She walked home through the market square, stopping here and there to chat and
at the baker's to buy a loaf of bread. That little detour meant she approached
her house now from the garden side. Startled, she stopped to study the figure
moving about the yard. Dressed in black, he walked slowly up and down between
the planting blocks, pausing here and there, seeming only to observe. That
visual information did not identify him so Lyta reached out with her mind. She
had only an instant of contact before the blocks snapped up, but there was a
memory on the edge of that moment.
He turned to face her as she approached the garden. A man of average build and
uncertain age, he gave an impression of nervousness, and Lyta wondered if that
sense came from purely physical clues. A shiver born in the memory of long-ago
horrors ran through her as she realized the black garb he wore was a uniform.
Not the familiar and frightening one of memory, this uniform was a flight suit,
adorned with military insignias.
"Ms. Alexander?" he inquired softly as he stepped toward her. Cautiously, Lyta
nodded in reply. "I'm John Matheson. I'm sorry. I arrived a bit early."
Breath returned to Lyta Alexander's lungs as she recognized her afternoon
appointment. "I'm sorry to keep you waiting, Colonel," she said, moving past
him to unlatch the door. "Please come in."
"Please don't apologize. It's my fault," he said as he followed her inside.
"And it's John, please."
She thought it odd he didn't smile when he said that, but found herself liking
him just the same. "Please come in, John."
"I've been enjoying your garden. I hope you don't mind." He surveyed the room
from just inside the doorway as she set the bread down on the table beside the
morning's harvest and threw off the cape she wore.
"Of course not," she replied automatically, then remembered telepathic contact
minutes earlier and the blocks she had felt from him. She regarded him with a
newborn suspicion. "May I take your coat," she asked, gesturing to the garment
folded over his arm. He thanked her, then helped her to hang it beside her own
wrap.
Leading the way to the little sitting area, she motioned him to a chair. "Now,
how can I help you, Colonel? Is this about the trade agreement?"
He smiled at last, and shook his head. "No, Ms. Alexander, I'm not here on
official business." Averting his eyes, he swallowed hard. "Lyta," he spoke her
name as he met her eyes again, "you probably don't remember but we met once,
many years ago."
She reached back in her mind, trying to find the memories he had stirred in her.
He shifted in his chair, turning his right shoulder toward her, showing the psi
embroidered on his sleeve. "Are you with the Metasensory Agency, Colonel?" she
asked, fighting back her anger. Another smile, broader this time, spread across
his face. Irritation and affection warred within her.
"No," he said softly. "I'm regular EarthForce, assigned to the EAS Powell. I
was formerly first officer on the Excalibur." He followed her glance to the Psi
patch on his shoulder. "And yes, I'm a telepath, trained by PsiCorps. In fact,
that's how you and I met."
He reached out, gently, tentatively, with his mind, dropping his blocks,
inviting her to do the same. She allowed him entry, although she didn't need
the images he was sharing with her. She remembered him now. John, the young
telepath at PsiCorps headquarters, the one who had faked the administration of
the sleepers, who had allowed her to execute her escape and the destruction of
the Corps' headquarters.
She smiled now and spoke aloud. "You followed your dream, John. You said you
had always wanted to be in EarthForce."
"That's part of the reason I've come," he noted. "I wanted to thank you. Maybe
it wasn't a direct cause and effect, but you are part of the reason telepaths
now serve in EarthForce, part of the reason I was able to go after my dream."
"A lot of people fought to open those doors, John," she answered. "I was
just..." She paused to find an apt analogy. "I was just a focal point for their
energies."
Matheson leaned forward, arms on knees. "I know the sacrifices that were made,
Lyta, believe me." He was quiet for a time, and though she listened to see if
he were sending, she sensed she shouldn't eavesdrop on these thoughts.
"I didn't leave the Corps after the explosion," he said finally. "I played by
the rules, right to the end. I served with PsiCorps until the organization was
dissolved. I stayed clear of Bester and the other renegades. I was 'a good
telepath.' When the new rules came down, I was 'rewarded' by being allowed to
enter EarthForce. I was one of the first, and believe me, they watch-dogged us
in ways you wouldn't believe. And even when the watchdogs were bending the
rules, I was watching every step."
