by Trisha Telep
Their own people were not immune, the blast too powerful to block. The planned psychic reckoning spun out of control. It wasn’t empathy, not really. It was revenge. Revenge was hard to contain. And on the minds of untrained, “average” humans, very dangerous. The transmission seemed to increase exponentially. Perhaps the amplification meant that on some level, all humans had latent psychic powers, it just took something drastic to access them.
Images of the PA students awaiting rescue flickered into view across the Well. Brodin watched as one little boy pummeled Saire with punches as he experienced a panicking seizure. He felt the pain of her cracked rib and seared flesh ricochet up his own body.
The rescue team had reached them, but they were all useless.
“Try to cut through, Joyie,” Brodin commanded the teenage girl beside him. “Tell Franca to hold on to the voice she loves. To concentrate on you. They must concentrate on something, someone beyond that pain.”
“Friends!” Brodin cried, gestured wildly for the other counsels, the ones who had so graciously stood guard over him, to gather round the Well. “Help me break through. We’re so close! Shelter them, bring them home!”
You shall live, this day, my children, Brodin said, transmitting through the Well and into all of their minds.
Live, my love, he said in Saire’s mind as she and the rescue team dragged the shaking, seizing students towards the door. Focus on me.
What’s happening? she cried.
Reckoning, he replied.
Make it stop! Saire growled, throwing the hysterical Tynne over her shoulder so that at least if he kept punching it wouldn’t be on her bad side.
We will, just get to the transport. Sanctuary is within sight, my love. It’s big and beautiful.
Tell me about it, Brodin.
It’s very blue. Lots of water.
I’ve always wanted to be by the sea . . .
We will. You and me, love. By the water. Come home to me. We’ll not see a new day unless you make it through this one . . .
A sensor sweep rained down an explosion. There were injuries but no one fell. The tethers of those they loved helped them cast their fields wide despite the strain.
And on this terrible day, the whole of Homeworld felt what it was like to be a Psychically Augmented human. Saire softly sang through the agony she relived as she sought Sanctuary.
When tyrants tremble, sick with fear,
And hear their death-knell ringing,
When friends rejoice both far and near,
How can I keep from singing?
Eight
The psychic disruption across the whole of the Homeworld offered some cover, and the Dark Nest helped keep them sane. But mechanical and technical systems still had to be overwritten to get them to safety, not to mention a few jumps to cross the massive miles between them and the Dark Nest.
As their whole team reached the ship hangar, deep in a hollowed mountain shaft, Saire went to a control panel and pressed her forehead to a small silver disk. A small red light blinked. She recorded the thought:
If you hear this, you are special. Do not be afraid. Reply to this signal. Keep quiet, keep safe. Seek Sanctuary. You are not alone.
That would be left as a low-grade, undetectable signal for those PA yet to come, in case the Homeworld didn’t learn its lesson in the psychic explosion. Saire didn’t feel like waiting around to find out.
Stepping into the escape vessel, she said nothing. She sat with her hands in her lap, her breathing measured, and awaited him.
Never before had she felt him so alive within her, as if his veins were superimposed onto hers, truly inseparable beings. Perhaps, after so many years being connected and yet denied one another, soul mates could grow into increasingly dynamic, even explosive, powers.
After two faster-than-light jumps, the Dark Nest rose before them. Everyone breathed a sigh of joy and relief.
For the first time, Saire realized that the Gothic cathedral floating in space was a testament to her and Brodin’s first meeting in the flesh – the day they took on the roles of the ancients.
Tears were in her eyes. So much of their society was due to their making; the two of them. They had so much to be proud of. They had so much to mourn.
But they had so much to love.
And presently, there was nothing else in the whole of space and time but their minds.
Just like it had been so long ago.
They both could feel the other’s presence approaching. Their points of view merged, like films superimposed, their entwined pulses raced. Brodin nearly floated out onto the dock. Saire felt the bump of the landing on the dock floor and held back a sob as the vessel opened and the children rushed out.
