Cynymyn and Spyce

in the Final Reality

 Below on this page is Part 3 of a science fiction story called Echo of Cynym. In Part 1, Eddy arrived on Alastor 2672 and immediately came under the influence of the telepathic natives of that world, the Stateorea. Once inside the research laboratory of Dr. Elyn Arky, Eddy was soon introduced to a young Chyntos hermaphrodite, Onky (see Part 2). 

Having visited Alastor 2672 in order to learn about the origins of human telepathy, Eddy begins to realize that this journey into the Asimov Reality Simulation was planned as a way of modifying his own brain's output of telepathic signals. Using a Stateo-symbiont, Onky is able to keep Eddy's mind occupied and fully open to a form of neurosurgery that can finally provided Eddy with the ability to block the emission of telepathic signals from his mind.

in the Ekcolir Reality

Part 3 of Echo of Cynym

    (jump back to Part 1 or Part 2)

During the entire time since my arrival on Alastor 2672, the telepathic Stateorea had been pushing me and preparing me for a bizarre sexplay session with Onky the Chyntos.

The only thing that now prevented me from sliding my erect penis into Onky's vagina was that she had a big plastic vibrator in there. Peeking out through her pubic hair, the tip of Onky's phallus could be seen, and I was mistakenly imagining that it was the glans of her clitoris. It looked almost exactly the same size as my wife's Neanderthal style glans.

Onky laid back on the bed and spread her limbs invitingly. I suppose it was a tactical mistake, but I then moved my head down between her spread legs and started licking her hot glans. Onky moaned with pleasure and then her entire erect phallus popped out of its recessed cavity where it usually resided inside her body. I was suddenly looking at her cute penis. I sputtered, "You... you're an hermaphrodite?"

Rather surprised to discover that she had a penis, I pulled away from her genitals and sat, a bit dazed, on the bed beside her. Onky also sat up and took hold of her penis with one hand and mine with her other hand. Some of the tentacles that extended out of her chest pouch were now wrapped around her penis and some were still caressing mine. Onky said, "Oh, bother... I can't do anything right." She explained, "I'm afraid that just having been ravished by Bisop, I'm unable to control my penis. It is this sort of sexual incompetence that earned me the nickname 'useless' from my peers."

the allzaurish experiment

While I was contemplating the complications of having two penises in the bed, Bisop, now naked, came rushing into the bedroom, grabbed hold of Onky's ankles and pulled her to the edge of the bed while muttering, "I knew I should have taken the time to do this right... but Elyn insisted that I make things snappy..." Bisop sank to her knees and took Onky's erection deep into her mouth. 

While Bisop began to orally stimulate Onky's erect penis, the bed was transforming from a flat surface into a new shape. As the bed transformed its conformation, it pushed me off and to my feet and it reformed into a kind of well-cushioned chair for Onky. Now my attention shifted to the robot's cute bottom. Bisop continued to vigorously stimulate Onky's phallus, but Bisop also reached one hand around to her bottom and hooked a finger into her pink allzaurish. She telepathically told me: Hurry up and get your erection inside me. Onky is going to climax before you do.

Thinking how convenient it was that Bisop had been designed with two vaginas, I slid my erection inside Bisop's hot, silky allzaurish and tried not to notice the tentacles that ran from the wound in Onky's chest down to her crotch and out of my view behind the robot's head. Since my arrival on the planet, I had been telepathically pushed by the Stateorea  towards ever-increasing levels of sexual arousal, therefore I was more than ready for an orgasm. Soon enough, I began to ejaculate into Bisop's tight allzaurish and I telepathically tumbled into a shared mind-space with Onky and Bisop... and what I sensed was a couple dozen of the nearest Stateorea who were watching me through the walls of the bedroom. Eventually, I realized that Elyn's mind was there with us too, watching.

