Chapter 12

USS Monroe:

Miranda refit

Archanis Sector

It wasn't the biggest quarters, the ambassador had had the pleasure of traveling in, but it was more than enough considering the size of the Federation starship he was traveling on. The company was pleasant and the presence of gravity wouldn't punish his old bones like long distance weightlessness travel. He was rapidly becoming spoiled by gravity while traveling in space. The subspace message he'd just received had also served to lighten his mood. A few minutes earlier, his son and another traveling companion Jeffery Sinclair had joined him for a small get together. David Sheridan felt himself relax some as he and his son and Commander Jeffery Sinclair shared a drink in the quarters granted to him as the ambassador of Earth Alliance to the Federation. The three of them had made a habit of meeting in his quarters for the last four days as a way to talk away from prying eyes or untrustworthy telepaths.

David had cautiously insisted that he and his son, John would accompany him to the Archanis sector because they needed to talk and this trip would afford privacy despite the two PsiCorps reps accompanying them. So far, the two of them were on their best behavior and none of the Starfleet people had detected any scans, something that they seemed to be able to detect. That was curious in itself and when asked, he was told that since many Starfleet personnel had come into contact with telepathic species on a constant basis they had developed a 'sensitivity' and in many cases a natural form of mental shields against casual intrusions. Some of the Monroe's crew was sensitive enough to detect casual brushes from telepaths. He found that interesting since Humans of his Earth had apparently not done so at least as far as he knew. If it were occurring, PsiCorps certainly wouldn't be forthcoming about it. A bit of research might be enlightening in order to see what the conditions that separated such developments were. PsiCorps was sure to be doing the same thing no doubt. But that was a subject for another time. Right now he had some important news to deliver.

"So Turo Condari of the Centauri ambassadorial staff was a Minbari agent," Ambassador David Sheridan announced to his two guests. "It's all on the news. They arrested him before he could set a bomb off at the middle of Federation council meeting with our representatives."

"Wait," his son John asked. Both he and Jeffery Sinclair were stunned by the news. "Why would the Centauri want to kill the very heart of the Federation?" he practically yelled. "It's insane. They had no reason to do something like that."

"They didn't," David explained. "The news said that the man was a deep cover Minbari agent genetically made up to look Centauri. He was discovered during the transport to the hotel when we first got there. The buffer signatures didn't match the Centauri physiology profile, so they had him tagged from the beginning."

"How in God's name did he smuggle a bomb on Earth?"

"The news announcement was deliberately vague on that but our office transmitted the details to me," he waited for a second. "The explosive was in his blood."

"He was a walking bomb?" Jeffery exclaimed.

"Yes, two chemicals, one circulating through his bloodstream, the other located inside his wrist bone. He breaks his wrist both chemicals mix and – boom. Supposedly the stuff even in tiny amounts is extremely dangerous. He could have blown us up at any time during the trip here. According to my sources, he could have gone sub-nuclear with the amount he had in his system."

All three of the man felt chills at the thought.

"And they stopped him, how?"

"Same way they discovered he was a Minbari. Their tech is amazing as you both well know. When he was transported the second time, their buffers filtered out the second drug. He came out sick as a dog but unable to blow himself up. Never knew a thing," he said, "until he screamed 'for vengeance Blood Knives' and broke his wrist trying to detonate the explosive."

"I'm sure Londo was not happy," John mused.

"He was more shocked than anyone else. Said she should have known, since the man couldn't hold a drink to save his life. But it was G'Kar who surprised everyone else by coming to Londo's defense."

"You're kidding!"

"No. He said, and I quote: "Despite their numerous acts of unrestrained barbarisms towards my people and the many people throughout our regions of space. I can't see Londo Mollari or the Centauri people perpetrating such a heinous act against those whom they have established positive political and economical ties with'. I have to remember that for the future when I run into Londo."

"What did Londo say about him coming to his defense like that?"

"Supposedly something like, 'I still hate you', to which G'Kar supposedly said, 'good'".

It took a while for the trio to calm down. The shared banter turned serious.

"It will serve to remember my friends that the Minbari have a long reach," Jeffery cautioned. "It's something that we can't afford to forget. We can't take them for granted now that they're at the edge of defeat. They're not down until they're down."

"Amen."

