Chapter 2: The Healing
Wanda had once been a recluse, studying alone. Now her years of isolation were at an end. She got a job as a search and rescue worker, while Stettin went back to the job he had had before signing on with Seldon: running a hauling machine. Now, he was hauling wreckage from the Crash.
Wanda used the surname Palver on her employment papers. Because every now and then she would hear the name ‘Seldon’, spoken in tones of suspicion and dislike.
“That professor fellow, Seldon, he said all this would happen. Stuff breaking down; chaos.”
“How do you s’pose he knew? Maybe he was in on it, that’s how.”
During their days’ work, and after their shifts were done, Wanda and Stettin haunted the areas near the crash site, calling for the others that they had detected.
“If you can hear, come talk to us. We’re looking for mind-touching people.”
Perhaps these people had always had the talent, but never realized it, or the trauma of the Crash must have strengthened it, making them aware of the mentalic frequency which had remained subconscious. Some responded as if they had just found a long lost relative.
“I’m Professor Dekam. I got kicked out of the Chess Club when people realized I could read their moves. I didn’t know I was doing it! Maybe you can teach me how to stop.”
“I’m Orvil. My wife left me. I knew she was cheating and she thought I had snooped in her private journal.”
“It started after the Crash. All of a sudden I could hear everyone thinking. Feel like I’m going crazy!”
Some wanted nothing to do with her.
“Get lost. I’m normal. Normal is safe. I want to be safe, safe, safe.”
“Got my own problems. Don’t want to listen to anyone else’s.”
Wanda held onto her head. “This is exhausting. I wish I could go back to studying the Radiant 12 hours a day.”
No. She could no longer concentrate on studying. Since the disaster, a new sense had opened inside her. A sense of ...empathy. An awareness of the grief and suffering around her. It felt like a weight, pressing from all sides.
***
While heading back to the Shelter, Wanda and Stettin found their way blocked by a large crowd.
“Holy Mother of Safehaven, protect us,” the people chanted. They wore odd-looking helmets or held flat pieces of plastic over their heads. “Come with us,” they beckoned. “We’re going to a safespace. Come, wear this.” A woman offered one of the flat headpieces. “To protect from the dangers of Sky. From the destruction that comes from above, and the living death that closes from below.”
Wanda stared at them. As they went by, she absorbed the emotions. A ‘safespace'? Trantorians lived under a dome or on below-levels...but these people feared even to step out onto an avenue, or a wide space, like the one where the Station had fallen. But they would not go into a transportation tunnel either. A closed space also meant death.
Claustrophobia, and agoraphobia, both at once!
Wanda understood them very well. She had to fight these same feelings every day.
“I wonder if there’s a way we can help, with mind-touching.”
Stettin heard the thought and replied: “It would need more than just a touch. You would have to be able to change a thought...erase their memory of the trauma.”
“Or at least, go into their minds and smooth it out.”
Wanda and Stettin stared at each other. “Do you think that’s possible? It’s one thing to hear a thought. Another thing to fix it!”
“The main problem would be finding just that one memory. Then figuring how to erase or moderate it, without erasing or damaging other areas of the personality.”
“Very delicate. Like micro-surgery.”
Wanda and Stettin agreed: “But how could we learn? Nobody’s going to let us practice on their brain.”
They found their answer the next day. There in the transit station stood a middle-aged woman, balancing at the very edge of the platform, as if to throw herself in front of the train. She wore a drab, frayed work tunic covered with dust...as if she hadn’t changed since the Crash. Her hands were swathed in filthy bandages.
Other people avoided her, as if her mental disturbance might be contagious.
Wanda and Stettin edged closer. “Excuse me ma’am,” Wanda said in a soft voice, “the train’s not due for awhile. Want to talk?” Wanda had learned to project an emotion; now she projected a feeling of calm. “What’s your name, good citizen?”
“Jarleen Abbot. Third-level Accounting, Bureau of Finance, Commerce Sector.” The woman mumbled her credentials in a flat voice.
“My name is…” Wanda hesitated for a second, considering. Grandfather cautioned me to stay in hiding. We are to be secret, secluded. Pick a fake identity. “My name is, um, Shara. And this is my husband...Stefan. We’re psychology students.” She made that up. “Why you are standing at the edge of the platform? It’s dangerous."
“It’s...the only safe place.”
“C’mon off of there, we’ll try to find safety for you.”
Jarleen slowly moved away from the edge. “What do you mean? Th..theres no place safe from the…..the falling death mountain from the sky.”
