Manhunter Revelations (20 page)

She stopped at this point as she could see I
had more questions.

"Where was your island transported to?"

"We now know there are many dimensions of
reality, separated from each other by what we call a dimensional
wall or barrier. These barriers are to our understanding
unbreachable, with the exception of the barrier between earth and
Muraii. Many thousand of years passed and my people found that our
powers were slowly getting stronger. Yet it took many years before
my people figured out the existence of the barriers, and that there
may be many of them. The only one they were fully able to identify
was the one separating them from earth. They theorized that the
dimension they were in was connected to earth in some fashion, but
nothing else was known about it. So when we refer to Muraii, we are
not only referring to our islands, but our new dimensional world
altogether. Now you must understand this battle with The Xantu has
not been going on for all these thousand of years constantly. There
have been centuries when there was no evidence of The Xantu,
sometimes thousands of years because they were sleeping. We figured
they did so for some type of regeneration or at the least hoping
that when they awoke we would be gone. We just do not know. During
those times some of our people thought that they were gone for
good, but that was just not so. Their last appearance before now
was just after the last ice age. They were around for a few hundred
years and then was gone again. They recently reappeared a little
over two thousand years ago, and have been off and on ever since.
In fact this is the longest period they have been active. That is
why we feel something eminent is going to happen soon. What we just
do not know"

Now I am not a heavy drinking man, but I do
drink my own brand of beer and I love it. Unfortunately there was
none of it in the village, as everyone here drunk the village
special brew Elixir Ale. Getting up I went to the frig and got some
of the brew and two glasses. Getting back to the table I poured
generous portions of the stuff into each glass and passed one over
to Sessa. We sat there for a few moments enjoying the brew while we
each mulled our thoughts, or while I mulled mine. Sessa just waited
for me patiently. The ale by the way was excellent. Better than my
old brand. I would have to see that some was shipped home after
this case was done.

"You do know that I am finding all you have
told me very hard to believe. Yet certain evidence lead credence to
your story. The main one is the fact Major Hennings and his men are
here. Did you know that him and his men are a special operations
tactical battle group? Do you know what that even means?”

For the first time, there appeared a look of
confusion on Sessa's face.

"No I didn't. What are they"

"Since the Antarctic Plague, the government
realized there were forces in play that they were totally
unprepared to deal with. The USOA decided that they needed a rapid
response group of specially trained and equipped military and in a
few cases civilian personnel who could mentally, emotionally and
physically deal with any unexplained or unusual occurrence or
circumstance. A circumstance such as this. I was recruited by the
military to train a group of these men in exceptional tracking
abilities, under any circumstance, terrain or conditions. When I
worked on training them a few years ago, I learned that the
government believed that there were certain unexplained forces
either at work in the world, or would be soon. They were preparing
for this eventuality. For the next nine months I worked with them
in the field, specifically hunting down a band of Mut-Gorillas that
had migrated northward into the country. Trust me that was a very
nasty piece of work, but it showed me the pull Hennings and his men
had when requesting supplies or equipment. Whatever he requested
was sent to him immediately. In a way I guess you can say the USOA
government was waiting for your people to approach them for help.
Not specifically for this particular problem, but a problem
nonetheless. I cannot be sure because even though I had been
cleared for Top Secret information, they were very tight lipped on
certain matters. I now suspect this situation or something similar
was what they were preparing for. How they knew a situation such as
this would develop is a major mystery, and they aren’t telling. The
discovery of The Structure many years ago really scared the USA and
the other governments of this world very badly. Here was evidence
of a very advanced species, which was obviously not of human
origins, nor considering what was released from the place, not a
friendly species. The creation of forces to deal with such a threat
was due to happen. Major Hennings and his men are not USOA Police.
They are a top secret special operations force created to
specifically deal with threats of an unusual nature. So if Hennings
and his men are here, then the USOA truly believes this threat to
be real, unusual and highly dangerous, hence I need to give your
story a certain amount of credibility"

I could see she was in deep thought.

"Tell me about the guards outside. They
appear Muraiin but look somewhat different"

"They are Muraiin, but not as you or anyone
else for that matter knows. They are Sakquain who have fallen in
battle against The Xantu. The injuries to them was so severe that
our healers could not save them. So they were offered an
alternative to dying. It is a procedure recently discovered in the
past four hundred years by some of our healers. In an untried
attempt to save some fallen warriors, the healers tried a new
procedure to try and save lives that normally would be considered
lost. This new procedure produced some new and startling changes in
the warriors. They were healed, but were no longer the hybrid
Muraiins we knew or Muraiins on any level we had ever seen before.
Their personally had been erased. They know who they were but their
personality had been completely changed. In a way they were like
living robots although they still felt a very deep kinship to us.
They were also physically changed. They had grown larger,
incredibly stronger, not as fast, but relentless. We found that as
warriors they were unsurpassed, and virtually unbeatable in combat.
Over the years the technique to produce them was perfected and used
to create what we now call Sakquii. Yet the procedure is only
performed on Sakquains who have fallen in battle and are too badly
injured to be saved by the Healers. The choice to become a Sakquii
is strictly theirs. They must agree to the change, and their
families must be involved, although the final decision is the
injured Sakquain alone. Any Sakquain unable to agree to the change,
is allowed to die peacefully and is buried with honors. Very few
Sakquains agree to this as I stated, because their personalities
and memories of themselves will be drastically changed. They prefer
to die peacefully. There are some among us who are against the
creation of Sakquii, but it is accepted for the good of the people.
No one except The Healers and The Seer knows how the procedure is
done. Not even The Elders know. Also no Sakquii are created without
a Seer being present during the procedure. She alone can stop the
procedure if she sees or perceive that doing so is best. These
Sakquii do not go out to battle The Xantu. They are the exclusive
bodyguards of Muraii. If The Xantu or any other threat managed to
gain access to Muraii, the first line of defense are the Sakquii.
Early on they were battle trained by Master Sakquains, but assumed
the role of training new Sakquii themselves as they were too
powerful to train against us. They were sent into battle against
The Xantu early on, and that is how we found out just how powerful
they truly were. One instance is when two of them stumbled upon a
Vampu nest. Inside were two Masters and over a dozen younger Vampu.
The battle lasted only minutes but the results were unbelievable.
The two Saquii killed all of them. One Sakquii took on the two
Masters alone and killed them both in minutes. The other Sakquii
killed all the younger Vampu by himself. They were both badly
damaged in the battle, but survived and healed. The Elders at first
wanted to use them as our front line warriors, but they were too
few. Even today there are only a few hundred to guard all of
Muraii. They were deemed too valuable and too few to be used they
way. Hence they were assigned the job of Muraii's front line
defense and has been so for the past three hundred plus years. That
is why we were so shocked to see four of them accompany Tessia back
here. It has never been done before. It also shows us just how
serious the matter with this creature has become"

