Over the next two units I stayed in that room, which I came to call the pod, for the majority of the time.
However I was rarely left alone.  I was regularly visited by my closest friends, family and the occasional curious soul.  Pretty much all of the visits consisted of me giving demonstrations of my new ability.
To my guilt-filled relief, no one came to confront me.
The heavy feeling of responsibility, weighed over me like a cloak of iron.  Every time the lights dimmed and I opened the door, I expected someone to step through and shout or cry at me, to beat me or take their retribution upon me.  Yet no such confrontation was forthcoming.
There was one encounter I must note.
Sylvia came to see me.
I was alone when she arrived.
Having left her three year old son, Elia, with her mother, she was the only one who was completely honest and upfront with me.
Thinking back, the conversation got very emotional and I struggle to remember the details very clearly.
The moment that she stepped into the room, she hugged me.
The tears that were spilt were shared between us.  Aurora may not have remembered me, but that beautiful child had taken up a firm residence in my heart before she had even been born.
I wanted to say sorry, to tell her how much I wished that I had spent more time with her, but the feelings that I harboured were nothing in comparison to the pain of a mother, I was left feeling hollow.  I could not utter a single word.
“I’m sorry.”
The words that came from her mouth shocked me.
“I know that none of this is your fault.  I know that, I truly do.  But I can’t see you.”
Fresh tears began to form in the eyes of us both as she continued, “any time I see you, or even hear your name, I get so angry, I feel lead in the pit of my stomach.  It feels like I hate you, but I don’t.  I could never hate you.  You’re my best friend and I love you so, so much. I hate this.”
As painful as her words were to hear, as her emotions were to have within me, the simple fact that she had come to speak to me at all still kept hope in my heart.
“I love you to,” I was only just able to keep my voice steady, “and I do understand.  I won’t push, you need time and space.  You know that if there is ever anything that I can do, no matter how small or meaningless it may seem, I will be there in a heartbeat.  You do know that, don’t you?”
She nodded her head and we hugged again.
No more words were said.
We exchanged sad smiles and nods as she left the room.
The door slid closed and I was reduced to a sobbing ball on the floor.
We had met at college and she is the only classmate that I truly kept in contact with.  We share a bond that cannot be broken by mere space and time.
But, oh how I loathe the gaps in between.
The same can be said of any of my five best friends.  The bonds that we share will never be broken.  No matter how long it has been since we have seen each other or how far apart we are.  If I were to lose a single one of them, I would loose myself.

Orthus paid regular visits to me during my confinement.
He would even occasionally take me on walks around the ship when I was feeling confident enough.
The ship was called the Screnac, a large, diplomatically inclined vessel. 
On board were several thousand tharat.  Politicians, scientists, diplomats, researchers, engineers and security personnel.  A spacefaring city full of their best and brightest.
There were also a few others races, such as the doctor Deia, who were there for various reasons such as assisting with specific equipment, advising on inter species activities, etc.
There were five races on board, other than tharat and human; sheenar, hlorsiené, kaplo, alive and basikor.
The sheenar are, perhaps the most familiar race to us.  It is their image which appeared most often in movies and television shows.  Oval shaped heads with large, dark, seed shaped eyes and reflective, silver skin.  Their bodies are a little different to how Hollywood portrayed them.  The have three legs that are like structured tentacles, they have no fingers, just a pointed shape with thumbs the same shape only smaller.  Two features of the sheenar’s anatomy are rather unnerving.  Firstly, they have no mouths, they communicate entirely telepathically and so do not require any translation technology.  Secondly, their stomachs are covered in hair-thin tentacles, like the legs of jellyfish, which is how they take nutrients into their bodies in lieu of a mouth.
The hlorsiené are what I only can really describe as what I expect a highly evolved alligator would look like.  Their snouts are a lot shorter than a crocodile’s, however still retain the same shape.  Their bodies are longer than their arms and legs, they have a wide yet short tail to balance.  I have been told never to fully trust a hlorsiené, the only beings that they look out for are themselves.
The race called the kaplo are essentially shape-shifters.  They cannot mate with their own kind so when they reproduce the child looks like the parent that is not their own species, their DNA allows them to mate with any other race without exclusion.  They have the ability to stretch themselves on a cellular level and can morph up to twice their original size or compress themselves to approximately half their original size.  It is simple to tell them apart from the race that they mimic as their skin is a matt grey.
