Book Description
Long before the Babylon 5 space station brought Humans face-to-facewith alien races, they discovered an extraordinary breed among their very own . . .
The year is 2115. Shock waves follow in the wake of astonishing news: science has proven the existence of telepaths. Amid media frenzy, panic, and bloodshed, Earth's government steps in to restore order--and establish tight control over the newfound special population . . . by any means necessary.
Ambitious senator Lee Crawford spearheads the effort, overseeing the creation of the Psi Corps--an elite unit charged with tagging and monitoring all telepaths "for their own protection." But the real agenda behind the crackdown is one of government control. Many question the telepaths' origins, while others view them as a coveted weapon. As the Corps tightens its iron grip, the stage is set for a cataclysmic confrontation--one in which the future of Earth will be decided.
The year is 2115. Shock waves follow in the wake of astonishing news: science has proven the existence of telepaths. Amid media frenzy, panic, and bloodshed, Earth's government steps in to restore order--and establish tight control over the newfound special population . . . by any means necessary.
Ambitious senator Lee Crawford spearheads the effort, overseeing the creation of the Psi Corps--an elite unit charged with tagging and monitoring all telepaths "for their own protection." But the real agenda behind the crackdown is one of government control. Many question the telepaths' origins, while others view them as a coveted weapon. As the Corps tightens its iron grip, the stage is set for a cataclysmic confrontation--one in which the future of Earth will be decided.
From the Publisher
The fabric of B5 is astonishingly literary in scope and style, and it posed a major challenge. Even though we knew the viewers were intelligent--prime readers--we had to convince them the books we would produce were necessary to the telling of the saga.
The answer: we hired series creator J. Michael Straczynski to outline the stories. If the fans perceive our books as canon--part of the story they can't get anywhere else--that'd hook 'em. But it had to be the truth. We can't just make up something cute, then claim it's real. It has to be real. Straczynski made it so. What remained was the task of finding the actual novel writer.
I'd met J. Gregory Keyes at conventions, and he'd revealed to me that he didn't get Babylon 5 where he lived. The solution: he had friends who taped hours and hours of the show, then they would all spend weekends together in B5 video-fests (which usually involved a great deal of beer, as well). B5, he confided, was the only media SF he followed religiously. So when I asked Greg if he'd like to write our first B5 novel trilogy, featuring Psi Corps, he jumped at the chance. The result has been the best Babylon 5 fiction ever written--just ask Mr. Straczynski himself.
The answer: we hired series creator J. Michael Straczynski to outline the stories. If the fans perceive our books as canon--part of the story they can't get anywhere else--that'd hook 'em. But it had to be the truth. We can't just make up something cute, then claim it's real. It has to be real. Straczynski made it so. What remained was the task of finding the actual novel writer.
I'd met J. Gregory Keyes at conventions, and he'd revealed to me that he didn't get Babylon 5 where he lived. The solution: he had friends who taped hours and hours of the show, then they would all spend weekends together in B5 video-fests (which usually involved a great deal of beer, as well). B5, he confided, was the only media SF he followed religiously. So when I asked Greg if he'd like to write our first B5 novel trilogy, featuring Psi Corps, he jumped at the chance. The result has been the best Babylon 5 fiction ever written--just ask Mr. Straczynski himself.
--Steve Saffel, Senior Editor
About the Author
Born in Meridian, Mississippi, in 1963, J. Gregory Keyes spent his early years roaming the forests of his native state and the red rock cliffs of the Navajo Indian reservation in Arizona. He earned a B.A. in anthropology from Mississippi State University and a master's degree from the University of Georgia, where he did course work for a Ph.D. He and his wife, Nell, live in Seattle, where, in addition to full-time writing, he practices ethnic cooking--particularly Central American, Szechuan, Malaysian, and Turkish cuisine. Since moving to the Northwest, he can no longer participate in his favorite sport--Kapucha Toli, a Choctaw game involving heavy sticks and few rules--so he has taken up fencing. Greg is the author of The Waterborn, The Blackgod, and Newton's Cannon.
