Merker's Outpost

by I. Christie

  Instinctively she rested her left hand on the empty scabbard. She was so use to finding the hilt of her sword there she was momentarily distracted. What had become of her sword? Ahh. She had dedicated it to the Warrior Queen. When she had died in battle, it was given back to the Queen. She was dead then. No. That was another life. Focus on the present. Stilling her thoughts, she imaged the white light of the Mother of All giving her the insight she needed.

  That was the key! Intent.

  From her heart, she poured out her intent…compassion…making justice…action in the world of the physical and the unseen world of the spiritual. There was no separation. She had to remember not to be stuck in retribution, hate, pity and sentimentality. Compassion, the way of life. Not to be practiced as a belief or a religion…but to live it, immerse her life in it. She could hear the mirrors break. After the mirrors crumbled, there was only blackness all around her. In a flash, she felt herself whisked past the dock, across the waters and back to where she had started her journey…back to the land of the form. There in the sand her sword was waiting for her, impaled in black sand with the rising gray waters swirling around it, and as the tide receded, forming rivulets, and trailing back to the cold waters.

  Faintly she heard a warning that what one can observe is not all there is.

  So what had she accomplished? The dream body is so mysterious to the more mundane and logical body. The art of using the dream body is not to force meaning into logical categories but instead to sense and feel its meaning. This will take time.

  Do I have time?

  Zohra turned uneasily in her sleep.

  Compassion.

  What kind of soldier could she be if she practiced compassion?

  As a Black Rose soldier, your compassion was displayed in a quick kill, a voice explained.

  "Killing is our business," she whispered. She shivered remembering how she had to put aside her personal feelings to maintain her cover. She worried if she would be able to live with knowing she had killed, even if her victims were just as bent on killing her. The difference was that there were a few that were legitimately protecting their families and land. Did she deserve to carry the sword of the goddess, whom she had sworn fealty to?

  "Goddess? What goddess?" she mumbled. She turned again as if looking for answers on her other side.

  ***

  *

  Alexandra looked up at her teacher when she finally understood. She started to laugh hysterically. It was her own future she was seeing in the pool. She was in a uniform she was not familiar with, and with no hair! She a warrior! She thought it was funny indeed. She was an empath! An empath could not take another's life without suffering the victim's anguish at the extinction of its life. Moreover, her long orange tresses…she would never cut them.

  Awakening suddenly, Harriet sat up breathing heavily, excited that she had discovered...something. But her sleep heavy mind could not conjure up anything solid from what she had just experienced. Tiredly, she fell back onto her pillow. A slumbering Carol slipped an arm protectively around her waist. Harriet rolled onto her back, and hazily thought about her childhood when she was still a student at AltaLa.

  Mem.

  Hadrian had sent her a word from her childhood. Should she ask Guardian to send a message to Hadrie asking him for more detail?

  Mem. Acar was the only person that could have told Hadrie that. Is he still alive? Or is Hadrie hinting that what happened to Acar is about to happen to me…an assassination attempt? That's a laugh. I've been the target of so many attempts I have a built in warning system. And why not just say it…unless someone here is the threat. Mem. Or, is he referring to my initiation. Okay…this is getting too detailed. Mem…I think of Acar and his initiation. He told me his secret name because…he said I would need it one day. Great. Another mystery. Okay…I have this secret password into somewhere I don't know, and Hadrie reminded me of it. What do I use it for? Geeze! This is not getting me anywhere I want to be. I think maybe that is it. Mem is a word I will need for something. What? Do I shout it out?

  Restlessly she found another position and dozed off, but this time images of her recent capture overlapped with a few from an earlier experience. She sat up quickly, taking gulps of air. Tentively she flexed both her hands. No pain. Lucky her.

  Carol's breathing changed.

  "Go back to sleep, Carol. I'm just going to make some tea," she whispered and then waited until Carol's breathing returned to a deeper rhythm. Slipping out of the bed, she drew on her robe and moved into the front room. She stretched her body and was grateful that whatever was in the herbal paste left her without painful bruises to wake up to.

  Tossing her robe onto the couch in the frontroom, she moved to a cleared space and began her exercises. Closing her eyes to slits, she concentrated on each limb and muscle that became still as it was stretched into different poses. She wanted to know how well she healed and this was a good way. Her focus moved to her inner quiet place and then letting her awareness stretch also. Again she touched lightly on a connection with the consciousness of the planet. It was aware of her. Harriet paused and concentrated on what was different in this touch. There was a disturbance in the ebb and flow of the energy. The usual chaos did not have the feel of normalcy to it.

  Is it something Alan is causing? Helgas Moon, Harriet. You're giving him too much power here. Because something is different doesn't mean it's because of something he's done…and then again…it would fit his profile to dump something that would disrupt the planet's life cycle. But why? Why this planet? He's never been here. Yet, his…ugh! Relax.

