Vekta ventured to open his eyes again, but the glare caused a new wave of pain just behind his eyeballs. He shielded his eyes with his hand, but the pain continued to grow worse.
Just then, something neared, entering his awareness. Cepting, Vekta perceived a long, gray form swimming toward him, about as long as he was tall, larger than the fish. Immediately it clicked in his memory; the figure’s shape, fins, airhole and snout strongly suggested a Terran cetacean called a dolphin. Is this Terra? One of the reasons the Human homeworld had become a restricted planet was to preserve the ocean biome of such aquatic intelligent species as dolphins and octopuses. Sol is a yellow G-type star, but even at the equator Terra shouldn’t be this bright. This creature wasn’t quite a dolphin. Dolphins didn’t have dorsal fins on each side of the head that looked like big ears.
Despite the pain, he forced his eyes open to look at it, shading his eyes as best he could with his hand. One large black eye gazed back at him, unblinking. The curve of its jaw made it look like it was smiling. Involuntarily Vekta smiled back and murmured, “Hello, you lovely gray thing.”
“Hello, golden-headed Human of the Draconic subspecies,” the creature immediately spoke directly to his mind.
Vekta almost fell forward into the water in astonishment. The dolphin was telepathic! Or was someone playing tricks on him?
“I read that you are surprised,” it observed, regarding him unblinkingly. “And I cept that you are in pain. What is wrong, Vekta Rentclifv?”
“Are… are you really menttransing to me?” Vekta sent back, wondering if his pain was making him delusional. It distinctly said ‘cept’ but that was a term that mostly Dracons used. “Aren’t you a dolphin? Well, except for the… ears.”
The creature slipped back and swam around in a circle, but returned, edging even closer. “I do not know what a dolphin is. I am a Pelan. I assure you, there is no one else here who could speak to your mind.”
By now, Vekta’s pain had become even more intense. He bent over, wrapping his arms around his head in an effort to block out all light. Ignoring the Pelan for a moment, he applied mental techniques to abate the pain. His situation still made no sense. If the star is that close and this bright, why isn’t it hot here? With the reflections off the water, shouldn’t my skin be blistering, too? He realized then that it could simply be a matter of the type of radiation emanating from the star. Damn… well, I don’t actually need eyes anyway!
“Tell me what is wrong,” the Pelan suggested with a hint of concern in its mental voice.
“My eyes,” Vekta replied hazily. “The light from your star is so intense that I'm going blind.”
“This is my fault, I fear,” came the response. Vekta sensed the nearness of the Pelan’s snout but it did not quite touch his leg.
“What is your star? Gozgazel? Though there’s no water world in the Gozgazel System.” He hesitated, then queried, speaking aloud, “Fault? I don’t understand.”
“I did not take in consideration what physical alterations you would need to survive in my environment.”
The Pelan’s menttransed words alarmed Vekta. He’d already managed to interrupt synapse impulses to dissipate the pain. Fine-tuning his perception, he was able to survey the damage done to his retinas; it was extensive. He opened his eyes again and could visually confirm. He was now blind. At least the pain was gone, and of course his Level 8 powers of perception could compensate for the loss of vision, though he would need to adapt to its exclusive use. “What was that about taking your environment into consideration? Are you the telepath that brought me here?”
It continued as if it hadn’t heard him. “I will need to use an Attitude to make the necessary adjustments. I see you have taken care of the pain. I had no idea you Humans were this fragile. You have very little capacity to withstand normal stellar radiation. Well, that was immediately apparent. I have delayed the effects to your fragile integument.”
The creature’s ramblings weren’t making much sense. “What’s an Attitude?” Then Vekta tried again. “Your star must be a white giant. I understand why my eyes are affected, but why not my skin? And all this water… wouldn’t it evaporate? Is this a water world?” He could feel cool breezes on his wet hair. But now he perceived that his skin was indeed reddening.
