Chapter 15: The Secret Adventures of Pious Aeneas

(Temperance, Peh)

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"Gravity is the root of lightness. Stillness, the root of movement. Therefore a wise prince, marching the whole day, does not go far from his baggage wagons . . . . How should the lord of a myriad chariots carry himself lightly before the kingdom? If he do act lightly, he has lost his root (of gravity); if he proceed to active movement, he will lose his throne."

 

"He with the highest virtue does not assert his virtue, therefore he has virtue. . . . So when we lose the Tao, we assert virtue; when we lose virtue, we assert benevolence; when we lose benevolence, we assert our rights; and when we lose our rights, we assert protocols. Protocols mean thinness of trust, and the beginnings of disorder."

 

"He who knows, does not speak; he who speaks, does not know. Close your mouth, shut your door, resolve your factions, harmonize your light, and identify with your stuff. This is called the magical identity. . . ."

 

"The more acts of crafty dexterity that men possess, the more do strange contrivances appear; the more display there is of legislation, the more thieves and robbers there are."

 

"When the people do not fear what they ought to fear, that which is their great dread will come on them."

 

"If the people do not fear death, to what purpose is it to frighten them with death?"

". . . The sons of the Elohim saw the daughters of Adam (Earth-Man) that they seemed good, and they took them wives, whomsoever they chose. And YHVH said: 'My spirit shall not abide in Earth-Man forever, for that he is flesh (lit., 'in the umbilicus'); therefore shall his days be a hundred and twenty years.' The Nephilim were in the earth in those days, and also after that, that the sons of the Elohim came in unto the daughters of Adam and they bore children to them; those same mighty ones from Outer Space (or Eternity), the men of [the?] Shem."

 

"And I say unto you that honesty is a simple condition in which thy beliefs match thine experiences in all aspects without separation or distinction. And this is the perfection of Truth:

"WHATSOEVER THOU SHALT HONESTLY BELIEVE,

SO INDEED SHALL IT HAPPEN UNTO THEE.

"And if thou honestly believest not this truth which I have just revealed to thee, then indeed shalt thou experience that it is untrue, which experience shall serve thee as perfect evidence that, after all, this revelation is true. For thou hast honestly believed it to be false, and lo, as if by magic, it also appeareth to thee in thy experience as false.

"And, if thou wouldst know clearly thy true beliefs, be wakeful and taste fully those things which happen to thee, just as they unfold, without placing any judgments upon them.

"And I would exhort you to earnestly contemplate these sayings in thy heart. And test them thoroughly in whatever fashion thou deemest proper, sincerely opening thyself to guidance and understanding, that thou mayest truly appreciate the fullness of this revelation and all that it portends for thee notwithstanding its inherent simplicity."

 

"Whoa there," said Noah. "Not so fast. What do you say we get some rest first, and do this little expedition in the morning?"

"I'm for that," I agreed. "I'm sure the world can wait another day to know whatever lurks behind the mummy door."

The warmth of the hot spring mineral water and the humid air had relaxed me to the point where I was ready to admit it had been a long, full day. This seemed to trigger a general consensus, so we all dried and wrapped ourselves with the towels, picked up our clothes, and returned to the cottage.

Rivah and I said goodnight to Noah and Ky and went right off to bed. I was surprised. We snuggled a bit, but quickly found ourselves drifting off into a deep, luxurious sleep. Around 5:30 in the morning I found myself aroused and began moving my stiff member into her moistening nest. Rivah felt my probing and began to stretch lazily like a cat. Just as I was starting to penetrate, there was a knock on the door, and I heard Noah's voice telling us to get ready for an early start.

With a grumble I kissed Rivah lightly on each of her firm nipples, nibbled at her ear, and rolled out of bed to find my clothes. By the time we reached the kitchen, Ky already was setting out steaming mugs of coffee on the table. We brought out our supply of granola and dried fruit. There was milk in the fridge, so we helped ourselves and had a pretty good breakfast.

