asked me, if I could be any animal which one would I be and why. I said a cat, because it had an easy life. Well, Felix certainly had. Bob said he would be a grizzly bear because they slept all winter and had no gas or electricity bills to pay. And Brian said he would be a crocodile because no one messed with them and got away with it. They were here before the dinosaurs and they will be here long after man has left the scene.
After saying goodbye to Felix and promising to return one day and get him out of his enforced imprisonment, I made my way back home to keep my appointment with Kronos. As I was walking through the city centre I could hear a group of street musicians playing. They were South American and singing and dancing in their native costume. I stood and listened to them and at the end of the performance, one of them came over to me and said, “You look so sad… you look like you have the weight of the world on your shoulders.” How right he was. Anyway, I continued on my way, all the time thinking about what he said. As I drove home I couldn’t help but notice people going about their business; some happy, some sad, but all free to do as they pleased. Kronos was right about not wanting to warn them of the imminent arrival of the Kaytons. In these circumstances it really was a case of ignorance is bliss. I arrived back home with only a few minutes to spare and then sat at the dining room table, arms folded, with a glum face, awaiting the imminent arrival of Kronos.
Exactly on time, as promised, his portal formed and Kronos emerged. Almost immediately he said, “Well, John, what is it to be? Are you going to come to Sontral with me? If you do, you will certainly see the stars.”
“More likely an early grave,” I replied, “but yes, I am going to go with you to Sontral and do what has to be done, to the best of my ability.” Even though my mother used to warn me never to volunteer for anything, this time I had to disagree with her.
“Good,” Kronos said in a rather harsh tone. “At least for once in your life you are going to do the right thin
g. Now, there is one thing I cannot stress the importance of enough. In no circumstances do you mention Earth or anything about Earth. If the Kaytons found out about your home planet there would be dire consequences. Heed this warning well, John.” It seemed he was speaking from bitter experience.
“Okay,” I replied, hesitantly, “I get the message, but there is one question I would like to ask you before we depart.”
“Go on, I’m listening.”
“Who came up with this crazy idea in the first place, to attack what to all intents and purposes sounds like one of the most heavily defended installations in the galaxy?”
“You have Commander Vadoran, the head of S.I.S. the Solaran Intelligence Service, to thank for that. He came up with the original idea. He brought all the elements of the plan together, you being the last piece of the jigsaw to fall into place. All secret weapons programmes come under his control as well as all agents supporting the resistance movements on occupied planets. In addition, he runs the internal security services of the Solaran Commonwealth. Some would say he runs a state within a state, answerable directly and only to