One of the great black eyes turned his way again, regarding him unblinkingly. “Pel is in a globular star cluster. There is a primary close enough to provide a comfortable climate — comfortable to my kind, that is. But there are hundreds more to light the sky.”
A star cluster! But the radiation... He was sure now he wasn’t close to home. Was he even in the Perseus Arm or even Lactavia Galaxy? For that matter, was this the same universe? But not Gamma… “What do you mean by an Attitude?” he repeated finally.
“Let me introduce myself first.” It swam around in another abrupt circle and returned to his side. “My name is Thho.” The name was vocalized through its airhole. “As I said, I am a Pelan. We are as intelligent as your Human species is… and some of us are also telepathic. You are a Dracon, of a subspecies of Human. I am an extraordinary Pelan, just as you are an extraordinary Dracon. It is I who have discovered the Attitudes of Consciousness.”
Vekta felt a chill as he realized the Pelan — a Level 8? — had been possibly reading his mind or at least monitoring communications with Draco or the Agency. After all, it already knew his name. While the menttransmission was understandable to him, it was in Englang, using the Communities Standard dialect.
“You’re menttransing to me in my own language… then you’ve been somehow following me or other Dracons? You know who I am! And what do you mean by Attitudes of Consciousness?” His irritation with the being’s refusal to answer that simple question was growing.
“You have already experienced one of them. Well, two Attitudes, for another brought you here.”
Korgovax. Soberly Vekta remembered when the Taree Imperial Khagan tried to kill him mentally — and fell dead instead — and before that, the beam from the deadly Distel device had impossibly stopped before it could reach Novella. He felt an icy lick of fear along his spine. “You… that was you that stopped the Distel and you who killed Korgovax! You said you eliminated him. That’s what the Attitude is? A killing power?” The very notion caused him to feel nausea, his recent meal definitely at risk.
“It’s not what you think. I call that the Attitude of Powerlessness. It is the ultimate shield because it renders you transparent and impervious to any probe or attack. Having located you after a long search, I had to use that Attitude because it was clear I was going to lose you. I could not afford to do that.”
The nausea at what the Pelan had done gave way quickly to anger. “You took a life! And why were you looking for me? Why me?”
The Pelan paused, considering the Dracon’s words, then responded matter-of-factually, “It was imperative that I find a mind of your caliber with which to share my discovery. I have watched the Dracons in particular for a very long time. Your subspecies of Human has come a long way in seven hundred years. As for the death, Korgovax would have killed you. I had to save you. I cannot help it if it offends you to be rescued in that manner.”
Vekta’s skin felt prickly, and not just from the blisters starting to form from the radiation. “Seven hundred years? You’ve been watching us that long?”
Suddenly the whole thing was sounding a bit much for belief. Vekta found it hard to believe he wasn’t in fact dreaming after all. Yet he had definitely been blinded and the effects of radiation on his skin were by now becoming painfully apparent. Dreaming or not, the adaptation that Thho had mentioned needed to be done soon. And whatever else the radiation may be doing to him, he didn’t want to consider.
Before the creature could answer the question, Vekta addressed it by name, making a mental approximation of the sound. “Thho, you’re right, I won’t survive in this environment. If you can do something for me, do it now!”
“I
can and I will,” Thho declared. “I can mattform your physical body so that you can live in this environment for the duration. You will submit to this?”
“Go ahead,” he replied, resigned. Whoa… well, if this being can mattform me to that extent, surely it can reverse the changes… if it ever lets me go home! Vekta thought soberly. I hate that this thing took a life, but it saved both me and Novella. Ugh, I don’t really have a choice here. I have to trust it. Twins… Novella… and more. Will I see you again? He did not want to contemplate the possibility that he had been permanently removed from everything he'd ever known.
“Good,” the Pelan said with relief. “Then I will begin with the Attitude of Being through which I can discern the necessary changes which will have to be made.”