Noah suggested that we travel light, leaving all but a few changes of clothes and travel essentials in the trunk of his car. We ended up just using the two backpacks. Ready to leave, we checked the lights, locked the front door and the lift door, and went back into the tub room. As we approached the lid, I noticed something I had missed the night before: over the mummy's head was a winged disk. Rivah told us it was called a Heti.

Noah went up to the eye glyph and inserted the key. The door clacked softly and swung open revealing a bare corridor. We walked in through the doorway, and Noah pulled it shut behind us.

"Are you sure we can get back out?" I said nervously.

"The same key opens the door from the inside," Noah replied.

"Hey, look," said Rivah. "On the inside of the door, that's Isis! She's holding an ankh in her right hand and giving what almost looks like a military salute with her left."

Up at the top there was another solar disk with cobras instead of wings - the uraeus, explained Rivah - and just below it was a strange platform under both sides of which squatted two strange beaked figures, each holding a feather and something else which I did not recognize. On top of the platform was a bulbous object on three legs. Three columns of glyphs extended down the center of the door to the figure of Isis, which was at the bottom.

"What is that thing?" I said, pointing to the bulbous tripod.

Rivah shrugged, and Noah laughed, and Ky said nothing.

The walls of the corridor were very different from the tub room. They were smooth, like glass. As in the tub room, the lighting activated when motion sensors picked up our presence in the corridor. There was a gentle airflow indicating a functional ventilation system. Noah led the way down the corridor, explaining that the tunnels we would see were the product of the new advanced boring technology that was not yet known to the public, but was already being used extensively by the military. Mining operations had always looked for better borers. The Chunnel had been a great step forward in the public's eye. But during the Cold War there was need to build secure underground bunkers, bases, and whole subterranean cities for the government officials in case of a nuclear holocaust. This of course is not to speak of the massive non-classified Colorado River diversion tunnels which thoroughly tamed our Rocky Mountain Nile into a dribble that often never even reaches Mexico.

Noah continued that the Grays had survived holocaust experiences on their home planet, and were totally adapted to subterranean existence. They helped the secret government develop borers that made tunnel building, especially in mountainous areas, easier, faster, and more cost effective than our so-called modern highway construction. The tools bored through the rock, fusing it into a waterproof, glasslike tube, at a rate of about ten feet per hour. There was no grading, no explosives, no steel mesh, no mud, no concrete or macadam, and no disruption of the surface terrain or environment.

Historically the U.S. had evolved from river ways to railways to roadways and now to tunnel ways. The airways presented an alternative that was useful, but limited in the bulk one could ship. They were also highly exposed from a military viewpoint, as was evident from the rash of airline sabotage and hijackings that had held the entire air travel industry hostage and cost countless millions, even billions of dollars.

Therefore the military decided to take much of its operations underground. There they were safe from spy satellites, snooping journalists, vagaries of weather, and other such nuisances. Although the tunnel walls looked like glass, they were not brittle, and were more like a plastic that is extremely hard, but resilient under stresses, such as earthquake tremors. They achieved this effect by a special chemical additive that served also as a lubricant for the borer.

At this point in Noah's dissertation we arrived at a no-nonsense hi-tech door that was controlled by a retinal scanner and a code. Noah stepped up and peered into the scanner. Then he punched in a code on the keypad. A latch clicked, and the door swung open. We crossed the threshold into a vestibule. On the left side was a bench, and a computer terminal was mounted in the wall with a swivel chair attached below. On the right side a track extended down the tunnel. The track terminated at the vestibule, and, sitting on the track, was a shuttle pod about the size of a small sedan. Noah gestured toward the pod and opened its hatch door. We stowed our bags on the floor and strapped ourselves in. Noah took the driver's seat. He pulled the door closed and pressed a button. A dashboard terminal with what looked like a New York subway map lit up. The vehicle hummed and abruptly buoyed up about an inch or two. This was a maglev. Noah checked the map and punched in the codes for our destination.

