by Drew Seren
“Feelers,” Phil said. “This is too emotional.” His face was set in a hard mask as he pushed himself straight out from the table. “We have to find the source and shut it down.”
“We’ve got people dropping all over the settlement,” Felonia said as she tapped off her com. “We don’t know who’s doing this.” Her brow was creased in concentration, but not like Solaria’s was. Anger, pain and struggle wrinkled Solaria’s forehead, making her look hurt and dangerous. Knowing her the way he did, Skylar didn’t want to say anything to interrupt her for fear she would lash out at him with her claws.
The information didn’t help Skylar not want to hit anyone. He took a centering breath and stepped to the middle of the living room so he could begin his katas. The movements helped him focus and create a shield stronger than what Filzbalm had put around him. As the shield strengthened with each repetition of the motions, his anger backed off and he could think of something other than hurting people.
“That’s better,” Filzbalm said, sounding less stressed than he had moments earlier.
Skylar went through the motions three more times before he felt like things had backed off enough for him to concentrate.
As he stopped his katas and looked at Phil, the powerful feeler gave him a tight smile. “Very good, Skylar. I’d heard you were coming along now that your teachers have found a way for you to focus. It gets a lot quieter when you’re not stumbling around trying to block things, doesn’t it?”
Skylar glanced at Aunt Blizza, who was sprawled on the couch, looking like she was in agony. “Is there anything we can do for her?”
“Felonia will have a dampener on her in a moment.” Aniu rubbed his forehead and frowned. “We keep them on hand in case her powers get out of control. I never expected to have to use them because of an attack on all of us.” He let out a long breath. “That was the worst attack I’ve felt since I was in school and we were practicing attack and defense. Too many holes in my shields now.”
“I think we can all say that.” Felonia returned from the curving stairs. Skylar hadn’t even realized she’d left. She had a leather bracelet that looked a lot like the one Skylar had worn until Filzbalm started helping him block things and control his powers. She slipped the bracelet on Blizza’s wrist, and the older woman instantly stilled. After a deep breath, she lay motionless. For a moment, Skylar worried she might’ve just died, before he noticed her narrow chest rising slowly under her lightweight blouse.
“Okay, we’ve got the family taken care of,” Aniu said as he started for the front door. “Phil, if you can keep an eye on things here, we need to get to the dig site. The call was from there. Something happened. I couldn’t get a straight answer—it sounded like everyone there was suffering from the same attack we experienced.”
“So what do we do?” Solaria asked. “We can’t just stay here and wait for something to happen. If it affected the settlement, they might need help.”
“She’s got a point,” Phil said. He ran a shaking hand through his sweat-rumpled hair. “I work for Intergal Rescue. If this was some kind of attack, I need to see what I can do to help people, not just sit here and babysit two kids who are old enough to be out there helping if there are others in need.”
Skylar nearly cheered for Phil taking up for them. He wanted to be out making sure everyone was safe.
“We can stay with Uncle Phil as he checks the settlement out, while you guys go make sure everything’s okay at the dig site,” Solaria said. “If we activate the home security system, Aunt Blizza will be okay.”
Her mother looked like she was about to argue, then her com buzzed again. She frowned. “Okay. Just be careful. We’re only a call away if anything goes wrong.” She tapped her com and headed out the door in Aniu’s wake.
“What do we need to do, Phil?” Skylar asked before the door closed behind them. He’d known from when he’d been found on Hummassa that Intergal agents used their gifts to find people trapped or lost, as he’d been. Doing something physical would help him keep his mind off the little bit of anger that was still seeping through his protections.
Phil pursed his lips. “Let’s get a few more dampeners from my hover car. I don’t know how many higher-level psychics are in the nearby area. If any of them are being hit as hard as we were, they might need help to pull themselves back together.”
He started toward the door, then stopped. “Now, you three follow my instructions. If I tell you something, you do it without question. Got it?”
“Got it,” Skylar and Solaria said in unison. Filzbalm echoed them.
