Lieutenant Kressa Bryant stepped into the massive cavern that formed the hangar of Arecia's main Confederate military base and made her way through the organized tangle of people and ships. She moved to where a group of soldiers gathered to wait for the scheduled shuttle to Stingray One.

Most evenings, only a few people awaited the shuttle's arrival, but over half of Stingray One's fighter pilots—Kressa among them—had spent the day in a briefing on the base, going over the results of a series of mock battles they engaged in with the base's fighter wing. After the long day, the pilots were eager to get back to their quarters.

One of the pilots waiting near Kressa glanced upward. "About time."

She followed his gaze.

The shuttle drifted down to settle near the waiting soldiers. A moment later, the boarding ramp lowered and a few people, both in and out of uniform, debarked, and then the group of tired pilots started up the shallow boarding ramp.

Kressa moved forward with the throng. She ignored the conversations about the battles and briefing, her thoughts centered on getting to the ship, finding the captain, and spending a quiet evening in their quarters. But as she reached the top of the shuttle's ramp, she felt a strong, almost undeniable summons.

Surprised by the urgency of the call, she pushed her way back down the ramp and started toward the wide entrance tunnel into the base.

"Something wrong, Bryant?" one of the pilots called after her.

She glanced back. "Someone I've got to see." She dashed through the entrance.

She turned left at the first cross-corridor past the opening and headed into the residential area at a fast walk. She slowed her pace as she approached the guard station that marked the beginning of the housing units reserved for the Confederate base's high-ranking officers and VIPs, and reached into a pocket for her ID.

"Don't worry about it, Lieutenant," the Army guard on duty said with a smile.

Kressa hesitated. Standing orders required that the guards confirm the identification of all persons entering this section of the base, as well as determine what business each had, and with whom. She wondered if she should remind him of that, and then gave a mental shrug. She came here often enough for all of the guards to know her by name.

"Thanks, Rem." She flashed her ID at him anyway, and then continued on her way.

Moments later, she rounded the final corner toward her destination—and felt her heart skip a beat. The two Army guards who always watched this stretch of corridor were missing. The door they guarded stood open. No sound came from the room beyond.

Kressa swallowed a nervous gasp and rushed forward. As she approached the open doorway, she sent a mental probe into the room. Two powerful, well-known minds responded distractedly to her touch. A third familiar, and equally distracted, mind entered the link.

Aron, Zac, Saunorel. Kressa acknowledged each fleeting mental contact, relieved by their presence, and then stepped into the room, eager to discover what held so much of their attention.

"Sauni, what—?" Kressa began.

The two missing guards—the brawny Arecian veteran, Osten, and Rannon, a th'Maran—waited inside. Rannon stood to the left of the doorway, one slender hand on his partner's arm, a puzzled expression on his pale features. Osten's massive form leaned against the wall beside the th'Maran, his hands braced behind himself as if he'd backed into the surface and collapsed there when he could go no farther. He stared dazedly across the room to where the young th'Maran woman Saunorel stood with one of her six-month-old twin sons cradled in her arms.

Kressa identified the child using mental rather than physical cues: Zac.

From his mother's arms, Zac watched Osten, a wondering look on his round face. Beside Saunorel, Zac's twin brother, Aron, lay on his back in his crib, his head turned to one side. Aron's too alert silver eyes—the only feature that indicated the twins were something other than normal human babies—beamed from beneath a spray of dark, wavy hair to follow his brother's gaze to the distressed guard.

Kressa's entrance seemed to shatter whatever spell hung over the room, and Saunorel gave her a welcoming, if careworn, smile. Zac and Aron shifted their eyes to Kressa. Their faces split in wide, toothless grins, and Aron gurgled in childish delight. Kressa glanced at the guards in time to see Osten push himself up to his full impressive height.

"Lieutenant Bryant." He acknowledged Kressa's presence with a nod.

"What's going on, Osten?" She cast a glance at his th'Maran partner. "Rannon, why are you two away from your post?"

"It's all right, Kressa." Saunorel stepped forward to join her. "Zac called them in." She held the child close against her, but he fussed in her grasp, and his tiny hands reached for Kressa.

Kressa glanced at him with a concerned frown. He ceased his struggles as their eyes met, but she found the intensity of his gaze uncomfortable, and refused to hold it. She looked at Osten instead.

