Merker's Outpost

by I. Christie

  Now was the moment. She looked up into his eyes. They were those of a madman. She held his eyes as he brought the club down. And then there was darkness.

  "Oh, gawds! What have I done?" Alan dropped the club near the shaman's body. His body was numb and his brain stopped functioning. He was aware of the curses of the bodyguards that had thought if anyone, the shaman would be safe with him. He listened to what he thought was the small transport shuttle take off. He sank to his knees and tearless just stared at the crumpled heap of his only friend, Rene.

  "Alan!"

  His head shot up. Bewildered he looked around him. It was dark.

  "Father," he started hoarsely. "Father I…I don't want her to die. Please father, you can make her a metradame. Please."

  "Alan, this is too much! You nearly killed a Montran in front of witnesses, and now this!"

  "Father! Rene is my friend! Please!"

  Alan could not understand what the contorted expressions on his father's face meant but he did not care. Rene was all that he was interested in.

  "IF you get on the shuttle with me and agree to volunteer to enroll in the ADDM school. If you don't, Alan…listen to me! If you don't…it will be the end of my plans to build this family into an empire. They will send you to Hinterweild. Do you hear me?!"

  "Will you take Rene's body to the metralabs, Father?"

  "Will you do what I told you?"

  "Anything, Father. Just take Rene's body to the metralabs."

  "Alright." He turned to one of his servants. "Secure the body for the metralab. Do you have his meds? Give him a shot. I don't want him going nuts on the flight. Captain! Contact my lawyer to take care of her disappearance," he added in a low voice.

  The best-laid plans, no matter their intentions, can take unusual turns.

  ***

  Chapter 12

  Rene's eyes opened and showed an uncommon liveliness when the first charge was sent delicately into her brain stem. Dr. J'us leaned over her to check the marks for the insertion of the chip that was the heart of the metraperson's new personality. It allowed the scientists to write over old memories stored in the brain. It also had the ability to send waves of pain into the pleasure centers if the subject refused to obey her or his new master or mistress. In the long run, it removed pleasure centers. If the owners cared, they sent their metraperson back to have the center for laughter recharged, for some were more comfortable with a pleasant servant than one that could not enjoy a joke.

  Rene could feel her limbs, from forehead to ankle, bound to the operating table. Her eyes held the eyes of the doctor for a few moments. Was the chip inserted? The doctor believed it was, for she had checked off all the important points of the operation as completed just as she did with all the metrapeople that passed by her. She was a metraperson herself, programmed to be precise under the force of pain.

  ***

  *

  Rene was sitting in the display room, where new owners came to check out their new toy. She watched Alan walk quickly alongside of his father across the entranceway, up the long staircase to the showroom level, where she was waiting. Rene studied Alan and noted how changed he was. She could see a bit of the dark cloud that always was around him, however, he was not feeding off it. It was more like a residual of what he had been. Part of her abilities as a shaman were damaged by Alan's blow, but she had confidence she could undo it. She certainly could sense Gustaf's fury as he noted what Alan had her dressed in. Her face had been changed too. It was the face that haunted Alan when he was a child, his first nanny. Gustaf recognized the face.

  "What is this, Alan?!" His father's voice was controlled fury.

  Alan cowered a little.

  "Well…she is mine, Father. I can do what I want with her."

  "You had no business…"

  "I am not yours, Alan. No one owns anyone," Rene interrupted the two calmly. She tried not to laugh at the two very shocked faces before her.

  "You…you are supposed to wait until I program you," Alan stuttered. His voice sounded like a hurt child who found the fresh baked cookies already gone.

  "Alan, shut up! Sit there with her. I will be right back!"

  Rene knew he was going to see what went wrong with her programming.

  "Listen Alan, you have to stop trying to control people. Isn't that what keeps getting you in trouble?"

  "Rene, my sweet Rene. What happened to you?"

  "What happened to you?" Rene was astonished at Alan's changed behavior.

  "It's the programming. I'm on meds and …I'm cool, Rene. I promised Father I would go to this reeducation school if he saved you."

  "Ahh. So, I owe you thanks for this face?"

  Alan's face reddened. "You should be thanking me that I saved your life," he reasoned.

  "Alan, you are the reason I ended up having to have my life saved."

  He nodded looking contrite, an expression Rene was not familiar in seeing on his face. "I'm so sorry, Rene. I…was off my meds for a couple of months and just…I just lose it when I'm not on them."

  Rene shook her head at this version of 'Alan.' She guessed the scientists that worked on the metrapeople shared information with the scientists that worked on the behavior modification program Alan was in. He was changed but even with her sensitivity blunted, she could still feel the malignant dark force that was at his core.

  "I can't take you with me!" Alan told her miserably, "and I'm not going to let father take you."

  "Alan, why are you chewing on your thumb?" Rene asked curious.

