Ramera - Chapter 2 - first draft

CHAPTER 2

“Sir, you have an urgent message from Dr. Othrop of the Mowan team, it was tagged with an emergency code. Would you like me to forward it to your personal terminal?”
Elder Morgan Zellerman had been awakened by the urgent summons of the comm. unit.. The call was from his second assistant that was slated for the night shift. Morgan had elected to post a night shift assistant to help coordinate his ever expanding duties and responsibilities.
“Yes, send it to my personal terminal.” Morgan replied as he rose from his bed and went into the bathroom to get a drink of water. He continued on into his study and keyed open the red flashing message on his terminal’s screen.
Dr. Othrop was the second in command of the Mowan research team. Dr. Vonieuz and his wife were sharing the responsibility of the lead position and so progress reports usually came from one of them. Dr. Othrop was usually the one to order supplies and send in the personnel reports.
Dr. Othrop had written that there had been a Derna uprising of sorts. Apparently there were some young Derna that had been demonstrating against the humans learning the sacred Minah techniques, but the Dernai Council had approved and the humans were allowed to learn. The incited Derna happened across the Vonieuz couple and their oldest child and reacted violently. A Derna could have survived such violence, but a human could not. The Vonieuz had died in the attack leaving their youngest child, a small girl named Ramera alone in the care of her Derna nanny.
The council of Elder Derna had met and elected to close the planet for an undetermined amount of time. They were deeply ashamed of the incident and were unwilling to take the chance of others being harmed while under their instruction. Humans were not to come to Mowan for the time being, they would re-open the planet as soon as it was safe for humans again. Once their society returned to a peaceful status, then they would welcome the research teams back.
The team was currently under close protection and was packing their things for the evacuation of the team.
The Dernai were in the process of determining what was to be done to try to redress the loss of her family to the child. Dr. Othrop was uncertain what was to be done with the child and while he did agree with the Derna about the need to safeguard others, he was reluctant to leave when they were getting so close to meeting the various goals of the team.
Morgan forwarded the message to the Supreme Chancellor and attached a brief note with his request for an immediate conference and an apology for the lateness of the hour.
While waiting Morgan accessed the file for the Mowan team. They were a well funded and hopeful group that had been delving into the Dernai sciences, especially their Minah technique for knowledge transference. The Vonieuz team members had been crucial to the group and had been valuable members of the Alliance team.
The Vonieuz’s had a son, now deceased and a daughter. The daughter had shown aptitudes for the sciences in botany and xenobiology according to her recent interviews with school officials and physicians. She was small for her age, but showed to be exceedingly bright, more so than her late brother. Unfortunately she had never been subjected to any birth or developmental testing having been born on Mowan. The testing simply wasn’t available on the alien planet.
Well she was a ward of the Alliance now and so Morgan pulled up a listing of the Alliance schools that specialized in science in young children. There were twelve in all but the one that appeared to be the best suited was on Telfa 4. Morgan flagged the school’s file and then ran a search of specialists that were within reach or were available to escort a traumatized child to Telfa 4. There was a specialist that was on current transport duty and would be available to escort the girl in a few weeks. He flagged the specialist’s file and pulled up the financial records for the Vonieuz family. Well the child would certainly have a deal of debt, even with the accidental death credit to decrease her amounts. He flagged the authorizations for release of credits to be released upon confirmation of death from the local medic on Mowan.
Morgan typed up the messages for Elder Lebas the head of Education, with his plans for sending the child to the school on Telfa 4 and the availability of the specialist. He worded it in the tone of passing instructions on from the Supreme Chancellor. He then created a draft of the assignment for the specialist to transport the child and one to the Elder Derna saying all of the proper things and requesting politely that they reconsider their decision to terminate the research project.
Finally his info plant alerted him to the Supreme Chancellor’s incoming call. He opened the line and immediately thanked the Chancellor for his attention
“Morgan, it is a little late at night for the normal courtesies. I am disappointed by the change of circumstances on Mowan; however our agreement with the Dernai must be honored if we wish to return there someday. Their cooperation is the critical link. We may be able to finish the research with the data we have accumulated. We need to have the Vonieuz couple’s data and samples as well; their research was the most crucial. Also I assume that you have been making arrangements for the young orphan.”
“Yes sir. I am considering the Academy on Telfa four and there is even a specialist that can escort the child there in a few weeks without any major re-routing. If you approve I will proceed.”
“I trust your judgment in such matters. Send me a report when all arrangements have been made.”
