Majgen Ch. 015

Pride swam through Aejoa, at that final recognition, the completion.

"Arise and show yourself!" yelled the elderly man.

Aejoa got on his feet and faced the crowd below. Faces everywhere, thousands of faces.

"Behold! Look at him! Before you stands now a Winin!"

The old man began a cheer, and the crowd joined in. Thousands of voices. A roar of glory.

'Winin of Naonun. That is who I am. That is me!'

With pride and joy Aejoa spread his reaching limbs to the sides and made them ripple with waves of joy.

(o)

"Student Majgen, don't go too deep into its memories, remember to keep your mind shield up."

"I won't, Femaron Baglian, and I will," Majgen reassured her mentor.

(o)

"There is much work to be done in the Oon sectors of the town, I am aware of that. However..." Aejoa was interrupted by sensing emotional distress. He turned his head, to observe the source of that distress.

It was one of his servants.

"What is the matter, Inee?" asked Aejoa.

"I have horrible news, Winin," said First Servant Inee, distressed empathy and compassion was streaming from him.

"Which news?" Aejoa felt a chill run through him as he realised he himself was the one his servant was worried for.

"There has been an accident, Winin. A horrible unpredictable accident. The passenger cruiser your parents were on while travelling home from Aaee. There was a malfunction in one of the power-cores."

The chill became a cold, that numbed Aejoa inside out.

"One of the power-cores?"

"Yes, Winin. The light from the explosion showed it was a power-core. There were no survivors, Winin. I checked the passenger list ten times. All your parents were aboard."

"All?" asked Aejoa. He knew all meant all, but he had to check; he had to hear the full verdict spoken, before he could grieve.

"Your mother and all seven of your fathers, Winin. They are all dead."

Aejoa blinked, he still couldn't grieve. It was too sudden. Too unreal.

"Do my siblings know, Inee?" he asked, his voice sounded empty, he was still unable to feel anything.

'All?' he thought to himself.'All of them? At once?'

"I do not know, Winin," replied the servant, he could grieve. Grieve for the Winin's immense loss.

"I must contact them," stated Aejoa, still unable to put any force into his voice. "Excuse me, My Guests, I have matters to attend to."

Aejoa ignored his guests' attempts at condolences and left the room.

'All of them?' he thought again, while walking to a more private chamber in his home to call his siblings.

(o)

'He is an orphan,' thought Majgen.'Just like me.'

The shivering, whining, terrified prisoner in front of her appeared so different from the person in his own memories.

'NO,' Majgen told herself,'nothing like me. His parents died in an accident. Mine were murdered -- by HIS kind.'

Her anger and hate flared again, but it refused to flame into a roaring fire of emotion, like it had earlier.

'It doesn't matter what I feel anyway,' Majgen comforted herself.'All that matters is that I can perceive from him. All that matters is that I get the information we need.'

She continued her attempts at analysing his emanations.

'Why can't he just think about something that has importance for the war, so we can get this done with? I want this done, I want this past. But all I get is private memories, outdated unimportant memories.'

(o)

"Look at those little limbs, he is so tiny," said one of Aejoa's brothers, looking at the tiny infant in Aejoa's arms. Awaiting his turn to hold the baby with envious anticipation.

"He is so beautiful, just like our sister," Aejoa's brother ranted on, "are you ready to hand him over yet? I want to hold him too."

"No," whispered Aejoa, staring into the eyes of his first nephew.'I'm an uncle,' he thought to himself with wonder.'My little sister got this beautiful baby, and now I'm an uncle.'

Love and wonder filled Aejoa.'What a marvellous little thing, imagine something so small can be so incredible.'

(o)

Majgen blocked the memory of the innocent yijejo infant, the love Aejoa felt in that memory was burning her heart.

'He is not human, he is NOT human.Not. Not. Not! That baby is going to grow up to be a monster. Just like he is a monster. A murderer! They are all murderers.' Majgen didn't notice she was thinking of the prisoner as 'he' instead of 'it', and had been for quite a while.'I have to keep trying.'

Dreading what memory she would face next, Majgen moved on.

(o)

"Aejoa, my friend..."

(o)

She moved on.

(o)

"Brother, why do..."

(o)

Moved on.

(o)

"Wanna play with us? You can be on team four..."

(o)

'Childhood memory. Next.'

(o)

Aejoa.

Friend, uncle, brother, son and Winin. Also a person, sometimes simply a person. Enjoying a moment of quiet solitude.

