Part 2
"Look," John says tiredly. "This isn't a matter for discussion."
Slowly, Elizabeth nods and you do too. You can see the sense of what John is saying.
The transit beam to the Galactic Trig feels unlike any jaunt you have ever experienced. It flows through you like a shiver while at the same time locking your muscles into immobility. On your back is a bag containing no more than a few changes of clothes and your most important family photos and mementoes. You only had a couple of hours to pack before the fringes of the toxic cloud were threatening Europe. Your goodbyes to John and Tim were short, almost abrupt but you felt the anxiety that poured off everyone in the room as the four of you climbed onto the jaunting pad and looked down on your friend. Now, as you emerge in a room brilliant with reflections from metal and plastic surfaces, someone new is looking up at you with an equal expression of concern.
"Stephen!" Liz calls as you step down from the jaunting pad. The young man who answers to that name accepts her embrace while at the same time greeting the others by name. His eyes look you up and down but his assessment is friendly.
"And you must be Jay." Stephen notes.
"And you must be Stephen." You answer in exactly the same tone. The two of you exchange grins. You've heard of the six Tomorrow People now resident on the Galactic Trig but this is the first time you've met any of them. Stephen is perhaps five of six years older than you and his long blond hair frames a strong but friendly face.
"Welcome to the Trig, Jay." Stephen tells you but then his frown returns and he turns back to Elizabeth. "Liz, what's going on? What?s all this panic about and why has John not come with you? You all look exhausted!"
"It's a long story, Stephen." She tells him tiredly. "Can we find somewhere to dump these bags and then we can sit down and tell you."
"Stephen," Hsui Tai asks quietly. "Where are the others? Where's Mike?"
"Most of the others are not on the Trig just now." He tells her. "In fact it's just Mike and me at the moment. He's just seeing to getting your rooms sorted out. It's not often we have to accommodate four of you at just an hour or two's notice!" Stephen picks up Elizabeth's bag and Hsui Tai's as he speaks and you all follow him through a maze of seemingly identical corridors. Stephen notices you looking around bewildered.
"I know it looks confusing at first, Jay." He reassures you. "But you'll soon get used to it."
Stephen leads you to into a large circular room with a doughnut shaped series of sofas in the middle of it surrounding what appears to be a link table. Around the room's circumference there are a series of eight metallic doors in addition to the one through which you enter. In the gap between two doors there is a viewscreen while other gaps hold mounted statues and in a couple of places, bookcases. Despite the clean plastic and metal sheen to everything this is clearly a lived in place. The bookcases are full of tatty paperback novels and a magazine lies across the surface of the link table. All the cushions from the sofas seem to be piled up in one of the seats to form a comfortable little nest.
You take all of that in virtually no time and that isn't what makes you stop in the doorway, staring. The entire domed roof of the room is transparent and above the brilliantly lit room hangs the midnight darkness of space. Thousands of stars, many times more than you would ever see from the surface of the Earth jostle for space in the heavens while at the same time leaving vast tracts of emptiness that seems to pull you in. For a moment you feel dizzy and a little agoraphobic but a firm grip on the doorframe followed by a friendly shove from the impatient Andrew helps keep your feet on the ground.
"Welcome to the quarters of the Galactic Ambassador from Earth." Stephen says rather grandly.
"You mean you live here?" You ask.
"Well, me and Mike and the others too when they're not away on some diplomatic mission on behalf of the Galactic Federation. There are eight rooms in all but I think we can squeeze you in. Carol says we can use her room since she rarely stays with us even when she's around and I've twisted Tyso's arm into letting us use his as well."
"And that's why I got stuck with cleaning the rooms." Another voice comments. The dark haired boy who comes out of one of the rooms is around your own age or perhaps a little older. "Hello everyone." He adds with a lopsided smile.
Once again there is a round of greetings and you're introduced not only to Mike Bell but also to an old man, named Timus Irnok Mosta of all things, who arrives as Hsui Tai runs up to Mike to say hello. It is Timus who gets you all settled on the sofas and asks for an update.
"All TIM told us," He says in a voice eerily like TIM's. "Is that a telepathically active agent has been released into Earth's atmosphere and it was necessary to evacuate you all. But I do not understand where such an agent could have come from, nor why John is absent from this gathering."
Quickly Elizabeth outlines the events that led to the volcanic eruption and the destruction of the chemical weapons laboratory.
"So you see, your Excellency, we were able to save the villagers in the area but didn't have time to remove the chemicals. Tim believes the toxic cloud may trigger some latent telepathic response in normal Saps and might even trigger a few breakouts. John felt that one of us had to stay behind to help any breakouts through the trauma."
"I ought to go and help him!" Stephen exclaims in some agitation but Timus raises a hand to stop him moving.
"No, Stephen." The old man says calmly. "John was correct to evacuate you all. Your species, both Homo Sapiens and Homo Superior has an unusual potential for telepathy. Those of you who do breakout into Tomorrow People are among the more powerful telepaths in the federation. We daren't risk any of you. If however, as TIM believes, the compounds in this cloud are active on even the stunted telepathic centres of the human brain and triggers more breakouts then John is uniquely well suited to assisting."
"But we have to do something, Timus!" Elizabeth exclaims. He looks at her with aloof thoughtfulness and you hear him reach out telepathically.
[TIM?]
Even at this distance the biotronic computer's voice is loud and clear.
[Your Excellency!]
[How fares the Earth, Tim?] Timus asks formally.
