Hurricane (Hive Mind Book 3)

by Janet Edwards

  When telepaths read the minds of others, we didn’t just accumulate oddments of knowledge, but lingering traces of their personalities. Over time, those alien influences could build up to the point where they threatened a telepath’s own identity, so we needed to cleanse ourselves of them.

  I did that now, opening my mind to the vast quietness of Outside. I let the freshness of the sea wind run through my thoughts, cleansing, strengthening, and renewing me. The echoes of Irwin, Juniper, Glenna, Rose, and Celandine were blown away, along with a multitude of other shadowy presences, until all that was left within me was pure Amber.

  Finally, I opened my eyes, gave a last wistful look at the sea, and walked to where Lucas was waiting for me by Aerial one. “Let’s go home.”

  Chapter Forty-four

  On the journey back to our unit, my head was a whirling kaleidoscope of thoughts and images. The flight to the Hive, the unloading of bags and crates, and the ride along the express belt all seemed to go past in a blur, and then I found myself walking out of the unit lifts and seeing the familiar wall murals painted by Sofia.

  Everyone had a thousand jobs to do on their return to the unit. Everyone except me. I told Lucas that I wanted to spend some time indulging myself with all the luxuries I’d missed when we were at the sea farm, and sent him sprinting off to join in a Joint Tactical Meeting conference call.

  I did indulge myself in luxuries for half an hour. I had a hot shower, padded barefoot around my opulent bedroom enjoying the comfort of carpet beneath my feet, then got dressed again and headed for the park. I urgently needed to talk to Morton, and the park somehow seemed the right spot to have that conversation.

  The park was my favourite place in my unit, feeling more like my home than any room of my apartment, but when I walked through the park doors this time I felt there was something different about it. I looked around in bewilderment, thinking some path or tree had been changed while I was away.

  No, the park itself was the same. The problem was that I was seeing it differently. After the days spent at the sea farm, I was conscious of the park’s unnatural neatness, the scattered pillars holding up the ceiling, and the fact that the suns were only special lights.

  I shook my head to try to dispel that feeling, turned to the nearby storage cupboard, took out the familiar small box, and opened the lid. Yes, it was full of fresh birdseed. I walked down the path to the picnic area, sat at one of the tables, grabbed a handful of birdseed, and held my breath as I threw it on the grass.

  I laughed as multicoloured birds flew down from the surrounding trees to squabble over the bounty. Silly of me to be worried that they wouldn’t come. I’d only been gone a few days, and there were empty seed husks on the table in front of me that hinted the park keeper had been feeding them here while I was away.

  The artificialness of the park seemed to fade as I fed the rest of the seed to the birds, but I felt tense as I stood up again. With the whole unit so busy unpacking, I didn’t expect anyone else to be here in the park, but I couldn’t risk being seen talking to Morton.

  I closed my eyes, and reached out with my telepathic sense to check I was alone, but found two minds nearby. They were huddled close together, and dark with matching distress. Zak and Rafael.

  … been an unforgettable few days, but it has to end now the others are back. We wouldn’t be allowed to both stay on the Alpha team, and there aren’t any free spots on the Beta team. If one of us is reassigned outside the unit, we’ll only have scraps of time together anyway, so better to …

  I opened my eyes again and walked in their direction. I found them in a grove of trees, sitting on the ground facing each other, heads bowed so their foreheads were almost touching, and their hands linked. When they saw me, they hastily scrambled to their feet.

  “Rafael was helping me deal with a splinter in my finger,” said Zak.

  “Don’t be silly, Zak,” said Rafael. “Amber reads our minds so often that she must know all about us.”

  I smiled. “I just came to tell you that Adika has moved Jalen from the Beta team to the Alpha team.”

  Zak and Rafael turned to stare at each other, and they spoke in unison. “That means there’s a vacancy on the Beta team!”

  I lifted a warning finger. “You’ll need to choose a good moment to talk to Adika. One of the reasons he moved Jalen was that he wanted to equalize the Alpha and Beta teams at nineteen men each. He won’t be pleased to find he has to move one of you to the Beta team.”

  The pair of them pulled matching apprehensive faces, and Zak laughed. “We’re both going to die a horrible death.”

  Rafael grinned. “It’s going to be worse than death. Adika will make us help Hannah with the cleaning again.”

  Zak looked hopefully at me. “Do you think you could break the news to Adika for us, Amber?”

  “I think he’ll react better if you tell him yourselves. Rafael, you should go and help with the crate carrying before Adika starts wondering where you are. Zak, can you go and find Megan? She’s been through every detail of your discharge report from the specialist medical facility at least three times, but she won’t be happy until she’s given you a medical check herself.”

  The pair of them nodded, and I watched them hurry off. I was prepared for my conversation with Morton to go badly, so I headed for a maple tree that was already associated with some difficult memories.

  I was about to sit on the bench beneath it when a thought occurred to me. I knelt on the grass to examine the bench closely, and saw I was right. My unit had been totally refurbished since Claire’s death, and the picnic tables where I fed the birds were brand new, but the army of painters, decorators, furnishers, and electricians hadn’t noticed the bench tucked away under this tree.