"There are some things you have to see and understand in order to get a more complete picture for your work on the IT project," explained Noah. "This of course will still be on a need-to-know basis, and I can not tell you the exact location of our destination. But it is between Fort Carson and Los Alamos, in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. In any case it is primarily underground, so it doesn't really matter."

The pod leaped to life and began moving at about 40 miles per hour down the tube. It was an eerie feeling. Other than a humming sound there was no engine noise. The pod bobbed slightly now and then, but otherwise the ride was perfectly smooth. Except for the walls whizzing by and the slight tugs when we negotiated gentle curves or changed speeds, we might as well have been sitting motionless. Noah told us about the MagLev system that was now honeycombing the mountains in the Four Corners area and extending out as far as the bases in California and the Midwest, with one tube that even went all the way to Washington. Once the technology was declassified, you would be able to travel from coast to coast via nearly silent high speed MagLev trains in less than six hours, rivaling anything the airlines could offer. Also the space shuttle program as we know it would become obsolete when NASA would soon begin launching unmanned payload vehicles from huge rail gun systems in the mountains or high altitude stationary sky platforms.

"But what happens if someone's coming the other way?" asked Rivah, noticing that we were in a single-track tube.

"It works just like the railways. Branch tubes like this have periodic sidetracks. Each train has sensors to keep it on track. A central computer coordinates the speeds and itineraries. On main trunk lines double tracks and sidelines allow passing.

"By the way, last night there was another terrorist incident. It's quite outrageous. An Islamic fundamentalist group backed by Libya, Iran, and Syria hijacked a U.S. official government airplane during a stopover in France. The U.S. Secretary of State was travelling on this plane to Geneva to negotiate between the Serbs and Muslims. The terrorists replaced the crew and took the Secretary hostage and flew the plane to a secret base near El Quseir over the border from Lebanon in Syria."

"Oh, great. But how did you know?" I asked in disgust and then bewilderment.

"I stay up to date," said Noah matter-of-factly, pulling a little communication device from his pocket.

"Oh. You know, I just don't understand why they behave like this. What's the point of taking hostages?" I muttered.

"It's all part of an ancient pattern," broke in Rivah. "Remember when the Ayatollah's people held our embassy hostage in Tehran? And then when Reagan attacked Libya because he said they were making nerve gas? That's all part of a pattern that goes back to ancient Troy. Lebanon in ancient times was the land of the Phoenicians. They were a Semitic civilization that decided not to compete for the lands of the Middle East. Instead they turned to the sea and explored the Mediterranean. They were the first to open it up to maritime trade. They set up ports all around the Mediterranean, particularly including Sicily and Tripoli, which straddle the Mediterranean in the middle, controlling all the East-West shipping routes. The empire of Carthage was a Phoenician colony founded by Dido, a princess of Tyre and sister of Pygmalion. When Pygmalion killed her husband, Sichaeus, she tired of court intrigue and set out with some followers to start a colony. She founded Carthage near modern Tunis by bargaining land for a city port from the Berbers. She asked for what she could enclose with a single bull's hide. They thought she was joking, and then she cut the hide into super thin strips and got herself a citadel she called Byrsa, place of the bull. The Trojans were also part of the Phoenician maritime empire. After losing the Trojan War to the Greeks, Aeneas set off with a band of friends and family to find a new life. After a brief love affair with Dido, he went on to Sicily, and finally ended up in Italy, where he carved out a site for Rome from the Etruscan lands. So the Romans believed they were Phoenicians descended from a band of wandering Trojans.

If you want to know why the Sicilians evolved into the Cosa Nostra, the Libyans into Khaddafi's fanatics, and the Lebanese into the likes of the Islamic Jihad, look at what happened. The Phoenicians developed the alphabet as a commercial tool for their maritime empire. When King Solomon wanted to build his glorious temple, he turned to Hiram, king of Tyre, to supply the cedar, gold, and other precious items, as well as the craftsmen to build it.

