Beryl came over, keeping her eyes on him all the time. All the time.
Not that he minded, since he kept looking at her too.
Then the redhead brushed his arm with her fingers. He felt he kind of sharp synaptic burst this time, and the impression of needing to talk about what happened.
He turned to look at the redhead, and was surprised to see some pain in her eyes.
"Were you close with her?" came the question from Fireblade.
"Whom?" he asked, slightly disoriented who she might be talking about.
She looked at Beryl, who was now standing next to Tempo.
Tempo stepped aside, and Beryl moved closer and sat in the chair next to him, on the other side of Fireblade. It was obvious though, that there still was an ongoing discussion between the three Loroi, Tempo, Beryl, and Fireblade.
Then Beryl touched his arm gently, and asked "Can I try sending to you, please?"
When he said failed to reply, Beryl concentrated, and an image flared in his mind, briefly, but clearly coming from Beryl. 'Fireblade showed me how she formed her thoughts and what may have triggered you reading her', then, an image that was ... unwanted. A face with a tear tatooed next to the right eye.
The image faded, and the three looked at him.
"Ellen..." slipped from his mouth. Taking a breath, he looked at Beryl, and repeated "Ellen. Ellen Kirkland was her name."
"Was she...", but Beryl left the question hanging in the room, unfinished.
"Yes, and no. Yes, she was my partner. At work, and sometimes in bed too. Human relations are complex, and while we are usually monogamous, having one partner, we are, what some psychologists call, 'serially monogamous', meaning we have one partner at a time, but after a few years, when the attraction dies, we often switch partner. " Alex tried to explain. "But no, Ellen was never officially 'my partner'. We both are ... were singles, meaning we both had no partner waiting at home. We had fun together, and she was my best friend. We've been through difficult situations together, and the Bellarmine was a packed ship, not much room, on a dangerous mission. This all lead to a build up of stress. And being 'friends with benefits' is a good way to relieve stress, in such situations."
Beryl nodded her head. Her curiousity was there, but also something else? Sorrow?... no. Maybe. But something else was there. Finally, a thought hit him 'Jealous'.
"Now is not the time to go about personal feelings." Tempo interrupted "We have more pressing concerns, and I fear Captain Jardin might need more practice how to overcome his own Lotai before he might be able to show us the 'stories of old' without telling them."
Alex consciously touched Beryl's hand, while trying to form an image of pressing on her hand reassuringly.
'Yes' came her sending. But then quietness. Beryl's face showed a smile, but Tempo showed concern.
"You are able to send aimed messages to Beryl then. But when Fireblade tried to telepathically ask you something, the connection broke." Tempo said. Seeing his face, she added "Yes, we are all party to at least some of the Sanzai you are sending to her. Partly because we three have an 'open connection' among each other right now, to share our findings and thoughts about your Sanzai and Lotai, but also because your sending is not that precise. We are able to 'listen in'."
"Again, now is not the time for personal feelings, although it seems to help you discovering your Sanzai." Tempo added. "For the immediate now, I want to know about some of your stories from the old times. The ones having telepathy as a part of it."
"Well..." Alex said. "Our stories are not that defined. We have plenty of stories, where Humans seem to communicate to each other without words. But modern scientists have made plenty of tests, and in some cases, mostly experienced card-players having played a long while with each other, were apparently able to seemingly communicate to each other without words. Modern software though used to assess body language of those involved, actually discerned that the card players were communicating through unconscious body signals. Like a slightly dropped left shoulder, and that the card-playing partner actually only picked up on that. In most other cases, the scientists actually showed, that there was nothing going on, and at best the assumed telepaths were just better at reading other Human gestures, and thus able to make educated guesses, making their 'reading of thoughts' simply slightly better at predicting what the other person was thinking."
"In some very old stories, and also in our literature, which we use for entertainment, we have stories of other sentient beings living or having lived on Earth too. We group those stories as 'fantasy', as there is no proof of them being true, or having a true core. Those other sentient beings being 'giants', Human looking people with very large bodies, 'Dwarves', also bipedal, but smaller and often living underneath the surface of our world, mostly in the mountains, 'Orcs', bipedal, but rather stupid beings loving violence and war, and then the 'dragons', mystical beings walking on four legs, having a long tail, and said to having been able to fly, although most stories depict them with wings far too small to fly."
"And all of them were said to have telepathic abilities?" came Beryl's question.
