Part 25
The next two weeks are torture for you and for all the other Tomorrow People. While your interview, with the mind probe in place to clarify your thoughts, only took a few minutes the others are quizzed for hours at a time. Of course, they have more experience of being a Tomorrow Person to recount too.
Gradually your Embassy on the Trig fills up and then spills over into the neighbouring suite as the older Tomorrow People are recalled from their duties for the Federation to testify about their experiences on Earth. It's interesting to meet the other Tomorrow People, each so different from the others and yet sharing a common bond that's almost impossible to describe. As the others did, they accept your decision to speak against Earth's membership without actually agreeing with it. As you hear more and more stories about their adventures both on Earth and off it you find your uncertainty enhanced rather than relieved. What is best for Earth in this situation?
When Professor Cawston and Ginge arrive it comes as a shock to realise how accustomed you've become to telepathic conversation. With the Embassy's transparent domed ceiling hidden by an opaque hologram projection, the common room could almost be another room in the Lab back on Earth. The two men still look out of place though. Ginge looks a little nervous but hides it beneath a brusque exterior. The leather-clad biker is an incongruous sight in this tranquil setting as he plays with Carol's young daughters under the watchful eyes of you all. The half-Adonisian children have never encountered Homo sapiens before, their slender bodies and narrow eyes marking them as just alien enough that Carol and Narcissa have not risked bringing them to their mother's home planet. At first Professor Cawston can't help staring slightly at the children and their father but he soon apologises and manages to adjust to the sight of his first clearly alien aliens. The Professor intrigues you. You'd never seen him before now and he's younger than you expected him to be. The man seems intelligent, thoughtful, and yet you can see his resolve. He truly believes that Earth must remain part of the Federation.
*****
After two weeks finally only Ginge and the Professor remain to talk to Overmind and you spend a long morning waiting for their summons.
"How is this going to work, Carol?" Ginge asks suddenly as she disentangles a toddler from him. He's been disguising his nervousness as bluster all day but none of you are fooled. "I mean we can't just go and plug our heads into this Overmind thing as you lot have."
"That's not quite what we've been doing, Ginge." Stephen corrects him. "With the mind probe thing they tried on Jay out of the question, Overmind's been making do with a light telepathic contact. We can't get too deep otherwise we'd become part of Overmind itself and that would skew both our own thoughts and theirs in opposite ways."
"It is a telepathic contact though." Professor Cawston presses. "And Ginge is right when he says we can't do that."
"No, that's true." John agrees, looking up from the book he's been reading to try to ease the tension. "But you remember how Tricia was able to read your mind even before she broke out?"
"Yes." Professor Cawston agrees hesitantly. "But she could only receive surface thoughts and even then very hazily."
"Well, any of us can pick up on a thought from you if it's projected clearly enough. The problem is that Sap thoughts rarely ever are. Your mind is too full of random thoughts. About the colour of the socks you're wearing, about the temperature, the smell, what you forgot to put on your shopping list this week. Of course, our minds are busy too but we're able to project a single thought beyond that noise."
"Trying to pick a single thought out of a Sap mind is like trying to find a four leaf clover in a field of grass and clover." Kenny adds in agreement. "While for one of us, it's like there was a sunflower growing out of the middle of the field."
"So how can you solve that problem?" Cawston asks.
"I've been thinking about that." John tells you all. "What I think we're going to have to do is put you in a very light trance. It wont even be as strong as hypnotising you really but it will suppress all that stray thought and it will focus your thoughts on the topic you're talking about. It might make you see a little more than you might otherwise but at least you'll be audible to Overmind if they focus on you.
"Well, I'm game." Ginge shrugs.
"Yes. Yes, I see." Cawston says thoughtfully. "Well that sounds reasonable."
"Of course it means a couple of us will have to be with each of you just to make sure you don't slip too deep into the trance." Stephen points out thoughtfully.
You look around the room. The thought of returning to the presence of Overmind terrifies you but you have the strength of mind to know that your fear is irrational. Without the mind-probe swathing you there is really no danger. And you really are curious about what the Saps are going to say.
