Waking the Angel: A Mindlord Novel by Igor Swann

PROLOGUE
The universe paused.
Somewhere a nerve was being harassed and generally
mistreated.
It slowly gathered its attention from several nearby galaxies and
focussed its cosmic essence on finding the reason for its
discomfort.
This event was not a singular occurrence.
Every so often, it experienced niggling irritations creep up the
central nervous system of galaxies.
Lately it had become a habit.
Still, after the excitement of the beginning, and at this advanced
state of being, very few things made the universe sit up and take
notice.
Time in itself remained a quite hypothetical reality to the
universe, but things tend to start and end, and this universe was
somewhere in the middle right now.
Hmmm, I have picked up a few more light-years around the
waist it seems, imagine that, the distracted thoughts rumbled
through the ancient synaptic web as it noticed its expanding
expanse with disdain.
Old memories briefly overpowered the hunt for the annoyance
as it fondly reminisced on a time when it was the centre of
attention on the canvass.
It burst onto the scene with a big bang and quickly became the
envy of all the other universes.
It had a plan.
It was going to do things right.

i

This universe would not repeat the mistakes of the others and
let itself slowly slip into eternity.
Nevertheless, fate is patient and time is relative with destiny
being inevitable… no one would take that bet.
Now a few billion years down the line it had become just
another cranky old universe with an expanding waistline.
Now there were other young idealists, with seemingly balanced
creations on the canvass.
Losing a few galaxies around the waist seemed to become
impossible as time went by, time being hypothetical of course.
It cringed at the thought of having to use black holes to
maintain some semblance of dignity and a semi respectable
tuxedo size.
When did it all get away from me?
The universe slowly turned its attention from the memories as
its irritation mounted, but only for a moment before slipping
away again.
It still headed towards the annoyance.

Sentient life, what every universe desired, and he had in
abundance. Why, he never understood.
They were a nuisance and needed constant supervision.
The torment he endured from the prattle of the other universes
with first time newborn sentients usually ended in a galactic
heartburn, without the prospect of an antacid tablet.
‘Ooh you know what my sentients did now? They invented fire,’
‘Mine are developing legs,’ and ‘My sentients are developing
advanced interpersonal communication skills.’
‘They are?’

ii

‘Yes. The female chatters incessantly while the male clubs
himself to death.’
‘Wow!’
The universe continued its search.
Since these sentient life forms came to be, the neighbourhood
has gone to hell.
It was not sure where hell was anymore. It felt quite certain it
was in one of the galaxies off to the right.
Of course, after the sentients evolve, then the gods move in
with their demands.
Do this; create this; and destroy this.
It never ends, simply never ends.
It found the source of its irritation.
The universe sighed, them again…

iii

WAKING THE ANGEL
A Mindlord Novel

IGOR SWANN

iv

Waking the Angel

CHAPTER 1
He dove for cover, landing heavily on his dislocated shoulder
mere fractions of a second before the shrapnel started to whistle
over his properly battered body.
He tried hard to remember what madness drove him to set off
in aid of this unwilling damsel in distress.
He thought that he portrait the role of a hero on a white horse
quite admirably; he even remembered his lines for the most part.
Being a little more appreciative of his efforts would have been
nice. Fine, they might both be in a spot of bother right now.
Nevertheless, she could show a touch more gratitude, since he
did save her life, quite frequently following their introduction.
Now she had disappeared and he could feel consciousness
slowly slipping from his grasp, which in all honesty might not be
the worst of the two possible endings he envisioned.
He was quite sure of a couple of things.
Firstly, that the tank like vehicle called a Reaper heading his way
was a serious chunk of metal. Oversized spike tracks, and with
turrets and gun barrels all over the place it appeared overdone.
Every modern art critic’s worst nightmare and they could really
have done something different with the light fixtures.
Nevertheless, who ever designed this monstrosity wanted to
make sure that if it did not rip you apart with its awesome
firepower, the mere sight would cause you to rather just give up
and go away. Far, far away, quite convinced you forgot to turn off
the stove before leaving home and maybe you should go check.

1

Igor Swann

Others, after a hasty glance in its direction, might simply die
from fear.
Another more comforting thought very clear in his mind was his
resolute confidence in his training and by popular belief making
him one of the most lethal beings in the universe.
He should know. He was there.
At this moment, his extensive training made him keenly aware
of one other important detail. He would shortly be the
unfortunately deceased, previously most lethal being in the
universe; and he is most definitely here.
As he slipped from this reality, his thoughts took him back to
only a few short months ago.
To a time, he would like to refer to as living in blissful ignorance.
The universe made sense then; it was something romantic way
up there. Stars were what got him into intimate moments on a
hilltop with a bottle of wine and a blanket.
Genes be damned, he thought angrily.
He would have happily lived and died of natural causes by now,
preferably intimately on a blanket, with a bottle of wine, under
the stars.

To avoid more confusion our tale needs to start at a different
point in time.
In the beginning,
No, not that beginning, but rather a beginning we find in the
memories of the unconscious human.
It was a dark and stormy night… No? Oh well, so much for that
good old cliché.

2

Waking the Angel

In fact, it was a quite pleasant evening. Birds were merrily
chirping away in the lane of trees next to his favourite bench.
Dogs were walking their owners. People seemingly without a day
job were picnicking in the park and pigeons were defacing statues
without fear of arrest. Everything from a distance of more than 20
feet seemed tranquil and serene.
He often wandered to this bench when he needed time to
reflect on a particularly taxing day.
Feeding the pigeons calmed him.
He stared absentmindedly at the brochure in his hand, which he
grabbed from a pretty girl distributing them outside the gym next
to his office building. He was not entirely sure why.
On the front scribbled in bright red letters the words, ‘A great
way to get fit’.
He felt it should rather read, ‘A great way to get a fit’.
He poured over the wonderfully relaxing things you can do such
as stretching classes, swimming, running, exercise bikes, core
stabilization, circuit and free weights. He expected to read wheel
balancing and alignment on the next page.
Placing the folded brochure in his pocket, he sighed deeply. The
people in the picture looked too depressed. I do not need a gym
to feel that way; I just need to wake up in the morning, he
thought.
Today weighed particularly heavily on his mind. He endured a
tax audit, which was, as expected, a disaster.
Moreover, well, let us just say a substantial pile of other
problems, very much inconsequential to what his genetic code
had fated his life to become.
As in right about…

3

Igor Swann

…tick…
…tick…
…now
There were no strange lights in the sky from previously
unidentified flying objects, a glowing beam surrounding him, or
aliens politely requesting him to ‘Take me to your leader
earthling.’
He was there and then he was not.

*blink*

Life seemed to be doing fine without him. A few pigeons were
annoyed since their waiter inexplicably vanished. However, having
the attention span of peanut, this lasted only the time needed for
them to spot a statue with less than adequate poop graffiti.

He awoke in excruciating pain.
Something that resembled giving natural childbirth to a
porcupine crossbred with a full-grown gorilla; and it was stuck.
It carried through every receptor in his nervous system. Every
single one competing to get to the brain first, and inform it that
the problem was in its sector and it had damn well better do
something quick.
His brain however had other concerns.
The burning desire to form a thought, which was contrary to
popular belief, not, ‘where the hell am I’ but rather, ‘where in hell
am I’.

4

Waking the Angel

Of course that would have been his thoughts if he had any
control over even a single neuron in his cranial cavity, and in fact
was his first thought when he found one.
Screaming seemed the next logical direction to progress in, but
that also required reflexive mental activity, and a faint
recollection on the general vicinity of his vocal cords.
The torture ceased abruptly, after what he could only surmise
to be days… thirty-three seconds to be exact.

They were there, surrounding him, staring at him with their
large almond eyes imbedded in those pale grey thin faces.
They looked exactly like the government said they would not
look even if they did exist, which they did not, you silly conspiracy
theorist person.
‘It’s all just weather balloons and stuff, so let that be the end of
that. Tea with crumpets will be served in the reception area, but
be forewarned, there are balloons in there, so please do not
panic.’
One of the expert weather balloon pilots surrounding him
screeched.
He had no idea which one.
They were not using sound.
The scream was inside his head. The words were like a tsunami,
rolling in from the ocean and his brain was a pebble in its way.
It smashed into his mind, again, and again.
This time he did scream, cradling his head in his arms, pleading
for the sound to stop.
It stopped.

5

Igor Swann

A voice came, soft and smooth, a playful stream full of apology
and comfort.
The tone your boss would adopt and cause you to panic
uncontrollably, because the next words from his mouth were
going to be ‘unfortunately due to downsizing…’

‘We apologize for your discomfort. I did not mean to shout but
we could not be sure the procedure succeeded and you could
hear us. I am Qren and we are the Ark council. The pain you
experienced was a side effect to the procedure used to unlock
those parts of your mind you humans do not use. This was
necessary to release your telepathic abilities. If you wish to
address us simply think a word or sentence and then direct it at
the recipient.’
They stared at him.
He stared back.
It spoke again.
‘What is your name?’
The words were robotic. They had no feeling behind them,
simply a statement of facts. It was a script perfectly memorized,
and seemed alarmingly well rehearsed.
He could think of nothing to say or everything to say but
nothing made sense.
‘Sweet angel of mercy’ seemed to pop up, and somehow out
because a buzz went up around the room.
The grey figures appeared to enter into a puzzled debate with
one another but he did not understand the language.
Qren spoke again.

