Chapter 14

Kaista, 28 Romaa, 4394 Orthodox Calendar

Wednesday, 1 April 2008, Native Regional Reckoning

Charleston, West Virginia (Native designation), Orala Nature Preserve, American Sector

Slowly, hazily, Jason opened his eyes. The scene that greeted him was the black armored plates of Jyslin’s boots, not ten inches from his nose. Those boots slid on the grass, turning the toes outward, and then the base of her knees came into the edge of his vision as she squatted down, putting a black gauntleted hand on the ground between those feet. Jason could barely fathom why he was looking at her from that angle, for his mind swam in a sea of cloudy confusion, and it pounded in pain in rhythm with the beating of his heart.

“Sloppy,” she said aloud. “I’d send, but that would just make that headache I’m sure you’re feeling feel like it would make your head explode.”

Jason clawed some manner of comprehension back into his brain, and remembered what had happened, what was going on. Quite simply put, he had been thoroughly spanked.

He sat up, putting a hand to his head, then groaned aloud. “I never thought it could be that bad.”

“I could have put you into psychotropic shock,” she told him bluntly. “Just remember, you asked for it.”

“I did at that,” he said with a nod, then winced.

There was no way she was going to be able to train him in telepathic combat if she went easy on him, and he knew it. The Faey that would oppose them certainly wouldn’t be holding anything back, and so he had to be ready to take them on at their fullest, to engage Faey who had years of experience and training in their telepathic gifts and defend himself from any telepathic assault. Granted, Jyslin would not be his normal kind of opponent. She was young by Faey standards, but she was exceptionally powerful in her talent, and had many years of experience reinforcing that raw ability. But if he could learn to at least protect himself from Jyslin, then handling a run-of-the-mill Trillane soldier would be child’s play.

At least she looked stunning in her new armor. It was a ZPS special, just like his, the same model and with the same phoenix design emblazened on the chest. That design was now the unofficial symbol of the resistance. It had just come in yesterday, and she’d been breaking it in today. She had everything on but the helmet, letting her long, long red hair undulate in the gentle, cool breeze of the West Virginia spring. If his head wasn’t about to melt, he’d find her to be quite lovely that way.

Telepathic combat was something he had never quite expected. He’d been taught the barest of the basics before and had had a general understanding of it, but that was in no way any kind of suitable preparation for crossing mental swords with Jyslin. The fight between them had only lasted a couple of seconds, but in the mindscape, those couple of seconds were an eternity of her basicly beating him around the interior of his own skull at her whim. She had ripped through his defenses like they were nothing, and in a kind of grim lesson, had seized utter control of every aspect of his mind, turning him into nothing more than a puppet. Had he not been so comfortable with her and loved her, he’d have been infuriated with what she did, for she had laid bare the darkest, most secret parts of himself, put her fingers into every recessed nook of his mind just to show him what an enemy could do. It was a terrifying experience, and showed him that telepathic combat was not for the weak.

She handed him a small piece of rag, and he looked at it blankly. “Your nose is bleeding,” she told him tersely. He put two fingers to his lip and felt the warm stickiness, then took the rag with a nod and wiped it away.

“Is that common?”

“Yes,” she said. “So is bleeding from the ears. But you don’t seem to be doing that right now,” she said, looking to the side of his head. “In extreme cases, you’ll suffer from sangei,” she said, using a word that he couldn’t immediately comprehend. He had to think about it a moment, and then drudged up one of those words buried deep in a Faey dictionary, a word that Jyslin would know, but not many other Faey would, given her extreme vocabulary. Sangei was a condition where one would literally sweat blood from ruptured capillaries in the pores, caused by the ruptured vessels that tended to happen during telepathic combat. Though it was telepathic in nature, mental combat placed extreme stresses on the cardiovascular systems of the engaged opponents. To fight with the mind, the body had to be fit.

“Your nose isn’t bleeding,” he noted.

“I didn’t lose either,” she answered.

He chuckled ruefully. “Point,” he said, feeling the pounding in his head ease somewhat. “Alright, teacher, what did I do wrong?”

“Just about everything,” she answered, putting a hand on his shoulder. “You panicked, love. You did alright up until then, you did what I taught you to do, but once you panicked, it was over.”

“It—I was just overwhelmed,” he said in a quiet tone. “I couldn’t hold you back, and it was like the fear just locked me.”

“Well, we can work on that,” she told him reassuringly. “You were nervous about this, and that basicly doomed you from the start.”

“I was definitely nervous. I never dreamed you could, that you were capable—“ he said, looking away from her. “I didn’t—“

“It’s alright, love, you can say it,” she told him gently, kneeling down and putting her hands on his shoulders, then putting her forehead against his. That contact caused the walls between their minds to weaken, and he knew she could feel his anger at himself, his humiliation at being so thoroughly beaten, and a measure of his indignation at her raking her claws through his mind and touching on places that no one had any business touching. “You had no idea I could do something like that to you, or that I would do something like that to you.”

He flushed guiltily.

“Love, I took no pleasure in it,” she told him with utter seriousness, pulling away so she could look at him. “But you had to see it, face it at its worst. That was about the worst I’m willing to do to you. I could have done something even worse than that, but that could cause permanent damage, or cause you to never forgive me. Trust me, love, there are ways to violate someone with talent that would make you never speak to me again. We won’t go quite that far here, because I love you, and I’d never do that to you.”

“I’m sorry, about, you know.”

“You had every right to be angry,” she told him dismissively. “I just hope you’ll forgive me.”

“Forgive you for doing what I asked you to do? Please.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” she snorted.

You know me better than that, Jason sent, feeling the last of the pain fade.

Feeling better, I see. Good, she sent in reply. This was the norm for them. Ever since she had come, they spoke less and less, until they simply stopped speaking altogether. Unless they were in mixed company or wished to include others in their conversation, they did not speak aloud to each other. They always sent, either openly or privately. He had jokingly told her that he was starting to forget the sound of her voice just yesterday. I didn’t want to send until you got over the headache.

I’ve still got a bit of it, but not enough to stop me, he answered. I think I can stand up now.

Alright. We’re done for today.

But—

Hush, she cut him off. Love, you’re in no condition to train any more. We can pick this up again tomorrow, after you have some time to recover. Talent’s not like other things, love. If you push it too far, it can cause permanent harm.