"Can I help?" You ask.
John looks at you thoughtfully.
"Yes. I think that might be a very good idea."
*****
Professor Cawston is nervous as you and John jaunt him to the ante-chamber to Overmind. The tall man smiles a tight and anxious smile at Timus and Timon who meet you there.
"I still cant quite believe all this is happening." Cawston tells you, looking from one of the identical clones to the other.
"It is difficult to accept." John tells him tolerantly. He nods at Timus, still a little cool in his attitude. "Your Excellency, is Overmind ready for us?"
"It is, John."
"Alright then, Professor. I'm going to put you in a focusing trance now. Concentrate on the sound of my voice. Let it guide you and soothe you. Let it drown out the riot of irrelevant thought." As John speaks he holds the Professor with his eyes and you feel his mind reaching into Cawston's, easing him into the trance. You watch curiously without letting yourself be drawn in. Cawston's eyes widen slightly and then settle back. As John's voice dies away the Professor looks around him with an attention that is now total. Suddenly his thoughts are focused and precise, each clear for you to hear. You find it unnerving. No human should ever be able to focus this much concentration on one thing.
"I feel ... strange." The Professor tells you and you can see each word on the surface of his thoughts before he speaks it aloud. "I feel as if I'm looking through a tunnel. I can't describe it."
"Don't try and focus on how you're feeling now, Professor. Focus on what you're going to say to Overmind." John advises. He nods to Timus and takes the Professor's arm, guiding him through the opening door.
The Overmind chamber is as dark as the deep of space that surrounds it. A spotlight illuminates a single, apparently human, figure and you realise that Overmind will use a single voice as spokesman in order not to unsettle the Sap you've brought before them. A second spotlight picks the three of you up as you enter the room making the still forms in the shadows completely invisible to you.
["Thank you for coming, Professor Cawston."] You can feel the weight of Overmind behind those words and yet to the Professor they will be just one voice, speaking softly.
"It is my privilege." Cawston answers simply, the clear thought behind those words on the surface of his mind. "I only hope I justify the faith the Tomorrow People have placed in me."
["The native telepaths of your world bring you before us as an example of what is worth protecting in Homo sapiens. Professor, the trance in which you stand makes it easier for you to say what you truly believe. That is all we require of you."] The being speaking for Overmind pauses. ["You were involved, we believe, with the attempt by the military forces of your nation to control the abilities of the 'Tomorrow People'."]
"Yes, sir." Cawston says with a slight shudder. "It was not an example of good behavior from my species. I was very fearful for the children's safety."
["You were also involved in an incident with the shape-shifting robot Jedikiah."]
"Yes." And now the single stream of consciousness coming from the Professor is one of fearful and regretful memories.
["Tell us the memory you most associate with the Tomorrow People."] Overmind instructs. ["Focus on the memory, Professor and we will hear it."]
*****
[The walls of the Intensive Care Unit were white. It was a peaceful colour, a pure colour. There was nothing pure or peaceful about my thoughts. I was watching a civilisation fall before it had had a chance to rise. I was watching my hopes and dreams fall crashing from their dizzy heights.
I was alone in the room. I'd sent the guards away. They had hesitated but obeyed me. I had no real authority in the Weapons Research Establishment but with Colonel Masters so recently murdered and his assistant Miss Conway ... gone ... they were eager to follow any clear firm voice.
And so I sat alone except for the still forms of John and Elizabeth stretched out on the beds before me. I listened to the quiet beeping of the machines that were keeping them barely alive and tried not to think about anything but their survival.
Tricia, Miss Conway, was gone. She had vanished with her face in her hands, her mind in agony. I prayed that she had found safety but my mind was drawn to my conversation with John while Tyso Boswell was breaking out. I knew that without guidance Tricia was unlikely to survive the process and that guidance was sorely lacking.