6

Waking the Angel

‘You are ‘Sweet Angel of Mercy’? Strange… we acknowledge
you Sweet Angel. What is Mercy? May we call you Angel? Good!’
Too tired to argue, and far too angry to care what they called
him, he simply sighed in hopeless anguish.
His brain hurt, and raced. It was too powerful and fast. He could
not lock onto his own thoughts.
He designed light refracted super computers, re-indexed the
National Library, and negotiated peace treaties between India and
Pakistan at the exact same moment in time. He also levitated an
urn type object on the other side of the room for no apparent
reason.
His mind now calculated how long he could last before his
bladder exploded. The answer made him extremely nervous.
Angel became a passenger while his mind drove. His mind,
obviously way over the legal alcohol limit, drove a Ferrari over the
Alps with a large red letter ‘L’ in the rear windscreen.
Qren spoke again, ‘it will be a while before your consciousness
accepts your mind, so they may again be in harmony. We will
depart and return when you call.’
They left silently, as if floating. Their long grey robes concealed
any movement made by their limbs, if they had any limbs.
He made a few attempts at grabbing hold of a passing thought,
missed by a country mile, gave up and went to sleep. He left his
mind to solve world hunger, or perpetual motion or whatever else
it was working on currently.

The next conscious period arrived.

7

Igor Swann

He had no perception of time, his brain chirped in with ‘7 hours
32 minutes 12 seconds and 42 hundreds of a second since your
last conscious state.’
He took his mind’s word for it.
It waited.
The realization hit him like an Acme anvil in a cartoon. His mind
was not playing dodge ball with him anymore. It was a dragster
revving on the start line, just looking for an excuse to throw him
the finger and thunder off in the distance.
Angel approached cautiously like a kitten stalking a bird for the
first time, slowly, carefully, not to scare the bird away.
Having chosen an ostrich for this life altering experience might
have been slightly overoptimistic, but what choice did he have.
His brain carefully observed his every move from the corner of
its third eye.
It seemed to come to a decision, smiled inwardly, and to Angel’s
great surprise, moved over and presented him with the driver
seat.
Angel understood that this came with a promise to be a real
pain in the arse back seat driver.
For the first time he could examine his surroundings, while it
presented not overly much to examine. Whoever decorated this
place was on a tight budget, with the imagination of a coconut
tree, and not a very bright one at that. It was a dull grey, it
radiated dull, shining dull from every corner of the room.
Wow, I must get the number of their interior decorator, he
sarcastically thought.

8

Waking the Angel

They obviously did not fully comprehend the minimalistic
approach to decorating. The grey urn he levitated being the only
aesthetically enhancing aspect to the room.
Great, a toilet, they thought of everything, he groaned.
Now if he could just remember how this walking thing
manifests again. His mind refused to help since it was too trivial a
request.
He lay stretched out on a slab made of a substance his mind
could not interpret, and it tried desperately.
Angel could not remember ever feeling this helpless and alone.
He wanted answers, especially to Why me? He had a thought, I
wonder if they can hear me. The door opened and the alien choir
walked in.
He now noticed one of the creatures’ robes was a shade of grey
darker than the rest. His mind calculated the exact frequency of
light that would cause this deviation.
After they took up position around the table, Qren’s voice broke
the silence.
‘Well rested Angel?’
His mind calculated the angle of the incoming thought and
surmised it to come from the darker robed figure. It was the first
semi useful information his mind produced.
Angel; he had no desire to fix this mistake, the less they knew
about him the better.
Angel formed a response and pressed the send button.
‘What the hell do you want from me? Where am I? What are
you? Did your decorator die painfully? Is there any chance of a
drink? Or an automatic rifle perhaps?’

9

Igor Swann

He stopped his mind short of giving them the calibre, projectile
speed, firing tempo, muzzle velocity and serial number of the
required weapon.
Qren’s silky voice entered his mind again, ‘We mean you no
harm.’
‘Is that right?’ Angel interrupted sarcastically.
Qren continued unabated, ‘Your abduction was due to a
hopeless situation which required a drastic solution. You were the
only suitable candidate in age and genetic makeup. Your
predecessor met with an untimely demise. He was involved in an
unfortunate strata-surfing accident involving a meteor1.’
‘The normal procedure of infant seizure and training could not
be employed and was not scheduled to commence for quite some
time. This necessitated the procurement of an adult human. This
is a regrettable and ill-fated arrangement to be sure.’

Angel stared ahead blankly; confused would be an
understatement of galactic proportions.
Predecessor, Genetics, Are they mad? Is he mad? Where was
that drink?
His mind also tried to make sense of this, and seemed bemused.
It made no sense of it either.
His brain shrugged and continued to calculate the amount of
nose hair needed to fill the room.
Qren’s voice droned on.

1 Strata surfing required a space suit, a long board, a strata sail and a whole lot
of guts. The fact that he managed to sail into a meteor seemed quite suspicious
at the time. It is not easy to overlook a million tons of rock coming straight at
you.

10

Waking the Angel

‘We were fortunate to find a single male possessing DNA
sequence TNFR-12, the gene necessary for successful mind
transformation.’
Questions swam in Angel’s mind.
He knew he had an exceptional IQ, but why did they need him?
Their technology seemed far more advanced than anything he
could hope to imagine.
They were obviously a superior race, and what did they mean by
predecessor; and where was that damn drink!
Qren must have intercepted part of the thought. He started to
convey a completely different information package.
‘We are called the Ark. We are a race who travels the universe
in search of technology we may incorporate into our way of life,
or we might get lucky and find a new seafood restaurant.’
Qren felt proud of his joke, he was almost sure he got it right.
Humans appreciate these things.
Angel’s mouth did not even twitch and Qren continued, slightly
offended in an emotionless kind of way.
‘Even though we possess some of the greatest engineers in
existence, we do not posses what humans call imagination or
creative thinking, the reason why we need to accumulate ideas
from other species.’
‘Many millennia ago we came upon the mind enhancing
technology. The origins were indeterminable. It was found on a
remote planet close to the edge of explored space, abandoned by
an ancient civilization.’
‘We experimented with the device, but found that our own
neuron structure was insufficient to be enhanced using this

11

Igor Swann

device. We conducted tests on all known species but none had an
adequate neurological network.’
‘Hey, take a breath,’ Angel projected.
Qren ignored him and continued.
‘Centuries passed and our civilization became stagnant. Having
accumulated and enhanced all available technology, we were
desperate for an engineering challenge.’
‘Is there a point somewhere?’ Angel projected.
‘Information came to us from a deep universe explorer of the
existence of your planet.’
‘Dispatching a research party, news returned that your minds
were compatible. Unfortunately all initial attempts failed as
humans could not control this transformation and lost their
sanity.’

Angel had a revolting image projected into his mind. He could
sympathize with those unfortunate enough to be ‘liberated’ by
the alien technology.
He remembered how close he had come to losing control of his
mind.
He then reminded himself of the fragile truce he currently had
with his mind, and silently wished that he could lose his mind... or
rather part of it.
Qren continued without pause, ‘determined to find a solution
our research team, by coincidence or by fate, transformed a
human child who did not become insane. Many more years
elapsed before the discovery of the illusive gene.’

12

Waking the Angel

‘From there it was a simple matter of reconfiguring our
scanners. We continued to probe from our ships hidden in your
moon’s shadow and selected infants with the gene.’
Though fascinated by this he was now also realizing the gravity
of his situation. Without the help of his mind, he noted with
disdain. His mind was off calculating all possible protein
sequences.
They must need me for a think tank of sort, an imagination for
their engineers.
My body hooked up to machines, with wires and pipes running
from me. My intelligence drained. I am going to become a living
thought machine. I am going to be intravenously force fed
vegetables… ‘I hate vegetables!’ he screamed.
The chill shot down his spine, and cold sweat was dripping from
his forehead.
His mind returned briefly to see what all the commotion was
about, decided it was unimportant, and went back to its DNA
splicing and constructs.
Perceptive as ever Qren hastened his retelling, ‘do not fear
Angel. You have not been brought here as a prisoner providing
creative stimulus for our engineers. Perhaps I need to clarify who
your predecessor was.’
As Qren’s words unfolded in his mind, Angel felt an
unimaginable fear tightening around his soul… he preferred the
pipes and wires!

13

Igor Swann

CHAPTER 2
Sweat flowed freely from her brow serving only to accentuate
her striking beauty. The girl appear tall, slim and graceful; a
quality shared by all her brethren.
Her precise movements sent ripples through her toned and
slender muscles. An air of aristocracy surrounded her like a fine
swirling mist.
Her auburn skin glowed with its own light, a side effect of a life
on a radioactive planet, to which her kind had adapted and
become immune to long ago.
This remarkable quality of Elheimr deterred many would-be
invaders and served to protect her people. Elheimr had another
unique property, where its gravity would cycle between four and
nine times the gravity experienced on earth, making it impossible
for most species to visit the planet in its upward cycle.
Unlike the rest of her kind who became docile and inactive near
the top of the gravitational cycle, the extraordinary energy
required to exercise in this gravitational field only made her more
determined.
The girl’s ears pointed sharply upward, as did her eyebrows and
eye corners. Her eyes were uncannily large and in the shape of a
teardrop, a solid dark platinum coloured teardrop, with no pupil
or sclera.
Her raven black hair sprayed majestically and hugged her form
as she performed an intricate, and to any knowledgeable
observer, quite deadly manoeuvre.

14

Waking the Angel

It resembled a flowing seductive dance more than movement
designed for precision killing.
She was El, a race of explorers and warriors, a curious and
intelligent people who imagine their kind to be superior beings.
Repeatedly she performed the routines. They were completely
stored in her muscle memory, available as reflex actions to any
threatening situation. Of course, if no such situation presented
itself she was sure to create one.
She handled a strange weapon in the form of a curved metal
alloy staff, bent in the centre and towards the ends again in the
opposite direction. The end points of the staff were fashioned into
blades like those used on sickles, difference being the sharp shark
teeth-like protrusions on the outward facing side of the blades.
This was an awesome weapon of almost unrivalled destructive
capability when compared to any equipped on a single person.
In close combat, the El could deploy, twirl and move the blades
at speeds that suggested that there were no blades. An
assumption with severe continued existence limiting implications
for any would be assailant.
A simply thought would activate an energy shield, which would
form between the two blades. The shield is able to stop any
projectile, blaster or small arms ion cannon fire.
Gripping the centre of the staff in a bow-like fashion and
tapping the centre of the shield released a devastating energy
bolt. A bolt powerful enough to obliterate light armoured vehicles
and in their expert hands even disable the heavily armoured
Reapers.
What made this weapon so impressive was that it required no
reloading. The bow-staff siphoned organic energy from any source

15

Igor Swann

in the vicinity. This made the El untouchable in woodland or
vegetation-rich environments.

