Simoom Rising

Chapter Twenty

WAVE Orbiting Station
Now

DORIC

"What did you tell Caraq about Pit telepathy?" I heard Mac ask you.

You shrugged. "Our talks were recorded. You know what I told him."

Well, actually..., I whispered to Ann mind to mind.

What? I know they had cameras in that room.

WAVE-Sec footage in that trailer was corrupted. The dust got into the electronics they said. There's very little left.

But why is he asking? He was there. And he and the guard must have given eye-witness reports.

He's trying to get you to say something you didn't say then. Something that would incriminate—that would speak to your motivation for killing the aid workers.

"There's nothing new to say!" Ann yelled this out loud. Startled, Mac jerked back from the microphone. She made the effort to lower her voice. "Did I tell Caraq everything I knew about Pit telepathy? No, of course not. Please understand we were terrified. Everyone in the Pit was terrified—all these people in my head screaming at me. We had no idea how much WAVE Corp. knew about the mind links. If they knew we were linked to the detainees, could they use that against us somehow? Would they take all their prisoners too far away from us to hear in our heads ever again? Would R&D cut open their brains to investigate? We didn't know and we couldn't take the risk that...the..."

Harmony stopped and I held my breath. I felt a great upheaval in her gut. Just say it, Ann, just say it.

"Risk what?" Mac barked.

We exhaled slowly. "If Caraq knew that most of the Pats in his command had spent enough time in the Pit to mind link with any of us, if they knew how the links were made, what would stop them from making these links?"

"And then we'd know about the tunnels, we'd know about the blockade running, yeah, we get it—you didn't want to be caught."

"No, Detective MacAndrew. It was more than that—if you Pats understood the mind links, you'd also understand how we moved the dust, how we made it do whatever we wanted and then you could do it too."

HARMONY

"That's pure conjecture," I heard Mac say. "There's no objective evidence that the dust can be controlled."

What a closed mind he has, Vestra.

He was droning on about how I should stop making excuses and take personal responsibility for my actions, but I wasn't listening.

I am so sick of this.

"The problem is there is no one to blame for their deaths—those New Earth aid workers," I talked over him. "Yes, a group of linked individuals can—if there are all of one mind—consciously direct the dust to move in a certain direction or to settle. But sometimes the dust just picks up on a group's subconscious desires."

"What the Hell are you talking about?"

"I'm saying sometimes it's no one's fault."

"I don't believe you. Someone on the Pit Command Council must have given the order. Who was it?" he asked again.

"Nobody." I shook my head. "Lots of us didn't want those aid workers to die."

Mac jumped at this admission. "Then did something go wrong? Were you just supposed to hold them for ransom, to negotiate your freedom? Was that the plan all along?"

"No!" I yelled. Vestra cringed at how raw my voice sounded. "No! We were at a stalemate. I wouldn't give up anything about the dust to Caraq and he wouldn't tell us anything more about the detainees, and all we knew is that they'd been taken off world, to this very station we're in now."

"You knew this, how?"

"Our mind links to the detainees were fleeting—much fainter than they would be if our people were held at the security cells on the Plat. I couldn't talk to Travers, I couldn't reassure him. All I could do was feel him, angry, scared in that cell all alone." I stopped to cough. My throat was dry. I was so sick of words, but they tumbled out of me anyway. "Four, five, six months went by under the blockade. It was becoming harder to smuggle in supplies. We were running low. And constantly, we argued. Should we give up? Should we tell them everything about Pit telepathy? Should we surrender and ask WAVE to relocate us? But nobody trusted you Pats. They thought you guys would come in and shoot us all where we stood. Of course, there was nothing stopping you from doing that at any time—except our ability to manipulate the dust. So, we couldn't tell you about the mind links, could we? We weren't able to decide. Our thoughts would go round and round. We couldn't reach consensus."

Join the consensus! Vote :)