J. Michael Straczynski is one of the most prolific and highly regarded writers currently working in the television industry. In 1995, he was selected by Newsweek magazine as one of their Fifty for the Future, described as innovators who will shape our lives as we move into the twenty-first century. His work spans every conceivable genre--from historical dramas and adaptations of famous works of literature (The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) to mystery series (Murder, She Wrote), cop shows (Jake and the Fatman), anthology series (The Twilight Zone), and science fiction (Babylon 5). He writes ten hours a day, seven days a week, except for his birthday, New Year's, and Christmas.
J. Michael Straczynski is one of the most prolific and highly regarded writers currently working in the television industry. In 1995, he was selected by Newsweek magazine as one of their Fifty for the Future, described as innovators who will shape our lives as we move into the twenty-first century. His work spans every conceivable genre--from historical dramas and adaptations of famous works of literature (The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) to mystery series (Murder, She Wrote), cop shows (Jake and the Fatman), anthology series (The Twilight Zone), and science fiction (Babylon 5). He writes ten hours a day, seven days a week, except for his birthday, New Year's, and Christmas.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Alice Kimbrell pushed back from the screen angrily.
"Ridiculous!" she snapped, to no one.
It was a word she would repeat, often. A word that would haunt her when
the killing began.
She went to the kitchen to make coffee, which she always needed
midafternoon. She stopped, reaching for a cup. There sat Albert's old mug,
asking to be filled.
Ridiculous. She should throw it away.
The coffee steaming, she stepped out to her balcony and tried to take a
moment to contemplate the sea. But the paper's title glowed in her mind,
and all the coffee did was brighten the glare.
Investigations into Biochemical Sensory Transmission by Duffy and
Philen, June 2115.
Ridiculous.
She stared hard at the lavender sea, as if concentrating could make her
appreciate it. "I love this view. It reminds me of Denmark," Albert had
once remarked. It had seemed a soulful thing to say at the time. As if
Albert had more than the parody of a soul.
She wished she had an office. People who had offices could escape their
homes.
She stalked back to her workstation and looked at the abstract again. It
hadn't changed.
A sample population of 1,000 volunteers was screened for metasensory
abilities using standard set Zener cards, Black Box Randomizer, and blind
curtain tests. Two individuals demonstrated consistently accurate results
for each test, and ten demonstrated statistically improbable accuracy. HCI
and Dao imaging demonstrated collateral brain cortex activity between
senders and receivers in accurate tests. The sample population was
increased to 5,000 individuals. Two members of the larger sample
conclusively demonstrated metasensory abilities, with thirteen sets of
statistically improbable results. Cortex imaging was consistent with the
findings of the preliminary study.
Okay, she thought. Prove it to me.
Unfortunately, they did. She read it again, summoning even more skepticism.
Of course, data could be faked, but as per usual, they had included a
complete data set with verifying codes. Most damning of all, there was the
cover letter signed by Drs. Jacqueline Wilson and John Yazhi. The authors
might be graduate students, but two of the most prestigious
neuropsychologists at the Harvard School of Medicine backed them up. That
was probably what got the paper past her screeners to start with.
Worse and worse. As editor of the New England Journal of
Medicine, she could think of no good reason not to publish. Which
was a shame, because then her career would join her personal life on the
slag heap.
She reached for the phone. By God, she would find a reason not to
publish it.
"It's not a joke," Dr. Yazhi said, swaying his long physique up from
behind his desk to shake her hand.
"Dr. Yazhi, you must understand--"
"Look, it started out that way. Ms. Duffy and Mr. Philen were writing a
paper for the New Drinkland Journal of Medicine. You know it? It's
a sort of hazing ritual. The first year students are required to write at
least two hundred pages of garbage on some nontopic, but they have to
research it, give it all the good form of a journal article. It's a
student competition to see who can treat the most absurd subject in the
most clinical fashion, using the most jargon and academic doublespeak.
It's a bonus if they can make it recognizably similar to something that
has actually been published.
"Philen and Duffy chose to research telepathy. They set up a study
and--and, well, they began to get results. When they were sure they
brought it to me, and I came on board as their adviser."
