Majgen Ch. 006

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Science fiction, book size.
11.9k words
15k
1

Part 8 of the 21 part series

Updated 09/22/2022
Created 05/03/2008
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ellynei
ellynei
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----=(In the travelling suite, part 1)=----

Femaron Baglian was watching news broadcasts from the war-zone.

Majgen lay unconscious on a couch close to his comfortable chair. Flight personnel had placed her there by Baglian's instruction.

A GED-officer had injected her with kask-neutralizing reagents moments before turning her over to the flight personnel and her mentor. The kask had initially made her comatose, now that it was wearing of she was gradually moving through different stages of sleep.

'The kask is nearly out of her system,' Baglian noticed. He was following the process by sensing her emanations.

It would have been possible to wake her now, by loud noises or shaking. However, Baglian intended to leave her be until she was completely unaffected by the kask. He would know that had happened when she entered a dreaming sleep.

Baglian rose and went to their passenger suite's drink cabinet. He looked through the selection and chose a non-alcoholic but very expensive bottled beverage. As he opened another cabinet to take a drinking glass, he could sense Majgen was beginning to dream.

'I will let her dream a few minutes,' Baglian decided,'that way she will be less disoriented when waking up in a new place.'

He walked back towards his chair.

'Her dream is already becoming a nightmare,' he noticed. Fear was evident in his students sleep-patterned emanations.

He stopped by the table just in front of his chair, and looked at Majgen. He reached out with his empathic senses, intending to view her dream.

Majgen sat up with a scream. Only half awake and still filled with horror, grief and rage from her dream. She tried to orient herself and sensed the other mentarion, sensed him touching her mind. She turned her eyes to him, her eyes were not focusing properly yet.

'It is... He is... He is...' Majgen's thoughts were unclear, not yet out of the dream.

'He is Femaron B...' Her horror and rage surged higher.

"Femaron Braygen. No!" she yelled at Baglian.

'She is going to...' Baglian did not finish the thought before raising a mind shield as swiftly as he was able.

Less than a second after she had yelled 'no', Majgen attacked him with a mind shock. The attack was repelled by Baglian's mind shield. Student Majgen had more mental potential than him, but she was very untrained, she was not fully awake and she had never been educated in matters of focusing her mental energy into a shocking pulse.

Only using a fraction of his empathic strength, Baglian counter attacked. He had noticed Majgen had no mind shield up. Without that a full blown attack from his side would blast the young woman back into unconsciousness. Unhindered the strike of his shock caused an instant severe headache. Majgen recoiled from the pain, her hands rose to her hurting head, while her upper body fell backwards to the back-rest of the couch. The Femaron stood still, waiting for his student to gather her wits.

While recovering from the pain Majgen came to her senses. By the time her headache had dissipated she was fully awake and fairly calm.

If she had sensed vindictive emotions in Baglian, she would have sunk into new frights. However, her teacher was not angry. He had understood her attack had sprung from confusion and nightmares. Even though the attack had been aimed at him, it had not been meant for him.

Majgen lowered her hands and looked at Baglian.

"I am not Femaron Braygen, I am Femaron Baglian," Baglian stated dispassionately.

"I know, Femaron. My apologies, Femaron Baglian," Majgen said.

With a casual routine, which in no way displayed how unusual it was for a student to attack a Femaron, Baglian deposited his bottle and glass on the table.

"The toilet is that way," he said and pointed in a direction behind Majgen. He had not sensed the physical need from her yet, but he suspected she would have it by now. Several hours in kask-sedation, usually lead to a full bladder.

'I do need the toilet,' Majgen realized, and got to her feet.

When she came back Baglian was watching news again while sipping his drink. Majgen had been thirsty too, she had quenched her thirst by drinking from the tap water in the rest-room. The tap had been clearly tagged with a drinking quality sign.

