Telepaths of Theon -e

Sarah's Landing Series, Vol. 2

by Elena Dorothy Bowman

The saga continues as Joshua's loyalties are divided between Earth and Theon. Torn by the plight of the people of the Planet Theon, his love for one of their daughters, and his alien son, the Earthling, Joshua, tries to reevaluate his dedication to his first love. His loyalty to the Theonians is questioned, endangering the lives of his Earth family. In his attempt to resolve his problem, he tleports to Earth seeking to inform his Earth love of the decision he must make for her safety as well as the safety of their son. Traveling through space between Earth and Theon he is unaware of the pull towards the dark planet Crillion until an internal alarm alerts him that the Barbarians are trying to divert his trajectory and bring him within their grasp.

ISBN 978-1-59431-514-0 Sci-Fi / Suspense / Romance

Cover art: David P. Bowman

Also available in RTF and HTML formats.



Prologue

Earth’s reach for the stars, catches the interest and attention of a culture existing on a shrouded planet who have commissioned a highly technically superior force to search the universe for compatible life forms. The alien race, who call themselves Theonians, are capable of fantastic psychic abilities, one of which allows them to travel anywhere in the universe at will. The Theonians’ advanced society is on the brink of disaster. These aliens must now enlist, but are forbidden to conquer, a race of beings whose genetics are similar to theirs to ensure the continuation of their own existence. Settling on the planet Earth as their primary objective they surreptitiously send a member of their Inner Council to scout out this promising aspect. He takes on the name of Henderson, and the role of a Caretaker, so as to slip among the people of the planet with ease. Thus, in the first episode of the Series, Sarah’s Landing, one of the last surviving vestiges of an earlier era situated along the rocky coast of New England, becomes the village where Henderson begins his mission.

* * *

Ten years before the twenty-first century people began to disappear without warning, vanishing before the eyes of their spouses, their lovers, and their friends. Fifty-one years into the new millennium, Joshua Morgan, special investigator for the Alien Intelligence Team of the Space Intelligence Command (SICOM), comes to this place out of time, this New England village called Sarah’s Landing. Somehow Morgan knows that hidden among the archaic weather-beaten wooden buildings of this village lay the key to where those people had gone.

His interest is not totally official, for Joshua Morgan, scientist, biologist, and astronaut, has himself lost friends, has in fact almost been one of them. He was to be the lead biologist on the maiden voyage of the Earth Star-1, the most important deep-space mission yet. But hours before the flight, he is stricken with a serious viral illness forcing him to stay behind. And Earth Star-1 vanishes.

Joshua Morgan, “scrubbed” from the most ambitious deep space mission yet, is temporarily assigned to the Space Intelligence Command’s (SICOM), Investigative Branch to solve the mystery of these disappearances. He must determine the thread between a Centuries old mystery, people vanishing before the new millennium, a lost star-ship in deep space, and a New England village, a place out of time, called Sarah’s Landing. In his search for answers, Joshua stumbles upon a mystery dating back 111 years to Einstein’s Electro-Magnetic Field Flux Theories, and our initial experiments with inter-dimensional travel.

During his search for the truth, Joshua meets and falls in love with Alexandra, a telepath, who senses danger in Joshua’s life. The first inkling of the Alien bond manifests itself in Alexandra’s dreams after her lover, Joshua Morgan, disappears while she is away from Sarah’s Landing.

* * *

The story begins in the year 2055, and weaves around Sarah’s Landing, one of the last surviving vestiges of an earlier era. Unknown to most of its inhabitants, it maintains an unusual bond with an alien city, and its unseen planet light years away, in an undiscovered galaxy the New Englanders have not been privy to; and with it, its people…the empathies and Telepaths of Theon. It involves a race of beings whose telepathic, telekinetic, and psychic abilities are more powerful and far-reaching than anyone could have imagined.

In the obscurity of deep space, this shrouded planet (Theon) is quietly sending a technically superior force to search the universe for compatible life forms. The aliens, who call themselves Theonians, have become victims of their own advanced culture and are facing extinction unless a solution can be found. While on Earth, they assimilate among the people of the planet with ease and are undetectable.

