Freedom's Dream

Tamara Baume crushed the printout in her hand, her eyes closing tight in frustration. The letter itself was devoid of any human emotion, but carried only an expectant efficiency she had learned to associate with the more bureaucratic agents of the Esper Regulatory Council. She looked back up at the man across from her, grey eyes sadly contemplating how best to respond. "Richard," she began, "I'm so sorry." She choked on the words. They seemed so inadequate when weighed against the end of the life most people took for granted.

"We thought we were safe, Tam. Isobel and I had been tested with no indication of psionic abilities. I've been told that I register so poorly that I'm deaf by psychic standards. And both girls were tested in kindergarten and passed with no problem. So how could this happen?"

"The government tests don't pick up latency or recessive gene matrices--just active psionic brain activity. No one truly understands how ESP works, Richard. It IS genetic, but in such a complex form of inheritance that DNA tests cannot predict psionic ability or strength--at least not yet. There are a few known markers that may indicate potential, but they can be found in a good bit of the normal human population, too, but don’t appear in some psis at all. That's why the government uses the readers in the test centres or actual psychics in the field—both can track the particular wave patterns found in active telepathy or telekinesis, but only at extremely close range. Since a lot of psychics don't come into their powers until puberty, a lot of the early childhood tests come up negative. That's one of the reasons they retest on entry into high school."

Richard's face was flat and pale like chalk. "So what do we do now?"

She took his hand in hers. "I may know someone that can help get you, Isobel, and Laurie new idents and, if all goes well, move you to a safe place."

"What about Katy?"

Tamara tried to smile reassuringly, but it just came out pained. "We can't move immediately. It may be best to go ahead and make this appointment, register your family. They'll expect you to run up to the meeting, but may expect it less afterwards. They may, and let me stress may, let you take Katy home. If not--Richard, there is no way to get her away from them, not without an army. Psi facilities are built to withstand terroristic assaults, and they're heavily wired with jamming devices and trackers. If they keep her past the meeting they intend to keep her for good."

"What will happen to her?"

"She'll be rated. If she is good enough to warrant training, she'll be sent to a 're-education centre,' which is fancy jargon for brainwashing. In six months, Katy wouldn't remember you or the rest of her family."

"And if she's not good enough?"

"If she's weak and she can't control what she picks up, there are several options. She could take medication daily that will suppress her abilities. You'd get to keep her with you, but she'd be--sort of flattened out, like some people are on anti-depressants. If she is strong but uncontrollable, or otherwise a problem for the Council, then she'll likely be sent to a quarantined area where mundanes aren't likely to be affected."

"You mean the relocation camps? I thought they were more like concentration camps."

"Close. No one has figured out how to deal with the ‘problem’ of psychic ability. There were always some who seemed gifted, of course, especially in certain ethnic groups. But it’s only been the last century or so, since humans began colonising other worlds, that it’s really taken off. That’s one of the reasons Earth Central is so concerned. Psychic gifts are popping up all over the Colonies, but things are pretty much the same back on Earth."

"Are you saying Katy is like she is because my grandparents decided to come to Arete?"

"That’s part of it, Richard. Humans have a unique way of forgetting that the march of evolution affects us just as it does any other animal. Think about all the different environments we’ve encountered. Sure, we’ve altered some to make it easier, but we can’t alter everything. Humans started crawling in space in the late twentieth-century, you know. Look how far we’ve come since then. But we still don’t understand how it all works. Meanwhile, the government on Earth is getting very nervous about all the growing population of humans born off-planet, and particularly the higher incidences of psi abilities. I’ve heard rumours that some of the psychics taken by the government are shipped back to Earth and studied and possibly bred in an attempt to get a concentration built up on Earth. But everyone’s nervous about having lots of psis out there with no one controlling them. You can police behaviour, after all, but no one’s found a way to police thought. " She stopped for a moment, taking a bite of her sandwich. "Until now, perhaps. That’s the problem. No one really understands how psychic gifts work, and humans always fear the unknown. There’s always one more group for people to hate, particularly if those hated can see into our thoughts and emotions. It’s like having someone be able to look into your very soul. That just makes a lot of people nervous—nervous enough to hate, and nervous enough to kill. I know you’ve seen the reports, too."

