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The
Psi Strata
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Chapter 2
1. Vicar Wexli
psionically drifted through
the ether while his body remained in the shellwatch temple at the
Spearpierce compound. All Guards rotated through shellwatch to
search for distressed shellans and psionic anomalies. This
enabled the Guard to keep a pulse on the shell's psionic health and to
dispatch assistance when needed.
2.
He honed in on a curious development: A shellan has just
entered a pawn shop and wants to sell what looks like a grenade.
It is a grenade. The
store owner is humored by the grenade but can't meet the seller's
asking price. The negotiation fails. The seller pulls the
pin on the grenade and asks, "How much is it worth now?"
3. Vicar Miles,
drifts into
Wexli's event, "That's a compelling technique," Miles observed.
The store owner withdrawals 1,000 credits from his drawer and hands it
to the seller. The seller takes the credits along with his
grenade. As he exits, he tosses the grenade back inside
and runs away. Nobody pursues. Everyone takes
cover.
4.
The patrons hold their breath for a long time before a kid bravely
inspects the
grenade and announces, "It's a dud!" The shop owner is pissed,
"Get that Jolvian swine!" he shouts. Wexli breathes a sigh of
relief. "I'll go find the prankster," Miles offers. "Yes,"
Wexli nods,
"Thanks." Miles will follow up and
dispatch the authorities.
5. Fish
was not a delicacy on Vejhon, but the fishing industry was one industry
operated mostly by non-shellans. Off-shellers thrived in costal
regions and often brought their off-shell traditions with them.
"Why do they come here?" Wexli asked himself. 'Cultured
shellans have no use for sea water,' came a choral response from
at least 500 souls who were unconsciously listening. That happens
when a Guard's thoughts get too loud.
6. "I
think
I just caught a Jolvian," Wexli said.
It was perfectly legal for Jolvians to visit Vejhon, but the Jolvians
were a
unique breed of reptile; very attractive with white scales and glowing
blue eyes.
7. Jolvians could pixillate their scales to blend into any
background and immobilize their prey with hypnotic subliminal
suggestion.
8. The
Jolvians had survived cultural struggles for millinia. For them,
it was a badge of honor to successfully evade the Psionic
Guard.
9. Wexli
entered the Jolvian's mind,
"What's your expedition number?" The Jolvian de-pixillated to
indicate embarassment and resignation. "Don't take it
so hard," Wexli consolled, "How long were you here?" "This was my
last day," the young Jolvian replied. That meant it was his 10th
day visiting illegally. The two governments had worked something
out.
10. "Who's
your High Up?" Wexli
asked. The kid made a glottal sound that Wexli recognized.
"I know him!" Wexli replied, "one of the very best!
Technically..." Wexli added, "you passed -- this is your 10th
day. I found you too late." The kid disappeared.
Gone. "Anyone get a pinprick in the shell somewhere?" Wexli asked
out loud. "He's back aboard his ship," came an anonymous
reply. When feedback synched, the source was rarely
questioned. "Thanks," Wexli said.
11.
As the sovereign
custodians of shell health and psionic virtue, the Guard absorbed the
thoughts and affection of adorning
fans into one polar extreme, like a river flows into the sea. The
Guard protects all who align with them. Some shellans
wear a talisman of their favorite Guard for luck and protection.
12. Unlike faith in galactic legends, the Psionic Guard is
composed of live, tangible beings who can help in
times of need -- Saints who roam the shell.
13.
"It looks like Blue Funnel closed on another system," Miles said, who
was drifting through the financial district at Balipor. The
financial district was an intergalactic duty-free zone with no known
oversight. Anything under Zena could be bartered there.
The Blue Funnel banking conglomerate runs the financial
infrastructure on virtually every shell in the Universe and maintains a
prestigious consulate in the quarter.
14. The absense
of Psionic Guards in
the financial district gave Blue Funnel carte blanche. It also
provided the Psionic Guard with a plethora of intergalactic
intelligence that could not be gleaned better via direct covert
effort. Wexli
drifted into Miles' event this time.
15. A young
protégé was presenting a
portfolio of the new system to Blue Funnel's CEO. "About,
another septillion credits," the protégé said
proudly. The CEO nodded sternly in approval, "Very good! Do
you have design concepts for their new currency?" The
protégé pressed a button on his PDA and several
holographic examples appeared above the CEO's desk. He studied
the cultural significance of the artwork, "Lots of water there," he
commented.
16. The CEO
pressed a button on his desk to deactivate the hologram and leaned back
in his chair. Blue Funnel maintained unrequited contempt for the
Psionic Guard, because the Guard restricted their influence to the
quarter. Everywhere else, officials and entire governments could
be bought. Not on Vejhon, thanks to the Psionic
Guard.
17.
The fraud of selling debt and recapitalizing on credit worked
everywhere except here. Vejhon's notes could be exchanged for
hard
currency, which was unheard of elsewhere. Off-shell, Blue
Funnel had a different name according to each world's financial
architecture. Citizens believe
that their money is operated by their governments, rather than
owned by foreign private investors. The deception works by
printing "Federal Reserve Note" on each IOU. Smoke and
mirrors.
18. "We can't possibly be the only shell that opted out of this abysmal
scheme," Wexli moaned in disgust. "Nothing unusual going on
here," Miles added. "Oh my!" Miles amended, "Guess what the kid
is?" Miles had a boyish manner when he got excited.
Wexli was fast: Only one creature could have provoked that kind of
exuberance from Miles. "SGK?" Wexli guessed. A Seven
Gates Kid.