Alright, he acquiesced.

They returned to the mansion, passing several people. Some waved or greeted them, some did not. Not everyone was quite happy about Jyslin’s arrival, or the other Faey, but at least no one had left the city. Jason’s speech about asking for trust had at least kept people from deserting, though there were some rumors that a few people might leave. If they left, then so be it, as far as he was concerned. But it was Kate more than anything else that had people unnerved. They felt a little betrayed by the fact that Symone had seemingly lied to them to make them vote her in, that and the fact that Kiaari wasn’t assuming Kate’s demure personality anymore. She was acting like a different person now, and that was a bit much for most people to handle.

Kumi’s presence didn’t bother most of them as much as Jason would have thought, at least not after they got an idea of just how dreadfully injured she’d been…which was all thanks to the doctors who showed them holopics of her wounds. It made quite a few people physically sick, and made Jason’s stomach heave. A hole had been blown in her back big enough to put a volleyball into without any of it sticking out. It was only because of highly advanced Faey medical techniques and equipment that Kumi had survived that injury, and the fact that there was a medical facility literally one building over from where she’d been shot. According to Doc Songa, if she’d have gone just two or three more minutes without emergency treatment, she would have died. They’d put her back together using bio-accelerated cloned replacement tissue and bone, transplant tissue and materials created from her own body, and then used to fill the holes. Just as they had regrown Symone’s arm, lost in a past injury, they regrew what Kumi had lost.

The prognosis for Kumi was good, which was a relief to Jason. She was out of her medically induced coma now, taken out of it four days ago, and was strong enough to send…just not very far, her sendings unable to extend past the mansion in which she was kept. With the accerated healing treatments they were using on her, she would be well enough to leave in about three weeks. Since she woke up, she was surprisingly quiet and thoughtful. She didn’t even joke that much when Jason went to see her. That wasn’t too much of a surprise to Jason, since she’d nearly been killed by her own noble house. She had some serious issues to sort out.

The trouble was coming not from Kumi, or the doctors, or even Fure, but from Meya and Myra. The twins were everywhere and getting into everything, and Jason had to keep a constant eye on them to keep them from stealing one of his railguns. And Lord above, did they try. It was almost a kind of twisted game to them, seeing if they could manage to filch one of those much-sought after prizes to add to their collection of weapons. When they weren’t doing that, they were talking to everyone, looking around, and learning entirely too much about what they were planning to do than Jason felt comfortable with, assurances from Miaari notwithstanding. He knew they’d never talk, and if they were ever interrogated in a way that would give up that information it would already be too late anyway, but it still worried him.

So, how’s your first day in the armor? Jason asked as they entered the mansion.

It feels wonderful, she gushed girlishly. I’ve never had armor this good, even when I was assigned to other posts. Imperial-issue armor isn’t quite this fancy. Once I break in the gel, it’ll be perfect.

It’s going to be protecting the most important thing in this world, he sent seriously. It’s the best I could get, and it’s still not good enough.

She gave him a sincerely adoring look, putting her gaunteled hand on his shoulder. I love you too.

Typical, Kumi’s acerbic sending, weak but understandable, touched them. Sometimes you two make me sick.

Be nice, Jason chided.

She’s being jealous, Meya sent, her thoughts tinged with amusement.

That certainly sounded like jealousy to me, Tim agreed.

Aww, keep out of it, Tim, Kumi huffed. There’s no reason for me to be jealous.

That was probably one of the bigger surprises. The Faey visiting them seemed to be quite at a loss as to what to do about Jason, Temika, and Tim. The fact that there were three human telepaths was a shock to them, because just knowing they had talent wasn’t the same as experiencing it. They seemed quite comfortable with the idea that humans might have talent…until those humans started sending around them. They were even more unsettled when they found out that Jason and Temika were stronger talents than all of them but Jyslin. Jason’s strength wasn’t much of a surprise to Kumi and the ones who knew him, but Temika was a surprise to them. Jason they could write off as a fluke concerning the strength of his talent, but Temika was the proof that humans could be just as strong as Faey, or even stronger, when it came to telepathy. It was as if the humans had intruded themselves into a realm that was meant for the Faey alone, and all of them, to one degree or another, seemed uncomfortable with the idea of humans hearing open sending. The only ones that seemed more amenable were Kumi and Meya, but even they occasionally seemed reticent, and it bled through in their sendings. Kumi seemed to be the most active in trying to engage the human telepaths, but Jason felt that it was boredom more than anything else. She was confined to her bed, and she was willing to do almost anything to pass the time.

Of course, the humans too were a bit uncomfortable with the idea of eight unknown Faey suddenly being privy to what had always been a nice quiet private little clique of Jason, Temika, Tim, and Symone. Just as the Faey seemed taken aback that humans had invaded their private world, the three humans were discomfited by the idea of strangers hearing what, to them, was a very personal realm of comfortable familiarity. Even now, some ten days after they had all arrived, Jason still felt a bit…weird, sending and knowing that Faey he didn’t know very well could hear it. Of the three of them, Tim was the only one actively trying to engage the Faey telepathically. Temika barely sent at all anymore, and even then it was usually privately, or showing off her training by sending so that only those in the same room could hear her, something Jason could do as well, but did not because he was trying to force himself into getting used to the idea of being a “public” telepath.

Symone had taught her students well, but her days as teacher were now over, because Jyslin was there. Tim and Temika seemed reluctant to take lessons from Jyslin on that first day, but she smacked that right out of them almost immediately. After they got a taste of the kind of power Jyslin had, and what was more, her extensive training, they became very willing students. She could teach them things that Symone could not, and since Temika was such a strong telepath, Jyslin could teach her how to use her powers in ways Symone could not, because they were techniques she either never learned, or was incapable of using.

No reason at all, Fure’s sending reached them, almost dripping with sarcasm.

Fure! Don’t make me cut your pay!

As I recall, Mistress Eleri, we’re currently not being paid, he sent dryly. So be my guest and cut my pay. Half of nothing is still nothing.

I hate you, she sent growlingly.

Obviously, Kumi still has designs on getting her revenge, Symone sent, her thoughts bubbling with vast amusement.

