Trapped in Time-Extinction (34 page)

The Regent looked around the bridge and saw his crew felt the human’s emotion. He nodded and said, “Perhaps all of us here at this moment in time will be remembered as well.”

Andy looked at the Regent and smiled, “It is that memory that will guide our descendants to keep to the path we set for them. All we need do is avoid being discovered by the Time Takers and the future will belong to our children.”

The Regent nodded and grabbed a panel as the floor shook again.

• • •

Four months passed and Tyler watched the Talens working on the huge blaster on their ship’s hull. He enjoyed working with them. He handed the engineer a spiral spanner and took the neutral wrench and put it in the proper pocket in the large tool bag. He squinted and said, “Shouldn’t those two connectors be reversed?”

The engineer looked at the wiring diagram and then looked at the two connectors. He shook his head, “You’re right. How did I miss that?”

“You’ve been working too long. You need to take a break.”

The Engineers round eyes blinked. They did have eyelids but they blinked very rarely. “Tell you what; why don’t you finish wiring this module and we’ll take a break afterwards.”

“Sure!” The engineer moved out of the small space and Tyler crawled in. “Hand me the neutral wrench.” The engineer handed Tyler the wrench and Tyler started disconnecting the wires. He looked at the engineer, “You should put the spiral scanner in the right pocket or we’ll lose track of it.” The engineer tried not to smile but couldn’t stop himself. He had deliberately hidden a tool three weeks earlier and blamed it on Tyler. Tyler promised him that he wouldn’t lose another tool and so far he was right. Even when he hid one, Tyler refused to leave until they found it. The Engineer had to produce it and he no longer worried about Tyler’s attention to detail. Tyler disconnected the two wires and stared at the control panel.

“What’s wrong?”

Tyler looked at the Engineer and said, “Why are you using leads from the primary reactor?”

“The new blaster should have maximum power.”

Tyler shook his head, “Not really. You’ve run the wires through an attenuator to reduce the power. If you ran the blaster’s leads from the secondary reactor, you’d put less stress on the force field if we’re under attack and the blasters would still operate even if the force field failed. You wouldn’t need to use an attenuator either.” The Engineer looked at the wiring diagram and followed the path of energy being sent to the blaster. He shook his head as Tyler said, “If you chose to do it that way, you could use the two primary leads to power the cutter beams. They need the maximum power you can send to them. I suspect their range would be greatly increased as well.”

“Tyler, how long have you seen this?”

Tyler shrugged, “About three weeks when you started creating the wiring diagrams.”

“Why didn’t you say something?”

“Polo, I’m just a human who’s never really worked with high technology. I assumed I had missed something that you knew.”

Polo stood and said, “Come with me.”

“What about the connectors?”

“We’ll come back to them later.”

Tyler followed the Engineer to the Lead Engineer’s office and had Tyler explain to him what he had said earlier.

• • •

Tyler met Linnae for the evening meal and she looked up at him, “What?”

“Say hello to the new Planning Engineer.”

“WHAT?!”

“Look at my thoughts; it won’t take so long.”

Linnae looked in his mind and started shaking her head, “How are you able to do this?”

Tyler sighed heavily, “I just look at energy like it was water.”

“What?”

“If you want to get more energy to something, you have to use a larger pipe and a direct route for the water to follow. The same is true of energy. If you want more power sent to a blaster, or cutter, you have to use a larger power source and a direct wire from the power source to the weapon. I noticed that the Talen’s were making the pathways more complicated than they should have been.”

“That comes from hearing their thoughts in your subconscious and developing an understanding of their science.”

“What?”

“Tyler, you’re not directly telepathic but you do have a subconscious connection to those around you.”

“I don’t understand?”

“Explain how you found Olivia when you were a baby.” Tyler stared at her and shook his head. “Tyler, Olivia told me that you wailed whenever they took you away from her. That behavior started from the moment she held you in the care center. The only way to stop your crying was to take you to Olivia.”

Tyler’s eyes went to the floor and he slowly shook his head, “I can’t explain it, Linnae. I just could…I don’t know…feel her and the feeling was so good. Just like you.”