“I share your feelings. I was there too. Let me hold your hand, and you can tell me.”
And Wanda did listen, opening her mind and letting the thoughts and feelings pour in. All of the unthinkable, unbearable terrors that warped a human being. The agony of injury, the grief of losing loved ones.
“I c-can’t sleep, because I’ll feel all of it again. Can’t eat, can’t do my j-job. If only the train would run over me so I could escape all of the...m-memories.”
Wanda felt as if she were swept away in a flood, but she forced herself to stand her ground. The thing to do was section her mind off. One level for her own identity, another for Listening to another human being.
She tried to pinpoint the terrors and find a way to smooth the emotions down. Instead, the swirling maelstrom pulled her in.
Stettin! Help, I’m losing my way!
Wanda! Here I am! Reach out to me!
Stettin’s mental presence was like a strong hand, pulling her away from the chaos of Jarleen’s memories. Wanda, I’ll hold you steady. You keep doing your healing.
Okay. “Listen to me Jarleen, try to relax...perhaps we can stop some of these memories.”
“If...if only you would.” Jarleen’s eyes ran with tears. “I would give anything in the world.”
Jarleen’s hands were covered in bandages, so Wanda held the woman’s forearms instead. “You will rest, like a light sleep, but open your mind. Show me what's bothering you.”
Jarleen shared, in agonizing, disjointed images: standing at that gateway, right there... a flaming piece of metal came screaming down...bigger than ten shuttle buses. It pinned my partner Hansor. I tried to help him but...hands were too burned! Couldn’t help! And the fire...had to run and leave him. Oh, why did I go on living?
Wanda alerted her partner. ”Stettin: can you grab it?”
The two of them grabbed onto the agonizing memory. It was like wrestling a giant snake. As they struggled, Wanda addressed Jarleen on a mentalic level, with essential emotions rather than words. The essence was:
This memory has become a monster that has overtaken your spirit so you can’t go on living.. We must break its hold on you. Help us, and we'll try to free you.
Wanda and Stettin worked together, smoothing the tormenting memory down, pushing it into a tiny box and locking the door. She visualized the ‘zen-garden’ at one of the Meditation centers. A calming stream will flow over the place where the fear dwelled. When you wake up, you will remember what happened but you now have control over those emotions. You understand that you bear no blame. You did your best. Imagine your mind is like a taxi cab and the emotions are a passenger. You direct them, you decide where they go, you control them. Live in peace, Jarleen.
Jarleen opened her eyes.
“I had the most interesting dream. A couple came inside my head and spoke. They...took something out of my head. Something that was monstrous and terrifying. Th-they put in a peaceful feeling, like flowing water. I'm in control...I feel human. Why…’ she stared after Wanda and Stettin. “I think it was you two!”
But Wanda and Stettin had already slipped away like two casual strollers.
“It’s best if people don’t know what we can do, Wanda. Don’t you think?”
“Yes. But we have to keep doing it.” She turned to him in quiet elation. “Stettin, we learned to do something incredible. Do you realize what this could mean?”
Stettin rubbed his forehead. “It means a bit of a headache, all that mental effort.”
She gave him a playful swipe. “Grandpa seemed to think our mentalic talent was important for his Plan. Maybe he wants us to heal the whole galaxy.”
“He didn’t think small, did he.”
***
Wanda and Stettin’s efforts bore fruit: people began to appear, shy at first, bringing others with them. Once she had had space at Streeling University, but now that the Psychohistory Project had lost its funding, she began holding meetings in a former beauty salon, abandoned after the Crash. People of all ages and stations would come in.
“Someone called me, told me to come here,” they would say. "Was it you?”
“I heard all of you, Wanda would address them. All of us are united by the ability of mentalic linkage.”
Some people had no idea what was going on. “Am I losing my mind? Is there something wrong with me?”
“People have always done it instinctively, without realizing,” Wanda told them. “But now that your Listening talent has awakened, we should unite.”
“Why?”
“So we can support each other, and help our world. There’s so much we could do.”
“Like take over the planet, you mean?” A young man joked, but Wanda felt a flash of something in his remark and made a mental note to exclude this fellow.
Hari Seldon had probably imagined Wanda presiding over a dignified group of Psychohistorians in front of their equations. The reality was completely different. This was a diverse group, all ages and ethnicities, many of them from the lower social and economic levels. The noble and wealthy classes have big egos, which form a barrier to the mentalic talent.