The two boys, Stephen and Tyso, the boys who had drawn me into this whole business, were unable to help. They were powerless to help, in the clutches of a mad man who had sworn vengeance on them and theirs. For all I knew they were already dead, the calls from Stephen that Tricia had heard his dying pleas. Certainly Jedikiah had no reason to keep them alive any longer.
And, of course, he'd already disposed of John and Elizabeth. Their initial injuries had been a tragic mistake, the kind of lethal foolishness that only we poor Saps can create and against which even the Tomorrow People have no defense. All Jedikiah had had to do was stop TIM's final desperate attempt to put thing right. I remembered now where I had seen the face of the intruder who had tried to save Elizabeth and John. I knew now that in my folly and fear I had helped shoot not only an innocent man but an Ambassador of the Galactic Federation. Perhaps the Federation came for their own, certainly the man was no longer in our care. Just the two, barely breathing, hardly alive forms in front of me.
I had so many dreams for the New World the Tomorrow People would bring to us all. I had so many hopes for this vibrant young race. I was watching those dreams die but somehow I couldn't grieve for an abstract concept like that.
There had been so much death. Professor Johnston, Colonel Masters, Sergeant Adams, perhaps even Stephen, Tyso and Tricia. And all I could think of was two young people, bursting with life as they stood in my office, as they teased and tried to protect their young charges. John and Elizabeth were dying and I was losing more than my dreams. I was losing my friends too.
I fixed my eyes on the brainwave monitor in front of me, afraid to look at the pale faces. I watched as the familiar wedge-shape that made their brains so unique became weaker and less pronounced. And then I saw both brainwave patterns fade to nothing.
For a moment I stared at the monitor, trying to will it into changing, unable to accept the awful truth. Then, my heart pounding against my chest, I looked up to see my friends for the final time. The absolute stillness of the room crept into my soul as I realised that I could see nothing through the ends of the plasticised capsules that had protected John and Elizabeth. I stood and walked forward, determined to pay my last respects, but as I moved I realised I was wrong. It wasn't just the plastic. The capsules were empty!
I strode forward, each step more rapid than the one before. "John? Elizabeth?" I called foolishly, as if they were playing some child's game of hide and seek. "John? Elizabeth?"
Only the white sheets lay where I had expected to find much grimmer viewing and I felt hope flood into me for the first time in what seemed like hours. Buoyed by that hope, almost afraid to move, I called again in the hope they someone, somewhere might hear me. Even then I didn't expect the soft tones in my thoughts.
"Professor?" Elizabeth's voice.
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. They were alive!]
*****
"We're still alive, Professor." John's quiet voice breaks the silence that answers Cawston's vivid memories. You realise that, like Overmind, you became absorbed in the strength of Professor Cawston's feelings. The flood of relief that washes through you, Cawston and Overmind together is almost overwhelming.
"Yes." Cawston says, focusing completely on the thought. "You're still alive. The Federation came for you and saved you. But it was so close!"
Overmind seems to have recovered its bearings and it focuses again on the Professor.
["Tell us of the hopes and dreams you have for this coming race, Professor. Tell us why the thought of losing them caused you such pain."]
*****
Overmind quizzed Cawston for three hours before John asked for the interview to end. Keeping the professor in this kind of trance for too long would have much the same effect as sleep deprivation, too many stray thoughts and perceptions going unnoticed and unsorted. The professor slept after his interview and you did too. It was a restless and unsettled sleep though. The Professor's account explained much of what the others hadn't told you about that time. The explanations were worrying to say the least. For a while you wonder if you'd underestimated the dangers the Tomorrow People face. It seems that abandoning Earth would be safest all around. But then you remember what the Professor said about his dreams of a coming race, of what you could do for the whole world. Have you the right to deny those dreams.
You wake in the early hours of the morning and lie awake for hours. All you've seen and heard lately has just added to your confusion. Earth isn't safe for you and yet you've seen how John, Cawston and the others fight for it. Earth is your world, after all. What should you do?
Do you:
a) Change your mind and argue for Earth's Membership?
b) Remain opposed?
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