I forced myself to turn off the holo, went to my bedroom, and floated in the warm air of the sleep field thinking about the situation. Lottery had weighted the odds in Forge’s favour, so he was one of the two hundred or so candidates imprinted for Strike team. The process hadn’t stopped then, because Adika had been impressed enough to choose him as one of his twenty preferred candidates for the Alpha team.
It hadn’t stopped then, but it was going to stop right now. I could reject anyone in my unit, and I was going to reject Forge. You don’t argue with the telepath, so Adika would just accept my decision and replace Forge with a reserve candidate. He’d be surprised though, and might ask what I’d seen in Forge’s record that made me reject him.
I could bend the truth, say I’d met Forge on Teen Level and hadn’t liked him, but a comment like that from a telepath might hurt Forge’s future career. He’d been allocated one of the highest prestige positions in Law Enforcement, and I was going to take it away from him. I mustn’t wreck his other chances as well.
Anyway, I daren’t admit I’d known Forge on Teen Level. Lucas was already shying away from having a relationship with me because he expected me to dump him for some member of my Strike team. He wouldn’t miss the implications of the Lottery results for my physical preferences in men matching someone I’d known on Teen Level.
I’d seen all the rapidly changing moods of Lucas’s mind. His excitement as his thoughts raced on a multitude of different levels to solve a work related puzzle. How he’d glow with boundless self-confidence at the moment he found the solution. The way all that brightness could suddenly darken and fold in on itself when he remembered a girl mocking him on Teen Level.
Lucas’s ego was very fragile when it came to relationships. At the slightest hint that there’d been something special between me and Forge, Lucas would assume my future was decided, and retreat behind an unassailable wall of his insecurities.
I could keep the past out of this by claiming I didn’t like the birthmark on Forge’s face. Shanna had kept complaining about that one slight imperfection in his good looks, and I could pretend I felt the same. Surely no one could blame Forge for a telepath disliking his birthmark.
I stood up, my mind automatically reaching ahead of me to where the now familiar shape, taste, sound of Adika’s thoughts hung in the black silence, and then sat down again. Adika was with Megan. He was about to make a huge mistake that Megan might never forgive.
I hadn’t expected Adika to push things with Megan this fast. I hadn’t allowed for the fact he was a Strike team leader, used to acting swiftly and decisively. If I’d realized, I could have stopped this, warned him that Megan was still raw with grief for her husband, so approaching her now would only distress both of them.
It was too late to warn him now, and was I entitled to do that anyway? What were the boundary lines here? Even Megan didn’t know that I’d seen her deepest, most private feelings about her husband. I should surely keep that knowledge strictly confidential.
The problem was that I didn’t want either Adika or Megan to get hurt. I was relieved that I hadn’t known about this in advance, because it would have been hard to stand silently by and let the pair of them walk off an emotional cliff.
… stinging pain on my cheek from Megan’s slap. I’ve just shot myself in the foot. Time to pull back and regroup. I could use a Tactical Commander telling me how to …
I surfaced from Adika’s mind, both confused and startled. I hadn’t even realized I was inside his head until I felt Megan’s slap.
First lesson, it was dangerously easy for me to drift from thinking about a familiar mind to reading it. Second lesson, I didn’t just experience other people’s feelings as if they were my own, I felt their pain the same way. That was … ominous.
This obviously wasn’t a good time to talk to Adika, so I postponed the job of rejecting Forge until the next day. For the rest of the evening, I fought the temptation to play the holo of Forge again. I won that battle, but it was an empty victory. When I went to sleep that night, I had the Forge dream.
It was the first time I’d dreamed it in Hive Futura, and it seemed somehow clearer, brighter, more sharply defined. I could smell the tang of pine on the air, and hear the dry leaves crunching under my feet. My eyes were dazzled by the bright light, it was hot, unbearably hot, and I was sobbing from fear until Forge said the magic words that made everything right.
“Good girl, Amber. You’re a good girl, Amber.”