The abduction of Helen was really a hostage seizure. The Trojans took her as a reprisal raid for the Greeks cutting into their maritime commercial empire. That precipitated the twenty-year Trojan War. The Greeks took Troy by ruse and put it to the torch, utterly destroying it. The Phoenicians disliked the Greeks after that. From their viewpoint the Greeks were bandits cutting into their territory. Later the Romans became a great power. Although they were originally Phoenicians, they turned to Greek culture for their model and became rivals of Carthage for control of the Mediterranean. After a long series of Punic Wars, during which the Carthaginian general, Hannibal, crossed the Alps from the Northwest with elephants and nearly captured Rome, the Romans took Carthage by seige and torched it. They killed everyone, tore down the buildings, and sowed salt into the soil to prevent agriculture. The Carthaginians never recovered their former glory.

"After Rome decayed, Islam swept into North Africa, followed later by the Ottoman Turkish Empire. Under their loose rule, the autonomous ports along North Africa became the Barbary Coast and reasserted a dominating influence on commerce in the Mediterranean and the trade routes to sub-Saharan Africa. Mostly they levied duties on ships passing through between Tunis and Sicily. If you didn't pay, your ship was confiscated, along with its cargo, and the crew and passengers were taken prisoner. The commoners were sold off as slaves, and the wealthy nobles and officers were held hostage for ransom. Ships were auctioned off or redeemed by their owners at a price.

"The problem for the Barbary powers was that they no longer provided any service; they just collected customs duties or plundered. Treat me, or I trick you. Everyone paid exorbitantly. In the first years of the American Republic over ten percent of the gross national product was spent in the form of tribute to the Barbary Coast.

Then Yussuf, the Pasha of Tripoli, raised the rate. Jefferson was so upset that in 1803 he sent Captain William Bainbridge with the frigate 'Philadelphia' and a crew of marines to Tripoli to do something about it. The old Phoenicians liked to build ports in sets of three, going all the way back to the Troiad. That's where the name Tripoli comes from."

"Oh, and that's why the marines sing: 'From the halls of Montezuma, to the shores of Tripoli, we fight our countries battles on the land and shore and sea,'" I interrupted, finally understanding in a flash another piece of that song I had learned back in junior high school.

Rivah ignored my babble and continued with her story. "Well, actually, what happened was that the good captain managed to run his ship aground on a sand bar in the bay. The Pasha of Tripoli then captured the captain and all his crew and held them hostage. Jefferson was furious. He hired an American consul in Tunis named William Eaton, who at the time was busy selling impounded Danish ships back to their owners. Eaton spoke Arabic and agreed to try to free the hostages for a price. With a bag of money from Jefferson he went to Alexandria and hired about five hundred Arab mercenaries and their camels. He also found the Pasha's brother, Ahmed, and convinced him to come along and be the first in a glorious line of American puppet rulers if they succeeded in unseating Yussuf. The ragtag team of commandos set out for Libya to liberate Bainbridge. Eaton, never dared to sleep on the road with his mutinous crew and sat in his tent all night with his back to the tent pole, knife and gun in hand. The Pasha's brother kept changing his mind every few hours, too. Finally Eaton got them to Libya, and he captured a Tripolitan village. He held the entire village hostage until they negotiated a ransom in the form of exchange of hostages. The captain went home, but vowed to return. A few years later, around 1815 I think, he came back with a bigger ship and blasted his way into Tripoli. The Pasha capitulated and asked for the terms. Bainbridge asked for and got something like a 20% reduction of the tariffs.

"That was the beginning of the end for the Barbary pirates. Pretty soon all the European nations demanded the same deal as the U.S. Then they paid less and less while they built stronger and stronger navies. Eventually no one paid.