Now I had a whole lot more information on the
Muraiins then before, but I felt there was still something
missing.

“How come all of you speak English so
well?

“We speak all human languages well”

“All of them?”

“Yes, all of them. One of the lessons we
learned from the Atlantus destruction was that we could no longer
fully isolate ourselves and still protect life on this planet.
Being able to communicate with humans became a matter of great
importance. At birth all Muraiins, and when I refer to Muraiins I
am speaking about all of us, originals and hybrids, are born with
the ability to roughly understand our native language. After a
couple of years we fully understand and can also speak our
language. This ability was developed in our species thousand of
years ago. What was discovered after the development of us hybrids
was that we had a unique ability to learn human languages extremely
fast. If we listen to a language being spoken for a few hours we
begin to understand it. After a few days we can then speak the
language fluently.

“Are there a lot of you back in Muraii?

“There are roughly seventy nine thousand of
us. Of those only nineteen hundred of us are Sakquain. We have loss
quite a few over the past years in our war both with The Xantu and
through other means”

“What. Why so few. After all these years
there should be millions of you”

“Muraiins have a great love of life. We
engage in sexual activity whenever we can, but only with selected
individuals we choose. Even taking that in account with our need
for warriors, our birth rate is still very low. There are only a
few hundred babies born in Muraii every year. That is not enough
births to build up a race fast but it is growing. Just very
slowly”

A thought I couldn’t quite grab was nagging
me in the back of my mind.

"Do you have a Hall Of Records or some such
office in the village?"

"Yes we do. There is the Woodspirit History
Center on the far side of the central pavilion plaza. It is there
where all records of what happens in Woodspirit is kept from its
history, brewing processes, plantings, exports, to every child
birth and death"

Then it hit me. Child births. Children. I had
seen no children in the village at all since I arrived.

"Why haven't I seen any children in the
village?"

A look of confusion first appeared on her
face and then understanding.

"I am sorry. I thought you had been informed.
After the fourth murder, we discussed the matter with the villagers
and they all agreed that the children would be safer if they were
send away for their protection, until the creature was caught. They
are being cared for at the USOA police headquarters base located
near Pacifica Santum"

Pacifica Santum is the mega city located in
the middle of the Northwest Sector off the pacific ocean and was
the second largest of the mega cities. It was located around four
hundred and twenty miles from Woodspirit. Okay that explained the
lack of children around the village. Now I needed to do some
research over at the History Center.

"Have you finished with your questions?"

I was thinking so I absentmindedly nodded
yes. Then the Eurola hit me. Full blast. I fell back somewhat off
of the chair before I realized what had happened. When I looked
over at Sessa, she was again fully naked and was advancing on me.
So strong was her attraction, I was completely at her mercy, if she
had any. Which she didn't.

Chapter Eight: What Am I Missing?

Three hours later I surfaced and I was
drained to a level I had never experienced before. Sessa was curled
up on top of me and was sleeping soundly. I maneuvered myself from
under her softly and attempted to stand and could not. I was weak
in the legs and had to sit for a few minutes before I could stand.
I was stunned. This type of draining had never happened to me
before. If I kept this up Sessa would seriously be bad for my
health. Concerned I may have missed something important, I commed
Hennings to see what was up.

"You're alive. I was beginning to have my
doubts"

"Seriously, I have never met a woman like
Sessa"

"No one human has ever met anyone like Sessa
or any of the other ladies. but to answer your question, everything
is quiet. Too quiet. You know that old saying, The quiet before the
storm. Well I can't shake the feeling something bad is coming."

"How are the Muraii guards doing?"

"The Giants? Solid. They have been at their
posts since arriving and haven't moved since. I sent over some food
earlier for them to eat, only to be told they don't need to eat.
What kind of Muraiins are these guys that they don't need to
eat?"

"Giants?

"Yes that's what we are starting to call
them”

"It's as good a description as any. I have
some info on the them and will fill you in later. Right now I want
to go over to the History Center and do some research"

"You think you will find something over there
that might help or explain what's happening?"

"I don't know. I just can't shake the feeling
something very important is missing and it is something I should
have seen. Something I should have saw or known"