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Sol
Terra
Sant Tomas
Detention Center

"A lot of records from that time were lost in the uphevals," said Carlson. "Whole nations destroyed, a sea of blood flowing from continent to continent. As things got worse, every bigotry was unleashed and given voice. Their was no safety, no peace. The Earth became a hell. The nations that rule it today are the survivors of those times, those that could secure their boarders and resources and maintain a functional government. When there was nothing let but starving masses and ruined cities, they were the only ones left to step into the power vacuums. Your oppressors were probably consumed in one of those conflagrations. Ours weren't, but by that time they had no power over us."

"We knew the upheavels came, that is when we made our exodus. But we knew not the scope." The Gestalt ruminated. "The world we return to is not the ancestor's birthplace. But that is a matter for another time. You surely wish to question us."

Sol
Terra
Sant Tomas
Detention Center

"Well, apparently its like this," said Carlson. "You showed up in one of the most heavily militarized star systems in existence, one where parts of the most heavily populated planet still has nukes pointed at other parts of the planet. A planet that still has nasty hold overs from the age of upheavals. At least that's what this report says.

"Anyway, show up no warning, no signals. To a diplomatic conference which a dozen terrorist factions would love to disrupt or blow up. Including terrorist factions with deluded rogue psionicists in their ranks. Your eavesdropping gets detected by two different stellar nations, including my own, and is against the agreed upon diplomatic protocols. Everyone starts going crazy. I'm sure some Polish security guys are just this side of having a grand mal seizure. So uou end up here."

"Eavesdropping?" There was no facial change, but the aura of confusion was palapable. "We were observing with our normal senses the goings on in the main chamber. No psionics were used outside of maintaining our Gestalt. We were detected by a psionicist of consider power but singular mind, and we turned him gently away. Not all minds are capable of processing contact with the Gestalt safely."

Sol
Terra
Sant Tomas
Detention Center

Carlson kept the expression of annoyance off her face and safely in her brain and protected by her skin wards. Gestalt minds were handy for communication and information retrieval, but they tended to make the practitioners poor thinkers.

"The report says it was a psychic probe of some kind," she said dryly, "which is considered a no-no in diplomatic functions apparently. Anyway, you ruffled some feathers and sent the security people into overdrive. And you got put here."

"Why do you bother trying to hide the emotions?" The look was curious, and indifference settled in over the confusion. "This probe was non-existant. In theory, a less evolved mind could have mistaken our presense and exchanges. If it would persuade, we can offer to show you the memories of the observation; it would clear matters quite well, though we do not know if your mind can absorb such without loss of self to the unity."

Sol
Terra
Sant Tomas
Detention Center

"I'm not a nice person," she said. "Just ask my ex-husbands. Most humans exist as individual consciousnesses and aren't used to emotional free flow. They get difficult to relate to when they don't get the emotional environment isn't to their liking. My personal opinion is 'fuck them' but unfortunately I still need to work with them and that just makes things harder. And that's not even touching on the emotional stability, intellectual development, and mental frailty problems endemic among most psychics. Like kicking a fucking puppy. Oh yeah, there's also the fact that if you try to read my brain your entire gestalt might die. God damn I miss smoking.

"Anyway, if what you say is true it explain's why Hale had such a hard time detecting you. Of course, he's still a shmuck. Might convince the Poles though. Of course, the fact that the psychics in question were sneaky is probably going to go to one place in their sneaky secret police brains. You guys didn't bring material confirmation of your ambassadorial status, did you?"

"A concept with difficulty attached; you must realize, in a society of a Gestalt, there is no need of such. The identity can be ascertained easily and quickly." The threats of death from interaction with her mind seemed to amuse the Gestalt though. "We know pain and anger well. What do you think reverberates from the earliest memories?"

"We endeavour not to touch the minds of individual Humans. They are frail and brief minds, too easily broken by a careless action. Even the psionic among them are likely to encounter their limits too easily in Gestalt with us. But there is some confusion. We are not ambassadors. An ambassador comes to speak, to confer, to discuss. We perform a function similar to a computer's input devices. We came to absorb information on the meeting and let the memories flow freely. A similar concept to the media of less unified peoples."

Sol
Terra
Sant Tomas
Detention Center

"Pain and anger? They're nothing new-what ah. You misunderstand," said Carlson. "I wasn't speaking of what I have been through. I have no delusions that any pain I have suffered makes me unique. No, I mean the potential consequences of you gaining a fragment of the Arcana. Although the effects produced by the Arcana are similar to those that can be produced by psychics and are detectable as such, this being the area of my research, they are not. The effects of unpracticed users, even those with full knowledge of the Arcana, attempted to utilize it are often spectacularly fatal. And psychics tend to be very clumsy in the application of the Arcana."

"But that's a side issue. What is important is that you arrived with at a very secure conference with none of the standard protocols or ID. A conference that nasty people might want to blow up and that some of the nasty people have psychic powers. Are you with me so far?"

"The reasoning is clear now, yes." The Gestalt actually nodded; it was with the wrong body, but the effort was clear. "We have not contested our containment or attempted to leave for just this reason. The fear within the one identifying his fealty as Polish alone made it clear that further provoking the well known Human paranoia of the unknown would be drastically unwise."