“I think my sister and I sensed you and both of us wanted you.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“How did you end up being the lucky one?”

“I won the coin toss. However, I suspect your mind influenced it. I was the one you had chosen…right?”

Tyler smiled, “I mean no disrespect to Harmony, but you just made me feel so good when I was around you.”

“Just like your mother did.”

Tyler was silent and after a moment said, “What are you saying?”

“Tyler, I really think your subconscious mind is in contact with those around you and you’re learning, on an intuitive level, everything they know.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“You possess more knowledge than any one of them. If you see something, you need to say something. I suspect it could make a big difference.” Linnae saw his eyes narrow and she said, “What are you thinking?”

“I’ve been thinking about what might happen in the future.”

“Like?”

“If we’re successful in saving civilizations from destruction, some of them may desire to join us in the fight.”

Melody nodded, “I suspect they would.”

“What happens if the Talen are forced to use their mind weapon?”

Linnae stared at Tyler and after a moment began slowly nodding, “They would be in danger. The only ones that could fight would be the Talens and us. Any other species could die if they used it during a battle.” Tyler nodded and Linnae looked at him, “What are you thinking?”

“Harmony started me thinking about Mat.”

“What about him?”

“He is able to block her from seeing his thoughts.”

“Yes, so what.”

“I asked him to conduct an experiment with me. I took an extremely sensitive field meter and asked him to block his thoughts. I detected a small electrical field when he did it. When he turned it off, the field disappeared.”

“What are you saying, Tyler?”

“What if that field can be used to block the Regents mind weapon…” Linnae opened her mouth and Tyler held up his hand, “so that the weapon would only go out in a specific direction?”

Linnae closed her mouth. “Can you do that?”

“I don’t know. However, that field has a very specific frequency.” Tyler paused and said, “If I can build a helmet with settings to block his thoughts except for a specified direction, we could use other species to assist us.” Linnae nodded as she thought about it and he said, “I might also be able to build a helmet that would block you from hearing other’s thoughts.” Linnae’s eyes went wide and she put her hand on her throat. Tyler smiled, “It might allow you and Harmony some peace.”

“Oh Tyler! If only you could!” Linnae went into his arms and Tyler pulled her close, “Let me see what I can do.” Linnae held him and cried at the idea of silence.

T
he Regent sat in a room with forty of his warriors teaching them how to focus their thoughts into the mind weapon. More than three hundred of his subjects were able to produce the killing thought and their range was growing every day as they practiced using it. He heard the door to the room open and he saw Tyler standing at the door, “Hello, Tyler, can you wait?”

“Regent, I really need you to assist me while you’re conducting a class.”

The Regent’s head tilted, “What?”

“I think I’ve developed a way for you to control the mind weapon.”

The Regent’s head moved back, “What do you mean control?”

“I’m hoping that if you want to use your mind to kill one ship or a thousand, you could control which one you chose.”

“That’s not possible.” Tyler shrugged. “Is it possible?”

“I’d like to see.”

“What do I need to do?”

“I want you to wear this helmet whenever you teach a class. I need to have it calibrated to your vision.”

“My vision?”

“Yes. The helmet’s scanners will react to your eyes and focus on what you’re looking at. Will you wear it?”

“I’ll wear it.”

Tyler stepped outside of the room and brought in a helmet that covered the Regent’s head. “Tyler, I can’t see anything.”

“Give me a moment.” Tyler powered the helmet and the Regent saw a blue light shine into his eyes.”

“I can only see a blue light.”

“Give the helmet a few moments to adjust the light to your retinas. It should disappear in a few moments.”

The Regent saw the blue light slowly dim and then disappear. He found he could no longer see the helmet over his head. He knew he was still wearing it but he couldn’t see it. “What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to just wear the helmet while you’re teaching. Nothing more.”

“Why?”

“The helmet has to be trained to your optical nerves.”

“Ok.”

“Thank you very much for helping me.”

