LOST AMONG THE revelers, JC discovers one shop not converted into a makeshift bar. Inside an Asym waves his hand at a sign: “Telepaths are unwelcome.” Many businesses hang such adornments. Despite strict rules against such prejudices and harsh penalties for acts of segregation, most people don’t trust telepaths. Under law she must wear the uniform and gloves in public at all times.

The man demands she leave. She could manipulate his thoughts despite the law, but she tries her second most popular method for manipulating men. JC opens a soft case containing credit chits—her earnings from the battle being celebrated in the street.

He waits for her to make her request before demanding her to leave again. Not many drunk mercs have decided to patron his shop for custom jewelry.

She slides a blue opal across the counter.

“Necklace? Armband? You certainly don’t want me to size it down.” He touches the gem.

“No.” She taps her forehead. “Mount it in a golden headband centering the stone.”

“It would be easier to create a choker. Replace the bauble already around your throat.”

“Part of the uniform.” Not displaying the Eir Basilica emblem to inform everyone she is of the telepathic Sisterhood means instant incarceration. The bauble around their necks is designed for distraction.

The blue-pigmented Asym nods before disappearing into the back of the store.

JC stretches out her thoughts. Her time with Reynard has her obeying the law when it suits. She needs this stone before she contributes to the search for her captain. She touches the shop owner’s thoughts. He grumbles about dealing with a telepath but has no plans to betray her. He needs the credits.

JC pulls back, not wanting him to catch a fragrance of her sniffing his thoughts. Some humanoids detect telepathic scans. Many believe a telepath must have physical skin contact, which is why she sports bicep-length black gloves.

Returning with an elongated suitcase, he props it open on the counter. Inside, encased in protective foam, are a dozen tiaras. “If you like, I’ll transform one of these into your headpiece. A custom molded headband will take weeks.”

Lies. JC doesn’t have to read his thoughts to know it would only take days. No, this Asym wants her gone but desires her credits. Hard-earned physical money is untraceable, unlike the credit recorded on her DNA card.

Sticking with the crew’s sigil, she selects golden dragons, each with open mouths biting down on a single center ruby.

“This one if you don’t have to cut the stone.”

••••••

ORNATE JEWELRY—FORBIDDEN by the Sisterhood—attracts little attention when most people steer clear of the scantily-clad telepaths. Being all female, some brilliant founder determined exposing much of the mammaries to distracted males allowed for less resistance in the mind reading process. JC touches the golden headband. It needs no adjustment.

She despises the rules imposed on telepaths. Why should I follow? The Eir Basilica abandoned me fifteen years ago. Abandoned—they sold me. I was sold into servitude. My indentured servitude ended swiftly but the disdain of being a slave did not.

Despite his quick work, the jeweler created a quality piece. Most likely not for his pride but to keep her from returning to his workshop. If he had known the stone exacerbates her telepathic skills, she doubts he would have worked so diligently.

With the Silver Dragon in disrepair the crew scattered around the city after learning of Reynard’s disappearance. None of them want to accept the fate of someone encountering a Sandman until they consult Australia. She should arrive within the solar day to retrieve them. Considering the events of the past weeks, they should not separate themselves among the celebrating mercs. JC knows Amye’s in a bar—but which one?

Without reading his mind she knows where to locate Scott. The Dragon’s chief engineer has an affinity for chasing females since his pet remains on the ship.

••••••

THE PARTY CROWD thins closer to the city’s major spaceport. JC closes her mind to all the raging thoughts. The hotel quality and female companions here match the standards of the Dragon’s chief engineer. He would want to be close to the spaceport when Australia chooses to contact the crew.

Asym soldiers outfitted in tactical armor push revelers from the luxury sector. The credit-rich mercenaries aren’t welcome among old money. The officers give her a wide berth, allowing her access to the shops. Telepaths don’t pilot Mecats, and she lacks a representative merc sigil.

Nestled among the fancy clothing stores designed for off-world guests—as the fabrics lack texture to be durable for work among the crops—is a small shop labeled Osirian World. When the Iphigenians invaded a backward world in a spiral arm of the galaxy, they found a lost species of humanoid. The descendants of Osiris. Most of Osiris’s leadership deeds were forbidden study, but she knows her Sisterhood has archived some information. Had I not been sold I may have earned the privilege to read the tomes. Maybe not. My interest was sparked by my time with the Admiral.

Inside the store Doug barters for a stack of paperback books full of ink colored drawings. His affinity for collecting Osirian artifacts has left him an expert on many fakes on the market.

“You want fifteen hundred credits. Smerth’n rip. These aren’t even popular issues.”

“Has Aus been in contact?” JC steps next to him.

Doug ignores his short, blonde-haired crewmate in order to complete his transaction.

JC places her gloved hands on the counter. Sweat beads from the shop owner’s hairline. “Doug?”

“Most communications in the outer section of the city aren’t functioning, or the comm traffic’s so thick no signal reaches off planet,” Doug explains to get the telepath to leave him alone.

“Have you tried the smerth’n spaceport?” She adds the annoying swear he always does.

“Signal quality won’t degrade and plenty of jacker ports.” Doug accepts her valid analysis.

“You’re a jacker? You’re…Osirian.” Panic overwhelms the man. “Give you special price. Twelve hundred credits and you leave my store.”

