Taylor noticed that he was still in the cylinder and was being carried by a woman wearing strange, skintight clothes. She inserted the cylinder into a hatch in the back of something that rather looked like a statue of a human.
However, once inserted, there was a clicking noise and Taylor realised that he had control of this statue. Like some sort of artificial body! He could move the arms, the legs, the head, fingers, toes, everything! After talking a moment to adjust himself to this strange new body, he focused the eyes on the woman who was watching with an amused look.
“Who are you?” he asked. “What is this place? What’s going on?”
At these words the woman looked alarmed. She said something, but Taylor couldn’t understand it. She held up a hand, palm flat and facing him, turned her head from him and mumbled something. For a few minutes there was silence, then a door opened and the woman took something from the man on the other side. It was small and flat and she walked behind Taylor and did... something that Taylor couldn’t see. She walked back in front of him.
“Can you understand me now?” she asked.
“Yes!” Taylor replied happily. “Oh please, what’s going on? Where am I? Who are you? What -”
“So many questions,” she interrupted. “I will do my best to answer them. I am Starla, and you?”
“Taylor.”
“And what language is it that you speak?”
“English.”
“English!” Starla gaped at him. “And yet you don’t speak Rakurrian?”
“What’s Rakurrian?”
“Where do you come from?”
“Earth.”
“Earth?” she repeated, astounded. “Okay, tell me what happened to you.”
“Well, I was mucking around with my rock and the next thing I know something is dragging me across to the other side of the galaxy. And then something put me into that cylinder and then the cylinder’s in some sort of bag and next thing I know I’m here,” Taylor shuddered. “I couldn’t stand being trapped in there.”
Starla smiled sympathetically.
“Taylor, I’m afraid your mind was abducted for the use of making telepathic weapons.”
“What?”
“It’s a long story. There’s a race of aliens called the Narrieta who have been abducting people from Earth for many, many centuries. Some were returned, most weren’t. The ones the Narrieta kept were used for experimentation or slave labour. You see, most of those who were taken had powers that the Narrieta triggered. The ones that didn’t the Narreita tried to graft the power-giving gene on.”
“Did they succeed?”
“Who knows? The Narretia also did much experimenting with Telepathy and the stronger variations of it. They were the ones who developed much of our telepathic technology, but we have made our own advances. The weapons are one of those that they made and we had no interest in pursuing ourselves, no matter how powerful they are. We eventually freed ourselves from the Narrieta dominion and we continue to fight them. After all, there are still abductions from Earth. We have some problems with rogue ships. Some are simply not interested in fighting further and are content with their own freedom. Others are the exact opposite and believe that we should do everything possible to eliminate the Narrieta.”
“Including making telepathic weapons?” Taylor asked.
“Including making telepathic weapons,” Starla confirmed. “I am part of an organisation intended to track down these pirates. We found the factory and the workers, but not the pirates. This rock, what does it look like?”
“A rock,” Taylor shrugged. “It’s umm, kind of like a pyramid I guess, but smooth, not sharp and it had a hole in the top. I put a chain though it and wear it around my neck.”
“What do you use it for?”
“Well, I can put my mind into it, and it enhances my telepathic abilities. I can already sense telepathic activity but when someone else has it they can do that too.”
Starla nodded.
“It‘s probably a Plakita device. They can store, transport, augment and sense telepathic energy. They’ve hardly changed over the years, but you’ve probably got one of the early ones that doesn’t have a safeguard against unauthorised transports. When we get an opportunity, I’ll show you how to add the safeguard so that you can put one on when you get back.”
“So, I am going to get back?”
“You bet. I’ll make sure of it. But first we have to track down these pirates so we can find out where they got you from.”
“Earth! I told you!”
“Yes but where on Earth?”
“Hey, you have a map, I can show you. We were on a cruise and I do not suck at geography. I travel enough.”
Starla smiled.
“It’s a little more complicated than that. Don’t worry, we are going to get you home.”
“When?”
“I don’t know. It depends on how soon we catch the pirates. We’ve been going over the files and such in their factory, so we’re a lot closer to catching them than we were before.”