by Don Koch
Hank said, “Thanks Gunnar, it has been an interesting and totally unexpected ride. Thanks to you for joining the team, I gather you saw my hand in your recruitment?”
Olafson replied, “I did not tell anyone because the message suggested that you did not want wide publication so I shut up and let myself be recruited.”
Hank said, “I thought that you would catch that inference. I wanted to test a few that I had in mind as a station commander and you nailed that with flying colors.” Hank went on to introduce his team and Barana, then said hello to AI Corina. He then asked Gunnar to bring him up to speed on what was going on.
“We are thoroughly familiar with the protocols you emplaced on contacts with people on Saark. I fully agree with those protocols and added a few pieces to the structure to supplement it. I believe they are working, or at least I did until this morning. Out of the clear blue, Corina and I had a direct mental message from one, Franz Pestal, who is on the run from the authorities in the Sanga Kingdom. Sanga is the largest of the four kingdoms and the most volatile currently. The current king murdered his way to the top."
"Franz Pestal has with him his wife, his parents, his wife's parents and his two children. All are telepaths and exceptionally strong ones. The local ruler is somehow aware of that family talent and has issued a death warrant on the entire family and wants them killed on sight. The ruler appears intent on carrying out a pogrom to destroy the talent wherever he finds it. The family is about a day ahead of their pursuers, but they will not be able to maintain that separation. The surprising part of all of this is that when Pestal sent the message, he addressed Corina and I by name. We are not clear on how he managed that but feel we need to know. If people on Saark know we are here, that is a potential game changer. My first thought was I did not want an alien telepath with that much ability on board. One thought I had was to launch a large shuttle and put them aboard that until we can vet the family and possibly allow them aboard. I do not see that we can ignore a rescue, but obviously there is something going on below the surface of what we see, that needs exploration. This is one strange situation. I would sure appreciate any thoughts on how to proceed.”
“Looks like you have reacted as would have I. The idea of using a large shuttle as a quarantine location is a good one. You can isolate and protect it in your core. How long before the living quarters are ready for that many people and obviously with a team of our own aboard?”
“That will be ready in about another 30 minutes.”
“That is good. Ok, I agree that rescue is first priority but the second is to find out what has this ruler riled up to the point of killing telepaths. What say that you and I along with my T-Raptor team pay a visit to the family and have a little discussion. Lets wear Antoran field uniforms and have our non-humans remain invisible until called for. Do you have anyone you want to join us in rapport?”
“My wife would clobber me if she were left out, so her and four others, two of whom are Glarin.”
“Good, Lets join rapport in ten minutes. Is there anyone near enough to the family to see us when we appear.”
Corina said
“Ok, let us go with the visit and see what comes of that. Carina, when we are ready to project down, I would like to have all of them looking where we intend to appear. Would you create some kind of sound there to draw their attention. There will be about ten of us visible and we will do that at about half second intervals.”
When the time came, Corina formed the attention sounds and the team projected in, with Hank and Sam in front. Hank could see the panic building in their eyes and said, “Franz, we come in peace and in response to your call, please relax and let us talk. I am General Henry Stone and this is my wife Sam. You have spoken to General Gunnar Olafson. He introduced the others visible and then indicated that there were others with them but their appearance might make them uncomfortable since they were not human but were indeed friends and allies.”
To his credit, Franz indicated he would prefer to see everyone. The others then appeared. He then asked “How is it that the one you call Corina is not here visibly, yet I feel her presence.”
“Franz, that is a good question, and difficult to explain since you do not have quite the vocabulary to understand. Let me give you an example that might help. You have capabilities to use your mind in ways that most of your population can not and likely many of them are fearful of your kind because they do not understand and probably think you are magical. You keep the talent hidden for this reason. All of us that you see here have the same talent. Anyone or anything that is sufficiently advanced over what you routinely see and use, would be thought of as magical. Is this not so?” Franz nodded agreement and Hank continued, “Your ruler has sentenced you to death. How far from here does he live?”
Franz had a puzzled look on his face but responded, “He is about 30 miles from here.”
“And what kind of structure is his residence?”
Franz said in a puzzled tone, “He lives in a large stone structure that is about 250 feet wide and 500 feet long. It has four levels and several tall towers. It is the largest structure we know of in our world. Why do you ask of a residence when I ask of Corina?”