You bet your ass, woman, she seethed. You just wait til I get out of this bed, babe, and it’ll be time for the video equipment. And I have a little something special planned for you too, Symone. You had a hand in that.

Well, I had a hand on it. I didn’t get a chance to put a hand in it. There wasn’t enough time.

Jason blushed furiously, which made Jyslin laugh aloud.

“Stop!” a voice cracked from the door behind them. Jason winced and then did so, then turned around just enough to look at Doc Songa. I’ve told you four times to come down here, she sent commandingly. You’re not going to dodge us forever, Jason.

I haven’t been dodging you, Doc, he protested.

Maybe not, but you sure as hell make sure you’re always busy when I come looking for you, she retorted. You’re not busy right now, so inside! She pointed imperiously past herself, into the clinic she and Rann ran on the first floor.

This was something he had, in fact, been avoiding. After succumbing to the physical the doctors wanted, she’d been after him for some follow-up tests. Since he was a human telepath, she’d been wanting to run a few tests she didn’t perform the first time around, both to make sure he was healthy and to investigate his condition as a telepath. Like most Faey that knew some humans had talent, she was wildly curious as to why Jason and other humans had talent, but unlike most other Faey, Songa had the training and determination to actually try to find out. This wasn’t something to which Jason objected, because Kiaari had told him that understanding why humans had talent would help him greatly in what was coming, but he just wasn’t looking forward to the idea of being a guinea pig. He needed to find the why of it, but he wasn’t too thrilled with the idea of being the test subject that would help solve that mystery.

That woman can certainly lay down the law, Myra giggled.

I’ve never met a doctor that couldn’t, Fure sent sagely.

Jason looked to Jyslin, almost hoping she would extricate him, but she put her hand on his back and pushed him towards Songa. You’d better treat him right, she warned. That’s my fiancee, and I want him in one piece when we marry.

I won’t hurt him at all, Songa protested demurely. The worst he’ll get is a couple of needle sticks, I promise. Rann, come to the clinic please. We can’t let him get away this time.

I’ll be right there, Rann responded.

I’d like to attend as well, if that’s alright, Yohne asked. With Lady Eleri’s permission, of course.

I don’t need a doctor in here to babysit me now, Yohne, Kumi told her. Go on ahead, I’m fine. If I need you, I can just send.

We could always use an extra pair of eyes, Songa sent pleasantly, getting behind Jason and pushing him bodily towards the door with a hand on each shoulderblade.

I’ll go take off my armor and come down, Jyslin sent openly, directing it at Jason. That way I can hold your hand while the evil doctors stick needles in you.

From upstairs in the kitchen, Jason clearly heard Temika break out into loud peals of laughter.

Woman, after that line, you’d better leave it on, Jason sent ominously.

Children, play nice, Songa commanded as she herded Jason into the clinic.

And how the needles came. Jason endured the indignity of being a human pin cushion for nearly an hour, as they gave him a thorough physical exam, then ran several tests that he knew had nothing to do with his physical health. Rann and Yohne took several vials of blood, and they worked on a small console connected to one of the devices they’d brought along with them while Songa had him wear a featureless black helmet that reminded Jason of the helmets from that old cult classic movie Spaceballs.

“Why do I feel like Dark Helmet,” Jason growled as Jyslin came back down, wearing a ragged pair of jeans and a scavenged tee shirt that had the logo of the band Nine Inch Nails, one of Tim’s favorites.

“It’s an alpha wave monitor,” Songa told him aloud. “There’s no machine or technology that can pick up telepathic activity, but this one’s the closest thing we have. The baseline alpha patterns of a telepath are slightly different than they are on a non-telepath. Now just relax for a minute, and no sending.”

“But we’re different races,” Jason said. “Our brains are different.”

Actually, they’re not, Rann sent, his sending absent, distracted, because his focus was on his work. Humans and Faey are physiologically identical. There’s a slight difference in our DNA patterns, but that’s about it. I’d almost say that we’re the same species, or we’re two sub-species descended from a common ancestor, but that would be nearly impossible.

“It’s Gora’s Law,” Yohne said aloud. “And no sending, Rann.”

“Sorry.”

“Who?” Jason asked.

“Gora Karinne, one of the greatest biomedical scientists of all time,” Yohne answered. “he lived about a thousand years ago, and he posed a theory that planets with similar conditions would produce living creatures with similar evolutionary traits. The more the two different planets were similar, the more similar the life upon them. Well, Draconis is amazingly similar to Earth. It has the same climate, very close to the same atmospheric makeup, and so on and so on. If you ever went there, Jason, you’d wonder if you left Earth for a few minutes, until you saw that our trees and plants and animals look different than yours. Well, since our two planets are so similar, it’s no stretch to think that evolution would produce very similar creatures on each planet.”

“But you said that Draconis has different plants and animals, so that means that this Gora’s law was wrong.”

“Gora’s Law isn’t absolute,” she told him. “But it does hold up under some circumstances. For example, humans and Faey look almost identical, and their DNA is similar enough for cross-combinations.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that humans are Faey are genetically compatible, that we can have children,” she answered. “Well, we have creatures on Draconis called vulpars. Well, they’re almost exactly similar to a species of animal on Terra called a fox. We have truki, you have horses. We have feyalla, you have chimpanzees. We have siksuni, you have whales,” she told him, using the English words for the names of the animals from Earth. “Animals with similar appearances—mostly—and similar DNA patterns, that hold the same position in the planetary ecology. A vulpar and a fox could crossbreed, as could a feyalla and a chimp, or a siksuni and a whale. And if we brought a vulpar here and released it in the wild in the same habitation range of a fox, it would probably survive, maybe even thrive. That’s the basic gist of Gora’s Law.”

“Oh, so this Gora woman—“

“Man. Gora Karinne was a man.”

“Odd. Most short names that end in an A like that seem to be women’s names, like Maya, Meya, and Myra. I didn’t think a man would have a woman’s name.”

Yohne chuckled. “Well, Gora was a Faey ahead of his time. A brilliant doctor, scientist, and he was almost executed for heresy on more than one occasion. He went to prison rather than retract his theories.”

“Shame what happened to him,” Songa mused.

“I take it they executed him?” Jason asked.

