Visitation - Exodus (book 2 of 2)

Good morning Sir, your chilled fruit juice.”

“It's just the way you like it, so I am told by your friends.”

My head hurt badly and opening my eyes did not come easy.

A strange blur of a pretty face haloed against a backdrop of some very bright light appeared to be smiling at me. A hand was offering a glass of something or other. My head felt terrible with that awful muzzy, hangover feeling of the ‘morning after’; the type that follows a heavy drinking session. I knew I was too old to be having such occasions; what had I been up to?

I struggled to understand, to remember.

“What were my thoughts from last night?”

“Sinking, into a pleasurable, warm whatever-it-was with a sense of happiness, elation, feeling really good but going to sleep none-the-less.”

“Why did I go to sleep, had I been drinking and where am I now?”

“Not back in my bed surely, but I am laid down on something. This bed's a bit on the firmish side, sunshine.”

It took some effort for me to prise my eyes sufficiently open to see who was speaking and interrupting my stupor. My eyes felt sticky. Everything beyond an arms length was still a blur.

 “Are you well Sir?” came the soft lilting voice again. "I was told by your friends that this drink would help you wake up. Would you like something else?”

I managed a moaning, “Ohhhh, pardon, whatever, just put it down somewhere please.”

I needed to know where reality lay beyond the too-bright blur just outside of the capability of my eyes. I tried to pull my thoughts to a focus and force myself to consider what was going on.

All around was noise, blurred indistinct background noise, neither loud nor quiet, but noise none the less, perhaps the inane chatter of a thousand happy voices babbling to each other.

My back ached.

“This bed is not at all soft, the room is too hot; is the air-con not working properly? What are all these people doing in my room?” I rambled.

“I'm sorry Sir,” that voice again, “but I was told to place the glass in your hand as you woke up.”

I fought to clear my head and my eyes with a great difficulty and even managed to raise myself up a little.

This did not make sense.

This was a similar sensation to that of drinking from a cup of tea to find that it was coffee. On this occasion, it was neither tea nor coffee but the mental confusion of experiencing something other than what was expected, it was disconcerting, even disturbing.

Visually and certainly emotionally, this was a complete shock. I forced my eyes open a little further in an attempt to take in my surroundings.

I was not in my room; I was outside; that caught me out. I was amongst a large happy group of people who were mostly in swimwear with many of them laid on sun-beds. I was laid here on a sun-bed, or so I thought, but a sun-bed?

“What the hell am I doing laid on a sun-bed?”

I strained to open my eye a little further. A short distance away, I could see a swimming pool full of people also enjoying themselves.

“Where in hell am I?”

Then the sounds struck me all at the same time. Up until this moment, I had been in a relative silence except for the background impression of murmuring voices and someone’s insistence on drinking something in a glass. Then all came became clear, more or less, the voices being recognisable as people talking, although I could not make out the words clearly. Other mixed sounds in the distance had to be a crowd of people all talking at the same time as though at some cocktail party.

“What the hell is this, what has happened to me?”

I was becoming upset, sort of.

“I recognise this place from somewhere but where and when?”

I was trying hard to get my head into focus as much as I thought I had just achieved with my eyes.

There to my immediate right was a lovely, smiling, young woman who from her tanned skin colour, big happy smile and that accent just had to be of Caribbean origin. In her short black skirt with matching black waistcoat over a white, long-sleeved blouse and red dicky bow, I had to assume that she was some sort of waitress. In her right hand was a shiny steel tray that supported a pitcher full of the same liquid that was in the glass she was offering me; a waitress seemed to be a good assumption.

Her smile broadened and reached a spot inside with the desired effect.I felt a warm, yet refreshing, breeze coming from behind me and the sound of waves breaking upon a shore. Above my head the stitched white linen segments of a large sun-brolly flapped easily in the warm breeze; my hair joined in as I pushed myself up from the prone position and I caught the full effect of this enchanting, scented air movement.

Sun beds are fine normally, but this one was giving me a terrible stiff back.

“Sun bed! Where in hell, or heaven, am I?” I couldn’t stop swearing even in my thoughts.

“Come on Sir, drink a little at least. Your friends said that I was not to leave you until you had sipped a little of your favourite juice.”

