... scrittchhhh ...
'... doesn't matter who's coming... don't put anyone next to a candidate ...'
I stumbled down to the dining area, trying to ignore the distractions. The formulator clicked and rattled more than
I recalled when it came up with a cheese omelet and sweet biscuits. I didn't even want to think about truffled cheese and eggs. The salt on the eggs had a metallic edge, and the Arleen had a smoky taste I hadn't recalled.
There was but a single other person in the dining area of the transient quarters, a man in blue and green - a transport administrator or controller?
CLUNK! I twitched at the sound, managing to hold myself steady. He had only hit the edge of his spoon and knocked it against his platter, but the sound had felt amplified to me. I finished the eggs and the biscuits, not quite all the Arleen, and hurried out of the transient quarters and along the path to the medical building under high thin clouds.
EEEEeeeeeeeeee ... The sound of a departing magshuttle - once so muted - screeched like a drill in my ears.
Doctor Colbarr saw me coming and wordlessly ushered me into a nanite screening room, one of the ones with a collector screen. 'WE'LL DO A DIAGNOSTIC FIRST.'
I tried not to wince as he touched a stud and a mist appeared that flowed toward me. I squinted momentarily, not recalling seeing such a ghostly brume when screened before.
'YOU CAN SEE THEM NOW - ANOTHER TALENT. DID YOU NOTICE HEARING MORE?'
'Everything,' I mumbled, trying to keep my own voice low. 'Why didn't I hear all that yesterday?'
'ONSET EFFECT,' he announced, as if that clarified everything.
I tried to call up the term. Delayed impact of increased sensitivity to perceptual stimuli... created by axonic physiochemical adjustment...
'PHYSICALLY, EVERYTHING LOOKS FINE.' He smiled. 'ONE OF THE BETTER DAY-AFTER PROFILES. YOU SHOULD ADJUST WELL.'
If I could adjust to such things as the raspiness of everyone's voices ... and the humming of electroessence everywhere ... and ...
'YOU'LL HAVE TO WORK ON MAKING THE PERCEPTUAL SENSITIVITIES VOLUNTARY. YOU CAN, YOU KNOW. JUST A MATTER OF CONCENTRATION.'
A matter of concentration? I raised my eyebrows.
THINK ABOUT IT AS A VOLUME CONTROL. VISUALIZE IT THAT WAY.'
His voice still rang in my ears, rumbling like thunder, although I could sense he was trying to speak softly.
'I'll try.' My own voice rang and echoed in my ears, even though I'd barely whispered.
Colbarr added, 'ALICIA IS WAITING AT THE FRONT OPERATIONS CONSOLE.'
Concentrating on the idea of lowering my sensitivity, I nodded.
Ears still ringing, I tried mental commands to myself and my nervous system or internal demons or nanites. What exactly worked, I wasn't sure, but slowly the hypersensitivity receded somewhat by the time I entered the operations building.
There I met Alicia deSchmidt for the second time, precisely at the same place in the operations building where I'd checked in when I'd returned from OE Station. That was when Andra and Cerrelle had let me walk through gravity I'd been unaccustomed to so they could make a point - one I hadn't forgotten.
'You're Tyndel?' She wasn't even as tall as I was, and her smile was captivating even as I recognized its sheer professionalism.
'Yes, ser.' I wasn't about to alienate a special operative, especially one who looked like an adolescent's dream who could drive a knife blade through solid oak barehanded.
She raised her eyebrows. 'Do I know you?'
'I watched you drive a steel blade through a table barehanded several years ago.'
'Oh ... the Dzin master.' She nodded. 'Follow me.' She walked briskly down one corridor and around a corner, then through a door and down a circular ramp. At the bottom she followed the next corridor past several closed doors to a door at the end. She opened it and motioned for me to enter the enormous circular room, easily thirty meters across. The walls were black, as were the floor and ceiling, and the arched ceiling looked to be at least thirty meters above me. The only object in the entire space was a pedestal stool or chair attached to a metal pole that meshed seamlessly with the black floor.
'Sit there.' Alicia gestured to the chair. It had armrests and a small console of some sort on a curved support rising from the left armrest. 'Fasten the harness.'
I sat and slipped on the harness that reminded me of those used on the magshuttle that had carried me up and back from the earth orbit station.
She pointed to the console. 'You should be able to operate the console mentally now. Think about powering it up.'
I visualized power flowing to the console. Nothing happened.
A simple command is easier.' The dark-haired specialist's words were dry. 'Like "Power."'
The console energized, and I flushed.
Always try the simplest solution first, unless you know it's wrong. There.' She pointed to the front of the stool. 'There is an imaginary line running forward from the direct center of the stool as your reference point. Consider it as either zero or three hundred and sixty degrees. Various stimuli or objects will appear in the room. You are to note their position in degrees and key the location into the console.'
Her eyes blinked, and a red box appeared by her feet. 'What is its location?'
Three hundred forty-eight degrees. 'Three hundred forty-eight degrees.'
'The input was on the console one point five seconds before you finished speaking. Trust your mind and perceptions. You can't afford that kind of lag. Don't bother to speak.'
I shut my mouth.
'Again.'
This time it was a black oval.
Forty-seven ... forty-eight degrees.
'One reference. Just one,' she cautioned. 'You have to be right the first time. Don't think the word degrees, either. The numbers are enough.'
A sunflower appeared to my right, barely in my field of vision, and I turned my head as I thought, Ninety-five degrees.
'The numbers alone. And don't turn. Learn to trust your senses about what's to the side and behind you. You have to do it without moving. You can't turn an entire needle ship to look at a singularity.' She snorted. 'And you wouldn't want to. You wouldn't survive it.'
Singularities again.
'Now you have the idea. You'll work in darkness from here on.' She stepped back and closed the door.
The room darkened, and the pedestal rose, carrying me upward. A slight rush of air confirmed that the floor had fallen away, so that I was suspended in the middle of a sphere.
An arrow flashed straight up.
Two ninety-two.
It vanished.
I licked my lips.
A luminous yellow cube tumbled from overhead. Seventy-one.
The cube was followed by a bush - lushly green - sprouting out of the side of the sphere as I watched.
'Faster, Tyndel!' Alicia's voice was both spoken and somehow within my skull.
Chartreuse glowed from somewhere behind me. I guessed.
One-seventy-eight...
Crack!... Sssss! Something between an electric jolt and a kick jarred my entire body.
'Don't guess!' snapped Alicia. 'Use your perceptions.'
The objects appeared everywhere - up, down, behind, below - until I lost track of how many and reported their locations automatically.
Then, far later, it seemed, the chair lowered me to the floor - again flat like a normal floor. The lights returned. I wiped my forehead. I was soaked, and I hadn't even been aware of it.
Alicia opened the door and stepped forward, stopping three meters short of me. Two point nine three.