"Yes, but Zener card readings--"
"Can be faked, yes. But we went on from there. In the end--you read the
paper, I assume? In the end we did simultaneous pattern scans on the
brains of the subjects, first with an HCI and then a Dao imager. The
results were what you saw in your data sets. Spontaneous--and I might add,
impossible--cortex pattern similarities at the moment of 'transmission.'"
He paused, stroking his lean, dark face. "I've read your work, Dr.
Kimbrell, and I think you've been a credit to the journal since you began
editing it. I understand your reluctance, but I think the data behind this
paper is quite solid. I'm certainly willing to say so."
"It's just that--" She paused, marshaling arguments. "All through the
twentieth century they did these same tests, and nothing. Why?"
He shrugged. "Maybe when they got results they didn't like, they ignored
them--that was pretty common in the nineteens. They didn't have HCIs then,
just EEGs and the like, nothing that could holistically image microneural
activity. That's what convinced us, of course." He pursed his lips. "Just
ask yourself--if this paper were on any accepted subject, or even a
marginal one, would you publish it? Is it well written? Is it evidenced?
Is the data set verifiable? Are the experiments replicable?"
She met his eyes, wanting to challenge him further, finding she could not.
She sighed. "Thank you, Doctor."
"My pleasure."
She put it off. Albert called and she hung up on him. Her father called,
and she pretended not to be home. Her stockbroker called, wanting to buy a
thousand shares of something-or-other and she told him to buy Antarctica
if he wanted, but to leave her alone.
She went to a salon, had her hair cut into a short, blond bob. She picked
away at her own research, wrote letters to some colleagues, went running
and swimming, lost three pounds. In the end she returned, saw the
submissions piling up, and sighed.
She remembered how proud she had been--the youngest editor in chief of the
oldest continuously published medical journal in history. Quite the coup.
As she sat down at her workstation, she wondered if she would be able to
get a teaching position somewhere, perhaps at a community college. In the
Yukon maybe. At least it would be easier to dodge Albert there.
Senator Lee Crawford sighed as he strode into the sunlight and saw the
reporter. Was that all he rated these days, a single reporter from a minor
newspaper? It seemed so.
He put on his most genial smile.
"Senator Crawford," the young woman began--in a rush, as if she feared he
might brush past her--"I'm with the Union Discoverer--"
He shoved his hands into his pockets and cocked his head slightly.
"Couldn't find anyone more important to talk to, Ms. Hoijer?" He said it
without accusation--just a gentle self-deprecation. He let a little drawl
through. They liked that.
It got her. The Discoverer was far from the most prestigious reporting
syndicate around, and she must have had her own share of snubs. And he had
remembered her name from, what, three months ago. Her eyes softened a bit.
She was a pretty thing, dark skin, green eyes, slim, perhaps thirty.
"I ..." She paused and cleared her throat, and he revised her age downward
to twenty-five. "Would you care to comment on the defeat of your latest
bill?"
"Only that it's a shame, a shortsighted shame," he said, without heat. "In
time, people'll come to see that." He relaxed his shoulders. "Tell me,
what do you think?"
"Excuse me?"
"You asked what I think. What do you think?"
"Senator, that's my job, asking you what you think."
He shrugged. "And what's mine? I represent people, Ms. Hoijer. Aren't you
a person?"
"But I am not American, Senator--I don't vote for you."
"Details. C'mon, what do you think? Phrase it as a question, if you must,
but tell me."
If you insist," she said, "I have to say I agree with your opponents. Our
taxes have funded the DeepProbe project for twenty years, with no results.
I don't see why we should fund yet another--and more expensive--search for
extraterrestrial life."
"Intelligence," he corrected gently. "Life we have found, and yet at one
point it was far from clear that we would. And you answer your own
question. The DeepProbe project uses technology twenty years out of date.
It's time to upgrade."
"But why? The search for extraterrestrial intelligence began more than a
hundred years ago. Don't you think that if there were anything to find, we
would have found it by now?"
He chuckled his patented chuckle and nodded as if in agreement. "Do you
know why the people at home voted for me? Do you know why I ran?"
