Lyta sat quietly behind Susan and Marcus as their shuttle prepared to launch from the White Star to meet with the Galactica. As was Lyta's habit, she breathed through the calming exercises all telepaths were taught. She cleared her mind and focused on her own breathing.

Traveling with Susan and Marcus was comfortable for Lyta. Some normals shouted their thoughts at the top of their mental voices, others had what some teeps termed "gerbil brain"; thoughts that were so disconnected and noisy that it was like being in a room with a gerbil that constantly ran on a wheel. Worst were the mentally unbalanced whose thoughts shouted and whispered by turns as their unregulated neurotransmitters seemed to fire at random.

Marcus had received training on Minbar. Many Minbari had a bit of telepathy; it wasn't nearly as rare among them as it was among humans, thus there was a whole set of mental excersises they learned to keep from broadcasting themselves to all and sundry. Unfortunately, Minbari were reluctant to trade telepathic techniques with humans.

Lyta didn't even know if Minbari telepaths and human ones were even comparable. She did know that she heard very little noise from Marcus' mind unless he was very excited.

Susan also had a very quiet mind. From a casual look, it appeared that Susan was merely one of those tightly controlled, tightly disciplined types that the military tended to attract. However, a scan that was deeper than merely casual would reveal the truth, Susan was a latent telepath with a low level shield. It wouldn't block a real scan, but it kept her thoughts from being more than a low murmur to Lyta's senses.

Susan could detect feelings, she had told Lyta, if they were strong. Coupled with Susan's good reflexes and well trained intuition, it made her an excellent pilot and an even better Commanding Officer. Lyta wasn't sure if Susan actually realized how much she relied on that sixth sense in battle, whether in the cockpit or C and C.

Beside Lyta, Ambassador Thrace sat. Another quiet mind.

Thanks to the deep scan Lyta had done on Kara, Lyta knew that Kara was also a latent telepath.

It was not as surprising as it could have been, Lyta reflected. She wondered if anyone had ever bothered to do a study on the incidence of latent telepathy in pilots of a certain caliber. She might have even suggested it, had she still been working for the Psi Corps.

However, when she was working for the Corps, the official policy was that telepaths were found as soon as their abilities manifested themselves. No one would want to admit that there was a cadre of unregistered, albeit low level teeps running around.

Today Kara was tense in the way she held herself and the way she spoke. She was still quick with her smile, but it tended to be superficial and Lyta noticed she kept playing with the rings she wore on a chain around her neck. Lyta wondered how well was adjusting to being the new Colonial Ambassador.

Kara leaned forward and said something to Susan in that odd Greek dialect that had been driving the linguists mad. All the linguists said that it was impossible for Kara to be speaking anything that resembled an Earth dialect, let alone one that contained modern concepts and idioms. Lyta was convinced that the Vorlons must have tampered with the language, but Kosh was currently silent on the subject of the Colonials.

At least she was allowed to help Sheridan. She'd thought that Kosh had not wanted her to be involved with this. He had been silent for longer than usual when she'd first reported Sheridan's request that she scan Kara.

And then, most unusually, he'd demanded to observe the scan from inside her head. Once she'd returned him to his quarters, he'd downloaded the memories they'd gained from Kara onto the device that passed for a computer. From this he was able to view them on the thing that the Vorlons used as a moniter.

Most of the memories were traumatic. It was very hard for Lyta to witness the images of the destruction of Kara's homeworld again. She was grateful that Kosh hadn't wanted to see the more private images that Kara carried. Lyta didn't think she would have made it out of Kara's mind without giving herself a case of vicarious post traumatic stress.

She had stood, her eyes averted, talking herself through several meditations while he viewed some of them. After a while, apparently realizing her discomfort, Kosh had absently given her permission to withdraw to her own quarters.

Kosh had been more cryptic than usual in his orders to Lyta regarding her mission to the Colonials. She was to "Go. Observe and decide".

Naturally, what was to be decided was not specified.

Kara glanced at Lyta, from her tone, she seemed to be asking Susan a question.