She moved slowly, trying to perceive from Baglian what he would consider appropriate conduct of her. Although she had obtained many of Baglian's memories, she still felt insecure regarding the finer etiquette and procedures of a Student/Mentor relationship. Waking up from nightmares, on a couch which she could not remember having laid down on, in a place she had never seen before, had severely strengthened her insecurity.

'We are on a passenger cruiser now, travelling in space,' she realized,'How did we get here?'

She would have liked to ask, but she wanted to be sure it was appropriate of her to do so first.

'Femaron Baglian won't mind if I seat myself,' she thought, only just gaining that understanding the moment she reached the couch.

For a few moments Majgen concentrated on figuring out how to assume a humble sitting pose on the low comfortable couch. Then she turned her empathic senses back to Baglian. She had questions, and he had answers. Including answers on how much he would tolerate her asking.

'He still wants me to find out as much as possible from him without asking. He wants to know how much i can find out without active invasion.'

The missing time disconcerted her.

'The last thing I remember before waking up here is being in a spaceport elevator.' Majgen tried to ignore her own confusion, to instead focus more on Baglian's knowledge.

'He won't disapprove of some direct questions now.'

This realization tempted the insecure student. She was on the verge of blurting out her questions, but she stopped herself.

'Slow down,' Majgen advised herself,'you want to be on as good terms with him as possible. He will be pleased if you gain the knowledge without asking.' She followed her own advice and remained quiet.

Majgen had never truly practiced using her unique perceptive abilities. Her ability to gain extensive information from emanations alone was unheard of amongst mentarions. Mentarion schooling did not teach techniques for sorting vast amounts of information from that source.

----=(On the matter of mentarion perception)=----

The word emanations was at Majgen's time used as a technical term when speaking of empaths and empathic emissions.

In those days empathic emissions were divided into two groups, emanations and transmissions. Emanations was a broad term describing the energy patterns passively transmitted from the minds of empaths. Transmissions was a term describing energy patterns transmitted actively more or less by will.

One of the reasons for this particular classification system for empathic energy patterns, was that in those days the two categories of emissions had very different effects on privacy amongst empaths. At Majgen's time privacy of mind amongst empaths was extensively increased by raising a mind shield. This increase in privacy was caused by the effects a mind shield had on transmission.

An unfocused empaths transmitted an easily sensed array of emotions by semiconscious transmissions. Transmissions which could be passively sensed by surrounding empaths. Quite similar to sound and the sense of hearing. By focusing and raising a mind-shield an empath could stop these outgoing transmission, hence increasing his privacy.

A mind shield also blocked active probing by other empaths, hence preventing others from performing what was called a 'mind scan'. Probing transmissions of the types used in mind scans, could also be compared to sound and the sense of hearing, this time the comparison would be: Sonar.

A mind shield, however, had no effect on emanations, neither in-going nor out-going, and an empath had no direct control of its emanations.

When Majgen was born it was scientifically as well as popularly believed that emanations contained only basic emotional information, nothing as informative as full memories. Mentarions as well as the weaker human empaths did not ignore emanations, in fact they received extensive education on how to interpret them. They simply did not know there was more to find in them than basic emotions.

Without education strong emotions were easily sensed from emanations, and with a little practice could be interpreted well from context. Fear, anger, sorrow, hate, love, affection, sincere friendliness and lust, all examples of emotions easily perceived even from an empath with a raised mind shield.

During a standard mentarion education, the students were taught methods to interpret more subtle emanations from other empaths, and received extensive training in these matters too. In particular discrepancies between behaviour, speech and emanations, were a matter of importance to mentarions. Extensive training was required to tell if a person was telling a lie or if he was simply speaking against his own conviction, the latter would often be the case when a person was relaying information from another.

A typical example of an exercise used to train mentarions in interpreting emanations was the 'Water and Salt'-exercise. This exercise was primarily used to train mentarions in learning to discern whether a person was lying, speaking against better knowledge, or against their own conviction. The exercise was also used simply to test a mentarion's skill at those aspects of 'emanational analysis'.