“No, dear, he died on Sigma Proximus,” she answered. “He was killed by one of the animals he was studying. I think our understanding of medicine would be five hundred years ahead of where we are now if he’d have lived. He was only thirty when he died.”

“That young?”

“He was brilliant, ahead of his time,” she nodded.

“A savant,” Yohne agreed.

“Like Einstein,” Jyslin told him as she reached them, sitting on the edge of the examination table across from him. “You look silly.”

He gave her a face, which made her laugh.

“Well, he wouldn’t have lived much longer,” Yohne said, a bit sadly. “If I remember my history right, all the Karinnes were killed in the Third Civil War. The entire house was destroyed. That was about ten years after Gora died.”

“Them and seven other houses,” Songa said. “There was a great deal of literature about that era, and that was my minor in medical school. The Karinnes, the Odarres, the Shuvennes, the Poyalles, the Sendarres, the Makati house of Ovi, the Brannes, and the Wurennes were all destroyed in that war.”

“Sounds like it was pretty nasty.”

“It was our version of your second world war,” Songa told him. “It shaped our modern history, because that was the war that brought the Empress’ noble house into power.”

“Sounds ugly.”

“It was the most destructive and costliest war in our history,” she answered. “It lasted fifteen years and killed nearly a billion Faey and Makati. It also permanently damaged four planets and made them unable to support life.”

“Damn,” Jason grunted.

“Yeah, damn,” she nodded. “Well, Jason, your alpha patterns are almost textbook with a Faey’s,” she announced. “And different from non-telepathic humans. That’s more or less what I expected, because that’s mainstream among telepaths of nearly any species. It just proves that you’re not really different from other telepaths.”

“Well, if you want something unexpected, come over here,” Rann told her.

“What is it?” Oh, you can take that off now, Songa said, then sent to him pointedly. “What?”

Okay, here’s Jason’s DNA, Rann sent, pointing. Let me bring up Tim and Temika’s. Alright, look here. Here, here, and here.

“What’s wrong? Jason asked aloud, taking the helmet off. Am I a mutant or something?

Songa laughed aloud, then gave him a grin. No, Jason, but there’s something interesting in your DNA. The sequenced pairs that deal with your talent are different from Tim and Temika’s. We expected yours to look like theirs. That was actually surprising.

Tim and Temika share a common ancestor, Rann added. Their DNA is descended from a common line.

What? They’re relatives?

Rann nodded. It must have been a very, very long time ago, but they definitely share a common ancestor. We thought that you might as well, you know, explain why some humans have talent, but from the looks of it, you don’t. But there is something very, curious, about your base pairs. Tim and Temika’s DNA in the areas that involve talent are amazingly similar to Faey DNA. It’s almost a 90% match, and that’s very strange.

It’s Gora’s Law, Rann, I’m telling you, Yohne pressed. Human telepaths developed talent just like we did, and since human and Faey are so genetically similar, it should be identical when it comes to talent.

Be that as it may, what’s interesting about you, Jason, is that the parts of your DNA that would deal with telepathic ability are different from Tim and Temika, and from us, for that matter. Tim and Temika are 90% identical to Faey in that segment of their DNA, but you are only 82% identical to Faey, and only 88% identical to Tim and Temika. Parts of your sequence are similar to Tim and Temika’s, parts are similar to ours, and some parts of your sequence aren’t similar to either us or them, it’s unique. And that blows Gora’s Law off the lawn, he sent with a smirk at Yohne.

I don’t understand. What does that mean? Jason sent, his thoughts tinged with concern.

It means, my dear fearless leader, Songa sent with a sly grin, that you may have talent, but the way you developed it is different from how the other humans did. We really need to find other human telepaths and compare. If more have Jason’s DNA sequence, maybe it will show that two different genetic groups of humans developed talent through evolution at the same time, but using a different genetic footprint. It would be very provocative research to publish. It would certainly shake up the genetics field.

I don’t understand.

Well, look at it this way, Songa sent, looking at him. You and Tim are white, but Temika is black. You three are different genetic sub-types of the same species, but all three of you are still human. Alright, now, you three are telepaths, while other humans are not. That too is a slight genetic variation, just enough to classify you as a sub-species within your species. Like breeds of vulpar. They’re all vulpar, but they have very slight genetic variations, shared through each breed. Similar to each other, but different from everyone else. That’s how you three are compared to other humans. You’re all human, but you’re a different breed of human within the race. The genetic commonality you share is what gives you your talent, something that other humans lack. Well, you are slightly different from Tim and Temika. You are also a slightly different genetic sub-type within the species compared to others. So, you’re a different breed of telepath compared to the other two.

It’s really nothing to worry over, Jason, Rann assured him. It really would only interest a doctor or geneticist. It’s not a disease or condition, it’s just a curious little thing that really doesn’t matter at all.

In actuality, Jason found it to be very interesting, because of the Kimdori. Jason could sense them, could detect their unique power, and this difference in his own DNA could very well be the reason. If he was just a tiny bit different from other telepaths, well, that would explain why he was sensitive to some things that other telepaths were not. It was entirely possible.

But there was one thing that he could see from this examination, and from how they were talking, and that was the doctors would not be able to answer the question of why some humans had talent. The task Miaari had set upon him was still on his mind. They too had discovered the what, the how, but it still didn’t answer why.

Humans had talent, and they had it because they had the genetic footprint for it. Fine, that was a given.

But why? Why did they have it?

It was a frustrating question.

Okay, okay…telepathy was a genetic ability, like a person with blue eyes. That was the how. Now, why would a human spontaneously develop telepathic power? Or, more to the point, why would a certain block of humanity start showing this ability after telepathic aliens conquered and occupied the planet?

Heredity, clearly. Rann had said that Tim and Temika were related, that they had a common ancestor. So, logically, everyone in the genetic tree of their family would carry the genes for telepathic potential. That would be the segment of DNA that the Faey would be testing humans to find, so they could weed out the potential telepaths and either isolate them or eliminate them. But that also didn’t completely explain Jason, since they told him that his own telepathic ability was slightly different, that he was outside of their genetic tree. What was it Songa said? Some of his DNA was similar to Tim and Temika’s, some of it was similar to a Faey’s, and some of it was—

Hold it.