I woke up in a glow of happiness, and knew that I wouldn’t talk to Adika. If I didn’t allow Forge on my Strike team, it would make him unhappy. He wouldn’t be pleased. He wouldn’t say I was a good girl. I should get rid of Adika instead, and make Forge my Strike team leader. Forge would like that.
No, maybe Forge wouldn’t like that. Stray remnants of reason warned me that Forge might be highly embarrassed to be thrust into Adika’s shoes, and everyone would ask a lot of awkward questions. At the beginning, Forge would be happier as a Strike team member. Later on, Adika would want two deputy team leaders.
I rolled out of the sleep field, and hurried to check the records on Adika’s data cube. Most of the candidates were only imprinted for Strike team member, but five were imprinted for Strike team leader. Kaden, Rothan, Matias, Eli, and Forge!
I smiled. That solved everything. I’d tell Adika to make Forge deputy leader in charge of Alpha team. Adika would do what I told him, just the way Mira’s Strike team leader had chosen the deputies she wanted. Later on, when he had enough experience, Forge could take over Adika’s position.
The happy haze of imagining how pleased Forge would be lasted for several hours. After that, I started wondering if I’d totally lost control of my own mind. I absolutely must tell Adika to reject Forge. The flaw in that plan was that I was bound to have the dream again. The minute I woke up from it, I knew I’d go dashing back to Adika, saying I’d changed my mind and insisting he should put Forge on the team again.
I had to think carefully before I did anything at all. I needed to make sense of the way I was reacting to Forge. If I couldn’t make sense of it myself, then I’d have to ask for help, but I knew exactly how Lucas would react to my story. He was a Tactical Commander, imprinted with information on psychology and behavioural analysis techniques, an expert in taking the clues of odd behaviour and determining the reasons behind them. His mind would work like a machine at the mystery of my reaction to Forge, the same way it had worked on the mystery of why true telepaths shouldn’t meet, but his emotions would take it as a personal rejection.
That triggered a new thought. Perhaps those two mysteries were linked. Perhaps true telepaths affected each other in the same way that Forge affected me. As a small child, I’d learnt to block the massed thoughts around me, but the stronger thoughts of another telepath might have been able to get through my defences.
If Forge’s thoughts and feelings had been hitting me telepathically when I was on Teen Level, it would explain my fixation on making him happy. Lottery would never have missed discovering Forge if he was a true telepath, but he could be a borderline telepath. Megan kept telling me that borderline telepaths could only get random glimpses into other minds. If Forge’s random glimpses had come at the wrong times, the Lottery tests wouldn’t have detected him.
I was feeling a lot calmer now. If Forge was a borderline telepath, it would explain everything. I should stop worrying about him being on my Strike team until I was back in the Hive. Once I met Forge again, and read his mind, I’d know if my theory was right.
Chapter Eleven
A week later, I was stepping back into the aircraft that had brought me to Hive Futura. I was eager to return home to our own Hive, but the thought of the journey was scaring me to death. I fought to hide that, trying to appear calm and collected as I chose a seat and sat down.
“You could be sedated for the journey, Amber,” said Megan.
Waste it! My terror must be blatantly obvious.
“It’s
better if Amber stays awake for the journey,” said Lucas. “If she has a problem approaching the huge mind density of the Hive, she can warn us and we can turn back.”
“That’s true,” Megan admitted.
Lucas grabbed the seat between me and the wall, and Adika sat behind me. Megan pointedly sat in front of me to avoid being near Adika, and Fran took the seat next to her. I saw Fran lean across to whisper something in Megan’s ear, but couldn’t hear what she said, and resisted the urge to read Megan’s mind to find out. Since the face slapping incident, Adika and Megan had only had minimal, coolly professional contact with each other, while Fran seemed to be getting increasingly friendly with Megan.
Hannah waited nervously until her superiors were settled, before taking a seat two rows in front of Megan and Fran. I could understand someone who was Level 57 preferring to keep her distance from a group of Level 1 people.
