The Terrans

by Jean Johnson

  “It was so. It is so,” Sonam added. He gestured toward her furniture. “Now, as your mentor, I’d like to have a private consultation with you, young lady. The prince’s training takes precedence, but you have been under a great deal of strain, encountering murderous aliens, rescuing strange, lost Humans, translating languages, and having to balance the needs and perceptions of two disparate factions. Your mental health is of some concern in all of this, psychic and otherwise . . . and I should like to think I can qualify as a friendly shoulder, if nothing else.”

  “Considering half of my class went to you for advice and not just to our official counselors?” Jackie quipped. She gestured for him to take his choice of seat, then curled up into the corner of the sofa next to the padded, vinyl-covered chair he selected. (So, what did you want to discuss?)

  (The fact that, when you were assisting him, Li’eth performed much better than whenever he struggled on his own.)

  (I wasn’t helping him!) Jackie protested mentally. Then checked herself. (Well . . . maybe, a tiny bit . . . I tried not to,) she sent firmly. (You know how ephemeral this can be, sometimes—you want to help someone do something, and the next thing you know, you’re projecting that help.)

  (I know,) he reassured her mildly. (Jackie, I have had the privilege and honor of teaching students for over fifty years, now. Almost sixty. And in my half-century-plus, I have seen, and taught, and interacted with . . . eighteen? Yes, eighteen Gestalt pairings.)

  She choked on a misdrawn breath. Face flushing, she covered her mouth and coughed to clear her throat. (You . . . are not implying . . . ?)

  (I am.)

  (I ruled that out!) Jackie protested, blinking at him. (The odds are astronomical!)

  Sonam looked at her calmly in return. (Dai’a and I have been exchanging tales of our religious interests. She is intrigued by the stories of the gods and goddesses of India and of Tibet, and by the Enlightenment of the first Buddha. I, in turn, am intrigued by the idea of a physical person being considered immortal, unkillable, and capable of traveling through time. We have been exchanging a lot of information along those lines.

  (She is convinced—and frightened by the possibility—that she is not only a witness to, but a participant in their Immortal High One’s prophecies regarding the return of the Motherworld.)

  (I’m not too comfortable being the center of precognitive visions myself. Too much can go wrong,) Jackie confessed.

  (Yes, well, among those prophecies,) the monk continued placidly, (is a small subset of stories regarding some of the battles that will take place. One involves a Holy Pairing—which she describes as two psychics who are “married mind to mind”—saving one of their capital cities from destruction.) He lifted his brows pointedly. (That sounds like a Gestalt pairing to me. The power to save an entire city—a presumably large city, as a capital—does not lie within the span of any two normal psychic minds alone. A Gestalt, however, might summon that kind of strength.)

  Her head reeled with denial and implications. (It . . . it could be deflecting a single missile, which is what a strong telekinetic could do—it doesn’t have to be a Gestalt pairing.)

  (No, but there were other stories, she said. I got the implication she read them because of some implied romance between the two. Male and female, each one from a separate, mighty faction . . . Don’t groan mentally at me, young lady,) he chided. (I can feel your eyeballs rolling upward.)

  (But the odds . . . !) Jackie protested, slumping sideways so she could drop her head onto her forearm.

  (The universe has been known to do even odder things with far lower probabilities of success. Such as sparking and evolving life to the point where it can question the universe about its own existence,) Sonam reminded her. (But if you look at it another way, they had precognitive knowledge of this meeting, and we had precognitive knowledge of this meeting—his people’s prophecies apparently mentions one of the royal blood being involved, and ours very clearly showed your face . . . so maybe the probabilities weren’t so much astronomically against it, as guided into it.)

  (Ugh . . . it’s one thing to serve a precognitive purpose. It’s another matter when all that guidance is going to lead to a potential nightmare of disgrace, ridicule, and being barred from civil service. And that’s just on my side of things. For all we know,) she added, flipping her hand in a circle to encompass life, the universe, everything involved, (he’s got some arranged marriage waiting for him, even if it only exists in his mother’s mind as of yet.)

  (That is a possibility,) Sonam allowed. (We simply do not know.)

