Abel III's Awakening - 8. Chapter 8 Changed Plans

Chapter 8

Changed Plans

I again woke up feeling wonderful, but horny as hell and hungry to boot. After unloading my bladder, I entered my rock show shower and unloaded again. I finished quickly, dressed and headed to the dining room and was again the first one there. I was on my second bagel when the others showed up and then had a plate full of sausage and eggs with biscuits and gravy.

Grandfather and Drew were still watching me like hawks and I decided to play nice and sent: {Good morning everyone! I hope you all slept as well as I did. Before I fell asleep last night I discovered something else about the planet, the sharks and this ship.}

I then explained telepathically about the psychic neural network of the sharks and the framework it occupied around the planet and that I reasoned that perhaps such a network surrounded the ship with five active telepaths and Hal who was also able to communicate that way. I went on to explain my initial failure and my hypothesis as to why, and my ultimate success. I then asked if we could meet again after breakfast in grandfather's cabin and I would attempt to link them all and show them what I had found.

Breakfast was soon completed and we retired to Grandfather's cabin and I then established a communal link with Hal observing as usual, and then as they observed through my link, I established a link to the shark's network on the planet. I observed it so that they could see the psychic framework with the lines of power shown as links between the various sharks as they communicated telepathically. I delved deeper into the network and retrieved the recollection of the other telepath who had used their link named Angus and saw the surprise in my family. I let them look around for awhile and to enjoy the sensation of being surrounded by a warm ocean filled with food and then I informed them I was opening another link and to follow that as well. I then established contact with the very different appearing force-field like psychic network surrounding our ship, the Silverspin.

As they wondered at the very different looking shape and content of the two different appearing structures, I zeroed in on our ship's and the bright appearing nodes there in, with each node representing each of us starting with grandfather's. As I did so, it was clear it was grandfather from his bright aura, which he wore comfortably like an old sweater. Drew's was next, and his aura was again clearly recognizable and it too appeared to be a comfortable fit. Dad's was next, but it was less settled and more fluid-like, perhaps reflecting his initial problems with control when his ability manifested.

It was then that I sensed my dad should have been a level four telepath but had initially wasted time when he first came into his ability and his ability had fallen just short. Kade's aura was also distinctly his own and looked very 'settled' and serene with just a smattering of tingeing yellow indicating some uneasiness being on display. I then showed them Hal's aura, which was a solid glowing soft shade of dark magenta. Steady as a light bulb.

Finally, I showed them my aura as it appeared on the ship's psychic network. Again it was clearly mine, but it appeared as a bright blue diamond with intricately cut facets that seemed to radiate color and light. It was a revelation to me as well as I had never really looked at my aura from an external point of view. I sensed that my family was seeing it in clearer detail as well, and there was some hint of surprise in each of them.

I then changed the focus to again look at the ship's psychic network as a whole and then used that to orient it with the shape of the ship inside. When I did that Hal spoke up: {Can you hold that view for minute so I can tag it? It will be helpful to me in orienting where each of you are located as you move about the ship.}

{Sort of like I use the framework of the shark's network on earth}, I agreed. Then at the questioning looks from my family, I explained how I used the shark's network when working back on all the tagged threads I had established on Earth checking for problems and how that sped up the process in spatially locating the targets.

I then slowly went over again the process for sensing the ship's psychic network so that everyone in the family could be sure of the process I used. Then I announced I would be terminating the common link so they could each try individually. I did, and they did and each achieved success with no problems. I was monitoring each of them openly so they knew that I was. I observed my grandfather use the network to do a general scan of those crewmembers still aboard ship. Hal was using the network to supplement his scans of outside probes from the Magellan and all the ships docked there by checking to see if there were any psychic probes directed at the ship. Dad and Kade were using the network to study each other's aura from an outside point-of-view, which they found intriguing. Drew was using the network to see if he could deep scan me with no success.

Hal however, sounded an alarm and I focused on what he was doing and discovered what his concern was. I brought the others into a shared link and they all could see the cause for alarm. Clearly, there were two telepaths on the Magellan who were trying to monitor what was going on aboard the Silverspin. Hal identified them as a pair of twin brothers, Jake and Josh from the Hall family, one of the “outed” families in thrall to the government. The interesting finding about the twins was that they combined their ability to extend it in a way I had never heard of before. I pointed it out to the others and they too were intrigued. We checked and our personal shields had not been compromised. I then looked at the ship's psychic network and saw that as we had reflexively tightened our personal shields, the ship's ball shaped dark blue force field appearance became even denser and slightly darker.

