by T. J. Quinn
But that respite was short lived as he sensed on some inner level that his governess Nalina was coming to take him from that one small comfort to nap upstairs with his sister Lara.
A small fist pounded the tinted glass in frustration. Blind anger welled up inside him and the air in the room became psychically charged with the force of his childish rage. Toys and furniture rose up, soaring around him in a vortex of his making, crashing and banging against the walls, playing out his childish wrath. Then, the holocube exploded sending plastic and metal shrapnel in all directions, nearly hitting Jamerin himself.
Hearing the clamor, the child's little Zevian governess ran from the sitting room toward the sun room. However, the storm had pretty much the ebbed when the young woman entered the chamber.
"Oh Jamerin! Not again." She cried exasperatedly. "Whatever am I going to do with you?"
Jamerin didn't answer. He never made any noticeable response since the change had come over him. He'd stop speaking; and not even his parents could reach through his mental barriers with their finely-honed psi powers. Young Jamerin didn't know how to let them in anymore, and he resented them for deserting him to the terror of his nightmare.
In the last few months he'd become a difficult child at best, and he was at his worst at the moment.
"Ah, never mind child. Come on." Nalina sighed ruefully and came closer, reaching out a slender hand to him. "I'll get Orin to help the salvage this mess when he and Lanimer get back from Blue Summit."
Nalina saw no use in expressing her inner frustration to the child. She knew it could only make things worse, and it was breaking her heart to see this dark change in his once sweet, bubbly personality. She'd loved Jamerin almost as her own since the first time she'd held them the day after he was born.
As much as she hated to be parted from the reddish haired boy, Nalina prayed his parents request would be confirmed so they could take him to the Human Psychiatric Institute on Velran for treatment. The gentle Wholaskans were their last hope to cure him.
Resting a gentle hand on his little shoulder, Nalina spoke to him in a soft, soothing tone. "C'mon Jamerin, only for a little while, honey. You don't even have to sleep. Just come and rest for a little while."
She took his small hand tentatively, but Jamerin pulled it away and balled his fists stubbornly at his sides, his emerald eyes flaring defiantly. The intense hatred she read and those luminous eyes was frightening, and she backed away with a shudder.
Black anger welled up inside his childish mind until it became a tangible thing once more, but this time it reached out wildly for her fragile Normal mind. Nalina flinched subtly as she first felt his psychic touch, growing steadily more agitated as the intensity grew. It ripped through her mind with the terror of the living nightmare as Jamerin struggled futilely to escape it.
Nalina jerked back with the impact of the psychic attack, clutching her temples.
“Sweet Mother, stop! Jamerin, stop!” she cried, covering her face with her hands as she tried to physically fend off his mental assault. “Jamerin, I can’t! We didn't---you don't understand. AAAAHJ!”
She screamed in pain as the imagery behind her eyes exploded into white light. As it echoed the louder and louder through every neural path in her brain, blackness mercifully shut out consciousness and she collapsed to the floor with one last anguished moan.
For a shocked moment, Jamerin stood staring down at the dark woman lying crumpled at his feet. Hard as he had tried to give it all to her, it was still raging through his mind. Her pain only added to his own, and somewhere in the back of his mind he sensed the magnitude of what he had done. This too, now haunted him.
Tears welled in his eyes and he sank to his knees slowly, crying great racking sobs against the gnawing emptiness that overwhelmed him. Never had he felt more desperately alone in his young life.
On the second level of the Blue Summit Medical Clinic, a tall dark haired Aledan sauntered down the corridor. With patient rounds completed for the small hospital's twenty patients, Physician Hankura was heading to the Fetal Nurtury on the bottom level to join his wife. It was nearly time for them to go home, and he knew she was just dictating her daily report for the computer.
Hankura's deep green eyes lit amiably and he smiled in greeting to several Med-Techs and clerks in passing. He felt heartened at their sincere, friendly overtures because it made the humiliation of life on his home world Aledus seem so very far away.