  (Most probably, we’d face some social or cultural rules against making the equivalent of a marriage with someone not approved of by said mother/Empress. Or even just the highly likely scenario that they won’t understand it’s nothing we can control or prevent, and will therefore attempt to dismiss and ignore it, causing us untold problems. If it’s a Gestalt.) She let her fluttering hand flop on top of the forearm supporting her forehead.

  Sonam sent her a mental shrug. (I’m not their Empress, so I could not say. Of course, this is all still merely speculation . . . and still in its earliest stages. Even the existence and evolution of life itself had to take a great deal of time to grow and blossom, with several setbacks along the way. We have time to decide what to do, if anything should need a decision. But I want you to try something, in the coming days.)

  (What?) Jackie groaned, with an undercurrent of what now to her thoughts. The implications and their consequences were crowding out the doubts, bringing with them fears of failure, accusations of impropriety, being banned from civil service, her dream job—having any decision she’d been involved in during this whole stretch of time doubted and reexamined, possibly to the detriment of Terran-V’Dan relationships . . . !

  (Oh, do stop panicking and overimagining, child. Just try to light a candle. You know from observing and assisting Li’eth today with his pyrokinetic self-control how it feels when he successfully lights one. I want you to try, and practice.)

  He didn’t add that he knew she could technically light a candle by crudely rubbing two bits of flammable matter together telekinetically. It wasn’t her area of specialty, but she could do it if she had to, even if that version was exhausting from the sheer amount of concentration and control required. Li’eth’s ability was based on thermal manipulation, not mass movement. But wavelengths could be considered holokinesis, the manipulation of light . . .

  (How will that prove anything? I could be doing it telekinetically, or even holokinetically,) she protested, lifting her head from the couch arm so she could look at her mentor physically.

  Sonam tugged the slipping folds of his shawl higher on his shoulder. (Because I know your skill, and know you haven’t practiced in those regions. And because I don’t want to test you for biokinetic healing by having you hit or cut yourself. Your doctor would wound me severely with her tongue, if not her scalpels, if she found out I asked you to do that without her supervision. She gave Lars hell this morning for spraining his ankle on the running track, then for trying to run some more on it rather than putting his foot up and resting as a sensible man should.

  (So. Try it Li’eth’s way. Gather the feeling of heat in your hands, then leap it to your target and focus the heat on the tip of the candlewick,) Sonam said, leaning forward to place a modest, blue-and-white-striped birthday candle on the glass-topped coffee table in front of their seats. (When you can do that like he can do that, then we will test for biokinetic ability in you . . . and in the meantime, see if you can sense and see auras like he can. That is another skill you do not have.)

  (Is it wise to pursue trying to learn whether or not I have a Gestalt bond with His Highness?) Jackie countered.

  (Denying a Gestalt bond is psychologically unhealthy,) Sonam said. (Depression, anxiety, even paranoia and other potentially severe psychoses can result—remember, I started out thinking I would go into a parapsychology career before being asked to teach psychic abilities by
the League, not just counsel those with gifts. I am fairly well trained in these sorts of things . . . even if I never did get more than a master’s degree in it.)

  (But it doesn’t mean we are bonded,) she said.

  (No, but it doesn’t mean you are not. Practice trying to light the candle as His Highness does it. Practice trying to see auras. And should you pick up a small cut or a bruise . . . practice trying to heal that as he does, too,) Sonam instructed her. (I shall see if he can cast images of light and sound, and move small objects, and so forth.)

  (Being in a Gestalt would complicate things beyond calculation,) she argued.

  He smiled slightly as he rose. (Growth comes from the struggle to overcome pain. Without pain, there is very little growth.)

  (You are a very odd Buddhist. Aren’t you supposed to be easing pain?) Jackie accused.

  (I am supposed to teach others how to manage their pain . . . which cannot be done unless you first acknowledge and confront it,) Sonam Sherap stated formally, giving her a bow. (It is time for me to retire and relax with a nice book and the last of those little spiced nut-candy things Dai’a made for dessert the day we arrived. She insisted I take the last of them with me to my quarters, since I enjoyed them so much.)