Vekta felt an alien mind in parallel contact to his, much as he had on the Taree Starglobe Korvaleen. Not a merge — in fact, the mind of the other was carefully avoiding a merge. Then he felt his physical sensations being suppressed: perception, hearing, even tactile sensitivity. I can’t feel my body…
To his shock, he found his mind carried down into consci1, the basal state of nontelepaths. Normally when engaging his telepathic powers, Vekta rose into consci3; consci2 was the normal awake state of a telepath. It… it’s mentforming me! he thought dazedly. Such an action was utterly foreign to a Draconic mind, like the taking of life was. But his fears also evaporated as smoothly as his perception had, as easily as the suppression of his senses had been. He had no choice now but to let go completely and trust this Thho. Though he still had no assurances of the Pelan’s intentions or motives, Vekta was completely helpless against it.
“Listen carefully,” Thho instructed him, “I will tell you what I am going to do to you. I brought you here to my planet to share the Attitudes with you, Vekta Rentclifv, because I have determined that you have the potential to develop them within your mind as I have in mine. I cannot leave Pel; the changes to my anatomy to adapt to your universe would be too extensive. Your anatomy and physiology are considerably more adaptable. I will alter your eyes, your skin, and your breathing apparatus. That should be enough. It will be painful. I cannot yet suppress sensations and perform the required mattforming of your body at the same time. But soon you will be beyond pain.”
Something in Thho’s words shocked Vekta even further. “Universe? Then we aren’t in Alpha? Your Attitude brought me to a different universe? I can’t possibly be understanding you… that’s just flat out impossible!”
“That is not a concern at this time,” Thho murmured with a note of irritation. “I must concentrate… ugh, this is the part I will really hate the most. Physical contact...”
Vekta found abruptly that he could not even form words, even as he was bewildered by the creature’s strong aversion to contact. He was dimly aware that the Pelan manipulated his body, pulling him into the water, making him clasp onto the dorsal fins on either side of the creature’s head, and shifting him to lay at length on its back. Somewhat secure, Thho dove off the sand spit into the deepness of the ocean, carrying Vekta on its back.
“Now the Attitude of Equilibrium,” Thho continued to itself. Vekta was preoccupied with the intense pressure growing in his lungs and ears — about which he could do absolutely nothing. He wasn’t even allowed to be afraid, that emotion and all others suppressed as well. “You Dracons would call this mattmorphosis, or mattforming, though your species have barely tapped the potential. You use it in a minor way to disguise your visage — well, other Human High telepaths do that, not so much your subspecies — and you use it to assist in medical procedures. I’m using the Attitude now to mattmorph your eyes and skin so they can withstand the radiation and intensity of hundreds of stars. But more urgently I will use it first to adapt your respiratory system to acquire oxygen from water.”
The growing pressure in his lungs was soon superseded by a searing pain. It became agony; suddenly, Vekta was screaming without sound, tortured by the fire lit inside his chest and along both sides of his neck. The Pelan pulled him along relentlessly, barely cognizant of the azure beauty of the ocean depths. Deeper it went, both into the abyss and into the Attitudes of Consciousness. It blended several at once: Freedom, Powerlessness — and the emforming power of Compassion to ease his fears.
Utilizing the Attitude of Equilibrium, Thho touched the wounded parts in the Dracon’s body, drawing forth healing power to assist the mattmorphosis. Vekta’s retinas and blistered skin were restored completely, unscarred as if they’d never seen the light of a near globular star cluster. All changes to any cells in his body affected by the radiation were reversed.
The healing portion completed, Thho used Equilibrium to effect a transformation of the man's eyes and skin. Vekta’s corneas and lenses were altered to allow control of light intensity and to naturally shield his retinas from radiation. A chemical change in skin pigmentation created an effective shield from radiation.
By the time Thho finished, it had reached its destination, a cave two hundred meters down, encased in a bubble of air. Satisfied with its work, the Pelan retreated to its normal state of consciousness, consci3 with its heightened awareness. It lay the Dracon down on the cave floor by the edge of yet another pool, and settled down nearby in the water, watching his face closely, its emmind radiating nothing but attentive concern for the Dracon. Vekta, for his part, had mercifully become unconscious before the worst of the transformation. When he awoke, he would be in full possession of his body and powers again.