“No problem.” Tyler left and the Regent saw that he could clearly see everyone in the room. His eyes weren’t as good as they once were when he was younger and this helmet made his vision as strong as it had ever been. He knew Tyler only asked for him to wear the helmet in class but he found he was soon wearing it all day. Whenever he took it off, he hated his failing eyesight. Besides, Tyler had designed the front of the Helmet to look like the visage of a Raptor. He liked the response of others when they saw it.

He was talking with his mate one evening and she said, “Will you take that helmet off. I’m close to forgetting what you look like.”

He lifted the helmet and shrugged, “I’ve grown so accustomed to wearing it that I no longer notice it.”

“What’s it supposed to do?”

“I’m not sure but if it does nothing else but correct my vision I’ll continue to wear it.”

“My vision is not as good as it was.”

“I’ll have Tyler make you a helmet.”

“I won’t wear that?”

“Why?”

“Because, because…”

“You think it will detract from your beauty.”

“Something like that?”

“Do you think it might gain you some respect from the warriors?” She stared at him and he said, “You’ve always complained they don’t respond to you as quickly as they do with me. I think this helmet might be a little intimidating to them.”

She started nodding after a minute and said, “See if Tyler will make me a helmet.”

• • •

Tyler made her a helmet and three weeks later he had them join him on the ship’s bridge. “Thank you for coming. I want to see if I can connect you.”

“Connect me?”

“Yes. Hold on just a moment.” Tyler went to the helmet and pushed a small module into a socket on the back of the helmet. Tyler looked at the Navigator and nodded. The Navigator shrugged and activated the external scanners. Tyler took the Regent’s hand and placed it on the side of the helmet and said, “Do you feel this switch?” The Regent nodded. “Alright, I want you to push it up.”

The Regent pushed the switch up and almost fell, “What the…”

“I’ve connected your helmet to your ship’s scanners. Focus on one of the images.”

The Regent stared at an image showing some of his warriors working on the ship’s hull. He found he could move the view in closer or back out from it. He focused on another image and saw Andy talking with the human named Harvey. He focused closely and could hear what they were saying. He reached up and pulled the switch down. “What have you done?”

“I’ve made it possible for you to use the ship’s scanners to view anything the ship sees. If the ship is scanning a planet, you’ll be able to focus on it. If the scanners are viewing a fleet of enemy ships, you’ll be able to see it and if you choose, focus on just one ship or all of them.”

The Regent took off the helmet and looked at Tyler, “And I’ll be able to send my thought beam at whatever I’m focused on?”

Tyler nodded, “That’s the plan.”

“How are you able to do that?”

“The helmet will move an electronic field around your head so that your thoughts will only go out toward what you’re focused on.”

“It will block them from going in any other direction.” Tyler nodded. “You know we can hear each other’s thoughts if we’re in close proximity?”

“I do.”

“We’ve never told you we could do that.”

“It stands to reason that if you can project a killing thought thousands of miles, you’d have to possess some telepathic ability. Besides, I have a device that can detect telepathic patterns.”

“And it will block my thoughts.”

Tyler shrugged, “It will also block ours. I’ve built a helmet for Linnae and Harmony and they have been able to find peace for the first time in their lives without the thoughts of others barraging them every moment.”

The Regent tilted his head, “And it works.” Tyler nodded. The Regent looked at Grandel, “You’ve learned to use the mind weapon.” Grandel nodded. The Regent looked back at Tyler, “Does this mean all of those that can use the weapon will wear a helmet?”

“It does.”

“Why?”

“One day in the future, we’re going to make friends with other civilizations. It will make them more comfortable having us around if they think the thought weapon is produced by your helmets.”

The Regent stared at Tyler and shook his head, “But we would be at our most dangerous if we’re not wearing the helmets.”

“True, and if they’re so stupid as to attempt something treacherous, they’ll find out the hard way not to ever do that again.” Tyler paused, “Regent, others are very uncomfortable around telepaths; they fear their thoughts will betray them. One of our community secrets is that we are going to tell all the civilizations we contact that our mental powers are produced technologically. Then we’ll move among them without the helmets. They will be at ease and they will also be open to us to see if they can be trusted.”