‘Princess,’ someone started to say.
‘I’m busy,’ she rasped in a voice that would on her death make
the devil wonder if he had come at a bad time.
‘But…’ he tried again.
He got no further.
‘You have one word left, and then you will hold your tongue
and leave. Any words following that word and you will hold your
tongue permanently…’ malice dripped from her perfect lips,
mixed with a fair amount of sweat, ‘…in your hand, do not ignore
this warning!’ she added.
She did not break her stride or falter on a single movement.
‘Meeting,’ the nervous voice said in haste.
‘What meeting?’
<Silence>
‘Are you deaf?’ she snarled.
<Silence>
‘Enough you insolent fool!’ she growled, ‘you may keep your
tongue. Give me the message and go!’
An urgent voice continued, ‘My lady, we have news from the
Ark council, a replacement has been found. You are summoned to
attend an emergency senate meeting.’
He ducked just in case.
Sharin gave a sneer of contempt and her eyes appeared even
darker than usual.

16

Waking the Angel

‘Who do these Arks think they are summoning me,
SUMMONING ME? What little respect they bestow upon an El
princess.’

Forced into a truce with the United Galactic Empire, or UGE for
short, because of the inferior El numbers and the growing threat
of the Taur, the repulsive alliance was born from necessity.
She hated the Vanir, the UGE name for humans, even more
than she hated the rest of the races. She had to admit that they
might be mentally superior.
No El was worthy of mind transformation, as was the case with
all other UGE member races. Only the Vanir, the despicable vile
Vanir were worthy. She spat at the thought as if hoping that this
would remove it from existence.
Since her ambassadorial appointment, her duties forced her to
suffer the indignity of consorting with these unworthy UGE
species, accepting them as sentient, and actually pretending to
listen when they speak.
How revolting, she thought.

She spared only a fleeting glance at her messenger before
setting off towards her wing of the palace. The fury radiated from
every graceful stride.
The messenger shared most of the princess’s attributes with the
most notable divergence being his blue eyes and blond hair. The
characteristic features of the previous rulers of the El, before the
current House of El, overthrew them.
He displayed the same ageless quality of their kind, which made
an estimation of their age quite impossible.

17

Igor Swann

The other variation to this ‘El-kind’ theme was dark green eyes
and red hair, but these features were the mark of commoners and
workers.
Royalty, such as the upset princess, came endowed with the
dark platinum colour eyes and midnight black hair.
He intently followed her departure, not sharing her unbridled
hatred for other species. He could only shake his head, a reaction
that would have found him separated from said head, had certain
platinum eyes observed this.
Kainen quickly scanned the surroundings for such eyes, but it
was a futile exercise even for the El-sight. His people were near
invisible surrounded by forestation, and his home world was one
large shimmering radiating forest.
The cities seamlessly weaved into the trees, with most
structures built either in or around them. This was not surprising
since the trees provided the energy that sustained their way of
life.
Kainen walked back to his quarters, now quite focused on an
even more vexing problem, what was on the menu for dinner.

18

Waking the Angel

CHAPTER 3
His senses dulled. Angel would give anything to feel something;
even the temperature in the room was dull.
His mind hit his hand on the table.
‘Bet you felt that,’ it said as Angel yelped.
I have to escape, he thought, there must be a way off this…
whatever this was.
He had managed to convince his mind to let him use the urn a
few minutes earlier. The only reason his mind agreed was so
Angel would stop his incessant moaning, and so he could
accidentally hit Angel in the privates when he levitated the urn
towards him.
‘So are we going to escape or what?’ his mind asked, shortly
after Angel discontinued his contorted pose in the foetal position.
‘How exactly do you propose to do that?’ Angel returned the
thought, feeling quite silly speaking to his mind.
His mind had told him to sing if that would make him feel better
but after the first few bars, his mind cut off his control to the
vocal cords.
‘Won’t they know what we are thinking?’ he asked his mind.
‘No, they seem to be able to read what is in your conscious
mind, and I can control that,’ it smugly stated. ‘They are under the
impression you are thinking about cutting your toenails in the
shape of animals.’
‘Okay, so how do we…’ what am I saying he thought, we? He
was referring to himself in the plural. ‘Oh god, he was going to
end up in an asylum.’

19

Igor Swann

He gathered his thoughts again, ‘how do I open that door?’
‘Leave that to me,’ his mind said as he walked Angel over to the
door.
It opened.
‘How did you do that?’
‘Simple, when those things walked in it projected a thought at
the door, and told it to open. I used their brainwave frequency
and did the same,’ his mind explained as if it was the most
obvious thing in the world, and Angel must be the biggest idiot for
not thinking of it himself, which he in essence did but let’s not
confuse the issue.
‘How do we proceed from here?’ he asked.
‘Well walking would be my first choice, but you may run if it
would make you feel better,’ his mind answered sarcastically.
‘Fuunnnyyyy,’ Angel replied.
‘We need a disguise, so let’s open a few rooms and find one.’

He walked down endless deserted corridors and visited countless
abandoned rooms.
The fatigue enveloped him and he did not even think to use
stealth anymore.
Finally, he found a room with an unused grey cloak.
‘Good now we find a way off this ship,’ his mind ordered.
‘I should have figured we are on a ship of sorts,’ Angel replied.
‘Nooo… you think?’ his derisive mind replied.
‘I sensed a faint tremor when we accelerated, thus I surmise our
present course will take us to the back of the ship. I also judge
that to be the place they would keep any smaller ships since it
would be easier to launch ships from the rear.’

20

Waking the Angel

‘Makes sense,’ Angel thought wearily.
He listlessly embarked on his journey to the back of the ship.
‘Why did I not wear walking shoes?’ Angel groaned, painfully
aware of the blisters forming on the soles of his feet.
‘Yes, I can’t believe you did not know you would be abducted by
aliens today,’ another mocking thought came from his mind.
An alien blocked their path.
‘Leave this to me,’ his mind’s overconfident thought came to
him, as Angel shrunk back into the hooded cloak praying the
creature do not pay close attention to his unusual shape and
height.
Angel could feel thoughts leaving his brain.
A few moments later, his mind returned.
‘We need to turn left at the next corridor and then continue
another 100 yards to the docking bays.’
The door slid open silently.
‘Wow,’ Angel thought while his mind whistled.
It was huge. Ships lined the hull as far as he could see.
‘Well, pick one so we can get out of here,’ his mind suggested
urgently.
‘Why the rush all of a sudden, and why am I getting worried?’
Angel thought back.
‘None of your business!’ his mind replied, ‘now move it!’
‘You gave us away when you spoke to that alien, didn’t you?’
Angel smirked.
‘Would you move already!’ his mind ordered.
‘No, you tell me what you said,’ Angel delighted in this
opportunity for payback.
‘That’s it. Move over I’m driving,’ his mind replied.

21

Igor Swann

They ran to one of the ships, and his mind ordered it to open.
‘You know how to fly this thing?’ Angel asked.
‘I am the most intelligent life form in the universe,’ his mind
replied smugly, ‘how hard could it be?’
Angel sat in front of the command console.
‘Where the hell is the on button,’ he heard his mind thinking
aloud.
Angel heard the faint sound of the ship’s access door opening.
His heart sank.
Moments later Qren floated in accompanied by guards.
‘We have followed your progress on the ships monitors. Highly
impressive,’ he remarked before continuing.
‘We unfortunately cannot allow you to leave. Please understand
the future of the known universe could depend on your
cooperation in fulfilling your destiny.’
‘And if I refuse to cooperate?’ Angel asked fuming.
‘That is not an option you would wish to consider,’ Qren
suggested without a hint of malice, ‘the guards will escort you
back to your quarters. Please remain there until we reach our
destination. Thank you.’
‘We’re screwed aren’t we?’ Angel asked his mind while they
were ushered back to their quarters.
‘Yep,’ his mind replied indifferently.

22

Waking the Angel

CHAPTER 4
‘Victory!’ the cry echoed along the cavern walls bouncing off
into the distance.
‘Care to wager another ounce of Zellion brother?’ the warm
deep voice asked, ‘you still have much to learn about the game of
Digs, but you will in time.’
Two small black beads stared out from under bushy eyebrows
at the one who made this statement before replying.
‘Yes brother dearest, but who could foresee a fate card
destroying my number one shaft?’
‘Ah, as the saying goes putting your coal all in one bucket. No
contingency plan, which was admittedly a brave move, but
foolish.’
‘Let us not forget that this youth has cried victory before.’
‘True brother, very true, and what a famous victory that was.’
‘It will not be the last,’ a determined voice came from the
younger player.
‘That I do not doubt, and I look forward to the day it will be a
regular occurrence.’

Brom proceeded to reset the pieces and shuffle the fate cards.
He loved this game. It gave him endless satisfaction to out-mine
his opponents, and none except for Kirom once, has ever tasted
the sweetness of victory when playing him.
His only regret was cheating to let his brother win. He dealt a
fate card from the bottom of the deck. He already knew what it
would be; a plague card that wiped out half his own workforce

23

Igor Swann

and left key areas severely weakened. This took careful planning
and positioning without his brother realizing what he was doing.
Kirom had won, and he did not stop smiling for a week after,
while Brom pretended to sulk.
It was necessary. He had to keep his brother’s interest in the
game. Adequate playing partners were hard to come by. Even in
the Universal Digs Championship, none came close to challenge
his skill.
The thought seem to amuse Brom and he let out a thundering
laugh that shook a few crystals loose from the ceiling.
One particularly large crystal unceremoniously dropped on his
brother’s oversized foot.
Kirom swore and bounced off into an unlit tunnel.
It took a while for his curses to die down in the distance.
A disappointed older brother watched him depart. Brom was
looking forward to testing out a new strategy he was working on.
As he returned his gaze to the board, he only now noticed the
large gist1, perched on the playing field, twitching his nose at
Brom.
Brom held out his hand and the gist scrambled on. He touched
the creature’s head lightly where he knew the hidden recording
dot resided.

