Nightshade - Laurell K. Hamilton [59]
Her lovely face was… haunted. Picard had no better word for it. It was not often that the counselor allowed her own worries to show so clearly. “Are you all right?”
‘It passes, Captain. I have experienced a few individuals in the past who could intrude upon me in this fashion, but never so many people in one place. And the strangest part is that they don’t know they have the ability.”
‘Explain,” Picard said.
‘I don’t know if I can. It is like they all have these wondrous empathic talents, but somehow it is stunted or hidden, even from themselves.” Troi looked at Breck. He sat motionless against the wall, but he was watching her. She had a vague sense of his intense concentration but could not read him.
‘Breck, what are the legends of mind powers? What were they suppose to be able to do?”
He shifted, settling more comfortably against the wall. His body language was much more casual than the intensity Troi could feel.
‘There have been no true mind powers among our people for over a hundred years. Until I met you, Healer, I thought they were wishful stories for children. Now I am not so sure. I feel strange when I am near you and you use your powers. It prickles along my mind. Why?”
Picard watched doubts pass over Troi’s face. Was she debating whether to tell the truth? If so, Picard knew which she would choose. Troi was more comfortable with the truth.
‘Many of the Orianians are blank to me, Breck. That means I can’t read their emotions, which is highly unusual. It implies an ability to block empathic senses. You are a blank to me most of the time.”
‘So, you are saying I am an empath or a mind-healer?”
‘In some sense, yes.”
He smiled at that. “A mind-healer, but why are so many of us blanks, as you call us?”
‘Did you feel General Alick die?”
‘I don’t understand the question,” Breck said.
‘I felt him die, Breck. I felt his death inside my head. It was horrible, bitter.” Troi stopped then spread her hands wide. “I don’t have words for how it feels, but it is hideous. It is one reason Betazoids don’t go into security work.”
‘You feel all deaths?”
‘Not all, but many.”
‘You think that the Orianians were originally empaths, but killing forced the talent underground?” Picard asked.
‘Yes, Captain.”
‘Wait,” Breck said. He was leaning forward now, making no pretense of disinterest. “You mean this war has killed not only our people but our mind-powers?”
‘What were the powers suppose to be able to do?” Troi asked again.
‘They could heal the body as well as the mind, though that was rare, only the greatest could do that. No leader ruled without a healer by his, or her, side. They were supposed to be able to talk to the ground, the plants, even the water and trees.”
‘Talk, how?” Picard asked.
‘The legends say they could conjure fruit from bare rock, but I don’t know what is myth and what is reality. The stories grew as the healers died.”
‘But their empathic sense was often tied to the ground, to the planet?” Troi asked.
‘Yes. If the stories are even partly true, the most common power was to be a friend of the trees and growing things.”
‘Does that help you, Counselor?” Picard asked.
‘There is something called a sense of place, Captain. Land can have a sense of itself. There are theories it is the imprint of people, but it is often strongest in areas where there are no people.”
‘Are you saying that the planet itself could be empathic?”
‘It is alive, Captain,” Troi said. “Every living thing gives off something that death steals from it.”
‘But a planet, an entire planet?”
‘A dying planet,” Troi said softly. “Dying like the people and their empathic abilities.”
‘I do not understand this,” Worf said. His voice was a questioning growl.
‘I do,” Breck said softly. He laughed and it was the first truly free sound Troi had ever heard from him. “We are tied to our planet. As we poison it, we poison ourselves, not by being forced to eat corrupt food, or drink foul water, but directly.