“We could uncover the window and enjoy the view,” suggested Lucas.
I glanced at the square metal plate on the wall, shuddered, and shook my head. This aircraft was about to leave Hive Futura. We’d be flying through the air, and on the other side of that thin metal plate would be the terrifying Truesun.
“Lucas! Don’t you dare remove any of the window covers,” said Megan. “Amber’s already nervous about the flight.”
There was a faint squeak from in front of me, which told me Hannah was as terrified as me by the idea of seeing Outside. Adika was never going to embarrass himself by squeaking, but I caught the tension in his thoughts too, as he fervently wished that Lucas would shut up.
Lucas sighed. “The environment Outside isn’t innately hostile, it’s merely unfamiliar. There’s an initial agoraphobic reaction due to the increased scale of the surroundings, but that’s easily overcome.”
“We’ve no reason to be interested in Outside,” said Fran. “The Hive is our whole world and provides everything we need. A few unfortunate maintenance workers may be required to go Outside to perform tasks necessary to the Hive, but the rest of us can shelter within the perfect safety of its walls.”
For once, I was totally on Fran’s side against Lucas, though her tone of voice reminded me of a disapproving school teacher. Lucas must have been thinking the same thing, because he laughed and spoke in a pretentiously smug voice.
“Now children, let’s all sit on the floor in a circle and hold hands while we sing Hive Duty song number ten. ‘The Hive Is Our World.’”
Fran swung round in her seat to frown at him. “Lucas, you shouldn’t mock the Hive Duty songs. Don’t you realize their importance?”
He gave her an unrepentant grin. “I know their importance far better than you do, Fran. My imprint includes full details of the part that school plays in socially conditioning children to be conformist and productive members of the Hive.”
“Then why make fun of the Hive Duty songs?” Adika joined in the attack.
“Because that social conditioning may be desirable for 99 per cent of Hive members,” said Lucas, “but our role in the Hive puts us in the small minority who need to step beyond the comforting lies and the songs and the myths. Nosies are fakes. The Hive isn’t a totally safe place. It isn’t the whole world either. We’re in a different Hive right now, and as for having no reason to be interested in Outside … Waste it, this aircraft will be flying Outside in a minute!”
I didn’t need reminding of that fact. I was already far too terrifyingly conscious of it. I was strongly tempted to order Adika to tie Lucas up and gag him, an order that I knew would be gladly obeyed, but Megan hastily changed the subject.
“We’re heading back much too soon. Amber’s only spent three weeks training in Hive Futura. Keith was here for far longer.”
“The main Hive is a much more secure location.” Adika lounged back in his seat, nearly as relieved as me by the new topic of conversation.
I was carefully avoiding reading Lucas’s mind, but I dipped into Adika’s head and was shocked by what I saw. I’d picked up that Adika was edgy about me being at Hive Futura, but the undercurrent of his thoughts had never explicitly stated why he wanted me back in the security of our own Hive. Now I could see it clearly. He wanted me back there before other Hives learnt about my existence.
“Another Hive might try to kidnap me?”
“There’s no need to worry, Amber,” said Lucas. “Adika is in charge of unit security, so he’s paranoid about protecting you. A Hive without any telepaths might well be desperate, but hardly desperate enough to try kidnapping one. Hive Treaty was set up specifically to prevent problems like territory violations and kidnappings, and no Hive would dare to breach Treaty.”
If Adika was paranoid about protecting me physically, Megan was equally obsessed with protecting my health and wellbeing. She stubbornly returned to her original point.
“Amber has progressed much faster than Keith, but going from being near a handful of minds to being near a hundred million is …”
I interrupted to save time. “If I have a problem, I’ll say so immediately and we’ll turn back.”
The room suddenly began to vibrate and Lucas took my hand. I hung on gratefully, and tried to think about anything other than where I was and what was happening. I was tensely aware of the closeness of the unfamiliar mind of our pilot, and the importance of not reading his thoughts. Our pilot would have been selected by Lottery as capable of coping with the sight of Outside, but I couldn’t risk seeing through his eyes.