1 A furry little rat creature. However, he had a much more relaxed
temperament and was a heck of a lot faster. They created their own tunnel
structure in the Dwar maze and trained easily, thus they were the preferred
carrier of information, since radio waves did not travel well in these ore-rich
caverns.

24

Waking the Angel

A monotonous voice arose from his hand, ‘Brom, Grand Master
Dwar, your presence is hereby requested for an emergency
senate meeting.’
Brom immediately grasped the meaning of this, the Vanir has
been located.
‘Excellent,’ he thought.
He loathed being on the surface, too much fresh air. He missed
the damp musty smell of his beloved caverns, tunnels and shafts
when he was unfortunate enough to be off-planet.
Topside Nidavellir was completely devoid of life. Acid and
sulphur pits covered its entire surface and one gigantic electric
storm fully describes the planet’s weather patterns.
This was one planet where the weatherman had an easy job. He
could predict the weather curled up in bed 10 miles underground.
The Dwar were a stocky, hairy race turned so by evolution from
living underground. As miners and traders, they were well known.
Their cities frequently visited by offworlders seeking a trade
agreement and a chance to lay their hands on the precious metals
and minerals only the Dwar seem to be able to get hold of.
They were rich, rich beyond the imagination even Angel now
possessed.
They loved their underground dwellings, so much so that they
decorated the inside of their interstellar cruisers in the fashion of
their caverns. Stalactites and stalagmites were painstakingly
‘grown’, and all the ships were equipped with burrowing tools so
that they do not physically land on a planet so much as inside a
planet.

25

Igor Swann

The race hierarchy was simple. You had miners and captains,
masters of mines, masters of planets and him, Dwar Grand
Master.
He gave the gist a few scraps from those left on the table.
‘Off with you now little one,’ he commanded.
He picked up his gigantic hammer, and set off to pack.
In peacetime, they banned the use of these hammers on the
surface of any habitable planet. It had a tendency to cause
devastating electric storms, not unlike the ones raging on
Nidavellir.
This was due to the build-up of electromagnetic energy in the
hammer core enabling the hammer to cut through solid rock or
metal like a hot knife through butter. It did not only shatter the
rock. The hammer in fact ripped apart the strong and weak forces
holding the atoms and molecules together.
This would release the electromagnetic energy that binds the
electron to its nucleus, which the hammer absorbs and use to
recharge. The hammer would direct the rest of the energy away
from the user and this energy subsequently collect in the
stratosphere.
In a very short time, the energy builds to such magnitude that it
creates the electric storms.
Precise prospecting was the Dwar creed. The few Dwar that
were unlucky enough to hit a uranium or plutonium deposit were
never heard from again, neither was the planet.
Brom’s hammer, a particularly powerful example, needed only a
few blows to cause a super-storm of continentally devastating
proportions. The name of this hammer was Mjolnir.

26

Waking the Angel

Mjolnir, handed down from generation to generation always
belonged to the Grand Master Dwar. It was the most exquisitely
crafted tool in the entire Dwar Empire, and it was the first. All
other hammers were fashioned from it. Mjolnir was the symbol of
Dwar power.

27

Igor Swann

CHAPTER 5
A freezing early dawn broke on Arken. It would be another 2
hours before late dawn, and the rising of the second sun with an
orbit far closer to the planet, providing most of the heat.
Angel rubbed his chest as he aimlessly sauntered down the
endless corridor. He arrived on the planet three days ago and
since been allowed to wander the palace grounds unescorted. No
one bothered him and he felt invisible, almost as if he was back at
work, only here he did not have to pretend to be working.
Still he wished he could wake up.
He stared at his own reflection in one of the palace’s mirrored
walls.
It was still his face staring back.
Angel was tall at almost six foot four inches, and had a decent
enough bone structure. Angel had a naturally athletic build, even
though fitness was not one of his main concerns, he maintained a
semblance of a decent shape. His dark hair, and grey blue eyes
that had a constant naughty glint to them, along with his well-
chiselled face and broad shoulders made him a very attractive
man indeed. Even the scar running from the corner of his right
eye about half an inch down his temple just made him appear
more handsome in a rugged way.
He had never believed himself an attractive male specimen but
he received constant compliments and attention, which should
have given him a clue.

Confused and lonely he kept walking.

28

Waking the Angel

Walking gave him something to do, something to dull the
longing for home. He missed earth, his bench, the pigeons, even
the tax audit would be welcome relief from this nightmare.
He had so many questions, most of which he did not want
answered.
A large memorial stone drew his attention and he ambled
across lethargically.
A strange hieroglyphic language covered the stone. As he stared
at the writing, the symbols started swimming in front of his eyes.
Here we go again, he sighed.
His mind was at it once more.
Qren had told him that it would take months before his mind
would feel like part of him.
Apparently, he still controlled his mind, only it operated at such
an enhanced level of processing, using so many previously unused
sectors, that it felt as if detached.
His mind had found a cryptic puzzle and it would be damned if it
would let this go by unsolved.
12.23 seconds later, it had very disappointingly cracked the
cipher. Sulking, it returned to a state of complete and utter
boredom.
<Sigh>
Angel gaped at that which his brain had revealed to him. How
could this be, he wondered.
Carved on the memorial-stone were the surnames of some of
the most renowned forward thinkers in earth history, stretching
back thousands of years.
He slowly read the latter ones he recognized.
‘… Einstein, Newton, da Vinci, Alexander, Michelangelo, Freyr…’

29

Igor Swann

That last name rang a bell, but he could not place it.
Angel shrugged, confident his mind would come up with an
answer shortly, and indeed, he did not need to wait long before
his mind head-butted his consciousness out of the way and
started chirping.
‘137 hits found on Freyr, to narrow the search, please supply
more parameters.’
When none was forth coming, it got back to calculating the
angle between the two suns and the second they would overtake
each other.
He made a mental note to ask Qren about these carvings and
the Arks’ interest in the greatest minds of his planet.
They already possessed the knowledge of the gene long before
any of these men were born, and the transformed humans were
much more intelligent, he thought, with his freezing limbs now
mostly forgotten, he walked on, quite puzzled.
He noticed the ion trails of a few personal cruisers arriving
during the course of day, but did not pay them much heed.
He had more questions than answers in any event, and had no
enthusiasm for compounding his confusion.
The revelation Qren imparted on him while en route to Arken
was too profound.
There were also a few other insignificant little details, such as
standing on a planet a zillion light-years from a place he really
liked to call home, looking at an alien sky, surrounded by beings
that did not exist a few days ago. Then finally coming to the
realization that this represents only the tip of the iceberg and he
was certainly in for a few more surprises.

30

Waking the Angel

He walked to the gardens on the other side of the palace,
kicking absentmindedly at anything unlucky enough to be in the
path of his foot’s pendulum.
I am only one man, one insignificant man, how can they expect
this of me, how can they expect me to command galaxies,
countless races, and lead them into war.
‘Why me!’ he screamed.
He fell into a brooding silence.
Angel tried waking from this nightmare every chance he got.
His mind has even helped on occasion, thinking of clever ways
to shock him back to reality.
Angel was sure his brain was only doing this because deep
down it had a nasty homicidal streak.

31

Igor Swann

CHAPTER 6
Teral stood on the bridge of his battle cruiser, a gigantic
spaceship.
He calmly gave orders while a battle raged on the view screen in
front of him. The raiders, mostly Taur bombers and a few fighters,
were attacking from all sides, but held at bay by his cruiser’s
heavy shield and directional turrets.
He had been hunting this raiding party for weeks. They
slaughtered settlements on more than a dozen worlds, and some
he could only surmise to be for sport.
These settlers had no valuables or commodities that would be
of interest to the Taur.
He inwardly smiled a wry smile, as he watched the murderous
fools taking the bait.
They were so gullible, but then again, dangling the seemingly
unescorted Imperial Battle Cruiser as lure, how could they resist?
He even gave them a few added incentives. The broken ion trail
of a crippled ship and taking his forward defensive array off-line,
something he knew their sensors would detect.
True, they might stand a measly few percent chance of taking
her but he was counting on this greed.
Why would they not want to return home as heroes having
destroyed the flagship of the Aesir.
The raiders pressed on in the attack and Teral let them get
close, he wanted to draw them all in.

32

Waking the Angel

Some were still hanging back, tentative, careful, not trusting
their luck, but more and more joined the attack after seeing the
apparent success of their brothers.
Everything was going according to plan.
Nearly there, just a few more, a few more, he thought to
himself.
He wanted the two Taur capital ships within range. They must
not get the opportunity to escape, he thought.
That’s it, ‘Commander, give the order for the corvettes to
decloak and commence fire,’ Teral barked.
The Aesir were the only race whose ships had this ability, except
for one other very special craft.
The cloak was not so much technology as it was magic. The
result of Aesir mages seated in the hulls of the corvettes plugged
into a thought amplifier. This enabled them to generate a huge
magical field around the ships, which made them invisible to any
observer or sensor.
This however presented one serious problem, since for anyone
inside the field there was no way to observe the outside either.
This necessitated one decloaked ship with a senior mage
onboard to mind guide the cloaked ships.
The development of this strategy took many years, and many
ships. They were flying blind and kept on crashing into each other,
quite embarrassing really, but the captain of the ship only had a
few seconds to feel embarrassed about their manoeuvring skills.

Teral tapped his mindcom to broadcast his orders to his ships,
‘bring the forward array online, all stations fire at will! Launch all
squadrons! Destroy them! Destroy them all!’