“Now comes the hard part. Corina is the residence of General Olafson and 15 million other persons including some who are not human. That residence is a living thinking being whose intellect is greater than all of those living aboard her collectively. She is 90 miles long and 60 miles across. We could not very well bring her down here so that she can be visually seen. We call Corina’s kind stations and there are 100 of them, 80 of them are the size of Corina. I am in command of these 100 stations and I share that governance with my station who is called Barana. Barana is 260 miles long and is 60 miles across. Barana has a population of 10 times that of Corina. Our role in this area of the stars is to protect the people that live there. Obviously we cannot do that for every person because they are too spread out and live on 23 other worlds like this, each in different stages of development and understanding.”
“A living, thinking residence. I am amazed. And you are willing to help us?”
“We intend to do that but it appears that this will mean that you may have to leave this world. We also need to understand how you detected our presence. One of our stations has been invisibly in your skies for the last 400 years observing your world waiting for the day when your population was sufficiently advanced to join us. Imagine our surprise to have received a contact from you in which you addressed us by name. We need to understand your motives, if any, other than just survival. We need to understand how you did this and how we can help you. We need to know what you want. You should know that your world is hundreds of years behind the rest of the worlds we protect. You will need training so that you can fit in on another world. So what can you tell us to help with this understanding?”
Franz looked thoughtful and said, “The first thing you should know, is that no matter where we go on this world, we are doomed. My brother is king and while he is not as strong a mind talker as I, he can always find me through his talent. He is a ruthless and ambitious individual and will not tolerate anyone that he believes can impede him in his ambitions. He will eventually find me and then I am done. My hope has been that I might get far enough away to hide my family and then let him find me where they are not. This is probably an impractical attempt but I have to try. He murdered King Polk Fisen, our previous King who was a good and honorable man that took great pains to be a fair and compassionate ruler. My brother wants to start looking for anyone with the mind talker talents and he intends to destroy them. He wants a monopoly on that talent and thought on this a few days ago. I was able to see his intent and left immediately before his plans matured. We have been running since then.”
“This morning I was really distressed, despairing and anguished and I reached upward wi
th my mind and stretched in a narrow direction that I had never done before. Imagine my shock when I heard a conversation between Corina and Gunnar Olafson. I immediately called out to them, but they disappeared from my senses. It was as though a sharp blade severed the connection. I thought I had imagined it so we continued to run. I feel as though I am seeing something that is not there yet your images are before me. I cannot see your minds. How can this be? As to how you can help, I do not really know. Perhaps if we were on the other side of the world he might not reach us. I think he would try anyway and I worry about those who are innocent and are in his path. It is too much.”
Barana said privately to Hank,
“Franz, be at peace, your brother will not reach you. I will attempt to answer your questions but much will be a shock to you, and to your family. I must first explain some things that will be very difficult for you to understand and accept. But first, Barana and Corina, please move this entire encampment except for the wagons about two miles west of here and out of sight of those scouts. That should really make the scouts wonder where the families got to and the presence of the empty wagons with no tracks leaving should shake them up a bit. Then put a shield around us so that they won’t see us even if they walk right by us. Put the horse like critters back in their own pastures. We will play some more tricks later.”
Franz and the family were in awe and a bit of fear from the resulting relocation but Hank decided to explain a bit more to ease their fears. He said, “Franz, you know about the structure of your village or town. Do you know how flour was made for your bread 100 years ago?”
“Yes, the grain was placed in large stone bowl and the women pounded it with stone hammers until all the grain was reduced to a powder and then sifted to remove the husks and other things that did not belong there such as stones and grit.”
“How do you do this now?”
“About 60 years ago a workman in the next town discovered that moving or falling water could be used to move things, to move a grinding stone over another stone without all of the work of pounding by our women and it produced much more flour in a much shorter time.”
“That flour mill was a major invention that saved your people much physical effort. That mill is a form of machine and is powered by water. Someday soon your people will invent other kinds of machines and eventually these will be powered by things other than water. As the years go by, more and more things will be powered by other means. Things you can’t even imagine now. These are all thing that are part of a civilization’s development. Now that you have this machine, other ideas will swiftly flow. Your people will think, how else can I reduce my physical work? The civilization into which I was born is about 500 years more advanced than yours. The civilization that I have since joined is several thousand years ahead of that. We have found that when a civilization is at your stage of development it can be very harmful for a much more advanced civilization to interfere with that development, so we have not revealed ourselves to your people. Having said that, there are occasions when we might bend that rule a bit. The thing that leads us to that at this point in time is that telepathy is an important development in a civilization. If someone is trying to weed that out, it is of concern to us because it will damage your ability to grow as a civilization. One way we might help is to limit rather severely how many people know we even exist. If people know that our kind exist and are willing to help, the general reaction is to stop looking for new inventions, from considering how to do things more efficiently.”
