Chapter Twelve
“Humans do not manifest esas until after their eleventh birthday.” - Bluejay, Elvwist biologist, eight hundred years ago
THEY STOPPED WHEN THEY GOT OUT ON the catwalk. Kendis looked closely at Jade. She appeared to be calm enough. He restrained himself from reaching out to stroke her face.
“Which way shall we go?” he mused. “Do you have a preference?”
“How about we find Alex and Ro. Two hours is not a lot of time so I don’t suggest we get too involved today. After all, we’ll be coming back tomorrow.”
“How are you doing now?” he asked, as they headed to the stairs for the next level.
“I’m good as long as I don’t look over the rail.” She tilted her head, as if listening. “Heh, there’s Alex, and Ro is with him. They’re awfully close together so maybe we’d better make some noise so we don’t surprise them too much.”
She chuckled. “They’ve gotten pretty attached in an extremely short amount of time.”
She was happy for them; she thought they were perfect for each other. She wished Kendis felt about her the way Alex felt about Ro. She felt she might would take him home…and not beat him off.
Oh, well, she thought. At least he’s friendly and doesn’t seem to mind being around me.
They arrived at the next level. Jade went over to the next set of stairs.
“I thought they were on this level,” said Kendis, puzzled.
“No, they’re up on the next one.”
He looked at her with curiosity as they climbed. “How can you tell?”
“I can feel them,” she replied absently as they stepped onto the next level. “Can’t you?”
He stopped and stared at her.
She had taken a couple of steps before she realized he had stopped.
“What?” she asked, perplexed.
He smiled slowly, face lighting up. “You’ve got an ability!” he exclaimed.
She stared at him in confusion. “What are you talking about?”
“You can feel where someone is. That’s got to be an esa, Jade.”
“It is?” she asked in total surprise. “But I’ve always been able to do that!” She looked at him, puzzled. “Can’t everyone?”
Kendis shook his head. “No, they can’t. Curiously, your mother said you didn’t have any abilities - or potential for any,” he said, baffled.
“Oh, well, they could never find any when I was in End school but Sparrow sent me to be tested again before we left and the Elvwist that tested me couldn’t find an ability, but it did say I have potential. I just forgot to tell Mom.”
She thought for a moment, brows knitted. “You know, it just never occurred to me that everyone wasn’t able to locate people. It doesn’t feel like an ability, though that could be because I don’t know what one feels like. It just seems natural, like walking, or telepathy, or something. I guess that could be because I’ve always been able to do it.”
She was pensive for a minute, then added, “I thought abilities didn’t show up in Humans until after the age of eleven. I wonder why the testers never caught it? Or why potential never showed up on my tests until now?” She shrugged, “Oh well, I never tested out as being telepathic, either, even though I am - the same as everyone.”
“They couldn’t tell you could mind-speak?” asked Kendis in amazement. “Well, what did they think you were doing when you used it?”
“Oh, they knew I was using it,” she said. “Heh, it just never registered on their instruments.”
They walked along in silence for a few minutes, passing several doors. Jade paused at one near another flight of stairs.
She grinned and winked at Kendis, announcing loudly, “I think they’re around here somewhere.” She waited a minute, then pretended to stumble against the door, bumping it with her elbow. The door automatically slid open.
Kendis grinned back at her as they entered the room. Alex and Ro were standing near a counter at the back of the room looking flustered.
“We wondered when you guys were gonna git here,” said Ro, pretending nonchalance.
“Yeah, what took you so long?” asked Alex without enthusiasm. He eyed Kendis keenly.
“Um, Mom wanted to talk to me after we got to the control room,” replied Jade, sobering. “I forgot to tell her about a bad fall I had a while back.”
Alex looked down at his little sister. He tilted his head.
“Uh-huh. You forgot to tell me, too. We all caught some of it when you were coming up the ladder. Come sit, tell us what happened.”
Jade looked around the room. “Hey, this looks sort of like a canteen!” she exclaimed, taking in the tables and chairs. And incidentally, trying to change the subject.
“It is a canteen,” said Ro, “and look, we found coffee in one of th’ cabinets! Alex is makin’ some, now.” She pointed to a large, odd looking appliance sitting on the counter.
“Wait, wait, you mean to tell me that stuff is still usable after two thousand years?” Kendis asked.
“We don’t know how it tastes yet, but it sure smells good, doesn’t it?” said Alex. “I think the small dome that was around the ship acted as a kind of stasis unit, preserving everything aboard.”
“Yeah, Mom said something about that too.” said Jade.
They settled themselves around one of the tables near the counter.
“Okay, Jade,” said Alex intently. He wasn’t about to allow her to change the subject. “Give.”
Jade looked at her brother and her friends. She grasped that she was wrong not to have mentioned it to anyone before.
I might as well tell them, she thought, besides, I already leaked all over the place like a mindless bovine. She swallowed, and told them the story.
“You fell three hundred feet?!” exclaimed Alex, stunned.
Ro was looking at her wide-eyed.