33

Igor Swann

He sat back in the command chair with pleasant thoughts
spiralling in his mind; did this scum really think the imperial battle
cruiser would travel without an escort? How simple-minded they
must be. At least he will have revenge for his people’s needless
deaths.

The mindcom projected thoughts as voices directly into Teral’s
mind and he was listening with satisfaction. He kept switching
wavelengths, listening in on stations across his fleet.
‘Forward array is on line, commencing fire.’
<Click>
‘Corvette Astor in position, decloaking.’
<Click>
‘Alpha squadron completed flanking manoeuvre, commencing
attack.’
‘Delta 3 and 4 break left, on my command… go,’
‘What the heck is that Taur doing? He is going straight into the
cruiser, must be Mino’t, sleep tight baby.’
<Click>
‘Oh shit, oh shit oh shit; get him off my tail… AND STOP
SHOOTING AT ME!’
‘Sorry, I thought you were the one, who looked like he knew
how to fly.’
‘I’ll fly this thing up your big ugly butt, asshole.’
<Click>
‘WHO IS CONTROLLING TURRET 4? Tell the idiot to shoot at the
moving things; he can’t hit the pretty little lights from here!’…
‘Yes, I mean the STARS MORON!’

34

Waking the Angel

‘HE FORGOT HIS GLASSES AT HOME? Get that C^@%$ off that
turret NOW, and eject him through the airlock… of course I was
kidding, eject him through the refuse disposal, we’ll give his family
a medal later.’
‘He’s your friend? Just send him to his quarters for Odin’s sake,
and choose your friends more carefully in future.’
<Click>
‘Bring the Corvette round.’
‘No, the other way idiot, never give your flank to the enemy.’
‘What is wrong with you? Are you auditioning to be a bus driver
at the old age home? I saw that!’
<Click>
‘Alpha three to Alpha two, I am on three, you?’
‘Stopped counting at 10,’
‘Bull.’
‘No really, last one was named Trac’y; she was a really hot
waitress at Blongs on Keras2.’
‘Idiot,’
<Click>
‘Sigma 1 you break left and I’ll go right, we’ll box him in.’
‘No, your other left, F*****, oops sorry my mistake, did not see
you were inverted.’
<Click>
‘Corvette Brondir Turret 7 acquiring target, target in range,
target locked. Firing plasma cannon…’
‘Sir, do they have battle cruisers?’
‘No?’
‘Then that’s… oh shit!’
<Click>

35

Igor Swann

Teral watched as his cruiser and the corvettes rained a barrage
of plasma, ion cannon fire and an assortment of missiles on the
murderous trash.
His fighters outflanked them and his corvettes formed a
corridor of death trapping the entire marauder fleet.
He hoped they have some idea of what his people felt before
dying, hopelessly awaiting death.
His people, the Aesir were a peace loving society of mages, who
embraced combat training only as a means to defend themselves.
Renowned as entertainers they were a flamboyant race with
magic being to them what air is to humans.

They were shape shifters; able to take on the appearance of
almost anything they touched. Though they could not duplicate
intricate machinery or complex cell structures, in outward
appearance, they were perfect replicas.
In their natural state, they had no prominent features. Their
‘skin’ and eyes appeared dark blue in colour with a metal-like
sheen. They have no hair, nails, or any orifices. The Aesir
assimilated food by phagocytosis. This means the outer layer of
the skin, with the magic field surrounding it, constantly attracts
‘edible’ particles, which the ingested through the cell membrane.
Their preferred means of communication like the Arks was
mental telepathy. Although, when taking the form of an entity
using any other means of communication, they would use this
instead.

36

Waking the Angel

The commander’s voice interrupted Teral’s thoughts, ‘sir, they
are running! We got at least 68 of the marauder ships, including
both Taur capital ships. There were only a few casualties on our
side. Your plan was a resounding success, congratulations sir.’
‘Your congratulations are premature commander,’ Teral
thought, ‘they will all die today, every single one. Send the fighter
wings after them, and I want an account of every Taur ship’s
destruction,’ and to be sure he added, ‘did I make myself clear
Commander?’
‘Crystal sir,’ the Commander turned on his heel and left.
Teral was not blood thirsty by nature, none of his people was,
but after seeing the mindless slaughtering of the Aesir, his people,
his blood, something snapped inside.
Now he wanted vengeance and he wanted blood to flow, the
blood of the Taur. Today he will cleanse this vile smudges on the
universe’s floor. He had the soap and brush, and he was not going
to stop scrubbing until it was spotless.
The mindcom beeped in his head, ‘Speak,’ he commanded.
‘Sorry to interrupt Sir, but we just received an encrypted deep
space transmission from the Arks. You are required to attend an
emergency senate meeting,’ the nervous voice squeaked, ‘shall I
respond in the positive?’
This did not amuse Teral in the least. He savoured these
moments of retribution but alas duty called. He took a minute
before answering.
‘Do so.’
He still did not recall his fighters until he was sure he destroyed
all remnants of the Taur raiders. Only then did he order their
departure for Arken.

37

Igor Swann

Teral relaxed in his chair even though a terrible sense of
foreboding plagued his thoughts.
The Taur had become more organized, deliberate and arrogant.
It felt as if some force controlled them, gave them courage. He
could sense an evil mastermind behind their movements and it
was not their current leader Kra’st, who would start to
photosynthesize if his IQ fell by one point. No, something was
wrong, very wrong.
His cruiser gave a faint shudder as the massive hyper-drive
engines came online and propelled them towards Arken.

38

Waking the Angel

CHAPTER 7
It was not until nightfall that Angel had a chance to catch up
with Qren. He took up stride alongside the leader of the Arks, and
continued to examine the face of his abductor.
Qren seemed oblivious to Angel’s presence.
He did not wish to interrupt, sensing a great weight on Qren’s
shoulders as even the alien’s expressionless face displayed
concern.
They walked together for a while in silence before he felt Qren’s
voice enter his head.
‘Did you have a pleasant day my lord?’
This startled Angel. He was not ready to accept such a title.
‘Please Qren no more, I need time,’ he shook his head and
turned to leave. He was in no mood to get into a debate on this
absurd subject. Qren would not understand. How could he
without an imagination.
He was about to turn and leave having completely forgotten
why he wanted to see Qren in the first place, but got a reminder
from his now manically depressed brain.
It could not find a single thing worth dissecting and exploring. It
has even calculated the atoms in Angel’s body, but got frustrated
when Angel had a coughing fit and kept on throwing off his count
by expelling atoms.
It bing’ed politely and said, ‘Meeting with Qren, Subject: Stone
carvings, 5 minutes overdue.’
Angel pulled a face at his mind.

39

Igor Swann

‘I came upon a memorial stone today listing the last names of
earth’s geniuses. What does it mean?’ he asked.
‘Who told you what was written on the stone?’ Qren asked
with genuine surprise. Qren seemed concerned and Angel took
this as being something that is not because he has done
something right.
‘No one, I read it, or rather my mind did,’ he answered in
earnest not knowing if he should lie or not.
Qren took a moment before replying.
He was surprised at how efficiently Angel’s brain had
developed. Breaking the cipher so quickly was truly unimaginable.
He did not feel the necessity to inform Angel of this small detail,
but rather gave him the information he requested.
‘Oh? Well, to answer your question. The names on the stone
are not those of whom you are thinking. The names were those of
the UGE Lords, but to explain this I need to start with how and
why.’
Angel’s mind jumped into an armchair, ‘popcorn check, ears
clean, check, storage cells, check, reception… testing… testing…
check; Okay WE’RE READY,’ it announced.
Qren seemed thoughtful as he started to explain,
‘I did not fully explain the gene’s occurrence on the ship. Please
bear with me and all will become clear.’
‘Damn another long lecture,’ Angel thought. At least his mind
might get off its suicidal streak for a little while.
‘The gene is only found in the male of what you call twin
brothers, two males born from the same female in the same birth.
The gene would only be present in one of the twins, never both,

40

Waking the Angel

and rarely occur more than twice per generation. We were lucky
in that your generation had two occurrences.’
‘This however is not the case with the female of your species.
The gene could occur in a single birth and occurs more frequently.
Unfortunately the mind transformation on females has a more
physical effect.’
‘The transformation machine seems to focus not as with the
male on the central nervous system but rather the somatic
nervous system.
That is the motor neurons connected to the muscle and
external sensory receptors. This makes them more agile, faster
and stronger.
They develop enhanced senses and it seemed to augment what
you call their sixth sense as well.’
Angel quietly thought how dangerous this sixth sense
enhancement would make them. No more going out with the
boys, slipping away to go play golf, flirting with the secretary…
men would become slaves.
What horror.
‘This does not however mean that there is no significant
increase in intelligence, but it would solely make them
comparable to the geniuses of your world, which does not meet
our requirements.’
Again Qren took a moment before continuing, it seemed he was
about to divulge information that he was not comfortable with.
Something he did not agree with completely but partook in as a
necessity.
‘At birth we would take the gene bearing twin from the mother
and bring him to Arken. The current UGE Lord raises him until he

41

Igor Swann

is ready to take over as the new UGE Lord. Humans age very
slowly on Arken, as you will experience yourself. Therefore we
had ample time for the new lord to reach maturity and be fully
trained before accepting his position.’
‘Thanks Qren, but this still does not answer my question on the
memorial stone,’ Angel said.
‘I was getting to that. The names you saw on the memorial
stone were those of the twin brought to Arken. The name of the
earth family was given to our ruler, though you are correct in
assuming they were also the last names of your earth’s greatest
minds, the twin brother left on earth.’

This made no sense to Angel; he had no twin brother. His father
disappeared right after his birth. His mother had skilfully avoided
the subject whenever he approached it.
He froze… it was as if someone hurled icy water into his face.
A memory peeked thoughtfully into his consciousness. Could
this be the secret, his mother would not tell him? He had a twin
brother and his twin lives with his father? He was surely going to
lose his sanity. This is madness, all madness.
Deep down Angel felt it was true; he had to believe it was true.
He had a brother.
He believed in a lot more, in what exactly he had not decided
yet, but as soon as he did, he was definitely going to believe that
too.
Hallelujah.
Angel’s mind on the other hand was on a completely different
train of thought.