"You ran on a Globalist platform. And you were the hero of Grissom
colony--"
"There's that--that's how I got on the ticket, not why I ran, not why
people voted for me. For almost two hundred years, change in science and
technology has been the most important fact of life on this planet, and
for two hundred years politicians have lagged so far behind the leading
edge--well, it would be funny if it were a joke. People who don't
understand the first law of motion make decisions regardin' the funding
and disposition of space platforms. Doesn't that strike you as even
faintly ridiculous? I ran because I think at least one politician should
have some conception of more than how to schmooze.
"And to answer your question directly, no. With the technology available
in the last hundred years, we couldn't even find one of our own space
probes without knowing exactly where it is, much less inte...
"Ridiculous!" she snapped, to no one.
It was a word she would repeat, often. A word that would haunt her when
the killing began.
She went to the kitchen to make coffee, which she always needed
midafternoon. She stopped, reaching for a cup. There sat Albert's old mug,
asking to be filled.
Ridiculous. She should throw it away.
The coffee steaming, she stepped out to her balcony and tried to take a
moment to contemplate the sea. But the paper's title glowed in her mind,
and all the coffee did was brighten the glare.
Investigations into Biochemical Sensory Transmission by Duffy and
Philen, June 2115.
Ridiculous.
She stared hard at the lavender sea, as if concentrating could make her
appreciate it. "I love this view. It reminds me of Denmark," Albert had
once remarked. It had seemed a soulful thing to say at the time. As if
Albert had more than the parody of a soul.
She wished she had an office. People who had offices could escape their
homes.
She stalked back to her workstation and looked at the abstract again. It
hadn't changed.
A sample population of 1,000 volunteers was screened for metasensory
abilities using standard set Zener cards, Black Box Randomizer, and blind
curtain tests. Two individuals demonstrated consistently accurate results
for each test, and ten demonstrated statistically improbable accuracy. HCI
and Dao imaging demonstrated collateral brain cortex activity between
senders and receivers in accurate tests. The sample population was
increased to 5,000 individuals. Two members of the larger sample
conclusively demonstrated metasensory abilities, with thirteen sets of
statistically improbable results. Cortex imaging was consistent with the
findings of the preliminary study.
Okay, she thought. Prove it to me.
Unfortunately, they did. She read it again, summoning even more skepticism.
Of course, data could be faked, but as per usual, they had included a
complete data set with verifying codes. Most damning of all, there was the
cover letter signed by Drs. Jacqueline Wilson and John Yazhi. The authors
might be graduate students, but two of the most prestigious
neuropsychologists at the Harvard School of Medicine backed them up. That
was probably what got the paper past her screeners to start with.
Worse and worse. As editor of the New England Journal of
Medicine, she could think of no good reason not to publish. Which
was a shame, because then her career would join her personal life on the
slag heap.
She reached for the phone. By God, she would find a reason not to
publish it.
"It's not a joke," Dr. Yazhi said, swaying his long physique up from
behind his desk to shake her hand.
"Dr. Yazhi, you must understand--"
"Look, it started out that way. Ms. Duffy and Mr. Philen were writing a
paper for the New Drinkland Journal of Medicine. You know it? It's
a sort of hazing ritual. The first year students are required to write at
least two hundred pages of garbage on some nontopic, but they have to
research it, give it all the good form of a journal article. It's a
student competition to see who can treat the most absurd subject in the
most clinical fashion, using the most jargon and academic doublespeak.
It's a bonus if they can make it recognizably similar to something that
has actually been published.
"Philen and Duffy chose to research telepathy. They set up a study
and--and, well, they began to get results. When they were sure they
brought it to me, and I came on board as their adviser."
"Yes, but Zener card readings--"
"Can be faked, yes. But we went on from there. In the end--you read the
paper, I assume? In the end we did simultaneous pattern scans on the
brains of the subjects, first with an HCI and then a Dao imager. The
results were what you saw in your data sets. Spontaneous--and I might add,
impossible--cortex pattern similarities at the moment of 'transmission.'"
He paused, stroking his lean, dark face. "I've read your work, Dr.
Kimbrell, and I think you've been a credit to the journal since you began
editing it. I understand your reluctance, but I think the data behind this
paper is quite solid. I'm certainly willing to say so."