Lonely. Happy. Joyful. In pain. Filled with pride. In mourning.

Majgen tried to avoid it, his life, his personality. But no matter how many streams she blocked, there were always more. And she couldn't allow herself to block them all, she had to find information about the war.

It was her duty.

Baglian didn't bother her often, he trusted her to alert him if issues should arise. In quiet moments he sensed she was working her way through the yijejo's emanations. After a bit less than an hour, Femaron Baglian's mental stamina was drained. He had only lasted that long because the yijejo often paused its attacks on him.

Ottearon Skent took Baglian's place as a decoy. Skent was quiet for a long while even though it was easier for her to withstand the yijejo's attacks than it had been for the Femaron. Skent would have liked to spend more energy attacking the alien's mind, but she knew it would be pointless. So she conserved her mental stamina, to last longer.

The Winin, Aejoa, took a break from attacking the empath in front of him.

'I'm so tired. I want to sleep. I would give anything to sleep,' thought Aejoa.

The humans were keeping him awake with drugs. The chemicals were continuously injected through a computer controlled device, the tip of which was inserted into his back. An empath could not perform a mind-scan on a sleeping individual. The chaotic patterns of a sleeping mind was impossible to navigate. Dreams could be viewed, but dreams were unlikely to supply the interrogators with useful information. Aejoa had been kept awake by drugs for nearly sixteen human days. The sleep deprivation was meant to weaken him.

When performing torture, humans would often let a sleep deprived prisoner fall asleep just to wake him instantly. Aejoa was not exposed to this treatment, the humans still suspected his mind might be tuned to dissolve upon torture. High ranking yijejos participating in the war usually had such a mechanism in their mind, in case of capture.

"Let me sleep," whispered Aejoa.

Neither of the two human empaths understood him; he had spoken in his own language. Aejoa didn't know humana - the language spoken by humans. Even if he had known it, he wouldn't have been able to speak it. Most words in the language humana could not be pronounced by a yijejo.

'I need sleep.' Aejoa started crying yet again. Unlike humans yijejos had no tears, but the crying of a yijejo had just as easily recognisable features.

"Are you having a good time?" Ottearon Skent asked the yijejo, and laughed. Hatred towards the enemy was quite acceptable amongst human interrogators.

Skent had been involved in the war effort for twelve years; she had joined the war upon realising she would never fully recover from what she had seen at Hawlun, nor the memories she had perceived from Hawlun-orphans. In the war Skent could embrace her hate. Only in her hatred did the memories of Hawlun give her strength, at any other time they haunted her, tore at her.

Laughter was still dancing in Skent's eyes when she turned them to Student Majgen. Though her smile vanished when she noticed the young woman's emanations.

'Why can't I feel her hatred?' thought Skent, and asked, "Are you going soft on me, Student?"

The Student took a second to comprehend the Ottearon's words. Focused on the prisoner's emanations, Majgen had almost forgotten Skent was present. The moment she understood what Skent implied rage rose inside her.

'How dare she!' Majgen clenched her teeth round the insults she longed to throw at the Ottearon.

"No, Ottearon Skent," she said.

"You felt soft, Student," said Skent, ignoring Majgen's anger, "you felt like a soft little yijejo-lover."

'HOW DARE SHE!' Majgen's face contorted as she began to lose control of her anger.

Majgen raised her eyes to Skent's.

"You may think, you have reason to hate yijejos because you were at Hawlunafter the massacre, Ottearon. You may even feel sorry for yourself, because you absorbed a few Hawlun memories along the way. BUT IF YOU DON'T SHUT UP RIGHT NOW, OTTEARON RANK COLOURS ALONE WON'T SAVE YOU FROM MY WRATH!" Majgen screamed the last sentence at the top of her lungs.

Skent was stunned. Majgen was heaving for air she didn't really need, her fists were clenched. Her emanations were sufficient evidence her words had been truthful.

"Careful, Student," warned Skent after some moments silence, as Majgen seemed to have cooled a bit. "This interrogation won't last forever, you shouldn't pile yourself too many troubles for the time after."

"I know, Ottearon," said Majgen, thinking of her future she forced a second sentence out too, "My apologies, Ottearon Skent."

"Care to explain your behaviour, Student?" Skent assumed to know the answer, being called a yijejo-lover could bring most humans to the point of rage.

"I'm from Hawlun, Ottearon, I was there."