"Are you all right?" she asked the man.

Osten gave Zac a tentative look, and then returned his gaze to Kressa.

"I'll be fine," he said. "The child—surprised me, is all."

"What did he do?" Kressa asked.

"He called us in here, like Sauni said."

"He called me, too," Kressa said, "out in the hangar."

Osten gave her a surprised look.

She nodded. "Their range seems to be increasing. What happened after he called you?"

"Rannon and me came in, and then Zac—well, he just looked at me, and everything went kind of fuzzy. Next thing I knew, Rannon was in my head and little Zac was out of it. Then you showed up."

"Rannon?" Kressa asked, interested to hear the th'Maran's side of the story.

Rannon turned his head slowly to look at her, his pewter gaze calm. "Zac performed an extremely deep and thorough scan of both of our minds. With his brother's assistance, of course."

"Of course." Kressa cast a look across the room at Aron.

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The child giggled at her and brushed her mind with senseless baby thoughts.

She looked at Rannon again. "What did they want?"

"I cannot say, but I do not believe they found it."

Kressa frowned, cast another quick glance at the children, and then turned to Osten and Rannon.

"You should both take the rest of this shift off," she said. "Call someone to replace you, and then get some rest."

"We're fine, Lieutenant," Osten said. "Really. And we only just came on duty a short while ago."

Rannon nodded agreement.

"All right," Kressa said, "return to your post. But if you begin to feel anything less than one-hundred percent, I want you both off duty. That's an order."

"Yes, sir," Osten said.

The two stepped from the room, and Kressa reached out with her mind to touch the th'Maran device that controlled the door. She willed it closed, and then turned an inquiring look on Saunorel. But before she could question the th'Maran woman about what had occurred, before she could even form the words she wanted to ask, Zac's silver eyes locked onto her, and his mind wrapped around hers with a ferocity that rocked her.

She stared at the child, unable to break his gaze, and then she sensed Aron enter the link. He joined his awareness to his twin. Together, they raced through Kressa's consciousness, through all that she was, desperate, searching.

Kressa had never shielded her mind from either child, had never even thought to do so, but now she fought natural reflexes that urged her to clamp down on the intrusion, aware it would do no good, and allowed the children to continue their deep, needful scan. She warned Saunorel off with a quick mental message when she felt the th'Maran woman's mind attempt to insert itself between her children and her friend.

What do you want? Kressa questioned the twins with her mental voice. She continued to hold Zac's gaze, but saw both children, superimposed one over the other, with her mind's eye. In the mental image, their faces and eyes held beseeching looks. Aron, Zac, tell me what you need.

Her mind filled with a painful, blinding need to know.

She staggered and almost fell.

"Zac, Aron, no!" Saunorel used a harsh mental probe to sever the psychic cord that bound Kressa to the twins.

Kressa started to collapse. Saunorel rushed up beside her, and slid her free arm under Kressa's shoulders to support her.

With Sauni's help, Kressa made it to the sofa and collapsed onto it. She watched, dazed, as Saunorel placed Zac in the crib beside his brother, and then turned back to look at Kressa with an expression of deep concern.

Kressa drew a deep breath. "I'm all right," she said. "Just give me a minute."

Saunorel glanced between her sons with a troubled expression.

Kressa knew she was scanning the twins' minds even as Kressa went through her own to search for a clue about what had happened. But except for the blazing path left by their intense search and the unsettling memory of the experience, Kressa found nothing to indicate what just occurred, or why.

She looked up at Saunorel, but the th'Maran appeared equally bewildered. Then, almost against her will, Kressa's eyes drifted to where Zac lay beside his brother.

With an effort, Kressa tore her eyes away and found herself looking deep into Aron's less demanding but equally needful gaze. Kressa braced herself, mind and body, and opened to the child.

With none of the alarming intensity or abruptness of his brother, Aron joined his mind to Kressa's. Zac tried to enter the link, but Aron seemed to sense Kressa's desire to avoid the probe of his harsher twin, and shielded her from Zac's mental touch, relegating his brother to the role of observer within the link.

"Kressa?" Saunorel's worried tone indicated her concern over what Kressa was doing. Before Kressa could say anything to reassure her, Saunorel entered the link and repeated her worried call in her mind.