  "I don't know. Nerves, I guess. Probably another one of the side effects of this stuff they're giving me." He jammed his hands in his pockets. "Listen, Rene, I have an apartment along the river at ElDor. You can stay there until I get out of this place." He lifted his eyes to stare at her. Though his hands were jammed in his coat pockets, she could see his fingers twitching.

  "I don't want to stay at your place. I want a life of my own. I can't go back to MageWeild."

  At that moment, Gustaf was returning with a red face and looking irritated.

  "Okay. Okay," Alan began to rise from his seat and then quickly sat back down. "Father! I want…"

  "I don't care what you want! Shut up and let me get this mess straightened out!"

  "No! Father! Leave her! Leave her!" Alan grabbed his head with one hand as if it hurt and with the other continued to grab at his father when the lab techs came to take Rene away. Rene realized what was happening and tried to touch everyone's minds, with the exception of Alan's who was too messy to get near.

  In about two hours later, the three were in Gustaf's personal vehicle, stopping at the tenth clothing store so that Rene could have a decent wardrobe rather than the brief attire Alan had Rene dressed in for her coming out event.

  "We've been at this for two stan hours. I have had enough!" Gustaf announced gruffly.

  "Me too," Rene announced pleased with how things had gone so far. She decided to push her luck a little further. "I wish to be enrolled in a science university. The woman in the store said the most prestigious is the one on Sintafie Prime."

  "And you want to go there?" Alan asked in awe.

  "Yes."

  "Father can get you in there," he returned with a son's confidence in his father's powers.

  "Why in Helgas Moon do I want to enroll you in a school? You're a metradame. You do our bidding! Damn mageweildians. Last time we'll take anyone from that planet," he muttered darkly. He was feeling all the more uncomfortable being in the car with two people that were supposed to be malleable to his control and he did not feel at all in control.

  "I'll tell you what. You let me have my freedom, and I will send your way, via the insurance scam you are running, some impressive credentialed people."

  "I got the insurance agents supplying people…I don't need you!" Gustaf yelled furiously. He paused for a split moment and then, "How the hell did you know…Alan!" he turned toward Alan who had been squeezed into the smaller seat behind the autodrive
r. "I told you to keep your mouth shut about our business! I don't blab my business to my whores!"

  A slight twitch of pain registered in Alan's eyes, informing Gustaf that that remark hit a nerve.

  "Father, she's right. Even Lord Chaney says the only people the agents are getting are low class. You can use already educated metrapeople instead of spending all that time educating them in the labs. You can even arrange to have your own army!"

  Gustaf was about to say something when Alan added.

  "She is mine, Father. And the deal she is offering is a good one."

  Gustaf looked at his son who caused him a lot of headaches and cost him a lot of credits to keep out of trouble. However, since he began participating in company business, he had contributed to fifty percent of the build-up of his business empire, which more than paid for what he lost. He just wanted to drop the metradame that was not acting like one, off somewhere and get back to what business he did know.

  "Fine. I'll set it up," he muttered. "You gonna keep that face?"

  "For now."

  That night, Rene spent her first time off a Weildworld in her physical body. It was different. And she was enjoying her first time in a very expensive motel, watching the watchers, and eating strange foods. Gustaf, at Alan's instance, had set her up in a nice apartment complex within walking distance from the university she would be attending. The clothing Gustaf paid for would be sent ahead of her along with a maid, whom Alan felt she needed to help her learn the customs of the wealthy. When on drugs, Alan seemed to be thoughtful, however Rene knew what was beneath the appearance of good intentions.

  She pressed her face against the window, looking out at one of the few natural rivers on the planet. Her thoughts went back to the span of time she spent unconscious. She had visited Grandmother of the Web. Grandmother Spider was the most important initiation a shaman passed through. If she had become tangled in her web due to the illusions she created for herself as she looked for Grandmother she would not have returned. But she did return…to find herself with this strange face. Rene stared at the reflection of her new face.

  "So, new face, new life and new name…Sharon Teal," she murmured. "Well, Sharon, lets see just what this university is like, filled with scientists that cannot see past their theoretical noses, and when proof is given, they refuse to look because they can't tolerate the change in their beliefs they will have to make."

  ***

  **

  Sharon attended the university for only a year, for she knew too much for the professors to teach her and she was causing too much of a stir at the questions she asked. At the challenge of one of her professors, she took the tests for accreditation and passed with high scores. From there, she started her research project, completed it, and published within three stan months. At first it had been difficult to get a chair for her project. However, a strange creature, that was more involved in research than academic teaching, approached her. He had provided her a subject, terraforming and the impact it had on the surrounding planets, and then left her to her research. He supplied the other four to sit on her board, all researchers that were more interested in their projects.