[It is difficult to judge.] TIM answers slowly. [I am beginning to receive reports from Russian sources which suggest an unusual number of people collapsing with symptoms of significant mental distress but I believe many of those are normal Homo sapiens for whom any such sensitivity will be temporary. I suspect, however, that the effects will continue to develop over the course of the next several hours.]
[Is John alright, TIM?] Liz asks anxiously.
[He is fine, Elizabeth.] TIM assures her. [As yet only the outer fringes of the cloud have reached western Europe and the Lab's air supply is, of course, filtered....] TIM's voice cuts off suddenly and for several seconds you hear only static.
[TIM?] You call, startled and you feel the others call at the same time.
Stephen looks tense as he knocks the magazine off the room's central table and onto the floor.
"Link." He orders quickly. You all lean forward around the table, forming a circle with your little fingers touching on the glowing white surface. Even Timus joins the circle as Stephen leads the link outwards.
[John? TIM?]
[I'm fine.] John's voice is significantly weaker than TIM's at this distance and without the link it would be inaudible but he answers immediately. [And TIM is alright too. His main transmitters are on the surface outside the Lab and the compound in the air has caused them to fail.] He pauses as if listening and sounds amused as he continues. [Your Excellency,] He says to Timus. [TIM asks me to pass on his humblest apologies for his undignified departure from your previous conversation.]
[Well,] Stephen notes in an amused tone. [TIM is obviously fine.] His tone becomes more serious. [John, are you sure about staying down there?]
[Well with TIM's transmitters out I don't really have a choice now. Don't worry, Stephen. I'll be alright.]
[Good luck.] You murmur as the link begins to break up and the others echo that sentiment.
You all decide to sleep for a while after the link breaks up. Yesterday was a long day for most of you and it already a late night here on the Trig for Stephen and Mike. As you settle into your borrowed room on an alien space station you don't believe you will ever get to sleep but as soon as your head hits the pillow you are out for the count.
Your dreams are frightening, confusing things. Voices cry out to you from a grey, misty plain. People appear and disappear all around you, seen as no more than a flash of colour against the dull world. Some of the people you feel you ought to recognise, most you don't. You can hear their surprise and fear as a new world opens before them and you feel the devastating loss some experience as senses they never knew before this moment are torn away just as quickly. A few, you know, don't lose those senses but instead are overwhelming by them, unable to cope with a world evolution never intended them to experience.
One child appears directly before you in your dreams and screams, desperately and repeatedly. He is crying out for release and relief from the pain. For a moment, his dark eyes meet yours and then he jaunts, unfocused and unaware, into the peace of hyperspace.
Your eyes snap open and, unable to distinguish dream from reality you jaunt automatically after him. You cannot say who is more amazed, the young boy with oriental features or yourself, as you appear beside him in the psychedelic tranquility of hyperspace and scoop him into your arms and jaunt back to the Trig.
You appear kneeling in the Earth ambassador's common room with the child sobbing against your chest but you can feel that the small boy, no more than seven or eight years old has made the same transition you did not long ago. He is a Tomorrow Person too.
You look up into the drawn and pale faces of Elizabeth, Stephen, Mike and a blonde young woman you don't recognise. The truth begins to dawn as you hear Andrew and Hsui Tai struggling and calling out in their sleep.
"These aren't dreams, are they?"
Elizabeth takes the crying little boy from your arms and comforts him as Stephen lends you a hand to pull you to your feet.
"Not a dream." He confirms. "Well done, Jay. You just saved the child's life."
"But so many others are breaking out with no one to catch them." The young blonde woman sounds stricken with grief. "I came back as soon as I heard them crying out."
"The whole Trig is hearing them, Carol." Timus speaks from the doorway and his voice, so like TIM's, is strangely comforting. "We are all aware of the people of Earth crying out."
"There must be thousands of them, Timus!" Mike exclaims.
"Hundreds of Thousands." Timus corrects. "Although probably no more than several hundred will ever mature into Tomorrow People. The human brain has an underevolved capacity for telepathy and it that that is being triggered."
"All those people are being traumatised by what they are feeling, Timus." You exclaim with certainty behind your words. "Some of them are dying and that could include Tomorrow People like us. Even if it doesn't we have to do something."
"The Vesh of Pyrie and the Sophostrians have argued that after a telepathic outburst like this Earth can no longer be considered a Closed World." Timus tells you. "The Galactic Federation is prepared to offer as much assistance as is practicable."
"They probably just want our planet to stop making such a racket." Mike mutters to the rest of you cynically. Elizabeth frowns at him as Andrew staggers out of his bedroom looking disorientated and confused.
"What can you do to help?" She asks Timus intently.
"We might be able to provide psi-damping technology such as that used by the Kulthan in order to nullify the initial effects of the chemicals in question." Timus offers. "Or we may be able to devise some kind of chemical antidote. Either method, however, will take a considerable amount of time and may be practical for use only in the most populous regions of your planet."
"It might be more help if we just go down ourselves and try to help where we can." Stephen notes thoughtfully. You remember suddenly:
"What's happened to John?" You ask. The more senior Tomorrow People exchange looks.
"We tried to call him just before you woke up." Elizabeth tells you. "He isn't answering."
"He could just have his hands full and be too busy to answer." Stephen suggests.
"Or he could have been overwhelmed by the telepathic 'noise' on the planet's surface." Timus speculates. "Returning could be perilous indeed."
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