Susan and Marcus stared at each other for a second. Kara turned her smile to Lyta.

"What?" asked Lyta, frowning.

Susan turned all the way around to speak with Kara, "Είστε βέβαιοι εσείς αισθάνεστε εντάξει με αυτόν;?"

Kara nodded and smiled at Lyta again.

Susan now looked like she'd swallowed a frog, "Lyta, Kara wants to know if you can do that…uh" she hesitated, "'Talking in her head thing' again? And she's wondering if it would make it easier for you to understand things if you listened through her?"

Lyta's jaw dropped. She had been surprised by Kara's easy acquiescence to a deep scan, but had put it down to the desperation of her case. Most normals were appalled if a telepath even spoke to them in their thoughts, let alone 'listened in'.

Admittedly, it would only take a very minor surface scan to do what Kara was suggesting with most people. Usually people were pretty focused during a conversation and a telepath could just tune out the side thoughts.

"If…if Kara's really all right with it…" said Lyta hesitantly, as she scanned Kara, ever so carefully. When she ran into that natural barrier that latent telepaths seemed to have, the thoughts in front of the barrier were clear.

"It's fine." Said Kara with both voice and mind, giving Lyta that infectious grin, "It's not as though you're the first oracle I've ever met."

She turned pensive for a second, "Not too many of them made it out. They don't tend to join the military and most of the priests and priestesses…" she shrugged, "Only a few were rescued."

Lyta filed that away. Minbari tended to treat telepathy as a religious calling as well. So culturally, the Colonials might not have a huge a prejudice regarding telepaths. Perhaps they were even regarded as having high status. It could not be denied that the Psi Corp was a kind of ghetto. It would be a relief to be seen as merely having a religious calling.

"So, how are you enjoying your new status as Ambassador?" asked Lyta aloud, for the benefit of Susan and Marcus, although she projected it into Kara's brain. It was much easier to communicate like this. Kara processed it as spoken word because that was the part of her brain accustomed to hearing speech.

"It's weird." Like Lyta she spoke aloud, but Lyta could "hear" the thoughts. Her mental voice was overlaid with uneasy emotion. Lyta couldn't get a good grasp on what that emotion was, like trying to read the micro expressions on someone's face.

"I suppose it just takes getting used to," said Susan.

Kara sighed, "I suppose." She sank back into her chair. Gave Lyta a half smile and turned her attention to the window.

It was the first time Lyta would be seeing the Galactica and the first time she was meeting any Colonials other than Kara. There were two high ranking Oracles who were part of the Colonial governing structure.

Another thing the translation and cultural teams were going mad over. The Colonials with the exception of Jumpgate technology seemed to have developed in lockstep with Earth technologically. Even though the cultural teams had found evidence that the cultural forces that had driven certain advances had never happened to the Colonials.

Lyta's eyes had started to habitually glaze over during the daily briefings when some wonk started to rant on about yet another impossible aspect of Colonial life and culture..

The consensus was that their culture had to have been tampered with. According to Medlab, Kara even seemed to have had immunities to similar diseases.

This was all very secret, of course.

Fortunately, outside of the specialists involved, most people were buying the cover story that the Colonials were merely a backwater Earth settlement that had lost touch with Earth only thirty or forty years ago and were now a group of refugees fleeing the Shadows.

The Minbari had a couple of Colony worlds that were suitable for humans. For the time being, it would make sense to offer one of those to the Colonials.

One of Lyta's purposes with meeting with the Colonial Oracles was to verify the truth of that offer for the Colonial government. Apparently, although the Colonials had (from what Lyta could understand) a Separation of Powers similar to what had been adopted by many Earth governments in the 18th and 19th Centuries , visions and mysticism played a huge part in the running of said government.

Lyta found it interesting that such a technologically advanced group was still looking to prophecy to make major governmental decisions. According to Kara, the route to Earth had been plotted by using thousand year old prophecy and the president's visions. Lyta was just glad no one was suggesting they slaughter a goat to read its entrails.