"But the point is that the Libyans, descendants of the Carthaginian Punic/Phoenicians, feel that the U.S. took on the mantle of their nemesis Rome. So they don't like Americans at all. They also don't like the Italians and Germans and English, who used their country as a battleground during World War II. Similarly the Algerians resent the colonial French. Terrorism, airplane hijacking, and hostage taking is the game they play these days. It all stems from the tradition of reprisals for perceived disrespect, plus the old nomadic raiding system, which was everyday life for them."

"That's quite a story, and it gives a very different historical perspective on the motives of these terrorists," I said. "Hey look, we are passing more and more branch tunnels. We must be getting close."

Branch tunnels would switch off to the right or left. We could see them on the screen map that showed the pod as a bright green blinking blip moving through a labyrinth maze. Noah explained that all stations or terminals were accessible by spurs. Traffic in the other direction used a separate tunnel at a different depth to minimize turbulence from vehicles passing in opposite directions at high speed or on crossing paths.

A minute later we curved into a branch and began to decelerate until we arrived at a large terminal with many pod stalls and long sidings for trains. The vestibule was broad with many walkways, resembling the Times Square subway interchange. People walked about their business, some in uniforms and others in jeans like us. Dressed as we were, we did not feel out of place.

Noah led us down a corridor into a vestibule with another secure door, complete with retinal scans, finger imprints and key codes. Over the door was a sign: RESTRICTED. Also, I noticed armed guards keeping a watchful eye on us. When the door finally opened for us, we entered an area where there was research and development going on. We saw technicians wearing clean room gowns and masks. We saw signs posted for radioactive and other hazardous materials. Noah quietly told us that we were going to visit areas of genetic engineering and bionic research. But first he led us into a briefing room that resembled a small dimly lit amphitheater. Here we would meet our liaison and some of the staff members.

A moment later a group of four pale-skinned figures came in through a door from an interior office. They were short and thin and wore robe-like gowns with high collars made of a soft gauzy material. Their heads were large, and totally bald! Their noses were small and very flat. Their jaws were also small and tapered, with tiny, thin-lipped mouths. And their eyes were extraordinarily large, lacking in irises, and almond shaped. These humanoid beings were definitely not normal humans. They had to be aliens from another planet.

It turns out that my assumption was not exactly true. The beings did not speak vocally. They simply looked us in the eyes and information flowed into our awareness. The 'spokesperson,' whom I took to be the one who stood in the center and slightly in front of the others introduced himself as Peho, Director of Research and Development on our Planet. But they functioned almost as a group entity.

"Wait," I thought to myself. "These must be Grays. But according to the NOTHING book they were forced to evacuate the planet because they contracted an incurable disease in our environment."

A flow of thoughts entered my mind. "It is true that many of us have left your planet, but not exactly as Mr. Drunvalo has reported. We are the Nether Lords of your planet. He says that we are a part of the so-called Lucifer rebellion. That is not meaningful to us. We are not rebellious against anyone or anything. We simply enjoy observing and studying. Sometimes we do things that inspire what you call fear or revulsion. To us these are just experiments to explore, to gain knowledge. We come from your future and from your past. Please be seated comfortably and I will brief you."

Peho motioned to a round meeting table with chairs, and we distributed ourselves, four of them and four of us, so that each of us faced one of them for maximum eye contact.

Peho continued, and this is what I thought I understood. "All four of us are aligned as one, and so you each receive the same flow of information, attuned to your individuality, of course. (There was a pause in the flow.) On our home planet in Zeta Reticulum we eventually caused the surface environment to become hostile to our continued physical existence, so we moved underground and genetically altered our physiology to suit those circumstances. We are your possible future, because you also may render your surface environment uninhabitable. On the other hand, we are your past, since we came to your planet thousands of years ago, as you will understand.