When Phil nodded, they all hurried outside. Solaria took time to set the security system. A soft hum filled the entryway for a moment, and then they were beyond the door.
Outside, the sun had gone down and the wind had picked up. The cold lashed at Skylar, and Filzbalm moved so he was between Skylar’s neck and the collar of his leather coat.
“Cold?” Skylar asked as he pulled up the collar to offer both of them a little more protection from the wind.
“A little, but my ring continues to function as it is supposed to.” Filzbalm laid his head in the hollow of Skylar’s neck, and his warmth helped Skylar a little bit.
“It’s not supposed to be like this,” Phil mumbled as he opened the door to the hover car. “The weather was for a clear, cold night.”
“Is it connected to the attack?” Solaria asked.
Skylar had only seen a few references in his school books of psychics disrupting weather patterns when they used their powers, and that was restricted to movers. What they had experienced was a feeler attack. It shouldn’t have impacted anything other than the emotions of the people around the area.
“Don’t know.” Phil straightened and looked at them. “Tell you what, let’s take the hover car. It’ll keep us out of the weather, at least a little bit. Unfortunately, we’re going to have to do physical checks of buildings until the attack backs off. We can’t risk dropping our shields long enough to scan the buildings from the car.”
Happy to get out of the wind tearing at his clothes, Skylar scrambled into the back seat where he’d ridden from the spaceport to the house.
As the doors shut, Phil’s com beeped. Without hesitation, he tapped it. “Are you sure?” He started the vehicle. “Do you know where it’s gone? Yes, I know it’s still out there somewhere.” He started to sound short, then took a deep breath. “Okay. We’re searching the settlement for people.”
Phil pulled the hover car away from the dome and headed toward the next one over. “The attack sounds like it’s worse at the dig site.” He drove down the road. “Your folks say they haven’t gotten all the way in yet, but have already encountered several unconscious people. It’s even hitting non-psychics. We’re going to have to be careful.”
Skylar had heard about psychic attacks affecting non-psychics before. When his powers had lashed out a few months earlier, he’d affected some of the non-psychic students. Like he’d done then, he wondered exactly how powerful something had to be to be able to do that. “How far is the dig site?”
“About three miles,” Phil said as they pulled into the first drive. “To hit us as hard as it is, we’re dealing either with a group of people, or one whose power is off the charts.”
“Why would anyone attack the dig site?” Solaria asked as Phil brought the hover car to a stop.
“Might be someone got wind of your parent’s finds.” He shook his head. “Although it’s a badly kept secret, the Galactic Council is willing to do anything to keep our origins hidden. This could be them trying to silence your parents.”
Solaria reached for her door handle. “I hope not. We’ll all be in a lot of trouble if that’s the case. Skylar and I might not make it back to school.”
“What are you talking about?” Skylar didn’t understand where she was going with her line of thought. She got out of the car and he rushed to follow.
“Skylar, the government isn’t always our friend.” Her voice
was low and grim as she walked up the short path to the front door of the dome that looked a lot like her parents’ home. “They want to stop their secrets from getting out and are willing to do anything to accomplish that.”
“Now hush,” Phil said as Solaria reached the door.
“We will,” she replied as she knocked. They waited several seconds before she touched the door and it opened.
“Mrs. Tig, are you here?” Solaria called out as she walked inside.
“Solaria, is that you?” a pained voice replied.
“Right here.” Solaria turned in the direction it had come. “Are you okay?”
They entered a kitchen that resembled the one at the Unica house. There was a man lying on the floor with a woman crouched over him. They both had orange fur with thick black stripes. As the woman straightened and it registered with him that she didn’t have any clothes on, Skylar looked away. When Solaria frowned at him, he realized he was being rude and forced himself to turn back, doing his best to limit where he looked. He wasn’t used to seeing naked people, even if they were perfectly fine with being naked around strangers.