  Sighing, Jackie rose and bowed in return, her from-childhood lessons in courtesy coming to the fore even though she just wanted to stay flopped on her couch and not move, or think, or have to do anything. “Thank you for the counsel, Master Sonam,” she stated out loud. “I shall take your advice into careful consideration.”

  (Do try to figure out whether or not you are before we leave quarantine. This is not a Shakespearian play, and you are not from the families of Montague and Capulet,) he stated silently. (And even if it turns out you are, there are ways to avoid all the silly miscommunications and problems that they faced in that tragic farce.) Aloud, Sonam added piously, “May you be Enlightened into the best path through the troubles and pains that lie ahead.”

  “May your own burdens be light and easily alleviated,” Jackie returned politely. She watched as he left, then dropped back onto the couch, which hissed slightly as the impact of her weight compressed the spongy material of the cushions. She stared at the candle for several minutes, brooding, then rose and fetched a cup from the kitchenette area. Propping the candle more or less upright in the bowl of the teacup, she sat down again, rested her elbows on her knees, held up one hand, and concentrated.

  Imagined heat from her body pooled into her fingertips. She didn’t feel much of a difference, but from what she had sensed through her link with Li’eth, not much was needed. Concentrating, focusing that intense warmth into—

  Smoke curled up from the wick, and a tiny red ember appeared. Exactly where she focused that sensation of heat. Shocked, Jackie broke off and sat back, blinking rapidly. The ember winked out, leaving a slightly thicker but still tiny curl of smoke to dissipate just above the cup-propped candle.

  “Boot me,” she whispered, blinking and staring. She knew she hadn’t invoked telekinesis or holokinesis. And yet, it had happened. She could smell the candlesmoke, pungent and distinct from the cotton and paraffin wax involved. The pristine white-and-waxed-blue wick had blackened just a bit at the tip.

  It. Happened.

  Which meant she had to figure out how to deal with it, if it was a sign of a forming Gestalt. If it really was . . .

  Just boot me off the whole station, right now.

  CHAPTER 14

  FEBRUARY 13, 2287 C.E.

  (Holy yak turds!)

  Shocked, Jackie fumbled and dropped the basket of leafy greens she’d been harvesting in the aquaculture bay. “What?”

  Ba’oul and Dai’a, who were on garden-tending duty with her, peered respectively over and under the tiered growth shelves between them.

  “Ja’ki? You said something?” Ba’oul asked, his brow furrowing in concern.

  Jackie held up her hand to quell him and reached out with her mind. Tapping carefully on Sonam’s shields, she waited for a response.

  (Jackie—you just—he just . . . Sorry, my mind is startled. I apologize for my epithet. But . . . His Highness just used holokinesis to show me the auras he was seeing around his friend V’kol—and it startled the annoying female into shrieking,) he replied. (I nearly did as well.)

  With the term annoying female came an association of blonde hair and green rosette spots. In other words, Shi’ol. Jackie couldn’t argue with the description. Crouching, she started plucking spinach leaves off the deck. (So it wasn’t just him sharing his viewpoint telepathically?)

  (No, it was an actual holokinetic projection. The annoying female is about as mind-blind as the average Human can get,) Sonam stated. (It had to be a physical-world manifestation for her to have seen it and reacted.)

  Leaning forward, Jackie braced her head against the nearest support post, groaning softly. (Great. Just great. Gestalt.)

  (Most likely, yes.)

  “Ja’ki?” Ba’oul asked again. “Is something wrong?”

  Dragging in a deep breath, she tossed the last few fallen leaves into the basket, then picked it up again. “Telepath stuff. It’s just a conversation with Master Sonam. He said something that startled me, but it’s nothing for you to worry about.”

  “I like Master Sonam Sherap,” Dai’a confessed, reaching up to carefully select several leaves of kale for lunch. “He answers my questions with a lot of patience and loves asking me questions.”

  “I think he enjoys your company, too,” Jackie reassured the somewhat shy outworlder.

  “I like most of the people I have met, and the food is . . . good,” Dai’a allowed, tipping her head to the side. “But, I miss the flavors and sounds and . . . and faces of home.”

  “I miss the entertainment programs,” Ba’oul said. “I like yours, some are very imaginative and different, but . . .”