During that group orgasm trance, I was mostly aware of my own intense sexual pleasure. However, I could also telepathically sense Bisop's vibrating tongue on Onky's phallus, the mechanical vibrator that was still at work inside Onky's vagina and I was even aware of how much Bisop the robot was enjoying the feel of my erection inside her allzaurish. Elyn told Onky: Help the Stateorea get started with the neurosurgery.

This image made using Elf1 and EllieRoom10
both originally created by
Eclesi4stiK available under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

Shifting my thoughts towards Dr. Arky, I could telepathically sense that Elyn had two big vibrators inside her body and was delicately stimulating the tip of her own glans with a finger tip. She told me: I'm glad you have experience with orgasm trances. Help Onky and the aliens trace the neural network linkages to your Phari endosymbiont.

I had no idea what Elyn meant. Was she expecting me to alter my own brain structure? I have no conscious awareness of my own brain structures. However, Bisop told me: Stop pounding my allzaurish, old man. Allow the Stateo-symbiont a chance to link in to your nervous system. I suddenly realized that one of the tentacles of the Stateo-symbiont was inside Bisop's allzaurish along with my erection. I stopped moving my penis and the Stateo-symbiont began making thousands of axonal connections to my nervous system through the tip of my penis, similar to how Zeta and I can form a synapex linkage. 

Soon, while I was still adrift in a warm cloud of sexual pleasure, my mind was also tightly linked to that of Onky by way of the Stateo-symbiont. With guidance from the aliens, she and I worked to adjust my brain. While I remained caught up in the pleasure of that trance state, I was able to provide constant feedback to Onky for what seemed rather like a game of Tetris that was going on inside me while synaptic components of my neural networks were rearranged into a new pattern.

When we were done with the neurosurgery and I emerged from my orgasm trance, I noticed that the crowd of Stateorea was no longer watching us through the walls of the bedroom and I did not feel the pressure of Stateorea minds pushing against me. I was no longer being kept in a state of sexual arousal by the aliens, but I was still greatly enjoying my sexplay session with Onky. 

This composite image made using 
MirandaPool03 and NalahWhiteBeauty2 by
Eclesi4stiK available under CC BY-NC-SA 3.

Onky was on top of me, sliding her wet vagina up and down along the length of my erection. We were on the floor in the middle of her bedroom; to one side was the big vibrator, now abandoned. Onky was gently massaging the big glans of her phallus between two fingers, but most of her penis had retracted back into her body. 

"Oh, this is so good, Ed!" Suddenly, Onky began to ejaculate little spurts of her semen through the tip of her glans. One of those spurts hit my face and I got a taste of her spicy semen. My lips tingled in response to what tasted like a mixture of the sex hormones clytykynyn, frechkissin and some alien spices. I began to ejaculate into her vagina. Onky and I slipped into another orgasm trance and I luxuriated in the feel of her mind and her tight vagina. Her ejaculations continued for about five minutes, then she rested her body against mine and while I was at that time floating in a tranquil sea of my sexual pleasure, I seem to remember "hearing" Onky: That was delightful. I felt her vaginal muscles continued to ripple. And I have a distorted memory of her telling me: I love you.

Later, when I emerged from that orgasm trance and I began to return to normal consciousness, I started to think and unfortunately I could not prevent myself from thinking about the creepy Stateo-symbiont that had allowed my mind to physically link to Onky's. For a time, I contentedly played with the two soft breasts that decorated her back and then I whispered in Onky's ear, "I'm glad you got rid of that beastly thing with all the tentacles."

She kissed me on the mouth and then said, "Thank you, my dear, for making love to me... to just me. You are wonderful... I've never felt a mind like yours! I love the feel of your thought patterns." She kissed the tip of my nose. "All my life, it has been easy for me to think of distant Earth as a place of myth. It seems magical that an Earthman appeared in my life..."

I bent my neck and kissed the top of her head and told her, "You are very sweet. Your big glans reminds me of my wife."

