Series: Estarion
Author: L.A. Moore
Genre: science fiction, space opera, romance
Rating: Teen+
Warnings: m/f
Summary: The starliner Pollyanna has experienced a catastrophic nav failure and is marooned in the far reaches of space. On board is Lucieus Estarion, powerfully talented member of the Psi-Corps, that was on his way home. Now, he is the only asset the stranded passengers and crew have as they experience humanity's First Contact.
Read: Prologue + Chapter One
The transitory shift and bend of untrammeled thought sent hurtling across the universe faster than light. Human minds without borders, no beginning and no end, melding seamlessly into the blackest night. There is more in the universe than any eye can ever see, feel or touch. There is more mystery to what one mind can hold than anyone has ever been able to classify.
Telepaths, telekinetics, pyrokinetics, precogs--they who had been born blessed with Gifts far beyond the mortal ken. Sometimes they dreamed of being normal, but they all knew that it was never to be so. They were special. They were the chosen ones... whether they liked it or not.
The Psi-Corps was created to help those who had been left with their minds too open due to genetic mutation and careful scientific tampering. Their souls and spirits had been broken open before they were even born, and only painful Discipline could bring them together enough to keep them sane.
But sometimes good intentions are not enough.
Power grows too strong in the hands of those never meant to have it, and they cannot find the balance to maintain their ideals. Man was not meant to have the power of gods, and corruption sets in.
PROLOGUE
Emptiness. There was nothing to hold onto, no one to share pain and joy with.
Ze was surrounded by people that cared, but none could touch that empty space inside. That painful sore that grew and grew with each passing day of loneliness. It was a rasping agony, picking at the lonely core deep within ze.
Sabian lay on ze's bed, staring up at the ceiling. There was nothing to do. No one to hold and love.
All around ze, others had been chosen and Bonded, never to taste the loneliness of childhood again. Yet ze was still alone, waiting for a completion that would probably never be ze's own.
Ze knew that it was because ze was too strong for other minds. By some quirk of fate, ze had been born with a Scent too strong to be matched by any other. It might be decades before another mind was born so strong. Centuries even...
centuries of this terrible, untouchable loneliness.
Ze's Scent was so powerful that ze had to be careful even when touching the minds in ze's own Web lest ze overpower someone, harming them without meaning to.
I will always be alone, Sabian thought. There is no one for me.
Tears filled ze's eyes and spilled out. This was pain. This was despair. This was ze's life forever--with no one to touch and be One with.
CHAPTER ONE
He had been there for more than four hours, silent and unmoving. He didn't seem to even blink.
Occasionally someone would wander in and see him so still that he made them uncomfortable enough to leave. He did not seem to want company of any kind. It was just him and the stars.
Up close he was rather attractive: short black hair, lean build and golden eyes. His body had been engineered for genetic perfection, all human flaws erased before he was even born.
Inside, though, he knew that he was hideous, disgusting. He felt as though he would never be clean again. He had bathed so long in the darker sides of life that his soul had been stained black. There was no hope for him, just bleak despair.
He sighed and stirred, his unused muscles complaining. He deserved the pain. In fact, he should suffer more in penance for what he was.
Lucieus Estarion was young, barely twenty-four, and was still coming into the power he was born with. He had raced through all of his lessons, taming the powers that he had come into so early. He had gained Control with an ease that had more than surprised his teachers. But no matter how disciplined he was, he was still young and his mind had no way to cope with the agony he shoved it into in the name of duty.
For months he had done his job as he should, but he was wearing thin. He could no longer see the good he did. All there was, was the horror of the minds he was forced to enter. Murderers and rapists--minds so twisted and bent by hate and madness that he couldn't breathe. He was stifling in their evil embrace, unable to draw back even just a little bit. They held him so tight, crushing him down until nothing was left, and he didn't know how to stop it from happening to him. He was breaking inside. He was losing himself, and he didn't even have the will to stop it from happening.
Those minds were in him still. Staining his soul darker and darker with each criminal mind that he touched. He felt as black as pitch, raped by the Duty he had accepted so willingly when he was young.
Tears filled his eyes and slowly spilled down his cheeks. Golden rain, dyed the same hue as his eyes, like rich honey.
Yet another manifestation of his specialness, his unique splendor, that which made him worth so much more than any mere human, even as he knew that he was less than dirt, tempered and faded, his edges worn so thin that if he turned sideways he could disappear.