  “It’s simply not home,” Jackie supplied without censure. “I do understand.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Dai’a agreed. “And thank you. I just wish I knew how much longer it’ll be.”

  This, Jackie had an answer for. She nodded at Ba’oul. “We’re sending out ships in the direction of the star systems you and your fellow astronavigators think might be some of the ones in the Alliance. But there are a lot of stars out there, and the farther you go from your starting point in space, the more interstellar drift has altered the positions of the exact stars being sought. Even at our fastest, we still have to stop and take corrective readings, and that takes time.”

  He nodded, eyeing the green onions he was carefully easing out of the fine gravel beds. “There are thousands of uninhabited stars scattered through all the reaches of the Alliance. Most are too small and near-dead to support habitable zones. Not enough stellar radiation for power cells to make cheap energy, very few planets in a stable temperature zone for dome building, never mind other forms of construction . . . and very few worlds in that temperate zone capable of sustaining our form of life, with breathable atmospheres, the right level of air pressure, and natural resources with which to build colonies—we don’t ask for much,” he added, joking.

  “Agreed,” Jackie quipped back. She resumed picking spinach leaves.

  “It’s hard to find habitable worlds . . . which is where interest and resources will be focused. Which is where you will find space stations, starships, lightwave broadcasts, and other easily identified signs of Alliance life,” Ba’oul concluded. Changing the subject, he held up a clutch of green tubes ending in small white bulbs. “Is this enough of these baby onions?”

  Jackie eyed it. “Add four or five more. Sonam likes lots of onions, especially the spring ones.”

  A mock-heavy sigh escaped Dai’a. “He is a very wise man, but his wisdom has not saved him from the soul-deep flaw of having onion breath.”

  All three Humans chuckled at that.

  FEBRUARY 14, 2287 C.E.

  (The fourteenth of your month of February,) Li’eth observed, sharing the thought privat
ely with Ja’ki. (A day reserved for celebrating romance, correct?)

  (In some cultures, but not all,) she sent back. They were in the kitchen, sharing the chore of cleaning up after making breakfast. (It is a facet of the dominant culture, yes, but there are groups that don’t consider the day special—entire cultures—and groups that celebrate different things instead. The Council and the military celebrate it as Love Bot Day, for example.)

  (“Love Bot” Day?) Li’eth asked, amused.

  (Nine years ago, the Love Comm Satellite was launched. It was an unmanned probe and communications hyperrelay unit sent to Proxima Centauri, our nearest stellar neighbor, in preparation for manned spaceflight. We sent the unmanned probe to scan the system and send back telemetry on everything it could sense, so that when we sent a manned vessel, it would reduce the risk of running into anything,) she explained. (By mass petition, the name of the satellite was given in honor of Saint Valentine’s Day, and the first message sent and received was “We love you, Sol.” The reply we sent back was, “We love you, too, Proxima Centauri.”)

  (Seriously?) he asked, blond-and-burgundy brows raising.

  (It was a test message. The important data started streaming immediately afterward. But that’s how the probe got the nickname Love Bot. Any probe launched on the fourteenth has since been tested with those two messages.) She finished stacking the dishes into the crate and sent it into the high-powered scrubber. The sounds from the machine were buffered somewhat by its insulated walls, but it was still noisy enough that even telepathy needed a little mental boost to be heard. (We can be, and usually are, quite serious as a government . . . but we do know how to relax and make jokes once in a while.)

  (That’s good to know. We have four days a year where we celebrate love. Saint’s Love, which is in the spring, Beloved’s Day in the summer, Self-Love Day in the autumn, and Stranger’s Day in the winter. Saint’s Love is for all manner of love—love for no other reason than someone exists—but usually it’s a time to celebrate one’s love for family and friends. Beloved’s Day is obviously for romantic love. Self-Love Day is the day where you are encouraged to do something nice for yourself. And Stranger’s Day is the day you find someone you do not know and express some sort of affection or kindness toward them—usually an act of kindness through charity. It’s held early in the winter season in the northern hemisphere, so it’s often used as the day to give warm clothing to the homeless, food to the hungry, so on and so forth.)