“What’s happening?” Mrs. Tig asked. “He started saying something about the anger, then he collapsed. I have a headache, but nothing else.”
Phil knelt down and appraised Mr. Tig. “Looks like some feeler overload.”
Mrs. Tig frowned. “Overload? But he’s only a level three. He’s not that sensitive.”
“Something’s happened out at the dig site,” Phil said as he pulled out a dampening bracelet and slipped it on the unconscious man. “We’re not sure exactly what. When he wakes up, he’s going to be disoriented, but the bracelet is going to block everything. We’ll call when it’s safe for him to take it off.”
She nodded and stroked her husband’s forehead. “Thank you, Phil. It’s been too long since you’ve been around.”
“Staying busy with Intergal Rescue.” Phil stood. “We should keep checking and make sure everybody’s okay. Aniu and Felonia are trying to find out what started this. We’ll let everyone know as soon as we have it figured out.”
Without rising, she held her hand out to Phil. “I understand. Be careful out there, particularly with the young ones in tow.”
“I’ll do my best.” Phil released her hand, and gestured for Skylar and Solaria to head back out to the hover car.
Happy to get out of the house with the naked people, Skylar followed Solaria.
“You need to relax around these people,” Filzbalm said. “This is their way of life.”
“I know, but it’s just not who I am,” Skylar whispered as they made it out of the front door and he relaxed.
Solaria laughed as she got into the hover car. “Skylar, it’s not that bad. These are just our bodies. There’s not much we can do about them. It’s not your fault that you aren’t used to seeing naked humanoids, you know. How would you feel knowing that Q’uT’omael at school is always naked?”
“Yeah, but he’s in an envirobubble,” Skylar countered. “He’s a sentient ooze. Or I think it’s a he. But anyway, there’s not much in him that’s like me. Pantherians are humanoids, and from what you’re saying, engineered from humans. Doesn’t that make a difference?”
“No,” Phil said as he got in and closed the door. “We’re all from the same stock. There’s no reason we should be ashamed of our bodies and exposing them. I think those who don’t have those restrictions are a lot healthier, both physically and mentally.”
Skylar tried to understand what everyone was telling him, and he didn’t want to be rude to any of the Pantherians he ran into, but he’d been raised to wear clothes and wasn’t sure how people could go around and not wear them. It didn’t make sense to him. He’d shaken off a lot of what his mother had told him, like that psychics were evil and not to be trusted, but he realized there was still a lot for him to get over. He sighed. “I guess I need to think about things.”
Phil chuckled as he drove down the drive. “That’s all I can ask of you. Think about things and come up with your own answers.”
9
Chasing Light
SKYLAR YAWNED and shuddered as he got back into the hover car. The sky was still dark. Solaria had told him the night wasn’t even half over, but he was bone tired. The Tigs had been the start of their efforts to make sure the folks in the settlement were okay. Everyone had been affected to one degree or another. It seemed to be dependent on the person’s sensitivity. The more power psychics had, the more they were affected, and the closer to the dig site, the greater the effect was. Before they were even halfway through the settlement, they all knew something had happened at the dig.
Solaria’s parents kept telling them they were investigating, but until they were sure the site was safe, they didn’t want anyone else out there. They did say everyone at the site was unconscious, and medical staff were coming.
“All right, you three.” Phil settled into the hover car and hit the button to start it up. “Other than the dig site, we’ve accounted for everyone in the settlement. We’re lucky nobody is really hurt.”
“Except for poor Mrs. Splotz,” Solaria noted as she strapped herself in. “She was in really bad shape after tumbling down her stairs.”
“But she’ll recover.” Phil pulled on the yoke to get the hover car moving. “She didn’t even need anything beyond what we had in the first aid kit. If she hadn’t been going down her stairs when the attack hit, she’d be okay.” He rubbed his head.
Skylar sighed and settled back in his seat. The attack had stopped nearly two hours earlier, but his brain still throbbed from the intensity of the mental onslaught. He wondered if his head would ever feel normal again.