I warily checked Lucas’s mind, and found he’d forgotten about the window and Outside. His thoughts were on our relationship now. He was convinced that I’d have no interest in him once I met my Strike team, and was regretting that I’d listened to him, done things his way, and kept my distance.
Waste it! Better a few days than nothing but too late now. I’ll never have another chance with a girl who can really understand what I’m saying.
The vibration eased, but I could feel the room around me moving in a peculiar way. I was Outside in a fragile metal box, hanging in the air below the Truesun. I stared at the back of Fran’s head, trying to distract myself from my fear.
The situation with Fran was becoming a serious problem. When I accepted her as my Liaison team leader, I’d believed I would be in total control of my telepathy, picking and choosing what minds I read and when. Now I’d learned that opening up my telepathic view of the world was like opening my eyes on a room full of people. I couldn’t choose to see certain faces and not others. Even worse than that, thinking about a familiar person could be enough to link me to their mind.
I couldn’t change the way my telepathy worked to suit Fran, and I mustn’t even try, because this was what my Hive needed from me. Telepathy had to be as automatic to me as breathing if I was to search through a multitude of minds to find the single wild bee, and I needed to be able to link to the minds of my Strike team members with split-second speed if I was to help keep them safe.
I’d managed to avoid trespassing in Fran’s mind so far. I worked hard at keeping my mental gaze directed away from her, and pulled guiltily away whenever I accidentally touched her defensive surface thoughts. It was a constant struggle though, and caused added problems. Spending so much time with Lucas had trained me to expand people’s words by instinctively reading extra details in their head. Communicating with Fran, limited to just hearing words, felt like groping my way along a corridor blindfolded.
I didn’t want to give in and fire Fran at this point though. Firing her wouldn’t just cause problems for my unit, but give a victory to the part of me that hated telepaths, and strengthen the voices of self-loathing that nagged at me in moments of weakness.
Besides, I was finally seeing some signs that Fran’s attitudes towards telepaths, or at least towards me, were shifting. She’d seemed far less antagonistic towards me during the last week, joining Adika in disapproving of Lucas’s light-hearted clown act. I guessed that she was being influenced by Megan’s attitude to telepaths.
Once
we were in my Telepath Unit, surrounded by people who accepted me as a telepath, I hoped that Fran would give in and accept me too. She’d be the lone hater of telepaths in my unit, because I’d learned my lesson. I wasn’t going to accept anyone who shared Fran’s attitudes.
I was still brooding on the Fran situation, when I sensed a whispering in the distance. Was that our Hive? I closed my eyes to concentrate better, and reached out cautiously to explore it, but the mind mass was too far away to distinguish any details. I watched it slowly grow nearer, bigger, louder.
Megan’s voice disturbed my concentration. “Amber, please wake up. You should start sensing the Hive soon. Tell me at once if you have problems.”
I opened my eyes. “I wasn’t asleep. I’ve been … listening … to the Hive. It’s hard to describe what that’s like in words.”
“No appropriate vocabulary available,” said Lucas.
I nodded. “Exactly. I borrow words from other senses – sight, smell, sound, touch, taste – but none of them are exactly right. Anyway, the Hive mind is like a hundred million conversations blurring into each other. Noisy, but in a way restful, like the waves on Teen Level beach, or a fountain, or the humming of bees.”
That reminded me of something. “During Lottery, I had a dream about bees. Their humming was reassuring me. I think I was hearing the Hive mind then.”
I closed my eyes again, and listened to the humming grow closer. There was the vibration of the aircraft landing, and the background hum enfolded me like a warm, comforting blanket. I was back in my Hive. I was home. I was safe.
No, I corrected myself. Things were actually the other way round. I’d been safe in Hive Futura, but not any longer. It was now that the real test of being a telepath would begin. It was now that I’d find out if I was like Morton or York, like Sapphire or Olivia, whether I would cope with the challenges ahead of me or break under the strain.