Search for the Koateuw

Well, I'm an idiot and that was the wrong thing to say. Onky quickly asked me a dozen probing questions about Zeta. I felt like Onky had suddenly transformed from a sweet innocent girl into an astute lawyer who was subjecting me to a fierce cross-examination. Finally she said, "Well, I sense that you have an open relationship with Zeta. I conclude that the only serious problem here is that you simply don't like the look of my penis, so I'll try to keep it hidden and out of your sight."

I admitted, "I've never been able to get used to ladies with a penis. For a time, Zeta's body was modified by medical nanites so as to take on hermaphroditic features. I was quite pleased when she went back to being a woman." I could sense that Onky did not enjoy hearing about my penis issues. I added, "It is nice of you to try so hard to please me."

"Somehow, Bisop knew that you and I were compatible... that our minds are similar." Onky shrugged and repeated, "I love you. I'll do anything for you." She told me, "I've actually been trying to fix my body... I have a problem... my body rejects the Stateo-symbionts... my body's immune system attacks and I quickly kill them. Dr. Arky is trying to find a cure for my affliction, but until she does, I can only hold a Stateo-symbiont inside me for about an hour at a time. Then it sickens and dies. Still, luck was with us... that was enough time for me to merge quite intimately with your mind. I was enthralled by the lovely shape of your thought patterns. I can't wait to do that again!"

alien sexplay

I was pleased that I could not at that moment see the ugly wound in the middle of her chest. Onky seemed to enjoy sliding her chest against mine and rubbing her cute breasts in the puddle of semen that she had ejaculated onto my torso. Suddenly I realized what she had meant when she told me that she wanted to paint me. She enjoyed showering me with her semen and rubbing it between our bodies.

As much as I was enjoying the feel of her sexy body in my arms, I also wished that I could again telepathically feel the sweet pattern of her mind in the way that I had intimately sensed it during the time when our two bodies had been physically linked through the Stateo-symbiont's nervous system. I wondered if it might be possible for me to form a synapex link to Onky. I asked, "Can we link our nervous systems again?" I had long experience in forming a synapex linkage from the tip of my penis to Zeta's nervous system.

"It won't be possible for me to take up another Stateo-symbiont until... I'm not sure..." Onky seemed to think about it. "I'll have to ask Elyn. She controls all of the Stateo-symbionts. Maybe next week sometime we can do it again. Until then, I'll try to synchronize our mind patterns during our orgasms. I could see the outlines of your mindscape during that last orgasm!"

I told Onky what I knew about synapex linkages and how it was possible for Zeta and I to link our nervous systems without the assistance of a Stateo-symbiont. Onky told me, "I've never heard of such a thing. We Chyntos need to use Stateo-symbionts to physically link our bodies and physically link our nervous systems together. Normally, such linkages are particularly important to the Chyntos during gestation, when the fetal nervous system needs to be correctly shaped and adapted by the two parents. However, in my case, under Elyn's direction, I've tried dozens of Stateo-symbiont linkages as part of trying to learn why my body always rejects the alien tissue from my chest pouch."

I asked, "About these creepy Stateo-symbionts... they are Stateorea?"

Onky laughed. "Oh, no..." She glanced at the wall to her left and then at the wall to her right. "Look there! That's a Stateorea."

One of the Stateorea was there watching us and I realized that it was larger than the Stateo-symbiont that Onky had taken into her chest pouch. To my untrained eye, all of the aquatic animal-like creatures of Dethevicinelec looked fundamentally same: composed of long filamentous strands that could come together and morph into pulsating tissue masses. Maybe the non-motile plant-like creatures were also composed of such filaments, but they appeared to be quite similar in structure to Earthly organisms like kelp. Onky sat up and pulled open the groove in the middle of her chest, revealing an inner compartment. "A Stateorea would be far too large to fit into a Chyntos pouch."

the Preland pouch

Letting the edges of that groove snap shut again, she resumed rubbing the big glans of her clitoris against my pubic bone. While she worked towards another orgasm, Onky continued her explanation, "If you take a Stateorea out of sea water, it will soon become desiccated and it will quickly die. Fifty years ago, Dr. Arky designed a genetically altered Koateuw, a creature that is related to the Stateorea, but less intelligent... they can survive if provided with access to human sweat and blood... through the walls of a chest pouch." After vigorously riding my erection for a few minutes she sat still and started playing with her clitoris, using the finger tips of both hands. "I'm so very horny. Physical contact with Koateuw normally puts a Chyntos into a near-constant state of sexual arousal."