She noticed how many worked as ‘servers’ of one kind or another. The key to the mind-touch ability was a kind of empathic listening, and these would be the ones most likely to use a form of empathy in their jobs: sensing what their clients wanted, whether it was day to day assistance or erotic satisfaction.
“I worked as a servant to the Duke of Orion," said Orvil. "I always knew what he wanted, so I was good at my job.”
“I’m Allita,” said a tall striking girl whose long purple hair cascaded down to her waist. “I work at a... high class massage parlor. My hair’s real,” she added, in response to Wanda’s thought. “My ancestry’s from Gardenia.”
“I’m Beka Yar,” said a short chunky woman in a colorful kerchief. "I help the sick and elderly in their day to day living. Some of them can't talk, so it's good I can Listen.”
“I’m Tynek,” said an older man with unkempt gray hair. “I drink to quiet the voices in my head. I thought I was crazy. Now you say the voices are real?”
“I’m Barr Kender, from Dahl." The man stroked his fine, thick mustache, a mark of pride in Dahlite men. "Used to work for the Commissioner. After the Crash, I heard the bastard thinking about the relief shipments and planning to skim off the money for himself. I let some other folks know...and then he sent his goons after me. I had to leave Dahl in a hurry! ”
“I can see where mentalic talent could lead to trouble,” Stettin muttered.
***
“Things are getting worse on Trantor,” Wanda told her group, “but we’re going to be part of making things better. Have you heard of Hari Seldon?”
“He predicted the fall of the Empire, didn’t he?” said young Stuben Keel, a recent math graduate with a scraggly beard and ponytail. “Smart guy. If you ask me, that’s happening right now.”
“His dream was to create the Foundation—a new society to rise from the ashes of the old. I’m looking for people who want to be a part of...something like that, only right here on Trantor.”
Wanda tried to project optimism and courage. Because that’s what a leader did, right? Her grandfather thought she was capable of leading a movement and doing great things. When back in the Before times, Wanda had been a quiet introvert who just wanted to study in peace. Now it was as if the Station had crashed right into that Wanda, and rearranged her down to the core of her soul.
The youngsters, Allita and Beka, exchanged shining glances. “That’s so exciting. Imagine folks like us, doing something important.”
" What can we do?” said Allita.
“We can make things better on our own world.” Wanda smoothed back her long hair and twisted it into a bun. “The world is a mess right now. Everyone’s terrified and hurting. Can you feel it? It's like a lead weight on the brain.”
“Sure is,” said Caryn, a broad boned, middle-aged woman in a flowery dress. “Like a choking fog. What can we do?”
“Stettin and I learned how to heal someone who was about to kill herself, by smoothing out her memories. And there are a lot more. You can feel it everywhere. We can use our gift to heal people. All of them!” Wanda rubbed her temples. “Or at least, as many as we can.”
***
Wanda and Stettin kept meeting the new mentalics, but some had to be turned away.
“People have pushed me around," said a scowling youngster. "I want to get even.”
“I’d like to be in charge. I bet I could be Mayor of Melkor one day."
“I’d like to have a stream of lovers at my beck and call.”
“I bet I could get rich with this talent.”
“Sorry, we can’t help you do that,” Wanda would tell these people.
***
“We need to find that doctor, Chaka. He was at a clinic. Wonder which one?”
It took them awhile, checking directories and putting out a call at various locations. Their search led them to the MidConcourse Public Health Center. There she asked for a doctor named Chaka. A white-coated man with dark skin and curly hair showed up.
Wanda pointed to her ear and addressed him silently. “I’m Wanda. I lost my hearing. But still I could hear you.”
His eyes widened. “What! By Stars….What did you just…” He brushed back his curls. “I thought I imagined it.”
“I heard so many people calling out mentally. During the Crash.”
He put a hand to his head. “The Crash. Oh, by naked sky. It was so terrifying. Imagination does funny things.”
“It’s not your imagination.”
“Mind-speaking may be a latent ability in humankind,” she added, vocally. “My grandfather Hari Seldon’s calculations say that it will become important as humanity evolves. Listen, Doctor: we found a lady about to kill herself and we learned how to help her with the mind-touch. I’m assembling a group that has the talent. I hear there have been a lot of psychiatric problems since the Crash, and we want to help. Would you work with us?”
Chaka’s expression intensified. “There’s a way to help? Mental hospitals are overflowing. We doctors don’t know what to do.” Dr. Chaka took her hand. “Ma’am, if you know a way to heal...count me in.”
