Awares by Piers Anthony

Author:Piers Anthony
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Open Road Media

Chapter 6:

Invasion

I was making love to my sibling Qqess when the call came. “Inferno!” I swore. “There's an emergency at the observation station. I must leave you, Kess.”

She was used to emergencies, for my profession was to handle them. “I will be here when you return, beloved, with my cloaca hot.”

I bit her ear affectionately as I disengaged. “I love you, sister.” Then I departed.

Space Command had detected a blip, and the power precognitor reported it was dangerous. All of us have precognition, of course, but the vicissitudes of changeability make it virtually worthless for routine things. What point to precog the next day's highlights, when one's very awareness of them changes them? The routine is similar regardless whether one takes one route or another. So we normally survey our near future routinely each day to be sure there is no significant mischief, such as a blip in the motor causing the flyer to crash, then proceed satisfyingly null. Similar with telepathy; the Qqq mind is one of the most complicated objects extant, and reading other minds soon makes a person queasy; they are filled with disorderly thoughts and impressions that one would never tolerate in one's own mind. I have thoughts of my own to organize without having to struggle with the messiness, desires, and guilts of others. It is better to stick to verbal and visual communication, allowing each other comfortable privacy while sparing ourselves avoidable disgust. Professional precogs, however, have far greater powers, not wasted on personal interactions, and can spot future events that need to be expeditiously handled.

Such as that blip. It was at the extreme range, and ill defined, but already carried the aura of menace. It might be a false reading; at the fringe reliability suffered. But it was not worth the risk of ignoring. Not until we were sure. I am also an Aware, which is another reason for my position, and I knew this situation was wrong. There was genuine mischief here.

I gave commands. It was my profession to assess borderline risks and categorize them, relaying them to the appropriate authorities for resolution. First I had the visual and auditory scopes orient on the blip, to get a literal picture of it. It fit the profile of a space ship. None of ours were that far out. That was in the direction of the Oumic realm, a pseudo-civilized species with which we had very limited contact. We probably would have been at war with each other, were the costs of interstellar combat not so wastefully extreme. Had they now embarked on the foolishness of a physical invasion of our sphere? That did not seem to make sense. They were reprehensible but not crazy.

Yet as the analysis was tallied, it turned out to be true: it was an Oumic ship. Worse, it was definitely foreboding. Menace was migrating to doom. If we let that craft into our region of space, we would pay a hideous price. The precogs were certain.

But I was not. I did not want to make a planetary case of a potential misunderstanding.

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