"It's just that--" She paused, marshaling arguments. "All through the
twentieth century they did these same tests, and nothing. Why?"
He shrugged. "Maybe when they got results they didn't like, they ignored
them--that was pretty common in the nineteens. They didn't have HCIs then,
just EEGs and the like, nothing that could holistically image microneural
activity. That's what convinced us, of course." He pursed his lips. "Just
ask yourself--if this paper were on any accepted subject, or even a
marginal one, would you publish it? Is it well written? Is it evidenced?
Is the data set verifiable? Are the experiments replicable?"
She met his eyes, wanting to challenge him further, finding she could not.
She sighed. "Thank you, Doctor."
"My pleasure."
She put it off. Albert called and she hung up on him. Her father called,
and she pretended not to be home. Her stockbroker called, wanting to buy a
thousand shares of something-or-other and she told him to buy Antarctica
if he wanted, but to leave her alone.
She went to a salon, had her hair cut into a short, blond bob. She picked
away at her own research, wrote letters to some colleagues, went running
and swimming, lost three pounds. In the end she returned, saw the
submissions piling up, and sighed.
She remembered how proud she had been--the youngest editor in chief of the
oldest continuously published medical journal in history. Quite the coup.
As she sat down at her workstation, she wondered if she would be able to
get a teaching position somewhere, perhaps at a community college. In the
Yukon maybe. At least it would be easier to dodge Albert there.
Senator Lee Crawford sighed as he strode into the sunlight and saw the
reporter. Was that all he rated these days, a single reporter from a minor
newspaper? It seemed so.
He put on his most genial smile.
"Senator Crawford," the young woman began--in a rush, as if she feared he
might brush past her--"I'm with the Union Discoverer--"
He shoved his hands into his pockets and cocked his head slightly.
"Couldn't find anyone more important to talk to, Ms. Hoijer?" He said it
without accusation--just a gentle self-deprecation. He let a little drawl
through. They liked that.
It got her. The Discoverer was far from the most prestigious reporting
syndicate around, and she must have had her own share of snubs. And he had
remembered her name from, what, three months ago. Her eyes softened a bit.
She was a pretty thing, dark skin, green eyes, slim, perhaps thirty.
"I ..." She paused and cleared her throat, and he revised her age downward
to twenty-five. "Would you care to comment on the defeat of your latest
bill?"
"Only that it's a shame, a shortsighted shame," he said, without heat. "In
time, people'll come to see that." He relaxed his shoulders. "Tell me,
what do you think?"
"Excuse me?"
"You asked what I think. What do you think?"
"Senator, that's my job, asking you what you think."
He shrugged. "And what's mine? I represent people, Ms. Hoijer. Aren't you
a person?"
"But I am not American, Senator--I don't vote for you."
"Details. C'mon, what do you think? Phrase it as a question, if you must,
but tell me."
If you insist," she said, "I have to say I agree with your opponents. Our
taxes have funded the DeepProbe project for twenty years, with no results.
I don't see why we should fund yet another--and more expensive--search for
extraterrestrial life."
"Intelligence," he corrected gently. "Life we have found, and yet at one
point it was far from clear that we would. And you answer your own
question. The DeepProbe project uses technology twenty years out of date.
It's time to upgrade."
"But why? The search for extraterrestrial intelligence began more than a
hundred years ago. Don't you think that if there were anything to find, we
would have found it by now?"
He chuckled his patented chuckle and nodded as if in agreement. "Do you
know why the people at home voted for me? Do you know why I ran?"
"You ran on a Globalist platform. And you were the hero of Grissom
colony--"
"There's that--that's how I got on the ticket, not why I ran, not why
people voted for me. For almost two hundred years, change in science and
technology has been the most important fact of life on this planet, and
for two hundred years politicians have lagged so far behind the leading
edge--well, it would be funny if it were a joke. People who don't
understand the first law of motion make decisions regardin' the funding
and disposition of space platforms. Doesn't that strike you as even
faintly ridiculous? I ran because I think at least one politician should
have some conception of more than how to schmooze.
"And to answer your question directly, no. With the technology available
in the last hundred years, we couldn't even find one of our own space
probes without knowing exactly where it is, much less inte...