42

Waking the Angel

A train heading in a completely different direction and moving
at break neck speed.
Mind link, a link between twins, it thought. Could it be that the
genius of the transformed brother on Arken had somehow filtered
down to the twin, enlightening him in some cosmic twist of fate?
Stranger things have happened, especially to it, especially in the
last couple of weeks.
Angel hastily said goodnight before Qren had a chance to throw
another curve ball into the mix.
He had had enough. His mind blown so many times it felt like a
hopscotch team having a game in a minefield, and they were not
doing particularly well.

That night disturbing visions marred his dreams. It seems his
mind now equipped with the knowledge of him being a twin,
searched for the mind link.
It seemed to have found it.
Visions came and went. Apparently, his mind was struggling to
‘tune’ into his brother’s consciousness. The images were
distorted; a horror movie created by a demented mind. You might
find the same thing if you gave a monkey a video camera to play
with at a nightclub.
He woke in a pool of sweat. Overcome with nausea and a
splitting headache, with his thoughts haunted by the images of
what he assumed to be his father or a 1942 Dracula movie.
Sitting up and desperately wishing to remove the meat cleaver
from his cranial cavity and he assumed that an aspirin would be as
difficult to find on this planet as a decent steak dinner or a flight
home.

43

Igor Swann

Angel slowly got out of bed, and struggled towards the
bathroom. His was the only quarters equipped with this feature
since the Arks had no need for brushed teeth or combed hair as
they had neither.
The room had a shower, one of the few pleasures he still
enjoyed. It had hundreds of directional nozzles covering 360
degrees and from his head to toe.
The water massaged his aching body and slowly he could feel
the tension leaving him and his headache dissipating. He stood
there for what might have been half an hour. Quite a number of
times he told his brain to shut the <some choice French words>
up. His mind was acting like a 5 year old kid on a road trip ‘Are we
there yet… are we there yet,’ only it was complaining about
boredom.
He heard Qren speaking inside his head, ‘Angel I sense you had
a difficult night for which I am truly sorry.’
It would have felt as if he meant it if he had actually paused
before continuing.
‘There is unfortunately a matter of great urgency that needs to
be attended to. There is a senate meeting scheduled for later this
morning and you would be the reason. I would ask you to remain
in your quarters till an escort arrives to collect you.’
Angel did not care, he wanted to be alone, and staying in his
quarters would be a welcome relief. He also had an excuse now
not to take his mind for a walk.
His room was comfortable, decorated in a number of earthy
colours, which he accidentally chose while examining all the
switches in his room. This was calming.

44

Waking the Angel

The human who created this room spend a lot of time ensuring
it resembled the world he never knew. A world he only saw in his
dreams at night. Drapes adorned the windows and the
lampshades had designs on them, matching the duvet covers. The
floor covered in a thick soft rug and the walls were a cream colour
at present. It had a distinct 1930s feel to it. It was easy enough to
change. Turning a dial next to his bed changed the room colour
scheme to shades of blues or greens.
They provided him with clothes, which were nothing more than
normal slacks and plain cotton shirts, clean underwear, socks and
comfortable shoes. He felt sure Einstein’s twin had a hand in this
too, well either that or they raided an old age home last time they
visited earth.
He sat down at the foot of the bed, absentmindedly staring at
the clock next to his bed.
‘Why do these aliens have the same notion of time as we have
on earth?’ he asked his mind curiously.
‘If you hadn’t noticed a second here is almost 1.76 earth
seconds, and a day is synchronized to the sun’s movement around
Arken. They used this same model on earth to express days,
hours, minutes and seconds. I have to deduce that the concept of
time on earth must have originated here, and filtered down
through the mind link,’ his mind surmised in a half-hearted tone.
Angel sighed.
He had hoped his mind would be able to reinitialize the mind
link with his twin but from what he understood on his minds
mindless babble, it could only be useful if his brainwaves were in
delta around 1.5 to 4 cycles.

45

Igor Swann

It explained that this was the reason for the distorted pictures.
As soon as Angel became actively involved in what he saw, his
brainwaves increased to a theta state where it was not possible
for his brain to keep the connection.
Angel stood up and slowly walked to the bathroom to get a
glass of water, where the tap handle broke off in his hand. He
examined the handle perplexed. It really looked like a solid
enough metal. His mind whistled, and then added sarcastically,
‘That was a great trick. Do it again! Do it again!’

46

Waking the Angel

CHAPTER 8
A noticeable tension prevailed in the council chambers,
something which resembling a rap concert from the brothers in
the hood at a Ku Klux Klan convention.
‘What do you mean it will take years, I thought he was
supposed to be the most intelligent being in the universe?’
Princess Sharin, Ambassador to the El coldly exclaimed.
Qren frowned, as much as an expressionless face could.
‘He must learn our lore, adjust to his new mind, be trained in
combat and in our technology, vessels and weapons. This takes
time. Our previous leaders were raised from infants,’ he patiently
explained.
It was no use and he was getting Sharin even more upset.
‘How is he adjusting so far?’ Grand Master Brom of the Dwar
asked genuinely concerned.
Qren shrugged.
‘As well as can be expected, he still needs to clarify many things
in his own mind.’
‘When will training commence? Will he be able to handle the
physical strain?’ chirped Sharin, annoyed that someone dare
speak while she was interrupting.
‘When he adapts to his new nervous system, we will commence
training. The mind transform has enhanced his synaptic pathways
and motor neurons to such an extent that he is most probably not
only the most intelligent, but might well become the most
powerful UGE Lord ever,’ Qren quoted.

47

Igor Swann

‘This is not the normal reaction to the procedure, but we never
use the procedure on adult males. He has reacted quite
differently to what is observed in infants.’
‘This physical transformation will take time unfortunately, we
have been monitoring him and his muscle mass is slowly
increasing, so is his speed but he might not have noticed this yet,’
Qren continued.
Teral seemed troubled.
‘What if he cannot be controlled, you have already mentioned
he cracked the cipher on the stone in seconds. This took his
predecessors weeks to break down.’
This also concerned Qren. The Arks used the memorial stone as
a final test when the students were ready to become the UGE
Lord. They placed the stone in the square for the new UGE Lord to
study. When he broke the cipher and wrote his own name on the
stone in the code, there was a party of galactic proportions with
lots of dancing, drinks, and crowns flying all over the place.
‘We don’t know yet, a lot is new in his situation. He needs to
deal with a cerebrum that has somehow managed to disconnect
itself from his consciousness, becoming a voice in his head.’
Qren knew this happens to some extent in the infants they
abducted. They noticed the infants kept talking to themselves just
after the transformation; they learned to speak several languages
in a few days.
It was always just one side of the conversation that was audible
as if speaking to something else in their heads. Unfortunately, the
Arks could not hear or rather mind read the other voice since it
was not in the conscious mind. This lasted a week at most before
the two combined into one.

48

Waking the Angel

‘You might see the consciousness as what he remembers his
mind’s abilities to be,’ he continued.
‘The other voice is all his mind is now capable of. The
consciousness actually does not understand how to control this
new power so it has given it a personality and kept it separate. It
will only gradually accept it and become one, when it realizes the
change is permanent.’
The others now shared his concern. What if they have a ruler,
whose decision-making abilities do not lie within his genius side?
What if he did not consort with his new intellect and made
emotional decisions?
Sharin was as always the first to start throwing her toys,
preferably not her bow-staff as it might cause a few heads to roll.
‘The El will never stand for this! We joined this alliance and
subjected ourselves to the rule of the Vanir because of their
superior standing. The El will never be subjected to an inferior
specimen.’
She gave a satisfied smile at the murmur of approval from the
10 junior senators that were not part of the head. She always had
them eating from her hand, after all she was El; they were
inferior.
There were only six chief senators namely herself, Brom, Teral,
Qren, the Vanir, and Noone.
Nobody knew anything about Noone.
His origin, what race he was and how old were secrets he kept
hidden from everyone.
All they know is that he has the wisdom of the ancients and he
was responsible for the creation of the alliance, before even the
great grandfather of Sharin was born.

49

Igor Swann

He brought the knowledge to understand the mind transform
device. He also found the Vanir gene and he discovered
strawberry ice cream. He was brilliant.
He refused to carry a name. They called him ‘no one’, which
over many generations and millennia became Noone.
Nobody knew what his face looked like because of the dark grey
hooded robe he always wore. His face remained cast in a shadow
deep within the hood. Only when he looked directly at you could
you see two glowing orbs inside the darkness of the hood. Some
speculated it to be two torches he has strapped on his head for
reading.
The other 10 senators comprised of races, which either were
colonists or ungoverned. They were numerous in number but too
scattered and poor to exclude them from the protection of the
UGE against the Taur.
Brom spoke up, ‘you forget princess that we are on the brink of
war. You have heard Arch-Chancellor Teral’s recount of the battle.
The Taur are openly aggressive and do not share the respect for
the alliance they had in the past. For some reason they are under
the impression we can now be beaten…’
Teral broke into their minds, ‘our spies have heard rumours of a
force that would destroy the alliance. However, it is a well-
guarded secret, known in only the top Taur circles. Our spies
cannot infiltrate this war council because they possess a scanner,
which can detect our cell structure.’
‘Our long range scout ships have found massive fleets being
readied in the far sectors of Taur space. Not enough to take on
the combined strength of the UGE but if they managed to divide

50

Waking the Angel

us we would make easy targets,’ the concern in Teral’s thoughts
clearly audible.
‘So what you are saying is if we do not accept this Vanir, and
keep the alliance under him we are doomed?’ Sharin made this a
statement less than a question.
She was ready to withdraw the El from the alliance a few
moments ago but now doubt clouded her mind. If this were true,
the El would not survive.
The El was the most powerful race along with the Dwar. No one
knew who would win an all out confrontation between these two
UGE races, and no one was keen to find out.
That is except for the punters, who have on several occasions
attempted to initiate a confrontation accidentally.
The reason the alliance was successful was the introduction of
the Vanir.
Nobody would willingly be subject to the rule of the El.
Especially not the Dwar, who has always felt the El was
colonizing planets, they saw first.
By a UGE decree, Dwar may not mine a planet if there were
already colonists on the planet. However, they could continue
mining, if the introduction of colonists happened after they
started mining operations.
Unfortunately, for the Dwar, prospecting takes time, and once a
race registers a planet with the senate, that race was responsible
for the planet’s inhabitants and upkeep.
Due to financial constraints, they can only register once they
have struck ore, and by then the El had jumped in and registered
the planet, if there was ample forestation on the planet.
The converse was also true.