One race calls themselves alive.  They are descendants of an a race of artificial intelligence that evolved themselves until they were able to become biological creatures, capable of procreation, becoming actual intelligence.  Of all the known races, humans have the highest birthing success rate so they designed themselves after us.  The look almost identical to human beings, save for a hard, darker skin over approximately seventy percent of their bodies; the insides of their joints and reproductive organs being closer to our own skin to allow for flexibility.  When a female of their species becomes pregnant, the skin covering their stomachs will soften to allow for the expansion.  They have no nails or hair, however some of them choose to implant themselves with hair for the sake of their choice in appearance.  Nanobots in a conductive fluid replaces their blood.  They are capable of using their own nanobots to move things without touching them, effectively making them a telekinetic race.  When I first saw one whilst being shown around the Screnac, I almost freaked out completely.  For the first few seconds I was unable to get any words out, just resorted to tugging on Orthus’s arm and gesturing towards the person, once their back was turned so that I did not seem rude.  The only thing that stopped me from going right up to her was the fact that her skin was the sight of the hardened skin that could be seen where her clothing was not.
The basikor are the serpent race that Deia is one of.
During my time on the Screnac, the only members of another race that I met and spoke with were Orthus and Deia.  I only saw the one alive and a few sheenar whilst walking the corridors.
All paths throughout the ship were the same smooth, well-lit whiteness, leading into rooms that all displayed the same decor.  The same consoles and screens were everywhere.  I was constantly afraid of getting lost if I somehow wandered away from my guide.  However, I noticed on occasion, that there were other tharat who were looking intensely at maps that they had pulled up onto the nearest wall or screen.  As advanced and romantically alien as it all looked, there were clearly a few flaws in the design.  As much Orthus admitted to me himself.
He spoke of his own vessel, the Piti, a small craft that could be used for transportation or as a home away from home.  It had the same sort of shape and features as the Screnac, however it was more cosy and colour coordinated.
It was this vessel that would be transporting myself and any others that wished to learn what they could, to Kenglowe.
Kenglowe is a planet in the Viori Sal system.
It is a planet of learning.
It is the location of hundreds of thousands of academic buildings and organizations.  Beings from all over the galaxy spend many cycles learning every possible thing that can be learnt.
Typically speaking, all species have schools on their home worlds where they learn basic knowledge up to a certain level of intelligence.  At that time they can go out into the galaxy and live or they can concentrate their study by using the seemingly infinite resources offered on Kenglowe.
There are two options for study.  Either, they can pay a fee and learn whatever they chose, or they can be backed by a sponsor, either a corporation, independent business or government with a contract to work for them for a set amount of time or on a set project.
There is a law for recently developed races, having discovered life in the galaxy, a grant is in place courtesy of the Community.  The Community, from what I can tell, is a coalition of races from different locations and societies that governs certain races across the galaxy.
That grant was put in place so that the new race would have the chance to catch up with how life works amongst the stars.
It is available to up to five percent of the new race, therefore humanity was offered twenty-six places for ten units in Biumar, a city on Kenglowe which specializes in getting as much relevant information into place, in a way that will make it easy to spread the knowledge, upon the students return, as possible.
My own place on the planet was to be funded by Orthus himself.  To this day, he has been very vague as to the reason why, I have signed no contract with him, nor have I agreed to grant him use of my ability.  All he says is that he wishes to help humanity and honing my new found skills will be the best way to do so.
I will easily admit to having a generous amount of skepticism, however, if it were not for him and his people, we would all be dead.  Even if I did not feel any debt to them, any life I have now, is more life than I would have had, so I might as well take the risks that could possibly make my continued existence worth something.

I was relaxing in my pod with Phillip.
We had agreed not to get any more intimate than we had been.  Not least for the inability to lock the door, but for the fact that there was no doubt in my mind that my room was under surveillance.
At that time we were taking about what we were excited to see in the rapidly unravelling future.
Fairly unambitious, his desire was for a hot day, a cold beer and some privacy.
I certainly could not argue with the last, however I admitted my hope to see a binary star.
“Binary star?  Is it made of ones and zeroes or something?”
I chuckled, “no, it’s where there are actually two stars that orbit one another, like…” I tried to twist my hands around each other to illustrate what I meant and failing miserably.
“Okay, stand up a sec,” I urged him up onto his feet.
We stood facing each other.  Taking his hands I stepped back until our arms were straight in between us.