Both Hankura and his wife Chelle were high level psi paths, and Aledus treated psi paths as second class citizens and social outcasts. When Hankura worked there at Salla Medical Center, his associates were more likely to insult then greet him. Things were even more difficult there for his wife, a Terran off worlder as well as a psi-path, but she managed to nearly complete the first three levels of Med-tech training despite the constant harassment afforded her.
Although nearly a dozen standard years had passed since those difficult times, there were still times that the old bitterness threatened to surface. But, like today, he pushed it back into the past where it belonged. That part of their life together was long behind them.
They were now respected citizens of Oltarin with many valued friends and associates. They had built their clinic from the ground up and brought much needed modern Medical Services to the mountain clans of Oltarin. However, with more pressing problems at hand there was little time to dwell on the past. His son Jamerin was the primary problem---because nothing they had tried helped.
Hankura's sighed to himself and dropped his bio scanner into the pocket of his ice blue lab jacket as he came to a stop before the lift. Jamerin was the only problem that marred his otherwise pleasant work day. All of his patients were doing well, including the critical case from the mining explosion on another continent the last tenday.
Brushing his finger across to the scan plate he waited for the lift to arrive at his level and open to admit him. It arrived with the bleep signal, he entered. Momentarily, he emerged into the quieter sub ground level, walking briskly tore the door at the end of the corridor. A small printed sign on the door read Fetal Nurtury.
His wife Chelle was, as he expected reviewing readouts from each of the four occupied tanks and dictating progress notes. Four out of the six tanks were occupied by growing human embryos, each in a different stage of development. Hankura felt rather than saw the smile she gave him as he entered. He smiled too and stood watching her for a moment, admiring the flame colored tresses spilling over her shoulders in soft waves. She had let it grow back in the years since she'd cut it all off after their captivity on Zevus Mar.
It was her tenderness that filtered through her concentration on the work that he savored and returned silently through the bond of their minds. It was the bond that they shared from the beginning. Chelle was the other half of his soul; she was his psi mate whom he loved almost more than life itself.
Sensing Chelle was almost finished with her work, he didn't interrupt her on a conscious level. These four fetuses in various stages of fetal development represented many months of careful planning and hard work for both of them as well as the clinic staff employed under them.
While Chelle continued, Hankura crossed the room to look at the fetal children developing in the muted light of the nurturing tanks. Even though the system was nearly fully automated, Hankura and Chelle both preferred to have it monitored round the clock by humans. They wanted no accidents to befall any of the precious lives they were nurturing.
On Aledus, there had been far too many "accidents"; accidents that happen primarily to the fetuses of psi-path parents. Such an accident, Hankura learned many years later, contributed greatly to his mother's growing mental instability when they lived on Aledus. That embryo would have been Hankura's older sister. Her loss contributed greatly to the events that led to Natar’s subsequent mental breakdown that nearly destroyed him and Chelle both. That was also part of his past. This was now.
Hankura was proud of the fetal Nurtury. It was co
mpletely state of the art; the whole clinic was state of the art, an unusual phenomenon in for such a scantily populated backwater planet as Oltarin. Hankura and Chelle had every right to take pride in their accomplishments.
Establishing a fetal Nurtury was probably the final healing to fade the scars left inside by the horror of that Tregan prison camps that they knew during the invasions eighteen months before Jamerin was born. They had considered staying on Zevus Mar after helping with the rebuilding. Tregan reparation payments healed the wounds on the Zevian landscape, but they knew the wounds on their souls would never heal if they stayed.
Oltarin had been their first planet fall when they served on Searching Star. It was a beautiful planet with a beautiful horse that Chelle loved, and it was far, far away from Zevus Mar. They had made many friends during their time there with the Explorations. They had made many more in the five years they'd spent building their medical practice.
Their friend Casir, had made a special trip to Oltarin with his construction company to build their magnificent home of natural wood and stone found on the property. Although it looked very much like the McKell home in Blue Summit, it contained even more modern conveniences than their dome on Aledus.
