Chapter 2

Upon reflection, I realized that we did not need to hide anything from Ooru. His mind-speak contact would tell him that I was being truthful when I explained why we could not eat any of his food nor share any of our food with the locals. I did warn him that they should not panic when our fighters arrived, and they were full of curiosity when I called them in.

There were 72 members of the clan present in the village, and I led them, a few at a time, on a tour of the fighters. The adults were somewhat blasé about the whole thing, but the children were thrilled at being inside such wondrous objects. One mother chided me for getting the children so excited just before bedtime—now they would have a hard time falling asleep. Oh, well, you can't make everybody happy.

I also explained to Ooru that we did not need to sleep, though we did usually rest for a few hours if there were nothing pressing that we had to do. That led to more explanation of how we became what we now were, and he was fascinated by our abilities. He did find the camouflage facet amusing because we kept changing as we moved about.

Ooru did question me in detail about how we had made the transition into true Wolfians and seemed to withdraw within himself as he considered the ramifications of what had happened to us. He did say no more on the subject at that time, and our conversation drifted to other subjects.

After Ooru went to bed, I asked AI if he could talk directly to Ooru the way he could talk to us. His answer surprised me. "I think that I could if he wanted me to. I have detected a strange electromagnetic source inside all of their heads. It is much stronger in Ooru than in the others of the village, but it might be possible to talk to any of them if they invited me to do so."

"I will ask Ooru about it when he wakes up. You two could probably learn much from each other if you could communicate directly the way you do with me. It would also be helpful if we could talk directly to the locals in their own language. Do you think that would be possible?"

"I don't know, but it does seem likely if I can communicate directly with Ooru. We can investigate that if they are willing when they wake up. In the meantime, I suggest that you also get as much rest as you can."

I couldn't put the thought aside. The possibility of communicating directly with the locals had grabbed me tightly in the curiosity bone and would not let go. I broached the subject with Sue and soon had our whole group engaged in the conversation. To a person, they all agreed that such an ability would be highly useful, and they hoped that it would be possible. The question now lay in the laps of the locals, and we would have to wait to hear their opinion on the subject.

We had been away from Wolf and our children for some time, so we took this opportunity to return home for a few hours. That turned out to be such a nice visit that we kept up the practice whenever the opportunity presented itself. Since the children lived in the creche with all of the other children, they were conditioned to seeing their parents only occasionally and saw nothing odd in that. We adults got used to the routine, and loved the freedom that it gave us to do other things. Even the women came to appreciate the circumstances.

It seemed like forever before Ooru made an appearance "the next morning." I told him what AI wanted to do, and Ooru was very excited by the prospect. He and AI spent nearly 30 minutes working on the problem. The wait was suddenly interrupted by Ooru's voice appearing in my head.

"Your electronic friend AI was finally able to make the connection with my mind. He has also reprogrammed your device to match frequencies with me so that we can communicate. I must say that this is much more convenient than the multiple translation procedure that we used yesterday. My mind-speak also has a more direct connection with your mind so that I can catch nuances that I missed yesterday. All in all, I think that this is a stupendous accomplishment!"

"Yes, Ooru, it is wonderful to speak directly to you. Now, if all of us could do this and talk to the other members of the village at the same time, we would have most of our communication problems solved. Do you think that the other members of the village would be interested in acquiring this ability? I know that all of my people are anxious to talk to you and to the others if it becomes possible."

"Oh, yes, I am sure that my people would welcome this novelty. Please ask AI to reprogram the speech implants within your comrades so that all of us may talk together."

AI chimed in with, "I have already reprogrammed their implants, so there will be no problem with them communicating with anyone who will talk to them."

With the universal agreement from our side in hand, Ooru called together all of the members of the village and asked if any of them wanted to be able to mind-talk with their new friends. To a person, they all agreed, and the children led the clamor. Ooru explained to them how to go about it, and we were suddenly inundated with words from the entire community, with the children making the most noise.

Actually, there was really nothing that the locals had to do differently except to address thoughts directly to us. They already had the ability to make the connection; they only needed to be told that the ability was there and that they could use it.

Meanwhile, AI had embarked on a program to enhance the programming of our implants so that we could communicate with any other locals whom we might encounter. That was bound to be an advantage for us, and we were looking for an opportunity to test the new feature. However, that had to wait until later.

Ooru finally calmed everybody down, and I made a little speech to the crowd all at the same time saying how happy we were to meet them and that we were looking forward to carrying on conversations with everyone. I did promise to bore them to death as different people asked the same questions over and over. That brought a laugh and settled the terms of our mutual association for as long as we had the pleasure of being with these people.

Something that we didn't know was that AI was doing a more careful analysis of our brains' capacity. He found that we had the same electromagnetic capability that the locals had, and we did not need the communication device. There was no need for it, but there was also no need to remove it, so he just left it in place. One day, there might arise a need for the device, so he let sleeping dogs lie.

We spent several "days" with the locals who called themselves the Arlo family of the Ceethree people. We were learning a lot about them and, indirectly, about ourselves as we learned the details of their daily life. I had originally thought to offer them transportation to one of the towns so that they could take advantage of the facilities there, but I found that they were quite happy where they were and had no interest in moving.

We had spent about a week, their time, with the Arlo when an emergency came up. As children were prone to do all over the universe, a bunch of them were swinging from a rope hanging from a tree limb and letting go to fly out over a pond. The idea appeared to be to make a bigger splash than anyone else. Trivenna, a girl of about 11, was swinging back and forth to build up momentum so that she could be the champion splasher. Unfortunately, the rope broke when she was at the peak of her arc back over land. The result was that she fell about five meters onto a log lying on the ground.

Not only did she hit the log with her back, but she landed crosswise. The result was a broken back and, incidentally, a broken arm. We all heard her anguished mental scream of pain when she hit the ground so that everyone of the Arlo ran to Trivena's location. Fortunately, no one tried to move her before Ooru arrived.

Ooru did some mystical motions with his hands, which I think were for the benefit of the onlookers, and Trivenna rose from the ground and floated in the air. He transported Trivenna back to her hut and laid her on her bed. He did something else with his hands, and she went to sleep. That was mostly to cancel the pain that would start as soon as he lifted his previous spell.

He came back out of the hut and beckoned me to step to one side with him for a private conversation. I joined him, and AI was brought into the conversation. Ooru said, "My mind-speak tells me that Trivenna will die in much pain if there is nothing done to repair her back. Her broken arm is trivial, but it is painful, too. We have lost all of our healing arts since the Ancients left us, so there is no way that we can help Trivenna. My mind-speak has told me that you visitors have the ability to cure yourselves of such injuries. Is there any way that you can help Trivenna?"