“Thank you sir, goodnight.”
The Chancellor was gone and Morgan shivered. He always did after speaking with the Chancellor. There was an unrevealed darkness and something in the man’s rich velvety voice that gave him a feeling of deep dread.
He turned back to his terminal and began altering his messages to reflect his recent conversation with the chancellor. His dear wife Rennea came in and asked him to come back to bed. He told her he was about done and would be there soon. He went ahead and sent out his messages with a priority flag. I then checked on the death confirmation on the Vonieuz’ and it had been received so as his last act before going to bed he authorized the credits to Ramera’s account. He then returned to his bed and sleeping wife.
The next day in the late afternoon he received the confirmations on his decisions and sent the Chancellor a report detailing the confirmed arrangements for the child.
Miles away, that same afternoon, the Elder of Education was still fuming over the intrusion of Elder Zellerman on his professional area of expertise. The despicable man had gone over his head and that was even worse, he couldn’t change any of the arrangements that had been made.
Elder Johan Lebas was not normally a petty man but he was quick to feel his pride when wounded. He confirmed the details of the decision and though he wouldn’t admit, it Elder Zellerman had made the correct choice of school for the child. He flagged her file for transport and to have her testing results forwarded to him and let it go, for now. He finally managed to convince himself that he had been done a favor since he was so busy with some restructuring of some of the school systems.
Across the Galaxy on Mowan, Dr. Othrop was busy gathering together the Vonieuz lab equipment and personal effects.
He was beginning to become very alarmed. He had received the message from Elder Zellerman requesting that he and his team comply with the Derna’s requests for withdrawal, and that they could try to complete their research off planet. The Elder had also requested that he gather the data from the Vonieuz projects as well.
Dr. Othrop couldn’t find any hand written notes on their work in either basic or the Derna language. There was nothing more than fragments of work stored on their professional and private terminals. He even went so far as to go through all of their personal belongings that were being stored by Derna Elder Zehok, there was nothing. Elder Zehok was honestly unaware of the existence of any documents or data pertaining to the Vonieuz’ work anywhere else.
Dr. Othrop continued to search frantically until the last hour before he had to leave the planet. He was sincerely worried, he managed to copy all of his work and that of the Vonieuz’, and had the copies mailed to his wife before he sent the report to Elder Zellerman of his alarm and concern over the lack of finding data.
He communicated that he was sure that the couple had been close to actual physical trials and requested any intelligence agents to try to see if they could find anything that he had missed.
Dr. Othrop was afraid of the apparent failure and ultimately for his life. The Vonieuz research had been the golden ring of their whole team. The loss of their work was devastating for the team and the Alliance. This failure was likely to fall on his shoulders and the track record for survival of such failures was very poor.
He did not relate any of this to his staff. He strove to maintain an outward semblance of calm and regret over the loss of his friends. His regret was genuine but paled next to the fear of the consequences of his failure.
The entire voyage home was like an unending torture session. He had sent off messages to all of his family, not communicating any fear, only a desire to see them and to wish them well. He then focused on completing his research as much as possible while in transit. He never received any reply messages from the Alliance; he was allowed to return home to his wife and grown children. They had not elected to accompany him on his Mowan assignment and so it had been several years since he had seen them. He enjoyed his time and home and advanced his work as far as possible without further input from the Dernai. He then submitted his data to the Alliance and waited.
He was placed in permanent limbo. He was not reassigned to any other projects and after several years was retired. His retirement from active service was the only notice he ever received from the Alliance.
He was discreetly monitored by the Alliance. Dr. Othrop had effectively been put on a black list; he had not been disposed of in case he would be required again. He lived each day in fear and was a better, husband, father and grandfather as a result of living each day as if it could be his last.
The Supreme Chancellor had accurately reasoned that the remaining Vonieuz child would be the key to the knowledge. He was certain that the plan of the parents and the Derna was for her to return one day and finish her parents work. She could follow in their footsteps and when she was on the verge of releasing it for herself she would reap the fruits of her parent’s deception. Why else grant the child permanent citizenship of the planet and an open invitation to return at any time. Until then the Supreme chancellor was content to wait and focus on other things for now.
The Chancellor however placed flags in the system for all data regarding the child and any messages for her would be duplicated and sent to him as well.
He had been tempted to wreak vengeance on Dr. Othrop for his failure, but he had elected to defer his vengeance. The doctor would be an ideal pawn to use when the time was right.