“Where to now?” he asked as Filzbalm yawned and snuggled tighter around his neck.
“Home,” Phil replied, pulling out into the street. “We can get some sleep until Felonia and Aniu come home, and maybe then we can get some answers.”
“Can’t we go to the dig site?” Solaria objected. “The attack is over. We should be safe.” She crossed her arms. “Besides, I had my initiation into the women’s warrior circle last year. They’re treating me like I’m a kid.”
Phil tsked as he drove toward the Unica house. “Or maybe they’re thinking of Skylar. He’s not a warrior and might need someone to protect him.”
“We can give him a blaster,” she muttered.
All night she’d seemed very upset that her parents were being overprotective. But as long as they were out helping people, she was keeping it mostly to herself. With them heading home, it sounded like she was ready to voice some of her unhappiness. Skylar understood. He wanted to be treated more like an adult too, but he wasn’t about to say anything that would get folks upset. Their best bet for getting a little respect was to stay quiet and do as they were told. Eventually adults would start treating them as equals, or at least that was what worked on Hummassa.
“Since we’re not sure what we’re up against, we don’t know if a blaster would work or not,” Phil said as they turned the corner and Skylar realized their headlights were the only unnatural light he could see.
It was strange with just moonlight, starlight and a slight green luminescence dancing across the horizon. Even on Hummassa there had been lights from the neighbors, and a soft glow that indicated where the city was. He couldn’t recall being anywhere except Armstrong’s Rings where there were no lights, but where they’d been on the Rings, it hadn’t ever grown truly dark. Heavy twilight was the closest it got.
“What’s that?” He pointed toward the green glow.
Phil stopped the hover car and tapped the steering wheel. “Now, that’s a very good question. If we weren’t on Pantheria, I’d say it’s an aurora borealis, but we don’t have those here.” He turned on the communications console in the middle of the dashboard. There was just static. He tapped his wrist com. “Aniu, we’ve got a green atmospheric glow to the east of the settlement. Any ideas? No, Skylar spotted it…we were headed back t
o the house. Okay. It might take a little bit of time…oh, it appears local coms are still working, but worldwide coms are down. Right, we’ll check in as soon as we know something…you two be careful too.” He tapped the wrist com again, then turned the steering wheel. “Okay gang, we’re going to go find out what that glow is. Per Aniu, it shouldn’t be happening.”
When he reached the end of the street, he just kept going. One of the big advantages of hovercraft over wheeled transport was that hovers didn’t need a hard surface to make the best time. Most areas that were settlements or larger had roads just to keep the citizens from driving all over the place. Skylar wasn’t sure what the landscape was beyond the glow of the headlights, but he doubted it was tame in any way. From what he’d seen on the drive in from the spaceport, the area was mostly rocks, snow, and ice.
Something moved in the darkness.
Phil swerved. “Damned ice bears.”
“They’re diurnal,” Solaria said. “They shouldn’t be out in the middle of the night.”
“I know,” Phil mumbled. “Something is not right at the moment, and we need to figure out what it is.” He hit a button on the dash and the headlights grew brighter. With the reflection off the snow and ice, it almost looked like daylight.
Skylar wished there was more he could do, but he stayed in his seat and stared out the windshield as they sped along, heading toward the glow that never seemed to get any closer. He was out of his element, although since he’d left Hummassa, he hadn’t figured out what his element was. Sure, he was starting to fit in at Stars’ End, but he no longer had a real home to go back to. He loved it when he was in space. More than anything he wanted to find a way to get a ship, and when he graduated, take to the stars. Beyond that, he had no idea what he wanted to do.
Spending the night helping Phil make sure the people of the settlement were safe had been interesting. It reminded him of a time he and his mother went to the coast after a tidal wave had hit hard and left people dead or homeless. They’d been part of the massive cleanup that had taken weeks. He’d always liked helping people, but even as a feeler and a reader, he wasn’t sure how it all worked together.