She could see him from across the room. Regal and tall, no less handsome to her eyes after all the years, gray robes buffeted around his feet in the breeze of his own power.
He saw her stand, stepping down onto the dock floor, tall, soot-smeared, scraped, bloodied, silver hair wild about her shoulders. The most beautiful creature in all the world. In any world.
Her gray-violet eyes pierced him and his breath fled.
They approached one another slowly, and Brodin realized every eye in the dock was on them, breathless, waiting to see them touch, a sight they’d never seen.
Reaching one another, their shaking hands stretched out and entwined, they sunk to their knees, tears pooling between them, their foreheads pressed against each other.
They could feel the leavening of hearts that their reunion provided. Their people wanted them to be together, in love, partners, mother and father to them all. They needed them to be the family they all craved. A show of undying love, a happy ending to star-crossed fate, did far more good than any separate show of strength.
Their minds entwined amorously with torturous promises of passion to come. A vow rose to Brodin’s lips.
Don’t interrupt me, he began in her mind. Saire laughed.
“I love you,” he murmured aloud, for anyone and everyone to hear.
“I love you,” she replied.
“Nevermore in the shadows. Never again to be denied.”
In a small cottage built from hewn logs and wooden planks, Saire and Brodin gazed out over a vast body of water, a lake they’d named Eden, a lake that had been the backdrop for a ceremony officially marking their eternal bond before all those they’d helped raise, teach and care for. Their people had never before thrown such a joyous celebration. They’d never needed it so badly.
Sanctuary’s days were always bright from small twin suns that rose in the east and set in the west. Stepping out amidst a bed of strange and wondrous flowers that Saire looked forward to cataloging, she gestured for Brodin to stand at the edge of Eden with her. He wrapped his arms about her waist, kissing her neck.
She sang the old ancient hymn as the suns shone upon her face and the tune carried across the lake. The words that once were so hard to believe had transformed into reality. Now their paradise had been won. The thrum of the heart that was tied in every way to hers was always near her. Now, she truly could not keep from singing.
The Noah
C. L. Wilson
“Why do we bother?”
Eve Cartwright looked up from the soil recovery auger she was using to collect core samples for testing. “What did you say?”
The shielded screen on her sister Shar’s biosuit visor reflected the sunlight and surroundings, making it impossible to see her face. “I said, ‘Why do we bother?’ I mean . . . what does it matter? What does any of this matter?” The girl’s hand swept out, indicating the vast wasteland that had once been a celebrated old-growth forest on one of the oldest mountain ranges on the planet. But that had been hundreds of years ago, before the End, the cataclysmic war that had poisoned the world and left it a barren, contaminated husk.
“It matters because this is our world. The only one we have. And even if we never walk its surface without a biosuit, someone who comes after us will. And when t
hey do, they’ll thank us for all our work.” Eve stood up, wiping the knees of her clay-dust-coated biosuit. She and the girls had been struggling all their lives to save what tiny remnants of their world they could, just as their ancestors had for the last three hundred years. Yes, the task seemed insurmountable. Whether they were searching the wastes for signs of life or sampling air, soil and water to test for regeneration and habitability, most days were long, fruitless, depressing efforts in futility. Like Shar, Eve had had her moments of doubt in the past, but she wasn’t made to give up, no matter how difficult the path might seem.
A bright light flashed in the sky overhead, and a boom rattled the earth, making Eve and Shar grab the nearest boulder as loose rocks shifted and tumbled down the mountainside. Eve glanced up to see what looked like a meteor streaking through the sky – through the very nearby sky.
It disappeared behind a large sand dune in the desert wastes below, then another boom shook the ground. A cloud of dust rose into the air.
“Did you see that?” Shar breathed. She turned around, her eagerness unmistakable. “Let’s go check it out.” She ran toward the solar-powered rover they used to transport themselves, their equipment and their samples on their expeditions.
