SA Thom Busby, ISA; Part 2

A Knowing Mars story, by tycho garen
on 15th August 2008. (commentary)

This is the second part of another excerpt from Matthew Connor’s narrative written in 2597 in the Knowing Mars story. Read part 1 if you haven’t already.

In the intervening years, I have tried to avoid considering if Taban and Kalian–all of us really–attracted undue attention to ourselves by hiding out or leaving Earth, but Quinn assured me that this wasn’t the case, and that despite appearances Busby was really too busy pining after some ill gotten notion of lost glory or some-such, to think through his cases objectively. And yet, I do believe that although Busby might not have set out to chase after telepaths, there is no doubt that he became a telepath hunter.

Yet, I remain unable to completely comprehend his motives, even after all these years. Telepathy, or more properly, the existence of free telepaths living and operating in society was a possibility that he was unable to assimilate normally. Many people had problems with telepathy in similar ways, but it’s clear that Busby was exceptional in this regard. He was not simply worried that someone might learn his deepest and darkest secrets, but rather took telepathy as some sort of personal affront. This is conjecture: I never talked to him earnestly, if that were possible, and no telepath that I’ve ever known of got a read of him, so I suppose we’ll never know.

At first, Busby wasn’t a special concern concern, there were ways for Taban and Kalian to avoid getting caught for cyber-crimes, but as the Morgans developed their skill they became much more worried about discovery. Or perhaps I should say, they were worried about being discovered if it wasn’t on their terms. Even before they left for Mars, there was a fairly substantial community of telepaths on Earth, and a minority of non-telepaths like myself, who were all “in the know.” Particularly in retrospect we all knew that it was something of an open secret, but it was hard to see that in the moment.

So by early 2542, Taban and Kalian left Earth for Mars. I had never expected to join them, nor do I think at the time they intended to move back to Earth when telepathy had “blown over,” but that is I suppose the reason why the future is always “yet to be.” In any case Mars Colony was far from perfect in many respects, more so then than now, but it was controlled and Mars represented a fresh start that we all found attractive in contrast to Earth, which to all of us felt wrapped up in too many traditions and stale habits.

I suppose if I had to come up with only one thing that I learned from Taban and Kalian, it would that we all need fresh starts from time to time. Thankfully I don’t.

Matthew Connor, MD
Mars, 2597

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  1. “tired” in the first line should be “tried”, I think.

    Comment by Gelf — 15 August 2008 @ 7:50 pm

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