“Imagine that you and I are stars.”
His smile caused my cheeks to heat up.
“Our arms are gravity and our hands the point around which we gravitate.”
With minimal effort, I lifted us both into the air.
His hands gripped onto mine tightly as he marveled at the fact that his feet were no longer on the ground.
Slowly and gently, I began to rotate us, with our hands staying in the same place.
His eyebrows were about as far up his forehead as they could possibly go.
“Two stars, when they are close enough together, are drawn into an orbit around a central point.  They move around that point, like spinning a pencil on a desk.  So,” I changed our movement, stopping myself and moving him around me, “instead of one moving around the other,” I reversed our positions and began to rotate around him, “which would create all kinds of catastrophes,” I brought us back to the original rotation, “they revolve around each other, keeping one another in perfect balance.”
“So, right now,” he said, a warm gaze in his eyes, “we are a binary star?”
“Yup,” I know that my face must have been full of glee, I was having a lot of fun with the premise, “we are the centre of our very own system.”
For a few heart pounding moments, we circled one another, peacefully gazing at one another.  Or rather, he gazed.  I tried, but my own self awareness kept me awash with awkward embarrassment, causing me to look any from his eyes, instead focusing on our hands, closing them briefly with the breathy laughter that continued to swap through me.
“What would happen if I were to move closer to you?” he asked at length.  He appeared to be finding my discomfort somewhat amusing.
“I would be forced towards you,” I replied, although I was unaware of the exact science behind binary stars, it seemed like a safe bet, “the distance between the stars and the gravitational anchor must remain the same.”
His elbow began to bend and, without consciously doing so, I began to do the same.
The speed at which we were getting closer was achingly slow until, eventually we were chest to chest. Our left hands let go first, in rather awkward and jerky movements we hooked them around one another’s waist, giggling like idiots, then repeated the same with our right arms.
Hard as I tried, I was unable to tear my gaze away from his mouth.
He took it as an invitation and helped himself to my lips.
He pulled me into himself, gently crushing me within his embrace.  His hands slid up my back, one becoming entangled in my hair, the other ran over my shoulder, coming to a stop where it could play along my jawline.
For a split second I forgot myself, lost in our racing heart beats.
We dropped to the floor, somehow managing to stay on our feet, although stumbling to stay upright.
Holding on to one another, balance was restored.
With a sigh of resignation, he rested his forehead against mine, “remind me why we’re not going further than this,” his voice was barely a whisper.
I tilted my head to and fro, shaking it without loosing the contact between us, “I don’t know, something about being watched, and, I’m sorry, but I’m just not into that.”
He let out a short laugh, and nodded as he pulled his head back.
The lights dimmed momentarily.
Exchanging rueful smiles, our arms drop to our side and I turned to open the door.
Orthus stepped briskly through the opening.
“Laura MacPhaid,” his voice was so upbeat that he was almost shouting, “I bring news of what’s to happen to humanity.  I need your help to communicate to the rest of your people.”
My eyes widened, “I don’t think that’s a good idea, I’m not exactly in everyone’s good books at the moment.  I also have this rather paralyzing fear of public speaking.”
“There is more trust for you than me in that room,” he replied, “it will be easier for them to understand if the news comes from someone that they all find familiar.”
“Okay, the familiarity I get, but they don’t trust me,” I twisted my hands together and looked away, “they would be idiots to do so.”
“Laura,” Phillip’s face looked all kinds of concerned, “you know that’s bullshit, right?”
Orthus cut me off before I could respond, “they trust what they know about you,” he said, “they will interpret the way that you will speak, your body language, how you phrase what you will say, and believe what they know of you to understand and trust, or not, what you tell them.  If it were one of my own people that speaks to them, their words will be met with skepticism and distrust.”
I was irritated at how much sense that made, “it still doesn’t change the fact that I would be terrified to stand in front of them all.  How am I supposed to face them?”
“I’ll be with you,” Phillip wrapped his hand around mine, “I know that Jennifer, Amelia, Phoebe and Julie will stand with you to.  I could even ask Sylvia…”
“No!” my voice was sudden and slightly sharp, “she deserves space.  It’s okay,” a resigned smile painted my face, “I’ll just have to make do with five of the best people to support me.  I know that she supports me in her heart, that’s enough.”
Taking a deep breath, I turned to Orthus, “so what am I telling them exactly?”