  I guessed from the smoothly worn wood that the bench was at least five years old, and probably more like ten. Claire would surely have sat on it at some time. I got back to my feet, and felt rather foolish as I talked to the empty bench.

  “Claire, you were perfectly right to make Morton believe Celandine was dead. There is a point where justice has to override the rules about respecting the privacy of other telepaths. The situation has changed now though. Morton is dying and needs a dangerous operation to save his life.”

  I pulled a face. “Morton has spent decades atoning for his past actions, and Celandine and I have decided it’s time to tell him she’s alive. If you were still here, then I think you’d agree with that decision. You were a Hiveist, and the Hive needs Morton to survive his operation, get well, and keep serving it for many more years.”

  I stood there for a moment longer after finishing my speech, wondering why I’d made it. Was the prospect of talking to superstitious Morton making me superstitious myself? But it didn’t matter whether I’d been saying those words to a bench, to a telepath who’d died three years ago, or just to myself. The important thing was that I was sure I was making the right decision.

  I sat down on the bench, took out my dataview, and used Adika’s security codes to link into the dedicated secure connection between the Telepath Units. I knew there was already a Joint Tactical Meeting conference call in progress, so I made sure that I started a new call rather than accidentally joining the existing one. After double-checking no one else was in the call channel, I invited Morton to join me, and added the customary one-word text message. “Alone?”

  The response came less than a minute later. “Yes.”

  I set the call to visual, and saw Morton was sitting in his powered chair. He was in his bookette room again, and wearing virtually identical clothes to the last time I’d seen him. I had the impression Morton was a creature of habit who always wore similar clothes.

  “Hello, Amber,” he said. “My Tactical Commander, Saanvi, told me you had completed your case at the sea farm and returned to the Hive. My congratulations.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  Morton seemed to be studying me closely. “As before, your loyalty means the exposure to Outsid
e has left you untouched.”

  “Yes.” I hastily changed the subject, and began telling Morton a carefully prepared mixture of truth and lies. “I called you because of something that happened while I was away. A storm drove another Hive’s fishing fleet into taking refuge at our sea farm for a couple of days, and I met one of their Sea Captains. She said her name was Celandine, and gave me a message for you.”

  Morton stared blankly at me. “That can’t be true. Celandine died as a result of my actions.”

  “Celandine isn’t dead. She told me that Claire helped her to fake her death, and arranged for her to go back to her old sea farm. Celandine’s message to you is that she isn’t your wife. She could never be your wife, because love has to be freely given not forced by imprisonment. Now she is happy again with her ocean life, and she wishes you fair winds for the future.”

  Morton shook his head. “That can’t be true,” he repeated.

  “I talked to Celandine in a stone shelter near the sea. She drew something on its wall, and I took some images to show you.”

  I tapped at my dataview to send Morton the images, and saw his expression slowly change from disbelief to dazed acceptance.

  “That’s Celandine’s mermaid,” he said. “She told me that mermaids were born of the sea, and would die if you kept them away from it too long. She said that would happen to her too, and drew pictures of mermaids on all her apartment walls as a warning. When she died on the Level 1 beach, I thought …”

  He broke off his sentence, and covered his face with his hands.

  “It will take you time to absorb this news,” I said. “I’d better end this call and let you rest now.”

  “No, you mustn’t go yet. Just give me a moment to …”

  The image of Morton on my dataview screen froze. I sat back and listened to the birdsong as I waited for him to resume our call. When the image finally changed and started moving again, I saw his eyes still had that stunned look, but he had his voice firmly under control.

  “Thank you for telling me about Celandine. It was gracious of her to wish me fair winds. I would send her my own good wishes, but if she has gone back to her old sea farm then that may not be possible.”

  I chose my words carefully. “The Hive is our world.”

  Morton nodded. “You are wise, Amber. If I had obeyed Hive Duty song number ten when I was younger, then I would have saved myself and Celandine much suffering. The Hive is our world. Our work may occasionally force us into contact with people from beyond its walls, but we should remember they do not belong to our world and not involve ourselves with them.”

  He paused. “The last time we spoke, you asked me why telepaths mustn’t meet. I refused to answer because I thought you were too young and inexperienced to be burdened with the knowledge, but I was wrong. If you have the courage to face the Outside, and the unwavering loyalty to the Hive to return unscathed by the hunter of souls, then you can cope with hearing the truth about telepaths.”

  I hesitated. Morton was offering me the answer to the question that had nagged at me ever since I became a telepath. Did I want to hear it? I’d learnt the secret of why Hives had sea farms and regretted it. There was a brief war between my common sense and my curiosity. Common sense won.

  “You told me that telepaths have an appalling burden of knowledge forced upon us, and I’ve learned you were right about that. You told me it was unwise to add to that burden by deliberately asking to know more, and I believe you’re right about that too. I no longer want to know the reason why telepaths mustn’t meet.”

  Morton gave me a rueful smile. “I need to tell you this, Amber. The Hive feels it is too dangerous for telepaths to have this knowledge. The Hive is right, it is always right, but not having this knowledge is also dangerous. Ignorance may lead a new telepath into breaking the rule to see what happens.”