"Speaking of which," John began. "You know, I'm beginning to hate Rannaonn more now than when he first opened his mouth. He opened up a can of worms that I'm having a very hard time trying to close back up."

"I understand, Mister President," his father crowed quietly. "I can't believe you married a Minbari." He shrugged and took another sip of brandy. "What was on your mind or, rather his mind?"

John shook his head. "It's wasn't me," he insisted. "I love Anna and that's that. I wish you would stop bring that up every evening."

"I can help it," he quipped. "I'm your father. It's what I do. Besides it brings us back to our ongoing conversation."

"The history of the Earth Alliance in another reality," John said probably the fourth time since the journey to Archanis IV began. "How much of is relevant to ours? Maybe all of it, or maybe none of it. I don't know and all of it gives me a headache just thinking about it, but I can't not think about it."

"There are some differences," Jeffery casually mentioned causing his friends to stare at him for his understatement. "The reasons for our counterpart's choices in this other …place is something that we may never understand, however the warning about the Shadows and Vorlons are another matter and frankly that scares me." He was quiet for a few moments lost in thought. "The Vorlons disturb me more so than the Shadows and I don't know why. They shouldn't, but they do."

"We haven't had any contact with the Vorlons, other than the attack by one of their ships on the Federation," John said. "On the other hand, you've seen the Shadows on Becerra. You could see the threat they posed. One look at them and I felt like shooting it on the spot. Every bone in my body was telling me to either run or kill it. Usually I have better self control than that but when I saw it, it's like I lost almost all of my self control."

"I felt the same way when I saw them on the screens. They agreed to a non-aggression treaty," his father pointed out. "They were straightforward and that's more than what the Vorlons did. But at the same time we may be assuming something that's incorrect based on what we've seen on the data transmissions and that disastrous Federation first contact. I think we can come to terms with them without going to war."

"Maybe," Jeffery said, "if they decide to talk to us." He shivered.

"But you don't think so, do you Jeff?" John said.

"No," Jeffery confirmed. "There was a time that I would have liked to believe that they would have. But…"

"You feel it as well, don't you? It all comes back to it, doesn't it?"

"Yes," Jeffery said. "Everything changed – six nights ago."

"Six nights ago," John confirmed. "The Vorlons are not to be trusted. I wish it were otherwise. I don't know what it was, a dream; a nightmare. I can't remember. But I am afraid for our future and what might be."

"So am I, "agreed Jeffery. There was a moment's pause. "Something happened to us."

"You mean besides coming half across the galaxy in less than a month to meet other Humans with the power to stomp the Minbari?" the ambassador asked trying to lighten the mood a bit. "Our lives have been turned upside down. We're still in shock." He paused. "Those half-remembered dreams are no doubt significant but there's another problem and that's why we're here."

"Psi-Corps," John hissed. "I can't believe what they're trying to do."

"In both universes, that's something that we can agree on. The only advantage is that they're still too weak to advance their agenda. Not to mention the Federation presence and the loss of Clark. That's the only positive thing. It's kept them off balance. So far they're still following the rules."

"You mean the Psi-cops not scanning us?"

"Exactly, although I don't know how long it's going to last," David announced. "For now we're safe but if they get the tiniest hint, our lives won't be worth a single Martian credit."

"We keep this a secret between us," David ordered as both of them nodded. "It makes sense as they haven't deep scanned us. I'm half surprised they haven't already found out. Maybe we'll find a way to keep them from prying us open like sardine cans in the future. I don't know. But I'm hopeful that we'll find a way."

"Secrecy, people. Secrecy."

"So," Jeff started changing the subject. "What about the colonists? Do we make them come back?"

"Trying to force them back isn't my job, although there are a lot of politicians and military folks would gladly try getting them back just for the knowledge they've gain being here. But Earth Alliance is Earth Alliance. Democracy rules, gentleman. I can only make my case the best way I know how and allow them to make their own decision. Hopefully, they'll make the right one." He smiled. "I think I'm in for a hard sell if even half of what I've seen is true. Personal opinion, they should stay where they are. The EA will be in economic straits for a while after this war is over no matter who wins."

"What about the EarthForce military that elected to stay here? Are they classified as deserters?"