“Shar . . . Shar! Dang it.” Eve sighed, packed up her samples, and jogged after her sister.
Twenty minutes later, the rover crested the last dune near the spot where the object had fallen from the sky. Inside the spacious helmet of her biosuit, Eve’s jaw dropped. Down below, half-buried in that sand, was what appeared to be a ship of some kind.
“Is it Alliance, do you think?” Shar asked.
“I doubt it. There’s been no sign of Alliance or Cartel ships in three hundred years. The holovids say they were all wiped, just like the rest of the planet.” For the last three hundred years, the people of Homebase had been the only survivor colony on the planet – well, if you didn’t count the Ghosts, those savage bands who dwelled in the wastes. “If we’re going to check this thing out, we’d better do it quick. It’s getting dark, and the Ghosts will be out soon.” The ship’s descent and crash had been visible for miles, which meant there was a good possibility the Ghosts had seen it too, and would be coming to investigate. “Bring the rover in close. I don’t want far to go if we need to make a quick getaway.”
“Roger.” Shar maneuvered the rover into the valley between the dunes and drove right up to the crash site.
“That’s close enough,” Eve advised. She hopped out of the rover and approached the ship cautiously.
The soft dune sand had absorbed the impact, leaving the ship intact. Steam vented from several places on the vehicle’s silvery shell. The ship was without any external markings. Not Alliance then, nor Cartel. Unless of course either of those had stopped painting identifying marks on their warcraft.
Eve circled the vehicle, looking for a way in. The ship seemed too large to be an unmanned drone, and if the pilot had survived the crash, she wasn’t going to leave him without offering assistance.
The more she examined the craft, the more confused she became. The ship was like nothing she’d ever seen before. The silvery shell looked more like layers of crystal than metal, and now the setting sun had cast the bottom of the valley into shadow, what she’d thought was sunlight glinting off the ship’s highly reflective metal surface now resembled pulsating light trapped in some sort of translucent shell.
What was this thing? Where had it come from?
“Stay back, Shar,” she cautioned, waving a hand in a sharp, imperious gesture when her sister’s curiosity got the better of her. “In fact, stay in the rover.” She didn’t think the ship was going to explode. She couldn’t see any sign of a fuel leak – for that matter, she couldn’t see any sign of an engine! – and based on the readouts from her gas chromatograph the venting was primarily water vapor. She made another circuit of the ship, moving in closer this time. The entire surface of the craft appeared seamless, as if the whole object had been formed from a single molded piece of . . . whatever the ship’s exterior substance was. What in the name of heaven was she looking at?
A loud whooshing noise and the sudden jetting of vapor clouds made Eve jump and Shar scream. Eve spun around to find that the previously solid surface of the ship had pulled back, revealing an opening into the interior of the craft.
“Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” Shar called. Her voice sounded tight. Afraid. “Come away, Eve. The sun’s gone down.”
The Ghosts would be out soon, scavenging for food – and sticking around when they were on the prowl was definitely asking for trouble. But this was the first time in three hundred years that any sort of advanced life form had been spotted in the wastes. The first time in three hundred years that anyone in Homebase had had proof they were not the only non-Ghost survivors on the planet. Eve wasn’t about to leave now.
“One more minute.” She detached the disruptor from the belt of her biosuit. No one in Homebase liked weapons – after the End, who would? – but the wastes were dangerous. Too many of Eve’s people had died at the hands of Ghosts while taking samples and conducting experiments in the wastes. Wearing a disruptor when exiting the safety of Homebase was standard operating procedure now. Even Shar knew how to charge and fire a weapon.
“Eve . . . please.”
“Shar, stop. You know I have to check this out.” She worked to stay patient, not to snap. Shar was only twelve, still a child in most of the ways that mattered.
She had reached the craft’s opening. The inside was a pale, luminous blue-white. It was surprisingly tidy, considering the way the craft had crashed to earth. As if the craft’s hull had absorbed most of the shock of the rough landing. A movement to her left made her spin. A figure in a shimmering silver biosuit and helmet was pointing a weapon at her.