I was playing with some of Onky's erect nipples and was expecting her to once again start ejaculating on me. Unfortunately, I could not keep my eyes from returning to the scar-like line that ran through the middle of her chest. Then I remembered the Preland thoracic pouch. I asked, "Do the Chyntos have Preland gene combinations?"

Onky squeezed on my penis with her powerful vaginal muscles. I could feel her stiff phallus pressing against mine through the wall of her vagina. "You talk to much, which turns me into a blabber mouth. We'd have more fun if we both were quiet and only worked at the chore of creating more orgasms for each other." She ran her fingers through her long dark hair. "I can't control my sexual desires... my blood is still full of Koateuw sex hormones and you've pumped my vagina full of your sweet clytykynyn." She closed her eyes, reached back with one of her hands and squeezed my testes. After a minute of her stroking my sensitive scrotum, Onky said, "Preland... I've heard Dr. Arky and Bisop use that word. I've guessed that Prelands were the water-dwelling precursor to the Koateuw."

I laughed, amused by her imaginative interpretation of the term "Prleand". Now unable to wait for my next orgasm, I rolled us over, but quickly discovered that I did not like the way my testes were hitting the floor as I thrust my erection in and out of her vagina. 

synapex linkage

I picked her up and put her on the bed, which was still configured something like a chair. Onky did something that raised the bed upwards and then I was able to resume thrusting my stiff erection into her hot vagina while standing. It was clear that Onky knew little about Dr. Arky's experimental methods. She seemed very innocent and trusting and the way that Dr. Arky was experimenting on her aroused my protective instincts almost as much as Onky's sexy body aroused my sexual desires.

While I methodically brought Onky towards another orgasm, I found my mind wandering from Onky to Elyn. I began to speculate about Dr. Arky's background and I could not help myself from wondering how she had become involved in telepathy research on Alastor 2672. I wondered if she was herself a robot from Triskelion or possibly an agent working for R. Nyrtia. 

Onky used her strong vaginal muscles to squeeze my penis. She told me, "Don't do that, lover! You are drifting away. I want your attention on me!" 

Of course, I was on a research mission of my own and I had been letting my mind wander away from my sexplay with this seductive Chyntos hermaphrodite and she had caught me beginning to mentally slip away from the sweet task of pleasuring her. As a human, I lacked the carefully crafted Chyntos biological imperative that pushed them to continually seek out and engage in sexplay. I had come to Alastor 2672 on a mission, not to make love to a cute young woman with six breasts. I blurted out, "This does not seem real. I'm an old man. I can't believe that you find me sexually attractive."

Onky laughed. "I don't care about your age... I love you... your mind."

I complained, "I don't understand how that can be... you are young, with your whole life before you. Don't you want to..." I could see that my words were making Onky angry. I wanted to suggest that she should have a young mate and make babies. I fell silent.

Onky explained, "According to Elyn, she designed the Chyntos so that they automatically love everyone. So why shouldn't I love you? Please don't reject me! Don't you love me?"

The way she shouted that anguished plea, I knew that she had previously been rejected. I examined my own feelings and realized that I did love Onky. I admitted, "Yes, I do, but I'm only human. An old man. I'm struggling to match your tireless passion."

