******
Alex and Ro finished their coffee. Surprisingly, Kendis had two cups. He said he hadn’t expected it to taste that good. He usually found coffee smelled better than it tasted and hadn’t enjoyed it that much. Tally tried it, but decided he would stick with tea. Jade just had water, since there was no tea to be found. She wasn’t ready to try coffee yet.
“Tally,” she said, “I’ve been meaning to ask: what did Sparrow want to speak with you about after the council meeting? That is, if it’s something you can discuss,” she amended.
“Why, that’s great, Tally!” exclaimed Jade. “I hope it works. When will you try?”
Jade knew Tally was a powerful telepath, he helped her with sending long distance messages all the time. Apparently Dots had a lot of power too or Sparrow wouldn’t have asked her to come. She still wondered why she was along, though. Not to mention Ro, Alex, and Kendis.
They were predults, not old enough to sit on the ruling council or be a village Leader yet, even though they were considered basically grown. She was just finding she possibly had esas and one of them she couldn’t use.
She gave a mental shrug. Sure hope Sparrow knows what it’s doing, she thought.
Kendis spoke up. “Jade, you might be able to help Sparrow with that. You’re a strong telepath.”
Startled, she stared at him. “But I’m not,” she said. “Aside from forever losing control and leaking all over the place, I’ve always had to have help with distances. Shards, I’m even spotty between my work camp and home, and they’re just a few miles apart. Thank the gods Mom has a ‘phone.”
“I don’t know how you were in the past but today you were very strong,” he chuckled. “One word made everybody hold their head.”
“Oh, well, that was just being loud,” mumbled Jade apologetically, “I was just surprised.”
“No, Jade,” disagreed Alex. “You’ve always been pretty strong. You were the only one who didn’t realize it. Yeah, you’re sometimes spotty or will lose the link occasionally, but that doesn’t have anything to do with strength. It has to do with control, and admittedly, you do have problems with that.” He smiled at her. “Just work on control and I think you’ll be all right. And,” he continued, “you appear to have gotten even stronger in recent days. You may be stronger than I am.”
“Yeah,” added Ro, “My brain still feels a li’l mushy. That was some shout you gave.”
Jade muttered another “sorry” with a blush.
asked Tally.
“Oh, yeah, well you already answered one of my questions when you said you saw me slow down when I fell. I was going to ask you if you noticed anything and it seems you did. You were just kind of talked out of believing your own eyes.” She smiled as Tally started to apologize again. “Don’t worry about it, that was a long time ago, and after all, Humans aren’t known to levitate, so it’s understandable. There is another thing I wanted to, well, I guess, verify with you, though.”
Jade was still somewhat on the fence about never getting lost being an esa. It was something she’d hadn’t even thought about. She wanted Tally’s opinion.
“These guys think I’ve always had another esa. Did you ever think anything was strange about the fact that I always know where you are?”
answered Tally. He looked baffled. .
“Um, that’s not what she meant, Tally,” said Kendis. “She doesn’t smell you, she picks up your mental signature. She can also do this with anyone. She never gets lost, either. She always knows where she is relative to anyone else. Probably anything else, too.”
he said in surprise. He thought it over. He shook his head in wonder.
he repeated.
“I’m beginning to suspect we don’t know everything there is to know about esa - in reference to Humans, anyway,” mused Alex.
sent Maggie.
“Oh, shards,” sighed Ro. “We sure din’t git far, and I guess our two hours are up.” She grabbed the used cups off the table and dumped them into what she hoped was a trash disposal. She checked in a bottom cabinet, found a humongous covered container, and filled it with coffee.
Jade wiped down the counter with wads of napkins she found in an old fashioned metal dispenser. The guys straightened up the chairs, and they headed for the control room.
Kendis made sure to walk beside Jade who stayed as close to the wall as she could. He was pleased to see she seemed surer of herself, and hoped it meant she was on the road to getting a grip on her fear. He had no doubt she would be able to overcome it. She was unusually resilient, a really unique individual.
And beautiful, he said to himself. He knew he was going to, sooner or later, say that out loud. He couldn’t seem to help thinking it every time he looked at her.
Back to top