The 'Water and Walt'-exercise involved: Three empathic participants. Two glasses of water, some salt, a small stirring rod, and a confined room. The exercise always included putting salt in one glass, and leaving the other glass untouched. The first two participants would enter the room, both of them would have written instructions with them. All participants would keep mind shields up for the duration of the exercise, to ensure emanations were the only empathic source of knowledge.

Step one on the first participants instructions told him whether or not to allow the second participant to watch, while he put salt in one glass and and stirred.

Step two on the first participants instructions told him to hand either the saline or the untainted glass of water to the second participant.

Step three on the first participants instructions told him what he should tell the second participant to say to the third, not yet present, participant; regarding the glass. For example:

"Tell him I said; this is saline."

Or:

"Tell him I said; this is pure."

Or simply:

"Give him this glass."

After step three the first participant would leave the room through a backdoor. At this point the second participant would read his own instructions. These would tell him either to do as the first participant had said or would instruct him to say something else. After reading these instructions the second participant would let the third enter the room and speak to him regarding the glass.

The first object of the exercise for the third participant, was to figure out if the water he was handed was saline or pure. If it was saline he should spill it in the sink, if it was pure he should take a sip. If the one who handed him the drink truly did not know if it was saline or pure, the third should leave the glass untouched.

The second object of the exercise for the third participant was to state if the second person was lying to him or not. Mostly it was easier for the third participant to tell if the water was saline or not, than if the second participant was lying or not. As in the case where the second knew that the water was saline, but had been told to tell it was pure by the first. In such a case the second participant would say:

"He told me to tell you, it is pure." He would then not be lying, but he would be aware that the information was incorrect.

The simple exercise contained extensive options for various levels of lies, ignorance, conviction and withholding of information.

Even very young and untrained mentarions would be far superior to non-empaths at choosing the right action with the glass. However the untrained empaths were often not much better than non-empaths at distinguishing if a person was lying or simply speaking against better knowledge. A graduated mentarion would hardly ever do the wrong action with the glass, as long as they were paying proper attention to the exercise.

Most mentarions of the lower graduated ranks rather often had to admit they could not figure out whether the second participant was lying to them or misinforming them. However, all graduated Mentarions, even of the lowest graduate rank Etaron, were expected to hardly ever present a false statement. It was tolerable that they could not present the correct statement, but they were expected to know when they could be sure and when not.

When a person was communicating with full honesty, human empaths would say; he is telling the full truth. Lying and misinforming was hard to tell apart, but the full truth was very easy to recognize. Any mentarion above student rank 9, the second lowest rank, was expected to be able to recognize without a doubt if a person believed he was telling the full truth solely from emanations.

At Majgen's time a mentarion claiming to perceive information of visual, or audio, or physical sensations from emanations alone, was considered delusional. False claims of such abilities in self or others were indeed often made by certifiably insane empaths.

Student Majgen Rahan did not claim to have such abilities. She just had them.

For four years Majgen had tried to fight them, tried to ignore them. Because her special perceptivity caused her a lot of trouble. Any day in those first four years, after the incident with Femaron Braygen, Majgen would gladly have given her special perceptivity away.

----=(In the travelling suite, part 2)=----

'Is she attempting to perceive information from me?' Baglian wondered when his student had been sitting still for a few minutes. He was hoping she was. The news broadcasts had most of his attention, although he observed his student out of the corner of his mind.

'She is,' Baglian was pleased to conclude. Majgen's emanations had become similar to those of a dreaming person, same as they had been back in the cab. Femaron Baglian kept his mind shield up and focused on the news, intent on letting his student practice her abilities undisturbed.

A seemingly random selection of Baglian's memories streamed through Majgen. She tried to choose what to perceive, but her attempts at sorting what came to her had very little success. Over time Majgen gained most of the information she wanted, but not by active choice. Pieces of what she wanted to know came to her as seemingly random as the selection of older memories.

For a bit more than an hour the Femaron and the tenth ranked Student sat in silence. Baglian watching news broadcasts. Majgen watching Baglian's memories.