  He sighed. “Past telepaths agreed that this knowledge should be handed down amongst us so we could warn new telepaths against breaking the rule. Only Sapphire and I know the secret at the moment, and I am seriously ill. It is time for me to choose someone to help bear the burden.”

  I shook my head. “I’d prefer that person not to be me.”

  “Now Olivia is broken, I only have a choice between telling you, Mira, or Keith. Mira was born with a genetic condition that makes it hard for her to learn things and adjust to new circumstances. It would be unfair to trouble her with this knowledge, and Keith can’t be trusted with it. That means I have to confide in you.”

  Common sense told me that I should end this call right now before I learned anything I’d regret. I had my forefinger poised to tap my dataview as Morton continued speaking.

  “Are you aware that borderline telepaths are unable to get insights into the minds of true telepaths?”

  Chapter Forty-five

  That was enough to make my curiosity overwhelm my common sense. “Yes. Why can’t borderline telepaths get insights into our minds?”

  “Ordinary people, and even borderline telepaths, cannot tell when their minds are being read,” said Morton. “A true telepath is instantly aware of any mental intrusions though, and there is an uncontrollable defensive reaction on the subconscious level.”

  I frowned. “You mean that borderline telepaths would be able to get insights into our minds, but we’re instinctively blocking them?”

  “Yes. Borderline telepaths have extremely weak abilities that are easily blocked. The dangerous situation is when one true telepath attempts to read the mind of another. There is exactly the same uncontrollable defensive reaction, but the abilities of a true telepath are far more powerful, so a mental conflict results.”

  “A mental conflict,” I repeated nervously. “This is why telepaths aren’t allowed to meet?”

  “Yes,” said Morton.

  “But there wouldn’t be a problem with us meeting so long as we didn’t try to read each other’s minds?”

  Morton’s face hardened. “There was a time when our Hive instructed telepaths in the correct procedure to use when they met. Both telepaths had to keep their abilities shut down and only communicate with spoken words. Unfortunately, one telepath had a feud with another, and believed they were strong enough to win a battle between their minds. They took advantage of an emergency handover situation to attack their rival.”

  I had to moisten my lips before I could say anything. “What happened?”

  “The attacking telepath failed to overwhelm their victim with their initial onslaught but chose not to withdraw. The conflict escalated, locking both telepaths into a mental battle to the death. Their Strike teams realized what was happening, and each fought to kill the other telepath and save their own.”

  Morton paused before continuing in deathly tones. “One Strike team and their telepath died. A few members of the other Strike team and their telepath survived, but the telepath was irretrievably broken by the mental conflict.”

  There was a long silence. I was physically unable to speak. I couldn’t help picturing that happening to me. The thought of my Strike team fighting another Strike team to the death to defend me was …

  Eventually, Morton spoke again. “Our Hive decided to prevent a repeat of such a disaster by imposing a rule that a distance of at least half a sector must be maintained between telepaths. This made it difficult to hand a target from one telepath to another, but it was far better to lose a target than two telepaths.”

  I remembered heading out to take over Morton’s target, and how the minds of my whole Strike team had kept screaming the same four words at me. Telepaths must never meet. Telepaths must never meet. Telepaths must never meet.

  Now I knew why their thoughts had been so united and so deafeningly loud. Many years ago, the Hive had lost two telepaths during a target handover. The Strike team’s imprinted instructions for target handovers must include those four warning words engraved with forceful depth, not just once, but multiple times.

  “The reason for the rule was kept secret from all
new telepaths and their staff,” added Morton. “The Hive felt that total ignorance was the best way to stop any telepath from being tempted to attack another.”

  He sighed. “As I said, the telepaths chose to hand down the knowledge to selected, trusted members of their ranks. They also created their own rules intended to avoid future feuds between telepaths.”

  “The rules of good manners,” I said numbly.

  “Exactly. We behave to each other with good manners. We do not intrude on each other’s cases without permission. We do not read the minds of each other’s staff. If we accidentally discover personal details about another telepath within someone’s mind, then we do not share those details with other people.”

  Morton’s voice took on a harsh note. “I was given this information by a telepath who died twenty years ago. She told me I must use it wisely for the good of the Hive. I am handing on that duty to you, Amber. Always remember that the greatest danger to a telepath is another telepath. We must avoid conflicts with each other, because they could destroy us and our Hive.”

  I nodded solemnly.

  “You must never share this information with a telepath who has not yet found a way to deal with the lingering influences of the target minds they read. You must never share this information with a telepath who shows any signs of instability. You must never share this information with a telepath who is not absolutely loyal to our Hive. Trusting the wrong person could bring destruction down on us all. Do you understand that, Amber?”

  I thought about Keith. He was angry and frustrated by the way his telepathic ability failed at crucial moments. It was easy to imagine him attacking one of the rest of us in a fit of jealousy. Keith would surely know he wouldn’t stand a chance against Sapphire, but he might persuade himself he could defeat Mira because of her genetic condition, Morton because of his ill health, or me because I was still an inexperienced telepath.