Part 23
You stare at the ceiling of your room for hours before reaching a conclusion and yet when you do you know that you must act upon it.
The Trig is quiet, the telepathic damping fields on your room block all the stray mental murmur that you would otherwise hear. Yet those fields do nothing to prevent direct telepathic calls.
You close your eyes and concentrate on reinforcing your mental barriers. When you reach out your call is tentative but controlled.
[Overmind? Overmind, are you awake?]
[Parts of us sleep. Parts of us are always asleep. We go on.] The contact is as controlled as yours yet you can feel the huge weight of minds behind it. And you can feel the surprise in those minds. Few people trouble this guiding force of the Federation directly, you guess. [Why do you call us, Tomorrow Person?]
[Because I was wrong.] You say without hesitation. [And I wanted you to know that before you make any decision.]
[You fear for your life and that of your friends.] Overmind points out. [We know this.]
[Those fears seemed important to me at the time but now I know better. Now I know we have responsibilities that outweigh those fears. I thought that the best way to serve my planet was to leave it. Now I'm sure that I was wrong. If we leave it we strip a planet of the future it dreams of, we condemn many like us to death, we set the planet back centuries or millennia. Nothing that can happen to us or that we can do in the short term is worse than that. Morally, I can't abandon Earth now. I don't believe any of us could.] You're surprised at how passionate your thoughts have become and how strongly your conviction projects itself to the gestalt. You know that you're not finding the perfect words but you know that the thought is getting across nonetheless. [Don't force us to do this.] Your last words are a mental whisper and when Overmind replies it does so softly. Despite that you can get no sense of how the alien mind-complex is receiving your thoughts.
[We will consider your words, Jay. Sleep now.]
And before you know it you're asleep.
*****
John is holding a cup of tea in his hands when he wakes you. The brown-haired man has a strange expression on his face as he offers it to you.
"Good afternoon, Jay."
"Afternoon?" You gaze at John in some confusion as you sit up and sip at the tea. "Why didn't you wake me?"
"Because we got a note from Overmind asking us not to. They felt you needed the sleep." He pauses, not quite looking at you. "What were you speaking to Overmind about, Jay?"
You hesitate, and this time it's you who are avoiding the other man's eyes. It's never easy to admit you were wrong but sometimes you just have to do it.
"I wanted to tell them I was mistaken. I want to tell you that too."
"Nothing that you said was untrue." John tells you neutrally.
"But my sense of what was important was. That's what you've been trying to tell me."
John nods as he stands up and heads to the door.
"Yes. Yes, we have." He turns in the doorway and smiles at you. "I'm glad you came to see thing our way, Jay. Now why don't you get up? It's not long until dinner time."
*****
"How soon will we know?" Professor Cawston asks as you all sit in the common area of your quarters. Carol sighs and shrugs as she holds her baby daughter. Her other children are rolling in a general tickling fight with Mike and Ginge on the floor.
"Some of the races in Overmind have very little real sense of time." She explains. "It could be anywhere from minutes to days to weeks."
Cawston frowns and Ginge looks up from where he's playing with the children..
"I really shouldn't be away from College for much longer."
"Yeah, and who knows what Lefty and the boys will get up to without me there to tell them what to do?"
"Chris is there to keep an eye on Lefty." Stephen points out. Nonetheless John nods.
"We can't really keep you away from Earth much longer. Perhaps you ought to wait for news back on Earth." He agrees. "We're really very grateful that you found time to do this."
Cawston glances up at the roof, now faded to 75% of it's full glorious view, and smiles.
"John, I wouldn't have missed it for the world."
"How are we going to get back though?" Ginge asks, tickling a giggling three year old girl as he speaks.
"Same way you came, Ginge." Kenny tells him. "Kalinar. It's still waiting for you."
"That cramped thing?" Ginge asks with distaste.
"I think this time we can arrange for you to see a bit more of the ship." Stephen smiles. "Your minds are a bit broader now than they were before you arrived."
You see John looking thoughtfully at you and touch his mind lightly with your still slightly half-trained telepathy.
[What is it?]
John answers you aloud.
"I was wondering if you should hitch a ride back with Ginge and the Professor, Jay. Your telepathy is still a little sensitive to take a long range jaunting beam and you told your parents you wouldn't be away long."
You become aware of a certain sombreness in the thoughts in the room. It's Stephen who puts them into words.
"If the Federation decides against Earth and orders us away this might be the last chance you get to spend some time with your family, Jay. If I were you, I'd take it."
Do you:
a) wait for the verdict on the Trig?
b) return to Earth?
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