“Do tell us all about it, won’t you?” Grant requested with unmistakable sarcasm.
Sindri nodded gravely. “In due time. But first, a bit about myself. I obviously could not live in the trans-adapts’ habitats, so I was tolerated among the humans. I made myself indispensable to them with my mechanical acumen and affinity for electronics. I was very clever with my hands.
“A little over a year ago, I was allowed into the computer database to correct a minor problem. I corrected it, but I stumbled across things of far greater magnitude that had very little do with machines or electronics.”
“And they were?” asked Kane.
Sindri stared directly into his eyes. “The Tuatha De Danaan and a group with whom you have had prior dealings…the Archon Directorate.”
Chapter 23
Kane said grimly, “I don’t recall mentioning the Ar-chon Directorate.”
“You may not recall it,” Sindri replied diffidently, “but you did. All three of you, in fact. Different perspectives on similar experiences.”
A fleeting memory of Sindri’s words came back to him “I will walk in all your minds, looking at your memories, strolling here and there among the ruins of your broken dreams. Make no mistake about itI will find what I need.”
Kane lunged to his feet in an angry rush. The trolls rose just as quickly, but Sindri’s reaction was to wag his walking stick like a chiding finger.
“An outbreak of violence will accomplish nothing, Mr. Kane. It will not bring our business to a satisfactory conclusion, nor will it get you back home.”
Kane scowled around the theater. “Maybe not. But I’m tempted to give it a try just to see what will happen.”
Brigid tugged at his sleeve. “He’s right, Kane. We’ve gone this far, let’s hear the rest.”
Sindri nodded to her gallantly. “Ever the orderly mind.”
Kane dropped back heavily in his seat. “What do the Danaan and the Archons have to do with your revolt?”
“In a direct, one-on-one way, almost nothing. But the war they fought here, long ago, still echoes. Evidently the war was more of a skirmish, the continuance of hostilities that began aeons before between the Da-naan and the Archons’ root race. What did you call them again?”
“The Annunaki,” interjected Grant tonelessly.
Sindri nodded. “Just so. They weren’t given a name in the data I found within the computer. According to it, a Danaan colony from Earth had settled here, observing the terms of truce wherein both races agreed to leave the planet.” r
Kane recalled what Brigid had learned in Ireland of the hostilities between the reptilian Annunaki and the humanoid Tuatha De Danaan, which had broken out millennia before. Mankind became embroiled in the conflict, and the conflagration extended even to the outer planets of the solar system, immortalized and much disguised as a war in heaven.
Finally, when it appeared that Earth was threatened with devastation, the war abated under terms. The Danaan and the Annunaki agreed to end it for the sake of all their intertwined futures.
A pact was struck, whereby the two races intermingled to create a new one, to serve as a bridge. Extrapolating from information imparted to her, Brigid had speculated that the Archons might be the spawn of Danaan, Annunaki and even human genes.
The reign of both races came to an end, and they left Earth, yet legends of their long-ago war were retold by various religions, and they themselves were diminished in stature by fanciful myths.
Still, all of it was oral history, legend as reinterpreted through scientific conjecture with only a handful of ar-tifacts as supportive evidence. Kane didn’t necessarily believe it.
“The Danaan,” continued Sindri, “came here to Mars. When they were attacked, their cities destroyed, they fled again. Where to is anybody’s guess. Nor did this war and exodus happen all that long ago.”
“If there really was a war between the Annunaki and the Danaan,” put in Brigid, “it happened so long ago that even the people who claim descent from them have only the vaguest notion of a date. If the Danaan were driven from Mars, by the Archons and not the Annunaki, you’re probably talking in terms of tens of thousands of years.”