Science Fiction:

Outcast II

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Summary of last week's story

Erkin has rediscovered the ancient power of speech, which all the other inhabitants of the New World has forgotten. But in a world where the main form of communication has been telepathy for many millennia, he's looked upon as a mutant.

He is forced to escape from Octor - his tribe - to Colunar, and thence to Levity, with no luck. He finds that he does not fit in any where. Ultimately He's forced to turn his back on the rest of the world on a quest to find a place where he fits in - some where he could call home.

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by Sajitha Prematunge

Ioras mind was made. He was going to save Faith no matter what the consequence. He could do any thing for Faith. They were meant to be together from the day they were born.

Their marriage was arranged while Faith's mother was still pregnant with her. But Iora never thought he could get used to the idea of marrying Faith. Not that she was unattractive, but he believed in finding his own partner. Throughout their childhood it bothered him. But when they came of age he found that, in spite of all their quarrels, Faith was irresistible.

They were to get engaged the next month, when the riots of Oraland reached their peaceful Kineland. The leader of Oraland was a dictator who despised any one different from him. But very few who've seen him and lived to tell the tale say it's fear rather than detest.

It was believed that he was banished from his tribe and lived like a nomad for most of his life, because no other tribe was willing to accept him, just because he was different. They considered him as a mutation. They say circumstances forced him to become a dictator.

But Iora would never forgive him for taking Faith away from him. The dictator Erkin was like a contagious decease raising havoc in the New World. He never used telepathy to communicate, like the others of the New World, instead he spoke, an ability the People of the New World long discarded through evolution.

Erkin was banished from his tribe for the same reason. He was the first one to speak in over 7,000 years! But surely that did not justify what he did to peaceful Kineland. His men used some kind of mechanism to block the Kinelanders from reading their minds.

They used all precautions because they knew that the Kinelanders, for all their mild ways were more powerful than them. They possessed something every other tribe of the New World envied and Oralanders feared most. Telekinesis.

Their down fall was unpreventable since the Oralanders discovered the Collar - the collar that rendered the Kinelanders helpless by incapacitating their telekinitic power.

The Kinelanders could have easily taken the Oralanders out, but they never suspected a thing and when the invasion took place, the Kinelanders never knew what hit them.

The Oralanders ravaged the land and robbed them of every thing they owned. Many were taken hostage and taken back to Oraland. And Faith was among them. Kinelanders were always a peace loving nation. They decided that they need a strategy.

They knew that Oraland was impenetrable. So the Kinlands' elders decided to give them a taste of their own medicine. They decided to learn speech. But that would have taken very long and Iora could not be patient, he could't risk losing Faith. He would run away in the dark of the night to Orland.

Running away was easy enough, but he had no idea what he would do when he reached Oraland. Even before he reached the gate he could hear the wailing of Faiths mind. Iora could not wait any longer he had to save her.

The gates of Oraland was thirty feet tall, made of a strange alien and impenetrable metal. Impenetrable to even Kinelanders. Iora didn't even consider moving it with his telekinesis. In stead he took out a folded ladder from his back pack and with his telekinitic power shot it in to the air.

A hooked arrow attached to the end of the ladder slid in to a crevice in the upper end of the forty foot wall. Iora climbed up the ladder discreetly as possible and took the ladder to the other side. It was dead of the night and nobody was in sight. He climbed down the other side. But before he could turn around someone hit him from behind.

When he could see again he was kneeling, in an enormous chamber, with a collar already fastened on his forehead and hands tied behind his back. Followers of Erkin men and women alike had lined up on either side of the chamber and Erkin was sitting on a chair elevated above the rest.

To be Continued next week...

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