Chapter 12: Recognition

"Cy, I contacted Hand Leader Evans this morning when you managed to communicate with me using your mind. I will leave you to speak with him." Finger Leader Roberts told me once the others had left us alone. "If you will excuse me Hand Leader?"

"Certainly." Hand Leader Evan replied. "Nice to meet you Cy." He shook my hand. "Walk with me." He turned and walked away. I scurried to catch up and matched my pace to his.

"Do you have any idea why I wanted to speak to you?" Hand Evans asked me.

"At a guess I would think it is because I was a little early for me to get the mental communication thing right?"

"Yes, well, that's why your Finger Leader contacted me at first, but that was just for information. Early use of mind powers is a marker of higher than normal potential, and we like to watch such people as they are potential leaders. That would have been fairly normal. The real reason I am here is because in your second attempt to communicate, it seems that two other members of your finger heard you."

"I did notice that it seemed to be a little different at the time." I was puzzled about what made this so important.

"[Cy]" I heard in my head.

"Yes Hand Leader" I replied.

"[Mental communication please?]"

"[Yes Hand Leader]" I tried again.

"[Do you find that difficult to do?]"

"[No. The first time took some real concentration. Now it seems entirely natural. I have been listening to Finger Roberts all morning, and I think that his use of Mental Comms has made it feel almost normal for me now.]"

"[All right. Try to send a message Finger Roberts and I at the same time.]"

"[Do you hear me?]" I called in my head, trying to feel the mental taste of both Finger Roberts and Hand Evan at the same time.

"[Yes Cy, I hear you.]" It felt like a double echo. Both replied almost simultaneously but I had no trouble keeping their replies separate in my mind.

"Ok Cy. Thank you. I have seen enough for now. I will leave you to return to your training. I just want you to know that the ability you have demonstrated is very unusual so early in training and if everything else works out, then it indicates that you have the potential to rise very far in terms of leadership. I look forward to watching how things turn out for you. Thank you for your time." With that, Hand Evans turned and walked away.

I headed back to rejoin the others.

As I got back to the others, I realised that I hadn't had an opportunity yet to ask about shaving, so I approached Finger Roberts and asked him what I should do.

"I think everyone should hear this." Finger Roberts said. "Gather round please. Ok, this is a little early in the program, but I want to explain something to you. Cy has just asked me how he can shave. That leads us to another aspect of the processing. As you have experienced, there are changes that have happened to your bodies since you woke up which have been stimulated by exercise. This has been pretty much involuntary. It is also possible to direct the changes deliberately. The first test of this ability and control is with body hair. All of you will be growing your hair until you learn to control the change simply by willing it. While the men have beards, everyone who sees them knows that they haven't gained this ability. You will notice that a lot of the veterans have large and fancy moustaches. There are two reasons for this: one is that it demonstrates control and the other is based on history. Napoleons veterans were recognised by their moustaches. For the women it is a little more difficult, although hair on the legs is often the indicator."

"Does that ability extend to other things?" I asked.

"Yes. The start is facial hair. Once you have that under control, then I will teach you how to extend that to other things. You can change almost any physical aspect of yourself if you have sufficient skill." he replied. "Now, enough of that, today we are going to concentrate on a few more grappling holds: the neck and waist holds and the head lock."