"No, the ones that did want to return already and there was no way for the injured to leave to get back. Also consider that the Archanis IV colony isn't strictly a Federation colony but an independent one with strong ties. As such we may not have a legal leg to stand on and I hesitate to push the political buttons now when it may well blow up in our collective faces later. We have no jurisdiction here despite what some of the senators and military have advocated. These people probably have roots now and will want to stay and unless we somehow force them, I don't see why they would want to come back. I am looking at asylum using the Federation as mediator if it comes to that."

"Is that the official stance," David's son asked?

"As of now, yes. We can't force them, really don't want to, and we have no jurisdiction. I will talk to them and try to convince some of them to return so that we can learn what they know which will help Earth in the long run," David smiled lopsidedly. "We don't want to rock the boat over something as trivial as small group of independent – who wanted to start life away from Earth in the first place – colonists that don't want to come back and four seriously wounded soldiers who couldn't."

"Thank God, someone in our government has some sense."

"We're trying," he conceded. "PsiCorps and the so-called blips debacle however is another matter all together."

The Solar Le Clément hotel:

Paris:

Arati Mehta, age thirty-six was considered by the leaders of PsiCorps a telepathic prodigy. Found at the young age of nine, she had been taken and thoroughly indoctrinated into the family. Her skill level exceeded level thirteen, one of the strongest ever recorded. By the time she was nineteen, her ova had been harvested and eggs implanted in four PsiCorps volunteers at home. As far as she knew there were at least five children generated from the unions. The children were genetically hers, even looked like her and what she imagined her children would look like, but she had no emotional connection to any of them. They were PsiCorps property, useful for increasing telepathic capabilities in Humanity. She had a husband who was chosen from one of the best candidates the Corps could offer but no children had been produced despite the best efforts of the doctors. Her husband was nice, but the emotional connection was weak, despite her efforts to make it work. As the mundanes said, 'there was no real spark'. The problem was that she had been 'harvested' too early. Something happened and she was now effectively sterile. Sometimes her loss bothered her but there was nothing she could do about it and she did her best ignore it at night when she was alone.

Being one of Earth's stronger telepaths she had to maintain her control all of the time. Even as she slept she had to keep from broadcasting. Her rivals at home on the real Earth would love to see what she was thinking. They were always looking for weaknesses and that constant need to protect herself even from her own husband had made her hard. But it was to be expected and she really didn't mind as long as she didn't slip. She had tendencies to do the same thing herself. Infighting inside PsiCorps wasn't obvious. However the battles for power were subtle among telepaths. Families did fight after all.

To facilitate the best scenarios of survival over the years, two schools of thought were slowly developed. One side considered isolationism in the best interests of telepaths. The others were proposing a more aggressive stance. As they considered themselves a superior form of Humanity, evolutions next step. They had the right not only to survive but to dominate. To Arati, both schools of thought had their merits. Those along with the 'Ironheart' experiments which showed a lot of promise in the coming years gave confirmation that the long term agendas were coming along on schedule.

Then, things turned on their collective heads with the introduction of another group of Humans and another Earth. Plans being proposed on both factions grounded to a halt as the Federation swept in and made a mockery of the invincibility of Minbari military supremacy. However the survival of Human telepaths was jeopardized as well. The Federation was different, with different attitudes, and rules and laws. And there were so many of them. Being a largely Human-based organization however, presented a golden opportunity for advancement and power. There had to be telepaths on this planet as well.

Shockingly, there were less than three hundred pure Human telepaths in the entire Federation of thirty billion Humans spread throughout the galaxy, a number far below the most conservative projected expectations. Arati and the others had been surprised by the small number which was disproportional to the numbers seen in Earth Alliance. There was slight disappointment with that figure, but it also meant that being such a small minority the prejudice against them was projected to be far more stressful than at home. Her mission was to speak to them, organize them and if possible have them join PsiCorps. The Corps was mother and father. It offered a home away from the mundanes who feared and hated them. Their joining would strengthen the corps, giving it needed resources, another arm so to speak in a new world full of mundanes. 'If they were amenable to joining, that is' she mused. In all honesty she couldn't see how they wouldn't jump at the chance. And if they chose not to now, then in the future, who knew what might happen?