Thirst started bothering Majgen, the water she had drunk in the rest room had not been sufficient to last long. In the past hour of gaining further memories from Baglian, she had gained a deeper understanding of Student/Mentor-relationships. She now knew that in private quarters she did not need to ask permission before fetching water. With that in mind, Majgen went to the glass-cabinet to fetch a glass. She was planning to fill the glass with water from the tap meant for hand-washing at the toilet.

While choosing a glass, Majgen could feel her teacher reading the top of her mind.

"Pick yourself a beverage from the drink cabinet, Student," he said.

Majgen opened the drink cabinet to do as told. She had never herself been a first class customer, but she recognized most of the brands in the cabinet from the time she had spent as a youth-worker. A period of her life that had come to a brutal end upon her first encounter with mentarions. The bottles in the cabinet woke memories of having looked at identical bottles in the past.

'Green Perplo, I was arranging several of those on my last day as a youth-worker. As well as red and purple Perplo. Malted Jive Loro too. And Ismeneil Beer and...'

Majgen forced herself to ignore the memories. She reached for the first bottle she did not recognize. Upon inspection it turned out to be a euphoria inducing beverage.

'He wouldn't allow me to drink this,' Majgen thought absently and put the bottle back, to pick another brand she had never seen before. She had to repeat that procedure two more times, before she found a non-alcoholic drink whose bottle was unfamiliar to her. It was called Floosah.

Carrying bottle and glass, Majgen went back to her seat. Baglian turned the viewer off and turned his eyes to his student. His eyebrows rose as he noticed which beverage she had chosen.

'Oh no. It's an unusually expensive drink,' Majgen realized from his emanations.

Before she was discovered, Majgen had worked for a first class caterer in the lower price range. Any first class beverage she was not familiar with - had to be either very rarely requested or from the higher price range of first class: Majgen had not considered this when she picked the Floosah.

'The bottle is still sealed, it's not too late to put it back,' Majgen thought with relief.

"My apologies, Femaron. I will choose another drink, Femaron Baglian," she said, and started getting to her feet.

"Stay," Baglian ordered.

Majgen settled back in the couch and turned her eyes to her teacher, as she always turned her eyes towards someone of higher rank when she expected further instructions were imminent.

"I can afford that beverage. Open it."

'He is not bothered by the cost of my choice,' Majgen realized,'merely surprised by the audacity of it.'

Few students would have picked such a costly drink, when offered a beverage at their mentor's expense. Majgen would have preferred to replace the expensive drink, but she was certain Femaron Baglian would not appreciate further objections from her. Hence she opened the Floosah, and poured it expertly into her glass. Five years had passed since she had worked, but Majgen still remembered the skills she had perfected back then.

----=(A matter of fear)=----

"I did not know this beverage was of a higher price class than the others, Femaron Baglian," Majgen said to satisfy Femaron Baglian's curiosity.

Baglian leaned back in his seat, inspecting her with eyes and senses. He would not have asked her about her audacity in picking such an expensive drink. However, he found himself to be pleased to get the answer.

He watched her in silence for a few seconds, to see if she would answer more of his unasked questions. When she began sipping her drink without further words Baglian spoke again:

"What other questions can you answer, Student Majgen?"

She turned her eyes to him again. She felt more secure with Femaron Baglian than with any other Femaron she had ever met. However, she had no desire to discover the limits of his unusual ability to appreciate honesty.

"I am a mere rank 10 student, Femaron Baglian." Majgen chose her words carefully. "The things you truly want to know right now, I cannot answer."

She was referring to Baglian's desire to understand the capacity and mechanisms of her perceptive abilities.

"And the things I do not truly want to know?" Baglian asked.

"Everyone carries a lot of uninteresting information, Femaron Baglian," Majgen evaded, stalling while contemplating which parts of his curiosity it would be wisest of her to satisfy.

"You are a Femaron, any information you should desire from me you can take at will, Femaron. I am a student, I will not try to stop you, Femaron Baglian."

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