“My favourite juice, what was she talking about.”

Her sweetly lilting and most feminine voice had a distinctive Caribbean accent that I recalled, but from where?

Of course, it came to me in a rush of sensibility. I did recognise this place; I was on holiday in Jamaica. I was trying to relax after the previous night when I must have indulged myself too much of the delicious local golden rum.

“On holiday? How in hell did you come to that conclusion, sunshine? Where's the hospital room and my soft bed? Where's the doctor or a nurse? What was she talking about, my favourite juice?”

I was asking myself questions but not getting any answers.

“How come I’m on holiday, I don't remember leaving the security of my hospital room in the base, coming on holiday, drinking last night, or very much else come to think of it.”

“The base! Why did I think that word? What in hell is the base or come to that, the hospital? What hospital, what base?”

More questions to myself.

“The soft warmth of falling asleep in my bed, yes I recall that. Is this some sort of dream or is this reality. You’re confused you fool, but you would be if you had sunk too much rum the night before."

My throat was dry and I needed that drink on offer.

“The hospital bed, where the hell is my hospital bed? How could I be in hospital and on holiday? Oh shit, I definitely need a drink of something.”

I took the offered glass; it was plastic. Trying hard not to drop it with my trembling fingers, I drew strongly on the straw. The taste hit my senses pleasantly, perhaps too pleasantly. It woke me up, as some ‘hair of the dog’ never did.

The young waitress seemed pleased with my efforts and provided me with another big smile as a reward.

“Holiday,” I blurted aloud. “What the hell am I doing on holiday?” I asked the world.

Her smile changed to a quizzical expression; was it my choice of language perhaps?

“Why Sir, you’re relaxing, just like all these other nice people. This is where all nice people come to relax and enjoy our Jamaican sunshine and rum.”

“I’m in Jamaica, not a hospital?” I asked myself rhetorically.

Her smile returned as she placed the jug on the small plastic, white table alongside me.

“Enjoy your day Sir. Join your friends who are in the pool over by the bar. I’m sure that will make you feel a lot better. You cannot be ill in such a wonderful place as this. This is Jamaica where life is taken easy, enjoy.”

I got the impression she actually meant what she said and her tone was genuinely concerned and caring; no mention of my choice of words.

I managed a strained, “Thank you,” and returned the smile.

She responded with, “No problem Sir,” and promptly wandered off.

“On holiday,” I queried to myself aloud as my thoughts turned back from the pleasantries to the concerns of the present. “Hang on,” I continued talking to myself. “I know where this place is, I’ve been here a couple of times before.” I was rambling on. I could hear the words but had no real idea of what I was saying. This was confusing, very confusing.

“Is everything OK my friend?” an inquiring and concerned voice now came from my left side.

I turned to face from where the voice had come to find a gentleman, laid on his sun bed, who was clearly concerned about my outburst. My eyes, or maybe it was my sense of perception that was coming into focus, meant that I could see a little better now.

The voice belonged to a weathered smiling face of an elderly gent. He was, I guessed, some years ahead of me in age. In his straw panama, Bermuda shorts and with a light tan, he was clearly on holiday. I assumed that he was probably retired, as I should be, and had been on holiday, perhaps, for a short time only. His wife, another presumption of mine, lay on her bed on the far side of him to me and she was clearly interested in my outburst.

I had to bluff quickly because I had no idea what was going on.

“Make it up quickly son, bluff, come on bluff.”

“My apologies, I didn't mean to disturb you,” I tried. “I’m OK. I think I had a bit of a hard night last night. Memory’s not too clear about it. I’m getting a bit long in the tooth for this kind of thing.”

I was making it up but that was all I could invent at such short notice. I had no idea why I felt the dreadful way that I did.

“I think a dip in the pool might do the trick to chase the cobwebs away,” I tried.

He smiled knowingly at me with, “I know the problem only too well. Just can’t keep up with the youngsters any more. I’ve had to slow down a lot these last few years.”

His wife smiled, almost chuckled, in agreement.

“Enjoy life while you still can, my friend,” he almost joined in with his wife’s chuckles as these last few words came my way.

