Zane’s Log- 9/12/2038

I’ve lost count how many times someone said, “I wish I was telepathic.” No, you really don’t. Since I’ve always been telepathic, it is a vital part of who I am. I can’t say that I would give it up. It’d be like blinding myself or cutting off a limb. I’d feel maimed. Still, if I had had the choice, I would have never wanted it and I know my wife feels much the same.

Everyone has dark thoughts, private thoughts that are never meant to be shared. Having a thought is very different than acting on it. It took me a very long time to come to terms with that distinction. I grew up hearing the darkest parts of society. It tainted my perception of people, kept me forever a degree apart. Nothing put an ordinary person off faster than learning I was a telepath.

Growing up, the only people I couldn’t “hear” were others like me. Telepathy is not a particularly common skill, especially among humanoid races. The disharmony it can cause outweighs the survival benefits, so it’s an ability that tends to not survive the evolutionary process except in the rarest conditions. My Trrrk ancestor, the least “human” of my genetic predecessors, is the source of mine.

The Trrrks evolved on a brutal planet, which forced them to work together or perish. Telepathy aids the women in acting as effective hunting and defensive units. It enables the men to see to the needs of the women they are bound to. It works for them, from what I hear, but I’ve never spoken to a Trrrk male. The society is matriarchal, the men prized studs– and yes I mean that in the way you think I mean it. Their only roles are to father as many children as possible and to keep all the women of a house content by whatever means are required.

In looks they are antithesis to my brutish Braag ancestors. The Braags were humans once, but bred with some other long forgotten race to the point that while genetically they remain similar, by looks they are more akin to artistic renditions of the legendary Big Foot than a human man. Trrks are painfully beautiful, so much so that they fetch a high price on the black market.

Slavery may be illegal throughout the galaxy, but there are always those that prey on others and individuals willing to betray their fellow being for wealth. Trrk society, telepathic or not, was no different in that regard.

Consisting of less than ten percent of the Trrrk population, the males are treated more like property than people. Their unique abilities lend them to be sold as sex slaves, fetching far higher prices than Trrrk females. Females who caused discord or who were unlucky enough to be born to a house too poor to feed them were frequently sold.

My grandmother was sold to the Braag. She bore my father, who favored his father more than her. I was told that when my father turned sixteen he orchestrated a mutiny which resulted in both my grandparents being shoved out of an airlock. He became the new ship patriarch. I have no idea where he found my human mother. She seemed to love him. I never understood that– still don’t. Once she knew I wasn’t to be sold, my mother acted different toward me. She showed me affection, and as a child I needed that, but knowing that she had been equally ready and willing to sell me was something I never forgot.

In any case, the Trrrk genes in both myself and my half brother made us prime black market products. As much as I hated him, for whatever reason, he kept us both. My brother told me things that made me think that perhaps he loved us in his strange way. As he’s dead, I’ll never know.

What I do know, is that while empaths of various natures are a cred a crew (I believe the human saying is a dime a dozen), the galaxy isn’t ready for wide-spread telepathy. I’m not sure it ever will be.

The hardest thing for me is knowing that one day my children, who’ve inherited this curse, will have to come to terms with being able to see into the darkest corners of the galaxy’s collective psyche and hope that the love my wife and I have surrounded them with will keep them from hating who and what they are.