Forever
The feeling hadn’t been this strong since 300 years ago on Earth. After breaking into Boeing’s design center I was flying over Seattle in the skimmer when a wave of mixed emotions assailed me. Thoughts of the shuttle notes I had left on an unsuspecting engineer’s PC left me under the assault. The intensity, power and diversity confused me. In all the months since my rebirth, I had never experienced such a cacophony emanating from a single source. And never from so far away, with such strength.
The feeling weakened as I banked the skimmer and made a slow, expanding-spiral decent back over the city. It was a risky maneuver. The skimmer didn’t return radar signals and its skin was difficult for the human eye to focus on even i n daylight, but there was the chance that someone watching the sky on this clear night might see me distort their view of the stars. I considered that possibility remote and the danger acceptable when weighed against the possibility that I was no longer alone.
Fear dominated all other emotions as I began a zig-zag pattern in an attempt to zero in on the source. I tried to send a sense of calmness and benevolence, but with no specific person to focus on I couldn’t be sure I was successful.
As I passed over Puget Sound I lost the feeling in a haze of masking. The source was trying to hide from me. I tried again to send warmth and friendship, but it seemed the harder I tried th e more elusive the source became until, finally, I lost the empathic signal all together. I cruised over the city as long as I dared, nearly an hour, before giving up.
During the centuries since that night, I have had the same feeling on several occasions, though never as strong. It was as though someone was searching, probing for another empath by sending out emotional waves strong enough to be felt, but too weak to trace to the sender. Like an indistinct, gray form lurking in a gray fog not wanting to be found, only wanting to make sure it wasn’t alone. When I tried to send the emotional equivalent of ’I’m here’ the feeling, the sound felt not heard, would stop.
Until now.
As I was matching orbits with the System Port of Entry for Alpha Centauri, still fifty klicks away, I felt a brief, teasing twinge of the old signal. It lasted only a moment, but was unmistakable. Fate had finally brought my unknown kinsman and I to the same system at the same time again. The trick was to find the other empath before we were separated again.
Docked in a freighter berth, I left the cargo off-loading and dispersal to the bots and went exploring. Alpha Port was typical of all newer SPOE’s; a large, self contained and maneuverable city, complete with all the amenities.
Wandering past the duty-free shops, lounges and hostels I began to get the feeling again. It was a probing, tentative, ’Are you there?’ feeling that came and went, hidden by the emotions of hundreds of other people around me. I stopped each time the signal touched me and stood motionless, emoting my own signal. As before, the signal would stop as soon as I tried to connect. I sensed the old fear in the other, though not as strongly as before. There was a new underlying sense of confidence and strength.
As the moments passed, I got the sense my "friend" was somewhere behind me. I stopped next to the entrance to a Trader’s Hall and concentrated on the crowded corridor. I sorted through the emotions, attaching patterns to people. In the end I found her not by reading her emotions, but by sensing her blocking my probe. I felt she wanted to approach, but wasn’t sure yet if I represented a threat. I saw her standing at the curve in the corridor, about fifty meters away, pretending to examine a holo displaying points of interest on the planet below. She turned her head slightly in my direction. Her eyes seemed to bore through mine into the back of my head. I felt weak and excited at the same time--an ancient sensation I hadn’t felt in this new life. She was beautiful! She stepped quickly into the tour agent’s shop whose ads she’d been pretending to admire, breaking the spell. The whole exchange of emotions and glances had taken only a moment.
I crossed the corridor and entered a lounge taking a small booth within sight of the entrance but not too close. I concentrated on the blank I sensed in the midst of the emotional pandemonium around me. I sent the most reassuring emotions I could muster in her direction, allowing my happiness and excitement at finally finding her come through.
Within moments she stopped in front of the portal, looked around at the other nearby entries, then into the lounge’s darkened interior. After a moment’s hesitation, she came in and stood next to the other bench at my booth. She just stood there, looking at me for a few, very long moments.
Suddenly, she dropped her emotional shield and I was assaulted with everything she had been masking from me; fear, hope, pain, loneliness and most strongly, exultation.
"It’s been a long time," I said quietly.
"Yes." Her calm face and soft voice belied the inner turmoil I sensed.
She sat across from me just as the thought to ask her to sit formed in my mind. I wondered if telepathy was one of the enhancements she had been given. I formed the question in my mind.
Cocking her head slightly she said, "Not the way you mean. I get impressions, pictures, more than actual words. Enough to know how you knew I was here and to see the question in your mind."
"Why have you hidden from me all this time?" I asked the question that had burned in me for almost 300 years.
"At first, I was afraid. That night in Seattle I had just been thrown back to Earth and was still disoriented. I was worried I had gone insane. When I sensed you, I thought you were ... well, that you were whoever it was who took me in the first place. It wasn’t until later that I realized if they wanted me again I would have no way to prevent them taking me." She suddenly leaned forward and steepled her hands in front of her lips. "How was it with you?"
"What do you mean?"
"Obviously they didn’t give you the same talent they gave me, so what is it?" As I began to answer, she interrupted, "You’re an empath."
"Yes. And a little more. And less. I can sense and influence emotions, sometimes at a great distance. You seem to be able to block me, though."
"It takes a lot to do it. And it’s very tiring." She paused, studying my face. "I don’t know if I’m experiencing my own feelings or ones you want me to have."
"Read my mind. You know the truth."
"I told you I can’t ’read’ your mind." She studied my face for a few moments more, her head tilted slightly to one side. Finally, I felt her relax. "What now?"
"Now we begin to find the answers."
"Didn’t your ship belong to Them?" I felt the capitalization--it was the same way I thought of those who had taken us.
"With all the knowledge it contains I assumed you would have all the answers," she continued. "I was counting on being enlightened when we finally met face to face."
"I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed." A commotion at the entrance made me aware of our surroundings again. The lounge was beginning fill with boisterous crew members from the latest ship to dock. "I think we should continue this on the ship, away from other ears."
We both had been absorbed in our conversation. She looked around furtively.
I touched her hand lightly and smiled, sent calmness toward her.
"Thank you," she said, smiling back, "but please don’t do that. I don’t like being controlled--brings back bad memories, you know?"
"Yes," I said, remembering my own nightmare, "I do know."