What I had experienced in the brief time since arriving on Alastor 2672 was something even more wonderful than just love at first sight. Now that I thought about it, I felt that somehow the telepathic natives of this planet had taken control of my brain and prepared me to fall in love Onky even before I first saw her sexy body. And still they were not done with me; I had a specific craving to again be in tight telepathic linkage to Onky's sweet mind pattern. "Yes, of course I love you. You saw the truth in my mind when we were connected by that... alien thing."

Just then, I saw Onky's eyes shift to something behind me and then I felt Bisop place a hand on my shoulder. Rather startled by Bisop's sudden arrival, I turned my head and got another surprise when I saw Bisop's erection. I suppose I should not really have been surprised to see that Bisop was equipped with a very beautiful penis. She told me telepathically: Dr. Arky is waiting for you.

Onky told Bisop, "Oh, let us finish, Bi! Elyn asked me to do her a favor... and I'm not done, yet. Surely she can wait her turn."

Bisop exerted her robotic strength and forcefully pulled me away from Onky and then she smoothly took on the task of thrusting her own penis deep inside Onky. Bisop told Onky, "Elyn's an old lady... but she still has lots of pent-up sexual energy. I could only distract her for so long." Bisop forcefully told me: Return to Dr. Arky's office.

"Elyn can be so pig-headed!" Onky sighed in resignation and told me, "I'll see you later, lover!"

Onky seemed perfectly content to continue her sexplay without me now that Bisop had her penis at work inside Onky's tight vagina. I found pieces of my clothing scattered around the room and discovered both my pants and the dead Steato-symbiont behind Onky's bed. I was on my way out of the bedroom when Onky reached another sweet climax. I was tempted to stay there in Onke's bedroom and have another go at Bisop's inviting allzaurish. 

My erection was still hard and I had no expectation that it would soon deflate. Bisop pushed at me once more with her telepathic mind: Go to Elyn. She's waiting... not very patiently.

I retraced the path through the corridors back towards Dr. Arky's office. Arriving at the arch, I could see that on this side it was decorated with stylized DNA double helices and the text stated blandly, "GENETICS RESEARCH". Passing through the archway and having moved away from the sexy Onky, my head began to clear and my erection began to soften. As I walked along the corridors inside the telepathy research facility, I noticed a few drifting Stateorea in the water tanks, but the aliens seemed to be ignoring me. Outside the door to Elyn's office, I quickly dressed. Through the open doorway, I could see Dr. Arky brushing her hair as she gazed into the tank that constituted the back wall of her office. The curve of her round bottom was visible below the lower edge of her shirt. She turned and saw me trying to stuff my semi-erect penis into my pants. Elyn tossed down her hair brush on her desk. 

I noticed that most of the clutter had been cleared from her desk, particular the mysterious pieces of lab equipment. To the side of her desk was my bag. My eyes were drawn back to Elyn's pretty hair and as if she could read my thoughts she told me, "Yes, yes, I'm afraid my hair is fake and I also use special wrinkle-removing nanites from Triskelion that Bisop supplied me with. I do try to make my old body look... well, I won't say young, but... less old."

During the all-too brief but magical time when the Stateo-symbiont had been linked to my body by axonal connections, I had noticed Elyn hovering at the edge of my mind. I suppose she was perfectly aware of the fact that while I had been forcefully kept sexually aroused by the Steatorea, upon entering her office for the first time I had even fantasized about the possibility of a sexplay session with Elyn. Now, seeing her dressed so casually, once again I began speculating on the possibility that I could engage in sexplay with Dr. Arky during my visit to her laboratory. 

Sadly, Elyn had been masturbating without a sex partner during that group mind trance. Now, it appeared that Elyn had changed into a sexy nightshirt and was ready for a sexplay session with a partner. I wondered if only a few minutes earlier she had been having sex with Bisop. 

I sat down again in the chair that was in front of her desk and noted, "Bisop is versatile. The Stateorea telepathically pushed me into a crazy state of sexual excitement, but I'm not sure that I can keep up with robots and lusty Chyntos." Elyn's had left her pair of big phallic vibrators there in the middle of the desk and I tried not to look at them, but I noticed they were like the ones in Onky's bed, covered with fine soft fur.