There were other Human telepaths that had to be dealt with, too. Blips that refused to remain a part of PsiCorps and clearly under their jurisdiction had somehow escaped to this part of space. Those questions from the news people, "How do you feel about the Earth Alliance telepaths asking for political asylum?" And, "why is it they fled from Earth Alliance to make the dangerous journey here?" had slapped all four PsiCorps members in the face. Arati had no idea that blips had made it here, a situation that threatened this mission and had broad political ramifications if not handled carefully. Toni Williams, her assistant, and Alfred would deal with that situation on Archanis. In fact they were already on their way to the colony world with Ambassador Sheridan to 'convince' them to return to Earth Alliance along with the escaping colonists whose actions precipitated this war that involved the Federation in the first place.

***

She and Roberta and were scheduled to meet the telepaths in San Francisco in two days so she actually had a whole day and a half to herself. Curiosity got the better of her and she decided to go to Mumbai. Specifically she wanted to compare Malabar Hill that she knew of to its counterpart here while Roberta was visiting China probably doing something similar. It was amazing really that both worlds were so similar to one another even t the point of having similar names. A part of her still didn't accept it. There was no way this could be a coincidence. There was another, far greater power working to create something like this and that thought terrified her.

The trip from France to India lasted all of thirty minutes, something for which she was grateful. As her shuttle descended flying over the city she was a bit surprised by the similarity between the two cities. But there were differences that were even more startling. The numbers of people were less than at home. There were off world colonies that had cut down overcrowding. The city looked gorgeous, just as beautiful as her version.

The people here looked the same, but without any of the stresses permeating their minds. The war wasn't a concern here, not like at home. There wasn't that feeling that the world would die at the hands of aliens at any given moment. It was refreshing to her so see mundanes not worrying about eminent extermination. However, she wasn't as comfortable as she thought she would be, either. She was PsiCorps and her manner of dress proclaimed that clearly. She could feel the disgust emanating from many at home, something that felt like a badge of honor. People at home respected and a more than a few of them feared her.

Here, everyone almost to a person looked at her like she was crazy. Some of them looked sorrowful at her with her trademark gloves on in one hundred degree weather. Some of the minds she felt thought that she had some type of disfigurement causing her to almost want to take her gloves off in their presence for the first time that she could remember. Everything was different on this twin. Things that represented power at home had little to no meaning here.

***

Malabar Hill was an amazing city with amazing people. It was as multicultural, an atmosphere identical to the one at home except here aliens had joined the mixture. It was a melting pot that stretched the imagination. The food was great and she was sure that she'd gained a couple pounds since coming to this world which made her admit that and she'd have to work hard to get them off after she left, of course. There was no need to worry about that right now, she tried to justify.

Arati didn't have that much time and there was much to see. Several hours later, she found herself walking in the same region located on her home world's counterpart, amazed that so much was the same yet so completely different.

She didn't particularly like her hometown but it was like she was drawn there and why she was drawn was something she couldn't quite explain to anyone who might have asked her at that moment. Maybe because it 'was' different could have been the reason. On her world, she avoided home as much as possible. The memories of her childhood were still too raw even after decades. . .

She was the youngest of four children and a second generation telepath discovered in the family. Her mother's oldest sister was a telepath and had been removed at an early age so she never really knew her even though they met a few times as Arati grew up in the PsiCorps camps. Arati's parents loved her. However her brothers and sisters resented her, knowing that something was different about her. Sulaka, the middle sister hated her, always had even before she manifested her telepathic traits. Things came to a head when her sister 'mistakenly' poured boiling water on her, scalding Arati's right shoulder , neck and arm all the way to her hands. She remembered the pain and fear has her parents had seen the injuries. Sulaka was screaming that something had happened and Arati had done this to herself. Despite what Arati had said, her parents hadn't believed that it wasn't her fault. They couldn't believe that Sulaka could have done such a thing, hadn't seen the smirk on her sister's face as they ran out of the house to get to the hospital. It took weeks to recover from the injuries and the scars on her neck shoulders and arms remained to this day. She never forgave her parents for that betrayal. She was a thirty-six year old woman and she still felt embarrassed and ashamed if anyone saw what little remained of them after the plastic surgery. She covered the small remaining scars as much as she could. It was a mundane trait she had told herself, but one she couldn't quite separate herself from.

