"Good. The chip is an organic structure. While dormant till now, it has still developed to become an integral part of you. As we start to communicate, its connections with the brain and the rest of your system will deepen, allowing for cleaner transmissions and the opening of certain… capacities." His eyes flicked to Kodahr and back to me. "In time, you will come to understand what these are. They are essential for the work you will perform. Are you comfortable working for us?"

"You mean, are we concerned with the best interests of human beings?"

"We are. Very much so."

"Then yes, I am comfortable."

"Good," he said, sitting back in his chair and looking to Kodahr. The Prophet slowly rose, moving around the console to the porthole at the back of the room, hands linking behind him. Vek swivelled in his chair to track him, as he stopped and looked outside.

"Humanity is at a key point in its evolution," the Prophet said, still looking away. "It is our belief that without assistance, you will soon destroy yourselves. For reasons I cannot get into now, it is essential this not be allowed to happen. For hundreds of years, we, the Mekeer, have visited your world, preparing for this time. Thousands of your people have been recruited by us, brought here, as you, and either joined us in this work, or resisted and been returned to their lives, memories of their encounters wiped, as they must be." He turned to face us, hidden in a blackness which seemed even darker than before. "Many forces have opposed our work, both on your planet and elsewhere, and while we have overcome most of them, they have delayed our efforts significantly. The placement of core energetic nodes, which was expected to take at most 20 years, has dragged into centuries, and time is running out. The programme has therefore been accelerated, a new, far more advanced form of communication established with the new guard, of which you are one. We call you the Behehn, the sacred army."

He slowly returned to his chair and sat down, turning to face me, and I him.

"How do you mean, accelerated?" I asked.

"I mean," he said, "that certain capacities that were not due to come to your people for several more centuries must come to them now. These capacities are to open first in the Behehn, and then, through their work, in the rest of humanity. Are you comfortable with this?"

"Do I have any choice?"

"Of course, you always have a choice."

I thought for a moment, but there was nothing there. "Yes, I am comfortable," I said.

"Good," he said, sounding gentle again, as he had when I first met him. "Then let us visit our planet, Yenaa. You will see the seven floating palaces, and learn of your mission."

This article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 license creativecommons.org.

Visit Marc Fiszman's website: marcfiszman.com.

Click on the 'NEXT' arrow for The Mekeer: Yenaa Part III