64 replies to this topic

[kropotkin41]

Osman Jones laughs. 'I am sorry Doctor. Really, I can see how it came across. I didn't mean to be manipulative. I hope you know that I really do want to help you, and I think you are right, even going through the tests and discovering that you have no potential will teach you a great deal about how a psion functions and hones his or her skills.'

The psion reaches over and, in a gesture of reassurance or perhaps even friendship, puts his hand on your wrist.

'Doctor, we will be discreet and subtle, and take this as slowly as you like. At the end of this process, even if you are no more psionic than this table is sentient, you will nonetheless have had a glimpse of psionic practice given to very few who have not stepped through the doors of an Institute.'

With that Jones asks for access to a personal computer - something he did not bring - on which he can makes notes......... the tests he explains, can begin immediately.

[Ghost]

"I'll try and find one for you; I am sure there is one available onboard."

The only computer Stettler had available was the one in medbay, and his personal computer. Neither one were computers he wanted Jones to access. He would ask Morgan if there was a computer onboard the Psin could borrow, to kill some time during the jump...

[kropotkin41]

Morgan finds a personal computer that Jones can use without any problems. He includes a basic Library Data program.

'Good then' Jones says, 'whenever you are ready we can start. Doctor.'

[Ghost]

"No time like the present," Stettler said with a confidence he did not feel, unsure of why he in fact was feeling nervous? Was he worried that he would learn that he had latent psionic powers? Or was he worried that he would discover that he didn't? Even as he told Jones he as ready, he regretted saying yes, feeling an involuntary shudder, and perspiration on his back. H erecongnized all the sympthoms as being nervousness, but he wasn't at all certain as to of what he was afraid. He'd be better off calling teh whole thing off, but something in his own logic, about learnig from the experience carried him through. Now was not the time to worry about his own self-worth; there were people, two that he knew of personally, and the Gods knew how many else besides, who needed help to overcome the psionic torture they had been exposed to; Stettler feelig a little queasy about a test didn't really measure up to that. So, instead of calling off anything at all, he simply nodded. "Let us begin..."

[kropotkin41]

And so in secret and in between his other duties Doctor Stettler embarks upon the series of tests which Osman Jones assures him will reveal his remaining psionic strength. Realising that the tests may very well show that whatever latent potential Stettler had as a youth has atrophied Jones goes out of his way to explain every step and how it might be experienced by a young psion just coming into awareness of his or her capacities for training.

At the end of a gruelling set of tests during which Stettler felt nothing but fatigue and a slight burning behind the eyes, Jones nods and says 'Well Doctor I can tell you that whether you have some strength left or not, as a child you would have certainly had some potential; in other words you do not find yourself in that portion of humanity, the minority I believe, with, for whatever reasons genetic or otherwise, no in-born psionic potential.'

The tests continue and will certainly take more time than the jump to the Quare system affords. Stettler realises that he is learning a great deal about psionics; it is with growing excitement that he begins to appreciate just how much this process could help his ability to use even a conventional medical approach to helping the victims of psionic attack.