When her abilities manifested themselves fully at the tender young age of nine, just before her new family came to take her away, her long-festering hatred lashed out. Sulaka's mind was laid bare. All of those dirty little secrets, the boy down the street, the contempt for her family, her secret dreams – she told her parents everything. The memory of the supreme humiliation her sister suffered almost made up for the phantom pains that Arati suffered from for years. The family had been aghast and their thoughts were revealed in all of their fearful and vindictive glory. Arati was happy to leave in those days. In retrospective, she understood that the mind of a nine year-old girl had interpreted much of what she heard incorrectly that day. But the raw pain of those days still hurt. However all of that didn't explain why she was now standing in front of a house that on another world would have housed her family…

***

The meeting with this Earth's telepaths was to take place in San Diego California of their former USA. Again, the trip from France to the USA took about an hour and Arati spent the hour reading old history of the Xindii attack on this Earth. The attack had been savage, the scars still present. It was something she wanted to see. She didn't know why but she needed to have some sort of connection to this world. Earth Alliance had been on its knees while this world prospered. Those wounds showed that this planet wasn't invincible and immune to its enemies but despite the attacks it had survived and prospered. Irrationally, those thoughts made some part of her feel better. She couldn't afford to be controlled by her emotions.

She and Roberta stepped off of the air vehicle and stared in awe of the skyline. Now this was different than their world. The 'great quake' had happened here. Fully half of the city had been destroyed and eventually rebuilt. But there were buildings stretching across the pacific surrounding what had been the rest of the city. Small, connected islands dotted the area and on top of them were twenty and thirty story buildings connected to one another. Ten minutes from the airport they arrived at a small but elegant hotel. A short time later they were their rooms. The weather was exceptionally beautiful and both women vaguely wondered if this world had some type of meteorological control system monitoring and controlling the weather. Neither of them would doubt it.

One thing was apparent because both of them felt it almost as soon as they had entered the hotel. There were other telepaths present. It didn't feel the same as what either woman had encountered before at home but the general emanations were at once familiar and comforting.

However, it was Roberta Yang a P-Ten telepath who had noticed something else first and when she mentioned it to Arati, the woman had been surprised that she hadn't recognized it herself. The Humans here had a much lower number of natural telepaths than on their planet but there was a huge number of mundanes that had some form of natural shielding. Evidently being exposed to so many alien telepaths, especially the Vulcans had triggered some sort of natural defensive measures in their brains. If true then the implications had meaning for the mundanes at home as well and she didn't like the dangerous potential that that revelation would cause.

***

That afternoon the conference started without incident. The banquet was great, and both Earth alliance telepaths basked in their semi-celebrity status. All of the Fed telepaths present, about fifty of them, knew who they were and were very interested in what Arati had to say. The meeting was being conferenced with the Mars contingent and subspace connected to those on Vulcan and several local colonies where the telepaths there were unable to make it in person. The brochures and information on Psi-Corps, its inception and history, the rules and regulations, and goals were passed out.

Arati dressed in full PsiCorps regalia spoke of the Earth Alliance and EarthForce history and their relationship to PsiCorps. For an hour, she spoke of the persecutions and abuses of telepaths at home and the eventual creation of PsiCorps to protect both non-telepaths and telepaths from each other until both halves of Humanity became comfortable with each other. Unanticipated was the fact that the universal translator provided to her was to be her chief mode of communication. Telepathy was somewhat different with the non-Alliance telepaths and she hadn't been able to fully 'translate' it yet. There was also the fact that their mode of telepathy was different and that presented a real challenge. There were nuances that she needed time to understand. Further, despite Federation standard being English-based, it wasn't as simple as that. Federation standard had so many different words, many of the alien. There were liberal mixes of Vulcan, Andorian and Tellarite sprinkled in with other languages. Entire phrases which had little meaning to Arati were part of their mish-mash English. So the translators were a great convenience. The Humans here had not necessarily better, but different shielding that she or Roberta weren't used to. Arati had to work at listening in on things unless the people here specifically included her.

***

"…And to conclude I want to express that the telepaths in PsiCorps are more like family than anything else. And our family has protected and loved us. No one of us has had their life endangered by those who would seek to use our powers for gain. Being a telepath can be lonely, so having a family is very important. I ask you to think about this. Becoming a part of us can serve only to make us all stronger. We are after all the next step in the evolution of mankind whether here or on our Earth. Are there any questions?"