“Rann,” he said aloud, coming over to them. “You said that Tim and Temika were what, 90% identical to a Faey in that part of their DNA that governed talent, right?”

That’s right.

“Okay then. Here’s the question. If we developed telepathic ability spontaneously, why would it be so identical to a Faey? I mean, we might be genetically similar, but our environments are different. And if my own telepathic genes are different, then why would Tim and Temika be so similar to a Faey?”

Gora’s Law, Rann sent, giving Yohne a look, who returned an overly smug one. Since we’re so genetically identical, virtually branches of the same race, it’s not only feasible, but entirely expected that humans who possess the genetic footprint for telepathy would be closely identical to ours. We have the same brain structure and evolved in similar environments. Since our brains are identical, it’s no stretch to see that we’d develop the same genetic process for expressing telepathy.

“Okay, that’s a reasonable argument, at least until you look at me,” he said forcefully. “If it’s so expected for humans to develop the same genetic footprint for talent, then why am I different?”

Rann looked to respond, even raising a hand to gesture, but no sending ensued. He opened his mouth, and then closed it, and then furrowed his brow. He looked at Yohne, who shrugged, then he looked to Songa, who returned his puzzled look. A mutation maybe? Rann finally proposed. Or a case of parallel development?

I think Jason is making a point. His footprint should be identical to Tim and Temika’s, but it’s not. So, what would cause it? Songa sent thoughtfully.

“It’s not the what, it’s the why,” Jason said to himself, leaning over Rann and looking at the helix of his DNA, though he didn’t understand what it meant. “Why does a human have talent? That’s a question that someone asked me, and it’s a question that I need to find an answer for.”

Why? Genetics, Yohne sent.

“No, that’s how. The question is why.”

I don’t think he’s asking a scientific question, Jyslin interjected. It sounds more like philosophy to me.

Why would any species develop telepathic power? Maybe there was a need for it. Faey have always been telepathic, it’s been hypothesized that we developed telepathy as a defense mechanism, or maybe to give us an advantage over different sub-species of Faey that existed on Draconis millions of years ago. The telepathic branch became dominant, was able to out-hunt the other strains and survived when they died out.

I think you’re going a bit too deep here Yohne, Rann chided. It’s a matter of evolution. Humans are simply taking the next step. That’s why humans are developing talent.

No, that’s too general, Songa sent. It’s simple logic, guys. Why do humans have talent? Because they have the genes for it. Why do they have the genes for it? Because their parents did. Tim and Temika are related, so their genetic footprint for telepathy is the same, with some minor variations between them because their genetic lines diverged somewhat. But Jason’s not in their family tree, and that means that his powers are a little different, because his genes are different. His family line might have had a similar footprint to them, but the introduction of other DNA into his line caused his family’s genetic footprint to change over time. Somewhere back through their family trees, there has to be an alpha ancestor that was the first to develop the telepathic footprint. And that alpha ancestor passed it down to everyone beneath her in the tree. Tim and Temika’s alpha ancestor is the same one, but Jason may have had a different alpha ancestor, one that also developed telepathic ability. And just like Tim and Temika’s ancestor, Jason’s ancestor passed this trait down through her line. Or maybe he too shares that same alpha ancestor, but his footprint was altered much more significatnly through the introduction of genetic traits that weren’t introduced into Tim and Temika’s genetic lines.

And that was the why! Jason almost felt his brain light up, it hit him so hard. It was so simple! No wonder the Faey couldn’t answer the question! They were no doubt throwing all their science at it, all their technology, trying to find an explanation that was staring them in the face!

Humans had talent because they had the genetic footprint for it.

Why? Because they were part of a block of humans that shared common ancestry!

And the biggest question of all…why did humans have talent? Because somewhere, some time in the past, some “alpha ancestor” developed the genetic footprint for talent, then passed it down to his or her descendents. It wasn’t the complete answer, but Jason just knew that the answer he was looking for was going to be found somewhere back through the development of his genetic line. It wasn’t a matter of environment or genetic evolution, it was a matter of geneology! It wasn’t science, it was history! That was where the answer would be!

And again, it came back to why. Why did humans have talent?

Because somewhere in history, it became part of their genetic line. And that piece of history was the answer to the puzzle.

That was an answer that no amount of Faey science was going to discover. That was why the Faey could not answer the question. They could discover the how, and the what, but without access to the history of Earth, it was a mystery that would forever be unsolved.

They had to find Tim and Temika’s common ancestor. That was the answer. If they could find that common ancestor between Tim and Temika, then Miaari’s enigmatic question would be answered, and she had told him that he had to answer that question if he had any hope of succeeding in his difficult task.

He was sure of it.

So…now that he knew where to look, it came down to figuring out how to find out. Since it wasn’t going to be a matter of science, but of history, then the first place to start would be to try to find out where and when Tim and Temika’s different family trees converged. They’d need to try to trace their geneology and try to find that common ancestor, and that common ancestor was the first signpost on the road that would lead to the answer to why.

Jason? Jason? Jyslin sent in concern, prodding him with her fingers.

What? Oh, sorry, he answered. I was thinking about something.

You know, with these genetic codes mapped, we could easily test everyone here to see if they have this genetic footprint, Rann mused mentally. It would take all of ten seconds.

I’m not sure everyone would like you sticking them with needles.

Oh, I wouldn’t need a needle. I could rig up a device that would scan the DNA of the skin. Just touch it to them, and it would only take about ten seconds for it to return a response.

What a brilliant idea! Rann, you just became my new best friend, Jason sent to him earnestly. Build it. Build it so it’s small, portable, and easy to hide.

Why does it—ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, he sent, his thoughts enlightened. You want to use it to find other human telepaths out in the world!

We’re going to need more, Jason affirmed. If we can find other people with the potential before the Faey do, we can get to them first. I’m sure that after they see their options, at least some of them would side with us rather than become lapdogs and spies for the Imperium’s secret police. How fast can you build something like that?

It would take a few days, he answered. I could cannibalize some of the equipment we have here to build it. I could build it to look for some critical sequence pairs, since there’s some genetic variations between you and Tim and Temika for example, that means that there’s going to be some genetic variation from telepath to telepath. There’s some common patterns in all three of you, so I could build the device to look for those. They don’t show up in non-telepaths, and should be broad enough to catch a large range of humans with the footprint.