"I didn't know, Student." Skent truly regretted her previous accusations. "My apologies, Student Majgen Rahan. My sincere apologies." Skent bowed to the young mentarion, as she would if apologising to an equal in rank. "You will not be punished for your angry words, Student. I will see to that. After all, they were justified, no Hawlun-orphan would ever go soft on a yijejo."

"True, Ottearon," said Majgen, at that exact moment believing her own words.

The two mentarions went silent, and once again the only noise in the room was the yijejo's alien whining.

Humans had never been able to develop true anti-empathic drugs for yijejos - as they had for their own empaths. If the prisoner could have been drugged non-empathic it would have been easy to forcibly scan his mind. The drugs, however, did reduce his empathic strength immensely. Without them Ottearon Skent and Student Majgen would not have been able to withstand his attacks.

"Release me!" screamed Aejoa, and began a new series of attacks on Ottearon Skent.

(o)

"Eat it!"

"No," screamed Aejoa. "I won't eat it, let go off me."

"Eat it!" commanded The older boy.

"NO!"

"Eat it!" The older yijejo boy laughed while trying to cram the disgusting thing into Aejoa's mouth.

(o)

'Late childhood. Useless,' thought Majgen, and blocked the memory stream from her mind. Focusing hard to not compare that memory to so many similar ones of her own.

Skent lasted almost an hour, before she had to be replaced too, and Syvaron Kartiss took her spot. When he was drained of empathic stamina Majgen left the room with him, it was dinnertime for her.

"Anything useful yet, Student Majgen?" asked Baglian, as Majgen and the drained Syvaron Kartiss entered the living-room the mentarion interrogators shared on the Ulballa.

"No, Femaron Baglian. Just pointless memories so far."

"Show me some of those memories, Tenth Ranked Student," demanded Syvaron Prel.

Prel was very sceptical regarding the student's abilities. Him and four other high ranked mentarions had been working hard on breaking through the yijejo's mind shield prior to its transfer to the Ulballa. They had gained no information at all.

Majgen walked to Syvaron Prel and lowered her mind shield partially, to allow for directed mind sharing.

'I guess Aejoa's promotion to Winin would be the most suitable choice,' thought Majgen, and fed that memory to Syvaron Prel.

"Amazing," said Prel. "You really absorbed that memory from emanations, Student?"

"Yes, Syvaron Prel. I did."

Prel shared the the prisoner's memory of becoming a Winin with the other mentarions. Baglian was the only of them who had first hand experience with Majgen's abilities, the rest were baffled to the point of awe.

"How do you do it, Student?" asked one of them, once the shock of a reality - that was considered scientifically impossible - had abated.

"I do not know, how I do it, Syvaron. I simply do it." Majgen bowed. "The question I ask myself is; how do others not do it? I am sorry I cannot answer your question more accurately, Syvaron."

She did not know the talker's name, so she could not add that to his title.

"Whichever way it is done," added Baglian, "it cannot be controlled in the same way mind scans are, Syvaron. I have made progress in deciphering how to direct what information is gained, and trained my student in that, but the technique is not fully developed yet. Hence it may take a while to gain useful information from the prisoner, Syvaron Joron."

"How long will it take for her to find out if the prisoner is tuned against torture or not, Femaron Baglian?" asked Prel.

"That is practically impossible to estimate, Syvaron. At this point where her abilities are not under structured control it could happen nearly immediately or it could take days, Syvaron Prel," replied Baglian.

"We got at least a week more to work at it before the GED will start demanding torture, whether we have established if the prisoner is tuned or not," commented another.

Non-empathic GED Ulballa-staff served dinner for the mentarions, and left as soon as the table was set.

As usual when new members joined a crew, the conversation soon turned to collegial anecdotes.

"... after two rounds of the usual treatment this one was still fighting, and we still couldn't breach its mind shield. So I placed a wall size monitor in front of it and displayed a visual of the room on it, you know, like a mirror. And I gained permission to bring meat-scissors to the interrogation-room..."

Majgen did not need to listen to the words and envision - to follow the tale. She saw the memory as clearly as the speaker did. She cocked her head a little to the side, while listening with everything but her ears. An absent smile of hate grew slowly on her face. By the time the yijejo in the speaker's tale yielded in his memory, Majgen's face was distorted in a wolfish grin. Several of the other interrogators carried vindictive grins by the time the story was completed in words.

"Thank you for this very informative story, Syvaron," said Baglian, he gave no indications of having enjoyed the story, nor of being displeased with it. He had only spoken of the story to be able to speak without talking out of turn. Baglian turned to Majgen.

