So here we were. Our task was to find and rescue as many fugitives from the Old Ones as possible.
It was no easy job, and to accomplish it, we had only the four of us and Ship. We were not in direct contact with the Alliance for fear that the Starheads might trace signals back to our base and thereupon wreak destruction.
I desisted from my exercises and greeted my ship-mates as they left their cubes and entered the control room one by one.
First there came my younger brother, whom Ship had designated navigator and now we used this title instead of his actual name. It is best to call him Navigator in this narrative in case information might be gleaned from his own name. Though he is younger than I, he is more muscled and usually bests me in the pan-agon arena where we exercise martially. Still, I have been designated Captain and he must receive my orders, which he does mostly patiently and sometimes not. His duty is to cooperate with Ship to keep knowledgeable of our spatial locations, of the happenstances in our space environment, and to locate and trace the movements upon the planetary surface of any Remnants we might contact.
My sister, who is only slightly younger than me, Ship names Doctor because it is her duty to tend the health of us three others. She monitors not only illness but also signs of emotional disturbance and of sudden, untoward changes in our mental states. She must keep watch that the thoughtprobes of Starheads do not disrupt our minds or displace them completely to make us to be crawlers and droolers, bereft of rationality, trying to do away with ourselves and with one another. She is always glancing at graph-screens and listening to corporal rhythms that Ship relays to her about our bodilies.
My youngest sister we call Seeker, a name not so pretty by far as her own true name. I should not write so here, perhaps, but she is my favorite person in the cosmos and also she is the favorite of all the crew. Whereas Navigator and Doctor are largish of corpus and darkly haired and complected, Seeker is as white as a gleaming mineral and her skin seems to glow, almost. Her eyes are green but become violet-like of color when she makes mind contact with others. Her hair is silver silk. All female telepaths belong to this physical type, Ship says, or at least the hominids do, though I believe none others universally can be so pretty as Seeker.
Her duty is the most demanding, for she must make mind contact with a Remnant group and persuade it to come to a place within the planet where we can guide them and let them know we are not perilous and mean them no injury and that we are all trying to escape and hide from the Old Ones now and maybe in time to come grow strong and do them grievous hurt so that the cosmos will not be only Starheads and their slaves and nothing else that thinks and feels.
Here now they stood before me, the three, still a little wrinkled in spirit from deepsleep and slightly confused. But they answered cheeringly when I spoke to each and congratulated on wakefulness. “Do we all know what is to come?” I asked.
They said Yes.
Then Ship directed us to the small mess hall and we partook solid food instead of veinous alongside some happy water and were much refreshed.
Then we returned to control and set up our routines.
Millions and millions of light years we had traveled, Ship had informed Navigator. Our vessel, disguised as a comparatively leisurely meteor, had skated across the orbit of the fourth planet and soon would pass the single moon of the third planet.
Navigator suggested that we call this third planet Terra, a word from an ancient and long deceased speech known as Latin. “We cannot very well call it Earth,” he said. “All home planets are earths. Confusion must ensue.”
“Terra is sound,” I said. “Soon we shall be in its farther gravitation and perhaps Seeker can begin to search for whispers or traces of hominid Remnant mentation.”
“I shall begin when our approach is closer,” she said.
“It would require powerful amplification of telepathic signal to scan the surface from here. Amplification of such magnitude the Starheads would notice.”
“Now that we are in the Terran sun-system, let us call them Old Ones,” I said. “We do not wish to confuse the Remnant group when we make contact.”
“Very well, Captain,” she said. She wore a pretty smile when she said that. I thought how it was or seemed un-right that she, the smallest and most delicate of the crew, must perform the most difficult duties and engage the greatest risks. After all the millions of light years we had traversed through underspace, Seeker must calibrate her last tasks in terms of English yards, feet, inches and fractions of inches. It is a little like, I thought, leaping from an immensely tall tower and coming to rest lightly upon a grain of sand. While she was doing so, distractions would be taking place violently.
If any of us others could have done it for her, we would so, but we lacked the telepathic talents that are hers. We each possessed rudimentary telepathic ability, as Ship says that almost every intelligence must own, and Ship is able to link us tenuously with Seeker when necessary, but each faint contact is not voluptuously profitable. None could take Seeker’s place, but we would be aiding in all possible ways, and eagerly too.
I read through the long list of protocols and drills that Ship inscribed on my screens and during the next eight waking periods, I went through them with the crew until it would no longer help to do so.
Thereafter we rested and played games among us, though Seeker and Ship kept alert.
Then on the next watch, Seeker reported that she detected mental activity nothing like that of the Old Ones. It was a small group hiding away, she said, three or four of them. Of three she was certain, but the fourth was unclear. One of the three was a telepath, sending strange, nearly random signaling, though of course not directed at Seeker. “This telepath is un-normal of mind,” she said. She wrinkled her brow as she bent to her screens and scopes and auditories. Her console and all its instruments were nervily active, blinking and trilling, and her hands fluttered over them like white ribbons wafting in strong air convection.
“Is the Terran telepath deranged?” I asked.
“I do not know,” Seeker said, and Doctor said, “Not exactly deranged.” She was busy at her instruments also. Her console was collecting medical information from Seeker’s instruments and filtering for Doctor.
“What then?” I asked.
She hesitated then said, “I believe the Terran term is autistic.”
“Autistic?” I said.
She paused again, listening, and then repeated what Ship told her screen: “Autistic defines a mental condition or disposition lacking ability to generalize and to form conclusions aiding useful or even necessary actions. It is marked by a profound, imprisoning subjectivity. Many autistic individuals possess rudimentary telepathic capacities; some of them are well advanced in the talent.”
“Profound, imprisoning subjectivity sounds like derangement,” I said. “Is this autist able to travel distances?”
She studied for a while and then replied. “I think so, yes. But it will be difficult for her.”
“The telepath is female?”
“Yes, a she.”
“Being autistic, does she know she is telepathic?” I asked Seeker.
She studied. “We are too far. I cannot read. She may be mind-linked to a slave organism.”
“That does not bode good,” I said.
“We need to be nearer.” Her face wrinkled as she concentrated and I recalled her description of the difficulties of receiving such mental fields or auras and the messaging therein. “It is like trying to feel a photon with a fingertip,” she said. We marveled at that notion, Doctor and I. Navigator only shook his head impatiently. I think that he is sometimes a little envious of Seeker’s abilities. It is good he keeps good temper, for if we quarreled and made spats, our concentration would suffer harm.