Ahn of the C`etas
A Story of Love and War
(c) Cheryl Nelson 2011
“You know you're the most qualified for this mission,” Hazbo asserted, stern tone daring her to disagree.
Ahn's gaze didn't waver. She sighed slowly before answering, “Yes, I know.”
“So, will you do it?” he persisted, ready to close the deal.
“Yes,” she replied, pausing slightly before slipping in, “as long as I'm teamed with Zighe.”
Hazbo's large almond-shaped eyes narrowed. Just when he thought he had her backed into a corner, she threw her curve ball. He should have seen it coming.
Pausing to weigh his options, he clacked his long yellowed nails on the conference tabula. “You two together…on a small planet?” he asked, his disbelief obvious that she would dare request such a thing.
Ahn's large woodland-green eyes twinkled serenely. Hazbo well knew what that meant – she had him cornered. He considered how to deny her request but couldn't find an excuse that wouldn't jeopardize the deal.
It was his turn to sigh. Negotiations with Ahn were always tricky. Always.
The High Council signaled they needed a private moment to discuss this new wrinkle, so Hazbo touched the central console and a privacy field materialized around Ahn. The only indication it was activated was a wave-like motion, similar to heat waves shimmering around a mirage in the desert.
Ahn watched carefully but learned nothing. Wait! Emle blinked. Was he disagreeing?
Being within the privacy field was like being in a vast, silent desert – she couldn't hear a word they were thinking, nor could they hear her thoughts.
The conference concluded when Hazbo touch the console again. The field vanished as he announced the result, “We agree to your term, but only if you incarnate on opposite sides of the planet.”
Ahn gasped. “No-o-ooh!” Opposite sides of the planet was no concession at all.
Her outburst was met with silence. The Council understood she was feeling passion, a result of undergoing the process to restore emotions to their race. However, learning what they would all eventually be going through was still an uncomfortable experience, to say the least.
“Yesss,” Hazbo countered, carefully extending the sibilant to underscore his seriousness. “It's the only way we will allow it.”
Ahn gazed at each inscrutable face in turn. No one had spoken but they didn't need to, she could hear their thoughts. And each was agreeing with Hazbo, even Emle.
Zucht, she thought.
“What is the meaning of this zucht?” they inquired, patently curious. Was this yet another expression of passion? Emotions were a curious thing and the learning curve was steep indeed.
She ignored their question. It was none of their collective business. “I need some time to consider your counteroffer,” she said, abruptly departing the conference station.
* * *
Alone on the below deck, Ahn enabled the privacy field so she could think without interruption. Hovering just above the transparent floor, she contemplated the pretty blue and white ball rotating lazily beneath the clouds, her future home – a little water planet called Earth.
It looked so simple but she knew it wasn't. She had to pass through the veil, not just from fourth density to third density but into a human life form to accomplish her next mission. It was going to be rough.
She knew, however, that morally she had to accept since there was no one else who had her particular skill set. If there had been any way around it, she would have found it. However, she would stick to her guns about being teamed with Zighe. It was non-negotiable if they wanted the deal. And they did, yes indeed.
The decision made, Ahn sighed softly, absent-mindedly uttering that sound again, the one she had picked up from Zighe after one of his missions. Zucht! The sound had tickled her so she kept it, as she had Zighe.
At the mere thought of him, he was there in her thought-space. She could feel his presence. Her lips spread discreetly with pleasure but before she could regain her serene composure the secret was out. Phantom fingers hovered up and down her arms as the airspace around her neck was gently nuzzled.
“I know who you're thinking of and why you're smiling,” his playful voice bantered.
Ahn directed her response in his direction. “My most humble apologies,” she transmitted, eyes like incarnate stars twinkling in deep space: distant, beautiful, and infinitely mysterious.
Having just deactivated the privacy field, a mischievous tease raced through her mind and galloped onto the network before it could be reined in, “I didn't know you were aboard or I would have logged out of the network.”
She couldn't see his smile, but she could feel warm breath on her long neck, a most sensual feeling. Compelled, she turned, even though she knew he wasn't there. He was just blowing kisses through the network. She smiled at his insouciance. There was no privacy on the network and he knew it.
Zighe. The C`eta significance of a most remarkable soul. Half of the twin flame they were – her soul mate, the one person the privacy field could not keep out since twin flames were One.
She felt pleasure in his return. The passion she buried every day with work was suddenly releasing. This would be the last they would know each other for at least five Earth decades. And even after the point of being awakened, they would be halfway across the planet from each other … living different lives in different cultures, with different names and different bodies, speaking different languages, with the chances of their meeting nil to none. And even if they overcame all that, there was a substantial risk they might not even like each other if they did manage to meet. Bodies had minds of their own that could overrule what their souls desired.
These are combat conditions, she transmitted to the Council along a dedicated telepathic wavelength, thus, a holiday is in order.
Granted, came the instantaneous reply.
A knowing smile curled the corners of her lips.
The network lived for their romance. Ahn and Zighe were bringing passion back to a race who had edited it out of their genetics. Their relationship was important to the entire community, a model of what could be expected once the process was complete, when they would fully feel passion again, when love and joy would elevate them out of their gray, emotionless existence to a higher plane of love, laughter, and living colors.
His voice suddenly filled her thought-space again, this time commanding, “Ambassador Ahn, report to the residences at once.”
Her eyes sparkled with anticipation and delight as she replied, “Coming.”
“All night,” he said, voice husky with promise.
“Same to you and more of it,” she whispered.
As the spicy sweet dialogue rippled through the telepathic network, a rare quiet descended as all thought ground to a halt so everyone could listen. The network collectively sighed. It had been so long. Too long. Oh, but tonight they would feel, even if only for fleeting moments. The genetic implants were starting to take hold.