"Student Majgen," he said, and waited two seconds for her to return focus to the present. He was accustomed to giving her that extra time, when she was lost in looking at memories through emanations.

"You are excused from the table, Student. Fill a plate with food and go to your room with it." Baglian was also used to the way she blinked once while comprehending an order - when he gave her one right after pulling her out of watching memories from emanations.

Plate in hand she got to her feet and efficiently began gathering a meal from the selection on the table.

"Sit down, Student Majgen," counter-ordered Ottearon Skent.

Majgen hesitated a very brief moment, then she obeyed Skent. When given opposing orders - the order from the higher ranked mentarion was the one the Mentarion Ways required her to follow.

"You were enjoying the conversation, weren't you, Student?" asked Skent, conversationally.

"Yes, Ottearon Skent," said Majgen, her voice did not reflect her sentiments, but the hate in her emanations did. Hatred against yijejos, the talk heard and memories seen had spiced hers in an exhilarating manner.

"I've got some stories I think you would enjoy too, Student."

"I am sure you have stories my student would enjoy, Ottearon Skent. However we are not on the Ulballa for personal pleasure," said Baglian. "I had good reason to order my student to leave the table. I will have to respectfully ask you, Ottearon, to refrain from telling my student any stories - which will remind her of her hatred towards the enemy, Ottearon Skent."

"Really, Femaron, you will have to do that?" asked Skent.

"Yes, Ottearon, I will."

"You may be excused from the table, Femaron. Go to your room."

"Ottearon..." Baglian held back the remainder of his protest as Skent raised a hand to wave him off. Obeying the higher ranked mentarion, he rose and left the room.

A varied mix of emotions played in Tenth Ranked Student Majgen as her mentor left.

'She should have listened to him,' thought Majgen,'not just assumed Baglian was sending me away to make himself look more important.'

In spite of not always agreeing with his view on the world, Majgen respected her teacher and did not like to see him treated like an insignificant subordinate.

"Now that the kids have left, let's have a nice talk between adults," said Skent.

No one snickered at Skent's disrespectful joke, but Majgen perceived most present had enjoyed it. That made her angry.

'Who do they think they are? Dignified? More worthy because of their higher potential? Hah.' Sitting rigid in her seat, Majgen stared straight ahead.'Don't say a thing girl, don't say a word. The higher rank, the easier to offend, the easier to enrage them. Even Femaron Baglian left without protesting further, and he is not a coward.'

She was afraid, afraid she would momentarily loose her temper and speak too frankly, and thus gain herself a thorough beating. Also in Majgen, was a yearn to hear more stories, to dwell deeper in her hatred. It felt so good to hate, it eased her pain to think of revenge.

Ottearon Skent began narrating one of her stories of torturing a yijejo prisoner. Sooner than her first sentence was completed, Majgen gained an image from Skent: A yijejo prisoner, mind shield still up, emanating intense terror. With that image also Skent's emotional response to that terror, Skent had enjoyed it, had let it wash over her like a pleasant warm shower.

'I want that kind of revenge too!' thought Majgen, envy joined her mix of emotions,'I want that satisfaction too!' She shook her head slightly.'This is bad, I won't be able to perceive from the prisoner when I feel this way. I know it. Femaron Baglian knew it too; that's why he tried to send me out. Ottearon Skent doesn't know, she wouldn't let Femaron Baglian inform her.'

Encouraged by the growing hatred and anger in Majgen's emanations Skent elaborated her story in deeper detail than she usually would. Majgen did not need such details in words though; Skent's narrating brought the memories to the surface of her emanations.

'I have to stop this,' thought Majgen,'it will already now be very hard to forget my hatred when we continue the interrogation.'

"Ottearon Skent, stop!" exclaimed Majgen, interrupting Skent in the middle of a sentence.

"What's wrong, Student? Don't you have the stomach for it after all?" asked Skent.

"I need to go to my quarters, Ottearon. Please give me permission to leave, Ottearon Skent."

"Why?"

Majgen tried to answer, but her own rambling emotions woke rambling thoughts in her.

"Please, Ottearon, let me go. I need to..."'I want to hear more!' "I mean, I have to..."'Shut up, you don't want to insult an Ottearon.' "Ottearon, the interrogation..."'She would torture Aejoa, that way too. Aejoa is a person, not a monster.' "I really need to go to my room, Ottearon."'The prisoner is a yijejo, he deserves to be tortured!'