And now that we have a home that we love, we must leave it soon. Chelle indicated a touch ruefully.
Hankura turned, meeting her shining blue eyes. Yes, I received Velran's confirmation just today. Now I need to find passage for us to Velran. We must leave as soon as possible.
Chelle nodded. But I'll miss our home and all of our friends. Life has been good for us here. She got up and came to stand before him. He put his arms around her and pulled her close.
"It will be again." He said softly against her hair. " Now that you finished preparations here, there's no reason to delay any longer. General staff rotation will see the little ones through to birth. The only thing that worries me is that our new Physician has been delayed at the Aldebaran jump station - - - some kind of personal matter."
“Well I hope she arrives before we have to leave, or we'll have to lay this all on Duthan alone."
" That'd be only until Altha arrives. Duthan could handle things until then. We have plenty of techs to cover for him. Don't worry…" Hankura stopped suddenly mid-sentence, just as an eerie sensation reverberated through his mind. " Sweet Mother of Life!" He murmured ominously.
" Oh Jamerin, no!" Chelle half sobbed as she felt it, too.
Page Truee and let's go. And pray.
Meanwhile, a large hovercraft tram settled into the hover bay at their ranch on the high plateau. It contained two passengers, Nalina’s husband Orin Hart and Lanimer, the foster son they were raising jointly with Hankura and Chelle.
"I'll get Nalina and you get the surprise." The big Tregan said to Lanimer. But Lanimer frowned and shook his head when he should've smiled in anticipation. "What's the matter?"
"I don't understand" Lanimer shook his head "I can barely feel Nalina. I just don't know."
Orin frowned at the look on his young face. " Wait here." He tried not to shudder with the chill that spread down his spine.
Without another word, he jumped from the hover craft. He ran to the sun room, barely waiting for the automatic sensor to open the door before he plunged through it. Then, as his keen hazel eyes took in the shambles of the room, he stopped dead in his tracks.
"What the hell?" He murmured under his breath. Then his eyes found the still form of the gentle Zevian woman who carried his child. Beside her, Jamerin now, weeping silent tears.
"Goddess, Nalina!" The big man crumpled to his knees in shock and reached out to gently touch her warm, light brown skin. He breathed a relieved sigh as his fingers gently found the throbbing pulse in her throat. But Nalina didn't move or make any sound. "Nalina?" He pleaded softly, then frowned looking around the shambles of the sun room once more. As his eyes came to rest on little Jamerin.
"You! What have you done to her you little monster?" Orin wanted to grab him and shake him out of his oblivion. As Orin reached his hands toward him, Jamerin looked up. The big Tregan was knocked back by an unseen force and he suddenly found himself sprawled against the opposite wall on the floor. After a moment, Orin started to pick himself up, glancing warily at the woebegone child sobbing silently on the floor beside his wife.
"Okay - - - okay, kid. I'm sorry." Orin said more calmly and moved slowly to Nalina and sighed again. "I know you probably didn't mean it, but Goddess what did you do to her?"
No answer. Just silent tears from woeful green eyes.
Shaking his head ruefully, Orin turned to Nalina over and tenderly cradled her head against a muscular forearm, brushing her thick black hair from her face. Gingerly probing her scalp, he found no signs of injury from any of Jamerin's flying objects. Then he looked at the boy again and an inkling of fear shuddered through him.
No! Mother of Life, he could hardly dare to think that. Could Jamerin have actually wiped her mind? Was that child so deeply troubled that he could do such a thing?
A misty haze blurred Orin's vision for a moment before he forced the horrible thought aside. With a shake of his tawny head, he lifted Nalina easily into his arms and carried her from the sun room to the main family room and laid her on a sofa. The boy would just have to be all right until he could get someone to see to him. He had to get someone to help his woman first. Meanwhile, he prayed he wasn't too late.
Just over thirteen minutes after Hankura sensed trouble, their sleek silver and black hovercraft settled quietly into the hover bay of their home. Without pausing at the sun room, he and Chelle strode grimly into their main sitting room.
