Eva looked up at Tarc with eyes that seemed to glow, “These may explain how to use the equipment in here!”
Tarc nodded, “I think you should come look at the next room.”
Eva stared at him, “I thought you only got to glance down the hallway before your dad came to get you?”
Tarc shrugged and grinned, “Well, I might have seen just a little bit more.”
Just after entering the next door, Eva slowly dropped to her knees while sweeping the light from her lamp around the large room. Every wall covered with shelves, and every shelf covered with books, she sighed and said, “A library.”
When Tarc had looked at the titles on the books last time, all of them had seemed to have something to do with medicine. He ran his light over a few different shelves this time and still thought that to be the case.
When he turned his lamp back on his mother, she was weeping.
Despite the tears, when she turned her face up to him, it looked joyful.
She said, “There’s more here than I’ll ever be able to learn…”
Tarc nodded.
The End
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Author’s Afterword
This is a comment on the “science” in this science fiction novel. I’ve always been partial to science fiction that poses a “what if” question. Not everything in the story has to be scientifically plausible, but you suspend your disbelief regarding one or two things that aren’t thought to be possible. Essentially you ask, “what if” something (such as faster than light travel) were possible, how might that change our world?
I think the rest of the science in a science fiction story should be as real as possible.
So, in this story the central question adds on to the previous telekinesis and teleportation phenomena in the Hyllis stories. This time it’s, “What if someone could actually communicate mind-to-mind (telepathy) or see into the future (precognition)? Certainly, these new Hyllis questions are also staples of science fiction. Many such SF stories posit someone who can listen or speak into someone else’s mind, or peer far into the future.
This story asks, “What if a telepath could only get general impressions of attitude or intention at a distance? And they couldn’t affect the other person’s thoughts until they were within a few meters? I think it would still be a tremendous power to wield, terribly subject to abuse and requiring great self-control of the moral compass.
What if a precog could only see a few seconds into the future? You certainly couldn’t make a killing on the stock market (well in these days of ultrafast trading, maybe you could make some money). But in a fight, it would be huge. Most don’t realize that a quick-draw artist can draw his gun and shoot you in about 1/10th of a second which is much less than the human reaction time of 1/5th of a second. Thus he can shoot you before you can begin to react (putting paid to the notion of the western movie gunslinger who growls at his opponent to “make your move.” If the opponent’s any good, the gunslinger wouldn’t have a chance.) But, if you could see a second or two into the future, you’d be unbeatable.
Acknowledgments
I would like to acknowledge the editing and advice of Gail Gilman, Nora Dahners, Hamilton Elliott, Gerrit Jan van Brenk, Billy McCorkle, Jack Hudler, and Stephen Wiley, each of whom significantly improved this story.
Telepath (A Hyllis Family Story #4) Page 28