He lay back down on his bed, in the shade of their brolly, as I struggled to get off my bed and onto my feet. My legs seemed to work almost with a life of their own and without the wobbly knees that normally accompany a hangover. Come to think of it, I didn't feel at all sick or with any sort of upset stomach feeling. The light head feeling was still there and the memory wasn't what it should be, but I seemed to be recovering rapidly with each passing minute.

I reached down to the little white plastic table where I had left the remainder of the chilled fruit juice in its plastic jug. I poured myself another plastic tumbler full and drank deeply, avoiding the straw. The cool liquid of some odd fruit flavour was most welcome. It did make me feel better, very quickly settling the remainder of the odd sensations in my body which were not the result of a hangover. The taste of that juice; it had to be the same as the one from the base.

“The base, the base, I should know what this means, but I don’t.”

“But why was I not there?" I instinctively knew that I should be but where was it and why was I here on a holiday?

“The word ‘base’; I keep saying that word; where is the base or rather what is the base that I seem to recall but only as a word?”

There was a prompting of something in my head; a memory I couldn’t quite pin down. The warm bed and the hospital room were there. I could sort of visualise a doctor and a nurse and someone else of great importance but it was all in a haze.

“What have you been drinking you fool and how come this juice is perking me up? God you feel awful but that’s all in the head; stomach seems OK.”

I had to get into the water. I felt certain this would help with what I now considered to be an excessive heat overpowering me. Off came the brightly coloured, cotton Hawaiian shirt that I was wearing and my leather sandals; my grey swimming shorts were exactly what I needed to get into the water. I had to be on holiday as this was my normal holiday dress for hot climes.

“Is everything else just a bad dream, am I really on holiday?”

“Why am I on my own?”

“Where’s Hazel and our friends that normally come with us?”

I glanced back to the older gent and his wife next to my sun bed. They gave me a wave and a smile with an easy thumbs-up from him.

“Who are they? They’re not our friends although very friendly.”

“Where’s Hazel?” I asked myself again.

“Why am I on my own?”

The questions just kept coming.

“Get into the pool, clear the head in the cool waters, get out of the heat,” I instructed myself.

The waitress said this was Jamaica which explained why I felt so hot and the rum, if I had imbibed too much the night before, would be a good explanation for how I felt right now.

I still could not rationalise why the word ‘base’ kept coming into my thoughts and the idea of a soft hospital bed.

“More importantly,” I thought yet again, “why was I here on my own?”

“But wait a moment. The waitress mentioned that my friends were over by the bar - ah ha! I’m not on my own. Perhaps I had been left to sleep off last night’s over indulgence while everyone else including Hazel was at the pool bar enjoying cool drinks.”

I knew instinctively where the pool bar was, but could not explain to myself why. It had to be that I had been here on some previous occasion; I was certain that I had.

“Come on you confused alcoholic, remember the past holidays, and try for goodness sake.”

I headed or more correctly stumbled slightly, coordination still being something of a problem, towards the pool steps over to my right. Before attempting the few steps down to the waist deep water, I glanced past the numerous people lounging, swimming, and just enjoying themselves in the water.

My gaze, as difficult to focus as it was, went across this pool to the smaller one beyond it to where there appeared to be the sunken bar of which, for some reason, I was acutely aware. I knew there was a pool bar and it was right where I expected it to be. I expected to see my wife and our two good friends sat at the bar on the stools in the water but I could not spot them immediately.

My eyes were clearing nicely and seemed able to focus at this distance now. I instinctively reached to the side of my head to adjust my glasses. I wouldn’t need them in the pool so why did I reach for them. In any case, I wasn’t wearing any.

“Where are my glasses?”

“Whatever,” I thought.

“Back at the table alongside my sun-bed, next to the half empty jug of juice, no doubt. Come on Ian get a grip of yourself, put the effort in.”

I was seeing adequately and could sort that problem out later, besides who wears glasses in a swimming pool. I had recognition of the two figures that were now frantically waving at me to come and join them. I didn’t go on holiday with my mates normally, only my wife and often our mutual friends. So who were these two? I did instinctively recognise them, but from where?

I wasn’t sure what to think now except get into the cooling water and try to recover properly. I almost fell down the steps having to grab the neatly tiled, side-wall of the lush planting beds to stop myself. Were the steps that slippy or was my mind not connected to my feet?