51

Igor Swann

No El would agree to the command of the other inferior
species.
The Vanir was the only exception. He was superior in intellect,
but did not belong to their worlds.
There was no chance of bumping into another Vanir in a pub
who would tell them they are not allowed in the VIP section or
make them feel they need to buy the drinks so they could ‘fit in’.
The El would submit to his rule, while he did not make a
mistake in judgment.
No Vanir ever did… to date.
The only other option was Noone.
He however refused to rule since by his own admission, he was
no ruler, and reluctantly the others had to agree.
Even though he was a brilliant advisor and spoke with the
wisdom of the ancients, he did not have the presence of the Vanir
to rule. He had dignity, and he could make mistakes.
No, the Vanir would have to do.
The only mistake ever made by the Vanir, was the loss of the
symbol of Vanir power many centuries ago.
Each race had a symbol in the form of a weapon.
The Vanir had a sword.
This caused some division in the ranks of the UGE and caused a
few of the member states to go rogue or neutral, as they liked to
call themselves.
This was a huge blow to the UGE as they presented a sizable
part of the UGE defence strategy in the outer rim planets.
Sharin sighed, bowed her head slightly, and with a weary voice
said, ‘so Qren lets meet this protégé of yours.’

52

Waking the Angel

Qren waited and silently prayed for this conclusion. He gave a
nod to his guards who promptly left for Angel’s quarters.
Angel was playing noughts and crosses with His Worship the
Lord of the Brain Elite as his mind referred to himself now or LOBE
to his friends. He reluctantly allowed Angel to call him that as
well.
Angel was deep in thought and LOBE was getting irritated
because Angel was just randomly putting down X’s, even when he
was playing noughts.
LOBE vowed if it happened again he was going to start a
migraine.
Angel laughed until his belly ached.
‘That’s it, I’m leaving,’ LOBE said.
‘So where would you be going then?’ Angel asked still laughing.
‘Hmmm forgetful are we, you have been driving too long I see.
Shall I remind you that you are only in control because I allow you
to be, and because I had more important things to do,’ LOBE said
without malice, but Angel could feel the smile burn into the back
of his head, from inside his head.
‘Okay, okay, let’s just play, shall we? Have you had any luck in
figuring out why I could break the handle that easily?’ Angel
asked, trying hard to get off the previous subject.
LOBE started an explanation in his professorial voice, ‘I have
analyzed our nervous system and have deduced that the
transformation did not only affect me. Our motor, inter and
sensory neurons seem to be multiplying exponentially. The
synaptic clefts have decreased in size. Dendrites branched
extensively. The neurotransmitters changed in composition and

53

Igor Swann

increased in density. Action time has decreased from the normal
range of 0.5 and 1 millisecond. It is now less than a nanosecond.’
‘Protein absorption has increased dramatically and hypertrophy
is occurring without resistance,’ LOBE smugly answered.
Angel was NOT impressed.
‘English please!’ he replied irritably.
‘LOBE talks to muscles quick-quick. Muscles get biiig. Angel
strong like bull, run like deer, leap tall buildings in a single bound,’
sarcasm dripped from LOBE’s medulla oblongata.
‘Really,’ Angel asked.
‘No.’
Angel felt like strangling him, or at least cutting off the oxygen
supply to LOBE for a while.
A knock at the door placed a damper on his plans. He made a
mental note, Suffocate LOBE, and walked over to answer the
door.

54

Waking the Angel

CHAPTER 9
Angel gingerly entered the great hall as his ushers took up
position on either side of the doors. Again, he could see an
unmistakable human influence. The décor of the chamber was in
the fashion of the Michelangelo ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
He stood in front of a half moon shaped table with the top six
chairs and that part of the table forming a dais. The seats were
more like thrones than chairs. A low hum came from the
members of the senate. They were obviously talking, those who
had vocal cords, but he could not understand them.
He tentatively walked into the middle of the half-moon.
A court attendant placed a small piece of metal behind his ear,
and it seemed to be absorbed into his skin, because when he felt
for it, there was nothing there.
The hum started to become words, and the words became
sense.
Angel felt like a racehorse on parade, and judging by the buyers’
reactions as he scanned the room one by one, they thought he
was an old plough horse. Revise that, a crippled old plough horse.
No rather a blind and cripple old plough horse.
Fortunately, Qren choose that moment to speak distracting his
survey of the council, for the next person his eyes would turn to
would have been Sharin, and if he saw her face, he would have
felt like the rotting broken tooth of the aforementioned plough
horse.

55

Igor Swann

‘Lords and ladies of the senate, may I introduce to you, Angel of
the Vanir,’ he turned to Angel, ‘Angel this is the Senate of the
United Galactic Empire.’
Qren began to introduce the senate indicating each as he
presented them.
‘Firstly we have Arch-Chancellor Teral of the Aesir, next to him,
Brom, Grand Master of the Dwar,’ for a moment Angel felt he
heard something strange, but dismissed it as a misunderstanding.
Qren continued, ‘Noone of the Ancients, Princess Sharin of the
El.’
This time there was no mistake, he had definitely heard Elf, and
he heard Dwarf when Qren introduced Brom.
He had seen the words El and Dwar written on the memorial
stone, but when Qren pronounced it, the wave coming into his
brain made an ‘F’ sound while it withdrew.
He started to laugh and walk around the room, looking under
tables, behind potted plants, curtains, chairs, even examining
some of the junior senators.
This must be the most elaborate hidden camera show ever
devised.
He was on to them now.
What did they do to make his mind react funny, see things, hear
voices? It was most probably some designer drug that will wear
off in a day or two.
What would they want him to believe next? Kidnapped by aliens
was far-fetched but now they wanted him to believe there were
Elves, Dwarves and whatever Aesir and Noone were?

56

Waking the Angel

He expected to find Godzilla, King Kong and Barney the
Dinosaur playing destructo-monopoly1 in the closet.
‘So where are the cameras?’ he asked, ‘great acting though, you
had me going there. Wow, I thought the alien abduction was real.
What a relief,’ he gave a mock applause.
Sharin reacted so quickly that it was almost impossible to see
her move. Angel felt something thin, cold and obviously deadly
push against his neck. A faint trickle of blood dripped on his shoe.
‘You dare mock an El Princess,’ she spat.
The venom in her voice clearly audible, no mistakes this time,
she was great at making a point.
Angel believed some more.
‘This is real?’ he stammered, ‘You are Elf and he is Dwarf?’
‘We are El, Vanir, El not Elf,’ her icy voice could freeze an
erupting volcano, if it had enough guts to erupt while she spoke.
‘On earth you are called Elf your greatness,’ Angel stupidly
replied.
He felt foolish and very scared.
‘What made him say that?’ he wondered, ‘they look like elves,
but that was coincidental was it not?’
‘Elf, how could Vanir know about the El or Dwar for that
matter? Neither race has ever been to Vanaheimr. The Ark are the
only ones who know, or care,’ Sharin sneered, ‘where that
primitive planet is, and they have no means to communicate with

1
Destructo-monopoly is where they start with the hotels and houses and then
destroy them as the game progresses.

57

Igor Swann

the Vanir except after he has been successfully transformed,
where after he is the UGE Lord and never returns home,’ she spat.
No one else he knew could make ‘lord’ sound like ‘he who
washes my feet, with his tongue.’
This made no sense to Angel. Their descriptions fit perfectly into
what he remembered from his fantasy novels, and a little hobby
he had on Norse mythology at university.
LOBE’s voice rose inside his head, ‘Freyr, Vanir, Elf, 1 hit,’ he
was pleased with himself.
LOBE proceeded, after imitating a drum roll.
‘The god Freyr was the bravest and strongest of all the gods. A
great leader, he was of the Vanir, a tribe associated with fertility
and prosperity. He was the god of the Alfkind or Elven,’ he paused
for dramatic effect.
‘He lived in Vanaheimr. Swedish royalty still believe that Freyr
was one of their Ancestors,’ LOBE was on fire, and did not intend
to relinquish the floor.
‘Freyr is second only to Thor in popularity in Iceland, and one of
the three most popular mythological gods of all time. The third
being Odin.’

Angel understood.
It made so much sense, even to him; insanity rocks.
Angel remembered.
However, the concept, what it would imply was unbelievable.
Angel believed.
He wanted to speak privately to LOBE but it came out audible to
the entire senate, ‘Freyr was the first human ruler right?’

58

Waking the Angel

To his surprise, the senate responded, and a nodding of heads
around the room confirmed this assumption.
Angel shrugged.
‘Well what do you know,’ he whispered to LOBE and continued
audibly, ‘he had a twin sister on earth.’ Disbelief was as thick in
the room as marijuana smoke at a Bob Marley concert.
The sweet smell of success, but he had LOBE to confirm
everything, and he knew Norse Mythology, now that LOBE
allowed him access to the memories.
It was definitely a sister.
LOBE nodded. Angel felt his brain move inside his cranial cavity.
Qren interrupted, ‘it is true,’ he announced.
‘He was the first and it was an anomaly.’
‘He was the only male gene-carrier whose sibling was female.
We still do not understand how, but the anomaly has never
resurfaced.’
Angel continued unabated, ‘a twin sister called Freyja, whom he
was mind linked to.’
He could see the puzzled expression on their faces. He smiled,
how could they know?
The mind link between twins was an unobserved concept, even
if one of the infants experienced the mind link while he was here,
he would not know what it was and assume it a dream. He and
LOBE had had long conversations on the subject after LOBE
became aware of this strange phenomenon.