She waited, eyes, ears, and mind open to him, through a long silence. Finally
she spoke. "I hear regret in your voice."
"I never told anyone, never said a word about what I had done for you. After
the explosion, it was too confused, too chaotic. No one seemed to be in charge
at first, and when the chain of command finally was re-established, everyone
seemed to have forgotten that I had been involved. They never asked me
anything, and I never offered."
She was confused by his confession. She wanted to reach out to him
telepathically, to understand what he was feeling, and though he wasn't
blocking, she did not feel free to enter his mind. She was not forbidden, but
not invited either. It would be too...intimate.
"So you feel guilty because you never confessed what happened?" she asked. "But
why tell me? Why not just go to the Metasensory Agency and tell them?"
His eyes jumped to hers and a smile teased at the corners of his mouth. "I'm
not sure they don't already know," he said. Seeing Lyta's wide-eyed stare, he
hastened to apologize. "I'm sorry. I guess I'm not making a lot of sense."
Embarrassed, Lyta realize she was shaking her head from side to side.
"I kept that secret all these years, but you know how hard it is for us to ever
really have secrets. I've always wondered if someone picked it up in a scan.
In the beginning, Metasensory demanded that telepaths in EarthForce be scanned
twice a year, and some of those scans were brutal. I'd tried to bury that
memory, but I always wondered if they would find it, and what would happen if
they did. I've always been nervous, but I've never felt guilty.
"I tried to at first. I felt as though I ought to feel guilty. I told myself I
had a responsibility to confess, for my own conscience, for the good of the
corps, for the memory of the people who died in that explosion.
"But I didn't. I didn't confess, and I didn't feel guilty. I was sorry people
had died, but when I thought about what would have happened if I had just
followed orders, I realized people would have died that way too. And either
way, they were my people, our people. Telepaths in the corps or telepaths
outside the corps, but still telepaths, like me. I thought a lot about whether I
should leave the Corps, if what I had done by helping you made me a rogue too. "
"But you didn't leave."
He shook his head. "No. Maybe I should have but..." His voice trailed away and
he looked to her with pleading eyes.
She touched his mind ever so gently, not intruding, just a reassurance, and
found a grateful welcome. Still, he spoke aloud.
"I'm someone who needs order and discipline. I want structure. I need that.
It's not comfortable for me to work outside the system." She nodded her
understanding.
"So I stayed. I told myself I could be a voice for reason with the Corps, but
things got so ugly. And then suddenly the Corps was gone and there were
opportunities that had never been there before. There was a chance at the
dream.
"I grabbed at it. Maybe I should have been thinking about someone or something
bigger than myself, but I just took my shot at EarthForce. There were only two
of us in that first class. 'Pioneers,' they called us. 'Lab rats' was what is
felt like. From EA regulars who weren't pleased to have us, to Metasensory
officials who were assigned to be sure we weren't 'misusing' our powers, there
was somebody in my face every minute of every day.
"I still played by the rules. There were so many times I could have passed a
test or carried out an order so much easier with a little bit of psi, but no."
A sardonic laugh escaped him. "See, telepaths were welcome in EarthForce as
long as they didn't think or act like telepaths. You still had to wear the Psi
patch -- they tried to sell it as a proud symbol of your specialty, but it was
still just a marker to alert normals to your presence. Psi was never anyone's
specialty; in fact, you had to forget you were a telepath, deny who you were.
"And ever six months some character from headquarters would show up to scan you.
Officially, they were supposed to be checking to make sure you were observing
the rules, but once they were inside your head, they went looking for ... for
all sorts of crap. Strategic information about the missions you were on,
political and personal information about your crewmates, old memories..."
His voice faded away but Lyta could sense that the replay of that memory
continued in his mind. She touched him again, to see if she was still welcome,
and he made no move to block her. Carefully, she slipped inside his mind, and
instantly recoiled from the searing pain. The memory of those scans ripped at
his mind more violently than any actual scan Lyta could remember. She steeled
herself and moved into the memories with him, hoping that the sharing might
somehow ease the pain. She saw the faces of all the agents of MSA who had
invaded his mind, shared his cynical amusement at their artifice of all using
the name Jones. He named some of them, and others she recognized and supplied
with names; only a few Joneses remained.