“Your family is at a nexus point and we can help you but you will not be able to share the truth of how such things came about. Someone will have to fill the void if your brother is to be deposed. Your family can help and become a formidable force but this means that you will then have to be aware that the powers you have can't be abused or we will take them from you. You were quite astute a while ago when you noted that you can't see our minds. The reason for that is that while you see us, we are still physically at home on our station up there. We are projections. This is an advance of the mind talk ability you and all of your family have. We can show you how to do this but the responsibility is immense as is the potential for abuse. I think that you can handle it because of your concern about the innocents you mentioned. You really have three choices. You can come with us and live on our stations and be trained in our level of civilization, but that means you can never return here. The second choice is that you can let us train you how to use the telepathic capabilities you have and return you here to overthrow your brother. What he is trying to do will have significant repercussions, all bad for your people. The last is to just stay here and let what will happen come about. The last is not something we want to happen. We would prefer that you all make the same choice but that is not required. The parents of the children decide for the children. You should all discuss this now and we will answer any questions you may have on the issue. We will wait here while you all discuss what you wish to do.”
The families went off to one side and discussed the options. In five minutes they all came back smiling and Franz said, “we have discussed the options you provided and have all decided we do not wish to leave our world and do not wish to die. We are ready to fight as best we can and would like to have the training you suggested might give us a chance to prevent the evil contemplated by my brother. We understand the logic of what you have described for noninterference and are wishing to accept what you can do to provide aid. Our children are almost adults so we gave them a vote in the decision. The decision was unanimous. How then do we start?”
“Somehow I suspected that would be your decision. The training you will have will take about a week and that includes some practice to assure your skill level is up to the task at hand. We estimate that there about 19,000 persons on your planet with natural telepathic abilities. We will undertake to warn each of them of the present crisis and offer some training to enhance the use of their abilities. That is not as big an issue as it may seem since we have a sufficient number of persons on station to accomplish the task in short order. I would note that this is an unusually high proportion of your population to be so talented. I expect that they will be your army. But first I think it is time to give your brother and his minions something to think about. He knows that you are in this area but you are about to disappear from his perception. That should rattle him a bit. Next we are going to give his minions something to think about. My friends from Gar have wanted to have a bit of fun. Corina will let you see what they are doing and I think you may enjoy this. This is Bairx and his wife Wira and next to them is Trilx and his wife Gara. All are from Gar and each is a highly accomplished telepath. Friends, it is time you had the opportunity to experience the pleasure of ‘haunting.’ The scouts have just arrived at the empty wagons. They are checking to see where we could all have gone and are finding no trails or signs leading away from the site. Corina please show us what is going on at the site.” Corina created a hologram of the site so the presence of the scouts and the wagons could clearly be seen. Hank went on, “my friends, I want you to assume the impenetrable but visible mode and scare the starch out of these scouts. Do not harm them or their mounts. I would also suggest you appear twice life size and appear frightening. Ask them what they think they are doing following the ‘protected ones’, along with any questions you feel will shake them up. Let them attack, destroy their weapons but avoid harming them because we want them to report back to their king.”
Trilx responded with a huge grin and said, “Ah you wish us to do as you did to Bairz and I when first we met!”
Hank said with a grin, “Precisely.”
Bairz said, “this will be fun.” The four disappeared and reappeared at the wagons. They were twice actual size in appearance. Bairz immediately roared out, “Why are you seeking the protected ones?” One o
f the scouts fired an arrow at Bairz that disintegrated when it struck causing no harm. The guard shouted in fear, "demon." Bairz bellowed in a frightening voice, “Oho, so you want to play” and started to advance on the scout who promptly fired another arrow along with five more from his companions all with the same result as the previous attempt. About then the other scouts became aware there were more Gar about them.
Wira then said in a loud voice, “My husband, is it acceptable if I eat this one” pointing to a heavyset member of the scouting group who promptly fainted on the spot.
Trilx roared in a louder voice, “Ah, good Wira, I would suggest that you not do that, he will likely give you a severe case of indigestion.”
Wira responded, “Ah, Trilx, you are probably correct but I do not know how long I can resist. His leg look most digestible.”
By then, Bairz had reached the cowering scout and picked him up saying, “these beings are so puny, what shall we do with them. They are of no threat and are hardly worth killing. Too bad they harass the ones we are here to protect.” He then dropped the scout to the ground.
Gara said, “Let's release them and send them back the way they came. But if we see them again we can see how long they can live as we tear off digit by digit and limb by limb and that I suspect will not be very long.”
Trilx said, “Oh very well my dear, we will send them on their way. All of you leave us now and if you do not heed the warnings we have given you, your death will be slow and painful. Do you clearly understand me?”