Earth Star-I’s historic flight is in response to a message sent by a newly contacted star in the vicinity of the Reticulli System, 37 light years away. The ship is equipped with two propulsion systems; one for physical space travel, the other, an untried hyperspace drive system capable of traveling faster than the speed of light. The second system designed by Allen, Joshua’s replacement, is a device for dimensional and hyper-dimensional transitions capable of transporting ship and crew light years away, almost instantaneously, eliminating the meaning of time and space as we know it. But there is a danger. If the starship breaks through the barriers of light velocity without reaching hyperspace instantaneously, the ship and its crew will either disintegrate or wander forever between the corridors of time.

Seconds after hyper-drive ignition, the Lunar telescope records a light flash of tremendous proportions. The ship and its crew go silent. There is no word, just loud crackling static then dead silence. Houston attempts to launch a rescue mission. The plans for the propulsion system have mysteriously disappeared.

During the course of his investigation, Joshua is drawn to Sarah’s Landing by an inexplicable gut feeling. The only office space available to him is in a musty old mausoleum, that not even the ‘natives’ would enter. He believes that there is a link between this quaint village and to the people, who have vanished, as well as to the 111-year old mystery, and to the enigma of the ship’s disappearance.

For several months, Joshua’s probing in Sarah’s Landing is stymied when he meets and falls in love with a beautiful, redheaded telepath, Alexandra McKay. She senses that as long as he stays in ‘that building’ his life is in danger. But she cannot persuade him to leave. When she embarks on a weekend trip, Joshua is forcefully reminded of his purpose.

During a violent electrical storm, he willingly moves through a disappearing door, a portal, transporting him to a cryogenic lab on a different planet. Here he is held prisoner until his transformation. He develops new abilities and incredible alien powers. Given a choice to join the aliens or face entombment, he joins them hoping to escape.

* * *

Upon her return to Sarah’s Landing, Alexandra, Joshua’s psychic lover, searches frantically for him. Henderson, the caretaker of the old building, arouses suspicion as to Joshua’s disappearance and he is arrested. He inexplicably disappears from both sight and mind of all but Alexandra. She soon discovers this devious character is her alien nemesis, responsible for the strange happenings in Sarah’s Landing.

In her waking hours, Alexandra tries desperately to find Joshua, enlisting the aid of Lieutenant Henry Jacobsen, of the Space Intelligence Command, only to have her efforts blocked at every turn by Henderson, her strange, devious nemesis, who is responsible for her many bizarre nightmares. After his own investigation as to the whereabouts of Joshua proves fruitless, Lt. Henry (Harry) Jacobsen, Joshua’s closest friend, arrives to help. Although eager to be of service, Harry is far more interested in Alexandra. He spends all his spare time with her and hopes for more.

Unknown to her, Henderson’s prime responsibility is twofold: stop Alexandra from using her psychic powers to contact Joshua and, stop her from learning of the existence of the Alien Planet. But Alexandra is determined not to be dissuaded. She pushes ahead and succeeds in thwarting Henderson. Successfully contacting Joshua, she brings him back to her for almost twenty-four hours. She discovers the existence of the alien planet and ultimately places herself, her unborn child, and Harry Jacobsen in mortal danger.

* * *

Alexandra McKay and Lieutenant Henry Jacobsen, of SICOM, as far as they knew, are the only two Earthlings, presently residing in Sarah’s Landing, who were aware of the extraterrestrial tie. Harry, concerned for Alexandra’s safety, decides, for the present, to keep what he knows about the Aliens and Sarah’s Landing to himself. During his efforts to help Alexandra search for Joshua, he grows to love her and Joshua’s unborn son. Alexandra, although fond of Harry as a friend, a brother, has only one love in mind - Joshua.

* * *

Joshua is fascinated by the Theonians, who materialize and dematerialize with little effort. One night while imprisoned in his living quarters, Joshua suddenly hears Alexandra, and realizes they are capable of linking their minds across the vast reaches of space. Heron, Theon’s Leader, sends his daughter, Adrianne, to meet with Joshua. Adrianne befriends Joshua without divulging her identity. Due to her youth and inexperience, Adrianne unwittingly allows Joshua to escape to her planet’s surface. In the alien’s inhospitable atmosphere, Joshua almost dies before discovering the lost ship and the identity of the young scientist who replaced him on the flight.