“Perhaps I should be wearing my glasses? Don’t be silly, you daft sod.”

I contradicted my own thought.

I reached the bottom of the steps in the cooling water where I immersed myself to get the full effect, stood up and felt the calming, cooling sensation almost immediately. That helped to clear my mind.

I strode, if that’s the right word, towards the gap between this large pool and the second smaller one where the bar was situated. Stepping through the warm water, cooling none-the-less and past the other bathers, took a little effort but I seemed well and truly up to the task. It was almost doing me good to work against the resistance of the water.

As I drew closer and managed to reach the gap between the two pools, I instantly knew one of the two as ‘Smiley’.

Then it hit me like a bombshell. This could be a dream, but if it was, then it was bloody realistic one. My last waking memory had needed some more of that fruit juice because something very serious had been pending.

Something that I was involved with, something I had to do, but the memories there were still not becoming clear, yet I distinctly knew Smiley as some sort of helpful friend that had got me out of some sort of scrape in the past. And then a very important lady by the name of Caterin popped into my head.

It all came flooding back in such a rush, I was overwhelmed, lost control of my senses for a moment and tripped over the rise in the pool floor level where it passed from the larger to the smaller of the two. Spluttering to the surface, I managed to find my feet with the intent on moving on again in the direction of Smiley who had now visibly broken out into laughter at my demise.

“Take it easy, my man,” as the owner of the voice gripped my arm firmly and helped me stand up straight.

“Are you unwell, Sir? Should you really be heading for the bar?” The accented voice was genuinely concerned for me.

I was a little frightened now and he noticed this in my face.

“Take it easy, only trying to be helpful Sir,” he offered in his American, or was it a Canadian accent.

“Apologies,” I responded, “that woke me up more than I expected.” I lied and smiled graciously. “Thanks for helping to steady me.”

“No problem Sir, as they say in these parts, ‘no problem’. Have a nice day,” he added.

He smiled back and let go as Smiley reached me to offer more assistance.

“Come on Ian, lets find you a seat and something long and cool to drink,” and he added so the American or Canadian, whatever he was, could hear, “but non-alcoholic.”

I did not look back at the guy from the states or wherever to find out if he approved, I just pushed on through the water. I reached the shaded side of the bar with a lot of help from Smiley. There seated on a sunken stool was someone that I guessed, from his acknowledging nod, must be his companion.

I was offered the stool adjacent to this chap and Smiley sat on the other side of me so that I was between the two of them. Another tall glass (another plastic one) was placed in front of me, full of what was clearly the same fruit juice I had just drunk a few minutes earlier.

“How are you feeling now?” the companion enquired in his distinctive, possibly east European, accent.

I instantly knew now who was speaking. It was Ivan, the pilot of the craft that had carried Hazel and I from Manchester Airport halfway round the world to the base. The complete picture came flooding back now, but with less of a shock than the earlier snippets. I was beginning to realise what my last memories had been before waking up on the sun bed with a terrible hangover feeling.

“I’m fine, well, recovering slowly, or perhaps quickly, I can’t tell,” I managed to reply. “What on earth is going on? Why am I here with you guys, at this particular hotel? What is this ‘holiday’ thing?”

“Drink Ian, now please,” Ivan directed firmly and I simply did as I was told without waiting for a reply.

This tumbler of juice was full of crushed ice, which had a wonderful cooling effect on top of its strange ‘medicinal’ properties. However, I had to consume it steadily, as the first large mouthful let me know immediately as it hit the roof of my mouth with its numbing chill. The second gentler intake went down a lot easier and without the thermal shock of the first; the flavour was superb.

“This is nice, why can’t it be served like this every time?” I asked in humour, covering up my discomfort at being greedy.

I recognised that I was getting my sense of humour back (had I ever lost it?) and that told me that I was on the mend from whatever had occurred.

“John, can you give Ian a hand to reach one of those seated pool alcoves, that one over there is free,” Ivan said as he pointed one out.

“John,” I echoed, “of course. Apologies mate,” was all I could manage.

“Why the apology Ian?” he asked me querulously.

“I’ve been calling you ‘Smiley’ in my thoughts for the last ten minutes,” I replied. “I couldn’t recall your correct name.”