Wanda had once been a recluse, studying alone. Now her years of isolation were at an end. She got a job as a search and rescue worker, while Stettin went back to the job he had had before signing on with Seldon: running a hauling machine. Now, he was hauling wreckage from the Crash.
Wanda used the surname Palver on her employment papers. Because every now and then she would hear the name ‘Seldon’, spoken in tones of suspicion and dislike.
“That professor fellow, Seldon, he said all this would happen. Stuff breaking down; chaos.”
“How do you s’pose he knew? Maybe he was in on it, that’s how.”
During their days’ work, and after their shifts were done, Wanda and Stettin haunted the areas near the crash site, calling for the others that they had detected.
“If you can hear, come talk to us. We’re looking for mind-touching people.”
Perhaps these people had always had the talent, but never realized it, or the trauma of the Crash must have strengthened it, making them aware of the mentalic frequency which had remained subconscious. Some responded as if they had just found a long lost relative.
“I’m Professor Dekam. I got kicked out of the Chess Club when people realized I could read their moves. I didn’t know I was doing it! Maybe you can teach me how to stop.”
“I’m Orvil. My wife left me. I knew she was cheating and she thought I had snooped in her private journal.”
“It started after the Crash. All of a sudden I could hear everyone thinking. Feel like I’m going crazy!”
Some wanted nothing to do with her.
“Get lost. I’m normal. Normal is safe. I want to be safe, safe, safe.”
“Got my own problems. Don’t want to listen to anyone else’s.”
Wanda held onto her head. “This is exhausting. I wish I could go back to studying the Radiant 12 hours a day.”
No. She could no longer concentrate on studying. Since the disaster, a new sense had opened inside her. A sense of ...empathy. An awareness of the grief and suffering around her. It felt like a weight, pressing from all sides.
***
While heading back to the Shelter, Wanda and Stettin found their way blocked by a large crowd.
“Holy Mother of Safehaven, protect us,” the people chanted. They wore odd-looking helmets or held flat pieces of plastic over their heads. “Come with us,” they beckoned. “We’re going to a safespace. Come, wear this.” A woman offered one of the flat headpieces. “To protect from the dangers of Sky. From the destruction that comes from above, and the living death that closes from below.”
Wanda stared at them. As they went by, she absorbed the emotions. A ‘safespace'? Trantorians lived under a dome or on below-levels...but these people feared even to step out onto an avenue, or a wide space, like the one where the Station had fallen. But they would not go into a transportation tunnel either. A closed space also meant death.
Claustrophobia, and agoraphobia, both at once!
Wanda understood them very well. She had to fight these same feelings every day.
“I wonder if there’s a way we can help, with mind-touching.”
Stettin heard the thought and replied: “It would need more than just a touch. You would have to be able to change a thought...erase their memory of the trauma.”
“Or at least, go into their minds and smooth it out.”
Wanda and Stettin stared at each other. “Do you think that’s possible? It’s one thing to hear a thought. Another thing to fix it!”
“The main problem would be finding just that one memory. Then figuring how to erase or moderate it, without erasing or damaging other areas of the personality.”
“Very delicate. Like micro-surgery.”
Wanda and Stettin agreed: “But how could we learn? Nobody’s going to let us practice on their brain.”
They found their answer the next day. There in the transit station stood a middle-aged woman, balancing at the very edge of the platform, as if to throw herself in front of the train. She wore a drab, frayed work tunic covered with dust...as if she hadn’t changed since the Crash. Her hands were swathed in filthy bandages.
Other people avoided her, as if her mental disturbance might be contagious.
Wanda and Stettin edged closer. “Excuse me ma’am,” Wanda said in a soft voice, “the train’s not due for awhile. Want to talk?” Wanda had learned to project an emotion; now she projected a feeling of calm. “What’s your name, good citizen?”
“Jarleen Abbot. Third-level Accounting, Bureau of Finance, Commerce Sector.” The woman mumbled her credentials in a flat voice.
“My name is…” Wanda hesitated for a second, considering. Grandfather cautioned me to stay in hiding. We are to be secret, secluded. Pick a fake identity. “My name is, um, Shara. And this is my husband...Stefan. We’re psychology students.” She made that up. “Why you are standing at the edge of the platform? It’s dangerous."
“It’s...the only safe place.”
“C’mon off of there, we’ll try to find safety for you.”
Jarleen slowly moved away from the edge. “What do you mean? Th..theres no place safe from the…..the falling death mountain from the sky.”
