Setting: 2264, somewhere past ‘The Rim’ (the edge of officially explored space).
Rated: PG 13 (ish)
Author’s Note: THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ANY PREVIOUS FIC OF MINE. Please ignore them when you read this, even if you think they involve the same characters. It takes place several years before the E.A.S. Sophocles goes anywhere near this chunk of the galactic rim. The Telepath War has not yet officially begun; the Psi Corps/Metapol is still very much in existence. Okay? Just to prevent confusion. Babylon 5 ran from 2257 to 2262 - this takes place more than a year after the series main arc ended. (And is prolly A.U. anyway, since jms does not seem to have time to address certain issues I tackle here!)

Note cont.: If you have seen enough of Babylon 5 to know what kind of crap the telepaths (humans especially, but I extrapolate here to include several other species) were having to put up with, it will help you understand why they were willing to go to such extremes to get away. >>> And the exact setting here is very much inspired by the severe drought we’re having in this part of Alberta. It was August when I penned this; we had just driven for a day and a half through empty fields of cracked dirt - no hay, no wheat, dead canola, forage that was yellow-dead or rotted brown, no cows, leafless trees, nothing but empty dirt and plagues of big grasshoppers. As far as you could see, going about 100 k.p.h. for hours . . .

Legal disclaimer: JMS and WB and whoever else owns the B5 universe, owns it. I’m not making any money off this; this is homage, this is not my playpen, I will put all the toys back safely when I’m done with them. Mostly. This is only slightly connected to the B5 universe, so be warned it’s NOT a ‘central character in station surroundings’ type story. But I made up this world, and most of what you will find on it is all mine, and most of the characters are my own creation. The ones that were not mine to begin with - well - they’ve had more than a year to change personalities, to grow (or regress); so, expect as much change as could be expected during a year of the canon show. If you want to use any of this, just ask me first and let me read it - I might want to post yours on my ‘Other’s Fanfic’ page if I like it. :)

Second note: (Waves ‘Hi’ to Jaxa) Yes, I am again trying a new style of writing. I will continue to experiment until I find one (or several) that I really enjoy using. After all, I only write to preserve my sanity - that the rest of you get to read it is mere icing.
Responses are welcome: h_raelynn@hotmail.com

*****

Ripples.

That was all that could be seen, ripples from the heat of the sun. Somewhere close, under the shimmer, a rough trail of beaten dirt existed. But they could not see the road; it was hidden as much by the short grasses standing stiff and brown as by the baking heat of bright yellow sunlight. The ripples distorted everything past where the giant tree could shade, brown grass mixing with blue sky along where the horizon crouched and leapt and crouched and leapt. The very top was unbroken but for the rare scrap of thin white cloud against the pale blue, and the branches above their heads. Above, it was speckled brown bark and many, many slender green leaves, providing the only shade for several hours travel in any direction.

That dry rippling was hot enough to kill a human - most species - if the human was foolish enough to stay out in it instead of seeking both water and shade. It was enough to sicken all but the most heat-tolerant species, especially if the individuals thereof were still used to the controlled, supposedly moderate climate of the ships that had carried them to this world. It was mid-late summer here, and it was HOT.

This human, who was called Alexander by most of the others with her, had been here on this young world for just over four of the local months. In Earth time, it had been almost five months - possibly even more than five. On Earth, it was probably March or April. The time here moved differently than other worlds; with clocks that always stopped working so hours were no longer marked; with long days and longer months. Here, the month depended on where the world was compared to its planet - not to a moon’s orbit. This world was itself a moon, circling a vast gas giant that was currently not visible. Right now, their little world was very close to their sun, and the thin air and fertile soil baked like the inside of an oven.