She felt a shift in his mental posture, a relaxation with her presence in his
mind. He switched the memory from the quick replay of faces and places and
sensation to a slower, more detailed remembrance. With him, she felt the
prying, the digging for knowledge he didn't want to share. Together, they
looked at where those scans had gone, what they had sought, and what they had
found.
/ They never found it. / The thought, sparkling with wonder, might have
belonged to either of them, or both of them. In all the scans, there was no
indication that John's memory of their first meeting was ever touched. / What
were they looking for? / Lyta asked, trying to make sense of memories he had
shared with her.
/ They were interested in the Excalibur, -- the ship itself -- in Gideon, and
in the medical research, / he replied.
/And in...Garibaldi? / She was startled by the patterns taking shape in her
mind. /In Edgars Industries? /
Matheson drew back slightly from their mental link, and spoke aloud. "Yeah, I
always figured that was part of the interest in the ship. Mr. Garibaldi was
involved with the original design and construction."
Lyta's eyes narrowed. "And Edgars Industries owns one of the major
pharmaceutical houses, the one most likely to get the rights to any subsidiary
developments from the Excalibur's mission."
Jerking back his head, he squinted at her. "Is that significant? I mean, lots
of people were looking to profit on the mission, most notably IPX. Why would
Metasensory care whether Edgars was making a buck?"
She rose and started to pace. "There are just... there are so many pieces here
that might fit together, might be pointing to..." She felt chilled suddenly, and
drew her cardigan closer around her body. "John, would you like some tea?"
He accepted the offer with thanks, rising and moving toward the kitchen area of
the one-room dwelling. "You said things fit together, Lyta," he reminded her as
she set the kettle to boil. "What did you mean by that?"
She shook her head. "It's not altogether formed in my own head yet. Give me a
few minutes?" He acknowledged the request telepathically, and she realized, as
she carried a tray to the table, that it was the first time he had initiated
mind communication without asking her permission.
at the baker's to buy a loaf of bread. That little detour meant she approached
her house now from the garden side. Startled, she stopped to study the figure
moving about the yard. Dressed in black, he walked slowly up and down between
the planting blocks, pausing here and there, seeming only to observe. That
visual information did not identify him so Lyta reached out with her mind. She
had only an instant of contact before the blocks snapped up, but there was a
memory on the edge of that moment.
He turned to face her as she approached the garden. A man of average build and
uncertain age, he gave an impression of nervousness, and Lyta wondered if that
sense came from purely physical clues. A shiver born in the memory of long-ago
horrors ran through her as she realized the black garb he wore was a uniform.
Not the familiar and frightening one of memory, this uniform was a flight suit,
adorned with military insignias.
"Ms. Alexander?" he inquired softly as he stepped toward her. Cautiously, Lyta
nodded in reply. "I'm John Matheson. I'm sorry. I arrived a bit early."
Breath returned to Lyta Alexander's lungs as she recognized her afternoon
appointment. "I'm sorry to keep you waiting, Colonel," she said, moving past
him to unlatch the door. "Please come in."
"Please don't apologize. It's my fault," he said as he followed her inside.
"And it's John, please."
She thought it odd he didn't smile when he said that, but found herself liking
him just the same. "Please come in, John."
"I've been enjoying your garden. I hope you don't mind." He surveyed the room
from just inside the doorway as she set the bread down on the table beside the
morning's harvest and threw off the cape she wore.
"Of course not," she replied automatically, then remembered telepathic contact
minutes earlier and the blocks she had felt from him. She regarded him with a
newborn suspicion. "May I take your coat," she asked, gesturing to the garment
folded over his arm. He thanked her, then helped her to hang it beside her own
wrap.
Leading the way to the little sitting area, she motioned him to a chair. "Now,
how can I help you, Colonel? Is this about the trade agreement?"
He smiled at last, and shook his head. "No, Ms. Alexander, I'm not here on
official business." Averting his eyes, he swallowed hard. "Lyta," he spoke her
name as he met her eyes again, "you probably don't remember but we met once,
many years ago."
