TILE - 16

Charles2 never questioned Star's existence or its abilities because he assumed that the black cat had always been there. Probably his father had obtained it for some experiment or other. It spoke to him when he needed some encouragement.

Brilliant though he was, Charles2 was still a child and so open to new experiences without fear. Certainly talking cats weren't anything to jar his sense of normality. Every one spoke to their dogs as if they were people, so why not cats which being naturally more intelligent had learnt how to talk back.

None of this struck him as incongruous because stasis subject Charles's thoughts and memories were the basis of what Charles2 perceived as normal. As long as Star - the mediator - didn't try to extend his subjects perceptions beyond what he could accept as permissable then the illusion was safely maintained.

In his imagination Charles2 could see the loops and whorls like some sort of finger print displaying his experiments magnetic fields interactions. Only in his mind though, he couldn't actually see the real thing and that was the trouble. He couldn't shape or stabilize what wasn't visible.

Can I be of any assistance Charles?

The mediator 'spoke' to its subject sensing its anger arising from frustration. Humans having no control over their emotions and the consequences were extremely dangerous and unpredictable when angry. They would lash out psychic whips of energy of apppallingly destructive power.

Let me show you what you want to see said Star.

A complex enclosure of red, blue and yellow lines of magnetism formed a shape which for lack of a suitable image could be thought of like a wire egg beater, actually 3 of them interlocking and shifting as the magnetic fields sought for stability.

"Well its a start" came Charles2's response "Not the shape I was hoping for, I wanted two spherical fields with the third exterior to the sphere and able to be extended to be like a tear drop when needed. Then I can use diamagnetic material like the bismuth casting I intend to make which will protect the pilot when the propulsion generator is initiated.

Star gently viewed the periphery of Charles2's thoughts as his subject imagined the tachyon generator he hoped for so that it would create a Cherenkov radiation that would allow the pilot to see what his drive field shape was.

It was a clever idea lacking only the knowledge necessary to build the tachyon generator but Charles2 had a diagram with some accompanying notes in support of this idea and it might prove to be possible if Star could only see it clearly instead of as a blurred image at the edge of his subjects consciousness.

One thing a mediator had to learn was that probing a mind in stasis was not advisable.