  She finished her exercises with a silent mantra so as not to wake Carol. Even in silence the mantra vibrated her body, cells and spirit. She could feel the tingle in her finger tips, toes and right up through her head. She had not had such a strong effect since…well, a long time. Maybe it was because she was not on a ship, suspended in space where molecules and living cells moved at a different vibration.

  Finished she rose and turned to the bot that was politely waiting.

  "Leaha tea, medium hot," she requested as she slipped back into her robe. Taking the tea from the Bach she sat in front of the computer screen, and thought about metrapeople and where she wanted to take her research.

  Iwilla. She had an article on dreams and its connection to personality. That is a good place to take up. There has to be a way to restore something of the old personality back. However, would some of them want it back? Their lives have been profoundly changed.

  Her brows furrowed as she thought about Carol. Carol seemed so 'normal' in so many ways; it was difficult for her to verify if she was self-determined. The only thing that made her hesitate was her reference to her as 'Mistress.' So, how much was normal for a metradame not programmed with directives and how much was it adjusting to her environment…and then again, did she not tell Carol that it was okay to leave her side? So was that all that was needed, to just erase the program and the metrapeople could then take their lives back? What about the chip? No. Iwilla had mentioned that it was not wise to just end the program. Carol was being guided or…supported to establish her own sense of self. Maybe that is what Iwilla was alluding to. Something is needed to fill the void.

  Harriet went back to the work of Iwilla and started to look specifically for her exploration on dreams.

  If a metraperson can dream, would not part of their old personality be embedded somewhere in cells around the dream area? Dreams in most species are stored in different parts of the brain and then there are individual differences where each person stores memories. With those memories is cell memory. An arm remembering curling around a loved one or being in an accident. Hmm. It is too risky tampering with wiping out memories. Too complicated to destroy, but not to sabotage… so that means control is all in the chip. Removing the chip would… We will have to wait for the healers to get here to find out just what the chip is preventing from happening, when they remove it from Carol.

  Harriet lo
oked in the desk for something to take notes on. She wanted to look up keywords the author was writing. She found a stylus. She scanned the line she wanted to save and went to the next paragraph.

  ***

  *

  Carol had wakened a little over an hour after Harriet had left the bed. Something had told her that if mistress was only getting a cup of tea she should have been back. Quietly she got up and slipped her robe on. She could see Harriet's hands move quickly over the keyboard rather than give voice commands, which would probably have wakened her sooner. The teacup was sitting to the side. Carol guessed it was cold.

  Yawning, Carol went into the kitchenette and asked Bach for a repeat of the previous order. She felt pleasantly pleased that she had another dream. Though she did not remember the details, she remembered she had it and it was not worrisome.

  Standing behind her mistress, she held the cup of steaming tea. Carol read over her shoulder.

  'Dreams are of important consequence as they are bridges to what once was…' Carol looked at the title of the article her mistress was studying, 'Metrapeople as Dreaming Beings, by Iwilla.'

  "Of course we dream," she mumbled over her mistress's shoulder.

  Harriet started and turned in her chair to face Carol.

  "What did you say?"

  "I just read the title of the article you are studying. Here is a fresh cup of tea for you."

  Harriet accepted the tea from Carol while studying her face.

  "Sit here." Harriet called for another chair next to the computer. "No, Bach can put the cup away. I want you to read this article. I want to ask you some questions about what this author is saying."

  Carol settled in her chair and started to read the report in depth.

  When they finished the article, Harriet got up and moved to the couch taking her tea with her. Carol joined her.

  "Do you dream?" Harriet asked.

  Carol was having conflicting feelings from the article. This was a new sensation, and it distracted her for a few moments. The presence of mistress gave her encouragement to pursue thoughts she was not aware she had…and the interest to seek out answers to something other than the narrow focus she had once was continuously amazing her. Breathing in deeply, she sought to refocus on what her mistress had asked her. Her lips curled into a smile as she realized there was no pain when her thoughts wandered…her thoughts wandered!

  Harriet watched Carol's face and the myriad of expressions that her eyes revealed. When her lips curled into a smile, Harriet's heart felt lighter. She guessed Carol was thinking a lot more than she ever had in her metradame existence. Pursing her lips, she wondered if Carol recognized the author was a metraperson, and that meant freedom from the chip programming was possible.

  "When I was Sheila I was not aware of dreaming," she began slowly. She let out a loud sigh, which took both women by surprise. Carol gave a short laugh, at the demonstrative display of feeling, smiling a little shyly. She looked at her folded hands on her lap, as if to gain composure. "Now without the control, I do remember that I had dreams. What they were about I don't know," she murmured, as if wistfully wanting to.

  "Do you remember dreaming last night?"

