“The Hybrids if nothing else are a naturally
suspicious lot, however, and as a result of this fault, Langor selected Crankor
at the time of Edna and Butts’s first arrival on the planet to be their
watchdog. Also, the Hybrids like to keep an accurate head count of any aliens
on the surface of the Earth. I expect this to be due to their paranoia about
the possibility of the Authorians sneaking back to mete out punishment for
their misdeeds. Anyway, back to Edna and Butts, and their interference. They
met your family before you were born, and it seems that Butts in particular
took an unprecedented interest in you at a very early age. Perhaps, he even
made you what you’ve become, but whichever way it occurred at the time he and
Edna first began working with you, Crankor immediately reported the development
to the Hybrids. The general consensus among the Hybrids was a ‘wait and see’
philosophy, since their interest in you might possibly be some kind of harmless
experiment.
“Crankor with Blitz assisting, patiently watched and
waited for more than three decades to see if the renegade Toltorians would have
any success with developing your ‘divine potential,’” Thomas sneered, “before
blowing the whistle to their Toltorian superiors. As you already know the
development of a superhuman is the only subject that ever interests any of the
Hybrids. During the time that Crankor was watching your development, there were
many more Hybrids watching other human individuals for any indication that they
might be manifesting any unusual evolutionary skills. Spying is mostly what the
Hybrids are about and since time is nothing to them, they are consumed by it.
“A few weeks ago you suddenly disappeared and
everyone was in a turmoil. The Hybrids wondered if they had been played for
fools and Crankor found himself taking a lot of heat for letting you slip away.
He wondered if Butts and Edna might possibly have been foolish enough to send
you up to their large space transport. Of course that was before he started
doing in-depth surveillance on Buttsfield and Edna. Up until that time he had
relied mostly on visual contact and the monitoring of their daily activities,
especially regarding their time spent with you.”
Katrina
felt as if she would go mad. She could feel the Hybrid Crankor looking into her
mind, becoming one with her...but it was a memory. He was attempting to see who
and what she really was. The images were making her nauseous to the point of
losing control but she had to know what he had done to her. “No,” she silently
screamed...she could not go further with this. She could not bear to see his
face. There was nothing to do at this time but to accept that most of her
memory was missing due to Crankor’s interference. Sweating profusely, she
pulled back and began to focus on the words of Calvin Thomas again, feigning an
air of detachment. The talkative priest was totally unaware of her conflicted
state of mind.
“At first, when you disappeared he considered the
possibility that Edna and Butts were aware of his scrutiny and had found a way
to outsmart him. He didn’t know in the beginning that they were as distraught
as he was over your disappearance. After continued surveillance of the two for
a short time he came to understand that they had no idea where you had gone and
were not trying to circumvent his watch over them. He continued his observance
of them anyway, since he believed they would eventually lead him to you,
although he was still unsure if you were really the one. Old Crankor is obviously not as clever or psychic as he
pretends to be. Eh? Edna and Buttsfield finally did lead him to you in a sense
but it was too late to stop your unfolding process which they had put into
motion. I might add, however, that it was not too late for him to have Butts
and Edna stopped, or rather decimated for their crime of interference.”
At this last bit of news Katrina felt a sharp pain
stab deep inside her and wanted to cry aloud, but held still. Tantalus,
however, had no such inhibitions and lifted his head with a loud howl. All the
monks gathered inside the tent gasped in dread as Calvin Thomas threw back his
head in laughter.
Most of her memories were gone
but at least she had an idea now of who and what had caused their
disappearance. Katrina knew without a doubt at this point that it was the Hybrids’
determination to get at her that had resulted in her memory loss, and not
because Butts and Edna had pushed her too hard as they had theorized. Why
Crankor’s attempt to merge with her mind had made her forget, she could not
say, nor was it any longer important. She knew his intent had been to
understand the skills and technology Butts and Edna were utilizing in order for
her to dematerialize, and that his intrusion into her mind at the time of her
first teleportation was the cause of her memory loss. She felt no anger toward
the Hybrids at this revelation, only a will of steel to finish the assignment
she intuited had been given to her by Buttsfield and Edna. “Success will be the
ultimate revenge,” Katrina said to herself. And, had Calvin Thomas looked into
her eyes at this moment he would have been dazzled, for her deep purple eyes
were filled with light and streams of energy poured out from them.