Do it, Jason ordered. Outside of caring for Kumi, it’s your primary responsibility.

I’ll get right on it, he answered. I knew taking all those technical repair and plasmonic systems courses would come in handy, he sent, giving Songa an amused look.

Oh, stuff it, she retorted archly.

Just because he knew where to look, it didn’t help all that much, because he honestly had no idea where to start.

He sat in his room, feet propped up on the desk, panel in his lap as he searched through a bunch of old records that had once been in the American system, but had been absorbed into Civnet after the subjugation. Just because he knew that Tim and Temika had a common ancestor, that didn’t in any way make it easy to find that ancestor. For one, all the records on Tim McGee were gone. After he and Symone escaped, and they thought them dead, Imperial Intelligence had gone through Earth’s entire datanet and stripped every single record of Tim out of everything. It was as if he had never existed. There wasn’t even any record of him attending school in New Orleans. He didn’t even have a birth certificate. They had been amazingly thorough.

Temika had almost no paper trail. He found her birth records and used the names on her birth certificate to search back through about a century of her family, but then her family dropped off the face of the world. The last record he could find was for Joseph Daniels, who was born in 1901 to Sam and Delilah Daniels, in Bayou La Batrie, Alabama. But there was no record of either Sam or Delilah before that. He did remember her talking about her grandmother, who had to be Delilah, and he did recall her saying something about her grandmother being the daughter of one of the slaves freed after the Civil War. So, odds were, there was almost no paper trail on her grandmother’s side. And since Sam Daniels was also most likely the child or grandchild of a formal slave, there was little hope to find anything useful on that side either. Any record of them or their parents had most likely been destroyed in the Civil War.

So, after that revelation, he found himself almost immediately stuck. He finally had an idea of where to look to answer that question…why.

Or at least he was stuck concerning Tim and Temika.

He knew quite a bit of his own family tree. His father was born to first generation Americans, and his great-grandparents on both his grandmother and grandfather’s sides had come from Great Britain. His grandfather’s parents were English, and his grandmother’s parents had been from Scotland. His mother’s family had immigrated from Quebec before she was born, and before that, her side of the family had immigrated to Canada from France way back in the early 1700’s. Her ancestors had fought in the French and Indian Wars. Her geneology was almost exclusively of French descent except for one American Indian great-great grandmother.

Before that, it got a little fuzzy. The only thing he really knew for sure was that his grandmother’s ancestors had been minor nobility in the lowlands of Scotland, and that one of his grandfather’s ancestors had been a servant in Queen Elizabeth I’s court. Outside of one ancestor, the entirety of his family tree came from England, Scotland, and France…as far as he knew.

So, if the docs were right and there was some kind of commonality in the family trees of telepaths, then they’d have to be of English, Scottish, or French ancestry. Well, at least for his own family. If they were right and Jason wasn’t related to Tim and Temika at all, then that meant that telepathic ability had sprung up in two places or more, and that Tim and Temika’s “alpha ancestor” could have been from anywhere. It could be some white ancestor in Temika’s line, or some black ancestor in Tim’s, either or. One thing was for sure, given the fact that they were two different races, one of them had to have an ancestor outside his or her race of appearance.

All things considered, he’d bet it was Temika. Her facial structure wasn’t quite what one would consider entirely African in appearance. The first time he’d seen her, he’d taken notice of the shape of her eyes, nose, mouth, and cheeks, and had even then thought that she had to be of mixed ancestry. That certainly wasn’t to say that Tim didn’t have a black ancestor somewhere in his family tree, but going just on appearances, if he was going to lay odds on which of the two had a race-crossing ancestor, he’d put his money on Temika’s family.

This might be a job for Miaari. It was going to take quite a bit of digging to find hard to get information like this, and that was a job for a professional seeker of information. It was something to which he couldn’t devote an inordinate amount of time, because he had other, equally important things to do.

One of those other things was sitting on his panel’s email queue, waiting for his attention. He switched over to mail, and saw that his dropship was ready for delivery. It had cost him a serious chunk of credit, but it was absolutely necessary. It was brand new, right off the assembly line, a shiny new ARL-3 Space Ground Transport. It had cost him C577,583 after taxes and after he had it equipped with shields and mid-grade MPAC cannons, a considerable amount of money. But it was a self-contained cargo dropship, the largest dropship he could get that would fit through the doors of the Lincoln warehouse, a ship that would be carrying a C117,300 high-capacity industrial replicator inside it. That too was part of the invoice, for he’d bought the replicator and requested to have it loaded on the dropship once it was complete and ready for shipment.

Interesting. They wanted face to face confirmation of the shipping arrangements. Well, that wasn’t all that difficult. Jyslin, he sent strongly, so he would be heard basicly anywhere in town. Come home for a minute, I need your help.

I’m in the kitchen, I’ll be right up, came her open reply.

Jason found the number to call in the email, and queued it up in his panel’s comm program as he wrote down some information on a piece of paper. Jyslin opened the door carrying a sandwich of some kind, complete with bread. Bread?

Yohne made it from scratch, she sent. She may be a doctor, but she’s also one hell of a cook. She’s teaching Temika how to do it right now.

Well, that’s probably the one and only thing that could make Temika interact with a Faey, Jason grunted. Mika loves to cook, and being able to make homemade bread from scratch is something she’d probably love to know.

What did you need?

You get to be my secretary, he told her.

She gave him a quirky smile. Oh, a secretary? Is this going to end up with me being hiked over the desk? she asked, her sending complete with this image of her as the secretary succumbing to the ardor of the boss.

Put your game face on, woman, he sent. This is serious. Thrynn wants face to face confirmation of the shipping arrangements for the dropship. I need a Faey for that.

Not a problem, love, she sent assuringly, pulling her long red hair back from her face and starting to twist it into a pony tail. No secretary would go around with her hair unbound. Find me a rubber band or pin or something, will you?

Once Jason helped her tie her hair back into a pony tail, she sat down in front of the panel and looked over the information he had written for her on the pad. He stood behind the panel, out of view of the video, and Jyslin placed the call. After navigating through an automated menu, she looked at him meaningfully when the audio picked up. “Shipping, this is Yeris. How may I help you?” a male Faey voice called over the audio.

