Phantasm 2: In the Shadow of Iniquity (two)

She had been eating a ration bar to help regain her strength and put it aside so she could speak. "Scott, I told you before that I used to be one of the Chosen. I trained to become one of them a very long time ago, over twenty years. They tried to teach me how to harness and control my powers."

"So, what happened?"

"In time I learnt that there was more to my abilities than I had been told. My powers were? are telepathic. They stem from a kind of mental connection I share with a race called the phantasms. I left the Chosen when I discovered that they were enslaving the phantasms. I' ve been running for twenty years and the Chosen have been pursuing me, afraid I might reveal their secrets. What you just saw is how the phantasms appear when I call them to me. I can use my abilities to create bodies for them, duplicates of myself, and they can inhabit them. For a time."

Cameron, who had been listening carefully, shook his head slowly. "Lass, they looked like ghosts."

"Yes, that' s what they are. They do not have physical bodies, they exist as beings of pure energy. They can inhabit a body and use it as a vessel for their essence, shaping it to suit their needs. They appear like ghosts, suspended across the body, wraithlike."

"So why are the Shuruk chasing you as well?"

"Just as the Chosen want to protect their secrets, the Shuruk want to steal them. If they capture Chosen and Rogues like myself then they can learn from them, learn how to fight them."

"You say you' re connected with these phantasms, but why did they hurt you?" Scott asked.

"They were trying to get my attention. They wanted to be free. When I released them they stopped hurting me," Laura said.

Cameron looked down at the ground. "I said before, lass, that I see ye in mae dreams. When I do I always see ye surrounded by ribbons of light that destroy everythin they touch."

Laura studied him for a long moment. "What else do you see?"

"I? I see ye surrounded by demons without an escape."

"How many?"

He glanced up at her then and she recognised genuine fear in his eyes. "Hundreds, lass, hundreds of dark souls. There' s fire burning far away and ye are screamin. Ye are powerful, incredibly so, but I think not even ye can win that battle."

"You think it' s some kind of premonition?" Willow said.

"I donae know," Cameron said.

Laura stretched her neck, rolling her head from side to side. "It could be. I wouldn' t know why Cameron would have been shown it and not me, but I' ve seen and heard stranger things. I have no wish to face the Shuruk, and especially not here if it can be avoided. God knows how many times I' ve been down that path before."

"You' d rather run?" Scott said.

"Hell yeah I would," Laura said. "You' ve never seen those bastards fight, Scott. Believe me, running is the better option." Laura allowed herself a small sigh. "Anyway, it' s been a long day and I need to rest, so if you don' t mind..."

They took her hint and backed away. Laura closed her eyes and let everything else fade away.

Scott was tired from the day' s trials also but he didn' t attempt sleep right away. When he tried he found that sleep would not come. He had too much on his mind. Mere physical exhaustion wasn' t enough to allow him to slip into blissful unawareness.

He' d known of the Chosen and had generally known they were telepathic, but all that Laura had shown him was completely new to him. He found the full extent of just what they could do absolutely incredible. Scott had always supposed the Chosen (and apparently Rogues as well) were limited to touching minds and sampling thoughts. This changed everything. This? creating bodies and duplicates, bonding with an alien race, finding auras and spirits and souls? this was almost beyond his comprehension.

The possibility that there were thousands of other people out there who were just like Laura, who shared her capabilities, scared him. In simple terms it appeared that their abilities made the Chosen something close to superhuman. Undisciplined, following their own code, answering to no-one other than themselves? he could understand just how dangerous they were, how dangerous they could still be. Just one of these people seemed more than enough. At least Laura wasn' t like them, she seemed to have morals and ideals she remained true to. She had a belief in something that sustained her, in equality if nothing else. She' d been on the run for two decades and Scott could see now why Willow was so important to her. She really had been Laura' s only friend for all that time.

When Scott finally did manage to stop his swirling thoughts, he tried to rest again. The ground was hard and thoroughly uncomfortable but he was accustomed to worse and did not allow it to bother him. He lay there on his back for awhile, staring up at the velvety sky. It was strange seeing it at night; it was the same as on any other world when the sun (or in this case suns) had disappeared from view, and yet during the day it was so very different, with a horribly disfigured sky, almost comically so. It unnerved him. He thought that he would rather it had been different at night as well. Having something so similar to something normal, while so different at other times, was disconcerting.

Suddenly, as he looked upwards, Scott realised that his tiredness was not as apparent as it had been. He was still weary but his mind refused to revert from its alertness, sending his thoughts round and round in a never-ending loop. Well, that was okay with him. Just lying here would allow his body the rest it needed and he didn' t think that rest for his mind was as important as it might normally be, not after all he had seen this night.

He turned his attention from the sky to the others. Cameron seemed as though he were existing between worlds, characteristically on-edge even when asleep, a part of him ready for any threat. Laura was tranquil. Scott was glad to see that after all she had just been through. Willow looked similarly peaceful and her "eetie-ness" seemed more feminine than feline somehow at rest. Her face, caught in the gentle luminescence of moonlight, appeared strangely delicate. A small smile came to his face, then vanished abruptly. He had a crush on an alien; worse than that, on something not physically real. Quite remarkable.

Scott sighed softly, but stopped as another faint sound reached his ears, almost lost beneath his own sigh. It was extremely difficult to describe what he heard, almost a grazing sound mixed with something of a whoosh, like wind rustling through trees or incredibly light footsteps. Scott shifted his body so he was now sitting in an upright position and surveyed his surroundings, searching for the origin of the sound.