  With academic credentials on file, Dr. Sharon Teal took a job aboard a science vessel that was studying the reseeding progress of one of the planets that was being terriformed. Her chair had recommended her to the head of the project, who also happened to be a past student. The planet was out of Committee space, so Sharon did not have to worry about Gustaf's agents or Alan's sudden appearances. It had taken six standard months of travel to reach her new home aboard the science ship, Nettle.

  Dr. Sharon Teal's new life was busy. Her private reason for involving herself with the reseeding project was to ensure that the reforming of the planet entailed nurturing the planet's spirit, which was profoundly affected by the poisoning. Sharon was worried the spirit would not allow the terraforming process to go smoothly due to the anger it harbored. If it decided to circumvent it, the planet could implode, leaving a dark hole, and the planets surrounding it would be negatively affected.

  Dr. Teal also worked late into the night and early morning hours on her own projects. One of them was to undo the damage the metralaboratories were doing to souls that should have either departed from the physical world or be revived and returned to their own lives. She did not worry about stopping the masterminds behind the business who were influential enough to cover what metrapeople were about; there were others who were working on that. The powers that were behind the business had turned their own scientists into metrapeople to ensure that there would be no moral quandary among the rank and file, or selling out. The process erased the memories of their victims and Sharon was looking for ways to recover them.

  Sharon worked with a group that opposed the use of metrapeople and other abuses of those that were out of the reach of common law. The most influential members of this secretive group, belonged to the Council of Rings, Naboth's Vine, Brothers of the Shadow, and Hekate's Inner Circle. From amongst them, came volunteers to submit to the process to be the double agents. In her work with this group, Sharon remained anonymous. On the mundane plane, she had set security layers to her telecommunications and on other dimensions where her actions may be read, she weaved protective spells to prevent anyone from seeing her.

  ***

  **

  It had been short of a year that Sharon had been working on the Nettle, more than comfortable with her regiment, when her routine life took a surprising turn. Her dinners were usually light affairs, eaten late at night when most people were in bed. She liked the empty dining hall that was dimly lit, quiet, and offered a panoramic view of the space around the science vessel. The vessel was home to a hundred scientists, a light military security force and a maintenance crew, along with family members. This particular day, she had finished another battery of routine tests with routine results. Hardly boring, considering she was nearing the core of her hypothesis. She had finished her salad and idly was watching the small patrol ships change guard. They kept the area free of sightseers and mischief-makers. She nearly dropped her teacup when her senses registered a new energy aboard the ship.

  Now what is this? Curious she set her cup down and tried to sense where this new energy was emanating from. It was like a cloud of despair that settled in one part of the ship.

  A new recruit? Civilian or soldier, I wonder.

  The next day she checked the log for new arrivals. Her finger paused on the name 'Lt. Harriet Montran.'

  "Hmm. How many Harriet Montrans can there be in that clan?" she muttered softly to herself. "Probably a lot, considering how large the clan is and that names are given to off-spring in honor of a deceased relative or friend. How many would travel to another galaxy to get away from family politics?" She pulled up her picture. "If this is the same Harriet…what a cosmic joke this will be," she muttered softly to herself.

  Dark green eyes, framed by orange hair curled artfully around her ears stared back at her from underneath a military cap. The image was the face of a serious officer. Tilting her head a little, Sharon decided the officer felt uncomfortable posing for the image. "So, Alan's Harriet Montran is here." I wonder if that's her energy I felt. If that's so…She shut her screen off and paced, thinking of what all this meant. She needed to consult her runes.

  ***

  **

  It was months later that Sharon actually saw Harriet in person. She was just getting off duty, dressed in a flight suit, which showed off her trim figure. She was talking to Ensign Jimmy J'aimine in a low tone. When they finished, the lieutenant left and Jimmy spotted her.

  "Hi, Dr. Teal. Had any interesting flares while I was off?"

  "No, Jimmy. Nothing unusual. Where did you go this trip on your time off?"

  "Fort Bragg, Prime IV."

  "I thought you said you were going to stop going there because they robbed you in the casinos." Sharon enjoyed his youthful charm, and the small intimate conversations they shared without worrying about
him misreading her friendliness. He was enamored with a mechanic in the hydroponics bay on deck two and very loyal.

  "Uh huh. Actually, the new lieutenant asked me to take her there. She wanted to see if they really did rig the tables. A couple of noncoms in her squad were complaining about losing their entire pay there. Hell, she took them seriously." He gave Sharon a big smile, shaking his head. "She visited seven of the big casinos and took them for a lot of chips before they cornered her and walked her to the big guy's office. I don't know what arrangements she made with him…" he chuckled, "but she did not leave the place until she was satisfied there were more winners than when we arrived. I got a feeling she won't have to go back there for a while. You know what she did with the credits she won? She dropped it in the fricking alms box at the shuttle station. They're rip-offs, I told her. You know what she tells me?"