“If I didn’t know the events of the last couple of days, I might actually think that you’re almost back to normal,” he responded dryly with a big smile. “Call me what you like, there’s no need to offer an apology.”

We moved slowly through the pool water, leaving the shade of the bar, to an alcove, to take a seat on the tiled ledge.

“This is unreal,” I spluttered trying to drink, walk and talk at the same time and then sit down. “I’ve just apologised for the third time in five minutes. Am I that far gone?”

Both of them just smiled at me, not in hurtful way, more with empathy as though joining me in a joke, but one I did not really understand.

“I have had the knick-name ‘Smiley’ in my head since I saw you at the bar John.”

“We know,” said Ivan, “don’t forget, I’m one of those who can pick up your thoughts and you have been doing plenty of thinking for the last few minutes.”

“My thoughts?”

“Cripes yes. I have the ability to communicate using thought. I had forgotten this completely along with many other things no doubt. This was crucial to the project in which I was a key player! A project? Yes, THE PROJECT.”

That also came flooding back and at such a rate that it almost hurt the grey stuff between my ears.

“Firstly and most importantly, we need you to keep your mental communications down very low for as long as you can,” added John. “You never know who might be capable of listening in.”

This felt like a quick entrance into a normality which I was still struggling to take hold of in the most basic way; the phrase ‘landing on my feet running’ popped into my head. This gave me the immediate feeling of being back at work in the office where this sort of ‘normality’ was common currency; normality that involved accepting stress as events changed suddenly, as they interminably did.

I didn't want stress right now; I was on holiday, perhaps, or something. I was certainly in a welcoming pool of warm yet cooling water sipping on ice cool fruit juice and in the company of ‘friends’ who might help sort out my head in a gentle way. I was awake, this was reality I guessed, I had to accept what was happening. I had just to go with the flow, sort of.

They had both started straight off with workmanlike instructions to force me to focus and take notice of and understand whatever they were about to tell me.

I understood immediately but while I was slipping into my project mode with disconcerting ease, the sensation of unreality would not die away. The information being provided by these two was stacking up in the old grey stuff whether or not I wanted it to.

My wife and family, I now remembered, were back at the base where my last memories were located, but I was here on ‘holiday’ with two ‘colleagues’. I was not still dreaming but perhaps I was; I was still questioning myself. This was definitely for real, the water was cooling me nicely in the heat of the day, the juice was working its magic and my head was clearing with each passing minute.

The events of my immediate past were now dropping into place and in the correct sequence.

“Relax for a while, Ian,” Ivan insisted, “but please, do not engage your mental capabilities for a while. Stay ‘silent’, you really must stay silent.”

We were seated in one of the tiled, curved alcoves, of which there seemed to be quite a few, on the below-water tiled seating. We set our drinks on the above-water, tiled round table before us and simply relaxed, or at least I tried to. I let myself slide down nicely until the water was up to my chin. That was most refreshing and then splashing some of the water over my head added to the cooling effect, particularly under what I realised now was an intense sun beating down from a clear bright blue sky.

There were many people occupying a few of the other seated alcoves, one with a Jacuzzi, I guessed from the rising bubbles, and also the sunken bar area. John did not want all and sundry to hear what he had to say and started in a quiet tone.

      “You have done nothing wrong Ian, be assured on that,” he started. “It‘s just that events took a turn we didn’t expect this soon and we had to get you away as quickly as possible.”

“Done something wrong?” I tried to think quietly.

“Easy on the thinking, Ian; please.”

“Please keep drinking, Ian,” directed Ivan verbally, who genuinely seemed to have my welfare in mind. I took some more of the crushed ice and juice mixture and drank slowly without disappearing completely under the water.

“When we’ve had this brief chat, we are going up to the little snack bar behind us and get something solid in your stomach.”

“Something very unhealthy, but filling, like burger and fries,” added John with a smile.

My mouth was watering already. I could not have eaten for some time, and I was hungry for food now that it had been mentioned.

“What are the last things you can remember, before you woke up today,” asked John.

"The hospital room, reading a book, my book, the Doctor’s explanations, the briefing from Caterin, my sense of uncertainty and trepidation at what was to come, my requirement for some more of the juice to settle me down, and then nothing."

These were lots of ‘last things’ and I could feel the old stress sensation surfacing yet again.