“I share your feelings. I was there too. Let me hold your hand, and you can tell me.”
And Wanda did listen, opening her mind and letting the thoughts and feelings pour in. All of the unthinkable, unbearable terrors that warped a human being. The agony of injury, the grief of losing loved ones.
“I c-can’t sleep, because I’ll feel all of it again. Can’t eat, can’t do my j-job. If only the train would run over me so I could escape all of the...m-memories.”
Wanda felt as if she were swept away in a flood, but she forced herself to stand her ground. The thing to do was section her mind off. One level for her own identity, another for Listening to another human being.
She tried to pinpoint the terrors and find a way to smooth the emotions down. Instead, the swirling maelstrom pulled her in.
Stettin! Help, I’m losing my way!
Wanda! Here I am! Reach out to me!
Stettin’s mental presence was like a strong hand, pulling her away from the chaos of Jarleen’s memories. Wanda, I’ll hold you steady. You keep doing your healing.
Okay. “Listen to me Jarleen, try to relax...perhaps we can stop some of these memories.”
“If...if only you would.” Jarleen’s eyes ran with tears. “I would give anything in the world.”
Jarleen’s hands were covered in bandages, so Wanda held the woman’s forearms instead. “You will rest, like a light sleep, but open your mind. Show me what's bothering you.”
Jarleen shared, in agonizing, disjointed images: standing at that gateway, right there... a flaming piece of metal came screaming down...bigger than ten shuttle buses. It pinned my partner Hansor. I tried to help him but...hands were too burned! Couldn’t help! And the fire...had to run and leave him. Oh, why did I go on living?
Wanda alerted her partner. ”Stettin: can you grab it?”
The two of them grabbed onto the agonizing memory. It was like wrestling a giant snake. As they struggled, Wanda addressed Jarleen on a mentalic level, with essential emotions rather than words. The essence was:
This memory has become a monster that has overtaken your spirit so you can’t go on living.. We must break its hold on you. Help us, and we'll try to free you.
Wanda and Stettin worked together, smoothing the tormenting memory down, pushing it into a tiny box and locking the door. She visualized the ‘zen-garden’ at one of the Meditation centers. A calming stream will flow over the place where the fear dwelled. When you wake up, you will remember what happened but you now have control over those emotions. You understand that you bear no blame. You did your best. Imagine your mind is like a taxi cab and the emotions are a passenger. You direct them, you decide where they go, you control them. Live in peace, Jarleen.
Jarleen opened her eyes.
“I had the most interesting dream. A couple came inside my head and spoke. They...took something out of my head. Something that was monstrous and terrifying. Th-they put in a peaceful feeling, like flowing water. I'm in control...I feel human. Why…’ she stared after Wanda and Stettin. “I think it was you two!”
But Wanda and Stettin had already slipped away like two casual strollers.
“It’s best if people don’t know what we can do, Wanda. Don’t you think?”
“Yes. But we have to keep doing it.” She turned to him in quiet elation. “Stettin, we learned to do something incredible. Do you realize what this could mean?”
Stettin rubbed his forehead. “It means a bit of a headache, all that mental effort.”
She gave him a playful swipe. “Grandpa seemed to think our mentalic talent was important for his Plan. Maybe he wants us to heal the whole galaxy.”
“He didn’t think small, did he.”
***
Wanda and Stettin’s efforts bore fruit: people began to appear, shy at first, bringing others with them. Once she had had space at Streeling University, but now that the Psychohistory Project had lost its funding, she began holding meetings in a former beauty salon, abandoned after the Crash. People of all ages and stations would come in.
“Someone called me, told me to come here,” they would say. "Was it you?”
“I heard all of you, Wanda would address them. All of us are united by the ability of mentalic linkage.”
Some people had no idea what was going on. “Am I losing my mind? Is there something wrong with me?”
“People have always done it instinctively, without realizing,” Wanda told them. “But now that your Listening talent has awakened, we should unite.”
“Why?”
“So we can support each other, and help our world. There’s so much we could do.”
“Like take over the planet, you mean?” A young man joked, but Wanda felt a flash of something in his remark and made a mental note to exclude this fellow.
Hari Seldon had probably imagined Wanda presiding over a dignified group of Psychohistorians in front of their equations. The reality was completely different. This was a diverse group, all ages and ethnicities, many of them from the lower social and economic levels. The noble and wealthy classes have big egos, which form a barrier to the mentalic talent.