"No. No. Only the Dragons, and only in some of the stories."
"Only in some?" came a perplexed question from Beryl.
"Well, our stories are often independent from each other. And therefore properties something has in one story means nothing for other stories. For example the Dragons. In all stories those are depicted as very large lizards. In Chinese stories they were often a bright red, while in European stories they were often green or brown to better hide in the backrground of our nature."
"Lizards?" interrupted Beryl.
"Lizards are creatures walking on four legs, and having scales. Being coldblooded, they often need warm ambient surroundings to make their muscles work sufficiently." He added when he saw Beryls face. "Dragons were also in some stories only large animals, no sentience in them. And in other stories they were smart, very intelligent beings being able to talk, and in some being able to suggest you to do something, by making an image appear in your mind, which you had to follow."
"Okay, lets talk later about the Dragons. Who else had telepathic abilities in your stories?" Beryls voice came.
"Well, there were the Elves, and them some Humans, mostly in Science Fiction stories using the help of technology , so no actual telepathy."
'Oops, now the Elves slipped my mouth' Alex thought.
"No telepathy, but technology?"
"Yes. Basically, in these stories, written in a time before some of our current technolgies existed, and writing about how the author sees a possible future for Humanity, they imagined some kind of microtechnology being implanted in the brain, and being able to read your intentions. And if you intended to send a message to someone, the technology in your brain would do that for you, as the technology in the receivers brain would alert the receiver to a message being received, and actually play it by stimulating optical and/or auditory nerves directly."
"Ah, I see." said Beryl. "And how about Giants, Dwarves, and Orcs?"
"I know of no story where either of them had telepathic abilities." Alexander answered.
"Can you try to describe the mentioned races? Or try to send an image of them?" Beryl asked.
Alex thought hard of an image of Orcs, Dwarves, and Dragons. Without an Elf.
Orcs, Dwarves, and Dragons. Orcs, Dwarves, and Dragons.
He touched Beryl, and immediately felt a shock. A hard shock, and then the mental shout of 'NISSEK!' sent back to him, attached to the image of the Dragons. this time he could cleary identify Tempo's, Beryl's, and Fireblade's sending separately coming to him. He tensed at that, and immediately felt any connection close again.
'Ah, relaxation is a must for sending right now.' Alex recognised.
"What are 'Nissek'?" Alexander asked.
"Another sentient race we are formally allied with." Tempo added.
"I felt some... distrust... when you three thought that word." Alex probed.
"Indeed." Tempo added. "While they are formally allies, they have not really contributed to any war effort, yet still maintain a large fleet. We are somewhat distrustful of their motives, but since they are at the other side of our Union, we keep an eye on them, and repeatedly ask for some support, which they usually decline with a lot of positive sounding formulations, but ultimately end up being nothing more than hollow phrases. But since they are apparently fighting something in their region of space, and keep our common frontier clear from other incidents, we are hesitant to force the issue."
"Oh, and they are also known to eat other sentient species." Beryl added.
When Alexed looked in slight confusion at her, she added "We felt in your sending, that the Dragons are also known to eat Humans, and other beings, this is just an additional observation from me.
Although the Nissek do not have the ability to fly, nor do they have wings. And they walk on two legs." she commented further.
Then Beryl looked at Tempo. Alex followed her lead, and saw into that face.
"You were deliberately hiding something with that picture." Tempo said. "The picture was not complete. My guess is you've been thinking about a specific story, one with images, so that you could have a detailed image to send. But you tried to remove something from that image."
"Yes. I picked up on that." she added. "We Mizol are trained in telepathic trickery. There is something in that specific story you wanted us not to know."
Alex tensed up. Beryl tried to touch him, but there was no reaction to her touch.
"You've tensed up, and there will be no telepathy involved now." Tempo commented. "But be aware that this obviously cannot dissolve our reservations about you."
Alex looked at her. "Sorry. Yes. Yes. I was hiding something."
He took a few deep breaths, and tried to relax. He took Beryls hands into his, and looked deep into her eyes.
"Sorry" he said, and with that he thought of an image of the Elves. He was thinking of Arwen, as depicted by Liv Tyler, an actress one of the films with Elves, showing the story of one of his favourite books. The face was now against his wishes very much Beryl's face.
He heard all three of them take a deep breath at the image of the black haired, whitish-skinned female Elf with long, pointy ears.