“Ian, you are getting excited and you are ‘shouting’ yet again. That’s what caused the problem in the first place. You must really get better control of your new talent,” Ivan interjected most seriously now in a commanding voice.

“For a short while all conversation must be verbal not mental, you must manage this, it's in the interests of all our safety. Get a grip Ian and quickly.”

This was delivered as an order, not a request and I worked at having to comply with it as quickly as I could.

“Let me explain,” John continued in a gentler tone. “Do you recall the location where you and all your family were?” he asked.

“Yes,” I replied verbally and as quietly as I could, because I now did, from the inside at least.

“And do you recall the bigger picture that was explained to you. Of the imminent danger the world was in because of the many ‘aliens’ that had been arriving over the years, and their plan, as we discovered, to subjugate or worse, both your race and our own?”

I did not have to consider this to any great depth. “Yes,” I responded simply as the grey cells were coming up to full speed and images starting hitting the top of my brain without bouncing back to whence they had come.

“And the plan to leave the Earth for good with as many of ourselves and our true friends, such as yourself, as we could?” John questioned rhetorically.

“To journey to our home planet, Mars, and locate and collect as many descendants as we can from among the possible survivors of the great catastrophe?” he queried again.

“Then to leave this solar system for good to find another place to live?” he continued.

The questions concerning what I more or less recalled, were coming at breakneck speed but I was coping, or so it seemed. All rhetorical questions, I was sure, the answers for which I could still recall. I nodded to them all in confirmation while I slid jarringly away from a dull sense of reality into full bright clarity. I hated coming out of hangovers, if that's what it was.

“Do you remember being asked to not ‘shout’ too loud with your new talent as it was almost ‘deafening’ to those inside the base hearing you?”

The questions kept coming as fast now as the memories in reply that confirmed I did remember. My nods to John were all having an effect on me, not physical, yet none too pleasant within my thoughts. I hadn’t been awake too long and although I seemed up to the questioning, I had the impression that inside my brain there was a real place full of hard memories, locked and inaccessible but bouncing about, ricocheting of the insides of my skull. This was starting to become most unpleasant.

“Just a little bit more, Ian,” Ivan again, “we just need to be certain you're fully up to speed, for the next and most crucial piece of information.”

“Up to speed. I hated having to collect myself like this. I had left behind at the office any ‘landing-on-my-feet-running’, hadn’t I?”

“No Ian, you haven’t,” responded Ivan verbally to my thought, “and you are still too loud. For goodness sake try to think quietly. You have the skill, I’m sure; use it.”

“Well,” John picked up the story cautiously. “Your mental ‘shouting’ at the base became incredibly loud, at the kind of intensity probably required when we arrive at Mars, if you can learn to focus it.”

“Assuming we actually reach there,” Ivan added.

“Your ‘shouting’ not only sent some of the sensitive types in the base into unconsciousness, while causing unpleasant distress and pain to the receptive others including myself,” he continued.

“But we are pretty certain that it was also heard outside, off the base. Heard, we came to conclude, by one of the occupants of an ‘alien’ craft somewhere in our vicinity that just happened to be passing by at the wrong time.”

“This must have caused a massive upset with them,” John picked up the story, “because we guessed that they had the belief probably, that only amongst themselves did this sort of ability exist. Two and two must have been put together and they realised very quickly that there were other occupants of this planet, unknown to them, with similar talents but who were not indigenous humans.”

“This is like listening to tweedledum and tweedledee,” I thought quietly.

“Thank you Ian,” Ivan came back to me without any sort of smile. “You are no longer a normal indigenous human Ian; remember that,” he added. “And please keep the silly jokes until later.”

I had been admonished.

“At that moment we became a threat to them,” John continued his narrative. “A threat they couldn’t see or detect normally. Not knowing exactly where we were, they ‘broadcast’ a very powerful ‘jamming’ signal to flush out or kill anyone with the talent, like you Ian. You are still basically human,” he contradicted Ivan, “well mostly,” now he agreed with him, “but they would not know that.”

“Thankfully our defences to stop moderate mind communication going out also blocked a lot of their signal coming in otherwise you and a lot of us, would not be alive now. The effect was to knock you unconscious and make you quite ill, but not kill you. A small number of our people were killed, unfortunately, but that is something we will have to live with.”