‘So the twins have a mental link? Like telepathy?’ he had asked
LOBE.
‘Yes, only much stronger and over an almost infinite distance.’

59

Igor Swann

‘But won’t brainwaves fade and dissipate after a while. Aren’t
they just energy and waves?’ Angel wondered, ‘I mean they were
communication over zillions of light-years?’
‘How do I explain this to a halfwit, actually more like a fraction
of a halfwit,’ LOBE patiently replied while snickering.
‘It is as if the souls are connected by a ‘cable’ on a different
plane of existence where distance and time does not matter, they
communicate through this cable.’
‘Oh!’ was Angel’s only disappointing response.
Irritably LOBE continued, on… and on… until he realized Angel
had probably nodded off after ‘oh!’

Growing in confidence Angel continued speaking to the senate,
but first he gently pushed the blade away from his neck.
Sharin did not object, and he started pacing, as she returned to
her seat.
‘She saw what he saw through the mind link they shared,’ he
paused to catch his breath and savour their expressions.
‘I assume your Freyr was closely befriended with the El?’ Angel
asked.
Again, the spellbound nods greeted him.
He had unearthed a crucial piece of this mystery.
‘Now Freyr’s sister on Earth or Vanaheimr as you call my planet,
dreamt of strange worlds filled with El. She dreamt of the one
whom the El saw as their ruler and friend, which she
misinterpreted as a god. She did not recognize the Vanir as being
an earthling or her brother for that matter. She just assumed he
must be of some deity race worshipped by Elves. She called this

60

Waking the Angel

race Vanir, but you confirmed now that Vanir were in fact your
word for human.’
The faces in front of him were filled with fascination and he was
not about to disappoint them.
‘She must have had suspicions at some later stage that Freyr
was related to her in some way, because in some later records
they were mentioned as siblings as well as husband and wife.
Marriage between siblings, especially royalty was not frowned
upon then.’
Qren gave Angel a knowing look.
Was it because he was doing well? No, there was something
else! He knew a lot more than he let on. The story might not be as
straightforward as Angel thought it to be.
‘Mental note,’ Lobe chipped in.
‘I think so,’ Angel remarked before he continued.
‘These were probably just a tail added to the story, but the
mind link between some twins could be very strong. So strong,
that if one experienced pain, love, sadness so would the other.
This closeness between the two was most probably
misinterpreted as a union between them.’
‘You see Freyr’s life here became the basis for a belief structure
created by Freyja on earth thanks to the mind link which is shared
between twins.’
‘The mispronunciation Freyja got was the same one that I had
when Qren mentioned your races. El and Dwar when thought
transmitted sounds like Elf and Dwarf.’

The story of Freyja had a few unexplained sections he had not
sorted out yet.

61

Igor Swann

It did not quite fit completely into his retelling. She was
apparently the chief of the Valkyries and a goddess herself.
He kept this to himself not wanting to confuse the issue, but he
felt there were more to this story and he felt Qren had at least
some of the answers.

Angel accidentally caught a grumbling thought from the Arch-
Chancellor of the Aesir. He could see Teral did not enjoy his race’s
exclusion. Angel thought hard and took a chance.
‘In most earth tales of glory and honour, there was a great
friendship between Vanir, El and Dwar. They were always
travelling together on quests and adventure. However, the party
was never only three; there is always a fourth member, the mage
or wizard. This wise and powerful mage was a key figure, without
whom there would be no victory.’
He was looking intently at Teral and saw he had hit a good
nerve, a faint twitch as Teral’s head moved.
Angel felt confident to throw the final dice.
‘The party of four forms the basis for earth’s mightiest tales. No
story is complete without all four. Against the four, fearsome
armies would fall and unthinkable legions conquered. No one
could stand against the four when they stood as one.’
He saw Qren smile; he was becoming quite proficient in seeing
someone without a mouth smile.
He knew he had won a small battle, but a very important one.
Brom was the first to shake his hand.
Sharin and Teral followed close behind.
Noone paused a second to whisper one word in Angel’s ear,
‘congratulations.’

62

Waking the Angel

The rest of the senate all followed suite and the celebrations
began.
Qren seemed the happiest of the lot.
The weight on his shoulders, Angel sensed the day before, was
gone.
‘Happy?’ Angel projected.
‘Ecstatic,’ Qren responded.

63

Igor Swann

CHAPTER 10
Guival tried to walk with as much confidence as possible, or at
least as much as his new form allowed him.
He was afraid, deadly afraid.
He had just disembarked the Taur cruiser and his next obstacle
was customs.
‘Next,’ the gruff call came from the officer.
‘Cru’t, bound for Evergal’t,’ Guival lied.
‘And what is your business in our capital, Cru’t?’ came the curt
question from the customs official.
‘Trade agreement, Zellion imports for the military,’ Guival
replied without hesitation.
The official handed him back his documentation and ID badge.
‘Next!’ he barked.
The Aesir spy shakily walked off with his heart pounding in his
throat.
He turned the corner to leave the spaceport and go into the
busy street.
Only now did he heave a sigh of relief, knowing this was the
easy part, but still traumatising.
He impatiently waited for the rail-train to come.
It was a dark and desperate city; there was no hope left here.
The wars were all that mattered, for these were people driven by
the sword.
They fought for fun, and killed for pleasure.
He took a seat in the back, uncomfortably trying to push all the
limbs and horns into the space available.

64

Waking the Angel

There are three subspecies of Taur.
Guival decided on the easiest form of the three namely the
Mino’t. The Cen’t and Sa’t’s leg configuration were difficult to
master, although he was quite proficient in imitating both the
other species.
The Mino’t however, as specie had the combined IQ of a rock,
therefore none of the other two species took much notice of
them.
They also stood about 10 feet in their hoofs and had an
enormous build. They were the muscle of the organization. It was
the easiest form to travel in; only other Mino’t would intentionally
get in your way.
None of the species had hair on their body, although all three
species were subject to this dull brown pigmentation from head
to toe.
All three races had growths on their foreheads, which seemed
to increase in size and number with age. The size varied from
species to specie, but a Taur could have as many as six horns.
The strangest part of these races was below the waist.
Their legs where more like bended spikes, broad near the top
ending in a sharp hoofed point where their feet should be.
Both the Sa’t and Mino’t had two spikes.
Both these races’ knees constantly bent, like a kangaroo. The
Mino’t’s legs bent to the front like most earth animals; however,
the Sa’t’s knees bent to the back, similar to a grasshopper’s hind
legs.
The Cen’t was the only one of the species with four legs spaced
around their body almost like a horse-crab’s legs divide by two.

65

Igor Swann

Both the Cen’t and Sa’t had very sharp noses, their mouths
when closed showed no visible slit, but could open as wide as a
human’s head and seemed to break open to their sharp pointed
ears.
This would display hundreds of razor sharp triangular teeth
when open.
The Sa’t also had a sharp chin, which resembled the beard of a
Billy goat.
The Mino’t faces although similar in discoloration had a jaw line
that protruded forward like most earth animals, closest would be
the bulldog. Their noses were flat, snout like and they had a much
larger mouth housing many more teeth.
The Taur’s most intimidating feature however, was their eyes,
which were black as midnight. It gave the impression that
someone gorged them from their skull.
This happened quite frequently in any event, when their hands
were busy and their eyes were itchy.
The Mino’t and the Sa’t were probably the closest relatives,
where the Mino’t had the brawn the Sa’t had the brains. The
Sa’t’s chosen professions included science and engineering also
serving as advisors to the Cen’t.
The Cen’t were born leaders, they were also born killers and
brilliant strategists.
The Mino’t mostly guard things and carry things.
It is advisable though to refrain from calling the Mino’t stupid to
their face, or you might find their face around yours and that
would be slightly detrimental to your health or soon to be lack
thereof.

66

Waking the Angel

Together they lived in harmony, except when they were killing
each other, and this was as it happens quite often, mostly when
they could find no other living entity to slaughter. However, this
interspecies killing had no racial motivation; there was no
discrimination, they would kill anyone presumed to be alive.
‘You see I was there, he was there, then he wasn’t so much
there anymore, shit happens,’ is the general answer in an
interrogation afterwards.

In the central war room, not far from where Guival nervously
sat on the train, a brainstorming session progressed quite
splendidly. This involved the Sa’t braining, the Mino’t storming
and the Cen’t wondering who they would kill first.
Kra’st, supreme commander of the Taur forces, got their
attention by gently tapping Gungnir his spear, through the nearest
Mino’t’s heart.
The session came to order.
‘Have we located our target?’ he rasped.
An old Sa’t with fading brown skin named Tri’st answered.
‘We have my lord.’
‘The fleet is ready?’ Kra’st’s question came with a hint that he
had better hear what he wants or else.
‘Within the week my lord, the last crawlers and reapers are
being loaded as we speak,’ came the answer from his second in
command, Alra’st.
Alra’st was an anomaly through inbreeding; he had the
intelligence of a Sa’t and the body of a Mino’t. A Mino’t with a
brain was someone you did not want as an enemy.

67

Waking the Angel: A Mindlord Novel by Igor Swann

Waking the Angel: A Mindlord Novel by Igor Swann

Recomendados

Recomendados

Más contenido relacionado

Similar a Waking the Angel: A Mindlord Novel by Igor Swann

Similar a Waking the Angel: A Mindlord Novel by Igor Swann (12)

Último

Último (20)

Waking the Angel: A Mindlord Novel by Igor Swann