Part 1
Your first sight of the Trig is, well, less than impressive. Your second is overwhelming.
You jaunt into one of the Trig's teleportation chambers with Stephen by your side. The jaunting beam that TIM projected you along felt odd. A strange tingling sensation flows along all your nerves and it takes you several seconds to recover before you can focus on your surroundings. In front of you is a white plastic wall across which strangely coloured lights play in constant motion. It's strangely disappointing and your first thought is that you've just jaunted to a different part of the Lab. Then Stephen lays a gentle hand on your shoulder and turns you through 180 degrees.
The vista of stars in front of you is both spectacular and vertiginous. Set against a midnight sky they seem far brighter and more numerous than any starscape seen from Earth. The impossible depths of the sky seem to pull you forward, drawing you into them. You don't realise you're leaning forward until Stephen once again catches hold of your shoulder to steady you.
"I don't think going that way without an AE suit would be very healthy," he notes. "Even if you could get through a wall tougher than steel."
You nod, swallowing hard.
"It's all just a bit..."
"Disorientating?" He asks sympathetically. "That's why the jaunting pad is set to bring people in looking at the wall. I think the technicians got tired of visitors fainting in confusion as soon as they materialised. Steadier now? We ought to get off the pad before someone else needs it but I thought you might appreciate the view."
You follow the older Tomorrow Person off the jaunting pad steps, only now seeing the console in front of and below you, and the...person...behind it. At first sight the technician seems human as he exchanges a greeting with Stephen. Then you realise that his skin is a shade greener than that of a human giving him a complexion not unlike a person from the countries around the Mediterranean at first glance. In combination with his short stubby fingers and wide, almost circular, eyes though it is enough to mark him out clearly and distinctly as alien.
[Remember that everyone on the Trig is alien, us included.] Stephen notes in your thoughts. You nod, unconsciously, and manage a smile as the technician turns to greet you.
[Welcome to the Galactic Trig, Tomorrow Person.] The thought is a long way from being that clear but it is the closest you can come to translating the thought. Even when you have interpreted thoughts in other languages on Earth there was some form of sub-vocalisation going on in the other mind. This is communication by pure sensation itself.
[Thank you.] The thought is all you can manage and from the way the alien suppresses a wince you wonder how much of your background thought he has picked up together with it. Nonetheless, he smiles politely as you follow Stephen from the room.
The corridors on the Trig seem, at first sight, as if they could appear in any building on Earth. Long, white painted walls are broken from time to time with doors in a surprising variety of shapes and sizes. There is a certain uniformity about it all as if the place is optimised for the use of as many species simultaneously as possible. Only the staggering view visible through the occasional windows reminds of you of where you are and what you are doing here. Many show only other parts of the immense structure in which you have materialised, a few show the same dizzying starscape that greeted you. Both are near the edge of what your mind can accept and you realise that if you had been a Sap you would almost certainly already be a cowering wreck in the corner of some room.
The Galactic Trig and everything its existence implied has, perhaps, always been the single aspect of being a Tomorrow Person that you have had most trouble believing. That you exist and have powers is undeniable. That those powers imbue you with certain responsibilities is both natural and common sense. That in doing so you are acting as agents for some alien federation of telepaths much more advanced than yourselves? That has always seemed like pure science fiction!
Now you are faced with the undeniable truth of it all. For a few minutes you try to convince yourself that this is all some hallucination induced in your mind by TIM, John, Stephen and the others. It's the details that convince you otherwise. The occasional mark on the wall, the 'people' moving around in the distant sections you can see through the windows, the obviously practical sections and devices you spot, the miles of corridor through which Stephen is leading you. All of them point to the basic reality of what you are seeing.
You are very quiet as Stephen leads you into a room that on any other day would have left you gasping. The chamber is circular and domed. The walls are a pastel green that you find rather comforting after the unrelieved whiteness of the corridors outside. In the center of the room a doughnut shaped sofa surrounds a large table which, from its translucent white surface, you suspect is a link table. Scattered over the sofa are a number of cushions in colours that seem almost rebelliously bright.
It is the domed roof that leaves you gaping. Like the wall of the jaunting chamber, this roof is utterly transparent and exposed to the dark beauty of deep space. Even the second time the sweeping view is breathtaking. Above you, where you feel instinctively stars should be, on the other hand, the vista is less disorientating and you are able to appreciate it more for its aesthetic merits. It takes a long moment before you can draw your eyes away from it.
"Mike?" Stephen shouts, although you can already feel another mind nearby and the fact that it has detected you.
Eight or nine doors open from this central hub and it is through one of these that a young man with dark hair and very blue eyes comes out to greet you both. He offers Stephen a grin and then offers you a hand.
"Hello, Jay." He says with a reassuring London accent. He's probably not more than a year or two older than you but he carries himself with a kind of cheerful self-confidence that makes him look older. You find yourself grinning back automatically. As you shake his hand you get a vague feel of the mind behind it, enough to identify him and recognise his curiosity about you. He also gives a slight bow as your hands touch and you find yourself responding in kind. It's the same form of greeting Stephen used and you guess that it must be a habit both have picked up since coming to the Trig. It reminds you that you have an awful lot to learn.
"Hello." You say, a little awkwardly.
Stephen sits down on the sofa with a sigh and as he does so a part of one wall lights up with a display of text and numbers scrolling past so quickly you can't really follow it. He scans it for a few moments before turning back to you and the other boy.
"Nothing desperately important happened while I was away then, Mike?"
Mike shrugs and joins Stephen on the sofa, indicating that you should do the same.
"You know what this place is like. We get six months of discussion between any actual decisions or events. It even needs a discussion before they'd decide to make a cup of tea!"
Stephen raises a smug eyebrow.
"Is that an offer?" He asks as Mike realises his mistake. "How do you take yours, Jay?"