Doug scatters the credit chits over the counter and pockets the hermetically-sealed comic books into a leather pouch.

“People fear jackers.”

“Not as much as telepaths,” Doug says.

“Not as much as an Osirian jacker. They always go crazy.” JC smiles.

“I’m the only one who hasn’t.” Doug smiles

“Not if you ask Amye. Have you encountered her?”

“Not since you reported Reynard being taken by a Sandman,” Doug says.

“He’s alive.”

“Smerth’n he is. The few specks of literature there are on those creatures say they drink humanoid minds for breakfast,” Doug says.

“He’s alive. If they wanted him dead we’d be cremating his brainless corpse. Make contact with Aus and scan the Interplanetary Subspace Netscape for any scrap on the Sandmen.”

“You don’t even fit in the command rank of the crew,” Doug protests.

“I’m more qualified to locate Scott and Amye.”

••••••

PASSION—NOTHING ELSE overwhelms the mind like passion. Osirian sexual lust monopolizes the mind. Males don’t constantly think about sexual congress, but when they do their brains are consumed by such thoughts.

In certain instances, a mind engrossed in passion explodes with thoughts. Most are of the pleasure consumed, but random thoughts do surface. Some males even concentrate on insignificant tasks in order to prevent climax too soon. JC recognizes the radiant pleasure energy emanating from Scott. She’s felt it enough since joining the crew.

Working like a bloodhound following a scent, JC maneuvers through the hotel corridors, following Scott’s mental energies.

Surface thoughts are never safe around a telepath. Deception is second nature to most humanoids. Among cultures practicing monogamy by social convention, infidelities seem common practice and commonly feared of being revealed. Scott should have such a fear.

The key card clicks the door open. The clerk was all too willing to hand one over for fear of her learning his secret.

JC holds in a giggle, knowing that when humanoids try hard to hide a thought, it radiates to the surface, beaming like a lighthouse. Surface thoughts are not illegal to read, and why would she care if he partakes in a mind-altering substance when not at work?

Naked green-skinned women with prehensile tails cover a mass in the center of the bed. JC waves her arm, creating a physical manifestation to direct her thoughts. The three women scamper from the bed, frantically slapping at their bare skin, knocking away insects JC made their minds believe crawl on them. They race from the room more afraid of JC than the insects she made them think were wriggling on their naked flesh.

“You make it difficult, Scott.”

“If the Dragon’s not back, I want to sleep.”

“One day I’m going to creep up into your brain and twist until—”

“Despite your distaste of the Sisterhood, you still value your mandate.” He buries his face in the pillow.

“Do you care nothing for Australia?” JC asks.

“Is she back on-planet? It’s only cheating if we’re on the same planet.”

JC flings open the curtains, flooding the chamber with sunlight.

Scott moans as his pupils shrink.

JC opens the window, but the smell of charred metal and a thin haze of battle stink forces her to close it. She’ll just have to deal with the stench of animal sex coating the room.

“Doug’s contacting the Dragon now. We need to find Reynard.”

“I want the Commander back, but where do you suggest we search? Sandmen hop dimensions like we travel through space,” Scott says.

“How do you acquire such information? Sandmen have been fairy tales on many planets. Dark legends, but little factual information floats around.”

“Deductive reasoning. Start with what we know. Sandmen exist. They appear and disappear at will without a transporter. It’s some kind of phasic dimensional transfer, technology so advanced we have no manner in which to detect it. What primitives refer to as magic. They feed on brains. So they need something in the cerebral energy to sustain them. I’ve no idea what or why. I’m merely an engineer, not a neurobiologist.”

“Your guesses are sound. Any speculation on where they would take him?” JC inquires.

“The Mokarran don’t take prisoners, nor do Sandmen. The campfire story I remember claimed Sandmen stole the brains of disobedient children, leaving an empty husk. They remind me of the Osirian myth of Lilith…somewhat,” Scott says.

“Lilith?”

“The first woman ejected from Osirian paradise for wanting equality in sexual pleasure. Being spurned, her children haunted humankind. My mother wore a pendant of protection from these offspring known as the Lilim. It reminds me a lot of your necklace.” Scott points at her throat.

JC caresses the silver pendant dangling from the choker. “Cassandra. She was beautiful and granted the gift of prophecy.”

“Not quite a telepathic trait.”

“Her gifts were ignored, much like telepaths,” JC says.

“But the Eir Basilica temple is older than the Osirian Myth.”

JC ignores the implied question in Scott’s observation.

With the warmth of his companions gone, Scott rolls over, finally ready to leave the bed. “Determine a location to search for Reynard. Until then I need to refit the Dragon. The extensive damage has months of dry dock written all over it. If Reynard wants Mecat storage, I’ve got to rip out rooms to have deck space to install the automated support equipment. Might as well do it as I make repairs.”

“Since you don’t have engineering to do, Amye won’t answer comms.”

“She’s crawled into a hole, drunk with some—or many—lovers,” Scott says.

“You’ll need her to repair the ship.”

“You defend her like her sister did. Amye was the colony’s plaything. Wasn’t a night she wasn’t drunk and dragging some miner to her quarters,” Scott says.

“And how did you miss the opportunity for her company?”

“My mission involved information her sister had,” Scott admits.

“You were on Tartarus when Kymberlynn’s shuttle exploded?”