The Rowan

Prologue

Numerous Summits of the late 80s and 90s, governments turned to other researches and the western world's space program began to catch up with Soviet experiences. What few people knew was that Talents were instrumental in the promulgation of honest monitoring of the disarmament and monitoring processes, thwarting many attempts to subvert the program. Many Talents lost their lives to secure the world peace which enabled humans to turn their energies and hopes to space exploration.

More Talents were mustered to colonize this solar system and to bridge the gap between this and other systems with habitable planets. When young Peter Reidinger made the first mind machine gestalt, pushing a light spacecraft by telekinesis from orbit to Mars, a new era dawned for the parapsychic Talents in which they found themselves celebrated instead of shunned, admired instead of feared, and necessary to every aspect of the surge forward from the crowded and resources-poor planet Earth.

To extend the interstellar gestalt, special installations were built for the Talents, terraformed habitations on Earth's Moon, Mars's Demos, and on Jupiter's Callisto. From these stations were kinetically launched the great survey and exploration ships that colonized the nine stars that had G-type planets, suitable for humans.

Though the Talents abhorred notoriety and opted for political neutrality, it was inevitable that their abilities should contribute to the stability of the interstellar government. "Probity and neutrality" was both motto and method and a new kind of honest diplomacy resulted in spite of attempts to subvert the Talents. Many Talents died rather than dishonor their calling: the few who were corrupted were so swiftly disciplined by their peers that such treachery was eschewed as profitless. The Talents became incorruptible.

The need for Talent became chronic, far outstripping the supply.

For those potential few, the training was arduous; the rewards did not always compensate Talent for the unswerving dedication required by their taxing positions.