She reached back in her mind, trying to find the memories he had stirred in her.
He shifted in his chair, turning his right shoulder toward her, showing the psi
embroidered on his sleeve. "Are you with the Metasensory Agency, Colonel?" she
asked, fighting back her anger. Another smile, broader this time, spread across
his face. Irritation and affection warred within her.
"No," he said softly. "I'm regular EarthForce, assigned to the EAS Powell. I
was formerly first officer on the Excalibur." He followed her glance to the Psi
patch on his shoulder. "And yes, I'm a telepath, trained by PsiCorps. In fact,
that's how you and I met."
He reached out, gently, tentatively, with his mind, dropping his blocks,
inviting her to do the same. She allowed him entry, although she didn't need
the images he was sharing with her. She remembered him now. John, the young
telepath at PsiCorps headquarters, the one who had faked the administration of
the sleepers, who had allowed her to execute her escape and the destruction of
the Corps' headquarters.
She smiled now and spoke aloud. "You followed your dream, John. You said you
had always wanted to be in EarthForce."
"That's part of the reason I've come," he noted. "I wanted to thank you. Maybe
it wasn't a direct cause and effect, but you are part of the reason telepaths
now serve in EarthForce, part of the reason I was able to go after my dream."
"A lot of people fought to open those doors, John," she answered. "I was
just..." She paused to find an apt analogy. "I was just a focal point for their
energies."
Matheson leaned forward, arms on knees. "I know the sacrifices that were made,
Lyta, believe me." He was quiet for a time, and though she listened to see if
he were sending, she sensed she shouldn't eavesdrop on these thoughts.
"I didn't leave the Corps after the explosion," he said finally. "I played by
the rules, right to the end. I served with PsiCorps until the organization was
dissolved. I stayed clear of Bester and the other renegades. I was 'a good
telepath.' When the new rules came down, I was 'rewarded' by being allowed to
enter EarthForce. I was one of the first, and believe me, they watch-dogged us
in ways you wouldn't believe. And even when the watchdogs were bending the
rules, I was watching every step."
She waited, eyes, ears, and mind open to him, through a long silence. Finally
she spoke. "I hear regret in your voice."
"I never told anyone, never said a word about what I had done for you. After
the explosion, it was too confused, too chaotic. No one seemed to be in charge
at first, and when the chain of command finally was re-established, everyone
seemed to have forgotten that I had been involved. They never asked me
anything, and I never offered."
She was confused by his confession. She wanted to reach out to him
telepathically, to understand what he was feeling, and though he wasn't
blocking, she did not feel free to enter his mind. She was not forbidden, but
not invited either. It would be too...intimate.
"So you feel guilty because you never confessed what happened?" she asked. "But
why tell me? Why not just go to the Metasensory Agency and tell them?"
His eyes jumped to hers and a smile teased at the corners of his mouth. "I'm
not sure they don't already know," he said. Seeing Lyta's wide-eyed stare, he
hastened to apologize. "I'm sorry. I guess I'm not making a lot of sense."
Embarrassed, Lyta realize she was shaking her head from side to side.
"I kept that secret all these years, but you know how hard it is for us to ever
really have secrets. I've always wondered if someone picked it up in a scan.
In the beginning, Metasensory demanded that telepaths in EarthForce be scanned
twice a year, and some of those scans were brutal. I'd tried to bury that
memory, but I always wondered if they would find it, and what would happen if
they did. I've always been nervous, but I've never felt guilty.
"I tried to at first. I felt as though I ought to feel guilty. I told myself I
had a responsibility to confess, for my own conscience, for the good of the
corps, for the memory of the people who died in that explosion.
"But I didn't. I didn't confess, and I didn't feel guilty. I was sorry people
had died, but when I thought about what would have happened if I had just
followed orders, I realized people would have died that way too. And either
way, they were my people, our people. Telepaths in the corps or telepaths
outside the corps, but still telepaths, like me. I thought a lot about whether I
should leave the Corps, if what I had done by helping you made me a rogue too. "
"But you didn't leave."
