'What the hell... Oh.' Douglas opened his eyes. 'Not in bed again. Not in _such_ a bed. I *hate* being in hospital.' His eyes searched the room. There was nobody, except of Rain in the next bed. 'Rain? This damn...' Pain flooded through his body. 'That hurt.'
"Rain, are you asleep?" She turned her head.
"What a stupid question. Why don't you just ask if I'm awake? I can't answer if I'm asleep, can I?"
"Do you always have to be so... Ouch!"
"Try to control your anger. I didn't think she'd do it ever again..."
"What?"
"Fury feedback. It'll take some time until the effect fades."
"What?"
"Basicly fury is turned into pain. Every time you feel anger or fury you feel pain. Telepathics can do that. But normally they won't. It's way too dangerous."
"I know, I blacked out."
"Not for us. That's only temporary. A few more hours and we'll be as good as new. No, it's dangerous for Maki."
"For Maki?"
"Yes, she did it once before. She was still a child then, just exploring her telepathic skills. Nearly killed her. She feels all the pain and fury herself. Only much, much stronger. And this time she did it twice. At the same time..."
"Is she..."
"No, but she needed infusions. A lot of those. Wind told me, when he was here. Try to relax. We'll have to discuss that later, but at the moment it's best for you... *us* and Maki to relax." In the next room Maki was lying on a bed and every few minutes Silk gave her injections. Glucose, pain killers, sleeping potion. Maki herself felt miserable. She was asleep but her mind wasn't. Another thing you can't understand if you don't happen to be telepathic. She couldn't sleep like others do. Her mind started to wander. To dive into the stream of thoughts. But this time she only felt pain. You can't imagine how a mind reacts to pain. Normally pain is only a number of very strong stimuli of some nerves. A warning signal the body sends to the brain. But *this* pain was different. Stronger. And it had no limit. It grew and grew and grew. It was hunting her. Bringing back her worst memories. The strongest fury she ever felt. Feelings of loneliness, fear, pain and more. It wasn't doing any harm to her body. It was destroying her will to live. Even people commiting suicide have some of it left. Maki was dying. Slowly. Painfully. Her life had been nothing but pain, fear and disappointments anyway. Like everyone's life had been.
"My fault, I guess. This whole situation has been a little bit too much for me. But I still don't understand what's special about those guns. You have them, they have them, everyone has them." said Douglas. "Yes, it *is* your fault. Well at least partly. But about those guns... that's simple. Shee don't use weapons. And they don't make them. It's against their nature. Not even ancient Albia had weapons. They tried it once and never again. You know their 'weapons'. They Shee called them Grendel."
"You mean the Grendels are *weapons*?"
"They were supposed to be. But it went wrong. Very wrong. It's the basic natural law of Shee: 'Try to create and you'll survive, try to kill and you'll die.' It's one of their prophecies BTW. And it has been proven by the Academy Of Science on Albia. The computer has all the data on it in its database, you know..."
"But what about your weapons then? I mean, you *have* weapons, and not only for fun."
"That's different. These are Ettin design. Norns and Ettins are different from Shee. *And* we had to defend ourselves."
In front of Maki there was nothing. The telepathic equivalent to a black hole. It sucks you up and you'll never get to know what's behind. You die before you find out. She tried to turn, to fight but at the same time she wanted to let everything happen. Then she started to cry.
"Did you hear that, Rain?"
"What?"
"A cry. You _must_ have heard it."
"There was nothing."
Douglas listened carefully. 'There *was* a cry.' Something had changed. It was different now. Maki knew it but couldn't say what. A few seconds later she could. Someone had turned his attention towards her. Somebody took notice of her. Someone different. She followed the thoughts to their source. She should have known before. There was only one person onboard with such a different thought structure.
~Hello, Douglas. I made my standpoint clear, didn't I?~