Shocked by his discoveries, he teleports back to his living quarters. Confusing Adrianne long enough to access her mind, he learns his friends no longer yearn for Earth and he is meant to ‘join’ with her to be the new Leader of Theon.

Joshua learns from Adrianne, that long before he came to be on the alien planet, the Theonians, under Heron’s leadership, were searching the galaxies for intelligent beings. Upon their discovery of the blue planet, Beam Ships and transporting sensors were sent to various locations on Earth. Activating their long unused sensors, accidents began to happen and citizens of the Planet Earth began appearing on the surface of Theon. Many of the transplanted people suffered severe damage in the process. Out of compassion, those afflicted were entombed in Theon’s cryogenic laboratories. Survivors were allowed to establish an Earth Colony on Theon. Heron orders the deactivation of the sensors.

* * *

As the years pass, a puzzling pattern emerges. The children of the Earth Colony are unaffected by the centuries of genetic engineering practiced on Theon. A practice, which, after a period of time, was the cause of a gene mutation, which resulted in the deaths of thousands of Theonian children. Theon’s survival is at stake, Heron orders the sensors reactivated. He sends Henderson along with Allen, one of the Colony’s children, an ingenious, brilliant, young scientist, to Earth — to bring back healthy specimens and a new leader for Theon.

* * *

In the time it has taken Joshua to find the link between Sarah’s Landing, the missing people, Earth Star-1, and the alien impact on the 111-year-old mystery, he has become sympathetic to Theon’s cause and has ‘joined’ with Adrianne.

A quadrangle develops when the main characters are helplessly caught in the entanglement of an affair that spans two different planets light years apart. Joshua has discovered that his love of both women has resulted in two sons — siblings — one from the alien planet Theon, and one from the planet Earth — empowered with their father’s mind-linking capabilities not only to their father and to their mothers, but to each other as well across the vastness of space. This phenomenon results in the safety of both planets being compromised and is now susceptible to detection by an ominous dark force.

* * *

All of this, together with Heron’s disclosure of the danger from an outside galaxy, a danger, which could destroy both Earth and Theon, adds to Joshua’s struggle with his decision on whether to return to Earth. Believing he has only one choice left to him, he teleports to Earth to explain to Alexandra what his decision must be.

And that is the way things stand as the Telepaths of Theon begins slightly before the time of Andrew’s birth.







Chapter 1

Sarah’s Landing, Earth

The weeks were rushing by and Alexandra was getting bigger and bigger. The townspeople under the leadership of the owl-faced Postmistress, Emily Pritchard, were now looking at her with a mixture of contemptuousness and fear.

“What do you suppose her baby will look like?” ‘Old-Lady’ Pritchard asked the tall, burly, full bearded General Store Proprietor, Ebenezer Grayson.

“I hear her talking to ‘it’ when she doesn’t think anyone can hear her,” a woman customer volunteered.

“And,” another added, “she acts as if ‘it’ answers her.”

“Well, I don’t believe the stories we’ve heard,” ‘Old-Lady’ Pritchard interrupted. “Lt. Jacobsen is the father of her child and she is trying to make it out to be the poor soul who disappeared. I don’t believe that one for an instant!”

“Well what is she staying here for?” Ebenezer Grayson thundered. “Why doesn’t she go back with her Lieutenant when he leaves?”

“I think she’s trying to shame us all for the way our town acted when her ‘friend’ disappeared, don’t you know,” Emily Pritchard answered. Then she added haughtily, “Flaunting her ‘condition’ and allowing the Lieutenant into her home whenever he comes to town, so it would appear he’s not the real father! Harrumph!”

And so it was with most of the townspeople. Alexandra, and her unborn child, became their favorite subject for gossip.

* * *

The stories spread by the women in the town reached Alexandra. She did her best to ignore them and tried to avoid running into them whenever she went into town to shop. Most of her daylight hours, when Henderson was not harassing her, were spent walking along the shoreline, afraid to climb or walk along the rocks above, afraid something or someone would cause her to fall and injure Joshua’s child.

On nights she could not sleep, she wandered along the lonely beach, staring at the stars trying to contact Joshua and hoping he would answer her.