Alexander had seen the vast spread of the tree from kilometres away, and upon arriving, had insisted that they rest there until it was cool enough to move again. She had been outside (of the capital city, outside of any buildings at all) for the midsummer heat - the absolute perihelion - the previous month, and for the milder perihelion heats before that as well. She knew shelter was the only option - other than death. A crewmember on the very first ship to arrive (alongside the woman who slept on the ground beside her, a wetted cloth on the second woman’s face), Alexander was as close to being an expert about this world as anyone could claim. The second woman’s name was Pellowe, but she no longer answered to or even noticed her family name. If she did answer, it was to the familiar name of Marie. A very small infant slept between them, also under a damp cloth. Most of those in the group had said it was too soon to stop, but Alexander had claimed there would be no other sources of shade that they could reach in time.

Her fellow refugees were a stubborn bunch, so Alexander and Marie had been left to sit under the vast canopy of green just as the first of the mid-morning shimmers had started, with Marie’s baby and two wordless four-limbed companions named Araby and Buster. Alexander’d had time to carry back a large container of clear water from a nearby stream before the ripples of heat began to obscure everything, then she had sat down to wait. A short while after that, the others in the group had come staggering back, half-blinded and physically ill. Alexander did not gloat, only gave them all drinks and made them lay down to cool off.

It was the hottest day so far that month, as they sat under the sprawling branches to wait for evening. The two days previous, the group had been under lanky evergreens while the road followed a river. Three days before, they had just left the capital, and a thick layer of clouds had covered the sun. Now, none of the dozen-plus sentients in the group would disagree with Alexander over how dangerous the noon heat really could get this close to the equator; they only grumbled to themselves and stayed tucked under the green leaves, dampening facial clothes occasionally.

Alexander sat, listening. Her eyes were closed; the soft buzz of dozing minds wafted around her. Two youngish minbari, on the far side of the multi-stemmed trunk, had taken a game board out of a pack and were playing a match; the mathematical probabilities were being cycled so fast that it felt more like instinct and the move-by-move precision of strategy appeared to be dozens of tiny sparkles behind her. The rest were sleeping, though too lightly for dreams.

Araby was also awake, though she blinked sleepily. Araby had grown up in heats as extreme as the current one; her memories showed this, when she chose to share them with Alexander. The human never intentionally pried into the mind of another, whether or not they were sentient. But she did listen, and Araby’s earliest memories were of sand and rock and baking heat such as this; though Araby liked how the grasses here tasted compared to what was before. Along with Buster, she had clipped short all the grass that grew under the great tree before deciding to lie down as well. Both horses, after their long drink earlier, were content to rest.

As was Alexander. She sat leaned against the strong vertical braces of wood, resting her feet up on one of the sidepacks of food and clothing and raincovers that Buster had carried for them. Araby’s load had been to carry Marie and her baby. Although Alexander was tired from all the distance she had walked - and uncertain as to exactly how many more kilometres they had left to walk before they reached the first lake, nevermind the mountains that were their destination - she could not sleep. So she was remembering, and she was listening: to the rustle of leaves, to the breathing of those around her, to the Music.

Especially to the Music. Its presence was the larger of two reasons why she had chosen to ride (for the walking was not planned, but Marie’s unexpected needs had been greater than her own) over two thousand kilometres to the barely started settlement which was being planned at the eastern edge of the mountains. The Music, which did not tickle any physical ears but instead wormed straight into any mind that could hear it, was like all the bands in a parade playing the same song at once and like every choir in every church all singing together and like the deepest groans of a lover when the most pleasant things are being done. The Music was rhythms, complex and repeating but changing gradually as the location changed - varying with the ground and masses of plants and the time of month and many other things which could not be tracked. It was completely soundless, and completely undetectable to any scanner or detector that was not a telepathic brain. It existed as pure psionic energy, and it was almost everywhere on this world, pleasurable and demanding that you listen to it. But it did not exist - for as long as the violation continued - anywhere near or inside of an artificial energy field; it did not exist near any flow of electrons that was not wholly organic and natural.

It did not exist inside of a ship. Not inside of a shuttle, not near a hand-held communication unit or even near the battery in a wristwatch. If Alexander wanted to hear the Music - and she did, all the refugees who had survived the running did, it was a phenomenon that leaked into a person’s soul, filling in all the tiny cracks and gaping caverns with its gentle power until it overflowed their very essence and everyone, everyone who heard it wanted to hear more - if she wanted to hear the Music, she could not travel in or even stay near a powered ship; she could not stay near or even use anything powered by a current. The idea of losing the Music for even a few hours was intolerable to her.