Elyn grinned and picked up one of the big vibrators. "You should accept that frequent sexplay is an occupational hazard for scientists on this world. The Stateorea set the standard... everyone is supposed to be in a constant state of sexual arousal. If you aren't horny, the Stateorea think you must be sick and dying." With my eyes adjusting to the very dim light in the room, I could see now that Elyn was wearing an old comfortable sweatshirt. She put the two vibrators out of sight in a drawer of the desk and then sank into her chair and sighed. After gazing into my eyes for a while, she finally spoke again, "I nearly wore out my two vibrators while trying to give you more time with Onky... her reward for a job well done. The nanosurgery turned you into... well, I'll call you an honorary Chynner." She said it like 'sinner'. 

I told Elyn, "That was an amazing group telepathy experience. I don't think I've ever previously experienced such a long-lasting orgasm trance."

"The Stateorea were probably rewarding you for going through the neurosurgery. In fact, they may not be done. Since you've arrived, they seem to be telepathically pushing us all towards indulging in sexplay. I can feel them at work even now." Elyn had a hand down between her legs where she was feeling her own vaginal secretions.

"Ya, I've been impressed by my sexual performance and stamina since I arrived. I'm an old man, but Onky makes me feel young." My penis had never really completely deflated, and once again it was engorged and uncomfortably confined in my pants. "I'm not quite sure why she was so eager to make love to me."

Elyn explained, "She is contemplating the idea that you will take her to Earth, so she's trying to impress you with her energetic sexplay." Elyn sniffed her wet finger tips and then licked them. "But really... enough is enough... you can't hope to compete with a young Chyntos in contest of sexual stamina. Now, if you can forget about sexplay for a while, let's see if we can get down to... business." She reached out and began sorting through a thick stack of printed color photographic images that were there on her desk. Finding a particularly provocative image of an alien Stateorea, she began sliding the tip of her index finger over its surface as if she was finger painting. She licked her lips.

While she had been intently searching through the photos and then giving loving attention to one of them, I had been looking closely at Dr. Arky's facial features and wondering if she was an alien in disguise. To fill a growing silence, I asked, "Are you a Preland?"

She giggled. "No. Why do you ask?" She lifter her finger from the photographic print and then put her finger tip into her mouth and sucked on it.

I could now see in the photographic image of the Stateorea that it had adjusted its body shape so that it seemed to have a human-like penis. Trying not to be distracted from my business, I shared my reasoning with Dr. Arky. "You seem to have ready access to alien gene patterns and advanced genetic engineering tools, even though I know such technology is only slowly developing here in Alastor Cluster. The Connatic has a big, well-funded research effort aimed at creating a science of human telepathy." Elyn had her finger back on the photo, seeming as if she was massaging the alien penis in the image. "So... I must wonder... how could a single human, working alone in this isolated laboratory, do what you have done... create a new human variant... the Chyntos?"

Elyn lifted up the stack of photographs and placed them inside a drawer of the desk. "Well, your suspicions are not unreasonable... I'm not sure what I am." Dr. Arky pulled some absorptive wipes out of another drawer of the desk. She stood up and wiped her crotch and her sexy bottom and then her chair. She muttered, "You'll have to excuse me, Ed, I'm still dripping wet with my sexual excitement. The Stateorea have not gotten me this sexually aroused since I first came to this world." Having mopped up the puddle of her vaginal secretions, she sniffed the fluid then tossed the soggy mess into a waste basket and then she carefully licked clean her fingers. 

the Foundation Reality

Elyn turned her gaze back to me, slowly licked her lips with her pink tongue and then told me, "Long ago... when I first met Nyrtia, she trained me in her genetics lab. All my biology training took place inside a simulation where I had advanced gene analysis tools and teachers who had access to technologies that are far more sophisticated than those known to the Connatic." 

