Day Ten

There was something here, something important about Planet that even Bala had missed, drove her through ten thousand years, was in every footstep she took, every story she told. What could the possessor of such a lifetime consider as a vacation? A sequence of words came to him as he sunk deeper into memory recall: garden in a far corner. There was...
"There's a wall there."
Betaine looked up, shot out a hand quickly enough to catch himself from slamming his nose into a projection window sill. Someone was snickering, a flat, wheezy noise like a whine being pushed through a broken nose in spurts. He looked up for the speaker and a cluster of red and brown lumps around a sleek tan table resolved into a group of human mercenaries, their clothing heavily layered and stained, lines of embroidery flashing here and there. He recognized some of it as elaborate wards and curses and they glittered in the soft light. One, the man who had spoken, had a black, spiraling mark on his bandana that twisted under Betaine's gaze, was like a brand, a cankerous sore on the fabric.
Their weapons were absent but worn patches, a crease in a pair of trousers, an empty leather harness sewn into a boot, indicated they were usually very heavily armed but acted no more ill-at-ease for the loss of their gear. A cluster of small cobalt glasses was gathered neatly at the center of the table and thin booklets of carbonweave paper filled the rest of the surface. One or two were thumbing through them, taking care to read without their lips moving.
"Thank you," said Betaine, eyeing the reading material, "nerve pulse triggers?"
It came faster than a wish, a burning itch that snaked up his spine. He recognized it as a warning shot, not intended to cause serious harm and let it pass through, subdued the twitching in his right arm that made him want to salute. They wouldn't injure him, not on the ship, not openly, but forcing excessively inquisitive passengers such as himself into small and humilating gestures often relieved the boredom of travel. The source was a smaller, lumpy man, muscles like a sack of potatoes, who leaned almost bonelessly on the table. He was staring away from Betaine, but the silence made him turn.
The mercenary's eyes were slightly bloodshot and he arched a frizzy eyebrow at the young analyst, who smiled just a little too tightly to be called pleased or pleasant.
"No offense meant."
"I'm sure," said Betaine and moved away towards a low cream-coloured divan that looked achingly comfortable.
There was a disorienting flash and the smell of burnt hair. He rocked slightly on his feet but kept walking.
"What the hell? Are you some kind of fucking idiot?"
Words exploded from the smaller mercenary as he grabbed a no longer smirking companion by his elaborate kerchief from across the table, scattering cobalt glasses that pinged as they fell.
"Sir, I..."
"I don't care if he called your God damned grandfather a crechewhore! You don't use an igniter on an impressionist unless you want us all to die, you endstain! Remember Ysorri? He thought it'd be funny..."
"...not funny, sir..."
"...to implode that roundcar and now he's a greasy fucking stain on some wall in the God damned Doric system! They teach these internal bastards weird shit...they're all wired to take out the whole fucking ship if you cross the noetic flows."
The divan curved around his back like a hello, the buttery soft suede making him almost dizzy as Betaine attempted to relax, simultaneously amused and annoyed at the argument going on at the mercenaries' table. The rumors of an impressionist mind-burning everyone for miles around if attacked with external psionics was a school tradition, a bit of protection for alumni who couldn't keep their mouths shut.
The stories were as old as dirt and new students delighted in making up new permutations, passing around ever more realistic tales about someone who'd been stupid enough to set their psionic focal point close enough to a master of internal energies. It was true the contact between fields allowed the impressionist access to the nervous system of his antagonizer as if physical contact had been made, letting him spread pain sensations through everyone within the external psionic's field, but when no harm could be done anyway to the internalist, why amplify the problem? The jokes went "How do you kill an external? Mind burn. How do you kill an internal? A stick."