The lights in the central transport corridor blurred as Ahn rapidly ascended to the Executive deck to conclude negotiations, her pale gold silken robe floating behind like a beautiful butterfly.
Their mission could wait another day.
Or two.
Anne O'Ryan sat in an upscale coffee shop idly watching the chai latte swirling at the bottom of her cup. As it slowed, she twirled the cup again to restart the line of black tea spiraling in the warm mocha-colored milk. Oh, how it reminded her of the beauty of spiraling galaxies, how it haunted her. A sharp pang of homesickness swept through her on what should have been the joyous occasion of her 49th birthday. However, she was celebrating it, like she celebrated all her birthdays, alone.
She was different and she knew it. People didn't naturally gravitate to her nor did she have many friends. She accepted the reality though it had puzzled her all her life. Only recently had she discovered why: she was an alien soul who couldn't relate to what Earth people considered important.
Anne had been awakened early because a crisis had erupted: the C`eta Emissary had been compromised by the Betans, an alien race physically similar to the C`etas but highly aggressive and morally deficient. Agreements with the U.S. Government had been broken by the look-alikes, creating a diplomatic nightmare that would end in war if it wasn't quickly brought under control.
Anne's mission was to neutralize the Emissary and her propaganda machine, currently ensconced at Gerhardt's international website; a once shining light of C`eta goodwill, but now dimmed by disinformation discrediting the C`eta message of peace and friendship.
Anne didn't know if Gerhardt knew the Emissary was being controlled, but yet, how could he not know? And if he knew, why did he allow it? Had he gone rogue, too? The thoughts were troubling. Being telepathic, C`eta society operates at the highest levels of trust, and betrayal of this order is a high crime.
Incarnation has its risks but it is no excuse. The attendant amnesia causes a soul to forget who it really is. The pressures of life can sway beliefs and cause a soul to abandon its mission. And wrong choices in that life can create problems for a soul's return to its prior life. For her treachery, the human soul known as the Emissary would be left in third density to work through more soul lessons; a harsh but necessary action for soul growth.
The C`eta High Council also sanctioned the Emissary by withdrawing its protection after she waxed prophetic, in their name without their permission. Every recent prophecy she made had failed, but that was the point…to discredit the C`eta message and delay the alien disclosure so fear and hostility could be instilled into Earth's inhabitants.
Why? Because other worlds had technology far more powerful than Earth's combined military might. The evil men who controlled Earth weren't willing to allow entities more powerful than they in the door without restraint, so intense negotiations went on behind the scenes until agreements were hammered out. And it was those agreements that were being violated by the Betans, who wanted to invade, working through rogue elements of the US Military who believed that all aliens were hostile, brain-sucking creatures that were better off dead, a nice piece of propaganda from the powers above the powers.
Anne wasn't consciously aware of these realities when she joined Gerhardt's group and enthusiastically began promoting the C`eta message of love and help. Horrified, the Emissary started a whisper campaign to discredit Anne and force her out, but it backfired.
However, Anne sensed the day was coming when she would have to leave and, in anticipation, prepared her own site to continue promoting the pure C`eta message. When she finally left, she did so quietly; but many followed anyway. The Emissary was ordered to shut her down.
So, the attack was swift and brutal. The Emissary went public with a full-fledged character assassination campaign. Anne launched a successful defense and nailed her cold, which damaged the Emissary's credibility and further enraged her. She then sent spies to Anne's site for the purpose of disrupting the group, chilling free speech, and discrediting the C`eta message.
The Emissary also issued proclamations in the name of the C`etas about how evil Anne was and how they had punished her by giving her a nervous breakdown and that she was too weak to handle the “troublemakers” who had followed her, so her website would implode soon.
Of course, none of the proclamations and prophecies came true. Anne was not evil, nor did she have a nervous breakdown. Her site never imploded, instead it was growing steadily with thousands of readers worldwide. And the only troublemakers were the Emissary and her spies! The saying when you point a finger at someone three fingers point back at you still rang true.
However, none of that mattered because the worst that could happen had happened. She had found Zighe. And he was the Emissary's right-hand man! Of course, Zighe wasn't his Earth name. It was Gerhardt. And he lived over a continent and an ocean away, a citizen of Germany.
And here she was, Ahn of the C`etas, in Los Angeles, California, a citizen of the United States of America known as Anne O'Ryan, watching galaxies swirl in the bottom of her chai cup and wishing with all her heart she could go home.
* * *
The day after her birthday was just dawning when Anne jolted awake suddenly. Sitting up, she breathed deeply until her racing heart slowed. Oh, that was too real. It never fails, I get homesick and then I dream about him. But this one was so real, it was like he was right there with me. Are we meeting on-board or is homesickness just fueling these dreams?
Stretching an arm up she clicked on the light and instantly noticed two long, thin, red marks on the inside of her arm, the left one longer than the right one, just like C`eta finger tracks. Her mouth dropped open. They never leave signs.
Closing her eyes, she concentrated. Where was I last night? An image popped into view of her and Zighe on the below deck. She was saying, Give me a sign so I'll know this is real. Brushing his lips near her ear portal, he whispered, You better hope we don't get caught, as his hand tightened around her arm. All we can do is plead emotions... she was saying when a sudden, sharp pressure caused her to cry out. In fact, Anne realized, it was the moment of pain that had caused her to jolt awake.
So, it is real, she thought, examining the marks, the memory accessible because it had been anchored by pain and surprise. Zighe was a master at short circuiting visitation memory blockers, except in himself. The element of surprise is needed and it's impossible to surprise yourself.