"We are only a few small research colonies on your planet, and live underground most of the time, which is why you do not see us. It is not true, as some have alleged, that we absorb food through our skin. We have no teeth, but we sip with our mouths small amounts of concentrated nutrient in liquid form. We prefer a vegetable liquid, but some of us occasionally suck blood from animals, and we also take small amounts of water. We do not sweat as humans, and our digestive system is very refined so that there is little waste. We have no eyelids, only a transparent protective membrane that covers the eye. We genetically engineered that when we went underground long ago. This vision system is ideal for our primarily underground existence, and also suits us when we travel in outer space, as does our small body size and light weight. Therefore we generally avoid bright light and stay underground during your planet's daytime. For that reason we are seldom encountered, and our colony on your planet has peacefully coexisted with you for millennia, quietly observing your evolution and researching your life forms.

"Until recently we pretty much left you to your own devices, except for occasional times when we have rendered assistance. Now, however, your planet has reached a critical juncture in its development. You have overpopulated the land and strained its resources. On the other hand you are maturing technologically and spiritually. You now have the choice to destroy everything you have built and blight the planet, or to step into an enlightened planetary civilization that participates fully in the life of the galaxy. We are your elder brothers, so to think, and now have taken a more active role in sharing our technical skills, while also serving as a living lesson in the issues of survival. If you continue to erode your environment, you will require our skills to adapt rapidly through genetic engineering to our lifestyle. Many of us are content to remain in this form and would welcome you. Our mental powers are very developed, and our life span is long for embodied life forms. On the other hand, we have found that by our choice we also imposed many limitations on ourselves.

"We are the Nephilim mentioned in your Bible, so-called because of our small mouths, anuses, and genitals. Indeed all our body orifices, except for our eyes, are very small."

In my mind I saw the Hebrew letters NPL: small-mouth-penis.

Rivah exclaimed aloud suddenly, "Oh yes, the word NaPhaL in Hebrew means to 'fall down.' A NaPheL is a stillborn or premature birth. Does this mean that, for all your skills in genetic engineering, you have problems with reproduction and your race has degenerated?"

"Yes," came the flow of thought from Peho. "In fact that is the source of our problem. We became fascinated with science and technology. We developed our brains and allowed our physical forms to degenerate until gestation in the female became too dangerous and uncomfortable for natural childbirth. The large-headed fetus could not survive the trip through the birth canal of the narrow-waist female. We had been genetically engineering the physical development of our race in the laboratory for some time, and, as a logical consequence, we eventually switched over entirely to reproduction by cloning. Our relationships were defined by mental alignment alone, and sexual intimacy as you experience it became a thing of our genetic past. We still have a genital system, but it has atrophied to the point of becoming dysfunctional, like your appendix and pineal. On the other hand, our pineal is large and highly developed. Over time our home planet lost all its bio-diversity, and we are the sole remaining higher life form there. We sent out research teams to various parts of the galaxy. We came to earth, where you, our distant young cousins, live a primitive, but as yet highly bio-diverse lifestyle. For some time we have been selectively studying the DNA structures on earth and replenishing our library with new organic life forms.

"Recently some of us decided to rediscover the old way of life that included the lower energies of solid food and sexual intimacy, and even involving ourselves in the emotions of social struggle. The only path to that for us has been to regenerate the sexual and digestive organs and program new lifestyles. We found that we had forgotten much, so the fastest path to achieve that has been to interact with your species and create hybrids, combining our mental abilities with your sensual erotic nature and all its fantasies and emotions. We asked for and received permission from the Federation to do this. Those of us who took this path selected mates who had agreed to participate, although the lower ego self of the specimens often decided as a game to pretend that it was shocked and abused by the experience it had decided to create for itself.

One record of a period of such experimentation is found in your Bible. During that time we engineered a successful re-colonization of the surface of Zeta. Recently we have been preparing another group of hybrids for colonizing a planet with a low-level bio-system in the Bootes region. We have tried many directions, including experiments with other animal and plant life forms on your planet. We worked with other primates and dolphins. But we have finally concluded with a successful prototype of a new hybrid race interbred with humans that appears suitable for the new colony's environment. This is the real reason many of us have recently left to escort the new crop of hybrids to their new planet to initiate a large-scale terraforming project to prepare that planet for advanced civilization. Thus far it is a vast and largely successful experiment for us, and what you call an adventure for those of you who have elected to participate.