19. "You got it!" Miles answered, "it's one of ours."
SGK's are financial savants owned by the Seven Gates
Corporation. It was not illegal for a corporation to adopt
children, but Seven Gates was the only corporation that
did. They were fiercely protective of Vejhon's fiscal
infrastructure, so
the Psionic Guard left them to their own warrants and devices;
unvested, but well protected. "Guards
Bless them!" Wexli said. It was now confirmed that Seven Gates
had infiltrated
Blue Funnel, "Finally!"
20. The only station more prestigious than SGK was
The Psionic Guard, which placed the Psionic Guard Director at the very
top of Vejhon's food chain.
21. No
place on Vejhon is off-limits to a Psionic Guard, to include the
President's office at
Balipor. A Guard may traverse industrial concerns and military
facilities at will. The only places they avoid are private
bedrooms
and the financial
district; which they avoid on
purpose.
22.
Guards never transgress customs and courtesies
unless they have good
reason, and when such reason arises, a Psionic Guard is his own
warrant. The mere presence of a Psionic Guard at any occasion
automatically transfers control to the
Guard; which compels them to avoid unnecessary public mingling.
They 'see' and 'feel' quite well from wherever they are.
23. Guards
are associated with diety, so shellans swear
"by the Guards," to
underscore earnestness, and for the pedestrian utility of
swearing.
Their monogram is the same symbol used by mathematicians and physicists
to identify an, "absolute."
24. Not everyone
who is capable of becoming a Psionic Guard,
chooses to do so. But nobody believes that.
DANIEL'S
DREAM
24.
Daniel
felt a direct kinship to the Light Race that had hewn out
the many caverns within Sunova. He would often trek to the
library and wonder why the Light Race needed a library. The
cavern was disc-shaped and terraced with a mysterious unfinished alcove
at the far end. "Was it a statement of imperfection?" he wondered
-- it was the only blemish within Sunova. There were loose pieces
of the collapsed matter in the alcove, virtually impossible for most
biologicals to move.
25. Daniel
could not begin to imagine the power requirements necessary to hollow
out these chambers. Modern spectrometer equipment did not have an
atomizer
sensitive enough to know exactly how the caverns were made; collapsed
matter did not create gastric
bubbles. The cavern were geometrically
faultless except for this one. It looked like it had been
deliberately left unfinished.
26.
Glyphs on the walls suggested that the Light Race used their
minds to collectively displace the matter. Or the glyphs may have
been merely informational. The rock was so
dense that the air separated into a thin fog on the floor, but not so
thick that it hid the floor. There was a water well in one
chamber that had no end to its depth. A intricate grill made
depth measurement impossible and the simulator did not help. The
breathable air seemed
to emanate from the library, and it was there where Daniel fell asleep,
quite comfortable in this mystical, ethereal space. The
unanswered questions were sometimes spooky.
27.
Daniel became conscious at the bottom of a great chasm roughly 20
meters square. He felt that his mind and body was in pain.
His exhaustion led him to believe that his physical body had already
died, yet he lay at the bottom of this square chasm unable to move his
soul.
28. He
could see that the chasm walls were faultless in design and reflected a
dull gray sheen. Many miles
above was a pinprick of light no bigger than the tip of an optic
fiber, "Why am I down here,
and why do I feel this way?" he asked.
29.
The sensation of being so near death was real. "If I'm physically
dead -- am I dying spiritually too now?" Maybe
this is retribution for something in my distant past. There was
a fearful exhaustion about this condition --
like being too tired to answer the door when death
knocks.
30. Softly,
in his field of vision, he saw two handsome angels gradually descend
and pick him up, one at each arm. He couldn't feel their
touch. One angel was blond and the other one had jet black hair
but both of them reflected God's glory in their gaunt, perfect young
faces. Daniel wanted to ask, but couldn't. He thought out
loud,
and his thought went unanswered. He couldn't speak. He
could only go wherever the angels took him.
31. Daniel
was gifted at interpreting dreams and experienced waking
dreams too, but this one was far from the usual subjects -- the pain in
his body was real. It should have woke him up but the flight to
the chasm's opening was soothing. It made him forget about the
pain a little.
32. The
angels deposited Daniel on the outside of the chasm and flew
away toward an illuminated ball of fire that must have been the Throne
of God in the distance. It was the distance that struck Daniel
the most: "Two angels rescue me from a deep chasm... and
leave me so far away."
33. "It's
not time yet," he reasoned, and in his soul he a stirring that God
agreed.
34. Daniel
awoke in the alien library. "It's not time..." he
mumbled. It was hard to know which side of consciousness he was
on sometimes.
35. Daniel
returned his focus to the book in his lap. He had fallen asleep
while reading, but not with this book, "I wasn't reading this one, was
I?" he wondered. Everyone on Sunova experienced heightened
paranormal sensations, like the veil
between worlds was razor thin. Many years ago, Daniel piloted the
simulator to the moment when Sunova was still a star. He watched
the
star transition from super nova to its current hyper density and found
nothing. He scrutinized each frame, hoping to find the exact
nanosecond, but the caverns mysteriously
took shape like crop circles in the night. 'Who' and 'what'
remained unseen.
36. The book
opened to a random picture that caught Daniel's
attention. It was a triangle. At the bottom left corner was
the shape of a terran man and woman. At the top was a DNA
helix. The bottom right corner had a ring with 10 spokes.
Above the triangle was a ball of light, and inside each triangle corner
was a darkened dot.
37. Daniel
closed the book. He needed to return to his
office. It was just a feeling...
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