Have I done the right thing? Thho worried, then smugly assured itself. Yes, for this one will now be willing to trust me and then maybe help me…
The Pelan took up vigilance, willing to wait through the natural healing sleep of the Dracon.
5: The Attitudes
The Attitudes of Consciousness were eight: Communication, Equilibrium, Freedom, Powerlessness, Compassion, Vitality, Unity, and Being. They represented, not new powers, but a deepening of powers already possessed by those few High telepaths who had the potential for the Attitudes. These powers were, to use Draconic terminology: menttransmission, mattmorphosis, mattportation, mentshielding, perception, limitless energy renewal, the ability to endure deepmerges for longer periods, and em- or mentformation.
All powers were greatly enhanced. All limitations on these and other mental powers were removed. It was as if the High telepathic mind who possessed the potential for the Attitudes was at the next level of evolution, at which all current barriers were no more. The Attitudes involved higher states of consciousness, what the Dracons would term consci4 and consci5.
Thho, unequaled in mental powers among the members of its species, had developed its potential for the Attitudes over years of careful, undisturbed study. Instrumental as well was exposure to telepathic minds encountered in dozens of species once it had broken into the Attitude of Freedom by which it could mentally travel literally anywhere. And that first breakthrough had been spontaneous. Thho had decided it was a natural development, a step in its personal maturity.
When the Pelan referred to its study of the Draconic subspecies over seven hundred years, Vekta had made the inference that Thho was far older than that. Indeed, it was ancient for its race, being some two thousand years old. But the study of the Dracons had not taken seven hundred years itself, being completed in only a few years thanks to the Attitude of Freedom. It represented an extrapolation of the entire evolution of telepathy in the Human/Draconic race reviewed in that short time due to a species-dependent ability.
The Pelan's study of telepathic beings, therefore, had taken a very, very long time, involving the study of entities in several compatible universes and quite a few galaxies.
In truth, Thho had no known telepathic limits.
Vekta Rentclifv awoke with that sobering knowledge. Thho had provided him with the basic facts about the Attitudes and he knew what physical changes had been affected in him. Alert and awed, he sat up and stared at the long, sleek form of the Pelan watching
him benignly.
“My neck — I can breathe water?” he stated in amazement, his hand automatically going up to finger the feathery edges of the gill slits on both sides of his neck.
“You can if you want,” Thho commented, glancing at the Dracon’s hand.
The hand fell slowly. Vekta stared at the creature with new awareness. “You breathe both water and air,” he observed, wondering. The Pelan indeed had rows of gill slits as well as the dorsal airhole.
“As you do now.” The big, black eye of the creature looked back at him with concern. “Do you have any pain now?”
“Nothing. I’m just a little light-headed.” Vekta returned the look. “Tell me, Thho, why do you want to share the Attitudes with me? Why me? There are other High telepaths in my universe.”
The Pelan stirred, moving flippers to stabilize its position. “To explain, I must tell you more about my species. We Pelans comprise the highest and most intelligent form of life on Pel… and the only telepathic one.”
“That fish,” Vekta interrupted. “That was fairly intelligent.”
“Yes, that was a Pelee. As a rule, they are much more social than we are and their language is more complex. Pelans rely more on our telepathy for communication and focus on transmitting concepts and ideas rather than symbols to describe them.”
Vekta shifted to a sitting position, cross-legged. “But,” he countered, “you’re menttransing to me in my own language.”
“Yes, I have been fascinated by it. Difficult and quite a challenge. Especially your Draconic dialect though I've chosen to use the Communities Standard dialect in general use in your federation. I am baffled by what you call ‘honorifics’, for example. Makes no sense. As a rule, Pelans use the Pelee language with them, but that is as far as our interest in symbol-oriented languages goes, generally.”
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