Intruder Alert: Part 17

Meta-Mental Journal, Year of Ananta 3343
Entry by Bhoj, also known as Blake of Earth

After my mother reminded me of my true identity, I began thinking about what I was really capable of. Getting that boost or encouragement from her was important for me to initiate a strategy for overcoming the effects of the trance or brain washing that I had undergone several Earth years ago.
As my memory began to refresh itself, I worked on using some of my psychic powers to ferret out the intruders that had borrowed the restocking robot in the Earth store. While engaged in that process, in the back of mind, I wondered why of all places, I had succumbed to the environment of Earth’s influence to assume a false identity, instead of maintaining my objectivity as I had done so many times before in other planetary experiments. There was something nagging at me, on a subconscious level, but it was too illusive, and subtle to comprehend, grasp, or conceive of.
Although, my mother went in pursuit of an Earth citizen who had been abducted, our psychic connection had been reaffirming itself quickly, probably due to our familial relationship and the years of practice that had left many habit grooves in my cerebrum that were reasserting themselves as I more and more accepted my true identity as Bhoj.
I remember as I waited for her to return with Nellie, the Earth girl, I experienced a change in the quality of our connection, that was difficult to describe.
Nellie returned hours later, unable to account for how she had arrived or where my mother was. She said she just suddenly found herself in the store, so she came to the office where I was. She said she sensed that my mother was okay. Nellie resumed her work, apparently not at all discombobulated by her involuntary escapade. She also wasn’t disposed to discuss her cosmic adventure.
I remember wondering if there were more Critens, the mercenaries that were responsible for borrowing the Earth restocking robot, masquerading as other earth inhabitants for some nefarious reason. I attempted to attune my consciousness to their vibration. My far distance scanning consciousness surveyed my surroundings in an ever widening circle. I believed that I must have mis-calibrated my perceptions because I thought I could detect them scattered throughout the Earth world. Then a strange thing happened, my newly remembered real identity as Bhoj, was noticeably being taken over by the assumed Blake Identity . Like a fog the Blake persona was passing over my ancient Bhoj mind and memory, trying to obliterate it. With a great exertion of will, I resisted, and with a mighty effort vanquished the drug like influence. That set me to considering, that perhaps it was not a fault or weakness of my own, but a magical spell that had been perpetrated on me, and it was only under my mother’s influence on another planet, that I realized the truth. If that were true then something here on Earth must be responsible for the Blake trance. Through our telepathic connection my mother knew almost immediately what I realized, and conveyed to me that, yes, my illusory experience did indeed reek of a trance spell that she was vaguely familiar with. She would try to ferret out it’s perpetrator and get back to me.
I then resumed my attempt to discover the number and location of other Critens. I realized that Fred had always been a Criten and had probably been keeping me under surveillance since I had been entranced.
The initial unanswered quandary continued to baffle me: what were the Critens doing here?, and now added to it, was a new question: why were they keeping me here in a alternate identity trance. The fact that they kept me under this deception, and alive, and didn’t attempt to kill me, led me to consider that they had some purpose for keeping me alive. Could they have been studying me with the intention of converting me or further tricking me into working for their treacherous cause.
The fact that my mother did not have any inkling as to their surreptitious presence, led me to believe that it was born of an even more ancient and powerful magic than she practiced. Immediately I was aware of my mother’s objection to that supposition.
She remonstrated, “Just because they were able to hide their nefarious tricks only means that they are more devious and subversive than I had reason to suspect. Now that we know of their presence, we can work on discovering their lair, their circle of influence, and the nature of their magic and neutralize it. Their presence appears to be tightly intertwined with the electro magnetism of Earth, so their extrication may require extraordinary skill and reinforcements, which I am now summoning. Prepare yourself for battle, my son.”
….to be continued