I suddenly felt very guilty that I may have been the cause of innocent people's deaths, a saddening deep guilt. I started to try to apologise but John pushed on ignoring my first words. Now I knew why the flippant attitude I had been adopting was not going down well.

“In your stunned state,” he said, “you were immediately sedated and given whatever medical treatment was considered appropriate.”

“It was also considered appropriate,” Ivan picked up the story in his still serious, though quiet, tone, “that you should be removed from the base as quickly as possible to obviate any further possible attacks of this sort.”

“You were simply too valuable, but also potentially too dangerous, to be kept there. Especially after our losses, for which you must accept some if not all responsibility, that took some of the gifted from us. We could not risk any further events of a similar nature or, quite simply, the loss of any more of our kind.”

I understood what he was telling me, more from the edge to his tone.

“We could not afford to lose you nor any more of our own,” John repeated in a serious tone, interjecting some calm.

“There could not be any further risks,” Ivan continued coldly pushing the point home with a firmness and glancing steely eyed at John. “You were a liability to everyone’s welfare and had to be moved away as quickly as possible.”

The responsibilities were stacking up on me; I had been responsible for jeopardising the base, the project and the lives of several people. I had not expected that life would ever become this heavy and it weighed on me. I knew that I had to get use to this as it may very well become far worse as the project proceeded.

“The sedation you were given,” John came back, “meant that you would be ‘out-of-it’ for a few days but we had to get you away from the base and quietly. A plan was quickly put together with Ivan volunteering to fly a craft out of the base with you on board. I came along, of course; Ivan and I have worked as a team for far too long to be split up on something as dangerous as this. We left under the noses of the ‘alien’ crafts that were now routinely patrolling for hundreds of square miles about us.”

“Ivan is good pilot,” he continued, which I noticed prompted a hint of a smile from him, “the best,” John corrected himself eliciting a bigger smile from Ivan. “We departed to enter the skies at the best moment with a fully cloaked craft, and employed a zigzag course at very high altitude. This seemed to be successful and we got away to this location without detection.”

“We only believe so,” Ivan finished the sentence with a realistic note, “there’s still no certainty about that.”

“The craft is parked up in the hills,” John decided to finish what he was saying, “in a forest clearing not too far away. It has been left cloaked where we think it will be undetected and, as a further precautionary move, Ivan is carrying a remote control pack with him.”

“A remote control,” I asked quizzically, then losing my serious side again and breaking into laughter. “What channels can you get?”

My silly sense of humour, especially when under pressure or nervous, was coming to the fore again but I wished it wouldn't. I immediately regretted my words. Ivan did not manage any hint of a smile now but produced something, momentarily, about the size of a TV remote from his shorts’ pocket beneath the water.

I smiled again and stared down at the small black gadget still immersed.

“Will it still work after it’s been in water, I know my TV remote certainly wouldn’t,” I continued with a smile from the silly humour that I found myself persisting with. I was asking, in a silly frame of mind still, daft questions in some sort of automatic response to the stress being felt.

Ivan just gave me a cold flat stare. I tried hard to be sensible and dropped the smile.

“If anything touches the craft, as invisible as it is – it was left fully cloaked - Ivan will know immediately,” John explained in a straight explanatory tone. “It’s true, I promise you.”

I started smiling again, finding the concept of a remote UFO something particularly humorous, but I had seen so many new things and accepting the notion was not proving that difficult. More importantly I had to get a sense of level headedness firmly established for what had been and may very well become another serious situation.

“I assume that it's waterproof, the remote that is?” I couldn't help smiling again as I delivered what started as a genuine question but ended up as silliness.

“You arrived on this island two days ago,” John picked up the explanations ignoring me completely, “but we had one difficult job; getting you here to this hotel. We had to give you a small amount of the sedative antidote, after we landed, to get you through the forest to the nearest small township.”

“We landed amongst a lot of vegetation,” Ivan interjected.

“We invented and used the story that we were all lost or drunk tourists. We were appropriately dressed and explained we had all been on a ‘bender’, you had consumed too much, and our taxi driver had dumped us here because of a dispute over how much we were going to pay him. It worked especially as you were barely able to stagger without support.”