Distraught emotions assaulted their sensitive minds, even from the big Tregan through the slight fault in his inbred psi block. They found the three in the lounge. Orin was hovering over Nalina lying unconscious on the couch, and ten-year-old Lanimer was trying in vain to comfort Jamerin on the beige carpeted floor where he sat, still weeping silent ears.
Orin's eyes narrowed and he looked up at Hankura and Chelle accusingly when they walked into the room. Then he flicked his dark gaze to their son and ruefully back to a stricken wife.
"He did this to her!" Orin bit off angrily. "She hasn't even moved in the last ten minutes. You've got to do something for her! You've got to do something about him."
"What happened?" Hankura asked in a distinctly calm tone moving toward the sofa. "We felt his pain all away in Blue Summit." He dropped down on one knee by the plush sofa and began to examine Nalina.
"I don't really know," Orin muttered. "I just found her like this. The sun room was a wreck and the kid was sitting on the floor crying his eyes out. He did something to her. I know he did… Goddess, when I saw her like that I wanted to shake the little son of a - - -"
At Chelle's indrawn breath, Orin stopped, shaking his tawny head ruefully. "Goddess, I'm sorry. I just can't stand to see her like that. And the kid is dangerous. When I scared him, he threw me across the room without even blinking."
Hankura caught his breath this time and looked from Chelle to Orin even more grimly. "I see," he murmured and determinedly schooled his features into an emotionless mask.
Completing his examination, he sensed that something was very wrong, and it wasn't just physical. He took out his bio scanner for more detailed vitals which merely confirmed what he already felt.
"Deep mental trauma. It appears that you were right, Orin. The baby is all right for now, but I'm afraid to Nalina is in bad shape mentally."
"Can you do anything for her?" Orin demanded in anguish.
Hankura shook his head helplessly and looked to his wife "Chelle?"
"I'm going to try," Chelle assured them. "I don't feel that her mind has been wiped, but she's withdrawn deep inside herself… And I can feel there has been brain damage."
"Oh Goddess!" Orin cried and Hankura closed his eyes and grimaced as well with a cold, sinking feeling that gripped his stomach and she verbalized his thoughts to the big Tregan. His own beloved son had do
ne this terrible thing to gentle, sweet Nalina who loved the child nearly as much as he and Chelle did. Sweet Mother of Life, why?
Hankura turned, avoiding Orin stricken gaze and seeking the shining blue eyes of his mate. She had picked up their son and was holding him cuddled close, mingling her tears with a Jamerin's.
Oh Hankura! We're losing him. We're going to lose him forever if we don't do something soon. She lamented silently.
I know. And we're going to do something. I'll see to it tomorrow. But we must do something for Nalina now. Can you do it?
I can try… But I'm scared, Hankura. I haven't forgotten what happened when we healed Orin.
Nor have I. He almost took us all. But you will try?
I will try to help her.
"You've got to help her!" Orin murmured vehemently. His massive fists clenched until his knuckles whitened with a helpless, simmering rage that filled his hazel eyes. Even without being able to read his mind, Hankura could see the big Tregan wanted to lash out at something or someone.
If the tables were turned, Hankura knew he would feel the same. He sympathized with Orin as unlikely as it might seem after what the Tregans had done to him and Chelle in that stinking prison camp eight years ago. But Orin was different. He wasn't raised like the other Tregans. He grew to hate them after they had tried to condition him to be a dog soldier. First chance he got, Orin rebelled and turned on them. Orin's one-man rebellion had saved Nalina and Lanimer who was Hankura's friend's son.
Because of Lanimer, Hankura and Chelle had risked their lives to save Orin after he'd been blasted by mistake. The two had made a place for Orin and Nalina in their household so that the Tregan would not be shipped to a prison colony with the rest of the captured Tregans. During the years since, the two men had slowly become trusted friends. Now, the carefully built friendship was treading on shaky ground because of what Jamerin did.
"Come on, Orin," Hankura said quietly. "Let's take care of the children and leave Chelle to do this."