On the other hand, the Minbari put great store by prophecy. Perhaps it was because they had so many telepaths. The Centauri were also great believers in prophecy of course. There was another race where telepaths were not rare. In fact, each and every one of them was just telepathic enough to know how they were destined to die.

One of Lyta's instructors had explained that telepaths of any race were often able to tap into premonitions. He'd explained, with long quantum equations how, "The organic mind, with telepathic ablilities, could surf the tachyon ocean." or some such pseudo poetic nonsense. Lyta had learned enough quantum physics to pass the class and had promptly forgotten it.

It took a matter of minutes for their shuttle to bridge the gap between the White Star and the Galactic.

After the short landing procedure, and disembarking, they were to meet Delenn and G'kar who were receiving a tour of the Galactica (they had a translator from the linguist's team). At that time they would be introduced to Admiral Adama, President Roslyn and the Sybil, the highest ranking Oracle they had and to her acolyte.

Lyta took a deep breath when she landed, steeling herself for the ordeal of having to move among so many emotionally volatile refugees. Fortunately for her, telepathic abilities were limited to line of sight unless she became creative. Otherwise she'd never get any sleep.

Susan preceded her down the ramp as did Kara. Marcus fell into step behind her.

A dark haired man in an orange jump suit came to greet them. He saluted Susan and Kara sharply, but with a smile.

"Commander Adama will be taking you to the President and the Admiral." He informed them.

Lyta listened to the speech through Kara's ears. Another spike of uneasiness washed through Kara, though she firmly suppressed it.

The man turned to Marcus and Lyta, "Welcome aboard the Galactica." he said. Lyta could detect very little emotion from him. Another military man, accustomed to keeping himself under control.

"I'm Chief Galen Tyrol." He saluted Marcus and Lyta as well.

Kara introduced each of the party in turn. Susan and Marcus both greeted the Chief in their Greek.

"Does she speak Caprican?" Tyrol asked Kara, when she introduced Lyta.

Kara laughed, "She's getting the translation from my head. She's an Oracle."

Tyrol laughed too, "Gods! I didn't know they could do that." He shook his head, but didn't seem disturbed.

"My mother was an Oracle." He said, genuinely pleased, "She'd hoped I had the gift too, but…" he shrugged, "Not called, I suppose. We're pleased to welcome you aboard, Sybil."

Curious to test his reaction to her, Lyta extended her hand. She'd observed Kara use the handshake to greet civilians, so she guessed it was culturally appropriate for a man to shake a woman's hand.

He grinned and grasped her hand unhesitatingly.

With the skin contact, Lyta made a tiny brush at his mind. No fear or hesitation was there. He also had a thin barrier that could be breached if she were to push, but he didn't broadcast his thoughts, just whispered them.

Yes, another latent telepath—but of course his mother was one. This was interesting.

They continued down the ramp into the docking bay. Usually, a large group of people sounded to Lyta's mind like a crowd at a sports event sounded to her ears. It could be quite overwhelming if the crowd was emotional at all.

This crowd though...It was like walking into a crowded library or a house of worship on a major holy day. The minds were all quiet, focused on their tasks, no more than murmurs to her telepathy.

Lyta stood for a moment in astonishment. Susan and Marcus looked quizzically at her. Tyrol and Kara stopped after a second too.

Lyta stared at the deck full of busy people, only a few of whom had stopped to look at the new comers. To the dock workers and grunts; to the pilots and mechanics and marines.

This was not a ship full of Minbari-trained Rangers with tightly defined roles and meditative techniques. This was a group of normal seeming humans with varying amounts of attention to their tasks and jobs.

More boldly now, Lyta lowered her defenses and scanned the first person she saw, a man working on one of their ships.

The man scratched the back of his head as though troubled by an insect, then he looked around, finally meeting Lyta's eyes. He smiled at her as she pulled back. Nodded to her, as though very much aware that she was the source of the scan.

"Lyta?" Susan said sharply, "Are you all right?"

Lyta turned to see Susan's worried eyes, "No, I'm not all right." Her hands were shaking, "I think I'm about 40,000 kinds of not all right."