Ivan cracked a very slight smile at this and added, “You really were the kind of pain in our side that the drunken English sometimes are.”

I understood that one and grinned back.

“By then it was early morning,” John continued, “and we also provided an explanation that we had slept some of the night by the road. This was accepted easily by the local taxi driver who took one look at our dishevelled appearance, shrugged his shoulders and said nothing more. Tourists are often considered as strange people who drink far too much and he, for one, had seen it all before.”

Both of them were now smiling in a self satisfied manner as though recounting some ‘Boy’s Own’ adventure story in which they were the main characters with myself playing the role of an incompetent semi-villain.

“The taxi driver took us down the hill to the town of Ocho Rios where he would normally start his day’s work. We paid him, up-front, and much more than the normal fare to take us further into town about where we came across a local art and craft market. He dropped us off there and returned to his rank.”

“I recognise that name,” I thought. “I HAVE been there before, haven’t I?” I questioned myself.

“Irrelevant; stay with us Ian,” Ivan snapped. “I asked you to keep your thoughts quiet; please continue John.”

He did so and without any change in his serious, matter of fact tone.

“We changed the story slightly to something quite similar for the next taxi driver we needed. He had not seen us arrive or be dropped off, hopefully, and this approach worked well with him. He was told that that we had jumped a visiting cruise ship with our bits of luggage.”

“We explained that it had then departed not realising that we were ‘missing’ and after a heavy night drinking we had ended up here. A wad of notes being placed in his hand, he agreed to take us to the nearest nice hotel without question.”

“We mentioned this one, a name you supplied Ian in your ‘drunken’ state although I’m sure you will not have any memory of it. The driver recognised what you had said without any sort of problem and brought us straight here. He even wished us all well.”

“The hotel receptionist, quite a pretty young lady, became amenable too when her hand was filled with a ‘little something’ for herself. You were standing, but only just and probably because she considered her ‘little something’ adequate, she even had a bellboy provide a helping hand to get you to our room. We’re booked in for a week, that’s all we could get.”

“You have spent the best part of the last two days, sort of sleeping,” John continued. “The effects of the attack were still affecting you even after the full dose of antidote nullified the sedative. We spent two days with the ‘Do-Not-Disturb’ sign on the door and no one bothered us.”

“You appeared to be recovered enough for us to get you out into the sunshine and fresh air, which we felt certain, would help,” Ivan picked up the story. “So you were ‘assisted’ down to the sun-beds early on this morning and left under a shading brolly to wake up fully by your own accord. We were not at all sure how you would come out of it, but we thought it best to leave the room or cause more suspicion than seemed acceptable.”

“Which we can do without,” added John.

“But why come here,” I queried, “it’s so open?”

“One of the better ways to hide,” advanced John, “is to be in full view. That’s the last place those who are searching for someone ever expect to find them.”

That sounded right, but it didn’t take away a feeling of being exposed without the protection of the base round me. Being in the presence of these two guys, however, and in whom I could place absolute trust mitigated my worries to an extent.

Slurping some more of my iced juice drink and sliding low in the water brought a feeling of great relaxation and helped alleviate some of the concerns I felt. Nevertheless, how did I provide the name of this place? I could not remember it now, but strangely, I was comfortable here, recognising those bits of it I had seen in the last twenty minutes or so. The bar, the pool and this curved alcove had a feeling of being home somehow; even the chatter of the holiday makers had friendliness about it. I was not fully back to normal yet. I had to try to go with the flow, something I have never liked, but it might serve me well.

“Stop worrying, be alert and listen to everything John and Ivan are telling you, Ian, but also try to relax where the situation allows.” I was trying to reassure myself but uncertain if it might be working.

I ducked my head under the water, coming up to feel the great cooling effect of it running off for another slurp of the iced juice. I tried to let my thoughts match the relaxation that my body was now experiencing. The sunshine, the cooling water of the pool to relax in, all these holidaymakers in their brightly coloured clothes enjoying themselves, this most enjoyable cool fruit juice, how could life be anything other than simply pleasurable.

I had let my thoughts wander for a moment.

Then I realised that this the situation was almost certainly as dangerous as John and Ivan had just recounted and in an instant I brought my thoughts back to a cold reality.