He shook his head. "No. Maybe I should have but..." His voice trailed away and
he looked to her with pleading eyes.
She touched his mind ever so gently, not intruding, just a reassurance, and
found a grateful welcome. Still, he spoke aloud.
"I'm someone who needs order and discipline. I want structure. I need that.
It's not comfortable for me to work outside the system." She nodded her
understanding.
"So I stayed. I told myself I could be a voice for reason with the Corps, but
things got so ugly. And then suddenly the Corps was gone and there were
opportunities that had never been there before. There was a chance at the
dream.
"I grabbed at it. Maybe I should have been thinking about someone or something
bigger than myself, but I just took my shot at EarthForce. There were only two
of us in that first class. 'Pioneers,' they called us. 'Lab rats' was what is
felt like. From EA regulars who weren't pleased to have us, to Metasensory
officials who were assigned to be sure we weren't 'misusing' our powers, there
was somebody in my face every minute of every day.
"I still played by the rules. There were so many times I could have passed a
test or carried out an order so much easier with a little bit of psi, but no."
A sardonic laugh escaped him. "See, telepaths were welcome in EarthForce as
long as they didn't think or act like telepaths. You still had to wear the Psi
patch -- they tried to sell it as a proud symbol of your specialty, but it was
still just a marker to alert normals to your presence. Psi was never anyone's
specialty; in fact, you had to forget you were a telepath, deny who you were.
"And ever six months some character from headquarters would show up to scan you.
Officially, they were supposed to be checking to make sure you were observing
the rules, but once they were inside your head, they went looking for ... for
all sorts of crap. Strategic information about the missions you were on,
political and personal information about your crewmates, old memories..."
His voice faded away but Lyta could sense that the replay of that memory
continued in his mind. She touched him again, to see if she was still welcome,
and he made no move to block her. Carefully, she slipped inside his mind, and
instantly recoiled from the searing pain. The memory of those scans ripped at
his mind more violently than any actual scan Lyta could remember. She steeled
herself and moved into the memories with him, hoping that the sharing might
somehow ease the pain. She saw the faces of all the agents of MSA who had
invaded his mind, shared his cynical amusement at their artifice of all using
the name Jones. He named some of them, and others she recognized and supplied
with names; only a few Joneses remained.
She felt a shift in his mental posture, a relaxation with her presence in his
mind. He switched the memory from the quick replay of faces and places and
sensation to a slower, more detailed remembrance. With him, she felt the
prying, the digging for knowledge he didn't want to share. Together, they
looked at where those scans had gone, what they had sought, and what they had
found.
/ They never found it. / The thought, sparkling with wonder, might have
belonged to either of them, or both of them. In all the scans, there was no
indication that John's memory of their first meeting was ever touched. / What
were they looking for? / Lyta asked, trying to make sense of memories he had
shared with her.
/ They were interested in the Excalibur, -- the ship itself -- in Gideon, and
in the medical research, / he replied.
/And in...Garibaldi? / She was startled by the patterns taking shape in her
mind. /In Edgars Industries? /
Matheson drew back slightly from their mental link, and spoke aloud. "Yeah, I
always figured that was part of the interest in the ship. Mr. Garibaldi was
involved with the original design and construction."
Lyta's eyes narrowed. "And Edgars Industries owns one of the major
pharmaceutical houses, the one most likely to get the rights to any subsidiary
developments from the Excalibur's mission."
Jerking back his head, he squinted at her. "Is that significant? I mean, lots
of people were looking to profit on the mission, most notably IPX. Why would
Metasensory care whether Edgars was making a buck?"
She rose and started to pace. "There are just... there are so many pieces here
that might fit together, might be pointing to..." She felt chilled suddenly, and
drew her cardigan closer around her body. "John, would you like some tea?"
He accepted the offer with thanks, rising and moving toward the kitchen area of
the one-room dwelling. "You said things fit together, Lyta," he reminded her as
she set the kettle to boil. "What did you mean by that?"
She shook her head. "It's not altogether formed in my own head yet. Give me a
few minutes?" He acknowledged the request telepathically, and she realized, as
she carried a tray to the table, that it was the first time he had initiated
mind communication without asking her permission.