  "Oh, yes!" Carol looked up, a smile creasing her face. She did not want to tell mistress what one of them was about…unless she asked. Part of her noted that she did not feel compelled to reveal it and that there was no pain in her preference to withhold the information.

  Dream content was sacred to some cultures so Harriet refrained from asking, knowing that if it were important she would tell her…or she hoped.

  "Some from the previous night seemed familiar, as if I had dreamed them before," Carol continued thoughtfully remembering others that did not have mistress in them.

  Carol turned to the bedroom and listened for a moment.

  "Is Captain Zohra up?" Harriet asked.

  Carol nodded.

  "Well, I guess we should be ordering something to eat for three. Do you have a special request?"

  "Did I hear the word eat?" Captain Zohra's voice called through the bedroom.

  "Yes, you did. Would you like to join us?"

  Captain Zohra came out of the bathing room through the bedroom with her robe on and her long hair pulled forward over her shoulders. She was blotting the long strands with a towel.

  "Eat light. Don't want anyone getting sick in our workout," she smirked.

  Harriet shifted her eyes as her thoughts drifted to how nice it would be to comb out the long wet tresses. She remembered when it was done for her how nice it had felt.

  "I think I'll take a shower before breakfast," she said, and headed for the shower, passing by the captain.

  Helgas Moon. I need to keep focused here. Okay, Metrapeople…memories… dreams. Okay…what I do know is that Iwilla is a metraperson. Guardian had said that Sharon was the only metraperson he knew that was able to override her implant. I know Iwilla and Sharon are the same because their writing styles are too similar to be coincidence. Now, if I can figure this out, others will too. That puts her in danger. Except, she's in the Collective's sector. Even if they send assassins, to get on the scientist ship requires top secret clearance because of the radicals who don't believe in terraforming...but there is always a way. I think I'll send a message to Commander Jonas. He's the new CO on the science vessel, the Curious Cat.

  Harriet put her hands on the wall of the shower and looked up in exasperation. She was worrying about Sharon's welfare! Blasters! She was driving herself to distraction with her feelings about Sharon, Carol, and Captain Zohra. She laughed. Does this mean she was finally accepting the possibility that Sharon was a metradame? Her thoughts and mixed feelings about Sharon were not presently relevant, so she pushed those aside. She understood why she lusted for Carol, but she also cared for her. Then there was Captain Zohra…an entirely different distraction. She was confused…no miserable. She slapped her hand on the tiled wall in exasperation.

  What a time for all this to come about. I cannot wait for this gas influence to end. It is convoluting my feelings for everyone…damn! All right, so, it's not everyone …just three…two too many, and the worst part is…I don't want to give any of them up…HA. Like I really have them. Come-on, Lieutenant, don't you think these are just interests that the pheromone gas is causing to be obsessions? Or, am I just making excuses?

  Harriet laid her forehead against the tiled wall. This was getting too bewildering. She was thinking way too much. Who was she really interested in? She did not have to ask the question…the dark unreadable eyes that she had once made the mistake of staring deeply into were once more in her mind's eye…mirroring the need that dark nights brought to consciousness…a need that was hard to define but there.

  Harriet stepped out of the shower after her hair was dried. Picking up her tea that was cooling she looked into the mirror. Letting her eyes unfocus, the background became black around her. It was sudden but with no feeling of disorientation. She felt her spirit move to the side of her physical self and take the cup of tea from her hand. The cup was held out for her to gaze into.

  The image of a young child running alongside a young colt appeared in the tea stained water. They were playing tag. Harriet smiled, as the young child laughed as the colt took a bite of her tunic and shook it as a dog would. Her? Yet it looked like a boy. Then the child aged and the figure changed from a boy to a girl. Ahh. It took her a moment to understand. She remembered the Holy Ones. An early teacher of hers was born into the world as both male and female. S/he had the body of a female but dressed and felt as a male. This child was the opposite.

  She saw the child again as a young woman. Her seated figure was haloed by a sunset that reminded her of the Wieldworlds. They all had the sun that appeared purple when viewed from the planet, with bright yellow streaks across its face at sunrise and sunset. It was from some element within the planet releasing to mix with the biosphere. The seated woman was near a dark shadow…. no…it was a person. Alan. He was furious,
gesturing and threatening. He held a stick in his hand, which he brought down across the smiling young woman's face. It surprised her that she did not feel any trepidation at seeing Alan in this raging state. Her musing stopped suddenly as she felt the blow across her face. The cup of tea dropped to the ground as she crumbled to her knees, feeling mortally wounded. There was another stabbing pain in the center of her head. The fire from this pain spread within her brain and down her spine, burning nerve endings as it moved. She did not feel Ald catching her, to prevent her from injuring herself.

  She had experienced another's dying process before. It was at Kela's death, but she did not remember it being so intense where even her insides were shaking. Moments seemed like hours as they went by in a haze, then slowly her vision came back to her as the pain lessened.