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Ebban studied the screen in the observatory on Vastus Station, tapping against the dusty table with all four fingers on his right hand. Like all telepaths, he had stubby fingers, all the same size with a single joint in the center. The same brown-orange color covered his entire body. Some telepaths had three fingers, some as many as nine on each hand. Ebban’s total of nine fingers worked well for him.
Telepaths were not known for having good night vision, but Ebban’s orange eyes could make out the shapes of tables and chairs in the shifting light from the screen he was watching. It was a large room, making it impossible for him to see the entire observatory with such poor lighting.
The observatory was probably the most important room when Vastus Station, built to study animals, was designed. He could imagine the room filled with hundreds of humans, strutting around with their odd hair. Fortunately, no one else was on Vastus Station with him.
Solitude on Vastus Station gave Ebban plenty of opportunities to ponder a predicament. The war among the galaxies raged on. Predictions made by war analysts and strategists were accurate. Species continued to fight against each other, and together they died. In his desperation Ebban ran away from the war.
Peace Bringers who planned the Vastus project were careful about not giving information concerning the project to anyone unless necessary. In fact, most of the Peace Bringers who left one hundred thirty-nine years earlier didn’t know the location of the planet or even the name. A few months ago, Ebban was contacted by a Peace Bringer who asked him if he wanted to study Vastus. Ebban jumped at the opportunity. He would enjoy solitude after years of fighting. Later Ebban discovered he would be on Vastus Station with a shapeshifter and a human.
Vintles were created by telepaths for insignificant telepath children, like Ebban. They were plain, brown rooms that didn’t allow telepaths to interact with each other. Since he was raised in a vintle, with plain metal walls and a robot that cleaned his vintle once a week, Ebban felt little loyalty to his fellow telepaths. He had no contact with them until he was thirty, according to Vastus time. Next, he was assigned to fighting humans and shapeshifters. Ebban had no chance to enjoy life or build relationships with others. As Ebban watched Ani Louise on the observer, he wondered if she would have been better off in a vintle. No one hit him as they did her.
Ebban was the first Peace Bringer to arrive on the previously deserted space station. Other Peace Bringers wouldn’t arrive for a month. Ebban’s shuttle was in the landing bay, standing by in case life support on Vastus Station failed. Being alone on Vastus Station didn’t bother Ebban. His years in isolation as a child prepared him well for his current task. The educational projections that appeared in the middle of Ebban’s vintle were the only entertainment he had while there. The average vintle telepath survived for ten years after they left the vintle. Ebban was unusually lucky.
Ebban’s thoughts were interrupted by a creak. He immediately reached for his emergency space suit. A loud crash echoed through the empty hallways. Ebban snatched his space suit and carried it with him, down the hallway, to the central room on the primary floor. He couldn’t see anything amiss, but crashes continued echoing from above. Should he find safety on his shuttle? Ebban was about to make his escape when the noises reduced to clattering, then stopped. Ebban’s short legs brought him around the main room, studying the walls and ceiling, but Ebban had no experience with maintenance, and didn’t know how to check for damage. If he noticed an obvious problem, like a gaping hole in the ceiling, Ebban would have been concerned, but he couldn’t see anything amiss. He decided all was well and returned to the observatory. Perhaps it would be helpful to have someone else on Vastus Station, especially if they were an engineer.
Telepath engineers weren’t common. For a telepath, learning new technology usually meant capturing a human engineer then reading their mind until the telepath discovered what the human knew. Shapeshifter engineers were more common. They were precise about everything they did, but not very inventive. It was also tricky to read a shapeshifter’s mind because shapeshifters tended to die before telepaths could get much information from them. Humans were clever, inventive, intelligent, and could endure telepath interrogations. Any telepath who captured a human engineer was abundantly rewarded. Ebban didn’t have plans to take a human engineer captive though. He wanted to live away from the war for a while. Perhaps he would reconsider if the engineer proved to have plans other than peace.
The more Ebban thought about human engineers, the more he considered turning one over to his svilg, the telepath military leader that Ebban belonged to, the same military leader who commanded hundreds of insignificant telepaths on the svilg ship Ebban escaped from. Ebban decided he ought to give the human a chance at peace, shouldn’t he?
Often people snuck away from the war, but sometimes they were found. Deserters of all species were punished by their own kind or captured by someone else. Deciding the risk was worth the potential of ending the war, Peace Bringers invited observers, like Ebban, to see if Peace Bringers on Vastus had learned to live well together. What Ebban saw was anything but hopeful; more fighting and conspiring. When Ebban found Ani, he locked the observer onto her because she was clearly not entirely human. After watching for a while, he discovered Ani’s mother was a captive elf. Where the elves came from Ebban didn’t know, but Ani was also part telepath.
Ebban wanted to search the planet for other people. Unfortunately, the controls malfunctioned. He could only observe Ani Louise. It would be a long wait before an engineer Peace Bringer came to Vastus Station to repair the observer. With little else to do, Ebban turned his attention to the observer and took notes on his clear tablet, dreading, and hoping for the arrival of an engineer.