"Yes," he said with a sigh. "Yes, I have." He was silent for awhile.
"Tam, I can’t thank you enough for helping us with Katy," Richard began.

She put up her hand. "I’ve known you all my life, Richard Evans. You’re like an older brother. I’ve watched the girls grow up. I don’t want to see anything happen to them or the rest of you. But I’m just a cog in a larger machine. I have a few contacts, that’s all. They’re the ones who do the real work. Save your thanks for them—and only if we manage to pull this off."

"So what do we do now?"

"Go on home, Richard. Act as normal as possible, but keep an eye out for anyone watching your house or the like. I’ll try to see if I can get some more information for you. Until then, try to keep everyone together. Don’t mention this to anyone else in your family, Richard. Isobel would only worry. You have to try to keep this out of mind. Worry is fine, that’s expected, but anticipation or planning could bring you to the attention of someone who might be watching you."

"You mean psychically?"

"Yes. That’s why we’re here at the park, in the open. Everyone knows I’m a family friend. It’s normal to want some comfort, some advice. But someone would have to get fairly close, out here in the open in order to eavesdrop, whether electronically or otherwise." Tamara looked at her chronometer. "Go on home, Richard. I’ll see what I can do. But be careful."

She took his hand and looked at him very intently for a moment, trying to communicate support and calm. He seemed better, and reluctantly headed off away from where they’d been eating in the park.

Tamara closed her eyes. She’d hated doing that, hated deceiving him. In that moment she’d quietly slipped in and erased her name and face from any of his memories not connected with the casual nature of old friends. It was a violation, but it was to protect Richard as much as it would her. He’d only remember a meeting with a contact. The details would be fuzzy, even to the setting. That way, if he were scanned he couldn’t betray them all. She rubbed her eyes, fatigue setting in. There was always a certain amount of personal shielding she kept up around her—it had become second nature by now, although the trick was to construct something that seemed totally normal, some psychological barrier at worst. Anyone scanning her during the conversation would have found a normal young woman having lunch with a troubled friend. The tiring part had been extending the shield to cover Richard as well, particularly since, as he’d said, he was nearly psychically null and therefore could not be tapped for some of the power going into the protection. Since devices or other psis could detect active shielding, it had to be done very passively and as natural as possible. She bit into the last of her sandwich, thankful for some more fuel after such intense work.

She looked down at the printout in her lap. The afternoon sun was beginning to fade and the words seemed to blur as she thought about how best to help Katy Evans. A plan began to form, but it would mean calling in a lot of favours and owing even more of them. She’d have to bring her father in on it too, something she’d avoided up to now. Dr. Elias Baume had been the one who, having been raised in a family that every year still lit candles in memory of the persecutions in Old Earth’s Nazi Germany, realised early on what the discovery of psychics could mean in terms of future persecution. After seeing her potential, he had carefully faked his daughter’s DNA screenings and coached her to fail the early tests. Because he worked in government research and moved around a great deal, it was easier to fake records and tutor his child at home in a more stable environment than constantly changing schools. To the world they had presented a picture of a normal family—but it was a secret that weighed heavily on the family, especially given the proximity of discovery due to Dr. Baume’s government work.

Richard couldn’t know, of course, that she wasn’t just a casual or passive supporter of psi rights, but in fact was a leader of a growing underground designed to protect telepaths and other Gifted before all their civil rights were stripped away. By asking her to act as intermediary between his family and the resistance, he’d placed her in a very awkward position and possibly brought her to the attention of the authorities. She could only pray that he wouldn’t be picked up and subjective to any real interrogation before she had a chance to set things in motion. Running a last scan of the area for prying eyes, she gathered up the remains of lunch and headed out of the park, carefully sending her thoughts on Katy and how best to free her deep into the inner levels of her brain to work it all out, leaving only normal surface thoughts that might be read. In her concentration to juggle the multi-levels of thought, she failed to notice a figure trailing about fifty yards away. She got into her lift and started it back towards home just as the rays of the sun began to die, leaving twin moons to take over rule of the sky. As she headed the lift up towards the shining eyes in the rose-coloured sky, a smaller lift fell into a pattern to follow. The two small points passed across the full orbs as the day ended in preparation for a new dawn and Tamara Baume tried to find a way to bring freedom in a troubled universe.