“Yes, I’m calling to schedule an appointment to have a dropship shipped,” she answered.

“I can help you with that, madam, can you give me your customer ID number please?” Jyslin read off the number Jason had written down. “VulTech Technologies Corporation, madam?”

“That’s us,” she said with a disarming smile.

“Alright, madam, your dropship is ready for shipment right now. It’s been loaded with a piece of cargo delivered from Kodiken Shipping, as per your instructions. I’ve been given your delivery confirmation code for that, let me send it to you.”

“Good, I was just about to ask if that was there,” Jyslin said with a nod.

“Yes, madam, it’s arrived and has already been loaded and secured. Now, would you like to send a team to pick up the unit, or would you prefer to have it delivered? Please keep in mind that if you come to pick up the unit, the cost of shipping that was already added to the price of the unit will be refunded to you.”

“We’d like to have it delivered, please.”

“Alright. Before we arrange a shipping date, please allow me to explain our shipping procedures.”

“Go right ahead.”

“Thank you. Your dropship will be delivered to any destination which is convenient, but falls within certain safety guidelines. The destination must have sufficient space to safely land the dropship and a skimmer, and must be at a spaceport or company facility capable of handling the unit. It will be flown to its destination by a Thrynne pilot and a staff of three maintenance personnel, fully licensed and insured,” he said quickly, “who will be responsible for signing off on the delivery acceptance inspection. A skimmer will escort the dropship to its destination, both to inspect the unit in flight and also to return the pilot and inspectors home after delivery is complete. The cost of shipping has already been added to the price of the unit, so you will incur no additional charges.”

Jyslin looked to Jason, who nodded. “That sounds completely reasonable,” she told him pleasantly.

“Once the delivery inspection is complete and both parties are satisfied that the unit was delivered in working order and without damage, the final contract will be signed that will transfer ownership over to your corporation. You must have an executive on site with the authority to sign this contract or we cannot leave the unit with you.”

Jason frowned. That wasn’t going to make it easy, because he didn’t want anyone to know that a human owned VulTech, but he could figure something out. He nodded to Jyslin a bit reluctantly. That’s gonna be tricky, but we have no choice. We’ll figure something out.

“That won’t be a problem,” she told him.

“Very good then, madam. What location would you like to take delivery?”

“The VulTech headquarters, 1 Quickmart Drive, Lincoln, Jurea Province, American Sector, Terra. The global location code for this facility is NA23-4658-7836.”

“One moment. Alright, I have the location now. Confirming, global location code NA23-4658-7836.”

“That’s right. Yes, that’s the location.” Did you know that someone already took a picture of the warehouse? Global positioning has a picture of it with the VulTech logo on it.

Well, I had to supply a picture of the building in with the tax paperwork when I bought it for VulTech, and I took the picture after I painted it. They probably used the same picture.

Probably.

“Delivery to this location can be done in six hours at the earliest. Any receiving appointment past that works for us, madam.”

Tomorrow?

Yeah, I already did the math, just use what I have written down.

“We’d like to take delivery at 06:30 Imperial Standard Time tomorrow,” she told the clerk, looking at the panel monitor.

“06:30 Imperial Standard Time, 29 Romaa. Correct?”

“That’s right.”

“Alright, madam, the delivery time, date, and location have been confirmed. We’ll see you tomorrow morning at 06:30 at the delivery site.”

“We’ll be here,” she told him with a smile.

“Very good. Now that delivery is confirmed, let me take a moment to describe our warranty and maintenance policies.” Jason listened as the male Faey on the other end of that call went over those policies, which sounded quite advantageous to the customer. The dropship had an unconditional three year warranty; if anything broke, for any reason outside of combat or sabotage, Thrynne would repair it for free. They also would sell parts directly to VulTech basicly at cost for seven years after the warranty expired, would send a maintenance team to the unit and perform maintenance on site at rates that were highly competitive with other maintenance shops, and offered in-house insurance for the unit that was very cheap. Thrynne took quality very seriously, and they were so certain about the quality and durability of their dropship, they were literally willing to put their money where their mouths were. Jason knew that none of that would apply to him, since he was going to basicly void the warranty by putting the ship through extensive customization…but the ability to buy cheap replacement parts directly from the company would be useful.

Now Jason saw why a Thrynne dropship was more expensive than other companies; you weren’t buying a dropship, you were buying a commitment from the corporation that built that dropship.

“Is there anything else that I can help you with, madam?” the clerk asked after completing his recitation of Thrynne policies.

“No, I think that about covers it. Thank you very much.”

“You’re welcome, madam. And thank you for choosing Thrynne for your dropship needs.”

Jyslin ended the call, and she looked at him. You know, those people at Thrynne really know how to train their customer service.

They make a quality product, and aren’t afraid to put their money behind it. Jason centered himself, sitting down on the bed and putting his fingers to his temples, and then performed a trick that Jyslin had taught him since she had arrived, one of the first things she thought he’d need to be able to do.

Send to non-telepathic humans.

There was a certain way you pushed it out. A subtle alteration of the timbre of the sending, kind of like speaking at a certain pitch. That was the trick of it. A non-telepathic mind could receive sending if the telepath was careful to do it this way. This was the first time he’d attempted to use it this way, but he’d had enough practice doing this by practicing with Luke, who was willing to be his partner. As Jason taught Luke about flying, Luke had allowed him to practice sending to him. It certainly took a lot more effort and energy, kind of like stirring molasses with a wooden spoon. You had to really push, but you also had to be very careful or you’d spill it, slosh it out of the bowl. That was what this was like. He had to put a lot of effort behind it, but it had to be gentle or it’d cause pain to the non-telepaths that received it.

Now hear this, Jason sent, giving his sending enough power to reach the edges of the city, but not sending with such force that those in the same building with him were overwhelmed by the power of it. This is Jason. Jyslin has taught me how to send messages like this one so everyone in the community can hear them. So everyone calm down and relax. You’re not going crazy, you’re not hearing voices, you’re hearing me broadcasting a telepathic message that everyone can hear and understand. And I can’t hear you, this is a one-way communication, so don’t try to answer.