Elyn began to gently rub her abdomen with the palms of her two hands. "Nyrtia also showed me images of my body... my body as it was when I was born... before my parents had me surgically altered." Elyn lifted up her shirt and showed me two scars on her upper abdomen. "I was born with four mammary glands, but that was not the anatomical norm here in Alastor Cluster." With her shirt pulled up, I could also see the protruding glans of her clitoris, which looked very similar to Zeta's big Neanderthal-like organ. Elyn let her shirt fall back down and then she resumed her place, seated behind the desk. She added, "Yes, I shave down there. I love to stroke the smooth skin of my labia and I spend much time doing so because I've made it a rule to not engage in sex play with my creations... the Chyntos. I think of them like being my children."

I suggested, "I suppose Bisop helps manage your sexual cravings."

Elyn laughed. "That robot would be happy to provide me with sexual stimulation, as it does for everyone else in the lab, but I don't want Bisop to have too much power over me. No... I only fantasize about sexplay with Bisop... and everyone else who works with me here in the lab. However, I'm quite skilled at masturbation, so I don't need either robotic or biological lovers."

I was not particularly concerned with Elyn's neatly trimmed pubic hair and her pink labia, but my dislike for ladies with a penis was making me want to further invade her privacy.

HXX chromosome set

I could not restrain my curiosity about her anatomy. I asked, "Are you like the Chyntos, an hermaphrodite?"

"No, I'm a woman. I don't have an H chromosome. Actually, I'm a strange kind of hybrid... part human, part Cynym. I'm female, but I can ejaculate a clytykynyn-rich fluid. I don't have testes and only ever made eggs... no sperm. Now I'm so old that I no longer ovulate." 

Elyn was quiet for a time, but I sensed she had more to say. She continued, "Nyrtia told me that my father was a Cynym... one of a long series of human variants that she created." Elyn fondled one of her rather saggy breasts. "Daddy used to call me Cynymyn girl. Growing up, I had no idea what he meant. I grew up living as a human among humans." She laughed. "Now you have me lost in my memories of the past. Don't distract me with your questions!" Elyn slammed her free hand down on the desk. "This isn't easy for me... the Staties want to reward me too... they keep activating my pleasure centers..."

Obviously, Elyn was being telepathically manipulated by the Stateorea. She glanced at the wall to her left and glared at a big pink alien that was there, watching her. I suggested, "Maybe if you asked the Stateorea to leave you alone... just long enough for us to talk..."

"No!" She shook her head and took a deep breath. "I'm okay. I'll be fine." Ofter half a minute of silence, she seemed to regain some level of self control and continued, "Let me tell you my story... as it happened to me. When I was nearing the completion of my advanced training in genetics, Nyrtia asked me to come to this planet and find a way to link into the Phari telepathy network. She also told me the legend of Galaxia and warned me that the Stateorea share a telepathic group mind."

Speaking with confidence, I said, "It is no legend. In a past Reality, what I call the Foundation Reality, Galaxia was a human group mind that spanned the entire galaxy."

Again Elyn giggled. "So, you also know the legend of Galaxia." She shook her head. "It is absurd. Even the couple of hundred Chyntos on this one world can't form a functional telepathic community. A mind spanning a whole galaxy..." She shook her head.

Judging from the look on her face, it was clear that Elyn could not believe that a vast human group mind had existed in the Foundation Reality. What I knew about Galaxia came from stories that had been published as fiction, but I suggested, "If everyone in a group mind could unconditionally love everyone else..."

"No!" Elyn shook her head again. "We're talking about humans, with jealousies and other weaknesses."

"My understanding is that all the humans who formed Galaxia had been engineered to share a common mindset." I'd always been skeptical about the idea that the laws of robotics could be built into humans of the Foundation Reality. However, I suggested, "Think about the robots of Triskelion..."

Next: Part 4 of Echo of Cynym

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