The second reason Alexander had chosen to cross the prairies on foot instead of commandeering a ship - for she had the status to do so - was that the few remaining ships still intact and functional were all desperately needed to bring in more of the many thousands of telepaths still hiding out of fear or living in legal (or physical) shackles beyond the energy barrier that protected their sanctuary. Those ships that had not already broken down completely - often fatally, for they were brimful of exhausted and ill refugees on the way in and weary, worried crew on the way back out - were all needed to return to the populated worlds, return to the danger, so that they could collect more of the same sort of passenger. ‘Any ship still flightworthy is needed in space, not as a surface-ferry,’ she’d argued. ‘There are so many who are still outside, still in danger. We need to do all we can to ensure that they have our same chance at freedom!’

Her lover, off again on one of his quasi-religious streaks, had claimed she was too valuable to waste time on a journey. He also claimed she was needed here, to help build, which was true. ‘But the capital has enough workers already,’ she had countered, ‘and this new city has few, but enough resources to warrant and sustain half a million in population. My skills are more in need there.’

They had argued for hours - several days, even - until he was angry enough to let her go, but even then, he’d still refused to consider that she would want to travel by land. Then there had been a malfunction on the ship he’d intended for her to take. It had suffered a thruster overload as it tried to gain enough altitude to be able to use its main engine bank without damaging the nearby buildings. The intention had been to clear space on the overcrowded landing grid for an incoming vessel; relocating to another edge of the settlement in preparation for loading supplies. All eight of the crew had died; several dozen on the ground as well - some of whom had arrived safely on the same ship only two days before. Over a hundred more had been injured; most of whom were not serious enough to risk dying as long as their burns and lacerations could be kept clean.

Alexander would have preferred a less violent way to win her argument, but by the time the wounded had been moved to the medical tents and the damaged buildings had been checked over for remaining injured or dead, they had both been too haggard to fight. ‘Is there no way I can convince you to stay?’ he had asked after they had helped check for anything salvageable in the levelled homes and made repair or replacement estimates in the homes that were still standing.

‘I will return soon,’ Alexander had promised. ‘You should come with me, on the next trip - there are too many here, you are not comfortable. I can tell.’

He had sighed, and repeated that first he needed to ensure the elections were organised and run properly. He might not have been able to persuade his lover to ignore the rest of their young world, but he did finally help in his own way. Keeping it secret from her for the hours it took, he commandeered a second horse out of the scarce number available; bringing to their doorway not only the one she had arranged to ride but also one to pack supplies so that her ride would not be slowed by the extra weight. He’d brought them to her at dawn the day after the ship had crashed; healthy and eager to be useful, a strong pureblooded mare and a stronger gelding of unknown parentage. ‘If I can’t stop you, I can help you to hurry there, and then back once your work is done.’

They had cemented their agreement that she would return; physically, if slightly more roughly than usual. Then she had dressed herself and set off on the mares back through the busy streets, leading the second horse westward.

On the outskirts of the city, Alexander had found an oblivious but hysterical Marie; alone but for the screaming baby, sitting on the dirt, next to a crowd that swirled past the outside of a hospital tent. Unable to talk for grief, Marie had not been able to explain the reason; but Alexander had helped one of the upset pair when she’d opened the mother’s milk-stained shirt, allowing and assisting the hungry girl to nurse. Alexander soon learned from the doctor inside that Marie’s last son had been staying there, until his death two days before that one. Alexander had already known that he had been blinded and crippled in the great fire that had devastated the original settlement; the fire that had killed Marie’s husband and other children. Well over a thousand of the refugees - more than half - had been killed. A few lingering but untreatable infections continued to gradually add to the number. ‘The boy was buried yesterday,’ the doctor had explained sadly. ‘With some other children in a green field in the sunrise direction. It is some distance from the houses, not an especially long walk, but enough to have kept the mother away from the city during the crash. . . She has not left the street, right there, since she returned last evening. I can not make her go home, I am too busy with the new injured,’ and he had gestured about him at the over-packed beds.