Aron will not hurt me, Kressa answered. Trusting her assessment and relieved Sauni stood near to help should something go awry, Kressa braced herself again and returned her full attention to Aron.

But instead of moving his awareness into Kressa's mind to begin his version of the desperate search Zac led earlier, Aron eased Kressa's consciousness into his own. What she experienced then was, for a long moment, almost overwhelming.

Kressa had joined minds dozens of times with Aron and Zac, both prior to their birth and in the months since, but never before had she understood the full range of their potential or realized just how different their minds were, in both structure and function, from those of their forebears.

For several long moments, Kressa sat frozen. She marveled at the wondrous being with whom she was joined and attempted to comprehend the full scope of his capabilities. Within Aron's mind she saw the incredible body of knowledge he had already accumulated; facts, feelings, and experiences his mind stored until such time as his own experiences would call them forth, through need or curiosity, to use as he saw fit. Beyond the knowledge, she sensed a vast array of latent powers, abilities of both body and mind, that she could not even begin to comprehend.

So much knowledge, so much potential power, and at the core of it all, Kressa found within Aron a deep-rooted understanding of what he was, and an almost paralyzing fear.

Stunned by the strength of the child's terror, she jerked her awareness out of the link.

"Kressa?" Saunorel turned a surprised look on her friend. "What happened?"

Kressa stared at Sauni for a moment, and then looked down at Aron and Zac. The twins watched her, silent, their minds withdrawn.

She looked back at Saunorel.

"Didn't you feel it?" Kressa asked, unable to believe Saunorel had not experienced the chilling dread she found deep within Aron's mind. But Saunorel's expression indicated she had felt nothing unusual, and Kressa realized Aron had allowed only Kressa so deep into his awareness.

Why? she wondered, and then gave Aron another long look. Why hide such an intense need from his own mother? To spare her some torment, perhaps, or shield her from something she could not bear to face or could not, with her th'Maran view of things, comprehend?

"Kressa, what did you feel?" Saunorel asked, her voice full of concern. "What did they want from you?"

Kressa returned her gaze to Saunorel's pleading eyes. "They want answers, Sauni. They want to learn."

Saunorel looked as confused as Kressa had felt a moment ago.

"I don't understand," the th'Maran woman said quietly.

Kressa looked at the children again. Their uncanny silver eyes caught and held hers.

"Sauni, your children have access to an incredible body of knowledge. Not just information-type knowledge, but deeper things—feelings, drives, experiences. They get it from everywhere, from everyone around them. I don't think they do it consciously; it's just part of who—part of what—they are." She looked up to meet the th'Maran's gaze.

"They absorbed everything you know, everything you are, before they were born—you told me so yourself. And they've gotten quite a bit from me, as well. They're inside my head every time we're together." She paused for an instant to glance at the children again, and then continued. "They've seen enough in our minds to understand who they are, to sense what they are capable of—and to realize that there is no one to teach them to control those capabilities."

Saunorel looked hurt. "But surely I can—"

"You?" Kressa almost laughed, not at Saunorel, but at the naiveté of her statement, and realized that Sauni's pained reaction might be part of the reason Aron hid the truth from her.

"Sauni, your children's abilities were meant for the Om-Mar. What can you or I or anyone alive teach them about using abilities of that caliber? Nothing. And they know that. They know the only beings who can teach them control are the Om-Mar—but the Om-Mar are gone, and they know that, too. That's why they searched my mind, and Osten's and Rannon's. They're looking for some assurance that there will be someone there for them when they reach the end of their ability to teach themselves. But those someones no longer exist."

Saunorel looked down at her children. "What can we do for them?"

Kressa followed her gaze. The children met her eyes with expressions of innocent interest and trust.

"Keep them safe, teach them what we can, try to reassure them. And hope the day never comes when they lose control of what they are."

She recalled the terrifying, fear-driven rumors she had heard regarding the children's abuse of their abilities, rumors used on several worlds to back demands varying from the forced termination of all th'Maran-human pregnancies to the banishment of all th'Maran to their homeworld of Marasyn. She realized now that abuse of the children's power, if it did occur, would not be by conscious effort, but by loss of command of the abilities that stood as their birthright.

"That is what they fear the most."

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