Isaac checked the address again, took a deep breath and entered the room. Most of the people inside he didn't recognise, but that didn't really mean a whole lot because most of his work with his fellow powerologists was done online.
"Say, I know you," said a voice beside him. "Isaac Hanson, right?"
"Uhh, yes," Isaac replied.
"Matt Howard. Didn't realise you were into powerology," there was a note of contempt in his voice.
Isaac smiled wryly.
"You probably know me better under my psudeonym, H I Clarke."
Matt paused and Isaac was mildly amused at the shift of emotions across his face. Finally, he laughed.
"Never would have picked it," he said. "Hey it's good to finally meet you."
"Same," Isaac chuckled.
There weren't too many of his colleagues who recognised him as a musician, athough he did note a number of searching glances. Not long after his arrival, Courtney arrived to ask them to take a seat and the Elder would be with them shortly.
The Elder walked into the room and moved towards the head of the table just after everyone had made themselves comfortable. There was a moment of respectful silence while he surveryed the room.
"Thank you all for meeting with me," he said finally. "As I'm sure you're all aware we lost a great deal of information at the crash. The powerology files were completely lost, but you have all given me hope that we can regain this knowledge. Unfortunately, powerology was not one of the subjects that I studied, but I will tell you what I do know and answer any questions you may have."
There was a soft murmer as the Elder took his seat.
"None of you were alive, I don't think when the ship crashed. There was 60,000 people on board and barely 8,000 of us survived. Fortunately for us we had enough Illusionists and Healers amongst us to keep us hidden from the humans while we salvaged everything we could, tended the injured and the dead, and made our plans to separate and hide."
"I'm sorry, I don't understand. How did the healers help keep you hidden?" asked one. "Tending the injured I get but..."
"An experienced Healer can transfer someone else's fatigue to themselves," explained the sole healer in the group. "It's not... publisiced, mostly because it's actually very dangerous. When the healer does the transfer, they not only have to sleep off the fatigue they gained, but they also have to sleep of the fatigue generated by doing the transfer. They can quite literally die of exhaustion in moments if they transfer too much."
There was a low whistle.
"Obviously it's ony done in emergencies - as this obviously was."
"Indeed," said the Elder. "It is fortunate for us that Healing is a common power. Of course, with the massive loss of life, not only did we loose specialists who may have been able to replace lost data, we also lost some of the more unusual powers. I think even some of the uncommon abilities were wiped out. We had to rely on vague memories and secondhand information and even then - well, we all know just how many large gaps continue to exist even to this day. It is to your hard work that we're starting to fill those gaps. That... and the increasing population helps."
The Elder gave a wry smile.
"I'm curious about the ultra rare - common spectrum," said someone. "The YIRAAS definitons are very... broad."
The Elder nodded.
"They're what the Council came up with. Our population on Earth is very small, you see. Vallex - my home planet - had a population of over seven billion people, and I'm sure you can imagine that YIRAAS' definitions would never suit!" The Elder chuckled. "The real definitions are based on percentages. Unfortunately, none of us can remember exactly what the percentages are, which is why the loose guidelines you have been given were created. In time, as the population continues to grow, we can expect those definitions to become obsolete, and can begin defining the percentage based definitions. It's redundant now - in fact I suspect our population might be a bit heavy on the rare side of the spectrum. It's hard to be certain with so many communities of our people not involved with the YIRAAS."
The Elder leaned his elbows on the table.
"Take Ultra Rare abilities for example. On Earth we considered that there would only be one person every few generations with any one particular Ultra Rare power. However, on Vallex, there were even thousands of people with, say, power sharing for example."
Isaac's ears pricked up.
"Of course, thirty thousand people, or whatever it was, out of seven billion is fairly small."
"0.01 percent," murmered a powerologist whose own power was Numbers.
"Indeed. Now, even on Vallex, power identifying is a tricky business. I can speak from experience here," the Elder said wryly. "In fact there are lots of powers which cannot be identified at birth - it's even possible that some of the hybrids amongst us have abilities that are amongst this category. Matthew?"
Matt Howard looked up, alert at having his name called.
"You're a microkinetic, so you'll need to see this. I want you to have a look at my DNA."
Matt was visibly started, but got out of his chair and walked over to attend the Elder's request.
"You will note the age markers in my DNA?" the Elder said and went on at Matt's acknowledgement. "You can probably tell they belong to a man much younger than I. As a child I had normal, child age markers. It is only as time passes that there is enough deviation between these my age and how old the age marker think I am that my power is able to be properly identified."
"Yes..." Matt murmered, and soon took his seat again.
"I know many of you are in the business of identifying powers," the Elder went on gravely. "This database will prove to be a valuable resource for all of you, and everyone else who chooses to pursue this path. However, I know for a fact that there are more powers than are currently listed, and I have added all the ones I remember. Remember this when you identify someone's ability - or struggle too - and also understand that there are some abilities which are similar enough to cause confusion. Additionally, some abilities require certain circumstances before they can even be used. Take Healing for example - until they are visibly injured there is no reason to even consider that they have this ability. Another power that comes to mind is Animal Telepathy, or even Animal Healing - you need to be in proximity with animals - and in the case of the latter, an injured animal - before you even have a clue. Then too, I did know someone once who could hear animals telepathically all his life and honestly didn't realise that no one else had this ability - he thought it was normal. Of course, a scan by a regular telepath was enough to sort out the situation, but you get my point."
The telepathic powerologist nodded.
The meeting continued for hours. Lunch ended up being brought in for them, instead of adjourning for it as was the original plan. Isaac later realised that their discussion grew so intence he forgot his awe of the Elder, and he suspected everyone else did too. At one point, Isaac managed to draw this discussion back to what the Elder had been saying about percentages, and the odds of acquiring a particular power., which naturally lead into the "there more to this than odds" discussion, where various factors that influenced powers were brought up. Many of these Isaac new about, such as strength levels, rarity and type, but there were others that neither Isaac - nor many of the other powerologists were aware of. Envrionment was one - the Elder explained that those living in space and those living on planets had increased likelyhood of producing certain types of powers over others. Then too, sometimes particular planets had a tendancy to produce different types of powers over another planet.
"Sometimes we come across whole new powers this way," the Elder explained. "Which will make your job even more difficult. It's also why communication between you is vital. Any unusual case, you should discuss with each other - you don't have to name names - but any one of you could be capable of identifying that one critical element in determining someones' power."
The Elder explained what little he knew of the power identifying techniques employed on Vallex.
By the time the meeting was over, Isaac felt like his head was going to explode by the vast amount of information that had just been pumped into it. He was definitely grateful that the meeting was being recorded and documented for future reference, because he had sincere doubts about his ability to retain all the new knowledge. Certainly the first thing he did when he got home was to transcribe everything he could remember from the meeting, a task which took him a little longer than he anticipated, but considered it well worth writing everything down while it was still fresh.