The family histories information on Jake and Josh Hall indicated they were born in 2700 and were going to be 34 years old in February and they were each high level three telepaths. Hal asked if I could scan them without alerting them to it and I accepted the challenge. They were unknown entities and were apparently working in unison as a single entity with neither actually being in charge, but instead seemed to work from a merged personality. As a merged personality they were almost a level five telepath. Certainly higher level fours than any other including my grandfather that I had encountered. Therefore, I approached them very carefully.

I found their shared shields very complex and interwoven, with multiple redundancies and safeguards but after some deep concentration on my part, they did not present an insurmountable challenge. However, I did proceed carefully probing very discretely and imperceptibly and found they were very frustrated in their attempt to monitor our ship. For starters, most of the crew were on shore leave and had left the station to visit Earth, which they found unusual for cargo ship crews. What they did not know was that our crewmembers were more experienced than the usual crew. They were also paid fairly well because of that experience and with our usual itineraries did not have many opportunities to spend their money. Finally, most of our crew were from Earth and therefore had extended family members they could visit with a place to stay.

Finally, as they were completely unable to detect any individuals at all on board our ship, they wondered if there was some kind of shield that could block them. That worried them and made them suspicious that there might really be telepaths on board. As a combined level four, they were not used to being unable to scan anyone on a non-military ship. I probed deeper and found they were tasked with trying to find all they could about our ship and two other cargo ships. They had started that morning and were still trying to find a way through so as to scan the remaining crew onboard. The other ships however, were fairly accessible to them and they had found nothing suspicious about them.

I then looked around the shared personality and noted the twins were really two halves of a whole. They had been inseparable since birth and always dressed alike. They did not even think of themselves as Jake and Josh but rather thought of themselves as JJ. They were finishing each other’s sentences since they began to talk. They had come into their ability just after their twenty-first birthday. They had also been sharing their beds and their bodies as long as they could remember. As identical twins they intuitively understood each other and becoming telepathically linked seemed natural to them. They grew up knowing if they became telepathic that they would have to work for the government and were resigned to that. However, it was December 30th and they wanted to be on Earth and be able to attend a New Years Eve party the next evening with their friends and not stuck on Magellan.

I withdrew and filled my family in on what I had found. Grandfather looked around the room and then looked at dad and said, “I think you should send out a message to all the crew that our departure date has been moved up to January third and to be aboard by the end of day on January second. Also, notify the authorities on Magellan of our changed departure date.”

Dad looked around to see if there were any other ideas or issues to discuss about the proposal, but we were all nodding our agreement that we should leave as soon as was practical. Dad then went to the desk and sent a message to the remaining crew on board that we were changing our plans and would be departing from Magellan by the evening of January third. He then told Hal who was monitoring our conversations to send out the electronic recall message to the remainder of the crew through their personal com units and to notify the medical section that all returning crew members were to be medically examined and scanned like we had been.

In the meantime I had reestablished my scan of the twins and also reestablished my view of the ship's psychic network and watched as JJ tried again and again to thread a telepathic link into our ship. Since I could see their attempted entry point, I then looked at the ship's psychic network to see if I could sense the tendril as it approached the ship and found that I could. Hal who was monitoring sent to me privately {well done!} Indeed the psychic link engendered by those of us on the ship did provide a sort of point defense that did not block but rather deflected away any contact that was unexpected or appeared intrusive to the talents on board. And that was the source of the twins’ frustration. They could not sense any active blocking, just that they were unsuccessful.

With that reassuring finding, I decided to do a general scan of Magellan to see if there were any other perceived threats directed at Silverspin or my family there. I also wanted to test if there were any ships capable of deflecting my delicate probes like our ship seemed to. I informed the family what I was doing and with Hal continuing as my monitor, I started my scan. Magellan was huge and had thousands of ships docked there and it was almost as daunting as when I first started to scan Earth. Thankfully, I had a lot more experience than when I first started and some organizing ideas as how to approach the problem. I planned to first do a general scan of the resident population of the station. Then I planned to scan the delivery and supply ships for the station; then the commercial passenger liners docked at the station; then the cargo ships; and lastly, the military ships.