He crossed the observation deck to the bar. With trembling hands he poured himself a stiff drink.
He had never been much of a drinker, but tonight he would try. He needed the peace of being away from himself, even if it meant passing out across his bed as a mad drunkard.
He gulped down the amber liquid and gasped. Liquid fire burned down his throat. He didn't care. He needed the pain.
Deserved it.
He poured himself another drink. A double. A triple. Poured until the glass threatened to overflow, and it wasn't good enough. He needed more, needed to drown himself in drink, burn out the evil with the cauterizing flame of pure alcohol.
* * *
"How long has he been in there?" the Captain asked softly.
Second Officer Richard Haldwell shook his head. "Close to five hours now."
"Shit. This is just what I need--a drunk telepath. I wish we could have barred him from entering the ship."
"You should have."
The voice was quiet, but carried. The figure dressed all in black turned and she couldn't help her reaction. She gasped.
He was handsome enough to be a holo-star. But it wasn't his looks that were so shocking. It was the terrible pain in his eyes. There was such agony that he should have long since lost his mind. But he was irrefutably sane--painfully sane.
The young man set down his glass and carefully crossed the room. He moved with the slow care of someone who is drunk and trying not to show it.
He stopped in front of her and she forced herself to meet the large, golden eyes. "Captain Worth, I am Lucieus Estarion."
He didn't give his rank and she saw that he had removed the silver pin that all telepaths were required to wear at all times, even when they were in plainclothes. There was just a blank space on his lapel where it should have been.
A chill went down her spine. He didn't want to be known. For some reason, he was hiding his identity and the abilities that went with it.
She would have to be careful. She knew that if she didn't do what he wanted of her own free will, he could make her. All of the stories she had ever heard about telepaths and the Psi-Corps went through her head. With them came fear.
"It's a... pleasure to meet you," she said. "We welcome you aboard the Pollyanna. If there is anything you need, don't hesitate to ask."
A faint smile twisted those sensuous lips. "Of course. Thank you. Really though, I would just like to be treated as any other passenger."
Yeah right, she thought, as if that would ever happen.
"Of course. Please, if you will excuse us, there is still much we need to do." She tugged Haldwell's sleeve and they made their escape.
* * *
Monster.
He had heard it in their minds as loud as a yell. Even as he tried not to read their thoughts, they shouted at him so that he couldn't help but to hear.
They didn't want him here. They hated him for what he was. For what had been done to him long before he was born.
He was a freak. A genetic mistake. A Frankensteinian monster created in a laboratory by men that had no idea of what they did, of the laws they broke for their science. Mother Nature and her unwritten rules were nothing to such men. There were only the experiments and the results.
He had been born with the gifts science gave him: beauty, which anyone could attain through benign genetic tinkering, and the telepathy that was his curse.
No normal human could know the pain of hearing others' thoughts. Of feeling what they felt and knowing what they truly thought. No normal human could understand the complete sense of violation as someone else's thoughts battered their way into their brain, trying to take control. And there was nothing he could do about it, because they were innocent of their crimes. Their thoughts left their heads in uncontrolled waves and they had no idea how to stop themselves. So he was the one that had to stride across the universe in clanking layers of armor--mental armor to protect his mind from enemies that didn't even know they were hurting him, didn't even know that they were enemies.
After years of suffering the painful thoughts of others, he had gained Control over what he Heard. Sometimes a thought would slip through his Shields, but for the most part, he had control over his own mind. Not that it didn't hurt any less to know what they truly thought of him--the monster.
Sometimes he wanted to rip off his uniform and pretend to be a normal human, but he couldn't. His duty had been drilled into him for all of the days of his life. From the moment of his conception, his future had been carefully planned out.
By the time he was born, all chance of choosing his own life had long since been taken away from him.
He didn't know whether to be angry about that loss of choice or not. After so long, he had given up, become inured to his fate. Things were as they were and he was what he was. Happiness was nothing.
All of the evil he had absorbed rested heavy in his mind. He could hear the voices screaming inside him, cursing him.
They were loud and tumultuous, overpowering his own voice.
He covered his ears, but it was no use. They were inside his head.
Tears trickled down his cheeks. There was nothing for him. He was lost. They had him now.
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