I need everyone who helped do the refit on my skimmer to report to the governor’s mansion conference room immediately. I also need Symone, Temika, Doc Rann, and Doc Songa to report to the conference room as well. The dropship refit project is now on the table, ladies and gentlemen, we just arranged delivery of it a few minutes ago. So, we need to meet and go over what’s going to happen in the next few days.

Jyslin gave him a startled look, then laughed. You should have warned them about that.

If they want to be resistance fighters, they’d better get used to the idea of handing surprises, Jason sent seriously. I didn’t warn them on purpose. I want to see how they react.

This should be interesting.

The reaction was one of shock. No one in the community had expected something like that, and it was evident almost immediately, when a multitude of people radioed in asking what the hell was going on, that most of them thought it was some kind of trick perpetrated by the newcomers. It did, however, get everyone’s attention, and cause everyone he wanted to come to the conference room.

Once he got them all there, he assured them it was him, and then changed the subject to the dropship. He used his panel to project a hologram of the dropship in schematic form. “Here it is, ladies and gentlemen, our next project. We can’t start working on getting Cheyenne Mountain ready to move in until we refit the dropship, because it’s going to be carrying everything. Now, this ship is about thirty times bigger than my skimmer, so it’s going to take quite a while to get it ready. Tomorrow, just after noon, the dropship is going to be delivered to the warehouse in Lincoln, and we’re all going to be there to receive it. I don’t want the people from Thrynne thinking that VulTech is anything other than a legitimate business, so they’re going to see lots of human and Faey workers at the warehouse. Now, since there are about forty of us and only one skimmer that can only carry ten at a time, that means it’s going to take a few trips to get everyone there. So I want everyone to draw numbers out of a hat so we can figure out who goes when. And before anyone whines about not getting much sleep tonight, keep in mind I have to fly every leg of it,” he told them.

“This means that it’s going to be your first real test,” he told them. “You’re going to be exposed to unknown Faey that might try to listen in on your surface thoughts. This is when you’re going to prove that you can control your stray thoughts. If those Faey come and go and never think the wiser, then you’re ready.”

You sure they’re ready for that? Jyslin sent.

Jason glanced at her. Ready or not, it’s necessary, he answered. If those Thrynne people come and find an empty warehouse with no workers there, it might raise a red flag. They have to see what they expect to see.

Point.

“Symone has taught you how to keep a handle on your surface thoughts,” Jason told them. “It’s not going to be much different from the exercises, only this time you have a reason not to mess up. Rann, Songa, Symone, you’re going to be there too, as employees,” he told the two. “They need to see more Faey than just Jyslin. The people from Thrynne need to see nothing more than what they expect to see, a new Terran business that just bought its first dropship, with Faey executives and human employees. All of us will be the actors on the stage.

“Yes, it’s going to be dangerous, and it’s unexpected, but that’s what it’s all about. We’ll never get off the ground if we can’t deal with stress and be able to roll with unexpected surprises. This is a test of all of us, to see how well we can handle an unknown situation. I could have told you all about this, but then you’d have time to think about it and be ready. What will happen tomorrow won’t be much different than what we might be doing later. So, tomorrow we find out how ready we are to deal with the unexpected. And tomorrow, we get the first big piece of what we’re going to need to do what we’re going to do.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea, Jayce?” someone called.

“Not really, but we have to find out if we can do it, and it’s not something we can really prepare for. Symone taught all of you, you know what you need to know, so let’s find out tomorrow if it’s going to work. We need to find out now, when it won’t matter as much, than later, when it can get us all killed.”

“Well, that makes some sense,” someone called.

“By the way, this does not mean we’re not having evening training,” Jyslin called sternly. “Everyone on the evening rotation had better show up.”

Since two days after she arrived, Jyslin had been training everyone in basic military skills. She had two training sessions, and had split the community in half; half of them had training in the morning, the other half had training in the evening. She’d wanted to train for more than four hours a day, but everyone had other duties, so she had to make due with the time she had. Jason himself did not get out of this training, he was part of the morning session. They didn’t yet have enough railguns to go around, but Jason had had a shipment of 30 Mark VI Panther MPAC rifles shipped to the warehouse. Everyone in the training session had a weapon with which to train. Jason didn’t like shelling out the C72,500 for them, but he’d already planned on buying at least some MPAC rifles. They would use them both as weapons and also as misdirection, to complete the illusion that armored figures were Faey soldiers and not guerillas.

Jyslin was quite a drill sergeant. She didn’t take any lip off anyone, she was harsh, she was demanding, and she was quick to criticize. But she was also quick to complement, and though everyone hated her when she was on that field, nobody said she was unfair. In just eight days, just about everyone had been trained in the use of an MPAC, and they had started learning basic small unit tactics, things like covering partners, moving without getting killed, looking over the terrain to find the safest and fastest way to move from one place to another, things that a seasoned combat veteran like Jyslin knew.

Yesterday, they’d had their first unit against unit training session. Like any MPAC, these Panther models had a setting that basicly fired a magnetic envelope holding pressurized air, air that was drawn in through the venting system. When the magnetic envelope ruptured, the air decompressed rapidly, delivering some impressive force. It was something akin to a “stun”setting because the round struck with some force, but it was non-lethal. It carried enough kinetic energy to really sting when it impacted, like being hit with a paintball, and could probably give someone a mild concussion if it hit them in the head. Yesterday at lunch, between the two training sessions, they’d held a “capture the flag” game between the morning and afternoon teams. It was a practical exercise using what Jyslin had taught them so far, and it had been very…exciting. Jason had literally had fun, even though they were training for real combat, training for the day when they’d be killing people. But at that moment, there was something very exciting and fun about trying to maneuver around the ten defending guards protecting the morning crew’s flag and capturing it.

God, was that a shock. After eliminating seven of them, losing five of his own team, and getting to the stand, he found Meya standing beside it, holding an MPAC. He was so surprised that she shot him and eliminated him from the game.

After that round was over, he found out that Myra had been standing under their own flag, and that Jyslin had put them there on purpose as a lesson, a lesson to never be surprised. And was he ever surprised to come around that corner and find himself looking right down the barrel of Meya’s MPAC.

That just added to the score he was going to settle with the twins. Ever since