The comments on the Arcana were ruminated on. "An interesting fragment of knowledge. We have encountered many things which are said to be incredibly dangerous to an unready mind, but preparation can always assuage the threats. But our orders were observation of Earth's present situation and the diplomatic and legal situation, not the gathering of esoteric knowledge."

Sol
Terra
Sant Tomas
Detention Center

"Its not the knowledge that is dangerous, it's the use," she said. "Its far too complex and difficult for most people. Psychics have the ability to absorb the knowledge from another mind, but not the skill and practice associated with it or the intellectual ability to create the formulations. They can acquire the Arcana, but not the Gnosis. If they're lucky when they try to use it the get nothing. If they're unlucky they get close enough to produce a result. Then you need a spatula. That's the quick version of more than a hundred years of research."

She paused for a moment. Psychics. They can talk about small minds all they wanted, but who were the geniuses that crashed a highly important diplomatic conference on a war scared world without any ID? "Anyway, the matter at hand is how to convince those professionally paranoid security guys that you are who you claim you are. Second, supposing number one is accomplished, you need to learn the diplomatic protocols."

"Knowledge without wisdom is always dangerous, no matter the terminology used." The Gestalt echoed simply, waiting patiently through the discussion. "We detected a transmission from our home system into this one, which hopefully will convince them who we are. But we will await the proper protcols for observation and memorization of events of importance."

Sol
Terra
Sant Tomas
Detention Center

"Right," said Carlson. "Well in that case I'm not needed here anymore." She knocked on the door.

Earth
Somewhere in the US

"Ten fucking years." The former marine downed another shot, he couldn't remember what it was his buddy had put infront of him, by this time he didn't care. "You know, you'd think that time might be worth something. If I ever see him again I'll show him what a fucking discharge is!"

"Hey man, I know the country owes you one but... "

"Aww fuck the country. It clearly doesn't give a shit, I don't see why I should..." His sentence tails off as if there should have been more.

"Should what?"

"...Fuck it. I need to get my ass a job."

"That's something I wanted to talk to you about actually. Me and a couple of the other guys were talking about going private."

The other guy, already half boozed draws his attention away from the next drink. "Like what? Join a Merc outfit or something?"

"Something like that. Check this out." He hands his friend a card.

"Nova? I've heard of these guys. I dunno though, these guys are based pretty far out."

"High pay, travel, a hard-ass ex-marine could do well with this guys."

"I'll think it over." The marine downs another shot.

Sol System

The Khurlassian Republic diplomatic vessel still sat motionless, perhaps wondering if maneuvers in such high-security space without an escort would be taken badly It was characteristic caution on the part of the Republic's Diplomatic Corps to act only when sure of where they stood. The ship broadcasted a widebeam signal again, this time through the flat voice of an electronic translator, "This vessel would like to caution the organizers of this summit of the potential biohazard posed by our head diplomat. The Khurl species tend to carry a variety of exotic diseases of considerable potency. We offer to send information concerning these diseases to a ship in authority, to avoid any unfortunate incidents involving our Khurl representative. If you find your medical abilities wanting, we will deploy a remote in place of the Greater Diplomat for the sake of safety. We await further instruction."

It seemed that the ship's motionlessness had less to do with lacking an escort than it did with apparent safety concerns.

Arriving via diplomatic channels, the following is found in the message box for the Logos Centrality's embassy.

[img=left]http://spyderizer.orcon.net.nz/pics/alert.GIF[/img] ALERT
PRIORITY 1 DISTRESS
Location: xxx-xxx

Commercial Freighter
reg: BZE-JKR

LIFE SUPPORT FAILURE
REACTOR DAMAGE
HULL BREACH

REQUIRE IMMEDIATE ASSISTANCE

Imperial Overlord wrote:Sol
Terra
Sant Tomas
Detention Center

"Right," said Carlson. "Well in that case I'm not needed here anymore." She knocked on the door.

The Director nodded again, taking notes as he listen.

"Indeed. Thank you very much, Doctor Carlson. We'll have the.. ah, Wanderers moved to a more comfortable location, and ask for their government to send a ship, with more concrete assurances and through the proper channels. Your assistance has been invaluable, the Polish Republic extends it's thanks."

He turned to one of her escorts. "Oh, and by the way- a diplomatic missive from the Polish government. You ministers of state should read it prompytly." He handed over a coded datadisk.

Spyder wrote:[img=left]http://spyderizer.orcon.net.nz/pics/alert.GIF[/img] ALERT
PRIORITY 1 DISTRESS
Location: xxx-xxx

Commercial Freighter
reg: BZE-JKR

LIFE SUPPORT FAILURE
REACTOR DAMAGE
HULL BREACH

REQUIRE IMMEDIATE ASSISTANCE

ISF Cruiser Kaloum
On patrol near Isdenestilom space

"Captain Vodrin Taagon, I am receiving a distress signal from a commercial freighter in a nearby system."

Captain Taagon looked up from the report his was reading, his brow furrowed.

"Pirates?" asked the captain. Perhaps his crew would get some action after months of uneventful patrol duty.

"The message does not indicate the cause of distress, only that the reactor is leaking and that the hull is breached," the comsdwarf answered.

"Very well. Helmsdwarf Orkas Glorack, set a course for the freighter, maximum speed. Hopefully we will be able to arrive in time to render aid. Comsdwarf Tho Gilor, inform ISF Command of our detour."