Alexander had decided to delay her journey for the time it would take to escort her old compatriot home; to ensure Marie got a meal, bath, and some sleep, because it was evident that the woman needed the care of all three. She knew the woman quite well - she had even helped deliver the baby Lara, that first eventful day on this world - but even if it had been a stranger, Alexander still would have stopped. Unable to remember the exact co-op house where Marie had her room, Alexander had checked the record the hospital had; then realised Marie’s home had been at the center of the crash - not even rubble was left. The bodies from that row of housing had not been intact or even recognisable when pulled out the previous day. Nothing remained; no scraps of clothing, no food caches, no furniture, no pictures or tokens of loved ones who hadn’t made it to the sanctuary; it was all gone. Marie had apparently returned to the hospital of habit, yet again reduced to only what possessions she wore, but this time the last of her family was gone, and hope had died too. All but the infant, whom she did not notice.

With no other option clear, Alexander had put Marie onto Araby’s back and led the horses through the crowds to a way-station. Making Marie clean herself and her single outfit off, Alexander also cleaned Lara and - luckily, the infant’s bag of spare changes had been with Marie that day - changed her diaper. Then she forced a drink and meal into the mother, and again helped hold the baby so the girl could eat as well. Then she found a youth willing to deliver the news and names to the registry, in exchange for a small packet of preserved ship’s ration. Alexander had walked since then, and Marie still had not spoken; though in the past day she had begun to notice the presence of her surviving daughter.

It was Marie who had covered the nearly naked suckling with the damp cloth to keep her cool, though that was the first thing she had not been physically made to do for her offspring. Lara was fortunate that Alexander had a protective streak, because it was clear even to the non-telepaths in their travelling group (family members who cared enough to accompany the persecuted ones, though there were few so far on this world: anyone who gave genuine aid to rogue telepaths was being welcomed) that Marie was not even able to care for herself. Alexander did that as well, in addition to scouting ahead with her mobile mind; plus, she was the only one in the group who had been able to bring copies of the maps of the regions they would cross. She had the directions; even when she let others, nervous at her added gift-and-curse, carry the maps for themselves.

It was possible to merely follow the path already beaten into the ground by the few hundred feet which had walked that trail before them - it lead nearly straight west for most of it’s length - but there were no signposts to show water sources or distances yet. The rest of the group now acknowledged that their collective experience of travel on foot was inadequate for taking the journey across this untamed and unpatrolled land without a guide.

They had also admitted aloud - as they had collapsed down in the shade and gulped her offered water - that Alexander’s extra ability (the power to look at places too far away to see with eyes) was useful; but they obviously did not like to talk about it. It was something they did not have, an advantage that (in their consideration) might easily be turned against them; it was a thing to be feared. This world of escaped telepaths was already becoming filled with paranoia, with hatred towards authority, with fear of small enclosed spaces and uniforms and anyone or anything that might be determined to control or kill them. Alexander was as afraid of her extra ability as the rest of the group; she had not been born with it and she had not asked to receive it; yet it was needed and so the others tolerated her. She did not tell them about the other parts of her extra power. Those were abilities that flat-out terrified her; she knew if she was attacked, she would be again faced with the decision to kill in self-defence or allow herself to be torn to small, bloody pieces.

A deep sigh could be heard leaking from her lungs, as she blinked outwards for a moment at the rippling. The other parts of her powers were exactly the reason why she was going to this new city; to learn to control them, to use them for something good. Alexander was going to carve a fortress out of the mountains, so that the others would have shelter. She only hoped that she would be able - would be allowed - to share it with them. Even if her life did not continue, the rest of what she was creating would. The fear would eventually fade, she knew, but the safety would hopefully remain.

Beside her, the baby yawned, then went back to sleep.

*****

(end)

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