"White, please." You tell them, smiling despite yourself as Mike takes the teasing in good part. After all, his comment had been tantamount to volunteering.
Mike stands and goes through one of the doors, leaving it ajar so you can see what is evidently a kitchen inside.
"Mike's tea is pretty abysmal," Stephen tells you in a confidential tone, "But it's better than what they serve in the common eating areas up here. At least Mike remembers to warm the pot occasionally."
You find yourself relaxing and realise that that was probably what Stephen and Mike were aiming for in the first place. Mike returns with a tray bearing a teapot, milk jug and three mugs, He puts it down on the link table with a clatter.
"If it's so bad, Stephen, perhaps you should make your own! So, Jay," He adds as he begins to pour the tea for all three of you anyway, "what do you think of it all so far?"
You shrug, trying and failing to look nonchalant.
"It's all very...impressive."
"And overwhelming." Mike answers casually. "My first few days here, I spent with my mouth hanging permanently open."
"And he'd had more than a year to get used to the idea." Stephen adds.
"I'm a bit surprised that John agreed to your coming up here so soon." Mike tells you. "He's usually very protective of his new break outs."
You meet Stephen's eyes and he shrugs mentally. Mike may not understand why you wanted to come up here so soon but Stephen does.
"So you both live here? What about the others that John and Liz and the others talk about?" You ask, as much out of curiosity as to change the subject away from yourself.
"Welcome to the official residence of the Ambassador to the Galactic Federation of the Emergent World of Earth." Stephen waves a vague hand around the large room and the suit of rooms opening from it. "It's an impressive title but there are millions of Ambassadors up here and all of them are from worlds more developed or important than Earth. I think we only rate rooms because Earth gets into alien trouble so often that they want a couple of us up here to pass on the news. Besides, the Trig is big enough to spare a few rooms for most worlds."
"Stephen's our Ambassador at the moment and I'm his deputy." Mike explains. "The others all have rooms here too for when they're around but at the moment only Carol is on the Trig and she lives with her husband and the kids in his people's section. She promised to pop in later to meet you."
"Where are all the others?" You ask trying to summon the names you've heard John and Liz mention from your memory.
"Well," Stephen tells you. "Kenny likes traveling around too much to settle down anywhere for long so he goes off on a whole series of diplomatic missions for Timus. Tyso has been helping Tikno with reintegrating the Vesh on Peerie and Tricia is off on some hush hush project or other that we officially know nothing about. They all pop back here and down to Earth from time to time but only Mike and I are resident at the moment. And now you, of course." He turns to Mike. "Mike, can you make sure Jay's bags have got here okay, please?"
Mike nods and you expect him to leave the circular sofa but he just closes his eyes for a moment. When he reopens them, he looks up at Stephen.
"His bags are already in his room, Stephen." He tells him.
You frown and Mike gives you a questioning look.
"I didn't feel anything when you did that." You explain vaguely. Mike nods.
"We have to keep our mental shields rather higher up here than the others do one Earth. Too many of our neighbours have very sensitive hearing."
You look from side to side in sudden anxiety but Stephen calms you down.
"It's alright. There's a very low level psi-dampening field in all of the private suits. It wont stop us talking to each other or calling out if we focus but it does prevent stray thoughts from getting any further." The older man frowns. "We will have to work on your shielding pretty soon though." He sighs and stands up. "Why don't you take the rest of the day easy and have a look at the Trig's public broadcast systems. It will give you a feel for what's going on around here and tomorrow I can take you for a real look round."
*****
As Stephen suggests you spend the afternoon reading through largely incomprehensible newspapers and skimming some very odd television channels in order to try and get a feel for this place. Fortunately the electronic and biotronic systems on the Trig are intelligent enough to translate all the words to English before they get to you. After all it's not as if you can pick the meaning out of the mind of an electronic newsletter. You manage to pick up perhaps two facts in that time. Firstly that the Trig is huge. There's as much going on here every day as there would be in an entire country on Earth. And secondly, most of what the people do here seems to be talking. The administrative newsletters list literally thousands of small meetings and conferences going on every day. Each committee seems to report to another somewhere along the line and all of them are responsible to the massive and over-arching power of Overmind.
When Stephen calls you out for your evening meal you are still feeling a little shell shocked but are starting to come to terms with the concept of this place.
"Doesn't the constant talking irritate you?" You ask Stephen impulsively. Stephen and Mike exchange slightly chagrinned looks but it is another voice from the doorway who answers you.
"Catches on fast, doesn't he?" A west country accented voice observes with a wry note of humour. Stephen and Mike seem almost as startled at the arrival of the blond haired young man as you are but then Stephen jumps up and rushes over to greet him.
"Tyso! We didn't know you were coming!"
"Ah now you see," Tyso says with a laugh. "That would be because I didn't tell you."
Mike rolls his eyes at you good humouredly as Tyso joins you around the circular table.
"I notice you arrive just in time for dinner." Stephen raises an eyebrow.
"And aren't you a fine one to talk? If I ever need to find you I just have to follow my nose to the nearest food." Tyso digs Stephen in the ribs with an elbow and then turns to you. "I'm Tyso, in case you hadn't guessed." He tells you. "And you're Jay." You nod and Tyso smiles at you before continuing. "I'm just here overnight really. Timus has asked me to pop in on a settlement that he's keeping an eye on somewhere in the middle of nowhere. It should only take a day or two so I'm going tomorrow." He looks at you thoughtfully. "I was wondering if anyone wanted to come along for the trip?"
Stephen looks at you too.
"It's up to you, Jay." He tells you. "Do you want to have a look at another planet or would you rather get to grips with the Trig first?"
Do you:
a) Go off with Tyso tomorrow?
b) Tour the Trig tomorrow?
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