A young blond girl about thirteen years of age was the first to speak. "I'd like to thank you for speaking to us, Ms. Mehta. I do have a couple of questions. In the interview when you first came to Earth, I noticed that the members of PsiCorps all wore gloves. You're wearing them now. My first question is why do you wear them? Do you wear them all of the time? And my last question is, is your telepath limited only to line of sight?"

Arati smiled. She was such a beautiful young girl. "It was discovered that many of our telepaths are touch telepaths and so we wear gloves to protect others from being accidentally scanned. It also helps others to identify who we are so that they will be aware of what we can do. To answer the second question, we wear them all of the time around non telepaths. And yes our telepathy is based on line of sight although we can sense other thoughts peripherally if we concentrate. Is your telepathy based on line of sight?"

"No, it isn't, ma'am. It's distanced-based."

"Very interesting," Arati answered. And it was. "Our telepathy makes us different and just touching someone by mistake can inadvertently cause a scan. Many people don't like that, making them afraid of us. So the gloves identify us to them so that we don't mistakenly scan them."

"So, your organization makes you wear gloves all of the time?" She shrugged. "If I touch somebody I don't hear them unless I want to. "Those gloves…they make you look crazy."

Arati and Roberta could feel the mental snickering reverberating around the room.

An older woman jumped up quickly to intercept her daughter's next question that was about to be phrased in a manner as only a 13 year old could. "What my daughter is trying to say is that you're purposely isolating yourselves simply out of fear, or is it something else?" asked an older woman.

Arati smiled but it was somewhat cool. "We're different and non-telepaths need to be aware so that mistakes won't be made."

"Forgive me, I should have introduced myself. I am Dr. Miranda Jones-Shukoff. I am ambassador to the Medusan delegation here on Earth. And this young lady is my thirteen going on thirty-year old daughter, Miriam."

Arati stared at the woman. There was something off about her but she couldn't place what. "Doctor Shukoff, our experience with non-telepaths has given us some cause to be cautious. But we don't isolate ourselves simply because we are telepaths. Telepaths are misunderstood and feared. We need to be protected from those who fear and want to exploit us , therefore we come together as family. We don't have to rely on other species to help train us. We can train ourselves on how to best us our abilities."

"Ms. Mehta, the people here 'are' like family," she said. "But we don't isolate ourselves from our real families simply because of our abilities, or" she added, "our limitations. For example, I'm blind, however neither my blindness nor my telepathy forces me to hide in a corner away from the very people I have to be in contact every single day. I was trained to control my telepathy by the very aliens you've just dismissed out of hand."

The woman speaking to her was blind, she realized that was the difference now, yet somehow she was navigating the conference room as if she had been here all of her life, something that made her wonder if the woman's telepathy was more than what she had believed it to be. She'd find out more about that later. "On our Earth non-registered telepaths are feared and hated simply because they are different."

"Is that the only reason?" someone in the audience asked? "Or has your isolationist tendencies helped to exacerbate your situation? Humanity here has decided to follow a more 'paced' change, not like your Psi-Corps."

Arati took a step back as if she had been slapped. "I have no idea what you are referring to. You're calling our survival techniques 'isolationist's tendencies'?" She took a breath to mentally calm herself and started once more. "In some way, you may be partially correct. But these tactics are helping us survive on a world that is cruel and hostile to those who are different from the norm. As a telepath, many normal Humans fear us and what we represent. And what do we represent? Well. I believe that we telepaths represent the next step in evolution of mankind. Much like the Neanderthals moved aside for Homo sapiens, natural selection may be forcing non-telepaths to move aside for our new bidding species. Naturally, if this is true, then normal Humans may become aggressive and strike out at what they don't understand. Understanding that Human nature strikes out at what they don't understand has been a concern of telepaths across our world. And contrary to our outward separation from the masses, we are working to improve our relationship and transference from a 'normal' society into something that we can only imagine in the not to distant future. On our Earth, the number of telepaths being born have jumped greatly during the last 100 years, so much so that we believe that a genetic mutation has somehow been activated and is asserting itself, likely as a natural defense because of our contact with new, alien species."

"Or maybe not," Miranda countered. "There could be dozens of reason why this increase is happening, natural or artificial."