He allowed Elder Zellerman to stew and scheme for a few days before simply giving the man his orders regarding the monitoring of the Derna and Dr. Othrop. He also wanted annual inquiries sent to the Derna and annual reports on any progress made on that front.
Elder Zellerman on the other hand had immediately upon receipt of Dr. Othrop’s message sent out a unit of specialists to search the areas that the Vonieuz had worked to be sure, he also sent one to the transport carrying Dr. Othrop and his team to search their belongings as well. Both teams reported failure at the end of a week. Elder Zellerman passed this report on and put one of his top minds to work on deciphering the tantalizing bits and pieces of data that were found among their things. This proved to be a fruitless investment of time and energy. It was comparable to telling a five year old to create a five tiered wedding cake with no more direction than a picture.
The repeated failure was not endearing him to the Supreme Chancellor. He consoled himself in the fact that he was an Elder and was an extremely valuable to the Alliance. The chances of elimination were remote, dismissal from his post was less remote. However there were a multitude of unpleasant repercussions that were highly possible and very probable.
This was not the first time he had dealt with the mind games of the Supreme Chancellor. The best and safest thing was to continue to do your job to the best of your abilities and brace yourself for the inevitable hits. Some of the other Elders had got wind of the Chancellor’s displeasure and were scattering to a safe distance and then watching like a herd of dazed cattle. He had already delayed the trip he had been planning to escape with his wife to their small home on Geary 3.
Geary 3 was one of the beautiful pleasure worlds that were predominantly tropical. They rented the house out to vacationers or loaned it out as a favor to others, they usually made enough on the rents to cover the cost of the maintaining the house and its staff and often enough to take a trip there once a year or more without having to use any of their other funds. Morgan was very proud of the fact that his grandchildren would never face debt and if things continued to go well he would be able to ensure another generation or three the same way. Each generation had been working hard to continue the legacy and was doing well in planning and carrying on the legacy. His wife had not been happy about the delay, but had long ago come to understand that there were compromise’s for the lifestyle she enjoyed.
When the Chancellor finally let him off of the hook with his orders, he implemented them immediately and then made sure that all of his work was caught up and that any urgent messages and problems were forwarded to the Geary 3 house and sent notification to his transport crew to be ready to leave an hour after he was scheduled to leave the office. He messaged his wife and told her to have everything ready to go and have the luggage sent to the shuttle before he was ready to leave work, he then told her to meet him at their favorite restaurant and they would leave from there. He made arrangements with his assistant to move all of his meetings. He was taking a full month away and would be working only an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening.
Morgan didn’t think to mention his departure to anyone else outside of his staff. After he had left there were small ripples of fear that ran through the Elder’s ranks over his sudden disappearance. This went on for two weeks until he had finally responded to a message from one of his colleagues one morning.
The Supreme Chancellor was privately amused by the ripples of fear and gossip that he had observed go through the Elders. He had always found that surprising them was ultimately amusing for him. He sat chuckling for a few minutes over the whole thing. That was one of the main reasons he was privately fond of Morgan, he was honest in his work ethic and held no illusions about the reality of the Alliance, his direct actions and lack of political scheming often sent shock waves through the other Elders and was a source of amusement to the Chancellor.
So much fuss over incomplete research and one small orphaned child.
The Chancellor was ultimately a political animal. He was ruthless, out to make the most money and to stay ahead of the pack. Deep down, he could be a very sympathetic and real person, despite the popular opinion of his two former wives.
His current wife understood this aspect of him. She was accepting of what he had to do politically but was very direct in her dealings with him in regards to their marriage. He could do as he liked to others but she wanted the man she cared for not the Supreme Chancellor. She would simply say “yes sir” and simply remove herself from his presence when he was being tyrannical. This was more effective at curbing his tendency to be overbearing with her faster than any of the fights, tantrums, or adorable pouts used by others.
He respected her many good qualities, all the more because she had the qualities that he did not possess. Qualities that he had always wanted to possess, the qualities his great grandfather had possessed.
He was the fourth Rasmus to be the Supreme Chancellor, and he was desperate to get humanity back to Earth. To heal the planet and accomplish what his forebears had not. This was his life’s work. He had already taken many varieties of plants from other worlds en mass to plant in small domes built on the dead planet, but they were unable to survive, the contamination and damage to the planet was too great.
He knew in his soul that the Dernai held the key to restoration of man to Earth. The latest development was a definite delay, but he would have to be patient and Mowan would soon be accessible again, in the mean time there was much more to do.