My family left me to my chore and went about organizing our more immediate departure. Just doing a general scan of the station was time consuming and somewhat surprising in overlap to my scan of the planet as several hundred people I had scanned on the planet were now on Magellan. Looking deeper I found that many of the station personnel had taken a vacation home prior to Christmas and then returned after that holiday so that others could take vacation over the New Year's holiday. People with ties to companies run by previously identified threats were also more deeply scanned and that took more time as well. While still scanning Magellan, my grandfather returned to his cabin with a tray of food for my lunch which I appreciated as I continued to work while eating.

I followed my plan and things went fairly well until I got to the military ships and encountered something I had not experienced previously. When I scanned a military ship, I got a background annoying buzzing sensation that I could not filter. I worried that I was tripping alarms but that did not seem to be the case. I asked Hal if he could explain what was going on and he speculated that since the military ships were all very heavily shielded with all kinds of material as well as military grade electronic counter-measures that the buzzing sensation was a psychic reflection of that. It made sense but the scanning was slowed by the annoyance it caused. I also found that the larger ships were more annoying. As I was tiring, I decided to finish the next day and left grandfather's cabin to go do my work-out before supper.

Again the work out room was nearly full and I threw myself into it as a release after hours of sitting and just using my thoughts and ability. It felt good and I again pushed myself into extra repetitions. I did notice some exercise results with slight extra definition to my build. Working out at fifty percent gravity was a lot different even with the machines adjusted for the greater gravity and I was sweating freely when I finished. I was the last one into the showers and rushed through it and got dressed in a clean uniform and headed to the dining room.

Everyone had arrived before me and had waited. We ate family style and grandfather passed the platter with sliced roasted lamb and all the side dishes. I took my usual large helpings and passed the plates on as we filled our plates and then began the pleasant task of making the delicious food disappear. Dessert was a mint flavored warm pudding of some sort, which I scarfed up as well. Afterward, the family members again adjourned to my grandfather's cabin where we brought each other up-to-date on our activities since this morning.

My dad and the chief accountant were all set to talk to the lawyer and had all the documentation in order. The actual material was to be shipped to a planet side storage area under the control of the lawyers' firm and would go down in our shuttle which was picking up my cousins and their uncle the lawyer. While dad and Mark Spencer met with the lawyer, I was charged with getting my cousins settled and their cabins squared away. Kade and Drew meanwhile would be busy every day just getting everything ready for the ship to leave on the third.

I filled them in on what I had found so far which thankfully wasn't much and also told them of the problem I had when scanning the military ships. Grandfather informed me that he had tried to scan for people aboard military ships in the past and stated he could not get past the noise they seemed to broadcast and was surprised that I could scan them at all. I informed him I had only scanned about twenty ships when I decided I had enough for the day and would finish tomorrow. I also reported I had avoided the larger military ships as they were worse but I was determined to finished.

We finished and I returned to my cabin and stripped and headed to my shower to relieve some tension. My rock show shower never fails and I let rip a huge load and then just stood in the shower and let it relax me. When I exited the shower several minutes later I decided to meditate for an hour, which subjectively passed extremely quickly.

I then headed directly to bed and lay back relaxed but feeling intensely alert. I thought about the event filled days since we arrived at Magellan, which were so different from the routine of our regular experience in space and wondered if we could recapture that sense of normalcy. I then turned to the problem of the irritating buzz sensation when I scanned a military ship and replayed my last scan in my mind and tried to pinpoint what the stimulus was that was provoking that irritating buzz. Nothing seemed to come to me.

Finally, I tried thinking about it as a telekinesis problem and when I thought about it that way I thought I could see a way to counter the buzzing sensation. Then, I wondered if I could do that at my end without somehow actually setting off some sort of alarm. I considered it for some time and decided that if I only implemented my solution at my end of the scan and not something that was projected then I should be safe and remain undetected.

Satisfied, I rolled over and fell into a deep sleep and again dreamed of a dark blue velvet like cloth falling across my conscious mind pierced by brilliant points of stars like a spill of diamonds.