Eve was faster on the trigger. The disruptor fired. An energy field enveloped the stranger. The pilot dropped like a stone as the equipment nearby sparked and sputtered.
“Eve!” Shar’s voice crackled through Eve’s in-helmet audio unit. “I just heard wails, and I’m getting movement on the sensors about two kilometers out. The Ghosts are coming. We need to leave.”
“The pilot’s alive but unconscious. Bring the rover to the door and come give me a hand.” She pulled several plastic binding ties from the thigh pockets of her biosuit and used them to bind the pilot’s wrists and ankles. Moments later, Shar was there, and the two of them managed to drag the pilot outside and into the back of the rover.
“So? Is the ship Alliance?” Shar asked, as Eve vaulted back into the passenger seat and the rover took off. They drove by heads-up in-helmet display rather than the rover’s lights. The people of Homebase had long ago learned the folly of using lights at night in the wastes.
“I don’t know. We’ll keep the pilot in quarantine until we find out.” Alliance or no Allliance, she wasn’t going to leave any human being to the mercy of the Ghosts. The wildlings who roamed the wastes were not kind to the humans they found, torturing them in all manner of vile, obscene ways. Ghosts thrived on human agony, probably because it fed a deep-seeded need for vengeance. She couldn’t think of a more horrible way to die. Alliance or not, that wasn’t happening to the craft’s pilot.
The ride home was swift and, thankfully, uneventful. The outer airlock door closed behind the rover and sealed shut. Shar parked the rover on its landing pad and locked it down. Together, she and Eve unloaded their equipment, samples, and the pilot, and stood waiting, arms spread, as decontamination sprays soaked everything in the airlock. When decon was done, they loaded the still-unconscious pilot into a sealed quarantine gurney and placed that alongside all their boxed samples and equipment on a conveyor belt that ran along the left side of the airlock. While the conveyer carried its burdens through an infrared bath and sonic shower, Eve and Shar walked through the secondary airlocks that subjected them to the same treatment. They removed their helmets and biosuits in the third airlock and hung them up for a final decontami
nation in a heat bath before pulling on loose-fitting tunics and trousers and slipping their feet into shoes.
Everyone was waiting for them when they stepped out of the third airlock into the carefully conditioned atmosphere of Homebase. Everyone, meaning the rest of Eve and Shar’s family: gray-haired Nonna, her younger, but equally gray-haired, sister Dre, and four-year-old Misha, the baby of the family. There had been one other – Eve’s older sister Beri – but she’d been lost to the Ghosts ten years earlier.
Nonna and Dre stared at the bound body inside the sealed gurney with identical looks of concern. Misha stood on her tiptoes and peered into the glass cover with wide eyes.
“Ghosts were coming,” Eve replied to Nonna and Dre’s unspoken concern. “The ship was unmarked, but I couldn’t very well leave the pilot behind. I’ll take care of it,” she added in response to Dre’s frown.
“I’ll help you,” Nonna offered.
“No.” The pilot had confronted her with a weapon. She wasn’t going to endanger her family any more than she already had. “I’ll do it alone. Our visitor remains locked down in quarantine until we’re sure she’s no threat. You can take care of the samples for me, though. I don’t know how long I’ll be.”
Leaving the others to take care of the samples and equipment, Eve pushed the sealed gurney down the corridors to the quarantine lab. Once inside, with the doors sealed and locked behind her, and wearing the protective quarantine lab biosuit to protect herself from potential contamination, she lifted the glass lid on the gurney and activated the hydraulics that lifted the prone figure from the gurney tube to the examination table. The table didn’t come with restraint straps, but Eve improvised with more plastic ties. She dragged the scanner down the length of the pilot’s body, looking for broken bones or internal injuries. Finding none, she set to work removing the pilot’s biosuit.