She sorely needed a friend. All of her friends had long since left town and gone their separate ways. They had begged her to leave with them, but she would not. Sarah’s Landing was the only place she felt close to Joshua. With the exception of her doctor and the two police officers, no one in town spoke to her, afraid too, afraid of what might happen if they did; and she felt desperately lonely.

One afternoon, when she was at her lowest ebb, a messenger rapped furiously on her door and scurried away after leaving a long white box, in the hallway, at the foot of her door.

When she answered the door, she was surprised to see the white box sitting there. Looking around for the person who delivered it, she saw no one. She reached down to retrieve the box. Taking it inside, she cautiously looked at it before opening it. Not knowing who could have sent it, she wondered if Henderson has something to do with it.

“It would be just like him to drop this at the foot of my door and disappear pretending someone else had sent it to me.”

I’m almost afraid to open it, she thought. If it is from Henderson it could be a bomb. She shook her head. No, not even he would stoop that low.

She finally decided it was safe enough and gingerly opened the box. A dozen of the most beautiful red roses she had ever seen greeted her. The card inside read, “Thought you could use a little cheering up…will call tomorrow. Love, Harry.” His timing could not have been more perfect.

Tears ran down her face when she heard his voice the following day and saw his smiling face on the vicom unit. He said he had a few days off and if she was up to it, he would like to come up and visit.

She answered first by telling him how happy his roses made her, and how much they lifted her spirits. His smile deepened, delighted he had pleased her. And when she added she could not wait for him to get there, his heart soared.

Harry made it a point to send flowers or telegrams just to cheer her up and called as often as possible between his brief visits. He had a long leave coming up in a few months. He planned to spend it all with her. She did not object.

She liked Harry, he was a good friend. He was thoughtful, considerate, and always seemed to know the right time to call or drop in for a brief visit. She knew he hoped for more. If it was not for Joshua, things might have been different.

Harry’s visit was all too short. To Alexandra, it seemed as if he had just arrived, when he had to leave and she was alone again…Alone to face the town and Henderson.

* * *

Henderson, the Elder’s right hand man, had been constantly harassing Alexandra, with occasional periods of abstinence in order to throw her off balance. And its effects were beginning to show on her. His unnerving calls, intermittently spaced during her waking hours, coupled by his deliberately disturbing her sleep with bizarre nightmares, were finally wearing her down. He was desperate. He had orders to force her to relinquish her claim on Joshua, and to that end, he obeyed them with an insatiable degree of enjoyment. But now he was running out of time.

“Stop it! Stop it!” she screamed wildly. “No more! Please…no more! What are you trying to do…kill us both! Stop!”

Her screaming woke her. She was covered with perspiration. Her damp hair was strewn across her face in stark testimony to her terror-filled night.

Henderson’s retreat was swift. All he wanted her to do was release her claim on Joshua. He had felt closer to success than he had ever felt. “But, kill them? No!” That was not his intention. It was never his intention.

“It must not happen. Let her rest awhile. He was so close to success, so very close. The Council will be pleased,” his smile was malevolent.

She was weakening. He would return again, and this time he would succeed. He admired her strength, in spite of himself. She had been a worthy opponent, for an Earthling. She had been able to pit her power against his, all this time. He marveled at her resiliency. But now, he had the upper hand. In the final outcome, he was going to win and she would eventually learn to forget all about her Joshua. There was no way she could beat him now. Her long pregnancy had taken its toll on her frail body and she was in no condition to resist his powers any longer. Soon she will deliver and after all, the baby is Joshua’s. What more could she want? She would always have a part of him with her.

“Rest, sweet adversary, rest…Tomorrow will come soon enough for both of us.”

Her tired, swollen body rebelled at her attempts to stay awake. She was afraid to sleep. Afraid he might return. But her eyes refused to stay open. She felt herself going, and abruptly opened her eyes, the cold sweat of fear adding to her apprehension.

“I must stay awake. Don’t go to sleep. He’ll come back…,” she repeated over and over to herself, until intermittent, restless, sleep periodically overcame her objections.

Morning light was a welcomed sight. She felt safe at last. Somehow she had managed to make it through the night and her fears had subsided to some degree. Comforted by the rising sun, she turned on her side, pulled the extra pillow closer to her for comfort, closed her eyes, and slept peacefully for a few short hours.