“Yeah, um, why does everybody keep making a big deal out of that? The rangers explained why I didn’t get hurt; because of the snow, the angle at which I landed --”
“No, Jade,” interrupted Kendis. “That doesn’t explain it at all. You should have been killed.” He leaned forward, clasping his hands together on the table.
“When you went to talk to your mother, I asked Sparrow about it. At the time, I hadn’t heard the rangers’ explanation of why you survived intact but I don’t think that would have made a difference to Sparrow’s conclusion.” He glanced around the table, coming back to Jade, who was looking at him, a question in her eyes.
“What conclusion did it reach?” asked Ro, bewildered.
Like Jade, she went with the rangers’ take. What else could have saved her?
Alex was looking at Kendis, comprehension dawning on his face.
“Sparrow thinks you levitated,” said Kendis watching Jade steadily.
Jade’s mouth dropped open. She tried, but couldn’t get any words out.
she cried mentally. Everyone in the ship heard her.
Tally sent immediately, followed by similar queries from Dots and the adults in the control room.
she broadcast, apologetically.
On a private link, she sent to Tally, She looked around the table, guiltily. Everybody was rubbing his or her temples. She hadn’t thought she was that loud.
“Wow, Jade! I din’t know you could send that strong,” commented Ro. She got up and rummaged around in one of the cabinets and came up with some exotic looking, light weight white cups for the coffee.
“Oh, she’s always had a strong send, especially when she’s excited,” said Alex, with a lopsided grin. “She’s never known her own strength, though, and it appears she’s gotten even stronger lately.” He blew out a breath, casting an eye over at Jade. “You need to watch that, Sis. That was some blast, like the volume suddenly running all the way up on a Bolo song.”
Jade stared at Kendis. “What do you mean I “levitated”? I’ve never heard of Humans with that ability, just the E
lvwists, and not that many of them,” she said after she apologized again for mind-blasting everyone.
“Um, Ro, you can bring me some of that coffee too,” said Kendis. He still looked a little shell-shocked. “You’re right, it isn’t one of the Human talents, at least it hasn’t been seen in Humans before but that doesn’t mean it can’t happen. According to Sparrow, Humans - at least some of us - have the potential for just about any ability.”
“But, if I did do that, why don’t I remember it? And why hasn’t it manifested again since then?” She shook her head, confused, and turned to Alex. “Oh, and another thing, Kendis thinks I have another ability.” She told him how she could always determine where someone was.
“Ha! So that’s how you were always able to find me when we played hide-and-seek when we were small! I always thought you followed Tally; he would just sniff me out. It never occurred to me that you were doing it with esa. No wonder you got so bored with that game.” Alex grinned. “Wait ‘til we tell Mom. She’ll never believe it!”
“So it’s true, everybody can’t do that,” she mused. She had kind of hoped Kendis was wrong.
She had, for years, believed herself to have no abilities and had been fine with it. Now it appeared she had at least two, one all of her life. She was going to have to readjust her thinking; it was going to take some getting used to.
“Getting back to the levitating thing. Why don’t I remember doing that?” she repeated.
Kendis looked at her thoughtfully. “What happened to you was very traumatic. Sometimes, the brain will shield the mind from an extremely stressful event by blocking it from memory. It appears your brain did just that. You don’t remember most of the fall, and the part you don’t remember includes you slowing your fall. Sparrow said this ability would have been latent: it only manifested because of the fall and only slowed you instead of halting you in mid-air because you weren’t expecting it and you were untrained. Unfortunately, you were also left with a fear of heights.”
Jade thought about this, and grinned ruefully. “Well, unless I can get over that, I certainly won’t be doing any levitating, even if I do eventually remember how.”
She got a sudden image of herself zipping through the air, arms wind-milling, legs kicking, shrieking all the way. Uh-uh. Wasn’t gonna happen. The image struck her as funny, though, and she got an instant case of the giggles.
Ro, who had come back to the table with the coffee, raised an eyebrow at her. “What’s so funny?”
Jade shot her a mental picture, and Ro started giggling. Which, of course, caused the guys to raise their eyebrows at both of them. Ro shared the image, which set them off, too.
Tally and Dots came into the canteen in the middle of them laughing their toes off, and stood there watching for a moment.
Tally finally asked,
Jade brought them up to date and sent him and Dots the image of her sailing through the air.
Dots joined in the laughter but Tally grew very quiet.
Jade immediately sobered. That wasn’t like him. He liked a good image joke as much as anybody else.
“What’s the matter, Tally?” she asked with concern.
he said, dropping his head. Then he looked up at her he added.
“You saw me slow down? You never told me that!” she said with surprise.
He shook his head.
“No, no, you had no way of knowing, and besides, I didn’t remember doing it so I probably would have discounted it as a misperception on your part too,” she assured him.
Tally considered this for a moment and nodded in acceptance.
Jade was wondering this herself. She had made that joke but knew she wasn’t up to trying it.
“Um, I want to, I think, but I just don’t know how to get past the height thing. It’s not so much a fear of heights as it’s a fear of falling from a height, you know.”
She got another picture of herself flying along about two inches above the ground and started grinning again. Before anyone asked, she shot the image to them.
This time, even Tally laughed.