Telephone

[Erich Jaenke 0]

Telephone

 

After months of communicating with her mind to Erich, Keb found the concept easier to adjust to than most non-telepaths. She still shut her eyes when she was trying hard to get a message across, no matter how often Erich told her it made no difference, but she had figured out by feel what worked when she needed to tell him something. When their guest had spoken into her mind, it was almost instinct to try to communicate back.

 

Of course, Erich, so intricately linked with Keb, heard everything that she was trying to tell the creature. To him, whatever was in the cargo bay was like their technological attempts to get a reading on it--it was a dark mental space. Normally he could not block out others thoughts; here, he could get nothing but Keb’s half of the conversation. He once was in a chamber that absorbed all sound. After a few minutes he had needed to get out. Erich was beginning to feel that way again. It was a little distracting as he continued to work to open the doors. Just as the doors opened, he felt the overwhelming sensation of her hand on his arm. They both looked into the dark cargo bay.

 

"Well, that is something you don't see every mission," Erich said, looking into a normal starship bay with very bizarre lighting. It was more of an absence of lighting, bending into different colors before fading to darkness. Lights at the back of the cargo bay, which he knew were there, appeared shut off. The closer the fixture was to the rift, for lack of a better term, the dimmer the light. Even light from behind Erich and Keb bent towards this rift. "I don't think I could have beamed in there."

 

“I’m glad you didn’t try,” Keb said, taking a half-step forward toward the creature. Something about sharing her mind with it had made her feel already very close to whoever their visitor was.

 

Something was bugging Erich about this upside-down situation, perhaps because he could feel how Keb was drawn to her new “friend,” who was a complete blank to him. "Let me get this straight. I can't hear this creature, but you and others can? Kansas seemed quite confused at the time," Erich pointed toward the bay, "it spoke."

 

Keb nodded. “It’s like...it’s just like when you’re in my mind. Only--it feels a little less...warm, and he sounds like my brother. It’s weird.” She didn’t really have adequate words to describe what it felt like, but Erich was able to get a sense of what she meant in her tangled thoughts, which were a blend of awe at her own ability and compassion for the entity in the cargo bay.

 

"An unexpected voice in your head other than your own is always disconcerting," Erich agreed. "And this is coming from a telepath with ability issues." He tried to swallow down a bit of jealousy at the idea of sharing Keb’s vibrant mind with a stranger. He flipped his tricorder open and made adjustments to its engineering settings. "Hmm."

 

“We should...say hi, I guess. I think he’s a little afraid.” Keb let go of Erich, stepping toward the cargo bay as if magnetically pulled, and without regard to her own safety.

 

Erich realized what she was doing and grabbed her hand. "Hey, just because you can speak to this creature does not mean you should go out on a date. We don't know the danger." His point was valid, but laden with a bit of telepathy envy.

 

Tugged back, Keb looked around as if startled out of a daze. Kansas was just behind them both, hand on her phaser just in case. Not that phased energy is the answer to all threats. In the interests of relations with new species and keeping the ship together, Erich hoped Keb was up to bridging this unique first contact.