"On our Earth it may be one of the reasons why mankind is evolving." Arati's voice remained calm but she could feel her anger slowly rising. "I don't know enough about this world to speculate on the evolution, or lack of it, of the telepaths here."

Dr. Androv Povich stood up. He was a fairly young man with streaks of grey just beginning to overrun his naturally brunette hair. "On this planet, Humanity has always had people with psychic abilities in one form or another as long as we've had recorded history. The far majority were low-level sensitives usually showing empathic ability or some rudimentary telepathic capability. There have been only a very few recorded instances of legitimate telepaths before WWIII when the people started actively search for and experimenting telepathy gifted people. There was a lot of genetic research before the advent of WWIII. The Optimum Movement comes to mind. Then creators of the Augment Ascension were heavily involved in artificially developing telepaths. Our history clearly showed that during the reign of Khan Noonan Singh, many of his genetically enhanced people had telepathic gifts. Khan was believed to have them also but for some reason chose not to use them. But the fallout from those days has severely restricted our use of genetics to artificially enhance Humanity."

"I believe that I can speak for some of the people here in saying that we'd have to learn a lot more about PsiCorps before we consider associating ourselves with your organization which frankly seems a bit restrictive," Dr. Jones-Shukoff said. "You no doubt know that there are only a few Human telepaths here on Earth. Because of that when I was young I was sent to Vulcan in order to control my telepathy. They trained me, taught me to control my telepathy which allowed me to block out most stray thoughts and essentially kept me from going insane."

"That's exactly what I am talking about, Doctor. Human telepaths should have trained you. There should have been no need for alien intervention."

"I know what you're thinking," Miranda smirked. "We have only a few Human telepaths and none of them were qualified for the training that I required. Betazed hadn't been discovered yet. Vulcan was the best solution for me at the time. However there is another situation that you haven't really taken into consideration. Here, most of the Human telepaths are hybrids. There are Betazoid-Human children, the Ananti-chovah-Human children, a few Human Vulcan children and even a couple of Deltan/ Human males. All of them are telepathic in one form or another. They're not completely Human, but they are still a part of us. How will they treated by PsiCorps?"

"And why do you believe that being telepathic is the next logical evolutionary step for mankind?" another Human male asked. He looked to be in his mid twenties. "I submit that your reasoning while flattering may be critically flawed. There may be a reason why Earth hasn't developed many telepaths. You assume that this gift is the next step in the evolution of man. I have a theory that you may prove you to be in error at least where it concerns this Earth and the Humans here. My thesis on the evolutionary pathways of telepathy in Humanity suggests that telepathy and its associated abilities are not selected for, but in fact they are selected 'against'. We have billions of people here and less than one tenth of one percent of the population has telepathic abilities above what we call level two or if I am not mistaken, a level four according to your scale. This hasn't increased over the generations and well may not be. It's possible that Humanity's path may be actively discouraging such direction. This is of course our Earth were speaking about however if your people were transplanted, and we believe that that's a very likely scenario, then your people may or may not be experiencing the same thing. The question becomes, is this a sudden evolutionary jump because of some natural cause of is it a result of some artificial stimuli? Have you isolated the genes that generate telepathy?"

"Before I answer that question I must respond to your earlier supposition. Telepathy allows mankind to more intimately interact with the world than just using sight, hearing, touch, sound and smell. The ability to sense another's thoughts and emotions from a distance outside of the normal senses is a tremendous evolutionary advantage."

"It may be desired," the young man interrupted. "But is it needed?"

"Let me finish," she answered quickly with more venom than she had wanted. The woman wasn't used to being questioned and she was irritated now. "How we developed the telepathy is not as important as the fact that we have it and the fact that is places us in a unique situation in society," she said trying to get back to the original point she'd been trying to make. "There is strength in numbers and with that strength, the ability to protect ourselves from exploitation."

"Is that why PsiCorps' establish a breeding program?"

"You're implying that our so called breeding program as you call it is something to be ashamed of." She reeled for a second. These people knew far more than they should have about PsiCorps. "We're trying to understand our telepathy better and any selections are done with the full cooperation and agreement among the members of PsiCorps. They aren't coerced in any way. Anything that you've heard otherwise is false fabrication."

TBC