"However, we note with alarm the rising rate of C-section deliveries among your people in the more technically advanced societies. This is a symptom that your race may be headed for the same existence we created for ourselves. If that is your choice, then so be it. But our advice is that we have survived by denying a significant part of our potential life experience. This is a kind of austerity. We also have denied that to many other species on our planet that are now extinct because of our actions. That loss of diversity we now realize is ours more than theirs. That is why we have shifted our viewpoint to correct that condition and have diversified our own gene pool and regenerated the surface of our home planet as well as begun the terraforming of others - even though we of the Old Race continue to follow our quiet subterranean ways. We offer to you the benefit of our own life-path as a mirror for you to reflect.

"This concludes our briefing. You will be given an opportunity to tour some of our facilities to see examples of our researches and meet some of the new hybrids. You will also be given facilities to prepare yourself for what lies ahead. Do you have questions?"

We sat in silence for a long moment, looking into those large silent eyes. Then I looked at Rivah, Noah, and Ky. "And what lies ahead for us?" I wondered.

The answer flowed immediately into my mind. "There are others here that are involved with your planet. Most are either observers or helpful guides operating from off planet or from dimensional overtones above this one. They are here to assist us all, but generally will not interfere with our respective paths of development. They wait to welcome you into the Galactic Community when you are ready to participate. However, there is also a faction from the Orion Empire that has penetrated this Solar System for some time. It was active on Mars, and it continues to involve itself with the affairs of Earth. There are agents and counteragents. These beings are engaged in power struggles and often challenge or attempt to subvert the Galactic Federation. They come from further out in the Galaxy where there is a great deal less order. Some came here to escape the Empire, and others came to capture those who escaped, and still others came to extend the dominion of the Empire more thoroughly over this planet. Some appear to enjoy violence and destruction, and the subjection of others as a way of life. These affairs are foreign to us, since we long ago forsook power struggles after they wreaked such havoc on our old homeland. However, the Sol planetary system is currently in a boundary area that is under dispute between the Federation and the Empire. It has not had much attention until recently because it is a relatively backwater neighborhood. Nevertheless, things here are coming to a head and will sort out very rapidly now. Both sides wish to incorporate it into their domains. All out war is a possibility, but we do not consider it likely. Man's consciousness is rapidly rising. However, you will have do deal with the minions of the Empire who are still deeply entrenched on the planet."

"What do you know about Sabutai Galdan?" I asked. "Is he connected to the Empire?"

"To our knowledge Mr. Sabutai is the chief minion of the Empire on this planet. His base is opposite ours just west of Tash Kurghan in the tip of the Afghan corridor. We are under Crestone Peak. We intentionally positioned ourselves like this. Planetary ley lines facilitate our observations and the movements of our sub-orbital craft. So we can easily observe Mr. Sabutai's manipulation of the Asian warlords from here, although his base is mostly underground like ours, with highly dispersed access routes, and therefore not subject to reconnaissance from your satellites. He now wields great power in Tibet, much of Western China, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and much of northern India. He is a powerful unseen influence in Russia, Iran, Iraq, and the extremist Middle Eastern states. He also quietly deals with the South East Asian drug lords and insurgent groups in Vietnam, the old Khmer Rouge, and the Pathet Lao and the Tamil Tigers. We are intermediaries, not involved with Mr. Sabutai or any other human affairs. We merely provide some technology and assistance in exchange for permission to carry out our experiments. When you are ready, you will meet with him, and we will see what happens."

A deep silence settled over the table for a long minute. Then another flow arrived from Peho.

"If you have no further questions, Mr. Noah and we will now show you around and give you an opportunity to prepare yourselves."

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