She noticed how many worked as ‘servers’ of one kind or another. The key to the mind-touch ability was a kind of empathic listening, and these would be the ones most likely to use a form of empathy in their jobs: sensing what their clients wanted, whether it was day to day assistance or erotic satisfaction.
“I worked as a servant to the Duke of Orion," said Orvil. "I always knew what he wanted, so I was good at my job.”
“I’m Allita,” said a tall striking girl whose long purple hair cascaded down to her waist. “I work at a... high class massage parlor. My hair’s real,” she added, in response to Wanda’s thought. “My ancestry’s from Gardenia.”
“I’m Beka Yar,” said a short chunky woman in a colorful kerchief. "I help the sick and elderly in their day to day living. Some of them can't talk, so it's good I can Listen.”
“I’m Tynek,” said an older man with unkempt gray hair. “I drink to quiet the voices in my head. I thought I was crazy. Now you say the voices are real?”
“I’m Barr Kender, from Dahl." The man stroked his fine, thick mustache, a mark of pride in Dahlite men. "Used to work for the Commissioner. After the Crash, I heard the bastard thinking about the relief shipments and planning to skim off the money for himself. I let some other folks know...and then he sent his goons after me. I had to leave Dahl in a hurry! ”
“I can see where mentalic talent could lead to trouble,” Stettin muttered.
***
“Things are getting worse on Trantor,” Wanda told her group, “but we’re going to be part of making things better. Have you heard of Hari Seldon?”
“He predicted the fall of the Empire, didn’t he?” said young Stuben Keel, a recent math graduate with a scraggly beard and ponytail. “Smart guy. If you ask me, that’s happening right now.”
“His dream was to create the Foundation—a new society to rise from the ashes of the old. I’m looking for people who want to be a part of...something like that, only right here on Trantor.”
Wanda tried to project optimism and courage. Because that’s what a leader did, right? Her grandfather thought she was capable of leading a movement and doing great things. When back in the Before times, Wanda had been a quiet introvert who just wanted to study in peace. Now it was as if the Station had crashed right into that Wanda, and rearranged her down to the core of her soul.
The youngsters, Allita and Beka, exchanged shining glances. “That’s so exciting. Imagine folks like us, doing something important.”
" What can we do?” said Allita.
“We can make things better on our own world.” Wanda smoothed back her long hair and twisted it into a bun. “The world is a mess right now. Everyone’s terrified and hurting. Can you feel it? It's like a lead weight on the brain.”
“Sure is,” said Caryn, a broad boned, middle-aged woman in a flowery dress. “Like a choking fog. What can we do?”
“Stettin and I learned how to heal someone who was about to kill herself, by smoothing out her memories. And there are a lot more. You can feel it everywhere. We can use our gift to heal people. All of them!” Wanda rubbed her temples. “Or at least, as many as we can.”
***
Wanda and Stettin kept meeting the new mentalics, but some had to be turned away.
“People have pushed me around," said a scowling youngster. "I want to get even.”
“I’d like to be in charge. I bet I could be Mayor of Melkor one day."
“I’d like to have a stream of lovers at my beck and call.”
“I bet I could get rich with this talent.”
“Sorry, we can’t help you do that,” Wanda would tell these people.
***
“We need to find that doctor, Chaka. He was at a clinic. Wonder which one?”
It took them awhile, checking directories and putting out a call at various locations. Their search led them to the MidConcourse Public Health Center. There she asked for a doctor named Chaka. A white-coated man with dark skin and curly hair showed up.
Wanda pointed to her ear and addressed him silently. “I’m Wanda. I lost my hearing. But still I could hear you.”
His eyes widened. “What! By Stars….What did you just…” He brushed back his curls. “I thought I imagined it.”
“I heard so many people calling out mentally. During the Crash.”
He put a hand to his head. “The Crash. Oh, by naked sky. It was so terrifying. Imagination does funny things.”
“It’s not your imagination.”
“Mind-speaking may be a latent ability in humankind,” she added, vocally. “My grandfather Hari Seldon’s calculations say that it will become important as humanity evolves. Listen, Doctor: we found a lady about to kill herself and we learned how to help her with the mind-touch. I’m assembling a group that has the talent. I hear there have been a lot of psychiatric problems since the Crash, and we want to help. Would you work with us?”
Chaka’s expression intensified. “There’s a way to help? Mental hospitals are overflowing. We doctors don’t know what to do.” Dr. Chaka took her hand. “Ma’am, if you know a way to heal...count me in.”