From: tim@mik.uky.edu (timothy c huesman)
Subject: Generica   escaped slave...
Keywords: running slave dying Psionics Doc Pan
Summary: a slave seeking Doc Pan dies
Organization: University Of Kentucky, Dept. of Math Sciences
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 16:56:36 GMT

    He comes running.  Lifting feet long benumbed from running, bleeding
 from the effects of sharp rocks on bare soles, he continues through the
 streets.  He lifts the device and reads it while moving, knowing that
 should he stop even for a moment, the exhaustion of three days of 
 continuous flight will engulf him.  They are faint, but the traces are
 here....he lowers the device and wipes blood from his chin with his arm.
    He runs past a mage and his ontourage, and the mage holds his hands 
 to his head and yells profanities.  The runner has not taken notice
 but would not be surprised at the reaction.  It happened to all who
 hear on the PSI stream.  But the runner never heard for himself the
 PSI 'noise' his mind sent forth in screeching waves for he was a
 Psi Static, as were all his people.  That's why they were enslaved;
 that's why he was fleeing.
    When the runner was 100' away from the mage, the esoterica scholar
 removed his hands from his aching head and glared.  He would have 
 chosen to investigate had he the time... and the willingness to take
 that kind of abuse again.  The noise was near deafening, and in this
 crowd it appeared that only the mage heard it.  But then the mage was
 a master psionicist and practically walked IN the psi-stream.  His 
 concentration spells had been lost in the discordant screech of the
 assault and for caution's sake must needs be reestablished now.  But
 first he sent a message: "Get ready, it's coming past you all." 
 The brief message sent to the Guild of Magic was humorously cryptic.
 For the mage felt certain the shielding of the building would protect
 all inside, and for those unfortunate to be outside, the effect seemed
 not permanent and the pain only a memory.  Besides, only some of the
 mage guild were Psi-sensitives.
    Moments later, as the runner made his staggering way through the
 streets, past the Nestor's Inn, and eventually the mage's guild, some
 would take minor notice of a buzz in the air, and some almost 100'
 away and in the safety of buildings would yell out in surprise.
 the runner took a last look at his device and fell across the 
 threshhold of a doorway.  The doorway of a modest home, lying open
 and bearing the sign, Mrs. Cludne's Boarding House = Rooms to Let.
    Some within watching distance sighed as the screeching wavered,
 then ebbed away to nothing.  Mrs. Cludne screamed.  She looked upon
 a man run far past exhaution, dressed in once-bright, ragged finery.
 A young man, with bleeding, bare feet, and sun-burnt skin.  The man
 had the ghastly look of someone who had run till his lungs began to
 rupture, blood caking on his body as he huffed it out.  His face had
 a palor to it that a medic would recognize as that of someone whose
 heart had burst.  As to his identity, the slave collar gave only a 
 cryptic message.  As to his possessions, the dead man carried a
 ramshackle device bearing crudely carved runes and a scrap of vellum.
    The vellum had only a few readable lines remaining:

        I, Marcellus do write this journal as a vouchsafe of mine own
     identity.  Already, much of my life on Thera is like a dream to
     me, and I fear I would not recognize the images of my beloved wife
     or children.  As I look to the once alien stars overhead, the 
     four moons and the frequent meteors, I have to flog my memory to
     dredge up that I was born on a world with ONE moon, with unreached
     stars in now-forgotten constellations.  And only brief meteor 
     showers with few striking home....but I do remember the one...the
     one they sent, so they could take us.....

 [ADMIN :   the slave is fleeing his masters and seeking DOC PAN
    a Psi Static is one who while unable to use any Psi talent
    puts off a loud Psi screach.]

     
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  Doc  Pan       tim@mik.uky.edu          Tim  Huesman