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“Our psi-power is a genetic trait, expressed in those who carry two recessive genes. The majority of the population doesn’t have the gene at all. Those with one gene are carriers. At most, they’re extra intuitive or empathetic.
“Early in our history, people without psi-powers grew suspicious of those with telepathy, fearing they could be brainwashed. We were persecuted. They hunted us, burning people alive in pyres.”
Kat gasped. “That’s horrible.” She pressed a hand to her throat.
Barbaric. Shocking…yet not. Delving into the history of every civilization, including Nomoru, one would find horrific acts of barbarism. Civility took centuries, even millennia, to achieve. Some civilizations died out before they ever achieved it. Some vanished because they failed to achieve it.
“If you can read minds, how did they catch you? Didn’t psis realize the hunters were going to kill them?” Kat asked.
Good question.
“Certain metals block us from accessing the minds of another.”
“So the psi hunters wore metal helmets?” she asked.
“They ingested small quantities of the metal,” he explained. “It was a dark, dark time in our history. Where, by natural selection, full psis had been 25 percent of the population, after the eradication campaign our numbers had been reduced to 10 percent.”
“Only 10 percent of the population is telepathic?” I’d gotten a vastly different impression from rumor, conjecture, and legend. In the absence of fact, lies will fill the void. Like New Terra, but for different reasons, Mnemonia was a closed world. We had very little contact with the planet. I knew more humans than Mnemonians. Da’an and Seeher were the only ones.
“Correct,” he said. “When sanity returned, both psis and non-psis agreed that genocide must never again occur. A law was enacted making it a capital offense to hunt or kill anyone with psi-powers. To ease the concerns of non-psi, the government issued another ruling prohibiting psis from interfering in the free will of any individual. To do so is punishable by death.
“That is still the law.” He swallowed a mouthful of tea. “Both my parents were full psi with average ability, so I am a full psi, too. However, my powers are in the gifted range,” he said matter-of-factly. “After my mother died, my father married Dria’s mother, a Quadran. Unbeknownst to anyone, she carried the psi gene—one of her ancestors must have mated with a Mnemonian—and Sandria was born a full but average psi.
“Dria seemed like a happy, normal child. She was very much loved, by her mother, by our father, by me. She and I had a special relationship. I doted on her. But, as she got older, she changed. She imagined slights where none existed and certainly weren’t intended. As a half Quadran with psi-power, she was unique, special, but she assumed people found her lacking. She felt conspicuous, awkward because she looked more Quadran than Mnemonian. She doubted our father’s love. When you’re psi, the world is a very distracting place. Until you learn to block, you are bombarded by outside thoughts. The mental chatter is nonstop. In blocking, our father appeared aloof, detached. Dria misread it as rejection.”
“Is that why you live in this temple in the middle of nowhere? To escape the noise?” Kat asked. I’d been wondering the same.
“It would be a good reason, wouldn’t it?” He gave a half smile. “But it’s just a benefit.”
“Sorry, please go on. I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Kat said.
“As a youth, Dria connected with other Quadran-Mnemonians, although she was the only one with psi-powers. At first, we were glad she’d found friends to whom she could relate. They called themselves the Gang of Four. They started getting into mischief, relatively harmless, at first. They convinced Dria to use her mind-reading ability to play practical jokes. But the pranks spiraled into something malicious, criminal. And they got caught.”
Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath. For a long moment, he sat silently. Then he exhaled and opened his eyes. “Before we learned all the details, Dria swore she’d been manipulated by her friends. We believed her. Assuming she was a victim, I helped her leave so she could get away from those who’d used her. I thought I was protecting her, giving her a fresh start.
“Then we discovered she’d been the ringleader of the Gang of Four. The other three had been her unwilling accomplices. She’d brainwashed them, which in itself is a capital crime, but she’d also used her power to commit homicide. She’d coerced people into committing suicide. When the truth came out, the three were acquitted of their crimes, but Dria was condemned to death.”
His shoulders slumped slightly, and he shook his head. “When Dria arrived today, I told her the gang had been captured and executed. Of course, she knew they hadn’t been at fault. I’d hoped for remorse, regret, concern, some kind of emotion. But there was nothing. She didn’t care.”
Kat sucked in an audible breath. We looked at each other. Seeher’s life of crime had begun early. I could see now why she’d been drawn to the GJW. Of course they would attract the criminal element, thugs who derived satisfaction from homicide and destruction.
“When she got into trouble way back when, didn’t you read her mind to verify her story?” Kat had the best questions and the guts to ask them. Schooled in diplomacy and protocol, reservation had become ingrained in me.
“If only I had. But I trusted her. And reading someone’s mind is an invasion of privacy. It is akin to snooping in someone’s handheld—only worse.”
“Like reading someone’s diary.” Kat nodded.
“The stray thoughts that filtered to me supported her claims. Of course, as a full-psi, she had the ability to project misleading thoughts.
“Partly to assuage my guilt, I joined the Order of the Nemoni, psi-guides who assist other psis in maneuvering through challenging issues and times in their lives.
“Out here, away from the mental chatter, I find clarity, and so do others seeking my assistance. The effort involved in getting here weeds out the undisciplined and the uncommitted. Although I have helped many people, it didn’t atone for enabling Sandria to escape justice. I had to find a way to prevent her from causing further harm.
“I got my chance five years ago. She contacted me, started talking about equity and justice—this from the woman who brainwashed a man into committing suicide for kicks and then fled. I could tell she was attempting to groom me for a position with the GJW. She had pegged me as a potential recruit, assuming I would be receptive since I’d helped her avoid the consequences of her prior crimes. I realized the Dria I had loved was gone. Maybe she’d never existed. I feigned interest and contacted the League of Planets immediately.”
Da’an had a conscience. Because Sandria didn’t have one, it didn’t occur to her that her brother had faked fanaticism.
“The next time she contacted me, I offered to send potential recruits her way. My recommendations were LOP agents who then infiltrated the GJW. A few were Mnemonians with psi-powers who wished to assist.”
