Willingly, I put the ring of execution about my neck, and agreed that the kangaroo court of Psi Lords had been most merciful and fair. But with three powerful psi’s, my so-called judges, marionetting my body and warping my will, I would have said anything. Including that the sky was blue rather than the orange that everybody could see it actually was.



The psi’s wrenched my mind free of my body, and cut the silver cord with malice aforethought. The ring zapped my body, but I have a great deal of defenses built into my body.



My mind fell into the genetic memory of the Psi Lords.



Earth, an Earth that I might have called home except that it did not have the only ones there who could make a place a real home, lay around me. The Sun flared terribly bright in the sky.

I drifted to listen at a crowd of people.

“Citizens, please stay inside, there is a twenty-four hour curfew. Looters will be shot on sight. There have been two equally absurd rumours. The Sun is not going into a supernova, and aliens are not flying about rescuing people.”



Then I saw a thousand foot long spaceship drift overhead.

“Must be the National Guard.” I said/she said.

I had merged with this quiet looking girl in the crowd. Let’s not go into details, but just say that it was disconcerting. Her friend glowed, and so did I as a light from the alien spaceship played over the crowd.

With much screaming, the whole crowd drifted skyward.



This gathering continued for many hours, and the huge chamber we were stashed in became filled with people from all over the planet. About a tenth of them glowed if I tried to see their auras. The aliens were grabbing strongly latent, and not so latent psi’s.



We watched and had a funeral service for Earth as we fled the wavefront of the supernova. The aliens let us see it as a courtesy, or gesture of sympathy, or just a taunt. We did not know.



Everybody was separated and tested and marked with coding symbols on their left bicep. Then the aliens announced in stilted and convoluted ways that we approached the planet they had selected for us.



Upon landing, we set to work making huts and farming. I think I encouraged the girl to be a hunter-gatherer as that was more effective right at the moment.

Her eye fell on a handsome lad, and that was even more disconcerting. I was momentarily grateful that the aliens said they could not marry. He had no glow; psionically speaking he was a log of wood.

Outrage and plans of war were met with stunning fields. Sit down strikes were met with pain prods. Then my host determined to starve herself right in front of the alien spaceship. I tried to talk her out of it as she became fuzzier, but without success. Then the aliens folded up their spaceship, and built a temple, and retreated inside.

With her joy, I left her body. I came back from a fog-shrouded place to see a forrest which I recognized. More accurately, I knew the species. I still walked or drifted.

A half-dozen brightly glowing locals ran through the forrest. The glow was, of course, not physical.

I saw them approach the temple, and place a hand onto a pedestal(after some discussion). Zooming closer, I heard the hum of an activating hologrid.

An alien appeared in the form of a hologram.

“What needs you?”

“Santuary. We are pursued because of our gifts or curses.”

A scurvy lot of thugs and violent sorts appeared at the edge of the temple clearing armed with two guns, and axes, and spears.

They bumped into somethine invisible. It was a forcefield that circled the clearing.

A door opened into the side of the temple.

“You are not to have anything to do with the temple by the Old Laws.” The thug’s leaders yelled.

“Are those the same Laws that prohibit murder?” someone yelled back. Then the crowd walked in.



I bonded with one of the thugs which was a loathsome experience. He was afraid of them because of their powers. Murdering witches at night was the safest time, and the best way to protect the human race, or so he thought. But he did not realize he was in thrall to the thug’s leader who was preternaturally charismatic. A smile from the leader made him forget better than a bottle of whiskey what a loser he was.

They walked forward because the forcefield and their prey was gone. The leader put his hand on the pedestal. The alien appeared, and they requested the witches be brought out.

“That would negate their wish, and that we cannot do.”

“Then let us in.”

A different door opened. The crowd walked in. They walked and walked searching corridors and rooms for the others. Then they searched for water. Then they searched for a way out. Bitter arguements broke out, and only one of them lasted even five days. But they never again saw their prey.

I drifted …



Tadeusz